Folks,
A few points to address:
1: Please do not expect the F95 mods/uploaders to "block" any uploads until after the 4-5 day window. It is just not feasible on a piracy site to expect the mods to start adhering to / enforcing rules like this. If someone pirates/uploads within seconds, then the mods are obliged to post/update. If they start blocking uploads just because the DEV asked (reward or no reward), then this would just turn people off F95 (and it would go against a lot of what F95 is for). So if the game gets leaked early, please do not direct any complaints to F95/staff/uploaders. The decision rests solely with the pirate (not the facilitators / medium).
2: I have never (and will never) criticize F95 when my game is pirated. And I 100% acknowledge that I have a lot of current patrons that found my game through F95.
3: I really do not understand the points made about Patrons getting punished / shafted, etc. I really think those posters should get an adult to read to them the proposal once again, because they are just not getting it. The bonus scenes are not going to adhere to Patreon rules, so they were never going to be released via Patreon. And they are not something I have already created, which are going to be deleted just because I am pissed off. They are a Reward scheme (e.g. Extra) to try to dissuade people from pirating. You stick to my request, you get the reward, you don't stick to the request - you don't get the bonus but everything else still continues as is and the game keeps on trucking either way!
4: The only person I'm appealing to is the person who considers pirating/uploading the game immediately. This person does the pirating because they obviously get some sort of gratification from it due to the kudos (either real or imagined) they feel they receive from the rest of the community. All I'm doing is trying to bring some balance to the other side of the scales and show them that they may not be the "hero" to everyone in the community if they release too early.
5: Will it work? Doubtful, but as I've said already, at this stage it is mostly a social experiment. If it works (very low expectations), then great. If not, my game gets pirated immediately, I get pissed off, I get over it and the dance starts again (but hopefully the "hero"'s sense of achievement will be diminished because he'll be pissing some other people off too, other than me)!
6: Since this forum began, I have seen countless messages (here and via DMs) from people telling me that multiple things I am doing (items such as this proposal, some of my responses, some of my game choices, etc.) are "going to cost me Patrons" or "going to piss off my patrons". All of these comments usually have one thing in common - they are almost always written by Non-Patrons. Please don't try to second guess the patrons, they are well capable of representing themselves.
7: For the non-patron fans out there, I write this game as much for you as anyone else (hence why I interact here), so please don't feel the game is only for Patrons (just the early release version
). And while I appreciate the offers of boycotting an early pirated version, please don't. If someone has pirated it, then go ahead and play it and join the discussion guilt-free.
