Creators, update requests, and money

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So, I know this is going to start a storm but I thought I’d put it out there and apologies if this is not the right area for this, but I’m really starting to notice a boiling point on this site due to it’s rules on asking about updates, and users who have money on creators that go MIA asking about updates and getting flashed off, I was wondering what various people thoughts are on this since…money is involved with some projects on this site

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I would imagine that’s more of a patreon/itch/whatever payment scheme is being used issue than an issue for this site. Last time I checked there’s no payment going through this site itself (for individual projects) so using the forum as a place to resolve those issues feels kinda spammy.

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This site is mostly used to showcase and drum up support for games.
Payments and stuff are through external sites and any queries to developers should be done there.

At the end of the day, not hearing back or anything from a creator sucks, they might have their reasons, they might not. but you can always just unsubscribe and just join back later when/if they resurface. Whether you continue paying is up to you as an individual.

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I’m just going to get ahead of this and state here to be perfectly clear. It’s against our community guidelines to ask for updates. These are the types of things that are most commonly asked that violate asking for an update:

  • Asking for updates.

  • Asking for a game to be updated.

  • Asking when a game will be updated.

  • Asking if “there have been any updates.”

  • Asking for a list of upcoming updates unprompted.

  • Declaring/asking if the project is “dead”, “abandoned” or “alive.”

  • Asking if a project is “still being worked on”, “still in production”, etc.

  • Reminding a developer that it has been “x” days/months/etc since their last update.

  • Generally talking about the lack of updates or update schedule in a disparaging manner.

We don’t allow it for multiple reasons and if it happens we remove the comments, and if it continues to happen by the same person we venture into official warnings, disciplinary actions, and even loss of permissions/temporary/permanent bans.

Allowing update requests would fill most topics with update requests and “bumps” that would be hard for users to filter through for actual conversations or information about the games. Topics would constantly being kicked to the top just to find someone making a request for an update. Anyone following these topics that they are interested would be spammed by notifications for these no content posts. Which would result in an overall worse user experience all around.

Most projects on the site are made by amateur developers working on a passion project/something in their free time. There are a lot of stresses and anxieties that go along with working on something and while people generally mean well and are interested/enthusiastic about development. By asking for updates you can often be adding to these pressures or anxieties, while not meaning to. There are many developers that prefer the stress free environment that is allowed here with no update requests (of course this doesn’t apply to everyone).

While I can understand that not getting an update or having lack of communication for something you contribute money to on a third party site can be frustrating. The reality is developers are not going to keep things hidden from the community and if they aren’t updating on patreon or other places. Here is not going to the place that gets updates vs a place were they are receiving compensation from supporters. And really the best place to receive updates are from the third party sites you support the dev at.

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checks in on modern AAA developers :wink:

but in all seriousness there are multiple projects that are effectively dead on this site with active links to paying services that are just devs hiding by not saying anything at all, and every time I see this “dont ask for update because we ban for reasons” it comes across so odd

so to steer this back on track: this is about how topics that ARE dead except for necroing update posts, and their active third party funding links being on this site to run essentially, a necro-scam, should be dealt with

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Okay fine. How does asking for an update or allowing it, change any of what your describing? Or the point of your original post?

And I explained the line of thinking as to why we don’t allow updates it’s not “reasons”. It’s stated in multiple places on the site and we don’t shadow ban people as soon as they say the word update. It’s a rule we have also been very lenient with.

If you have issues specific threads or posts we have a flagging system and you can choose “something else” to message us directly with your concern.

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I get your point, however the user at the end of the day should exercise a measure of responsibility in choosing who to support, and when they feel it is appropriate to pull said support. As mentioned above, people are free to unsubscribe from a project at any time.

This might be a case of buyer beware. If one can see that a development thread has dried up in activity with no updates for a while, that should naturally factor into one’s decision to support them.

Should we scrub all external links to pledging sites in such a scenario? No, because the reality of each individual’s situation is more complicated and nuanced than that, and we don’t have the means to delve into each and every one to investigate, and nor should we as it’s heavy-handed intervention on our part. To call all such scenarios a scam is a little reductive I feel.

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As i see part of the problem seems to be the rules only protect the creators on the site, with good reason sometimes users who vastly outnumber them and can be a bit of a mob. However, none of the rules or polices are aimed at helping protect the users of the site, from creators. I think that is probably at the core of part of the problem.

Even assuming everyone unsubscribes from a slow or lazy creator after they stop updating for a month the weight gaming userbase who subscibed still is out that months money. While i dont think any of the current rules should be removed, considering new ones, along the lines of posting patreons, or other pay here links could be banned. It would discourage creators looking to use the forms as a place of advertisement.

I guess that brings up the question for me of what is weightgamings goal to be a fourm to talk about games and weight gainish topics, or is it a place for creators to advertise their games to users.

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To provide some back ground, @kilif and I have actually discussed this issue at length well before @AlexKay and @Krodmandoon have been brought in. We do understand the concerns you bring up @Manchura and do plan to relax these rules eventually but not as of yet.

The reason this rule is in place is because, historically speaking, allowing users to ask for updates tends to be both a moderation nightmare and put undue pressure on devs causing them to drop projects. You may not think it but its amazing how many different users would just ask for updates without even reading the threads first to see if the question was already asked with many posts being asked almost right after another just asking for the same thing. This causes the threads to quickly become junked up with “when is the next release” questions and while usually does not come from the same user the frequency, what I have seen in other communities can be more than what would be considered harassment if it was from a single user.

So in short, yes the rule is in place (as @zdeerzzz puts it) to protect the creators over the standard users.

That being said we do have a distinction when it does come to paid content. Both @kilif and I do think that the users who pay for a game do have the right to ask for updates. There are two issues that prevent us from allowing this though:

  1. Tooling - There is not an easy way for us to identify what projects are paid, asking for donations, or otherwise and we dont want to ask our limited moderation team to have to check this for every post an asking for update question is posted in.

  2. Clarity - We try to favor very cut or dry rules to make things clear while also reducing the very common argument of “while X can do it so why cant I?” that tends to pop up in grey areas. While we could add an exception the fact is most people would likely just see someone asking when an update will be out and assume they can do it everywhere.

Due to these considerations our current stance is users should use the channels available to them by the payment processor (patreon, itch, ect) to ask these sorts of questions. We do know its an inconvenience but its just the way things will work for right now.

I will say we are considering some rule changes around this with the release of the main site though, especially since we want to support allowing devs to sell their projects through us. Until that is released though we are currently holding firm on our rules around updates.

Quick Edit:
To answer your question I missed @zdeerzzz the forums are more supposed to be for development and discussion. Devs can choose to advertise their games but its not technically what the forums should be used for. Despite how some of our rules look though we try to take a very laz e fair approach to what is posted, especially when it comes games since our main stated goal is “supporting fat & expansion game development”.

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Ok in the same lines of thinking as my last post how about a flag option for paid links to be removed if a creator seems to be abusing them such that they can be removed if a creator abandons a game and it gets to the point of becoming scamish. This gives the community a method to protect itself so to speak, without letting the update request comments off the proverbial leash, also would not add clutter to topics.

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That’s fair, currently we just expect community members to flag posts they think are scams. We may not have a specific flag but there are a few options already available you can use in its place including other that allows you to add a message explaining why you flagged it.

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Forgot to mention but the software we use for the forums used to have the flags hard-coaded so adding or changing them was always easier said then done.

Not sure if that is still the same with the newer versions but between my day job, the main site, and the fact I’m the only one maintaining the infra, things like that fall low on my priority list, unfortunately, unless they are really easy and fast to do.

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at the end of the day, the big thing we should argue is - be smart with your money.

Its your own fault if you keep paying for the patreon or whatever of a dead project, do the research. It is unfortunate and possibly shady to keep taking money despite disappearing, but it is not the fault of weightgaming that this situation is happening.

If you haven’t heard a word from a dev in MONTHS, or more, then unsubscribe and hold onto your funds until you hear something else. Or, reach out to them on Patreon, where I actively encourage folks to ask for updates.

We should watch out for each other, and not dive into “dead” patreons, but we cannot blame WeightGaming for simply hosting the thread. Its your own fault if you subscribe to a Patreon that hasn’t posted anything in a year.

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if you ban patreons and for-sale itchios, we get 1 game a year essentially amigo - that devastates this community and its best projects

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Reading through the points that have been raised with this thread, I feel like there’s a couple of big problems with them.

First of all, I think that too many people are treating Patreon as a subscription-based service. Sure, they may charge monthly if you let them, but I’ve always just treated Patreon as an avenue for getting a product. Let’s say there’s an update for a game gated behind a pledge - I’d pay the required amount, get the download or whatever I was looking for, and then remove my subscription (obviously, anything else that drops within that next month is also accessible, but games aren’t usually getting more than one update a month so I don’t really find myself thinking about this kind of thing). I feel like people who are leaving their subscriptions active and getting charged for another month without knowing if there will be an update or not should be taking the responsibility in that scenario. If someone wants to support a dev regularly for the sake of it, then leaving the monthly subscription enabled is a great way to do it. However, if people make pledges simply to get updates and then don’t remove their subscriptions afterwards, then I think it’s on them when they pay for another month and then don’t get any content.

My other problem with this thread is some of the words that are being thrown around, like “scam” and “lazy devs”. First of all, I wouldn’t really call paying $5 on Patreon and then getting nothing out of it a scam. Maybe between hundreds of people losing $5 it amounts to something, but at the end of the day it’s a tiny amount of money to be losing for each person (and as I said in my first paragraph, it’s honestly their fault for paying a subscription without knowing in advance if they’ll get something in return). Second of all, calling devs lazy really isn’t cool. No one who pours hours upon hours upon hours of their time into a niche fetish game on a forum is lazy, or is just trying to make a quick buck. When devs stop working on projects, there may be many factors why - lack of time, money, and/or motivation, burnout, and so on. I guarantee you that a tiny fraction of devs are actually stopping work on a game due to “laziness”.

Overall, I think this thread genuinely has a point about abandoned projects still asking for money. However, I think that the proposed solutions are extremely misguided. Trying to get the mods to shut down projects that ask for money just because they don’t get updates really isn’t the right way to go about things in my opinion. I know it’s already been said, but I think that people really just need to be more aware about where they’re putting their money.

Besides, even if someone contributes to a project that’s “dead”, they’re probably still getting something out of it. I know that the game that sparked this topic was Fill Me Up, so I’ll use it as a quick example. Even if you drop a few bucks on the game’s Patreon, you’re still getting something out of it. The most recent download is gated behind pledging, so it’s like you’re paying a bit of money to receive a product, which is perfectly reasonable. As I said, if someone keeps paying past this point, that’s on them. Considering it this way, it really doesn’t make sense to call it a scam. (Also, with this example I think the game’s creator really could have better communication, but that’s a whole different topic)

Sorry if this devolved into a bit of a rant, but I just think that trying to get mods to start shutting down projects really isn’t a good idea for the health of the site. I firmly believe that people simply need to be more careful with what they’re spending their money on, and if they REALLY do feel scammed, they can always just ask for a refund. I’d imagine that most of the time, creators will be reasonable if a supporter truly feels cheated out of their money.

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Yes, absolutely. If you or anyone in the community comes across what is suspected to be a “necro-scam”, but all means flag it and we can investigate. People always have the flags as a means of alerting us to such things. This way is preferrable to enforcing strict measures on developers in some attempt to keep them accountable.

I think when it comes to crowdfunding endeavours such as Patreon and Kickstarter there’s an inherent expectation of paying for a product. Kickstarter is rife with the mentality of it serving as an early access marketplace with pledges being tantamount to a pre-order.

The reality and the bitter pill is that for all such sites, it’s less “paying for a product” and more “investing in concept and development”. With any new project there is an inherent risk that development may fold for whatever reason. Even if it doesn’t collapse entirely, the development process may be a long and laboured one, oftentimes with setbacks and missed (oftentimes overly-ambitious) targets. You are are always at risk of having your expectations come short when entrusting others with your money, so plan accordingly.

Does this ultimately excuse developers, giving them a free ride to take and squander crowdsourced funds? No! There are plenty of bad faith developers out there looking to make a quick buck for some seductive endeavour. Report them and ultimately vote with your wallet. To be more savvy about this though, we have to unlearn the lesson that pledging support is akin to pre-ordering an advanced copy of a product, and to tailor our expectations as such.

Tailoring things a bit more towards our sphere, oftentimes developers and creators can shift focus between multiple projects if they find themselves at a dead end. Most are dependent on your support and will oftentimes provide other incentives to keep up patron retention. Supporting creators oftentimes goes beyond just them working on a single project and can help generate more content as a whole. Again, patrons shouldn’t be forced to stay if they are ultimately unhappy with progress so there is a balance that must be struck bilaterally between developer and patron.

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I would like to give my perspective on this discussion as well.

As a developer who got the amazing opportunity to work full-time on developing my game, I’m extremely thankful for all the support I have gotten. My latest poll showed ~52% of supporters coming from this forum.

So first off I want to break down how I view Patreon and the monthly support pledges.
For me Patreon isn’t a place where you buy my game, it is a platform through which you can support my ability to develop the game. In return for the support I’m extremely grateful and involve my supporters in the development process of the game by putting out frequent devblogs, polls and spoilers on new content.
I try to encourage discussions on aspects of the game and am always open to suggestions.
I also send out the latest versions a month earlier to supporters.

Now, could I develop my game without the help of the fantastic people that support me on Patreon?
Yes I could, and I did at first. But with the support it enabled me to buy better hardware, pay writers to create stories and dialogue, buy 3D assets and spend way more time on development(because this is now my job). All these factors have a big impact on the quality of the game. So we can say that in my case more support means higher quality content.

Many people come and support me for one month to get the new update, and this is honestly encouraged(I actually tell most people to wait a month for the free version).
I won’t be able to put out an update every month and I cannot expect anyone to stay around during the months without new updates.

The reason why I type all this is because this was all possible because of how this forum works and the willingness of people to see a project they like getting updates. I would like to see any dev get similar(or better) opportunities as I had/have. I think it is important to not take away any of these great tools that can elevate a developer to the next level.

Have there been cases where Patreon has been misused? Yes, I have supported people on Patreon who no longer offered the thing I came for in the first place and I unsubbed from them. But I think this should stay the choice of the individual.

I know this thread was more about inactivity of devs with a Patreon link, but I think it is important to hear the positive parts of having Patreon on this forum.

Hopefully this side of the story helps create some more perspective on this matter.

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wow this is a Hard subject on one hand this is a free site to post to and people are people there will be people who are going to cheat you out of money and it is hard to find out till the end but then there are people who do not update for a long time because they are busy in real life or something in the game is taking a long time to work out the bottom line is it fall on us to pick when we put are money in and when we stop paying for a game that may ever be made because a site is not Good or evil it the people who post it.

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I agree with this, but there is also the whole model of “pay at patreon for latest release” models which throws a wrench in the whole thing and further adds to the headache

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It kinda sounds like you want people to be able to put “hasn’t updated in four months, don’t give them money” on posts. For all the reasons above that’s a pretty bad idea. Plus if there’s a legitimate scam that’s a mod/administration issue to take care of, not a user issue. If you want to do a callout or something take that to twitter.

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