Updates to the Patreon tiers and to early access. (Patreon)

Hello everyone!

I hope you're all doing well.

I have an update today for my Patreon page, and this will be the first major change since I opened this back in 2021.

Currently, there are 3 tiers: Liquid, Solid and Big Boss tiers respectively.

The $3AUD Liquid tier will stay the same but be renamed to "Supporting the gaming busker" as you've given me some dollars as I perform for you on the street and I tip my hat at you in response, thank you for being here!

I will be blending both the Solid and Big Boss tiers together, as one singular early access tier named Patreon Early Access for simplicity. The price for these two tiers have been $10AUD and $15AUD and I have never changed the price even after increasing the early access period from 3 to 7 days. On that note of early access period, I will be increasing the early access from 1 week to 2 weeks, but this will not yet take effect. I will provide an update post when the 2 weeks of early access to content will commence, and I will not be raising the prices. (Also, don't pledge through the app on iPhone, because while it may look the same, I chose to eat the increase Apple fees, so I get paid less from iPhone pledges as to not pass the increased price onto you. I recommend pledging through the website.)

With this change, the early access price will be $10AUD. Which means, anyone already at the Solid tier does not need to do anything, as you will stay the same. I will not be asking for more money and my absolutely amazing patrons who have helped me over the years to continue to do what I love, I appreciate you all so much. Thank you to the Big Boss tier patrons paying a bit extra for a couple extra benefits or just because you wanted to.

Going forward, the Patreon credits screen will attempt to include all early access patrons instead of just BB tier (FYI, I can only track and include members with a current "active" pledge, not those that have cancelled, or pledged but are now a free member as Patreon's filters can't accurately capture this)

I will also be making my polls public in future for my whole YouTube community, to properly gauge what current and active viewers are all looking for. I hope this can help chosen games to perform well and I also feel bad myself if I am not posting Patreon polls frequently enough as that is a benefit some have paid for. I know everyone has been very understanding of that given how long games can take to play, but I feel this change will be for the best overall.

As far as I am aware, the way changing tiers works means that if you don't change your pledge you are able to retain it so you could still be considered BB tier, it just will no longer be reflecting the benefits included (credits and polls) so you will manually need to downgrade to the $10AUD tier. This is up to you, as I believe pledges can be with a customised amount for those that are generous enough to donate a little more which has always been something I am grateful for as you don't have to. The BB Tier has been unpublished, meaning that new members cannot pledge to it but existing members are able to remain if they so choose.

Lastly during this time of turbulence with uploads, thank you for sticking with me and I apologise for the mess. I am tearing my metaphorical hair out about views and channel growth and how perhaps my constant video spam in the past with daily/more than daily uploads has resulted in too much too fast, and then as a result viewers are spoiled for choice or falling behind and most of the videos are performing poorly as a result because of how much there is to watch and that I may have just been hurting my channel quite a bit.

Sometimes it works and it works well, other times it doesn't work well and because YouTube sees a constant stream of underperforming videos in terms of views, YT deems it not worthy of the algorithm, and the channel begins to be buried. I want to try and fix this, but it will take some time and some intentional pacing of uploads and series to get this channel back in the good graces of the dreadful algorithm I serve.TL;DR:-Renaming of Tiers-Solid & Big Boss Tiers blending into one Early Access tier, at the Solid tier price. No price increases.-Patreon thank you credits now for all Early Access patrons, and no more Patreon polls.-Soon, 2 weeks of early access instead of 1 week. Earlier access for no additional cost.-Much love.

Thank you for supporting my dream, and I will continue to do all that I can for all of you <3