Mittsies
patreon
The Road Ahead
🕑 Added 2017-09-24 03:50:10 +0000 UTC IntroductionThis is a fairly long post that talks about my financial situation, my recent inactivity, and what my plans are. I've been bad about staying in touch with my Patrons lately, so I want to really explain things in depth.
And for those of you who've stuck with me through this bout of inactivity, wow, you are awesome! You're the only reason I'm still doing animations today, so you have my undying gratitude and love. ( ´? ? ?` ) ?
I will also include a TL;DR summary at the bottom of this post, in case you don't wanna read all of this, but want to know the general idea.
Finances
My inactivity has lead to a dip in patron contributions, and while I love and appreciate every dollar I get, I do need to meet a certain monthly amount to keep my ship afloat. I've added a new goal recently of $1400 per month which will cover my basic costs. I'd like to talk about that number a little bit, so you know there's some thought behind it, and its not just an arbitrary dollar amount.
Talking about finances is a very private subject matter, so I won't go deep into specific details. Firstly there's taxes, fees, patreon's cut of the profits, credit card cancellations, and other business-related costs. In total, this will take somewhere between 25 and 35% of my total revenue by the end of the year. Then, each month I spend approximately $1000 for food, rent, internet, and utilities.
In addition to Patreon, I also make a little extra from commissions and music stuff. Normally this would allow me to build a small amount of savings, in case of an emergency like sudden medical bills. However since my patreon earnings have been low, I've actually been using some of my savings to pay the bills each month, which is not something I can do forever.
Inactivity
Some of you are probably thinking, "if you want more money, put out more content!" And you're absolutely right. But my inactivity is not due to being lazy or unmotivated, as I will explain below.
There are several projects that I am working on, or have invested a lot of time into, but are not yet ready for public view. I've briefly explained this before in a previous update. That's why there was such a large gap between my last flash (Hazelnut) and this new one (Reaper). Both Cloptopia and the Fillyfuck Fiesta update have had a huge amount of time poured into it.
I don't want to rush the projects, nor do I want to spoil the fun by showing previews; I'd rather wait until they're ready for release. However with that being said, it's been rather depressing to see my Patreon support dwindle because I haven't put out a project in awhile. I've considered showing weekly progress updates or something just to keep people's attention, but I think it's more exciting to see the complete package at the end.
Just know that I've been working hard behind the scenes to try and get these projects ready for release. Flash projects can take weeks, even months to complete, and good things are worth waiting for. However a big part of why my projects are taking especially long to finish is due to not being able to properly motivate my partners with payment.
Partners
As I've mentioned above, finances have been a bit tight. My plan was to get a surplus of savings so I can consistently hire people to help me on projects. I am certainly capable of working alone, but it's WAY faster to have a partner. Without excess money, I literally cannot hire help, and it creates complications. Some are willing to work for free, but they can only offer so much of their time.
Some of you might be thinking, "Why not just pick projects they enjoy doing so they don't need money to do them?" It depends. Some are busy with other projects, some don't want to do the type of content my fans really want. For instance Rock Candy is fun to work with, and I still help him with coding and music here and there, but he'd rather jump off a bridge than do ponies with me.
I've been doing commissions, auctions, or crowd-funded projects just to have a way to pay my partners. It's a nice workaround to paying people directly, but it interferes with my ability to deliver specific content that I know people want. I knew that the Reaper flash would be a tiny bit unpopular with my fans, but I mostly did it because there was much-needed money involved. Again, this goes back to square 1: if I had a good flow of cash from Patreon, I could focus on the content my Patrons want.
Plans for Change
Either way, I know I need to make some changes. More frequent updates. I need to talk about what I'm doing and what's upcoming. I need to focus on doing content my Patrons want. I need to consider making smaller projects in between the big ones, so there's not as much waiting time.
Feel free to talk to me directly, join my discord, send me an email, comment anywhere. I try to read everything my fans send me, so don't be shy. Your support is what keeps me going, so it's only fair I know what you want the most out of my work. I aim to please. If you have nothing to say and just wish to silently pray for my success, that's cool too!
Ultimately, I'll do my best to keep you informed of what's going on. I will try my best to update my Patron with some info at least once a month from now on just like the good ol' days, and hopefully more often than that.
In other news: since the Reaper flash is done, a fairly large update for Fillyfuck Fiesta is being worked on now, since I know that's one a lot of you are interested in.
TL;DR Summary
- Thanks for sticking with me! Your support is massively appreciated!
- I've been working on a lot of different projects, but none are quite ready
- Lack of funds interfering with my ability to deliver specific content
- Lack of funds makes it hard to motivate people to collaborate with me
- I'll try to keep patrons more regularly informed and updated from now on
- Major update for Fillyfuck Fiesta is under way
Comments
Toris Frendon
Hey dude! just take your time and dont stress, make the content you wanna do and at your own pace! keep up the good work and cant wiath for the cloptopia update its my favorite :)
Benjamin Hester
I'd be perfectly fine if you switched to a monthly charge rather than per upload. I imagine you have your own reasons for not doing so, but I'm just saying. Just because I don't see content doesn't mean your not working.
I was Legit scared you were dead. Honestly I'm just happy to hear from you. If anything just tell your patrons how things are going in your life so we know you didn't get hit by a car or something. Your one of the few artists I became a patron to because I wanted to support your work and not get early access or whatever. And when I manage to get a job again I'll definitely be all aboard again.
I've been a big fan of you since the beginning, but I feel the content has been disappointing for a while, additionally no update/information is hard to deal with. Otherwise I would support your patreon. For me the last project I liked was Ponyvania and I've seen nothing new added to it. Have you added any content or worked on it? Something to consider is maybe more tiers and the more money you pledge you get more votes. $1 = 1 vote, $2 = 2 votes, $5 = 3 votes and such.
PervMASTER
Oh ok.
Mittsies
Thanks for the review. I know sound can be important for some, but it's usually one of the things I put less effort or details into compared to other aspects of the project.
PervMASTER
My only top best favorites are Ponka Anal Rodeo and Applejack Poker. Love the sexy dialogue of Pinkie and especially the view of her ass with her adorable sexy expressions and beautiful physique. The options are really fun too. They add a lot of replay-ability. Applejack, similar in how I love her ass view and her sexy eyes. The sound effects are just right too. The rest of your games are all pretty good but decent overall and not good to my taste which is just a preference of either; not enough or/ great moaning or not my favorite positions/view but still with good art but maybe not great to my taste. I still revisit them all from time to time though. ... Gave my review on the survey. Hope it helps. Wish you the best.
Mittsies
Again, sorry about that inactivity. Thanks for your continued support!
Dale Evans
I stopped supporting because of the months-long inactivity with no updates that you were still working on things. Glad to hear that projects like FF and Cloptopia are still alive and being worked on - supporting again because of it.
Green
And there's the problem for me in terms of support, because, for a variety of reasons, these three projects are among the ones I personally feel are your less amazing work(though one of them is for incompatability of fetishes reasons). Still, I think I'm going to renew my patronhood, because my opinion and preferences matter jack dirt if I'm not one of the people paying for content.
PervMASTER
Great read. Love and respect your honesty. I wish you the best. I'll try to review your games and the recent one so I can tell you what I personally love and want as thanks, with some feedback maybe. ... Don't wanna be the typical anonymous fan who doesn't reveal shit cause I agree, it sucks when you don't have a sense that people care.
Mittsies
The monthly model is my only option since it can take me multiple months to create a single project. Being paid for 1 month after doing several month's worth of work just wouldn't work for me. I could make smaller projects instead, but in every survey I've asked people are significantly more interested in large scale projects than small quick ones. And thank you for contributing for as long as you did ♥
Mittsies
Thank you, it means a lot to me that I'm the reason you started supporting content.
Brad
You are essentially the reason I came to Patreon to support artists. Id love to see even text only updates, but I also know you make quality content no matter what you're doing. I have little to no interest in Overwatch but I did find that animation fantastic. I played the shit out of Cloptopia, hell, it's still a bookmark on my browsers quickbar. It is legitimately a fun game even without the clop. Ps: I am looking forward to your next music album.
I was a Contributor ($20) Tier patron of yours for a couple of years. I stopped because of financial strain. I've since started supporting artists on patreon again but haven't renewed my patreon support to you mostly due to infrequent pony project releases. I'd support you again if you switched from a monthly payment model to a per project release one, or started releasing content on a more regular basis.
Mittsies
And of course: Cloptopia. That project is insanely ambitious and I've already poured hundreds of hours into creating it. The reason I stopped in the first place was because I couldn't find a partner to work on it with me consistently. That is definitely not something I can do alone if I want it to be awesome and have lots of adult content.
Mittsies
Another ideal project would be a sequel to Foul Sorcery with new characters and a new gimmick, something more story-driven and dialogue-heavy. I've been mulling around some ideas for a project like that, but I need to find the right partner to help me with it. Based on survey feedback now and in the past, Foul Sorcery has consistently been one of my most popular pony flashes due to the massive variety of content.
Mittsies
One ideal project would pretty much be Fillyfuck Fiesta, but with so much content (multiple scenes, story-driven elements) that it feels like a sequel Three Curious Ponies with interchangeable characters. That's kinda what I'm leaning towards right now, actually. One reason people loved TCP so much is that it ramped up to the good stuff. Viewers weren't just immediately thrown into the sex, there was some build up, some context.
Green
Well, in that case, I'm curious. Based on the surveys and responses you get, if you had to pick an "ideal" project to appeal to your core audience, what would it be? What combination of partner(s, paid or unpaid), characters and subject matter/fetishes would be involved? Because I'm actually interested in getting back to supporting, but... I have to admit I wouldn't really know what to expect, if you had free hands to pursue "core audience" projects. Whether what I'm interested in is what lands in that territory, or whether it's something that'd get done much more rarely.
Mittsies
I really appreciate it. ♥
Mittsies
I mostly mean that when I work with commissioners and/or unpaid partners, compromise happens. Nobody asked for an Overwatch flash, nobody asked for Reaper. I had fun making it, a lot of people enjoyed it, it feels good to finish that thing; but it's definitely not what my core audience wanted.
Xaldon Ajide
I've been a patreon from near the beginning of the Cloptopia project, Looking forward to your next major updates. anyway thanks for updating us on current events I honestly hope things start improving now that we know your not dead and still going strong. stay sexy mitts.
Green
And for clarification, I used to be a Patron, but I stopped backing mostly because my financial situation was all sorts of boned for a while.
Green
I think part of the challenge in delivering "the content [your] Patrons want" is that I don't think all your Patrons want the same thing. Some people are allergic to ponies, some people are here for the extreme fetish content, other people would rather slit their own throats than click on Foul Sorcery, etc.
Mittsies
I do want to rethink my reward tiers entirely at some point, but I want to focus on getting out new content before that. I might rework them once I release my next project.
you should make some bigger tiers of stuff so you can get some more fat stacks
