werecat
patreon
Departure from Scheduled Releases
🕑 Added 2022-10-02 05:52:31 +0000 UTCHello everyone,
A few days ago, we switched the billing model on our Patreon to “subscription billing.” This means that when somebody subscribes, they receive a full month of membership no matter when during the month they choose to do so, and only pay again on the same date the following month. Previously, everyone was billed at the beginning of the month, and paid the full monthly amount regardless of when during the month they signed up.
Obviously, this change is something that has been a long time coming for Patreon, and the old billing system brought with it a number of negative consequences. For one, it encouraged something of an exodus of subscribers at the end of every month with those numbers being made up during the next. It meant that the best time to subscribe to a creator on Patreon was at the beginning of each month as that is when you would receive the best value for your money. This is in large part why we targeted Sileo’s releases for the beginning of each month. And unfortunately, releasing at the beginning of each month every month was something that brought with it a load of unnecessary crunch and something that prevented us from undertaking larger-scale development tasks that couldn’t reasonably be broken down into individually releasable pieces and couldn’t be completed within the space of a month alongside the usual content releases.
These things, the crunch especially, have taken their toll on us and have resulted in a ton of burn out which has a lot to do with the slower pace of recent content releases. The only true solution for burnout is an extended hiatus, but as you know, Sileo is our primary source of income. As such, a hiatus simply isn’t possible. Instead, we must focus on ensuring our development processes are sustainable and healthy and that we’re on a road to recovery and not further burning ourselves out. With all that said, the timing of Patreons release of subscription billing is highly serendipitous.
Effective immediately, we will be transitioning to a rolling release model. New builds will be released to Patreon on a “when it’s done” basis with the subsequent public releases occurring either alongside the following Patreon release or, if that Patreon release is taking some time, a reasonable amount of time following the original Patreon release. This new rolling schedule will mean we can release smaller content updates more frequently rather than bundling them together for release the following month. This could feasibly result in multiple content updates released in the span of a single month. This also means that we can undertake larger and more ambitious developmental tasks which may take us more than a month to complete with no obligation to meet some arbitrary deadline.
With that said, there will be no public update released today. Instead, we will continue to focus on completing our work on the next content update (either the full Day 1 Remake, 19x6 of Tai’s Route, or both) which we hope to release on Patreon in the next 1 – 2 weeks. It is our plan to release the next public update (which will be identical in content to our previous Patreon release containing the debut of the Intro Remake as well as all the other improvements) alongside this new Patreon release. Naturally, if that release takes longer than anticipated, we expect to make a standalone public release towards the middle of the month regardless.
We’re hopeful that this change results in higher quality releases created with healthier development practices, and we’re excited to have the ability to release content as soon as it’s finished rather than saving them for an upcoming release. We expect this will generally allow new content to arrive more quickly on Itch.io than it has done in the past, so we’re looking forward to when you can all get your hands on some cool new stuff!
Thanks for your understanding, your patience, and your support!
With Love, Xevvy.
