Patreon VS Subscribestar and AI (Patreon)

Hey guys!

I would just summarize here and respond to some of the comments under the previous posts. Also, I would like to clarify a few things.

Patreon or Subscribestar?

I opened my Subscribestar page at the beginning of 2021. I created it earlier, but that's when I started promoting you to use it, because then it was a better alternative to Patreon. There was also a larger flow at that time.

Number of Patreon subscribers

After that, I continuously listed Subscribestar as my primary site. Despite this, the number of people continued to decrease, while Patreon's increased in contrast. I suspect this is because Patreon offers many more payment options. And it's constantly evolving. It's still used by plenty of NSFW artists. And subscribers are reluctant to switch platforms if it works. Patreon already works well technically and is constantly developing. Unfortunately, this cannot be said about Subscribestar. And the number of subscribers is decreasing.

I don't want to cancel or drive people back to Patreon, but if we get below a certain number...

The disadvantage of a shared platform is that sometimes there are completely different reactions under one post on the two platforms. The polls tend to be different as well. Of course there would be a common place: Discord. But I can't expect everyone to use it.

Recently, Patreon has been busy clarifying its business rules and terms of use. In this way, it is increasingly clear what their expectations are and thus it is easier to adjust. I see a lot of tweaking after the initial tweaks. Of course, this can change at any time.

So, for now, I don't plan on making any changes in this regard.

Artists or AI

I have already described my thoughts on this in quite a few posts. I haven't replaced any employees or external artists with AI. I can't draw illustrations and I've never worked with 2d artists. But I already asked for a quote. And making a comic book, for example, is not cheap fun. Especially one that is basically free and just an addition to the main production. So, if there was an AI that could give good results... yes, I would use it. Because it's cheap and fast. It's extremely effective. But isn't that what people want? "Get the GK4 ready!", "Where's the LiT8?" etc. "Good, but then why are you working on another animation?" Well, because I'm not a machine either. Please allow me to act as an artist and not as an AI or what exactly do you want???

What is very important is that you can separate those AIs that specifically perform imaging (e.g. Midjourney) and those that can help production. E.g. texturing, rigging, animation, simulations, etc. So they can do partial tasks. I really hope that these will gain more and more space and I will definitely use them. In this way, I will be able to speed up production and make more detailed, longer videos.

I don't see AI as taking work away from artists. There will always be good artists and they will always have work. In fact, I think they will appreciate them much more and earn more in the future. The people who create with their hands and brushes have not disappeared either. They could use a digital board and photoshop. I think the important thing would be to make the AI content recognizable. So that it cannot be abused.

AI or employee

I was advised to hire interns and artists to speed up production. Yes, it would be a good investment in a normal company. But my content is not exactly normal. Building a multi-person business based on which card issuer bans adult content is quite risky. GK and LiT are also not very family friendly. NSFW game developers working in a larger team are a completely different case. They have a much simpler job.

In addition, there are clearly financial reasons. I should change the company form. To tax more and extract the salary of the interns. After which I have to pay taxes again. In addition, the trainee should be provided with a workstation. Because a student probably won't have the money for such a powerful machine that we work on.

The art part may also change. If my activity changes to managing the production, I can participate less. This would definitely make a difference to the videos that were produced. It is not certain that people would get what they came here for. In this case, mechanization would occur much more than if I were to use AI. Of course, this can also be a good discussion topic.

And finally, there is discretion.

Of course, I do not rule out working in a team. In fact, this was my goal when I started Patreon. Unfortunately, a lot has changed on the Internet since then. Now we have to be a little more careful to make it work. We'll see what happens.

Sorry, this got a bit long. I hope I didn't bore anyone with my thoughts. Thanks for the many comments that I tried to answer here. Thanks for reading and your support.

See ya!!!