I’d like to dedicate this post to those of you who are straddling the fence right now........
What do I mean? I mean those of you who say that they are early access but don’t remotely let their content out from behind paywalls, much less on time. They say on their patreon “Oh, I’m early access! This will be released in 3 weeks!” 3 weeks come, 3 weeks go, nothing’s released. People are still waiting and waiting, and waiting for content to come out from behind the paywall.
Let’s also not forget all of the people who release 70% of their content under early access, but instead of making patreon exclusives things such as how-to videos, polls, or other methods of interacting with the creator, they make “exclusive” CC for their patreons that you only get if you pay the paywall fee. (Which STILL violates EA’s rule. ALL CC you make has to go into early access and THEN be released, OR just be released for free.)
Here’s the deal, I am not against early access at all. I think it is a wonderful way to show CC creators we care. But part of the problem is when you SAY you are giving people early access, and then keep stuff locked behind paywalls, not only are you legally breaking rules, but you are EHTICALLY ruining your reputation. How are your patreons going to expect you to keep your word to them when you cannot even keep your word to the community?
Look, if you’re gonna be a tool and hide content behind paywalls, at least have the guts to admit it versus trying to claim you’re in line with EA’s TOU. I’d almost think that some people are doing this to try to deter pirates from stealing their stuff, but to be honest, it’s really **not hard to do the math** and check your tumblrs/patreons/sites to see if you have kept your end of the bargain. Most pirates don’t like to share content from donation/early access creators, but if you’re not following their part of the ethical bargain with EA, well, I highly doubt the pirates are going to give you a pass and not distribute your content.
Now, if there’s a legit reason (ex: computer died, family emergency) that your content isn’t uploaded/shared on time, that’s fine as long as it’s communicated about to your patreons/followers. But some people it’s been over a month or two since stuff was posted, and that’s getting a little bit too long.
Really great example right here:
Looks like a normal early access blog right? Not too bad....until we reach this...
Now here we have a custom skin that this patreon still has LOCKED behind a paywall. Notice when it was posted? NOV 25th of LAST YEAR. It is now the 19th of January, well past the time for the skin to be released to the public. And there have been OTHER skins made since then, all still locked behind paywalls.
Now, giving this creator the benefit of the doubt, I then checked their tumblr to see if perhaps they posted the skin for free on their tumblr:
No dice there.
You see the problem here?
If you are spending money on patreon to support sims 4 creators, PLEASE do the community a solid and don’t support people who act this way. Support people who actually care about the community, care about copyright, and care about respecting the TOU of others, and the game creators. If you need a good list, feel free to check my sims CC tracker.
