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[Ky.]

Recently I decided to revive my old patreon account that had 0 patreons and doing nothing. I renamed it, rebranded it to match what's going on, I scrubbed all the old posts.

My idea was to release Milestone builds as "Alpha Builds", not just for my current project, but any side and future projects too. I figured having access to all previous and current builds of everything would be a neat little perk for a $1 entry.

I understood going in that this would dramatically limit exposure, and would severly impact feedback channels, and some people I talked too about this feared it'd make me look greedy and shady.  I didn't think so.

But I think the lack of community around it is impacting my motivation. Simply not a soul seems to really be interested lol

BUT

it's also still pretty early days and there's not really much there as a compelling reason. This I also understand.

I'm just in a mental conflict right now about doing this.   Ultimately the idea is to have Patreon cover the steam publishing fee and any other associated fees, it's really meant to be there as a means of supporting the development, while attaining the earliest of access, which I figured might be appealing.

Am I off track on that thought?

[Grumpntug]

I tried doing this and it sounds great but in reality, you don't have major differences between builds so it ends up being a while between alpha releases that are worth playing. It also gave me a lot of self-induced pressure feeling like I needed to have new alpha content for patrons.

So I decided instead of releasing specific alpha builds for patrons, I would opt to give "testing access" in discord. Whenever I have a build worth looking at, these patrons get a chance to test it out. I give a link in discord and they can give it a go. It keeps patreon from being flooded with alpha builds and makes sure only those truly interested in testing see it with the added feeling of being special in a specific discord testing channel.

I also use itch's integrated patreon access to allow certain patreon tiers free copies of various games of mine over time. Higher tiers get steam keys on release.

I only have about 25 patrons but I found that the more things you can offer that are basically zero work for you, the better, because anything above will start to add additional stresses you don't need.