So a charity that receives donations and gives a shirt or armbands for amounts over x dollars make it a service company?
I’m just saying it isn’t black and white. Don’t make it out to be
I’m not saying it’s not. I believe it is100% a way to support Rollplay and the content it produces.
Keep it civil.
You can disagree with people, but that does not mean you should be attacking them or be aggressive. You can and should state your points in a calm and rational manner.
I assure you all, that would help you get your point across. Rudeness just turns your comments into white noise and be subject to removal due to them breaking the rules of the forums.
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I fully understand people being upset either about the scheduling difficulties or the patreon change. This is the exact place to voice your thoughts, struggles, and opinions. If people want or need to drop their pledge on patreon or twitch due to those changes I feel for them.
We (almost) all come from a position of loving Rollplay and want to see it succeed our expectations. Most of the arguments come from understandable frustration in one area or another.
We just want to make sure those disagreements don’t turn into attacks or insults.
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I would argue that the one-shots and live shows are a consistent improvement/feature of the Patreon, plus the bonus exclusives, with the only major content loss being Blades. Inconsistent months are a simple given - unless Rollplay becomes a multi-million dollar business, there’s gonna be weak seasons every year due to the nature of the medium and people involved, etc. For other big budget show production in the “biz”, shows have very deliberate off-seasons anyway.
The way I see it, year 1 was a successful experiment, but it revealed numerous flaws within their strategy and business model that they had no foresight on. Ambitious promises and such being what they are, they were diving into new territory largely uninformed. Year 2 is an effort to restructure the business model into what year 1 should have been had they been able to see into the future. Regarding the $1 tier specifically, JP has said on many occasions in the past year that he undercut the value of the rewards too much.
In my opinion, I think there should be a bit more transparency, and it sucks that the base tier has changed. But I think restructuring the business model is overall an intelligent decision and that recent content issues haven’t been a reflection on JP and Adam’s commitment to making Rollplay the best it can be in their eyes. Hopefully JP has plans in place to improve his “scheduling and commitment” system (considering he wanted to hire someone for just that, I imagine he does). With regard to unsubscribing from the Patreon - it’s chiefly a personal issue for anyone that has to consider how they spend their money. Vote with your wallets and spend wisely.
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Indeed, I’m fascinated by RollPlay as a medium and engaged by the stories produced by the participants, and I’ve greatly enjoyed being able to concretely contribute to the shows and additional content. I want RollPlay to succeed and grow, such that I must restrain myself from spamming this thread on each point.
In short, I was startled by the apparent shift away from the goal structure, as I had anticipated a renewed and expanded push to reinforce and expand those efforts. The changed paradigm to maintaining the achieved goals from Year One with unspecified experimentation is unclear to me, and I hope the budget chart and other efforts at transparency will help clarify the intended direction. I will say that if more funds for cast members will help show stability, I favor that expense as it goes to the foundation of everything else. I’ll hold further comments until JP is able to respond to all this feedback.
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it is an investment though if you’re pledging money in an attempt to help the patreon reach it’s financial goals that will allow Rollplay to produce animated shorts or 2 live Rollplay shows. If the patreon isn’t at or above that goal level and those perks are the only reason you’re pledging money, it is an investment.
Not certain this is the place to bring it up but did not see a more appropriate thread. As a heads up, it appears that the zines are still not available to $10 subscribers. I’m only seeing the MP3s and Two Dollar Buy In directories.
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Just tweeted out:
One I’m not referring to just those that are suporting @itmeJP on patreon, but those that also suport by twitch sub and donations.
While i understand that many Patreon pages are for support and not to gain a specific product, i feel like RollPlay has been marketed more like a business model. This was a move to make RollPlay a business instead of something not so defined as JP understood that he needed to take things more seriously and start having contracts.
While inconsistencies are given, there should be backup plans. I’m actually rather amazed how well the shows have been rolling out the way they have been booked. They need to have five or six people healthy and without technical issues. What i would like to have is something else than a tweet that the show is cancelled as one of the participants can’t make it and there is nothing else. “Yeah Timmy got sick so none of us came to work today.” isn’t something you hear normally. 
Tho i agree that this has been greatly improving lately.
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I just think under that definition, any time you give anyone money to anyone, you can call it an “investment”. I think that makes the term lose meaning, just the same as calling buying a product a donation.But, it’s personal preference I guess. (On a side note, It’s interesting to see people using the word “donation” instead of “tip” or “gratuity”. )
Personally, I always thought of my sub as buying instant vods and my patreon as buying character creation and post-shows. Never once thought it as a charitable thing to do, and didn’t particularly care if JP expanded the show or not. But if people want to think of it a different way, I get it. I happen to think they’re objectively wrong in the terminology/semantics, but that’s just my opinion.
Well I used the term donation because that is what twitch calls it. So, when referring to that proces on twitch that is what I call it, so there is no confusion, How people think of it is up to them.
I don’t consider it charitable either, or as a donation. I made that clear way earlier in the thread. Streamers and patreons aren’t charities, therefore they’re not donations.
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Oh yeah, I was talking about others. I was compressing everything instead of replying to half the thread.
it’s not what twitch calls it. They’re “tips”
when you give money to a streamer via paypal you’re not donating to them, you’re TIPPING them.
subs aren’t considered donations either. A lot of streamers use the wrong term as well.
JP and others use the word “tip” instead because it’s what it really is.
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After a Google search, I have found out where this problem comes from.
Paypal’s default money-giving button is labelled “Donation”. People started referring to what the button says on it, instead of what it has traditionally been called, a tip. Paypal’s button basically defined the vernacular.
oh, major fail on PayPal then… I wonder why they do that?
Probably just that one of the Paypal developers liked and chose the button, not thinking too much about the implication.
I guess it depends on what the streamer wants to call the donation tab is how they want people to think of the extra money given.
Hmmm…
Definition of donation
: the act or an instance of donating: such as
a : the making of a gift especially to a charity or public institution
b : a free contribution : gift
Definition of tip
: a gift or a sum of money tendered for a service performed or anticipated : gratuity
Definition of gratuity
plural gratuities
: something given voluntarily or beyond obligation usually for some service; especially : tip added a gratuity for the server
So if I give a extra money with the expectation that it will be put to some good use that will benefit all of the viewers, that is a tip or gratuity, but if I give money with no expectations then that is a donation, but then again that might not be how the streamer thinks of it.
Have we beat this horse to death yet?