@ironwolf
In the days of old, patrons would fund artists, musicians and so on to enable them to dedicate their time to creating works for their pleasure. In essence, that's exactly what Patreon does. I'm a self-employed businessman I have to justify spending my time on whatever I do, whether it's design, copywriting, editing, illustrating. I'm at a crossroads where I realised that with blogging, making videos and so on being so time consuming, I can only carry on doing that if it brings me an income. Trying to get advertisers or sponsors is pretty hopeless for that kind of thing, because I can't guarantee the high levels of traffic that, say, TMP gets.
But what I can do is carry on producing high-quality content for a select group of people – my patreons – who support me. For a pledge as low as $1 USD a month, you can gain access to the content I'll be providing, all generated by me at the lower levels – blog posts, podcasts/vidcasts, both with or without guests, how-to posts and videos, reviews, graphics work such as maps and illustrations, live Q&A sessions/discussions etc – but if the thing really gains momentum and the pledge totals reach the upper level goals, then I'll also be able to afford to commission work from others and it will be a serious centre of creative production. A bit, indeed, like an online magazine, with lots of variety in the gradually accumulating content.
There will be comments and discussion in response to posts, but it's not, nor will it ever be, in the mould of TMP. It's not a forum as such. I wouldn't want that, and that creates its own problems of moderation and so on. There's only me, and I want to be able to concentrate on running the business, not policing random drunks in the middle of the night!
I think it's fair to say that the people joining this so far are the same kind of people who bought and understood Battlegames, but who have also moved with the times and realise that the challenges and overheads of producing a startup printed magazine are not only huge, but an unnecessary risk in this day and age. Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it. BUT if the higher level goals are met, it may well become possible to produce short run or print-on-demand publications which members would receive free, or at a substantial discount, depending on their pledge levels.
I think that's about as precise as I can be at the moment, because things are moving so fast that it's hard to keep up with what stuff I'm going to kick off with next month, let alone in, say, a year's time! But the point is that I will always be committed to producing entertaining and interesting work for the members which happens to coincide with my own interests. After all, the whole point is for me to be able to continue doing what I love and the patreons enjoy.
Thanks for your interest.
