I've Seen A Lot Of People Over The Past Couple Days Discussing Patreon Early Access And Whether Or Not

I've seen a lot of people over the past couple days discussing patreon early access and whether or not it's included under ea's new policy. Most seem to agree that exclusive/perma-paywall models are bad, and a lot of people seem okay with early access. So I thought I'd share just why I don't really approve of the early access model either.

1) Trusting patreon creators (in the sims community) with your private information is a risk. Unfortunately, it's been shown by exclusive and early access creators alike that it simply isn't safe to trust them with your info. Eacc creators (not just exclusive) have communicated with each other about those that have shared their content early, and the info they have can include usernames, email addresses, real names, and possibly even paypal information if you have it linked to your patreon account. Users have been doxxed and harassed over sims cc of all things. I, personally, don't feel I can pledge to anyone safely anymore, whether they're following the old 2-3 week early access model or not.

2) There is no quality control. There is no way to determine what you're going to get before you pay for it, and if it's not good quality, you're most likely not going to get a refund. Patreon doesn't make creators refund you, they have to decide to do it on their own. So you can have mods that don't work, ridiculous high poly meshes, no proper LODs, low quality textures, etc and you're stuck with that.

3) There are no standards. People on here argue a lot about what should be charged for and what shouldn't, because there's no consistent standard for what is acceptable or not. Should sims/tray files be early access? Recolors? Conversions? Only mesh edits? What about tiny mesh edits? Is it the time alone that matters? But if that's the case, how much time should a creator have to spend on something for it to be worth paying for? There's no agreement, and so what people will put behind a paywall gets more and more ridiculous over time.

4) New (and some old) accounts making patreons without interacting with the community in any other way besides making money off them. There's no standard for who should make an account and when, so a lot started out just with the sole intention of making money. Also, there are older creators that tapered off their interactions with the community to purely focus on patreon. Early access took over the community so completely because it was easy and anyone could do it, and so they did. This only furthered the problems with quality and standards of cc.

5) Early access creators becoming exclusive over time after they built a following. Also, other shady methods to make more money I've discussed in other posts, such as: making super tiny edits look more enticing by lumping them together in "add-on packs", linking their "free" content through link shorteners/simsfinds/tsr, steadily raising tier prices in order to access all of their content, releasing a piece of cc for early access then coverting the same piece of cc to another frame and putting it under early access again, increasing the early access time period or "forgetting" to unlock things on time, and more. All of this just shows me that many early access creators aren't much better than the exclusive creators. They're toeing the line to stay in the public favor, and perhaps avoid legal consequences, and nothing more.

6) Shifting the focus in the community from creativity to monetary gain. Modding communities (such as those for the Sims, TES, Fallout, Dragon Age, Stardew Valley, and many many more) are built upon learning from one another and working together to enhance the gaming experience. In other words, to have fun! Modders have done amazing things without having the goal of making money off of it, and while it's nice to have that as an option, the sims community shows that it winds up hurting more than it helps when it consumes to this extent. I've talked about this before so I won't go into it too much, but creators are burned out and tired, and other simmers are frustrated and bored. It changed the community as a whole and it shows.

As a concept, early access is fine, but in practice... when everyone is doing it, in so many different ways, with no sense of standards... it becomes a problem.

kinda been going a little crazy with the townie makeovers lately lmao. btw i still don’t know my sim-style?? it seems to be “just do things until you get a decent result" 🥴.

it’s fight or fright in the full moonlight

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A Short Essay: The Root of the Problem

Or: Let’s Discuss the REAL Issue Here in the Sims Community

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I’ve seen the argument again and again: “You don’t have to support them if you don’t want to. You’re not entitled to someone’s content.” 

It’s not about being entitled to content. NO ONE is “owed” content. Period.

It’s about the situation that paywalls put the community in and it is about respect–paywalls foster a division between the people who have money in the community and those who don’t, and it breeds attitudes of undeserved superiority and entitlement on the part of the permapaywall “creators.” It’s not harassment to point out that these people are toxic as hell and it doesn’t help that people keep defending them, but then do nothing for nothing for us early-access and free creators. 

This whole fucking mess is REALLY about treating people fairly and having respect for the community and other artists. The fact that permapaywall defenders are so hung up on the materialism of it is proof enough that this community has a serious problem.

I am an artist and a creator and a member of this community too. Do I not matter because I am not ~a brand~, or because I am not ~luxe~ and popular enough? Are the people who download content somehow less deserving of respect than CC creators? Permapaywallers do not deserve to act as though they are above being held to account for how they treat others, for lying about where their CC comes from, and for acting entitled to people’s money. Again, it is about treating people fairly and permanent paywalls will do nothing but divide a community whether or not someone chooses to support them. 

God forbid someone shares something with someone who cannot afford it, and then they get doxxed and have their privacy violated as a result. How is that fair or respectful? They PAID for the content. They BOUGHT it. It was a business transaction, end of. So, why is that someone not worth having their privacy respected, but a permapaywaller can get away with such behavior simply because they put items up for download? 

I will say it again and again: This is about how we as a community intend to treat each other and permapaywallers are not above being held accountable for their actions, PERIOD.

NO ONE IS ENTITLED TO CONTENT. AND NO ONE IS ENTITLED TO MONEY.

This is an unpopular opinion, I know, but allow me to clarify what I mean by that.

No one is “owed” content. If a creator isn’t feeling up to doing x, y, or z projects, the community should be respectful of that. They should not demand an artist’s time and they should be considerate of an artist and their life outside the computer. Artists SHOULD be compensated for their work. So many people want to take advantage of people offering commissions and freelance work to get something for cheap/free.

HOWEVER.

No one is entitled to someone’s money. Especially not when the product(s) provided is/are derivative. If a friend shares a set on a Discord server because a lot of people can’t afford the permapaywaller’s prices, and that person gets doxxed simply because they shared a product THEY BOUGHT with people who were unable to pay for it themselves… Who is in the wrong, here? The person doing the doxxing, obviously, because it is a direct intent to violate a person’s privacy in retaliation for sharing a product they paid good money for. 

Bottom line: People should not be punished for sharing CC they bought with actual money and people should not be punished for not having money to buy it to begin with. Putting a derivative work up for download does not mean you have the legal right to treat people like shit, harass, or violate a person’s privacy, in retaliation for sharing your content.

Now time for some strawmen!

“You don’t have to support those people.” Yep, I sure don’t. And the problem with that statement is the ignorance of the broader culture around permapaywallers and their “brands” and exclusivity. 

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the Sims community in the last 5-7 years, which is where the most exclusive and popular content becomes the predominant content in builds shared widely across multiple platforms. I see free content creators’ work get sidelined because God forbid the latest felixandre or harrie set not be featured in someone’s build, because we all want to suck up to the big name creators and builders, we all want to be exclusive to get those notes, etc.

It’s become harder and harder to find and promote free content because people seem to just not care if it’s not posted as a CC Kit and if it’s not bougie and exclusive enough. And if you can’t admit or even be bothered to see that non-exclusive creators are getting sidelined by this, then I don’t know what else to tell you. (And before someone says, “you’re just jealous”–I’m really not. I have a day job and I also maintain anywhere between 55-65 patrons and have done since 2020. I don’t have anything to prove to anyone, to the point that I’m willing to give my early access content away if someone is excited enough and is nice enough to ask for it before the 2 weeks are up.)

“Artists should be compensated for their work!” Yes, they should. And don’t you dare act as though that means anyone who monetizes content is suddenly above being held accountable for their actions. Don’t you DARE use the sanctity and respect creators deserve as a platform to gaslight people into thinking toxic and aggressive behavior is OK. Consumers are taken advantage of just as much as freelance creators, usually by the biggest companies or, in this case, the people who make the most money–and usually with meshes that have been proven to be stolen or converted and then lied about.

“I don’t blame people for going after pirates!” No artist worth their salt is going to be okay with violating people’s privacy–ie, breaking the law–simply because someone shared their pixels after purchasing them. 

I’m gonna say it louder for the people in the back:

No artist who is actually a real proper creator would be okay with breaking the law simply because someone else shared content that was purchased from them.

“But it’s piracy!!” You don’t seem to care about that when you ask for the game crack to TS4, or literally any other game or free download. Also, it isn’t piracy to copy and paste a file that is based around derivative work that is actually owned by a proper company (in this case, EA). That’s like saying it’s piracy to repost a fanfic you commissioned, with proper credit given to the original writer. You bought it, it’s yours, and just because other people’s eyeballs looked at it doesn’t mean the original creator loses out on traffic or revenue.

As long as credit to the original creator is given, derivative work is not piracy. It is literally just free advertising.

When someone subbed to my Patreon and threatened me with spreading my early access content, I thanked them, and offered to refund them the money. You want to pay me money to spread my content around? Fucking SURE. That is literally advertising and I’ll let you do it for free.

“You’re hurting the artist making their living!” If they’re such a damn good artist and creator, they should join actual communities and websites who make a real living creating 3D models. Plenty of people DO do this as a job and they make actual good money doing it because they’re good at what they do. The reason a lot of these people aren’t doing that is because they use assets and free softwares based around EA’s Sims 4 coding and they take 3D models other people have made and convert them. So, no, it’s not actually hurting anyone for that reason either.

Strawmen are done now.

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At the end of the day, this is about what kind of community we want to build and how we ultimately want to treat each other.  The fact is this community DOES need to reckon with how it treats its creators and how the creators treat the community.

Paywalls are dividers between the haves/have nots. Trying to deny that juxtaposition and its cultural/psychological effect just makes people look thoughtless and short-sighted. We need to be more supportive of each other period, and that means not kneecapping or dividing ourselves. It means not cheapening the heart in CC creation by putting more importance on content than on the community itself. 

The community has fallen over itself (in large part) for “luxe urban luxury” exclusive CC. But I think it would be silly to just blame that on immature people/kids when it’s really a result of the capitalist nightmare we’re living in. It’s like blaming a fever on wearing too many layers instead of addressing the infection as the source. 

As for how to change that… well, I don’t know, honestly. I really don’t know where to go from here. But what’s important now is that we bring these issues out into the air for discussion.

We need to figure out where we’re headed as a community and how we want to treat each other going forward. And we need to figure out how we’re going to deal with the people who don’t want to play nice with the rest of us.

And, to the people who disagree and don’t want to be mature or civil about this: Just like you say we don’t have to buy CC, you don’t have to read this post, or participate. Go run along back to Twitter or wherever it is you want to be rude and snide. I don’t care. I have a life and a full time job and I also know what grass feels like. Take time to pet a cat or dog, touch some grass, tell someone you care about that you love them. It’ll do you some good.

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@mack3030 @littleblackbooksims @murfeelee & whoever else cares about this.