Patreon is normally used to collect one off or monthly donations to fund a project or support a creator. Now one indie developer is turning the idea on its head by offering to double and return all pledges made to him since he first set up his account.
Raymond Doerr, of SixtyGig Games, originally took to Patreon in an effort to build a rainy day fund to support his one man games development company.
His vision was simple, to produce fun to play games free from micro-transactions. It was an idea that people wanted to get behind but Raymond knew it wouldn’t be an easy ride. Removing micro-transactions means removing revenue sources and for a small one man studio that can be a difficult decision to follow through with.
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In order to make his goal happen he set up the Patreon account to give himself a monetary buffer, just in case things went wrong.
In his account description he says “100% of the money pledged to this Patreon will be put into a special rainy-day account, so in a worst-case-scenario, SixtyGig Games can continue development on current and future projects even if the projects lose sustainability. As long as the current projects are profitable, absolutely none of this money will ever be touched.” It seems like Raymond kept his promise.
SixtyGig Games has now produced and released Rise To Ruins, a god-like village simulator available on Steam. The game, despite still being in early access, appears to have built up a strong and dedicated following. At the time of writing it has almost 2500 reviews, 91% of which are positive.
It's this success which has led to the game's creator to take the unprecedented step of returning those Patreon pledges twice over.
In a post replicated on both Steam and Patreon, Raymond thanks all his supporters and makes the bold pledge back to them.
“Your support has and always will be appreciated and I thank you all for your pledges, reviews and of course, buying the game,” he says. Raymond goes on to talk about how the game has done so well that he no longer needs or wants to take money from donators. He then takes the unprecedented step of offering to return any pledges made twice over “to return the thanks you gave me by pledging.”
While some may be skeptical, the comments section of his post on Steam overflows with nothing but love and support for the move, with many pledging to buy the game just to support the developer.
One thing's for sure, in a world of loot boxes it’s refreshing to see someone with a very different outlook.