Improvements

Joe Clay | Mar 23, 2018

Today, we're making some changes with how we do some things so that we can bring you guys more value and make Workbench more of a focus for us both. Right now there's a ton of stuff we want to do, but we have to balance that with running Yellow Dog Party. So in that vein, the first big change we're going to make is to switch around our Patreon setup. The goal is to get more content out for our patrons and lower the price of the tiers versus 4 videos a month so that it's a more attractive offer. Obviously we'd rather have more patrons paying less than less patrons paying more.

When I started this thing, it seemed like a good idea to set it up per video. But as I've posted every week consistently for a couple of years now, it makes more sense for us to go monthly, especially with Sev now being more involved. We won't have to bother with explaining that we're not charging for extra videos and we'll have a better idea of what's coming in from Patreon each month. And we might also be able to curb the few people who've joined our highest tier, downloaded our stuff, and then skipped out on paying. We're making free tutorials so it's a little disheartening to be stiffed. But it makes us really happy for all of you who have gone above and beyond to chip in.

One of our other goals is to make sort of a Patreon-lite experience with regards to project files and elements. When we make our tutorials, we build up these project files, and then we strip out what we can't distribute—like music—and then we strip out content destined for Patreon, and then we put up the project file. If you're a patron, you have to go to two places to get everything. If you're not, you get a project file but it's lighter than it could be. And if you're us, you have extra work ahead of you to do all of that and distribute it.

Well, starting with Tutorial 115 we're hoping to change that. We're now putting our project files up on Gumroad—free for patrons and $1+ for everyone else. Our patrons will still get extra content outside of the tutorials of course—we haven't forgotten the displacement maps we owe you guys!—and we won't have to make three versions of everything. The idea is to make is as easy for us to get you guys useful content, and easy for you to get it.

Hopefully this will be a better solution as we grow. And when that time comes we'll probably have more improvements to make!