Tag: Artist

Patreon is back at it again, ruining their perfectly good business model because investors are annoyed they’re not getting more money for less work

• Under the existing setup they’re basically just a transaction processor, allowing creators to receive a little support from a lot of people more effectively than users could on their own
• • Creators currently get 90% of pledges, with 5% going to transaction fees and the other 5% padding Patreon’s pockets
  • Considering they just announced they’ve payed out over $1B in payments, that 5% is pretty sizeable
  • Especially because the business scales indefinitely- adding more users doesn’t really add to their overhead or staffing needs
  • • Compare that to a service like YouTube where a channel could upload hours of video a day, taking up a ton of storage and processing, but if no one watches them then there’s no return on that investment
• Unfortunately under the guise of “building a sustainable business”, aka their investors (who they didn’t need) want all of the money forever, they’re moving to creator membership tiers with higher costs and mucking with features that everyone uses
• • Keep in mind, their business is kind of the definition of sustainable
• So, what does this mean for creators? Well the plus side is they say current accounts won’t see any changes (though they’ve sprung changes on us without warning before, so that could change)
• New creators will get to choose between Patreon Lite, Patreon Pro, and Patreon Premium
• • Lite gets you a basic creator page with no membership tiers, and Patreon keeps 5%
  • Pro gets you basically what they’re offering now, with membership tiers, analytics, and promo tools. This is the one they’re grandfathering existing accounts into at no extra charge, but new accounts will pay Patreon 8%
  • Premium has all that plus a “dedicated partner manager”, team accounts, merch for membership, and the privilege of giving up 12% of their income with a minimum $300 fee
• All in all they’re charging more for the same features, and adding on new features that, from what I’ve seen, current Patreon creators don’t care about

Nintendo’s Nindies Showcase was this week, and here are some of the highlights

• Cuphead is coming to the Switch on April 18 with Xbox Live support (so presumably trophies?)
• My Friend Pedro, a 2.5D run and gun you’ve probably seen gifs of on Reddit with its ridiculously stylish and acrobatic gunplay, it hitting the Switch this June
• The creators of Crypt of the NecroDancer are bringing us a Zelda themed adventure this spring in Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer Featuring The Legend of Zelda
• • Uses an art style reminiscent of portable Zelda games and features 25 remixed songs from the franchise
• Those are some of the bigger ones announced, but it’s definitely worth your time to check out the other trailers as well

We also saw some details on Google’s new Stadia game streaming service, and it looks interesting

• One of the biggest pieces to it is being able to play a game within seconds of seeing the trailer on YouTube
• • Official trailers could add a Play Now button, launching the game directly within your browser and letting you play immediately
  • They say as long as you have a stable internet connection, you can play modern games without hitches even on phones, tablets, or chromebooks
• You can play with whatever you have connected to the device you’re streaming on- controller or mouse/keyboard, or you can use their fancy Stadia controller that actually connects directly to the cloud via wifi
• • Plus it’s got built-in integration with Google Assistant- with the press of a single button it will automatically detect where in the game you are and show you the most relevant YouTube video to help out
• They also say that, because the processing is all done in the cloud, developers won’t have to worry about performance when it comes to couch co-op and dealing with rendering a split screen
• id Software has even announced that Doom Eternal, the sequel to Doom’s 2016 reboot, will be playable on Stadia in 4K at 60fps
• There are still a lot of questions, like latency and costs, not to mention how developers can expect to get paid, but if nothing else this will continue to push the cloud gaming conversation forward
• Fingers crossed this doesn’t mark the beginning of the end of offline gaming, especially since I don’t really want me gaming completely controlled by Google

After Disney fired James Gunn from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 over some decade-old tweets dug up by right-wing personalities, they’ve finally decided on a new director- James Gunn!

• Apparently while the film was on hold they never started searching for a new director, and instead became convinced he should be given a second chance
• He’s still making The Suicide Squad, so Guardians 3 won’t be coming out for a couple more years yet
• As fellow APN member I Have Some Notes said on Twitter, “People who say terrible things should be admonished, people who say terrible things but apologize and learn should be encouraged”

Netflix is getting back in the interactive adventure game with You vs Wild

• The show will star Bear Grylls across 8 episodes as he attempts to survive extreme conditions and climates, and ask viewers to decide what he does and whether he succeeds or fails
• All 8 episodes are hitting Netflix on April 10

For more proof that we’re in the darkest timeline, NASA has issued a warning about space herpes after the virus was found reactivating in crew aboard the shuttle and ISS

• Apparently spaceflight increases stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which can suppress the immune system
• The worst parts are, the longer the mission the more it seemed the viruses were reactivating, and it can have lasting effects up to 60 days after landing

Tidbits

• Apple’s released new second-gen AirPods with their usual speed improvements, plus they’ve added Hey Siri functionality and a fancy new optional wireless charging case
• • AirPower is still nowhere to be found, but apparently Apple just recently got their hands on that trademark so it could be here next year for gen3
  • Either way, the new ones have launched at exactly the same price as the old ones with some extra features so I’d call that a win
  • We also saw some low-key updated to the iMac and iPad lines, with the new iPad mini finally getting a retina display and Apple Pencil support
• A fancy new Oculus headset, the Rift S, is coming this spring with higher-resolution screens and a PSVR-like headband
• • It also comes with Oculus Touch controllers and not require any external tracking sensors, all for $399 USD
• Hello Games continues to revamp No Man’s Sky with this summer’s Beyond update, bringing “radical new” multiplayer components
• • The new No Man’s Sky Online will specifically avoid subscription fees and microtransactions, and will be free for all existing players

• Really interesting, entertaining, and human alternate history set in a world that a large scale disaster in 1952 has humanity accelerate space programs to create colonies on other planets
• This is a series where I find myself really reading the acknowledgements, because it’s so cool how many scientists, astronauts, and pilots contributed to the accuracy
• You don’t often see fiction novels with a bibliography

Literally Misleading

From our lovely Family member Scott.

Check out his twitter @scottybomb and his podcast The Read-Along, its a weekly book club for where you can follow along with Scott and Anita!

(Movie) “A father’s present to his son goes awry when the instructions aren’t correctly followed.”

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