Patreon Is Hardening Their 'Adult Content' Guidelines. Discussion Thread

Jim Webb

Active Member
Jun 23, 2017
569
1,202
I would have to read to know for a fact, but it's likely that Patreon will not allow you to use their platform while also trying to drag people to a competitor. In that instance, any dragging of your base will have to be done third party, for instance, here, on a subreddit, or on your personal blog or discord. If you could get away with the dual presence, sure, that's smart. Again, I'm not exactly worried about the current creators with a large fanbase. Ptolemy could make the switch and probably not lose a penny. But to any new developers who don't already have a fanbase Patreon offers stability.

And yes, Paypal is a make or break. Sadly.

Patreon happened to come out and say that they wouldn't censor adult content a year or so ago, didn't they? That's the major problem I have with enabling another company. Their assurances almost need to be binding, because it is the size and growth of Patreon that caused them to make this switch, what will stop this company from doing the same.

This was the owners response to that question:

We use credit cards and debit cards for pledges and donations currently. PayPal's terms state that we cannot use PayPal for crowdfunding purposes like our site does, but we intend to bring Bitcoin support in the coming month.


So, no Paypal but Bitcoin this month Personally myself I use Paypal fine but Now I would probably trust Bitcoin more.
 

DarthSeduction

Lord of Passion
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Game Developer
Dec 28, 2017
3,360
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This was the owners response to that question:

We use credit cards and debit cards for pledges and donations currently. PayPal's terms state that we cannot use PayPal for crowdfunding purposes like our site does, but we intend to bring Bitcoin support in the coming month.


So, no Paypal but Bitcoin this month Personally myself I use Paypal fine but Now I would probably trust Bitcoin more.
The good thing about Crypto currency is that its difficult to trace. So its less likely to become an issue, however it still creates a barrier for entry. So yeah, I'll probably give them a try when I launch my project, but my hopes aren't high. I'll probably have a dual presence between there and Patreon.
 

Maxilase

New Member
Oct 28, 2017
2
0
Hello community,

I have a specific question as I'm making my first Renpy game.

Would patreon ban a game because at some point in the game the main character has naughty thoughts about a family member ? (these thoughts are only narrative, and are not supported with graphics)

My apologies if this has already been answered.
 

DSSAlex

Member
Aug 19, 2017
156
155
The policy is applied in a scattershot, random manner. Probably you would be fine but you might get a more stringent agent and get fucked.
 
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Mr.N

Сладкий пирожок
Game Developer
Nov 16, 2017
120
269
Hey guys. patrone's policy, everything is clear... that sucks. But what about BigBrother and Dream of Desire? This games have incest (and characters call Mom,Sis,son etc). As far as I know they do not use the patches. How do they bypass it? (i make a game and I think how to get around this)
 

Ignazzio

Engaged Member
Donor
May 8, 2017
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I think that DoD had really fine reviewer who didn't mention game's content so just any confirmation of family relations from patreon was removed. But it might be picked again and it's doomed then. As for BB, it wasn't under review yet as Patreon works really slow and has hundreds of different projects to check. BB's dev is switching to another game so if it will be suspended new game will probably take place of BB cuz it's unlikely he'll change BB. It all depends on your reviewer. You have to remove any "illegal" content from your Patreon page and hope they won't mess with you. In worst case you might be reviewed by a strick reviewer who will make you change every element of your game that's not appropriate for them.
 

DarthSeduction

Lord of Passion
Donor
Game Developer
Dec 28, 2017
3,360
5,204
Hello community,

I have a specific question as I'm making my first Renpy game.

Would patreon ban a game because at some point in the game the main character has naughty thoughts about a family member ? (these thoughts are only narrative, and are not supported with graphics)

My apologies if this has already been answered.
Honestly this should be fine so long as you don't draw attention to it. I can't stress enough, Patreon isn't paying someone to spend a few hours playing through your content. It's an inefficient use of their resources to begin with, and more importantly, if they were, then there would be far more cases of games being shut down. Don't put it on your page and there's no reason that Patreon will know unless some crusader decides to report you. In your case they have nothing to report, so you should be good... unless the thoughts include images that would be incest, then you've essentially done the deed. It's not like you can make the argument that it didn't actually happen because they're already censoring fiction.
 
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Thundorn

Member
Dec 31, 2017
207
986
I still chuckle at the panic this has caused. Sex and in particular extreme content in computer games has always presented challenges. Patreon has only been around for a few years and people have already become absurdly reliant on it. Patreons rules are what they are and they wont back down. We are all super clever developers here so i'm sure that with a little imagination you can find a workaround.

No agent or bot is going to play your game, certainly not all the way through unless they are a perve themselves. So my first tip would be stop advertising your game as an incest game on Patreon itself...
 

Ignazzio

Engaged Member
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May 8, 2017
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Problem with ingame content is severe if you'll be reported by anyone who don't like you. They don't even have to play it if someone is reporting it.
 

DarthSeduction

Lord of Passion
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Dec 28, 2017
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Problem with ingame content is severe if you'll be reported by anyone who don't like you. They don't even have to play it if someone is reporting it.
Well if you're trying to sell content then you should also be trying not to arbitrarily piss people off. Make the content optional like several developers already have. No prude who plays your game is going out of their way if they didn't have to experience something they didn't want to.
 

Ignazzio

Engaged Member
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May 8, 2017
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Well if you're trying to sell content then you should also be trying not to arbitrarily piss people off. Make the content optional like several developers already have. No prude who plays your game is going out of their way if they didn't have to experience something they didn't want to.
Sure but Patreon doesn't work like that. Fetishes they find disturbing or barely legal can't exist at all within their site. Teacher's Pet is an example - removed incest and mind control. It all depends on a reviewer but is probably just a matter of time for every developer. Who knows how market will change due to these rules
 

Thundorn

Member
Dec 31, 2017
207
986
Sure but Patreon doesn't work like that. Fetishes they find disturbing or barely legal can't exist at all within their site. Teacher's Pet is an example - removed incest and mind control. It all depends on a reviewer but is probably just a matter of time for every developer. Who knows how market will change due to these rules
The industry wont change at all. That was my point. People have gotten lazy with Patreon being such a convenient way to get funding for nothing. If anything I think this is a good thing as it means that it is harder for the Patron bait guys, who throw together a couple of half arsed Renders and a few lines of dialogue in Ren'py and expect to be paid for it.

Proper Indie devs have managed to source funding long before Patreon and will continue to do so.
 

Ignazzio

Engaged Member
Donor
May 8, 2017
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The industry wont change at all. That was my point. People have gotten lazy with Patreon being such a convenient way to get funding for nothing. If anything I think this is a good thing as it means that it is harder for the Patron bait guys, who throw together a couple of half arsed Renders and a few lines of dialogue in Ren'py and expect to be paid for it.

Proper Indie devs have managed to source funding long before Patreon and will continue to do so.
In mainstream gaming that's for sure. But when it comes to adult games whole west doesn't have much more options outside of Patreon. So every change in Patreon's rules affects whole industry as there is no alternative right now. It's not like we have real market like Japan. If Patreon doesn't want something it will push most developers to start projects without such an elements or to hide them using outer sources. Some change will come as everything is changing sooner or later and Patreon games now looks much different than even year ago.
 

anne O'nymous

I'm not grumpy, I'm just coded that way.
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Jun 10, 2017
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Hey guys. patrone's policy, everything is clear... that sucks. But what about BigBrother and Dream of Desire?
Don't know for big brother, but the version of Dreams of Desire you find here is not the version you can find on Patreon. It's a community patched version which restore the incest content. The game on Patreon is 100% incest free and probably also just have the gentle path with each girls.
 
R

RWaites

Guest
Guest
Boomatica.com's Research into Corruption page has been put under review by Patreon he received this notification Capture.PNG
Possibly because the sister Chloe look's young
 
U

User_215882

Guest
Guest
If you really want to use patreon and are just starting off your page needs to be clean. No mention of incest or any banned fetishes. No young looking characters. A couple of devs that I follow have been put under review just for that even though it ways everyones 18 plus. If you do make a game with banned content consider making the game patch friendly. DoD is the only game I know of that they actually told the dev to get rid of the content. From what Ive been reading Patreon isnt playing the games. They're looking at pages. It seems people are actively reporting to Patreon that this game has banned content. Like some here, I highly doubt patreon is having their employees play these games. If they are Id apply for that job.
 

Delmach

Member
Oct 3, 2017
409
391
Boomatica.com's Research into Corruption page has been put under review by Patreon he received this notification
Possibly because the sister Chloe look's young
Please put all information found in the thread, not just the automatic response, this is what Boom said so far:

Apparently It's due to the "Sexualise the depiction of minors".
(Something my page/game doesn't in fact do)

From what I can tell :
1. The word " Child " was used in a reply to one of my supporters and it was flagged by patreons comment/post automated scanner.
(around 7 Hours after posting the comment)

2. An employee quickly glanced at my page/posts and say some nude images and to be on the safe side put my page under review.

3. They sent me a email regarding their guidlines and the picture above states why my page was put under review.

I've replied back to patreon obviously stating that my page does not show content nor does it host links to any content that "Sexualise the depiction of minors" and now I am just waiting on further information.

Don't get me wrong...
I do understand the need for these messures because there are people out there actually post real Pictures / Videos of this kind of content and patreon has made it very clear they do not allow this content.
But from a fictinal point of view....

Anyway, Just thought I'd share this with everyone.
I'll keep you updated.

-Boom



Thats what he said, and it points out to Patreon just quickly pulling the switch because something (probably an algorithm) setting them off and the person decided to suspend the page and then have a look.

Now what happens afterwards, if the reviewer decides just out of the air that something is indeed violating anything, who knows.
 

DarthSeduction

Lord of Passion
Donor
Game Developer
Dec 28, 2017
3,360
5,204
Sure but Patreon doesn't work like that. Fetishes they find disturbing or barely legal can't exist at all within their site. Teacher's Pet is an example - removed incest and mind control. It all depends on a reviewer but is probably just a matter of time for every developer. Who knows how market will change due to these rules
I'm gonna guess you haven't actually been on the site then. There's only a handful that have been caught, most of them are very high profile, and the content was advertised on their patreon. The only way things go wrong is if a user reports you. Patreon isn't going to jump through the legal hoops and spend the money to have someone review your game's content. They rely on the report system, just like every other user submitted content site.