Hello ladies and gentlemen, my name is
KurtJMac,
and welcome to a long overdue Patreon update video,
where today I would like to introduce some changes to my Patreon campaign for 2016.
They start on January 1, 2016.
I wanted to let you guys know about these a few days ahead of time because
if you are current patron and you want to adjust your patronage,
you need to do so before January 1
otherwise the change won't take affect
until the next month, February 1, which
is fine also.
But I just wanna give you guys a bit of a heads-up.
I have been on and off Patreon making posts and asking for opinions of all my current patrons
about the changes that are coming forth, the most important of which is that
I've introduced a reward tier to launch a Farlander patron Minecraft server.
But more on that in a minute. I first want to do a brief recap of Patreon so far.
I started my Patreon campaign back in July of 2014.
And if you all read that article that Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers interviewed me for,
one of the quotes was that "if it wasn't for Patreon, I'm not sure I would have been able
to even continue doing this YouTube thing full-time beyond 2014."
And that right there is the truth, so I very much appreciate all the support right from the get-go.
And then all the continued support here for over a year and a half on my Patreon campaign,
which I suppose I should have introduced earlier is at patreon dot com slash kurtjmac.
Things that it has enabled us to do is for those one and a half years and continuing here,
every episode of Far Lands or Bust from episode 1, to when we started walking on episode 11,
all the way up to the current episode 544 - which is craziness, craziness I say! -
Is that where we're at? We are at episode, yeah, 544.
Each of those episodes, there have been
no advertisements, in-stream commercials.
There might have been a little banner ad or something like that on the bottom every once again.
But unobtrusive, no commercial advertisings on any episode
of Far Lands or Bust for the past year and a half and continuing forward.
We've also gotten up and running
on a once a week Twitch livestream
currently incarnated as the Twitch Twuesdays as that continues on.
And there have been no mid-stream
advertisements during my Twitch livestreams.
Also we have launched with the season 6 year,
we launched the podcast edition of Far
Lands or Bust that is supported from Patreon
over at flob dot podbean dot com, so the the audio podcast edition for you folks
who find the jitteryness of the
Far Lands or Bust world to be a bit much,
you can now listen on the iTunes, or however you want to download that podcast.
We also enabled the console gaming.
I got the Xbox One and we played Forza 5, Forza Horizon 2, Forza 6,
and now most recently we're playing Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox One.
All of those videos have been made available without pre-roll advertisements,
so when you click "play" the video starts right away.
So all that stuff has been supported through Patreon.
Of course we also launched the vlog channel KurtIndeed.
There's some changes come to that as well.
But I want to introduce some new
changes, over at patreon dot com slash kurtjmac,
and a lot of these changes honestly at this point a year and a half later,
the majority of folks who are still giving to the Patreon campaign have been doing so for many months.
So a lot of these changes are honestly a way for me to increase the rewards
and my personal thanks to them for
sticking around so long.
First of all, and most importantly, if you
are a patron of mine,
and you are a patron at the $6 level,
you want to log into your Patreon account and enter in your shipping address
because now I've reduced the amount it takes to get that postcard in the mail.
I will send you a postcard, a personalized thank you postcard in the mail.
So log in, click "edit your patronage"
and then from there - without changing a thing - you don't have to increase your pledge or anything.
You can enter in your mailing address and you'll get a postcard in the mail.
I have also reduced the coffee mug pledge from the $20 to the $10 tier.
I already have your shipping address if you're in the $10 tier, but I wanted to let you know about that.
And then right there at the $20 tier, that is where I will be launching the patron Minecraft server.
I want to make this a vanilla survival Minecraft server which is why
I suppose I'll filter through and make sure that, as much as I would love to have everybody,
over 300 Farlanders on this server, because I want it to be a vanilla Minecraft server,
it is going to take a bit of filtering and limiting of the whitelist, so that's why that starts at the $20 tier.
That I'm going to be launching in February which is why I said if you want to make some changes
like say you're at the $10 tier and all
"I want to get on the Minecraft server"
you wanna make that change before
January 1 cause if you don't,
it won't take place until February 1 for you, so there'll be a month delay.
Actually you can just go - that's where the the Minecraft server starts,
and that's probably the most important
change to my Patreon campaign thus far.
But you can go to patreon dot com slash kurtjmac to take a look at all the rewards yourself.
I want to thank all of my current patrons for helping me decide.
I've gone back and forth, I've said, "oh how about this,"
and you guys have given me all this feedback to try to help me decide the best way to simplify.
I wanted to simplify the Patreon campaign, but also make it a little bit more about
thanking everybody who has stuck around for thus long.
If this does bring in some more patronage, I very much appreciate that.
I don't talk about it that much, but perhaps this is the first time you've heard of my Patreon campaign.
This is a way that we are reducing our dependence on the YouTube advertising revenue
by thanks of all of you guys for fan support - fan funding I think is the going term.
And it really helps lately, if you notice my Formula 1 2014 series with Conedodger
hasn't had any advertisements on it, and that's because Codemasters for whatever reasons
keeps putting content ID claims on my Formula 1 videos.
So one of my more popular series at the moment is not earning any ad revenue.
Normally I'd be throwing up a fit and even holding those videos until I could get advertisements on them.
But because of very generous
assistance of those of you helping out,
pitching in at Patreon, I'm still publishing those. I'm not worrying too much about it.
It's a little bit annoying on Codemasters part, but we'll get them in the end!
But yeah, just that stuff in general.
I'm looking forward to 2016, I'm looking forward to this Farlander Minecraft patron server.
I've posed the idea that maybe it should take place in the Far Lands,
or maybe we'll have a world that's a normally generated world but then say
instead of at 12 million blocks, maybe at 12 hundred blocks the Far Lands start? I don't know.
We're gonna figure this out together, and if you're a patron of mine, if you want to become a patron of mine,
you're the ones I'm gonna talk to try to figure out the best way to go about this,
to have some fun, to thank everybody for their support.
A lot has changed in the last year and a half.
I do remember when I started my Patreon, there was a vocal minority
with a little bit of pushback, didn't quite understand the fan funding thing, but even since then,
many other Youtubers and friends of mine have started their own Patreon campaigns to great success.
Things like the YouTube tip jar, things like Twitch subscription boxes,
subscription buttons and things have become far more commonplace.
And of course most notably the YouTube Red, the "YouTube Bread"
[HOMER] Mmm, YouTube Bread. Toasty -
- has started as their response. They obviously have noticed that many of their creators
have turned to fan funding, and that was their response to that.
"Don't do that, maybe you want to do YouTube Red" and instead of getting ads, you'll support them directly.
You can very well do that and be a patron, or you can do that and not be a patron, or vice versa.
It doesn't matter, it's totally up to you,
and it's totally up to the fans.
And if you're not a patron, nothing changes for you. If anything, things get better for you.
We have the once a week livestream, we have no ads on Far Lands or Bust.
All that fun stuff happens without your input, and that's no problem whatsoever.
This isn't a requirement, I don't really push it that much.
I might, looking at it, like I said we're
switching gears a little bit.
We're putting a little bit different emphasis on different things in the new year in 2016.
So I might start mentioning it a
little bit more often in the future here.
But it's not something I really push.
Instead of a pre-roll ad, I don't suddenly start to ask people to support me on Patreon.
So you won't be seeing any of that from me, but just a little bit of a shifting, simplifying,
making it easier for you guys to understand what goes on over at patreon dot com slash kurtjmac.
And also easier on me to show you guys thanks and give you a little bit more continual rewards
as we move forward - excuse me! Talking a lot about Patreon!
So yeah, patreon dot com slash kurtjmac is where you can glance over all of the changes.
I'm gonna be changing some of the texts on that homepage,
and I'll be uploading a new video that better reflects - I should just upload this video really -
better reflects how we feel, and the things that have happened,
and the positivity that's come out of Patreon. And like I said, once again to reiterate,
I'm fairly certain that I would not have been able to continue doing this full-time
beyond 2014 when I first launched my Patreon so I thank you,
everyone of my current, my past, and if you're considering becoming a patron,
I thank you from the bottom of my Farlander heart,
and many, many Wolfie treats for you, and above and beyond.
Like I said, I'm really looking forward to this server and the other things we're working on here
And yeah, not sure what else to say. If you do have any questions, certainly let me know in the comments
or let me know on the posts on Patreon about the way Patreon works.
Like I said, once again a reminder, if you are a current patron,
make sure to log in and review your patron amount.
Like I said, if you are giving five or more dollars,
you might want to make sure that I have your shipping address so I can get you a postcard,
or a mug, or whatever you have coming to you.
And if you have been supporting - say you started supporting in December -
I'm still gonna get those rewards out, but the good thing is these new reward tiers,
you're gonna get more than you would have gotten last month anyway.
So we're gonna make sure everybody has what they've got coming to them.
And once again I do appreciate you guys
for enabling me to continue doing this awesome job that I love,
and that we're all riding by the seat of our pants
trying to figure out the best way to do things, and having fun, and meeting new people,
and doing new multiplayer stuff, and collaborations, and conventions,
and all that crazy awesome stuff that's
come out of this. It's still a bit mind-boggling.
But yeah, there we go!
Thank you so much for listening through this, and thank you so much for your support.
My name is Kurt. I, will see you, next time!
