outsiderartisan
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Tier, price, and benefit changes coming in 2025
🕑 Added 2024-11-25 14:00:20 +0000 UTCAs I've mentioned a few weeks ago, tiers are being adjusted in 2025. This will happen around the time Hex v0.1 releases, as we transition to Hex as our "main game." Access to Succubus Stories will not be changing; all patrons of all tiers will receive one-week early access to new major SS updates and access to the patron edition.
Here are the details for Hex. It's a lot of info, so sorry in advance.
Planned Update Cycle
Hex will receive major updates about once every three months, however, the gold edition (see below) will receive minor updates in between these major updates. The free and silver edition(s) will receive all the content from any minor updates when a major update is released to that edition.
At least one or two minor updates will come out between each major update.
Game Editions
The names for editions and tiers are non-final. Hex will have three (instead of two) editions:
Free Edition: The free edition will be the base game, including all story content and gameplay features. Like SS, Hex is primarily a free game, and the other editions will mostly add stuff on top!
Silver Edition: The silver edition receives major updates one week earlier than the free edition! In addition, the silver editions may receive special or early access to some live content or other game modes alongside the gold edition. Some gold edition-exclusive cosmetics will occasionally be added to the silver edition after some time has passed.
Gold Edition: The gold edition also receives new major updates one week early, like the silver edition. In addition it receives the following benefits:
Access to the offering box: The offering box grants special items and cosmetics for free! Some of these are exclusive to the gold edition. Some of these may effect game balance or provide cheat-like boosts to skills and stats.
Exclusive cosmetics: The gold edition includes some exclusive outfits for both servants and the player character! Some of these will occasionally be added to the silver edition after some time.
Exclusive content: The gold edition will often receive exclusive or early access to live content and new gameplay features.
About Live Content
"Live" content is any content added to the game via the web service. I'm no longer using the web service to add limited-time content, but I will use it to test and refine new ideas, features, and other things, and some of this content will be temporarily exclusive to the silver and/or gold editions of the game.
The New Tiers and Prices
The names for editions and tiers are non-final.
$3 Tier - Silver
Access to the silver edition of the game, granting one-week early access to new major updates! Also included is access to special discord channels and most patron-only posts.
$6 Tier - Gold
Access to the gold edition of the game, granting one-week early access to new major updates, complete access to minor updates and exclusive content, as well as access to various in-game benefits, cheat items, exclusive cosmetics, and more! Also included is access to special discord channels and most patron-only posts.
$15 Tier - Gold+
This tier will get access to the gold edition, all of the above-listed benefits, and:
Access to an exclusive discord channel where you can provide suggestions for content, scenes, or outfits.
Exclusive shaper polls, and additional voting power in non-exclusive polls where appropriate.
Priority access to testing builds and new features (may require a Windows PC). If I need more testers, though, patrons from other tiers will be brought in.
Warning: Current tier prices will BE RAISED!
I went back and forth on how to do this, but I decided to raise the price of the current $3 tier. If I had $3 patrons move to the new $3 tier, I feel that those patrons would lose access to content they thought they signed up for, but I also think raising the price of $3 patrons to the $6 tier could be seen as greedy, however, you can actually lock in the $3 price by paying for a year in advance while gaining the $6 benefits, so you should do that if you plan to support long-term anyway. I repeat if you plan to stay on as a patron for a while, buy an annual subscription before the price hike!
For the $10 tier, I think automatically moving to the $15 tier is less of a big deal and makes sense, but if you want to downgrade to the $6 tier, I recommend you do so when it becomes available.
I will make announcements in the future when I know the official date that this change will be happening, then I'll post more reminders (you'll probably be sick of them) as the date draws near, so hopefully no one will be taken by surprise when the prices are changed.
As for the specific date this change will go live, it will coincide with the launch of Hex v0.1, which will happen sometime in Q1 2025 (expect to start seeing preview posts soon).
Why increase prices at all?
In order for me to continue to make games for the rest of my natural life, which I hope to do, I need to make my work as sustainable as possible. I think I could continue operating with the current tiers and prices for a while, but I'd probably need to raise the prices soon anyway, and I'd certainly need to do it before Hex is complete. So I think just doing it as we're transitioning to a new project anyway makes more sense and is less disruptive.
Hex also quite literally costs a lot more money to make than SS. In addition to art and other assets, I need to pay for the various services I'll be using to power Hex for years to come. I'd also like to further expand my team in the future with additional writers and artists.
Finally, looking at my peers, it seems most adult game Patreon campaigns have been moving their base tiers into the $5+ range over the last few years. A lot of this movement is probably due to platform fees. These fees are why I have never offered a $1 tier, since at that price the platform fees alone are 58 cents on the dollar!
Feedback is Welcome
I don't want to price anyone out or anything, and $3 to $6 is a big increase and I don't want to downplay it. I'm hoping the $3 tier will continue to be worthwhile for patrons who don't want to or can't pay more, but I also think the jump from that to the $10 tier is too big for a lot of people and didn't give enough benefits, so I want to sort of balance things out more.
If you don't like these new prices, feel free to contact me in messages or comments here or over on Discord. or in whatever way you prefer. We can make changes; nothing is set in stone yet. I can maybe beef up one or the other of the editions or make adjustments to the exact pricing, so do let me know what your opinions are. I did come to these prices and benefits after much consideration, but my perspective is limited, so please let me know your thoughts!
Comments
Michael Ebeling
I truly believe you’ve always been fair and transparent in everything you do, so please keep up the great work
Ohenry78
I don’t even get a chance to play that much anymore but I’ll be there at the $15 tier because I’ve never played another game with fetishes as in tune with mine as your games. ❤️
