First, let me start by saying I already bought your game long ago.
Second, I want to state clearly that this is not a criticism of your work, work ethic, creative output, or anything else other than a criticism of the contents of this post. I love the game, and have no complaints regarding update frequency/content, your work, or the methods currently in use to fund development.
That said…
I feel like this entire post is rather absurd. I don't know the size of your dev/creative team, but either way:
- your game brings in nearly $14,000/month on patreon alone.
- almost every other game faces similar piracy rates
- your content updates release quarterly, so patrons effectively pay $21/update
- this does not take into account
- itch
- subscribestar
- boosty
- GoG (future)
- Steam (possibly future)
Your game is doing very well when compared to other games in the genre/using the same engine/art style.
For comparison, I will use the game I played most recently, Out of Touch:
- earns ~$3500/mo on patreon
- updates once a month, scheduled
- all updates are free, subscribers get releases early
- has been around ~3yrs (~1 more than GE)
- current game size is over 8GiB vs 0.5GiB for GE (I know this comparison can be misleading due to engine differences, compression, etc. etc.)
- created by 2 devs, 1 writer, and commissioned artists
- uses a custom engine written in Unity
Everyone's circumstances are different, I know that. I am trying to illustrate the comparatively good position your team is in versus your fellow creators.
Finally, regarding the piracy issue, as a software developer myself, I know it sucks. It feels like shit seeing your hard work get ripped off. At the same time, mentioning it on this platform means you are speaking to (for all intents and purposes) the people that DID pay, not the pirates. And it sounds like you're suggesting you may halt development as a consequence, again, to the people that paid for your game.
Same goes for antipiracy measures. The fact that scene groups cracked Street Fighter 6 (which includes Denuvo DRM) less than a week after release is reason enough to abandon putting work into such tactics. It just harasses the people that did pay, gives the cracker a shiny new puzzle to solve, and has no effect at all on the pirates.
My suggestion would be to refocus the effort spent worrying/mitigating piracy into content for the game. Pirate releases take time to propagate, so the best way you can combat it is to ensure the pirates only ever have access to an outdated version.
The content of the game is great, so you're sure to win over at least a few of those that have finished the Pirate Bay version. If the version they can access is outdated, they might be willing to fork over $10 rather than wait for a new pirate release (works for software, anyway).
Anyway, this turned out longer than I'd planned, but I felt it was necessary to keep context.
Best of luck to you, and the RNGeusEX team. Cheers