Wait why weren't you allowed to do a kickstarter are there weird rules for that or something? ooo i cant wait to see what comes for this project in 2024 then, whats already here has piqued my interest so i bet whatever you have in the works is way better! i hope you have a happy holidays & get to spend time with the cool people you care about <3
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It's to do with the stupid rules in my country for people like me who can't work cos of disabilities and stuff >.< Cos I get government aid to buy food and pay bills etc. you're basically not allowed to have a lump sum of money like something you'd get from crowdfunding go into your bank account because they would see it as earnings/income, and then you'd immediately lose your aid and have no money to buy food :(
It really sucks because if I ran a Kickstarter, I wouldn't get any money for myself, it would purely be for funding voice acting and art for the project so 100% of that money would immediately be going to pay other people, but it's still not allowed because they don't care what it's for. There's no distinction >.< They see it's money that you have, so you must not need the aid.
I had this whole big meeting with a guy whose job it is to advise on money and such, and he basically just said to me, you can accept one-off donations of support from people as long as they don't exceed X amount per year, but any crowdfunding would immediately trigger losing the aid. It's the same reason I can't commercialise any of my games pretty much :( Cos he said to me, as soon as they see that you're gaining money from them, it counts as income, so you would lose your aid money, so unless I'm confident I can actually make a living from selling my games and earn enough to pay bills and buy food, then it's better to keep them free for now.
And I don't think I'd get anywhere near enough money to live off of trying to sell my games x3 sooo yeah, I'm basically stuck in this weird kind of limbo where I'm reliant on the aid money and can't afford to lose it, but it means I can also never really make any progress in trying to turn my hobby into something I can survive on >.< Other political parties want to make changes to the system to include a kind of safety net that allows you to keep your aid while you venture into trying to make something from your endeavours, like self-employment, but without the fear of completely losing the aid money if things don't work out, or with getting to keep like half of the aid money while making yourown small amount of money alongside it.
But the current political party we have in charge atm (who have been in power for aaaaaages) basically hate the disabled and anyone who isn't able to work for whatever reason, and so they make it as hard as possible for you to be independent >.< They randomly kick people off of the aid for the tiniest of things. Like there was a case in the news recently where a lady who has 12 different disabilities (including physical ones that mean she can't walk more than a few metres unaided, so she has to use a mobility scooter to get around), and she had the government aid cos she couldn't work due to her disabilities, and they took it away from her after a recap assessment over the phone deemed her fit for work o.O You could be dying and they would deem you fit for work! And they want to introduce new rules next year on the mental health side of things that say you don't qualify for the aid unless you are actively in crisis. Honestly, I don't even have the words to describe how disgusted I am at them as a government for the way they handle mental health in general. It makes me extremely angry and sick to my stomach :( They basically just see you as a liability. They want you working, or dead. But they do nothing to actually help you get better or get into work >.<"
Thank you ^-^ I shall definitely be spending plenty of time with my family! It's pretty much the only time of the year I get the opportunity to game with my dad because it's the only time of the year he gets off of work besides weekends x3 So we're planning to play through all the Dark Pictures Anthology games together, me, my dad, and my brother :D
I'm annoyed that I haven't managed to release my Winter VN Jam project for when I hoped to though cos I wanted to release it this Friday just gone, haha. It's finished in the sense that everything works in-engine. But it's missing a hefty chunk of voice acting cos one of the VAs got ill and won't be able to finish recording until January, and I've been so busy with visiting family and Christmas prep that I haven't had a chance to test exported builds or make a game page for the project yet T_T It sucks cos I wanted it done before Christmas so that I could relax over Christmas week and not have to worry about it x3 But instead I'm gonna have to do testing and make a page and stuff after my family go to bed each night cos if I don't release it by 31st December, I will have missed the jam deadline >.<
Hope you get to do the same and eat lots of tasty noms as well :3 <3
yeah disability pay has a loooong way to go, thankfully my disabilities arent so bad that they prevent me from working (in most places at least) but so many people are stuck in that loop and is so gross like why would you cut disability pay anyway just cause they're making some money making a bit of money doesnt make you not disabled anymore its just kicking people while theyre down wich is super contradictory coming from people that supposedly care about disabled people. sorry you're unable to charge your games are really good and you deserve to make money off of them imo ( if you still wanted to keep them free that would be fine too but its sad that you dont really get a choice in the matter:[ ) i hope you have a great time spending time with your dad ive never heard of those games before but going off of pictures and stuff they look really interesting. :3 good luck with the project i cant wait to play it ^_^ and i hope you make the deadline. o7
It does indeed >.< Funnily enough, I had an assessment type thing yesterday that was related to my mental health and autism to do with a benefits review, and the lady asked me if I’d had my autism all my life… and I was just kinda stunned >.< cos like, well, yeah, I was born with it. Just because I was only recently diagnosed doesn’t mean I suddenly caught it like a cold or something o.O They say the people conducting these assessments are trained health professionals and yet it seems they don’t even have a basic understanding of autism >.<
And then she went on to ask if my autism has gotten better or worse throughout the course of my life… and again, I didn’t really know what to say because I didn’t even know I was autistic until I was an adult >.< but either way, what does that even mean as a question?! It is what it is. It doesn’t go away and come back like other mental health stuff can. I’ve had it since I was born and I’m stuck with it until I die x3
And yeah, it’s like they do everything in their power to make it difficult for people with disabilities to contribute and be valued members of society, all while claiming they care when they clearly don’t :(
Tbh, I think I would always want to make them free in some capacity even if I could make money from them in another way because I feel like, yes, it would be nice to get paid for the stuff I create, but I also wouldn’t want a price tag to prevent people from accessing it if that makes sense. Cos not everyone has money to spend on games, and if they weren’t free in some form, it would prevent those people who can’t afford to pay from being able to play, which would just feel wrong to me >.<
It’s kind of a shame that honesty systems don’t entirely work, haha. Cos like with itch, there is always the option for people to donate and give what they can afford, and there are some amazing people out there who do exactly that :3 or they go to ko-fi or something and donate there instead where I don’t lose a chunk of the donation to US tax x3 But I have a bad feeling that those sorts of generous people are the minority >.< I imagine there must be plenty of people out there who play free games here on itch, do have spare money that they could afford to give to devs, but choose not to because the game is free and so they go spend that spare money on something else that they’re forced to pay for if they want it because it isn’t available for free, like a coffee or a sandwich >.< haha.
Which is fine! People are free to spend their spare money on whatever they like. It's just, I think people forget sometimes that if devs don't get enough support, they might not be able to keep making stuff. I've seen several small studios and solo devs have to quit making games because they were forced to go work a 'normal' job to survive, leaving them with no time left to do dev stuff :(