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Catastrophecomics

Announcement: preview only content and new Patreon model

Update: Abusive or purely insulting comments will be deleted. We're trying our best to explore options going forward and understand reducing the content here is disappointing.

We're sad to announce that we've once again found a leak for our server exclusive content. The culprit has been banned from our server in its entirety and their details noted for automating the blacklist for our in-progress security filter on our new website PIXarmor.

As promised, this theft will constitute a change in our policy for new subscribers. As usual, this does NOT affect those who are already in the club. In particular, those whose subscription on our server is from July 2017 and back (or those whose accounts are paused due to Swaggerdile until we can offer a direct payment method).


For new supporters and those on the free art sites after this theft there will be changes:
The short version is:
1. As a sponsor, you now get access to the first 105 pages after your first payment at your subscriber-level resolution.
2. Each payment of $3, $5 or $10 a month there-after (depending on the resolution level of access) gets you the next 10-14 page portion of the comic, up to a month behind current releases.
3. If you stop paying for updates, your subscription pauses. But as soon as you renew your payments, you can continue from where you left off.
4. The later you become a sponsor, the more months behind the current releases you'll be (you always start at pages 1-105, then release 106-112, then release 113-121 and so on).
5. After some time (a year) trusted members will also be able to move to the up-to-date early subscriber time level for releases.


For more details:
Originally we planned to just close the club and stop accepting new sponsors to cut risk, since our trusted members, especially those who've been with us for two years, have been happy to invest in us without sharing content online. But we've come to a compromise.

To use a metaphor, our upload schedule can be seen as a train, the pages of each month's release in each "car".

Until recently most subscribers were in two or three train cars. Those up-to-date with their subscriptions were in the first car, getting every update as we produced them. Those who missed payments might get the previous month's content, so they'd be a "car" behind, until they paid the missing amount to step back into the current month's uploads.

Using this system we hope to make the comic more accessible to new customers while free pages from now on will be functioning as content previews on the free art sites to advertise the full content you could be getting if you subscribed. These will be pages of interest taken from that month's content, more than likely with narrative gaps (for example, next month's release we'll be picking 3-4 pages from this bunch to show here)

We will be removing our support threshold minimum entry level and instead inviting all new customers to step on at an earlier point in the comic: in an earlier train cart further from the newest-most content.

This helps us and you. For us, if a content thief returns he'd have to pay his way up through the train carts to get to content he hasn't already seen, the same deterrent we used before, but for new customers there will no longer be a wait for content, you'll see pages beyond the free story right from month one, for as little as $3 for low resolution access!

The starting point for the paid entry comic will be page 105 - just after the last of the linear releases on the free sites. For your first $3 you'll get the first 105 pages at the higher, paid-content resolution (1000px). Next month you'll get the next 8 pages from that month's paid release (pages 106-112) (about 10 pages a month is typical but it fuctuates with complexity from 6-16 pages!).

For more pages a month, we'll be selling each following month at the same cost letting customers move up the release schedule! So paying $6 a month will get you that month's content and the month after. This is an almost identical cost to our prior 'support threshold' fee, with $30 getting you low-resolution access up until July 2017's content, almost 100 pages (up to page 197) and $33 getting you all the way to this last month's free content! (page 206!).

The later you come, the more it will cost to catch up from page 100 as more months are between your "car" and the front of the release schedule! We'll only be posting non-sequential examples from other months on the free sites.

There will be one exception here, in the interest of keeping our pre-August supporters ahead for their generosity and continued support. The up-to-date "Car #1" for our service will be off-limits to new supporters until an amount of time has passed (to be determined at a later date) to ward against credit card scams and thefts. This delay will also increase over time, possibly every 100 pages (about every 6-7 months) for new members meaning another "front car" being off-limits.

To clarify:
Joining now for as little as $3 will get you all 105 pages so far, you will have the option to buy more monthly releases of the comic all the way up to receiving content a MONTH BEHIND our earlier supporters. At later dates you might be limited to two or three month's behind for joining later, or upgraded to our trusted/V.I.P update schedule for continued support.

As soon as you make your first payment you secure your potential closest-most "train car", so there's no rush to get to the front, you can pay for the content at a pace you are comfortable with, with $3 a month being around 12 pages and a delay in payment simply meaning you don't buy yourself any closer to the head of the back-dated uploads.

So, once again - without metaphors:
Becoming a sponsor for $3 you get access to the first 105 pages (at 1000px).
For $5 you get access to all that at 1920pixels! For $10 you get the same at 4000px!

Paying the extra $30 ($33 total) will get you access right up to page 206 and a position in Car #2 (1000px version) your most up-to-date option at this point, and all the pages Car #1 received last month you'll get this month!
An extra $50 ($55 total) will get you access to the 1920px version or an extra $100 ($110 total) for the 4000px version!

We'll ask our supporters for values that are multiples of different resolution payments! (We'll ask if your $15 is a $5 starter and $10 to move two more months closer, or if it's a $3 starter and four months forward!)

It's the same cost for everyone, how much you want to see in a month depends on your budget! You can pay in installments or at once up to your forward-most upload schedule (currently limited to a month delay, 'Car #2'), all at your discretion.

Anyone who pays over $15 for more than their first month will qualify for raffle prizes too, regardless of their upload schedule!

You can see a small info-graphic we made to explain visually in our FA scraps http://www.furaffinity.net/view/24620441/   or as always on our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/catastrophe

This is our solution to three problems:
- discouraging thieves, who will still have to pay up to the front-most cars, and will be forced to deal with a delay now too.
- not closing entry to new members, especially those waiting for direct payment methods.
- keeping our connection to the art community by using the free sites to advertise the comic rather than simply closing it.

For everyone to bare in mind:
The changes effect anyone new to joining after July 2017 (that means those with their first payments pending currently)
The changes are NOT for anyone who are currently paid supporters, even those from Swaggerdile who are waiting on direct payment options.
Any further changes, as we test this method, will be informed prior to that month and will only effect new supporters, all those already in the system will be able to proceed.

Free art gallery pages will still be released but not sequentially, exciting or interesting pages will be chosen from that month's dozen or so pages and posted with notice that they are previews. Linear content will now only be available to paying supporters, from at rate of $3 for each dozen or so pages (depending on panels/complexity), the first payment gets you the first 105 pages of the comic for free and then pages 106-112 the next month, and so on!  
Viewed: 610 times
Added: 6 years, 7 months ago
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doe
doe
6 years, 7 months ago
A customer of yours has spoken (above). They believe your new policies destine you for irrelevance.  You dismissed them with more of your own rationale, rather than court them to stay.

Your product is fine.  Your customer service bears examination.  You have our sympathy.  You have to earn our support.
Catastrophecomics
6 years, 7 months ago
Glad to have your sympathy, I hope our commitment to not be bullied by thieves is proof enough that we, like everyone else, are human beings who have to make a wage one way or another. These business choices are drawing a line that we don't want to sweat over something for our customers and have someone else undercut their right to see the content earlier, the people who have funded this project from day one deserve our utmost respect and the bonus of seeing content in advance is what we feel is the least we can do.

It's worth pointing out two things. We're plenty willing to provide a compromise, including sharing the preview pages here for people who want to see how the comic is coming along, and not shutting down entry to our paid site for new people entirely, and making it far easier and cheaper for someone to see new content there, at $3 for new content, not a $30 purchase fee like we had before to have people to buy in bulk.

But it is also worth pointing out that someone who is unhappy that we have a pay wall and is unwatching our free gallery because we've switched to preview only isn't a necessarily 'a customer'. They are a potential supporter, but we don't sell commissions here, this gallery is the free preview for a paid service comic. An audience member and potential supporter that I'm sad doesn't see the new benefit and $3 access we've opened up? Yes, that's what they are, and yes I am sad about it.

But please be aware that the people who pay each month to fund this project, and their voices, have plenty weight on this project, and our private ear. Providing rewards for people who support the comic's funding is our number one concern: if we explain the compromise of preview pages and the benefits of much lower access rates to someone on a free site, and they don't even want to continue watching our free content? That's sad, but also lower on our priority of concerns than someone who feels that they should stop supporting the comic because people illegally sharing content will save them their investment in our product.
ArionEquus
6 years, 7 months ago
From what I can see here... You're happy with your current customer base, and don't care about future customers. You're cutting support for this account and turning it into a pure advertising system. Because someone leaked your content onto the internet.
While it's unfortunate for you to have these things happen. Becoming a pure paywall is going to marginalize your already marginal content.
This is not how you make friends. This squeezing for revenge purposes, you're upset, and nothing more. Because you're squeezing and punishing your followers. Not the people who leaked the content or took advantage of the leak. The people who viewed your leaked content didn't really cost you as much as you think. Because those people don't care about you, or really that much about the content either. They are never going to pay you a single penny for your content. You're simply alienating the people that would possibly be willing to pay for your content. People in the future might be less likely to pay you even if they like the content you make. Simply because they form a bad opinion of you and your business model.
If I were already one of your paying customers. I'd cancel. Because you're thinking with your emotions and not with your heads. Public relations isn't your strong point.
Catastrophecomics
6 years, 7 months ago
We all live and learn, it'd not be the first time to admit that we're trying out new systems of compromise here, in making it possible for new people to come and buy content.

Another option is, yes, to close this page, not take new members, and to have our fans and supporters who already fund this content be the ones who get to see it.
I can understand people balking at the paywall, but this project has always had exclusive rewards for those who pay for the content. People were disappointed when we reduced the number of free pages because we wanted to make supporting the comic financially a priority (for us and for fans), this is just one of a few possible solutions to the issue and one we feel provides the largest amount of respect for our supporters paying for new pages and still lets others who come to the comic at this stage access the content.

Between the art team here it's a somewhat hung jury on the risk of letting new people buy content versus simply going forward at our current pace of pages with our current supporters, though we are exploring other options that may provide a better solution for both our paid supporters and those on the free galleries who are disappointed.
whitepawrolls
6 years, 7 months ago
Plain and simple I would have to agree with whats been said here before. I for one fully disagree with the "punish all for the act of one" thing. As for the comic if its only going to be preview only here from now on I guess its time for me to unsubscribe as well. Thank you while it lasted.
Repstar
6 years, 7 months ago
you know group punishment for one person their crime is against the Geneva convention. sad to see that people like me aka people who live paycheck by paycheck with no money to spare and sometimes not even have enough for food will now be excluded from your content, dont think that when i get back up there and have actual money to spend i'll remember you guys
SimonTesla
6 years, 7 months ago
I'm not sure how you expect people to give you money. I looked into subscribing (expecting it to be a simple $X per month to get access to archives and new pages at a given rate, where X was something like $1-5) even when you were on your older service and it looked so confusing (and frankly, expensive compared to a lot of other subscriptions). Everyone else who does a free/premium tier that I subscribe to just has a simple monthly subscription on Patreon, whereas this is basically a huge mess. And I subscribe to *plenty* of patreons. While I hate to be that guy that points out that leaks are kind of a fact of life on the internet, they're kind of a fact of life on the internet, and punishing the people who want to give you money in good faith is how you drive customers away.

Anyway, best of luck figuring things out. I'll just stay away for now.
moor2
6 years, 7 months ago
i have seen an discussion somwhere else (and mainly where the "leaks" are still aviable). And from seeing your arguments, i´m not wondering about many people feeling they´re going to unfollow/unwatch you. With the rate and amount of your "previews" (or whatever you call what you post here), no wonder somebody is going to leak it due to either paywall, its pricing  or simply timegating.
On the other hand i appreciate the work, wich had to undoubtedly take a lot from your team, wich also had to get rewarded somehow (not mentioning anything about the amounts you getting monthly). The quality and writing is something had me to watch, subscribe and in the end, pay for the access. But sadly, with the attitude what i´ve witnessed in "that place", i´m considering taking back my supporting pledge. With that said, i can see and understand both sides of the barrier, but i´m starting leaning to the other side.
Catastrophecomics
6 years, 7 months ago
As a supporter, I'm sure you know first hand that some of the claims on leak sites (such as that access is a secret $100 a month hidden fee or other crazy claims) are frequently unfounded. As noted above, if you are already a supporter, you'll get every page the minute we make it, for new supporters we've changed Patreon so that their options are 10-14 pages a month at $3 (more for higher resolution), with the option to catch up to just a month behind our previous supporters. Do be aware that leaving your current support without letting us know you're taking a break will mean if you come back later you'll likely be beholden to new subscriber terms of service, letting us know lets you take a break and simply catch up to each month you missed.

Your message above about each page being a third of a true page seems to state that we've been concealing all but the top of each page here for free, which I assume is a mistype, if you are a supporter you'll know that each page is released at the exact same widescreen format. I'm sorry that people's disappointment here is so evident and has made you feel uncomfortable, but, yes, as a subscriber your terms haven't changed and the increase in subscriptions means everyone will get more pages more quickly in time, yourself even sooner than those who come later.
TirAmahn
6 years, 7 months ago
Yep, that's an unwatch move right there.

This recently growing furry mentality of "only doing it for the money" is ludicrous. Did 8-bit theater/vg cats/xkcd/hell, even the abridged anime groups/any of the other long running webcomics ever hid their content behind paywalls? No.

If you're going to hid behind a paywall then just do it and go away, don't tease people with "preview" pages. That's tantamount to NBC or any other network channel moving their shows to HBO or some other premium channel but occasionally throwing one random episode back onto NBC to slap viewers in the face with what they're missing.
IsabellaBlack
6 years, 7 months ago
You do realize that most of the furry community don't exactly have the money to be who they want to be. I am one of them. I am on limited income like MANY of us do.  Why punish the entire group of fans that you do have?!?! I had been wondering what the hell happened. I agree with every single person that has commented on here.

Think of it this way.. One customer can tell others how your art is, the way you reply to others on a public forum, and/or your 'announcements'. Do you really want to have that kind of karma on you? I understand that you need to protect your art and your comics. But don't punish the entire fan base. Think about what you are doing. You are losing fans by this.. including me. Think about it.
DerpBowlWelf
6 years, 7 months ago
So whoever enjoys the comic but, similar to me, doesn't have either spare cash or the ability to guess the pages inbetween said previews is pretty much done for. That's a shame really, your content caught my eye and I was enjoying the story so far, but this is where I lose the interest to follow you any further. Hope that at least you can sort these leaks you keep mentioning.
Musuko42
6 years, 7 months ago
I'm half-awake at the moment, so you might have to take this opinion with a pinch of salt. I couldn't make head nor tail of what this journal was actually describing. If your payment/delivery method takes more than a paragraph or two to describe, it might be over-complicated and a barrier to potential customers.

...or it might make complete sense once I'm fully awake. I'll give it another look after some coffee. :)
Catastrophecomics
6 years, 7 months ago
Dropped a much more succinct explanation, thanks for the fair comment!
Musuko42
6 years, 7 months ago
That makes it much clearer, thank you!
whitewulfe
6 years, 7 months ago
Like a lot of the other commenters, the whole "punish everyone for the actions of just a few" is something I definitely disagree with, doubly so when paired with going from a free model (which can encourage support payments) to a paid system where anyone joining in that's new is not only behind (and forced to be at least one month behind), but also has to pay up extra just to catch up when they're finally allowed.

I had considered supporting the comic (especially if and when it were possible to pay for the whole thing in one go), but with this kind of maneuver I'm unsubscribing.
RabbitHabbit
6 years, 7 months ago
Ok this is where I stop reading the comic it seems. As it looks like the rest of the comic is behind a subscription pay wall. I also wouldn't call these pages, unless you proscribe to the 'Tract' method of comic 'pages' which is what the comic has largely been. We've only seen two scenes of the character's masturbating, but the story is as loose as ever. We just got loosely introduced to a handful of interest characters in passing.

But the sad thing? The most interesting character I'm interested in is the farmer's rabbit son, who was seen with a pile of trunks last we saw moving to the big city, a garunteebly more interesting adventure than a handful of scenes across what so far is -still- the introduction to the farm after '100 pages' You mean 200 individual panels, as you tend to average 2 panels per content release. No offense, but I think you should go with the Onta Angle, or even the angle most others go for, have an early comic release for a handful of folks. If someone 'leaks pages earlier' Big Fucking Whoop, What about people who pirate games? You don't think game companies make good money anyway? It's not like people who already subscribe to you on patreon won't stay subscribed, and other people being shown it early may ALSO decide, 'this is how soon I can have access to new pages, I should sign up too' . Now people Are going to say this you Catastrophe,  "WOW I'm not gonna fucking pay shit tons of money to get caught up on a comic to where I'm waiting for fap, with loose character and story development. I'll just wait for the leaks."
you're generating leaks yourself. You not only shot yourself in the foot with a shotgun with this, but the shotgun pellets blew several new holes in your boat.
blogger667
6 years, 7 months ago
Well, that's disappointing. Why you put the part that most people here care about - that the free content is going away - at the bottom beneath all the changes to the paid stuff I do not know.

I liked this as a free comic - the update pacing and backlog didn't matter for something free - but I'm not going to sign up for the odd paid model you've created. The entertainment-to-money and wait-to-enjoyment ratios just aren't there for me. Further, I understand that you've had leaks, but if you need diagrams and more than a single paragraph to explain to people what they'll get (and when) if they sign up, it's too complicated and is likely hurting you more than it's helping. The average person browsing your Patreon isn't going to have the patience to read all that stuff when they're deciding whether or not to support you.
FellDwarf
6 years, 7 months ago
The only thing I don't understand is why you are changing to a "preview" model here on the free sites, If you keep it free but long to get around to then you stand the chance to keep interest in your work into future projects once this finishes, and possibly pick up more people along the way.  I just feel like you are shooting yourself in the foot here.
YuriFox
6 years, 7 months ago
Sooooo if i supported now id only get to see the pages ive already seen, and it would take 7 months to "catch up" to content that isnt even current? I realllllly wanna support the comic but holy hell man could you make it any more confusing and convoluted? this whole having multiple servers and websites and a payscheme obviously concocted by the mad hatter is really off putting as a potential supporter whos been weighing if he should or should not buy into this mess. No offense >.>
Catastrophecomics
6 years, 7 months ago
I'm sorry for the confusion, some of the complication is due to offering rewards through Patreon as a monthly funding scheme, I think information for direct payment when we finally get that set up will be a lot simpler than having to cover the auto-renewal each month and other stuff.

If you've read all of the comic up until this point on our free galleries, then for as little as $3 ($5 for high res, etc), you'll see all 100 pages so far in a higher resolution regardless of what resolution tier you want, AND you'll get the first monthly "pack" of images (pages 101-112).  Effectively, every $3 (or $5, or $10, based on resolution access) gets you one of these monthly release packs. So if you paid $6, you'd get pages 101-112, and pages 113-124 (not 100% sure on the size of the second pack they vary based on image size) in a single month. If you only paid $3 every few months you'd still be buying content you haven't seen because we'll know what you have and haven't bought and we won't be releasing anything more than previews of events to come here from now on.

The change is to let people who can only afford to spend a little get content still, where as people with a little extra can buy larger chunks of releases to catch up.
We've done it this way so people can pay as little or as much as they want, everyone will see content we've not posted for free (besides a couple of strategically selected preview pages), every time they donate, and with this system we can keep track of who has bought what, rather than our previous system, which involved having to buy all 116 pages behind the newest release before you could see any content.

Yes, supporting now means you'll be behind people who have come before you (they've been pulling ahead every week for two years, since they see two pages for every one posted here), but the compromise is not having to charge $33 to buy the content people have missed if people don't want to. You could pay $30 in the first month, get 10 release packs, and only be two months behind the current Patreon supporters. if "Release #1" is pages 101-112, then our older supporters have are about to buy release #12, pages 216-223. Currently, for securities sake, the most you can buy in a month is 11 of the 12 packs ($33), which gets you to the release date a month behind the supporters who came before you and will mean getting pages 206-215 in the coming month (when those who get content as it is produced will see pages 216-223). We'll have this one month delay for a little while as there have been some scams being run using refund periods or simply snatching and running, though we hope to lift the limit for newer supporters after some time.

I hope that clears things up, every $3 gets you around 8-14 new pages. Everyone who donates $3 a month gets something they've not seen before, starting from page 101. You can buy more packs to speed up your release schedule, until you hit the most recent upload schedule, then sit back at $3 a month and enjoy the freshest content!
Drakue
6 years, 7 months ago
Good lord this is a mess, and hopefully will be used as a learning experience. I'll stick around for now, but... christ, man. Do you guys know nothing of the fandom's attitude toward paywalls and overly complicated funding schemes? Maybe consider making it a simple "pay X per month" or "per strip" procedure, with free stuff coming out much later than patreon-exclusives.

But hey, your funeral. The comments both on here and on FA... have not seemed to lend credence to your idea that "current sponsors are happy with this system". I'm sticking around mostly to see what develops of this, but as others have said, I can't imagine this is going to do you any favours.
Zikawolf
6 years, 7 months ago
This is stupid. Unfollowing yall.  
Albythederg
6 years, 7 months ago
Everybody needs to make a living I guess. Unfortunately, I can't afford to pay for the comic and I'd rather not know what happens in little out-of-sequence snippets, so I'll be unfollowing for now. If I get the new job I'm going for, I may look into paying for the material. Until then, best of luck.
MidnightFirepaw
6 years, 6 months ago
Personally, I don't understand the business choice here. Basically, you have people who were never really going to pay for the comic to begin with taking a look at leaked pages, and instead you're punishing everyone else who actually want to enjoy the comic fairly. How is limiting the free release schedule to snippets as opposed to a slow release of each page going to protect anything?

I look at it like this. Cutting the free release pages isn't going to net you more money, the free release pages, were, are, and always will be just that, free. The people who will pay for your content will pay for your content, those that are happy waiting will wait, and those who don't want to play by the rules will -always- not play by the rules.

This is why game publishers and the like usually opt for punishing those that actually do wrong, instead of alienating their fanbase. I for one massively enjoyed seeing the free comic, despite the wait, and was actually waiting to get some income again (leaving a six year relationship is hell) So I could subscribe and see more of the story. But in the meantime, I was able to slowly progress. Now because of the actions of someone I'm not affiliated with on the -paid- side of things, I as a free user am punished behind a revenge paywall?

Not just that, but a paywall that I still can't wrap my head around, one that deters me from even wanting to attempt to even try to figure it out. I love this comic, I really, really do, but.... but this is why so many people hate companies that do this kind of thing. Because it doesn't help anything, it just punishes the people playing fair. It makes me scared that if I keep playing fair, if I decide "hey, you know what, I'l give these guys a chance, figure out the pay wall" Then when will it be taken away or changed again simply because a couple idiots decided to screw everything over for everyone.

I guess, the takeaway from all of this really is:

How on earth does stopping the incredibly slow free release of pages affect your profit margins, when the leaks are from not the free content, but the far away paid content. Wouldn't this decision just spur more people to try to seek the leaks?

MidnightFirepaw
6 years, 6 months ago
Like, Let's say Nintendo releases Prime 4. But not all of Prime 4. They have a good chunk of it done, but they're going to release the rest of the story as DLC

But they also have a free demo that lets you play a little bit, and they slowly let youplay further and further on the free demo.

Then someone decides to pirate the incomplete game right? Nintendo catches them, shuts them down. But they look at the demo and say "No, no more of that"

So all the people playing the free demo have to stop right then and there. Oh, but you can pay X amount to get the game up until where you were in the demo plus the next little section! But you also have to pay an extra x dollars to get to each and every other chapter FROM THAT POINT but you'll always be behind because they're still releasing more and more DLC to finis off their incomplete game (But you're locked behind advancing one single area a month)

Then, THEN if you handle a year of this, a whole X dollars, Nintendo extends you the gift of having access to the whole entire game including all current released DLC

So, to even have a hope of being caught up with everything, I have to pay an incredible amount of cash, to only be behind anyway with others who paid less and got more, and have to keep up for a year non stop to become trusted and be able to see everything


If literally any business did that, they'd be lynched

Catastrophecomics
6 years, 6 months ago
Our new system asks people to pay the same $3 each month that people who supported us from January 2017 paid each month to get the same content they got.

The options are varied and customizable to a budget, from 10-ish pages a month for $3, like a subscription buying serial comic releases; up to paying $33 to get totally caught up, purchase up to page 215, and then get more for every $3 a few weeks behind supporters who came to the project in the last two years of its life.

The analogy of DLC content isn't unreasonable. Don't they sell chapters of games like The Walking Dead? We now have early-access beta supporters who got in on the project before and still paid for it, and people who otherwise have the option to pay to download as many or as few "levels" of the "game" as they want for the same price the Beta guys did.
Before the option was to buy the whole game so far ($30), and then wait for new releases ($3), now that option exists for 30 cents a page or 70 cents a week, or how ever you want to cut up the $3 payments.

The fact is, though, we're not selling a game or car parts a piece at a time, or any other analogy. We're selling a comic by release and now people are being asked to buy it to continue to read it after 100 free pages. I'd have loved to sell the comic from whatever issue people wanted, like if we printed it out into issues at a book store, but sadly people have shown that $3 a month might be too much for some people, but it's perfectly fine for others to take the content and release it for free to undermine the system of rewarding those who are generous enough to fund comics like this. $3 is too easy for someone who stole from us to come back and steal right from the place they left, so we're selling to customers page 1-105, then page 106-112, etc etc. regardless of if you stole, made a new account and came back. There were people running fund-me campaigns on art leak sites to save up together and buy our comic to put it online, if you can believe such a thing. If none of the thefts happened it would've been $3 for anyone, as each hurdle has only been added to compensate for theft.

As an independent creator who works on around 9 projects a month, I rely on Patreon and sites like it for quite a lot of my funding as a writer/translator. While I can see people's frustration at not getting the comic here, and while other projects I work on haven't gone the route this one has of making content pay-exclusive, I can certainly see the 5-6 other artists behind this project wanting to get paid for their content. Leaks, sadly, fracture supporters and, if we want to talk business, resulted in a 5% drop in support due to demoralized supporters and a total pause in new supporter uptake. I certainly don't want people who support the comic monetarily to be demoralized, they pay our fair wage for work I'm excited about, whilst the current methods sadly affect people here who were used to getting the content for free, a business decision had to be made there to prioritize and find options for those wanting to support the comic financially.
MidnightFirepaw
6 years, 6 months ago
So, before I construct a full reply, Is that a 5% to total income, or 5% to supporters in general?
Catastrophecomics
6 years, 6 months ago
I feel like we're straying into business financial discussions I'm not fully able to (or comfortable with) giving you information on. The figure I've been given from the project manager is 5-8% of income lost per threat. which I believe might reflect around 10-15 supporters leaving per leak, and, as I said, the pause of 3-4 new supporters uptake in the following month or so.

As I said before, perhaps we can discuss this further via notes, but I feel like responses here have made the team's position clear and whilst advice or suggestions from audience members here are taken into account, this has been a significant time-sink for me as the only English-speaking team member and, no offense, there's been some significant armchair financial advice from people (including that we're "breaching the Geneva convention" and "are fools and it's not fair" from people wanting the free content to resume) who have also said they will never pay for the $3 a month for one reason or another - I would rather not continue down a more personal and frank discussion of our financial situation out in the open and don't want to open the door to ridicule of team members, especially from people who have claimed our content isn't worth their money or our free site isn't worth watching if we aren't giving them content.
Catastrophecomics
6 years, 6 months ago
If you have any more confusion about the paid content's operation, you're welcome to note me and I'll do my best to clear up any questions you have.
In short, when you support the comic you get pages 1-105 for your first payment (All in higher resolution here, even for $3). You're welcome to then continue to get monthly releases from that page onward (currently they release as a small block, but later they'll release over the month period), effectively you can pay as much or as little as you want, the comic will now be waiting for you whenever you have the money spare. If one month you have a spare $9, you can get three "months" of releases all in that month; if you only have $3, no problem, you'll get a month's worth of releases; if you can't afford anything again for a few months, we're able to check your account so your next set of releases is easy to find.

We've done this for a few reasons. Mostly to remove a stricter "pay wall" format which involved needing to buy the comic so far in its entirety ($30) to join the server (this was so those who stole the comic would be deterred from returning due to having to repay the fee) and also removing the rule we had about stopping payments for a few months ending your account. Now it's effectively the same, a $30 payment now would get you about 100 pages ahead to around page 205, but those who want monthly releases of usually around 10 pages can get it for $3.

As we've stated above, this is an experiment to open up the paid site to new members - other methods we'd considered involved shutting down the free pages entirely when we closed off new members from being able to support us and hoping our current supporters won't leak pages.

It's more than understandable that people are passionate and sad that the comic won't be fully available here, but it's worth noting too that we've never had any obligation to post anything here for free and have made it clear that people not playing by the rules are what will limit free access. The free sites began on a 1:2 release schedule with our paid site, when people continued the threaten, attack or steal because this pace here wasn't acceptable, we placed warnings before moving the content releases to 1:3 pages to compensate those paying and incentivize new members as content became more exclusive and a longer wait. Attacks continued and we were forced to announce that regardless of page content (some months up to 14-16 pages) we would only be releasing 4 pages for free each month and would totally close the gallery if attacks continued. These have always been moves made to incentivize our paid site and reward our paying customers with the assurance that they'll always see content first, because they'd paid for it to exist.

Moving to this model where everyone can start effectively from January of this year's content and either catch up or still see pages monthly they'll never see here, is a way to sell our comic to people with a lower budget rather than simply closing our doors to new people and shutting down the site here.

I'm glad you've been enjoying the content, and I'm sorry that people are sad that free pages won't be continuing. It may be that we work something out to do with releasing serially on here again in the future, but for now it's not on the cards. Stopping free releases does affect our profit margins, in truth: now the options are to buy from us or not. If we posted pages 101-105, we'd be selling the comic from the releases 106-112, not selling releases 1-105 (i think the January release was pages 97-105). Free pages were free as an incentive to attract supporters, now preview pages are free as an incentive to attract supporters, when we are selling the comic a "chapter" at a time via monthly release blocks posting free pages does cost us money.
Korusho
6 years, 6 months ago
Man, yall need to ping us on pixarmor before you really start doing this full swing. The backlash that your support base is going to throw at you is going to be more significant than any potential losses you may have theoretically incurred because of the persistent leaks. As a current supporter of your group, I'm having to really consider whether or not I find your business model to be ethical enough to align with my own ideals.

I'm aware of all the leaked material. The kicker is that the leaked material *MADE* me a subscriber through Patreon. I was excited to support more of the story because I got such a big dose of content at once and wanted more. Sure, you can argue that it's more of a unique case, but as you already know from your conversations with all these folks here, I'm not alone.

I don't want to call you guys out, I want you to continue to produce, it's why I give you guys money every month. And the rest of us. We don't pay you to keep your work hidden away like squirrels and protect it like it'll lose value once it's out there, we pay you to produce. The inherent value in the strips is gone once it's been distributed regardless.

And don't even say that posting the free pages costs you guys. It costs you all because we have to go through a damned private server, which is sketchy enough as it is, to access content. I couldn't count on a single hand the number of times I've had to go through so many loops to get access to content from a distributor. The lack of trust the artists have for their fanbase is eventually going to erode our patience, and you know it. You are smart enough to handle these conversations and put forth arguements for your cause, you should know exactly what kind of situation yall are going to wind up in, and it won't be because of us.
ChimChim
6 years, 6 months ago
Sorry. I understand your decision, and while I do support it, I'm going to have to unfollow. I'll keep you guys bookmarked in case my financial situation gets better, but at the moment, I wouldn't even be able to put three dollars towards your comic, at least not any time soon. Maybe in the next like 4-5 months or so, but.

I'm going to have to unfollow, just because I don't like seeing the previews in an out of order scenario, it actually makes me less interested, i would've paid for the comic a few months ago if I had the money though.

Sorry guys, see you on the flipside
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