I understand the people at Patreon have instructed all devs using their site to remove any reference to incest in their games by the end of the month - and also not to link to any sites that carry games involving incest.

I am happy to see they've made this move. Apart from any legal or moral considerations, as I've mentioned here before, the number of IC games was getting ridiculous. You could almost believe it was a compulsory element. I found the concept a total turn-off which spoiled some, what otherwise looked, really good games. Others made me want to puke by just reading the dev's notes.

Hopefully we can now all get to share a lot more games here in the lagoon. I feel some judgement calls may be needed from the admins because obviously some people will make a better job of converting their games than others. How hard can it be to use "Find... Replace" though?

This has the makings of being a good day for the adult game fraternity, in my opinion.

kessie8dn wrote:This has the makings of being a good day for the adult game fraternity, in my opinion.

It's not really my place to comment on which fetishes other people should like or dislike, nor what they should consider moral or immoral, nor even what types of Adult Content that site should allow and what types they shouldn't.

But it is interesting that a number of games on that site that focused on incest had/have large subscriber numbers which could indicate that many people might actually like that particular fetish. And that the developers of those same games are working on ways to allow their subscribers to regain access to content with that fetish via other means, and that their subscribers are happy that the developers are doing this.

You imply that the development of games that contained incest somehow inhibited the development of games that didn't and that if there are less incest related games being produced that somehow this automatically means the increase in the development of non-incest related games, and I don't believe that either of these correlation are true. I believe the old business adage about supply & demand was the true cause of the increase in incest based games, creators saw that there was a demand for such Adult Content and that they could make money creating it so they supplied that content.

I'm not sure I agree with your enthusiasm kessi8dn.

I don't think the huge number of 3D porn games that have appeared in the last year or two, many of those related to incest, are in poor quality because of the incest theme. There a bunch of great games though but it's really a tiny minority. No, if the theme that supply&demand asked for was blue female aliens (Avatar) I'm sure we would have the same quality of games (or lack of).

From a pure egoistic point of view, yes, I suppose Patreon decision is good in cleaning poor products from the site, directing patrons to the stuff that is good in quality.

But I can't agree with that. I don't believe in paternalism regulations. I was really upset when Paypal did that and really loved Patreon for not doing that, for allowing creators to make and distribute content that is erotic or even pornographic, and let the supply&demand decide if it's successful or not.
Quality and success not always work in pair, in Patreon, in the music industry, in the movies, in cellphones, etc... but I don't think someone should regulate creativity in any aspect. If tomorrow a great writer/3D artist with real great talent decided to create a marvelous game with Incest as theme he won't be able to use Patreon as his display platform. And that is a shame in my opinion.

I assume there are some good intentions behind this Patreon policy, but I fail to see most of them. If Patreon fears that some illegality might occur, that someone is exploited, with porn content, it's up to Patreon to investigate further any specific suspicion. 99% of porn creators at Patreon are legit and don't do anything illegal. If you want to prevent crime in a society just lock everyone up. If people are prevented to meet each other then murder will disappear from society. This far exaggerated parabola allows me to express that you can't undo/forbid what is a great thing to prevent something that is bad WHEN you have other means to prevent it.

Patreon did a FBI style investigation to all suspect creators and suspended their accounts. In a very short time span. If they're able to do that to thousands of accounts I'm sure they could simply investigate more thoroughly a creator they suspect, or has been denounced, of doing something illegal.

I'm sure that if I created a Patreon account, with a Paypall account to receive the money, where my product was to give lessons and demonstrations on how to build your own home-made guns and rifles it would be absolutely OK. All I would need to say on the Creator page would be "Folks, this is purely for entertainment. You shouldn't use guns to shoot people. Legislation might differ in your country." to be OK under Patreon terms. My page would be about metal craft only.
But I'm sure such content would be far more dangerous to society than Furries or Incest games.

There is also the possibility that Patreon did this to ensure that their site keeps a good quality standard and by issuing these terms they eradicate 98% of bad porn games. If that was the case they should be 1/ honest and brave about that approach which is legit; their site, their quality standards and 2/ coherent with themselves and also eradicate non-porn bad quality content.

I too am sad that many games I find poor in quality have so much success but I have to live with it, as I have to live with Super Heroes blockbusters and Reality Shows. You don't only have to pay more for good quality nowadays. You have to search for it too.
But I have to be coherent with myself I have to frown upon this Patreon policy. It does more harm than good and a lot of good art, work, products will be lost because of it.

I agree very much with Mortze here.

I do believe that some of the issues with Incest content on Patreon also is linked to the fact that they didn't seperate incest from pedophilic content enough. It seems in many cases that they counted one as being equal to the other.

Incest is the buzz word as it is a very popular theme in games and in porn in general. It has been so for a long time as we have the taboo movie series and now the large amount of wincest, fakecest, "step-something" workaround etc content from many mainstream porn companies. Patreon decided to list this in the same sentence as beastiality (illigal by law in many places), necrophelia (illigal by law in most places) and pedophelia (illigal by law in most places). Incest by consenting adults is a different subject as there even are states in the US where this is not illigal and there are a lot of countries around the world where it is legal as long as there isn't reproduction or marriage involved.

There are popular games on Patreon that had/have characters in "Incest" games that never would be considered adult and this should be judged on a different scale in my opinion. Many of the games are in the same boat as content from Brazzers, just using the incest term to add a little taboo spice to their content.

I do understand that Patreon wants to be more child friendly, but the line where to cut is very much blurred and if you really look into their terms of service most adult games would have to be removed as they all contain something that Patreon would deem unclean. It is just a matter of how hard they decide to look versus how much money they stand to lose.

i don't see this as a good thing at all, necessarily...and i'm a person who is fairly non-plussed by the whole incest kink/fetish.

so for starters, i'm hesitant to cry censorship too much, even tho that's my gut reaction. it's patreon's gig, and they can run it as they see fit. i get it, but it kind of sucks that they've made that decision. i will say that they appear to have acted in good faith with some of the prominent games on their platform to have creators alter or remove references to familial relations without removing the accompanying content. the big players in that space already seem to have figured out work-arounds that keep them within patreon's rules.

but yeah anyway...i'm never comfortable with telling consenting adults a fantasy fetish is bad, if that's all it is. that's slippery slope.

as for the proliferation of ic-related games, i think that's more a factor of the quick cash-in nature going on out there in patreon land. anyone who makes something in the creative space (or wants to do that) will discover a desire to imitate other good art; i think that's why mc/tf games flourished so much previously. those are particular fetishes that do nothing for me, but goddamn were some of the tf/mc games created with RAGS terrific. someone makes a great game with those elements, they attract imitators.

but now with patreon, you can get paid, too. and so a group of the biggest players in that space (dating my daughter, super powered, summertime saga, dreaming of dana, big brother all leap to mind) attracted a ton of monthly subscription $$ in patreon. did they pull that kind of money because of the ic content? maybe. but they may have also pulled that kind of interest because those creators put together some great content....that just happened to be about family-fucking. in other words...it's unclear to me whether it's the specific fetish or the quality of the writing/art/storyline/dialogue/characterizations here.

be cool if someone like wolfshadowe can get quality content like BEW rolling in more regular updates, maybe you see more content of that nature coming to the platform. which is cool. adult gaming needs more creative storytelling.

I have a few thoughts.

First, the supply and demand issue. It is definitely the case that there are developers who saw the large number of high earning incest games and decided to turn their game into an incest one. That's precisely how supply and demand works. If you sell apples and few people are buying them, but you see your competitor selling a ton of strawberries, you switch to strawberries. This change will make some of those people go back to creating non-incest games, which could raise the number of non-incest games for people to play. However, this isn't really going to change the demand for incest porn. People will just go elsewhere for it. So, if Patreon is actually trying to reduce the consumption of incest porn (I don't really think they are) then they're going to fail at it.

Second, the impact on non-incest producing Patreon creators. This change unquestionably hurts us. I'm morally apposed to incest porn. I have no interest in it. If all players wanted only incest, I'd still make my games about consenting non-related adults, and would just not have any success with them. But we've lost high paying, long time patrons who said in their exit interviews that they feel bad about no longer supporting us, but that they just can't give money to Patreon if Patreon is going to make these policies. So there's collateral damage even in the non-incest spaces. It's possible that these patrons don't even like incest. They're just standing up for people's right to make games about it.

Third, the censorship issue. The patrons we've lost to this change called what Patreon is doing "censorship." That's not strictly true. Censorship really only applies to the government imposing restrictions. Patreon is not the government. But there's certainly a grey area here. Patreon is the primary way for people to self-fund content. So Patreon wields a lot of power with respect to what kind of content can get funded. At the same time, content producers and providers and funders have the right to say, "I don't want to enable this kind of content." I, as a game producer, have a right to say, "No, I'm not going to make this kind of game." Shark, as a website/forum owner has the right to say, "No, I'm not going to allow this kind of content on my site." And Patreon, as a funding site, has a right to say, "No, I'm not going to fund this kind of content." If you had spent a ton of time, money, and effort making a service, and then you found that people were using it for something you found repugnant, you would want to have the right to set guidelines about how people use your service. Forcing Patreon to support something they don't like is kind of a reverse censorship. And it doesn't really matter how "bad" the thing they're restricting is. Maybe a game about consenting 30 year old siblings having sex doesn't seem like it should be lumped in the same category as games about a father raping his 8 year old daughter. But this doesn't really matter. The people who run Patreon are allowed to decide where they drawn the line. And they drew it at incest. If they wanted to ban non-sexual stories about baseball, that would be in their right.

Fourth, the gay marriage issue. (What? Hold on, let me explain.) So I wonder, would I feel differently if they were banning something I support? And, self-reflectively, the answer is, yes. I would. We have cases in the United States where store owners are required to serve people they don't want to serve. Resturants can't refuse service to people just because they're black. Cake decorators can't refuse to make wedding cakes for gay couples. Employers can't refuse to hire an otherwise qualified person just because she's a woman. Etc. I absolutely support these rulings, which makes me something of a hippocrite. What if the cake decorator is more strongly apposed to gay marriage than Patreon is to fictional incest? It's a tough call. I see the difference in my mind, but I recognize that it's on somewhat shaky ground.

So, bottom line, is this Patreon change good or bad? I guess I'm not sure.

Tlaero

tlaero wrote:Third, the censorship issue. The patrons we've lost to this change called what Patreon is doing "censorship." That's not strictly true. Censorship really only applies to the government imposing restrictions. Patreon is not the government. But there's certainly a grey area here. Patreon is the primary way for people to self-fund content. So Patreon wields a lot of power with respect to what kind of content can get funded. At the same time, content producers and providers and funders have the right to say, "I don't want to enable this kind of content." I, as a game producer, have a right to say, "No, I'm not going to make this kind of game." Shark, as a website/forum owner has the right to say, "No, I'm not going to allow this kind of content on my site." And Patreon, as a funding site, has a right to say, "No, I'm not going to fund this kind of content." If you had spent a ton of time, money, and effort making a service, and then you found that people were using it for something you found repugnant, you would want to have the right to set guidelines about how people use your service. Forcing Patreon to support something they don't like is kind of a reverse censorship. And it doesn't really matter how "bad" the thing they're restricting is. Maybe a game about consenting 30 year old siblings having sex doesn't seem like it should be lumped in the same category as games about a father raping his 8 year old daughter. But this doesn't really matter. The people who run Patreon are allowed to decide where they drawn the line. And they drew it at incest. If they wanted to ban non-sexual stories about baseball, that would be in their right.

That's a great argument there, I must recognize.
I just wished Patreon, as Paypal, would have the guts to clearly explain exactly what you just said.
It's just regretful that when Patreon shareholders, workers, all the team, started their business, they didn't think about those terms that they are now imposing. If I was a creator looking for a platform and read Patreon's terms before signing in I would know, from the start, that my content (Furries for example) wouldn't be acceptable and I should look somewhere else, or find another activity. But they didn't and because of that thousands of Creators invested time and money in creating content they believed was allowed that is now forbidden. That is a very poor decision from Patreon. Giving creators a 2 or 3 month ahead warning to allow them to rethink their strategy, adapt their content to the Terms, or look for another job, would have been a more fair approach. Many creators depend on Patreon's income to pay bills.

tlaero wrote:Fourth, the gay marriage issue. (What? Hold on, let me explain.) So I wonder, would I feel differently if they were banning something I support? And, self-reflectively, the answer is, yes. I would. We have cases in the United States where store owners are required to serve people they don't want to serve. Resturants can't refuse service to people just because they're black. Cake decorators can't refuse to make wedding cakes for gay couples. Employers can't refuse to hire an otherwise qualified person just because she's a woman. Etc. I absolutely support these rulings, which makes me something of a hippocrite. What if the cake decorator is more strongly apposed to gay marriage than Patreon is to fictional incest? It's a tough call. I see the difference in my mind, but I recognize that it's on somewhat shaky ground.

So, bottom line, is this Patreon change good or bad? I guess I'm not sure.

Tlaero

I think there is a difference between gay/race/gender discrimination and loli/shota market. There are laws protecting people from discriminations because there is a community effected by those discriminations and there are laws against pedophilia because there is un under-aged community effected by pedophilia so to be honest i don`t see any contradiction or hypocrisy in that. It sounds common sense and pretty coherent to me. Yes, it`s just "imaginary drawings" and "not real people involved" but it`s still pedophilia.

About bestiality/incest themed games this is mostly US problem, i think. Unfortunately US is a very important country regarding online payment service providers especially when people are not only concerned about financial data security but they want also absolute anonymity. IMO Patreon now that is growing big is more sensitive about it`s public image so the adult content will have to suffer. We like it or not it`s their right, their choice. Free market looks a lot like Karma sometimes, doesn`t it?

Is this good or bad? I don`t see any possibility all this making the bad devs/games dissappear and the good devs/games inheriting all the market share or any other positive effect. Negative effects, yes. Just not very big ones i hope.

I feel/think basically it boils down to, "This is our site, if you want to use it then follow our rules." Now I can not argue with that I am however disappointed that "they" did not spell out their rules at the start. But it is their site, their rules (now).
Hey chief (a user of their site for now.)

^ This, but then I feel like Patreon got pressure from somewhere else, so they were "asked" to remove/censor the content of some of the creators.

As far as I know, the creators that release incest content got their pages suspended and they were asked to edit the page and remove any evidence of incest, after this procedure, their games pages are back on, so they are not banning incest games but kinda "masking them".

I agree that anyone, a physical person or a company, have the right to set their terms. My lawn, my rules.
What I don't agree is the sudden change of Patreon's hearth that hurts many many creators out there, without fair warning.

If this was only about Incest, and Patreon only forbade incest, I wouldn't mind at all. I personally don't have anything against GOOD incest stories but it's PAtreon's purview to allow or disallow that theme on its servers. After all, a good writer/artist/game developer isn't, or shouldn't, limit himself to a theme only. You can't make a game about incest? Make one about adult midgets.
The problem is that this change of Terms hurts a lot more people. Here's an open letter from one such creator:

http://www.openlettertopatreon.com/

All this considered, it is fair and important to state that Patreon has had a somewhat respectful attitude with the "porn" content creators. Unlike Paypal who shut accounts down without any warning or possibility of appeal, Patreon has suspended the accounts of "porn" creators while opening a dialogue line and allowing appeals. They work closely with the creators to try to adapt their content to new terms of service. Patreon still has some sparkle of decency and respect towards the creators and that's praiseworthy.

I can only speculate that Patreon, at the very start wanted, or trusted that any content related to sex would be "artistic" and not pure "porn". I must agree that it's kind of hard to see any art - or any good art - in a game that is only built around daddy trying to corrupt his daughter into having sex with him, hardcore bestiality or webcam shows. Somewhere along the line people started abusing Patreon's good will and tolerance and Patreon had to take a stance.
To my knowledge, Patreon is still the best, and perhaps, only platform that allows Creators to have support for making their erotica material.

Mortze wrote:I agree that anyone, a physical person or a company, have the right to set their terms. My lawn, my rules.
What I don't agree is the sudden change of Patreon's hearth that hurts many many creators out there, without fair warning.

If this was only about Incest, and Patreon only forbade incest, I wouldn't mind at all. I personally don't have anything against GOOD incest stories but it's PAtreon's purview to allow or disallow that theme on its servers. After all, a good writer/artist/game developer isn't, or shouldn't, limit himself to a theme only. You can't make a game about incest? Make one about adult midgets.
The problem is that this change of Terms hurts a lot more people. Here's an open letter from one such creator:

http://www.openlettertopatreon.com/

All this considered, it is fair and important to state that Patreon has had a somewhat respectful attitude with the "porn" content creators. Unlike Paypal who shut accounts down without any warning or possibility of appeal, Patreon has suspended the accounts of "porn" creators while opening a dialogue line and allowing appeals. They work closely with the creators to try to adapt their content to new terms of service. Patreon still has some sparkle of decency and respect towards the creators and that's praiseworthy.

I can only speculate that Patreon, at the very start wanted, or trusted that any content related to sex would be "artistic" and not pure "porn". I must agree that it's kind of hard to see any art - or any good art - in a game that is only built around daddy trying to corrupt his daughter into having sex with him, hardcore bestiality or webcam shows. Somewhere along the line people started abusing Patreon's good will and tolerance and Patreon had to take a stance.
To my knowledge, Patreon is still the best, and perhaps, only platform that allows Creators to have support for making their erotica material.

I think that the open letter can only do bad for all of the nsfw games creators, they are literally going against Patreon and saying "Look at me, I'm special, treat me like I'm special." Also look at the actual game developers that have signed, they must be less than 10%.

flyrenders wrote:I think that the open letter can only do bad for all of the nsfw games creators, they are literally going against Patreon and saying "Look at me, I'm special, treat me like I'm special." Also look at the actual game developers that have signed, they must be less than 10%.

Yes. I have mixed feelings about that opened letter. I just posted it here to exemplify that there's more to it than just NSFW game creators that dwell with the Incest theme.

I don't know, specifically, which creator pages got suspended. I don't know much of them. I know, for a fact, that Mr.Dots "Dating my Daughter" got suspended and he had to change the content significantly by erasing any incest theme in it. He mentioned other Incest themed games' creators also had that problem. I don't know any - nor want to know any - Bestiality, Sexual Violence glorification, or Minor Depicted themed games creators.
While I totally frown upon, even despise, these sexual themes when using real persons or animals, I have a different opinion when the medium is paper, or pixels. That's a conversation for another topic perhaps.

Game developers are maybe less than 10% yes. And there might be a reason. Making a game usually takes time and effort. Promoting a webcam show for 20$ tier patrons is something utterly different.
We can't forget that some people are abusing Patreon's system and goals. They're using that platform as a credit card payment system only (because Paypal and others won't accept them). I've always spoken about the Patreon patronage spirit. Patreon, patrons; it's in the very names.

Patreon has always stated that they don't allow pornography, but will accept something akin to R-rated art. I've personally always made a difference between pornography and erotica. In the later there's always something more that just sexual objectification, there's a meaning the artist projects or invites the audience to interpret. Either for shocking, mesmerizing, or inspire, there's art in Erotica. The former, pornography, has only the purpose of arousing the audience. You can have a couple having intercourse, and even show penetration with Erotica. But you can't inspire anything but arousal (or disgust) with pornography.
That's where Patreon stans I believe.

Mortze wrote:We can't forget that some people are abusing Patreon's system and goals. They're using that platform as a credit card payment system only (because Paypal and others won't accept them). I've always spoken about the Patreon patronage spirit. Patreon, patrons; it's in the very names.

I believe that these points may be one of the main motivators for Patreon cracking down on particular types of Adult Content.

Mortze wrote:

flyrenders wrote:I think that the open letter can only do bad for all of the nsfw games creators, they are literally going against Patreon and saying "Look at me, I'm special, treat me like I'm special." Also look at the actual game developers that have signed, they must be less than 10%.

Yes. I have mixed feelings about that opened letter. I just posted it here to exemplify that there's more to it than just NSFW game creators that dwell with the Incest theme.

I don't know, specifically, which creator pages got suspended. I don't know much of them. I know, for a fact, that Mr.Dots "Dating my Daughter" got suspended and he had to change the content significantly by erasing any incest theme in it. He mentioned other Incest themed games' creators also had that problem. I don't know any - nor want to know any - Bestiality, Sexual Violence glorification, or Minor Depicted themed games creators.
While I totally frown upon, even despise, these sexual themes when using real persons or animals, I have a different opinion when the medium is paper, or pixels. That's a conversation for another topic perhaps.

Game developers are maybe less than 10% yes. And there might be a reason. Making a game usually takes time and effort. Promoting a webcam show for 20$ tier patrons is something utterly different.
We can't forget that some people are abusing Patreon's system and goals. They're using that platform as a credit card payment system only (because Paypal and others won't accept them). I've always spoken about the Patreon patronage spirit. Patreon, patrons; it's in the very names.

Patreon has always stated that they don't allow pornography, but will accept something akin to R-rated art. I've personally always made a difference between pornography and erotica. In the later there's always something more that just sexual objectification, there's a meaning the artist projects or invites the audience to interpret. Either for shocking, mesmerizing, or inspire, there's art in Erotica. The former, pornography, has only the purpose of arousing the audience. You can have a couple having intercourse, and even show penetration with Erotica. But you can't inspire anything but arousal (or disgust) with pornography.
That's where Patreon stans I believe.

So basically people that are not making adult games are a part of this letter and they want to allow full pornography on Patreon, which as you said is something different than making an adult game and something that Patreon doesn't allow since day 1. I know a lot of people that got suspended and they only had to edit their public posts and remove some keywords from their pages.