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

NaughtyScales

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Else, one or two of their competitors, like Kickstarter by example, would have already opened the same service, just because there's clearly money to get here.
And those are more open-minded like doujinshi or manga in Japan or same censorship like Patreon have now? bc it was platform for creator and artist, after some time it's platform for creator and artist that they like.
 
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RWaites

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Just for those of you that wish to have a voice.

Ash Hil needs your help with “Patreon is taking away Adult Creators creative freedom with there new guidelines.”. Join Ash and 523 supporters today.
This petition will be delivered to:
  • Patreon CEO
    @JackConte
  • Patreon
    @patreon
 
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NaughtyScales

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Very informative petition
But this petition are take only part of problem, he screw not only adult creators. Like every one know about 35cent charge, he stepped back not bc backlash but bc he loose money. Sorry but i don't believe that petition only about Adult creators will have effect, need one that cover all problems with freedom art, speech and ect (as a creators and supporters that support what they like) .
 

DarthSeduction

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How much have the limits of the "fictional" clause been tested. For instance, if they're fine with Game of Thrones, they accept there's an ongoing and seemingly tilted incestuous relationship between a brother and sister, wherein one has clearly asserted dominance over the other through sex. Game of Thrones also had an entire subplot about a father that sacrificed his sons and made his daughters into a harem. That's not to mention rape, torture, and brutal murder.

Does anyone know how they parse and weed them out? I can't imagine they have someone playing them. Is it titles and genre tags? Are they looking at the posts and determining content? Could you simply subvert the problem by never mentioning incest on patreon?
 

anne O'nymous

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How much have the limits of the "fictional" clause been tested.
have been in the obligation to remove all it's controversial content. For me, it answer the question. Their mention of Game of Throne and Lolita are just for the show. They don't want to be seen a going against "art" so they put this "limit", but they will never apply it since it will need time before a creation to achieve this "art" status, and they will order to remove the unwanted content way before this.


Does anyone know how they parse and weed them out? I can't imagine they have someone playing them. Is it titles and genre tags? Are they looking at the posts and determining content? Could you simply subvert the problem by never mentioning incest on patreon?
They play the game, I see no other explanation. The title must have no mention of unwanted content, as well as the tags and even content behind the paywall must not contain anything banned. This, all creators have complied to times ago, when their page was under review the first time ; if not, the page wouldn't have be put back online. So, if they still goes against creators, and they've done it at least once, they obviously have another way to know it. Either by lurking in site like this one, or by playing the games.
 

a meme

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They play the game, I see no other explanation. The title must have no mention of unwanted content, as well as the tags and even content behind the paywall must not contain anything banned. This, all creators have complied to times ago, when their page was under review the first time ; if not, the page wouldn't have be put back online. So, if they still goes against creators, and they've done it at least once, they obviously have another way to know it. Either by lurking in site like this one, or by playing the games.
They just read the Patreon page description. Most of them had "incest" and other illegal things right in the fetish list. They don't give a shit about the actual game. If it contains incest and someone complains, they'll just say that they broke the TOS and shut down the page without taking any heat.
 

smnb

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It's not what they have in TOS, but what they actually mean. It should be the same, but it isn't. You read "fiction is allowed" and think it's great, because all games are fiction, so there's no problem whatsoever. But then you see how they harass one game developer after another and it's clear they mean something different.

It's not that hard to figure it out. While Game of Thrones does have incest, it's not what it's mainly about, characters involved in it are not presented as exactly the good ones, etc. On the other hand, for many games, incest is the game, MC likes it and since you are controlling MC's actions, it can be seen as glorification of incest by some. It's stupid and it doesn't matter, because it's all fiction, but unfortunately Patreon feels differently.

Creators can play a hiding game with Patreon, and it might work for some time, but all it takes is one determined troll who will rat them out and it's game over.
 

anne O'nymous

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They just read the Patreon page description. Most of them had "incest" and other illegal things right in the fetish list.
And how these pages can have "incest" in their fetish list since not having a single mention of this, neither in the tag, description, posts (behind paywall or not), and site linked from the patreon page, were the condition for the said page to come back online two month ago ?
 
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No page, even behind paywalls, will feature banned content. Youre just asking to be put under review. Its all now word of month. Also from what Ive been reading is that most page reviews are because of other devs which is stupid.
 

Delmach

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They definitely work very slow, or probably only when set off by someone. Also thought I post two of the direct responses we saw from the team so far, gives some insight on what "should" be possible.

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DarthSeduction

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It's not what they have in TOS, but what they actually mean. It should be the same, but it isn't. You read "fiction is allowed" and think it's great, because all games are fiction, so there's no problem whatsoever. But then you see how they harass one game developer after another and it's clear they mean something different.

It's not that hard to figure it out. While Game of Thrones does have incest, it's not what it's mainly about, characters involved in it are not presented as exactly the good ones, etc. On the other hand, for many games, incest is the game, MC likes it and since you are controlling MC's actions, it can be seen as glorification of incest by some. It's stupid and it doesn't matter, because it's all fiction, but unfortunately Patreon feels differently.

Creators can play a hiding game with Patreon, and it might work for some time, but all it takes is one determined troll who will rat them out and it's game over.
Arguably the entire series has been building up to the ultimate goal of getting Danaerys Targaryan and her nephew into bed together... They are both posed as the heroes of the story. Of course we are yet to see the end, but you have to accept that incest has indeed been glorified by GoT. I'm not exactly old, but having been into anime and hentai at a young age I was exposed to the fetish early. Before GoT there was some step mom step sis porn out there, but it was rare and never really tailor made to any demographic. Since GoT porn has jumped on the incest bandwagon, how many outlets have brother sister sets, especially where the brother is literally having his way with his sister while she's on the phone with her boyfriend?

So, then what do we do? If you ask me, we don't sanitize. But we also do as GoT has, and don't advertise ourselves as a Taboo fiction. I enjoy Dating My Daughter, and I'd enjoy it just as much if it was called Dating My Girl, or something. Sure, it'll make it a little difficult to promote our content on Patreon, but we can do our promotion elsewhere, as many already do here. I said before that I can't imagine they're playing them, and that's not coming from nowhere. It's incredibly murky water for an employer to ask an employee to interact directly with adult content. To ask them to actually play the game opens them up to legal action. It's one thing to ask them to moderate the pages, its an entirely different proposition to ask them to actually use the product.
 

DarthSeduction

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They definitely work very slow, or probably only when set off by someone. Also thought I post two of the direct responses we saw from the team so far, gives some insight on what "should" be possible.

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That is somewhat enlightening, I was worried about the "step" problem. I kinda get it though, how many predatory relationships are carried out by step parents in the real world. That said, they say "if there is an option" implying they'd have to know about it, and as I just said in another post, there's no way they're actually testing the content. Does anyone know of an instance where a provider who has not till now been a target, and who was targeted in spite of not having their content advertised as providing the violating taboos?

As to the message to Faerin, from my perspective that seems incredibly theoretical. The things they're talking about would have to come to their attention in the first place. To put it quite simply, Patreon isn't paying a moderator to follow your footprint around the internet to see what you're advertising on other sites. The entire premise of that response requires that a third party inform them of the violation. Or for the provider to casually provide an outside link on their patreon that they could follow. Again, very unlikely.

Obviously continuing to fund taboo content on Patreon is going to be a risk, but I'd say its more than possible to avoid scrutiny. So long as the words "family", "mom/mother", "dad/father", "brother", "sister", "cousin", "aunt", and "uncle" don't appear anywhere on your game's description, title, or the patreon page itself, I see no way they'll find out about incest. So long as "animal" and "bestiality" don't show, they shouldn't find those kinks. So long as "rape" "assault" etc don't show they shouldn't find those kinks.

And that won't really stop us from advertising either. Be creative with your description. For instance:

"You play the role of an older man, one day he receives a knock on his door. Opening it he reveals a beautiful young blonde. He invites her in and a new romance blossoms. Experience a new world as you explore your feelings for this girl, meet her friends, discover the feelings of a co-worker. Careful though, you and this young blonde only have 2 weeks. Make choices, forge a strong relationship or maybe an open one?"

That could be the description for Dating My Daughter, and its a game I'd play in a heartbeat. Sure, you can't call it Dating My Daughter anymore, but while that title tells the audience exactly what they're getting, it isn't exactly the most creative thing ever. Most titles aren't as on the nose and could easily be changed, if necessary. For instance, Daughter for Desert could easily be swapped from daughter to the daughters name (I've forgotten it, but I really like this project so far). Similarly the description could be about the two young college girls you work with, maybe mention the daughter as roomate, and viola. Your game is sanitised for patreon but the game itself has the incest option. Maybe even make it a prompt, asking "is ____ your daughter or your roomate?" before you even choose your own name. That should keep your game from being reported by the faint of heart.

It's sad that we have to hide, but until we have our own paypalesque payment method, it seems we have no choice.
 

smnb

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But still, GoT has more to offer. Good family-friendly things like violence for example. ;) Also some story, which is richer than in probably every incest game ever made. I don't know if popularity of incest porn is thanks to GoT, I never thought about it to be honest. But I would agree that there wasn't as much of it in the past.

It's incredibly murky water for an employer to ask an employee to interact directly with adult content. To ask them to actually play the game opens them up to legal action.
"I'm very sorry boss, but I can't work any more today, my hand and that other body part hurt already!"

"You play the role of an older man, one day he receives a knock on his door. Opening it he reveals a beautiful young blonde. He invites her in and a new romance blossoms. ...
"Damned daughter, always losing her keys!"

-

The trouble is, where will this end? And I know it's one of those stupid questions. But there is this big "why?" hanging. Why is Patreon doing this? To make them look better, probably, to avoid accusations that they support bad stuff. But if every game gets vanilla version for Patreon and will have patch for "bad" stuff available elsewhere, they will have to react to that. You can blame evil modders who are not affiliated with original author, but if it can hold forever... Ideally they would give up eventually, and just allow everything. But I'm not holding my breath.
 

DarthSeduction

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But still, GoT has more to offer. Good family-friendly things like violence for example. ;) Also some story, which is richer than in probably every incest game ever made. I don't know if popularity of incest porn is thanks to GoT, I never thought about it to be honest. But I would agree that there wasn't as much of it in the past.


"I'm very sorry boss, but I can't work any more today, my hand and that other body part hurt already!"


"Damned daughter, always losing her keys!"

-

The trouble is, where will this end? And I know it's one of those stupid questions. But there is this big "why?" hanging. Why is Patreon doing this? To make them look better, probably, to avoid accusations that they support bad stuff. But if every game gets vanilla version for Patreon and will have patch for "bad" stuff available elsewhere, they will have to react to that. You can blame evil modders who are not affiliated with original author, but if it can hold forever... Ideally they would give up eventually, and just allow everything. But I'm not holding my breath.
Oh, I'm not even suggesting we leave it up to modders. I seriously suggest we simply leave the content available at a choice the moment you hit start, just don't advertise it on patreon as having it.

As to the question of why, well, put simply, the payment providers don't like adult content in general because it is high risk. They already charge more for the transactions as a result, and I guess they just really don't want to mess with the taboos because they get even riskier. However, I feel like this could be easily solved and subverted by Patreon in a way that Brazzers, or the like couldn't. There's no reason that the charges from patreon that post to your bank have to include the name of the page which you are funding. If each one simply stated "Patreon Patronage" or something, we could avoid the ever present danger of calling to have the adult content purchases removed.

It really bugs me though. Paypal shouldn't have a say on how I make my money, it shouldn't have a say on where I spend my money. What's really bugging me is that you know the assholes sitting around that table in the board room deciding this shit aren't actually in agreeance with the policy. They're likely jacking off to Atlas Shrugged every night. Yet despite their belief in liberal business practices they censor content to reduce risk. My real question is, why are they the ones at risk? Couldn't their contract with Adult content providers simply state that refunds based on such are their responsibility? Surely, along with Patreon making sure that their transaction details don't specify what you supported would remove all issues, but of course, they don't do that.
 

NaughtyScales

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I seriously suggest we simply leave the content available at a choice the moment you hit start, just don't advertise it on patreon as having it.
That may hurt narrative and logic (for some one it will kill first impression), better just put word *censored* and add patch to personal web-site in this situation player will know for sure that game not full and need to go take patch separate.

bc if you put step-mother, step-daughter (or etc) it's just create other personality for MC.
 

DarthSeduction

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That may hurt narrative and logic (for some one it will kill first impression), better just put word *censored* and add patch to personal web-site in this situation player will know for sure that game not full and need to go take patch separate.

bc if you put step-mother, step-daughter (or etc) it's just create other personality for MC.
Apparently Step isn't a choice either, as was revealed in their discussions with Faerin. However maybe you're misunderstanding my intentions. Imagine if you will the beginning framing of every pokemon game, where the professor asks you your name, gender, and the name of the rival. Plenty of games already have this feature, asking for your name, even the names of the characters that make up the immediate story. If, at that immediate point you ask "Is she your daughter or your roomate" replace daughter with whatever character or kink you want, you haven't begun the story, there's no immersion to have yet. You're just picking settings.

The only reason I'm suggesting that is because, as we are all now aware, we can't advertise as being an incest game. So on the off chance that some kink shaming puke decides to play your game, he or she has the choice to avoid the kink entirely thereby alleviating the chance of that person reporting your game. Most people choose the path of least resistance, so if you don't force them into a situation that might harm their sensibilities then they won't react in a way that harms you.
 

NaughtyScales

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However maybe you're misunderstanding my intentions.
Nope i understand you, but I say that your suggest are limit creator by add unnecessary branches in which dev not interested in begin and it's become a different game. You force creator just build different games. I suggest just replace all daughter father and etc. with word *censored* and post on patreon, and patch on personal web-site (It's like with adult games in steam). bc all what you do outside patreon it's not their business.
 

Delmach

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In the more than a handful of occasions where creators were forced to change so far, a few went the "replace word" route and to be honest, it does not really work that well.

For example, you would need more than one option, as immersion wise its pretty harsh when you only ever hear the word Dad. No change ever, always the same, no pet name like changes, no Daddy.

Thats why I think the patch/mod way is the way to go, IF the creator does the mod/patch, and already has the story set up to work with it, meaning, they have innuendos and all that stuff in game already. Then just drop your patch/mod somewhere, and enjoy the thankfully still remaining anonymity when working with the internet. Its basically a underground way, which limits some kind of advertising, and would require a bit of a set up time first, but the people like/want/pay for the content that has been seen, so they might be lenient there.

The problem remaining (well one of them) is that the most tough conditions apply to new creators, as most probably dont want the hassle, dont have the playerbase, dont know where they could advertise the real version they create.
 

DarthSeduction

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Nope i understand you, but I say that your suggest are limit creator by add unnecessary branches in which dev not interested in begin and it's become a different game. You force creator just build different games. I suggest just replace all daughter father and etc. with word *censored* and post on patreon, and patch on personal web-site (It's like with adult games in steam). bc all what you do outside patreon it's not their business.
Your suggestion is exactly the same as mine only it actually would break immersion. The game would advance exactly the same way that it was intended to regardless of the choice as to whether or not to activate incest. It wouldn't remove the scenes or characters, it would simply replace their use of descriptors that suggest familial ties. Instead of running into the words, my sister, you will run into the words my roomate, tenant, landlord, etc all depending on the character's relationship to the household.

Yes, this would be work that the dev would have to do themselves, it would be a slight increase to their already high workload. That said, I know for a fact that I could do it in a matter of minutes on Ren'py games, not sure if the scripts are as simple on other engines but I can't imagine its too much more difficult. I'm not suggesting this as a permanent solution either. I will be the first to rail against a corporation trying to trample the rights of others, but I am not going to stop trying to create my game which will be incest heavy just because of their censorship, so I am going to have to do something to get around this, and this is the best way I can think of.