Upcoming Patreon Tier Changes; New Tier and Price Structure for October 2026 (Patreon)

Hi folks.

Thanks to everyone who took part in the discussion this week about theming/branding for the existing Patreon tiers. I wanted to find medically themed names which game a bit of a hint about what the tier entails, and I really liked the suggestion to try and theme it so you guys are the game design clinicians.

🟢 General Practitioner is still the general support tier which gives you Discord access and most of the bonus video stuff. 🔵 Cardiologist is the blue tier for folks who want to support IGC with all their heart for a few, mostly community-oriented perks. The purple 🟣Neurosurgeon tier is for people who are more curious about the inner workings of my 🧠 (can you tell I've recently been watchin Severance?)... and who therefore want more of the behind-the-scenes and/or draft/deleted stuff. I'm also using this as an opportunity to slot in a new 🩶 Medical Student tier at the bottom, while slightly bumping up the price of the green tier to help keep things sustainable. There's a full breakdown of why below, and these changes won't take effect until October [which means they won't affect some of you until the month after that, either]. For those who don't want to read the whole post but do want a discounted year on the 🔵/🟣 tiers, you've got until the end of September to use the discount code HEARTSANDMINDS27 for 15% off of a year of Cardiologist or Neurosurgeon level membership.

👾🚑🚑🚑

🚨There are About 20 of You on Old Tiers, Not Receiving Benefits or Perks!!!

I appreciate the support, but you're missing out on stuff! There are a few of you who are still on two of the old, currently unpublished tiers from last year, called Community Member and Big Name Patreon. If this is you, I'd ask you to switch soon, as I'm going to close those down at the start of October.

📈Tier / Pricing Adjustments

The start of October will also see a couple of small price changes, which are intended to help make sense of the different benefits available at each level.

I'm introducing a new bottom tier [🩶 Medical Student] which will cost £2.99 PCM and allow folks to receive some of the video-based benefits without the stuff related to Discord or Indies Under the Knife. I want to have a way for people to support the channel with the smallest viable amount, but who don't necessarily see any benefit from those other things. Folks in the new 🩶 will get the ad free early videos on here, and the Q&A videos, but its mainly for folks who are too busy to get much benefit from the Discord community (or who simply don't like that platform.)

The 🟢 General Practitioner tier will increase by £1 GBP from 3.99 to 4.99 a month. Hopefully for most of you this won't cause any issues, but if it does you can also consider dropping back down to the new 🩶 Medical Student tier (existing Discord members will still retain access as long as they are active/friendly/helpful community members, even if that won't be a Medical Student perk going forward). For others, the slightly increase in 🟢 might give you reason to upgrade to 🔵, which - among other things - gives you a priority bump for the IUTK playtest scheduling, and the ability to submit questions for the Q&A.

Our Discord is fast becoming an incredibly helpful resource, and I cannot thank you all enough for keeping it such a helpful and productive place. At the moment there are a few of you who act as moderators or otherwise help me with community stuff and/or content. I am trying to pay people what I can, when I can, or provide little bits of coaching to say thankyou to our mods. I know that communities like this generally do operate on a volunteer basis - even very large ones - but I would like to be able to afford to employ at least one dedicated Community Manager full time within the next year or two.

To put things in a very blunt financial context, the combined income from the Patreon and the YouTube channel's AdSense revenue is still only twice the cost of my rent. So for the sustainability of the Discord (and my ability to eventually produce more content by hiring help with editing etc.) it probably does make sense to slightly bump up the price of the 🟢 tier, then add in the new Medical Student tier for folks who don't really use the Discord. In the meantime, I continue to pester potential video sponsors, and look for funding from arts councils and the like, but I also don't want to undersell what we do here.

🟣 / 🔵 The purple "Neurosurgeon" tier and blue "Cardiologist" tier will stay as they are. I've clarified in the perks list what differentiates these two tiers; Neurosurgeon gives you more BTS stuff like deleted older videos from the channel, and early drafts of book chapters and video essay scripts. Cardiologist gives you book reviews/summaries (when I do them). Both of the middle tiers (🟣 / 🔵) also allow you to submit questions for the Q&A. Every tier above 🟢 gives you a bump in priority for the Indies Under the Knife playtest schedule, as well as your Discord badges. Until the end of September, you can use the discount code HEARTSANDMINDS27 to get 15% off of an annual subscription to either of the Cardiologist or Neurosurgeon tiers, whether you're upgrading from General Practitioner, a totally new member, or an existing member of purple or blue gang who simply wants to save some money because you intend on still being here this time next September.

🎓The 1:1 Mentorship Tier is Still FULL [I am Sorry!]

🟠 Mentorship / Coaching will stay at £79.99 per month, but please keep in mind that this will increase to £89.99 at the start of 2027. There are a few of you who are still on the books as mentees but not receiving sessions for whatever reason; please consider stepping out so that someone can have a slot, if you don't forsee yourself using your 1:1s in the next few months. I'm swamped with my book and game projects right now, so I can't go above the 5-per-month in this tier right now, and I'd like to make sure people waiting do get a chance. You have all been great to work with over the past months/year, and I'm happy to work with you for as long as you need me, but let's free up the spaces if you don't need them.