The beginning of the end ?

Hello there...
   I've waited long enough to make this post, it's time for me to gather motivation and face the situation. And talk to all of you of what's happening.
 
The situation these last month :

   In september, Itch.io delisted all NSFW games without any warning, mine included (of course). All that because of the pressure of Payment Processors, like Visa and Mastercard. They later allowed again NSFW games to appear, at the condition they were completly free (even donation are fobidden), so don't expect any income from there.
It was mainly a platform I used to share my game publicly, accepting donation if people wanted, but you could get it for free. I got something like 70$ in a year, so it was just a nice little bonus. But overall, that wasn't that big of a problem for me, financially speaking. But I know quite a few devs that where hitten hard by it, loosing a good chunk of their income.

   At the same time, the same payment processors pushed Steam to remove various NSFW games from its platform, even pushing them to add a new rule, that any game that might anger the big payment processors could be banned, even if it respected the other rules of Steam. And all the while, various laws where passed here in the EU, restricting access to NSFW content on Twitter and such (thank god VPN exists).
The Steam ban didn't affect me at all, as I never planned to release my game there. But it was still another big blow to the NSFW commyunity. As for the internet restrictions, well, since then, I'm much less active on Twitter, only checking it here and there, and barely posting. But it's more due to a general lack of motivation to post there, as the algorythm gets shittier and shittier.

   In October, my Boosty account got banned. The reason ? I was doing NSFW content ! Turns out they changed their TOS without a warning, suddenly deciding NSFW was banned. I had made this account only a year ago, and it was strictly following their TOS. But nope, not anymore, cause they didn't liked to be linked to NSFW content, it seems.
I had made this account, as various Russians asked for it, since they can't use Patreon or Subscribestar due to the economic sanctions on their country. This summer, I even though about stop posting there, as I barely had on or two followers. But quite a few people joined in August and September, which was nice to see it finally get off the ground. But soon after, I was banned, because I tried to ask support how to withdraw, and their answer was "lol, you do nsfw, you banned". As monthly income, it wasn't much, but I hadn't withdrawn for quite along time, and that's around 800$ that are stuck there. I'll try to get them back, but we'll see how it go.

   Overall, this have been a lot of big blows, but nothing too big for me. I lost quite a bit, but it's more that it gives a feeling that us NSFW artist are welcome in less and less places. Lots of friends lost their income, and are reconsidering their future plans. Overall, it's a depressing situation that doesn't help at all with motivation. But hey, it would be better, right ? Right ?

The Patreon Shutdown :

   Last Friday, my Patreon account was deactivated. I received a mail explaining me it's been deactivated because I broke Patreon's TOS. In the section presenting examples of the problematic content was the base template to fill in, with no info. I got a reminder that Patreon bans Non-Consensual content, so I guess it's the reason I got banned, but I can't even be sure.
And I don't even specially do non-consensual content ! Yes, there are various situations and kinks involved, but I always do it in a way that everyone is having a good moment !
But it's the thing with noncon content. It's really hard to see if it's consensual or not seeing just one image. Which basically mean they can nuke you if they decided so, using this excuse. And it's probably what happened here.

   Is it because I was reported ? Maybe. I had a guy threatening to report my Patreon a month ago, because he didn't liked the fact that I made a NTR game. NTR game where, if I might add, we were specially careful for it to be consensual, as Nars really isn't comfortable with noncon. But it still might be the reason why I am banned. Because someone didn't like my content, reported me for content I haven't made, and then I get banned for content I still haven't made.
But maybe it's not that. Who knows ? Not me, as I got no answer from Patreon on what was a problem.

   But hey, my account was just deactivated, and the mail I received explained how to fill a contestation of the ban. So let's do it ! I took the time to do a proper mail, saying I was sorry if my content was viewed as nonconsensual, and it was not my intention. Also asking if I could have examples of what was the problem, as I wasn't exactly sure of what cause my ban. As it was my last chance to save this account, I really took the time to write something clean and respectful.
A few hours later I got the automated answer, telling me that  my appeal was under review, and it would take around 5 working days to have an answer. Alright. It's gonna be a stressful few days, but hey, it takes time to check everything, making sure you aren't making mistakes, and the people behind it probably already have other problems to take care of. So yeah, it takes a bit of time, but I'd rather for it to take the needed time to be thourough and fair.

   Precisely 6 minutes after receiving this email, I received another mail. It just said : "You claim have been denied. You can do another account in two month, if you tell us the precise plans of what it's gonna be". And absolutly no other info, like answering my questions or anything else. Nope, just the plain template anwer, nothing more.
6 MINUTES !!!

   So, just like that, all my hopes where shattered. Not only I've lost my account suddenly, without explanation, but I also have this feeling that they didn't care at all about the complaint, didn't checked my account and stayed on their original decision. You're not sure the bans was deserved ? Too bad ! You want more info on the why it happened ? Get fucked ! But hey, we're nice enough to let you come back, maybe if, you tell the whole plan, so we can decide if you've become a good boy or not.

   I'm not saying that all the moderation is made by bots. I hope not. I really hope there are people behing their screens, taking time to analize the situation and be sure about their decision. That before you pull the plug on someone's (often) main source of income, there's a good and clear decision for that. I really hope it's how that happens, and that my case was either handled super quickly, or that it was noted "ban at all cost". But that there was still humans behind this decision.

   But when seeing this situation, where the list of examples haven't been filled out, where the decision which should take 5 days comes 6 minutes after them opening the ticket for my claim, where the reply I get answers none of my question, just giving me the textbook reply, ignoring everything I said, all that for problems that aren't clear...
Well, I can't help but feel that no human checked my account at any given time. And  the bots just handled it through and though. And this feels just aweful. That loosing most of my income was decided by just algorithms.
And I honestly hope I'm wrong for all that...

My current situation :

   Well, Patreon is gone. When making it, I always knew I was at risk of being nuked without warning. So that's why I only made a subscribestar at first, and always try to keep it as my main site. But so many people only use Patreon, I made one. As I feared, it grew much more quickly than the Subscribestar, and became my main source of income. With it now gone, I'm in deep shit...

   To give you an idea, Patreon got me around 750$ a month. Subscribstar only gets me around 350$ a month (yeah, it's very far from what's displayed, I don't know why...). All this was a bit short to live the entire year, so I also took coms every few month, which helped completing what was missing. And on top of that, I had a tax deduction for my first year being officially declared. So while I was taxed 12% of my income, starting 2026, it's gonna be 24%.

   It goes without saying that I just can't make a living with this. i'll see what kind of state help I can get, but it's probably not gonna be enough either....

What do I do now ?

   It's the big question, right ? Of course, I don't want to drop the game, my art, and all this. But while this last year was a good hope of living of my own art, I have to once again find money elsewhere...

   I might try to open commission more often, but I'm not sure how I can have the same amount of coms monthly than if I do it every few month like now. Of course, what would be awesome would be a lot more support here, but I don't think we'll have these numbers before quite some time. Worst case, I'll have to take back another part-time job. I hate this, and it will probably reduce dractically the amount of time I can put in art. But I'd rather not end up like this.

   We'll see what things will be. For the moment, I'm taking this month to recover, and think about what's coming next. Maybe have other support platform like Fanbox ? We'll see...

   Currently, I'm trying to finish 0.14. But I'm not gonna lie, this event have absolutly destroyed my motivation, and I have a very hard time making progress. I know I said I wanted to have the BETA by the ned of the week... But that's unless something awful happen, and well, it just happened. I know I need to get back to work on it, as it needs to bring more people in... But it's hard finding motivation and inspiration for it... So I'm working on it, as fast as I currently can, which isn't much...

   Overall, this is an awful time, for us NSFW creators. Payment Processors, Platforms and more are trying to censor us, making us dissapear. And they push as hard as they can, with all their capitalistic weight. Humans are replaced with bots, when it comes to checking if your content is okay or not. And don't even get me started on generative AI. Slop is everywhere, in our art, in our feeds, and moderating all that. And for us, random people with a horny mind and some time to learn a talent, well, we don't fit in this new internet... I really hope this will turn better, but hope is hard to come by, these days...

   This isn't the end of my career, but it's a big crash in the middle of it. I'll try to recover from it, but only time will tell how big is the impact...

In the meantime, thanks for your support. I don't like to ask for something, but if you want to tell a few words of support, I would really appreciate it, and it would greatly help with my motivation. A few words in the comment, or in DM, if you like my content, if you want to see me keep up through these dark days. Of course there's no obligation, but yeah, I would really appreciate it...
Thanks to all of you...