Geran 'Gar1onriva'
patreon
Changes To Gar1onriva Patreon (Feedback Desired)
🕑 Added 2019-12-07 05:54:42 +0000 UTCHelllllo Rivans!
This is a post I've been thinking about and planning for about a month. I would like to make big changes and all but overhaul how I do my Patreon. I want to change up some unpopular rewards, inject a bit of character into the tiers and find new ways to interact with you guys and give you what you want.
One thing at a time.
**REWARD TIERS**
My current rewards are as follows. Remember that each subsequent tier includes the rewards for all previous ones:
$1: Patreon Feed - Gain access to my Patreon feed and see any posts I write for patrons.
$3: Video Voting - A monthly vote to decide a First Impressions I'll make the following month.
$5: Main Series PokéSins - A password that gives access to all main series episodes of PokéSins which are currently all Seasons 1 and 2 episodes.
$10: Unreleased PokéSins - A password that gives access to ALL PokéSins. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are all included.
$15: Newsletter - A monthly newsletter about what I do, play and watch away from the channel.
$25: Monthly Gaming - A monthly gaming session with me and maybe some of my friends too.
$50: Monthly Private Chat - A monthly skype/discord voice chat where we can discuss basically anything.
Of these, three tier rewards are either not used at all or are barely used. Well...four, really, but I never really expected the $50 tier to be massively busy. Ignoring that one the ones that need tweaking are $3, $15 and $25. The $5 and $10 PokéSins tiers are my most popular, so I will not be making any changes to those.
**TIER IDEAS - ITIERS, IF YOU WILL**
Let’s start at the lower end. I like the Video Voting reward. I like that viewers have some direct control over which games I play and I look forward to bringing the Top 5s back into the vote. That’s why it saddens me that I get maybe three people voting each month. In addition, there is currently no one actually on the $3 tier; everyone who votes is a $5 or higher patron. That tells me that it isn’t appealing enough.
I got some feedback about the Video Vote last month, so in the future I’ll try to offer a wider selection of games as options and then inform voters of the winner.
What I would like to do, however, is move the Video Voting reward to be on the $1 tier instead. My reasons for this are twofold; firstly it’ll increase the pool of potential voters. Secondly since I stopped writing update posts on the progress of videos, there isn’t an awful lot that $1 patrons get for their support. If every single person who pledges could cast a vote for what videos get made, that would be a very tangible return on their pledge.
If I moved the vote to $1, however, that would leave the $3 tier empty. I have an idea for that. You may or may not be aware that a viewer set up a Gar1onriva Fans Discord server for viewers to chat and interact. It’s been great having a community like that; I go on every couple of days to catch up and chat a bit.
What about if I set up an Official Gar1onriva Discord server and changed the $3 reward to a special Discord role? I’ll be honest that I don’t have a lot of experience with Discord or running a proper server, but I’ve enjoyed the company in the Gar1onriva Fans Discord and I’m willing to give this a go.
Any thoughts on that?
As for the $15 and $25 tiers...I don’t have much in mind. While I enjoy writing the monthly newsletter, again there aren’t many people on that tier (or higher) to read it. Plus I’m seriously considering starting a podcast that would all but make it redundant.
I get that monthly pledges this high aren’t going to be a common thing, but I feel that inadequate rewards may be playing a role.
Any ideas whatsoever (except PokéSins-related things as discussed below) are welcome as to what I could offer for $15 and $25.
I know some people will suggest making changes to the PokéSins rewards; reducing them, adding more, making more episodes, etc. I’m afraid that I am vetoing all such suggestions. I’m very happy with the way I’m currently handling the main series and it pains me to say that I’ve fallen behind on the Johto episodes for $10 (which I plan to make up for somewhat this month... More on that another day).
My channel has daily content and most of it is gaming stuff. It may not be as popular as my PokéSins stuff, but I really enjoy making it. I’m also moving more towards scripted reviews and heavily-edited scripted gaming series, and don’t forget that I plan to start livestreaming on a very regular basis in the new year. My point is there is lots of stuff that I can do that isn’t connected to PokéSins, so please think outside that particular box.
**STYLE OVERHAUL**
You may have seen on other Patreon Creator pages that you can put an image for each tier, giving them some character and making them more eye-catching. I love that. I really want to do that. Thinking along those lines also gave me an idea; I think it’s finally time to ‘name’ my reward tiers.
At the moment I refer to the different pledge tiers by the dollars per month or the reward; $10s are Unreleased PokeSins, $3s are Video Vote, etc. I propose that each tier is given a name and character, taking from the pool of series and art that I’ve done on my channel. I’d very much like patrons of each tier to help pick their tier’s mascot and for the character to have something to do with the tier if possible.
At the top of this post are icons I very quickly made from the various characters who have (or will soon) appeared on my channel. I’m also open to having new icons made to represent series I’ve not had official art made for before, if there’s a particular favourite.
I have some ideas for pairings already.
For the $1 pledge the only option I really see is ‘Rivan’, and it can use one of the versions of my avatar. I thought this because anyone who pledges is playing a very active role in keeping me doing what I’m doing; they are a true Rivan without a doubt.
For the $5 and $10 pledges, it’s gotta be Plusle and Minun in some form, right? The way round that occurred to me was Minun at $5 and Plusle at $10, but I’m open to alternatives. Perhaps FEEBAS at $5 and Yin & Yang at $10? Pokémon-related, definitely.
Not thought much about the others. I’m inclined to let my one current $50 patron have almost free pick for that tier, though I suspect the ‘Tabby Tier’ might be a favourite. Same for the few $15 patrons for their tier.
The other tiers I’m completely open to ideas. Which of my characters do you think should represent the different tiers?
**TLDR**
I’m looking for a lot of feedback here. Rewards, pledges, characters... Can’t really sum this one up much. This was a rather rambling post, but it’s hard to streamline an overhaul like this.
Please give me your thoughts and bear in mind what I’ve said. Whether you’re currently a patron or not and whatever tier you might be on, I value your opinion greatly. With your feedback I can mould this Patreon into something better than ever.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and thank you even more if you give me your thoughts.
Your support keeps me and this channel going.
Caaaaatch you later,
Geran ‘Gar1onriva’
Comments
Geran 'Gar1onriva'
Ah, I see. I'm afraid I rely on the end card in my videos to improve cross-promotion of series and subscription assistance. In practice people would stop watching during the credits and I couldn't make it work either before or after the end card.
Ziridium
My suggestion is to have patrons in the $3 tier and above be listed in end-of-video credits.
Geran 'Gar1onriva'
I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
Ziridium
I know it's been a few days, but something I've seen other users do is include pledger names in the descriptions, and they sometimes split it up by tier. It's also common to see them place that reward at a tier close to, but not quite at, the bottom (much like the $3 tier is). I think this could be something at least worth a try. If you went through with this idea, you could have the credits split up by tier name once those have all been decided.
Geran 'Gar1onriva'
That could work. My only concern is I don't know what purpose the patron channels would serve. Maybe discussing the various rewards, such as patron exclusive episodes?
Mimikyu Love
It is entirely role based. If you go into channel settings, and then permissions, you can set it up so that @everyone will have no permissions, and then have the patreon roles gain those permissions. You may or may not have to set yourself up to have all permissions in every channel though, not sure how that part works.
Geran 'Gar1onriva'
Is that a thing that can be done on Discord? I know you can have private channels, but how are they done? If they're done by role then that could tie easily into a reward tier due to Patreon's integration with Discord.
Mimikyu Love
Please forgive my grammer, as I just read it back to myself.
Mimikyu Love
I think an interesting idea for the official discord server is to have the $3 up patrons have access to exclusive access to certain channels on the server. For example, you could have a Patreon talk. Where your patorns, and you if you so wish, can go on and talk about whatever. You could set it up using the roles you give them as well.
πκ PiKappa
The link to the fan discord, if anyone is interested, is https://discord.gg/JhRDbU.
πκ PiKappa
I don't know much about Patreon, so I don't have much to say. Overall I think most of this sounds solid.
Blue
Um, if I had to choose, I think Derek would be my preference at least. Not that Chell isn’t pretty cool though.
Geran 'Gar1onriva'
You reckon Derek instead of Chell (top left on the picture)?
Blue
I think having Derek art and being a tier would be pretty nice?
Geran 'Gar1onriva'
What sort of prizes would you suggest? The cost comes from procuring prizes and then the shipping costs. I don't carry any stock of my merch, and I know that I have patrons as far away as Austrailia. A giveaway might be a good idea. If it was you entering, what prize would entice you?
Natsuki98
No, I can't really say anything else. Though, I still wouldn't dismiss taking notes from other creators. It doesn't hurt to look at others and see what works for them and apply some of the same techniques to yourself. Maybe with the giveaways, you could do it across all tiers $3 and up. Have the $3 tier be one entry, $5 tier two entries, etc. And do a raffle type thing and pick 1 or 2 winners each month. I wouldn't imagine that would hurt profits too much. It would give more insensitive to pick a higher tier so you have more of a chance at winning the thing. I don't know though. I don't do this myself so I'm not sure what it would be like to implement.
Ziridium
The only suggestion I have for what tiers get what names is that the more minor characters (like the Jeffery squids) get the lower tiers, and the things more well known (tabbies, Derek) go up higher.
Geran 'Gar1onriva'
I don't want it to sound like I'm shooting your ideas down or anything, so please see my reply as a counterpoint rather than a flat dismissal. I'm afraid that what works for one creator may not work for another. Exclusive stuff is a decent idea. I know that a lot of people get very iffy about 'paywalled' content... I know this from firsthand experience with PokeSins. I wouldn't know what to do for $15 exclusive content. Especially as my gaming stuff isn't 'mainstream' enough for me to happily keep an entire series back when it might otherwise catch some attention. Giveaways are a possibility, but the issue with them is the cost. Over the $10 tier it'd be an extra $5 per patron. That means the profit margin for anything involving merchandise or prizes would be rather small. Early videos are very awkward given YouTube's current system. You can schedule uploads, but the video HAS to be marked as Private rather than Unlisted until its scheduled release time. That means I'd have to manually change its status. The other, bigger problem is that I'm generally only a day or two ahead of my usual schedule... Having to juggle that AND special early videos is very difficult. The $25 multiplayer server has the same potential issue of cost as the merchandise, but it has more to work with. I guess it'd have to be a Minecraft server, but I don't know if there'd be enough interest to make a private $25 patron server viable. Like I said, please see this as my response in the discussion and not me having a go or drawing a line. If you have any ideas for the issues I've raised, I'm more than happy to be proven wrong.
Geran 'Gar1onriva'
Almost forgot to reply about the podcast. I'm still trying to decide exactly what it'd be about. Probably a discussion with one or two regulars about games, TV, movies and stuff from our lives. I also have a couple of more specific ideas that I'll keep to myself for now.
Geran 'Gar1onriva'
I write the newsletter on word and it generally comes to about an A4 sheet. Sometimes a little over, sometimes a little under. For the tiers, the names sort of write themselves depending on which characters are used. Did you have any suggestions for which tiers each of those should be?
Natsuki98
I'm also wondering about the newsletter.
Natsuki98
I like the ideas for the $1 tier being video voting. The majority of the $5 tier are most likely just getting that for the Pokesins episodes anyway. That would explain why they aren't voting as they aren't concerned with the main channel's content. A fan Discord on tier 3 would be a great idea. If it's showing popularity now then doing more with it would be great. I personally don't use Discord but It seems like quite a few people do. Maybe with the higher tiers try and take a page from more successful creators. Do more exclusive stuff with it, possibly giveaways when you get new merchandise. Early videos seems to be a common one with other Youtubers. If you had the time for it, maybe do a Multiplayer server for a $25 tier. The characterized tiers is a cute ideas as well. I like Ziridium's squid idea. But FEEBAS! has got to be in there somewhere. Man whatever you do, I'm on board.
Ziridium
I think having a fan Discord would be a good idea for the $3 tier. As for tier names, here are some ideas. -Jeffery/Geoffery/Queffery/Heffery (the squids from Far Wind Stranded) -Derek the Turret -Uncle Briefcase -Ezio the Creeper On a somewhat unrelated note, I've never been a $15 tier patron, but how much stuff tends to be in a newsletter? Is it just one big article or several? Also, if you ever decided to start a podcast, what would you have it be about, and would anyone join you on it?
