Been wondering about that for a couple years https://www.patreon.com/pinball

Was previously over $1,000 a month with somewhat higher output, but not by much.

The irony is a deep dive into deteriming the total $$$ brought in by Bowen's patreon to calculate the average cost per tutorial would make for a great episode of kaneda's podcast...

His patreon was set up in 2016. Archive.org shows at one point pledges exceeded $1,400 per month.

I believe any amount pledged goes to the creator every month. I'm no expert, so if I'm incorrect I hope people will correct me.

Bowen has various goals and the next highest not yet reached will display to incentivise new pledgers. Presumably all those already reached goals are active (in terms of money being delivered and products being expected).

If you click the left button on his unmet monthly $800 goal, you will see that he has already met his monthly $550 goal (and his monthly $300 goal, and monthly $175 goal, and monthly $150 goal, and monthly etc.). And, again, for I believe years he exceeded his $800 goal, and his monthly $1,050 goal, and his monthly $1,325 goal, etc).

Unless patreon exposes historical pledge data, only Bowen could report how much money has actually been brought in, since patronages can come and go. It seems fairly likely that the total numbers in multiple tens of thousands of dollars.

I was never a major backer, but ended my monthly subscription years ago when I realized he wasn't delivering anywhere near the same amount of content he did in the first couple years.

I do think it's a subject worthy of clarification. Set it and forget monthly withdrawals lend themselves to exploitation. Whether intentional or not, it seems to me Bowen has taken in far more money than he has delivered on per the terms he originally set up.

This isn't surprising given he went from a math teacher pinball hobbyist to someone employed in the industry. But if his situation has changed enough that what he originally said he intended to do no longer lines up with what he now intends to do, he should be transparent about that. And if that merits changing the terms of his patreon and offering refunds for deliverables unmet, he should do that.

More than half of his patreon funding has moved on. But what remaining percentage isn't aware they're still paying for something that has long not been delivered and may never be?