On The Future

So for years now I've been saying I should refresh this Patreon. Patreon is now sunsetting several older features, including the ability to "set goals" -- so some of you may remember this Patreon opened with a goal where, if I got something like $150 a month, I'd do an Archie Sonic read through podcast with a friend of mine. That's going away! (In fact, despite Patreon only announcing it recently, I noticed it disappeared from my page months ago even though I never removed it)

In truth, the "refresh" to my Patreon was more just a general thought I figured I needed to have some day, but never really had any concrete picture on what to do with it. To some degree, I'm afraid to touch anything, for fear of upsetting people or whatever. That's silly, I know.

But now that Patreon itself is forcing a bit of change, maybe now's the time to finally go through with some things. But I figure at the bare minimum, I should at least get your input before I go through with this.

What Should Probably Go Away

• The tier where I take art commissions, probably. My drawing hand hasn't been in great shape for a few years now, and while I can still draw, I have to take frequent breaks or else I get cramps and eventually carpal tunnel syndrome starts to make my fingertips go numb. It was viable when the Patreon first opened, but is slowly becoming more difficult over time. Thankfully basically nobody ever requested anything (except one friend, who was understanding about my hand issues, hasn't brought it up since, and doesn't even support this Patreon anymore).

What I'm Thinking of Adding

• A tier to request games you want me to do something with. The problem is I don't know how to break it down. At first I thought maybe it could be two tiers, with a cheaper option for written articles versus a more expensive option for videos. Then I thought maybe there could be another tier to just stream a game. That sounds too complicated though, so maybe just a video review tier, with the added bonus that I would stream my first time booting up the game? So donos could get my immediate first impressions and then a review/essay later on, since those can take a while. Would probably cost the price of a new game (so I can afford to buy it, if need be) plus extra to compensate me for my work. So, like, $120 minimum? $140, given the cost of new games these days? Probably two slots.
• For the last few months now, I've been posting early access to tumblr asks in the Patreon Discord. Tumblr considers queued posts to be "private" but you can still share the links to them before they go public (after they go public, the private link stops working). I only share the ask title itself and the URL. Since I've been doing it so long there, I realized I could start publishing those URLs (just the URLs) here, too, since a bunch of you aren't on the Discord and I don't want to be one of those creators that FORCES people to join a chat room. It would certainly make this place a lot more active.
• The podcast is probably coming back at some point, but I'm going to change the name. I like "Patreon Party People" but I feel like that limits its reach for people outside of Patreon. I've been rolling around the name "Hot Stuff with BlazeHedgehog." I just like the term "Stuff" ever since a teacher scolded me for using it too much. It will also probably still be monthly.

But What Do YOU Want?

• Look, I don't know what I'm doing. I opened this Patreon because my friends were doing it, they had tons of success, and I received a fraction of the support they did. I follow a few Patreons but I don't really know how to make this place more successful. I work slowly and meticulously. I feel like I've been at this Sonic Frontiers video review for a month and a half already and I probably have at least three weeks of work left on it. If anyone has any suggestions of something they think I could or should be doing, I'd love to have a conversation about that.