The Future of Eros Academy (Don't Panic!)

This post was supposed to go up last night. However, I got pulled into a late night brainstorming session with a friend and kinda forgot to post it. Oops.

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Alright! This post isn't anything to do with the game update (sorry) but rather what is going to happen with the Patreon Page/Game Development going forward. First, for quick clarity, Development on Eros Academy WILL continue. 

With that out of the way, most of you hopefully read my reasons for needing to change things up in my post at the beginning of the month (If not, go read it <Here>). The net result of both polling my current Patrons and going over the possibilities myself, was the decision to switch the Patreon Page over to a "Tip Jar" style of approach, allowing me to take a somewhat more reasonable amount of my freetime to work on updates. Updates will, as a result, not be on a set schedule. They also almost certain won’t happen monthly (as is the current update speed).

Aside from a somewhat slower update speed, the primary effect of the change will be that, once the current cycle of rewards is over (not until September 1st for the game updates), every update of the game will go out to the public immediately upon release. I can't do that until September 1st, as doing so would be cheating the Patrons who contributed in order to get the next game update (1.7) a month before everyone else.

Now! The biggest issue I had with figuring out what to do, going forward, was deciding what to do about the rewards. I still wish to provide rewards for those that continue to help me by feeding the Tip Jar. On the other hand, I will likely be making fewer pure extras in order to keep the game updates coming at a reasonable speed. The following changes are what I've settled on for the time being, but they are subject to some tweaking as I figure out what does and doesn't work. Any changes made will be made with plenty of lead time as a warning, of course.

There will be At Least One extra per month (beyond patron only updates) for patrons. Those extras may take one of the following forms.

Short Stories: The archive of existing short stories will become available to ALL patrons who contribute at least $1. NEW short stories will go to the $5+ tier patrons first, they'll have them exclusively until the next short story comes out. Time between short stories MAY fluctuate. Previously, Jaylee was invested in the game as she got $1 for every $5 patron. She's agreed to forgo that, as she's now writing the stories for her Amazon following anyway, who have proved to enjoy them. However, the timetable between short stories will be in her hands, not mine, and some months her muse for erotica is less accessible than others.

Mixed Media Shorts: The archive of existing MMSs will become available to any patron who contributes at least $1/month. As with short stories, new MMSs will be exclusive to the $5+ tier until a new one comes out. These are time consuming and as such unlikely to be as frequent as the other rewards.

Miscellaneous Extras: It may that I come up with some other extra, such as a full profile document (not the single images I’ve done in the past but a portfolio) for a character. Photo albums of a specific character in all sorts of outfits/poses they may never have in the game (glamor shots type thing). Or other ideas that strike me. If I use a random extra like this, it will be of a similar order of magnitude to the other options, not a throwaway single image or similar!

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Moving away from the monthly extras. There are a few other points I’d like to address.

The $10 Tier: I’m going to be honest, I’d like to provide something for this tier, but I’m stuck trying to figure out what I can do without sucking up time. Currently, I’m considering allowing every $10 member to submit 1 idea per month for a short scene. With the promise that I will look over all of them, personally reply, and seriously consider using them if they are something that I’m both comfortable with and feel that I can do. With a short personal explanation of “why not” if their scene is not practical. However, this is only an idea I’m kicking around, and I’m not yet sure if I’m going that route. If anyone has any other suggestions for $10 tier rewards, I’d love to hear them.

Higher Tier Rewards: Will currently remain the same.

Jaylee’s Novel and Short Story collection Rewards: Will remain for the tiers that get them.

Polls: There will only be two polls per month, going forward. I’m still deciding if they will be weighted polls or not. All Patrons will be able to vote in the polls. With the higher tiers MAYBE getting a weighted version. It’s kinda awkward. 

   BgA<)ѿ-