Okay that makes a little more sense but I was under the impression if you’re making money from an American company you’d have to claim it there too. If it’s just on our own taxes that’s not as complicated I guess? Thank you for straightening out that misconception I had.

No, I get that - but the decision to do or not do this can impact other people too who are potentially getting into the market.

Also it's hard to get us all here to reply when most of us don't usually check this forum just because it's rarely super active haha. We've gotten a lot of great updates and changes from you guys in regards to CWs without having to have like...29340834 page threads now xD So we mostly forget about this whole forum I think.

Also, I think everyone appreciates what you were trying to do by finding a way to give back to us all, but even the artists agreed that they'd stop selling designs and taking commissions - if that happens, a lot of people who like to commission will quit playing, since this is their fun escape. I don't think it was really a 'world is ending' response so much as a flat truth: if they can't participate in the part of the site they enjoy the most, they won't stick around because what would be the point =/ And sure, some of them probably wouldn't leave entirely, but I definitely think there'd end up being a negative impact in the longrun on the site's income from the market. I think folks could've maybe worded some of it better, but I don't think anyone was trying to be hurtful. I think it just raises the fear that if this happens, they're going to lose the place that they love the most (and it's a good thing people are so passionate about being here right?).

said everything I could possibly say! Thank you for being so coherent and well-spoken.

I apologize for being harsh, as I am super glad to even have the chance to have input at all (not all sites are as forward thinking), but I am glad that pretty much everyone has flatly refused support. I think it's important not to beat around the bush about big experience-altering ideas.

Personally, I would much rather any extra money that the site has lying around go toward programmers and other staff as a boost to the site quality as a whole. I heard recently (can't remember where, unfotunately, and I have no idea if this is true) that the payment structure for Subeta incentivizes producing items/wearables rather other site contributions, and if true I think that is a shame. I think site engagement and overall excitement to play would go upwithmore attention to lore, plots, NPCs, pets, and site areas. Right now, aside from new beautiful wearables, there's not a lot of fun stuff happening.

Most of the releasers on this thread have seemed far more interested in a discount to submitting CWs rather than being paid for them, if you still want to reward releasers in some way. I also like 's idea of a free copy for the releaser and/or artist. That would take some of the burden of submission off of releasers, who already pay a lot in commission fees, usually.

As for stimulating the CW market itself, I know I have a million and a half ideas and I'm sure most people active in the CW community do too! I want CWs to stop being the red headed step child of the site LMAO. The CW community is tight-knit, but like Reaper said above, there are a lot of people on the site as a whole that are either unware of, confused by, or even actively opposed to CWs. I want that to endddddddd

I tend to let myself think through the emotional reactions as much as I can before I sit down to type out a response. It also helps me take some time to think up other options/things that might help achieve the end goals haha.

I looked at the thread and read a few responses on day one, but didn't have time to reply until day two so that helped ❤️

i know people have strong feelings about this, which is good, but i think that some of those reactions kind of leave out our general gratitude over this. you ask the opinions of your users before making decisions that affect their gameplay experience, which is something that you don't get with many other sites. you listen to us, too! and you're constantly trying to make subeta better and push improvements to the quality of life for the players, even though the player base has decreased quite a bit. i think all of us appreciate the amount of work and time you put into subeta, because we love playing it and we love how engaged you are with both us and subeta. i know that hearing people respond negatively to an idea you want to present can be disheartening and frustrating, especially if you think that a feature would be good. but we do appreciate what you do for us so much! thank you for your time and dedication to subeta ❤️ we love the game you've created and want to see it grow, too anyway~ not to oversimplify everyone's posts, but it sounds like the main issue most of the people have is that this new model would dis-incentivize people who commission their CWs, and potentially make that process more expensive. however, i think we're all in agreement that the submitters/commissioners are an important part of the ecosystem. the work they do allows artists to focus on creating art and not managing release/shops/etc.. it also helps to ensure that new/different ideas are being pushed into the ecosystem with more people contributing to the items than just the artists. and the artists are... well, the artists! they should obviously keep creating, both for themselves and for people who commission. here are some initial thoughts that i have that could help incentivize submitters and provide some boost to the ecosystem:

1. (i already mentioned this, but) providing free copy of submitted cws to artist and submitter when the first batch is sent through. this would take some of the upfront cost off of the submitters, and also potentially allow them to turn more of a csc profit with the first batch that's submitted. for my first 2 cws, i had to pay for 3 of the copies in the first batch (one for myself, one for my artist and one for my friend i wanted to send a copy to), and the 2nd batch didn't fill, so i had to cover the submission cost for the 2nd batch as well. if i hadn't had to cover the cost for my copy and my artist's, and if they hadn't been included in the first batch, my entire first batch could've been filled with people who paid for the cw, instead of me having to cover extra expenses for both batches. i could've done some shuffling to make this a bit less stupid for myself, but could still be an improved experience for me
2. make it easier for people to get csc? i know this could have wider economic implications for subeta, but some people can't afford to pay for csc with cash money, or just don't want to, so they're basically not able to participate in this part of the economy. the last time i was really active on subeta, 500csc was like... max 14mil or something, and now it's spiked to 55mil? i used to be able to justify spending sp on csc in the past, but now it's just so expensive. i can't even buy a full cw wig with 500 csc! this piece of the economy makes it very difficult to acquire any cash shop items without paying money for csc. if more people have access to csc, more people can buy slots on cws, submitters are incentivized to commission and create more cws (which they often pay money for)

• i'm not entirely sure how this would be implemented, since earning csc is in only a few parts of the site right now, but sort of redoing the quest situation from this past week where we got more morty cards, or maybe having more morty cards drop for the weekend quests.
• another thought is integrating the pets more into the site economy. revamping the job system to have some csc payout, something like that? (although tbh i cant see myself using it until there's a 'bulk collect profits' button so i dont have to click each one, but this seems like it might be easy to implement?)
• i would also be in support of perhaps decreasing pet spotlight to once a week and adding some rewards? maybe a magical keepsake box and 1kcsc or something.
• give out csc rewards from time to time when battling?
• give out csc rewards for people whose pets are fed/happy for x number of days? (i dont love this idea but you know here we are)
• maybe a loyalty box token for some csc?

3. (i saw someone mention this before) decrease the upfront cost of 1. submitting cws, or 2. buying cws -- if i, as a user, can't buy the cw i want (let's say a wig, since those are my favorites) with the lowest tier of csc i can buy from the shop, that kind of is a thorn in my side. so now i have to spend $10 usd for an item that costs $7 usd.
4. allow people to purchase non-standard amounts of csc. kind of related to the previous point, if i have 400csc on hand and need 300 csc to buy the item i want, i, personally, would be more inclined to buy 300 csc than to buy 3 100 credit gift cards for 30mil sp or so. this would be the sort of thing where if neither of these options are compelling enough for me, i just wont buy the cw i want.

there's my thoughts (:

I think put it so much more eloquently than I did. I didn't mean to come off the way I did but what she said really reflects how I feel. Subeta is my escape from daily crap, and so are CWs. I enjoy them, its why I keep putting the money I do into them. I just don't want that escape ruined or even for Subeta as a site on the larger scale to suffer as a result of this. I'm sorry if I sounded crass (I'm still not feeling well so my brain isn't quite thinking through what I'm saying and I'm sorry!)

I personally would much rather see things like a lowered submission price, especially for the direct to shop option. Or as has been suggested above, one free copy in the first batch or something like that. Those are the kind of incentives that would help someone like me, that takes awhile sometimes to get enough cash and csc together for both a commission and a first batch, submit a lot more stuff.
I'm sure it would make it a lot less intimidating for new people looking to get into the market as well.

Look at you, you smart cookie. ;) I usually enjoy reading your responses to threads like these, because they are usually very thoughtful and smart. Actually, I love discussion threads like this because it's so nice to see everyone's differing takes. I'd also love it if we could get a more general site-wide discussion about CWs. I'm honestly tempted just to post some kind of thread in general dicussion and see if I can generate any conversation on how to make CWs more appealing and fun for the masses.

Here, here! I love your positive attitude. I completely agree that this site and its awesome staff do a wonderful job engaging users and asking for feedback on the running of the site and trying to make it the best it can be fore everyone. I'm absolutely chuffed that we are getting the opportunity to discuss major potential changes!

I also like your ideas for making CSC easier to obtain. I'm sure it's a delicate balance of not giving away TOO much CSC, because then users wouldn't have any need to spend money on more, but giving people a little more freedom to spend on "extras" around the site might be good for new CW folk.

I agree, I think lowering the cost of submission and/or providing a free copy for the first batch would be a great step in lowering the barrier to submitting CWs. I'd even be happy if just the submitter/releaser received a free copy, since not all artists want/require a copy - that can be negotiated by the releaser individually.

As for me, a lot of what I'm seeing in this thread indicates a desire to remove the obstacles to commissioning, submitting, and buying CWs. There's an opportunity here to make CWs easier for EVERYONE to enjoy, and it'd be awesome if we could put our thinking caps on and figure out how best to do that! The more people that are obsessed with this awesome pixel hobby, the more CSC will be bought/more profit given to the site.

I can't say that I am in favor of this idea. Too many blurred lines and Subeta has a disclaimer that states "Anything you submit, including items based on personal characters, becomes property of Agoge, Incorporated." So I am not sure why you would get paid for something that you agree is no longer yours by the site?

I get wanting to grow out the market and expand the user base, but I don't think this is the way to do it. To keep long time players as well as bring in new players, I would focus on fixing the things that don't work, add new features, and potentially change old systems. Maybe one idea could be selling merchandise artists make for USD and then paying them a percentage of what sells? I'm talking about a real item shop

I used to just react but then nobody listened to me ever haha. So now I try really hard to think it all through first.

❤️❤️ I got y'all, I know nobody meant it in a mean way.

I hope no one is offended by this but about the removal of the CSC slot, as a person who does her comms only via csc for many reasons, I hope even when this mandatory condition is removed some artists will open CSC slots from time to time. I know I don't pay real money for my comms but I know others have purchased CSC from the site with real money to slot on the things I commission so that does bring money into the site. Just my two cents on that. Would hate to completely lose my ability to commission because I can't offer USD at this point in time in my life.

- I haven't started releasing CWs yet, but I am amassing a list of ones that I'd like to release, and I released a lot of customs on Gaia. One of the reasons I left Gaia is that releasing customs on Gaia cost hundreds of dollars. The original Tessa the Thylacine item cost me $350 out of pocket.

I cannot do digital art at all. I draw, sorta, but it has to be scanned. I could not do any of the stuff that I plan to do if I couldn't commission it.

One of the only advantages of doing custom items on Gaia was that you could commission mockups from other users, but the site artists did the official art for you. (They had to, because their avatars can be animated and move around on the flash parts of the site. But this is also why it cost a zillion dollars and sometimes took over a year to get to releases.)

If it is no longer profitable or appealing for artists on Subeta to do CWs for releasers, you will lose all the good ideas that your non-artist releasers come up with. The ability to think up great stuff like @Cresenta and other commissioners do doesn't always come with the ability to draw it to the standards of this site.

I haven't released anything yet but please don't do this. I made every single one of the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) items on Gaia. I plan to do more thylacines here because we only have one and I want some happy ones. Rare animals are my jam. I also want to make children companions and other animal companions.

Also, the whole thing with the CSC slot? Sure, digital art is just as valuable as physical art but I never thought that's what the CSC slot was for--I thought it was for making it so that you wouldn't have to be responsible for any disputes arising from realworld currency transactions, just like it is on Gaia and many other sites.

has a valid point on the items that do not require skintone, but honestly, releasing items that only work on one or two skintones, usually white people skintones, shouldn't really be an option anyway, unless they are things like seul's cream cakes that work to cover up problems with the base layer--and I think those should be made cheaper, so that being inclusive didn't cost sellers a fortune. (I personally want to do one that covers the base ear lineart because 90% of the time my avatar is a cat and she doesn't have an additional set of monkey ears on the sides of her head. Currently my fix for this is judicious layering of wigs.)

Tbf, a lot of people have been doing kind of oddly positioned mods to either hide the skin tone of the limbs entirely or to shift so the hands etc are over parts of the base that can show through to work around the issues with it. As it stands now, I wouldn't submit or buy any mod that didn't work with the primary base I use - and while I'd love to be able to submit mods for all the bases (1-10 + 19 and 20), it's not cost effective, so if I did have a mod that had to have the skin tone put in by the artist, it would be the base I use it on - which is what most folks do. I don't begrudge them the fact that they want the item they paid for to work with the base they use most often, I don't think disallowing mods that have the skin tone built into them is a solution.

And I understand the plight of folks who can't pay with USD often/ever (right now this is me too), the work level is the same as if they were making traditional art (sometimes even more work) and it's unfair to force them to accept currency that cannot feed them or pay their bills. I know of several artists who are likely to still take csc for additional slots/recolors, but it shouldn't be mandatory.

I don't really have a position on the CSC slot except that there are a couple releasers I really like who'd be cut out of the market if it went away.

But here's my thoughts on the other matter:

In the real world, I'm not a cat, nor am I as dark as most of my avatars. I'm a blend of Irish and Jewish and some kind of Asian. Valiska Courinna (the character I usually portray--today I'm her sister Lissandra) is dark enough that she would be taken for black or mixed-race were she human, and Lissandra, who does live on Earth, is taken for a person of colour if she wears a hat.

If I wanted to make my avatar look like me, I could wear almost any CW.

If I were actually as dark as Valiska, Lissa and Callista (my main Wizarding character) are, I would have to pass on a LOT of CWs unless I wanted to make "white" avatars, and having to do that would probably make me pretty resentful tbh.

The releasers tell me that it doesn't pay to make the other skintones because not as many people will slot on them, and I understand where they are coming from.

But it's still a situation where societal racism is being reinforced, and that still bothers me, even though I totally agree that the cost of being inclusive shouldn't be unfairly distributed only to CW releasers.

I don't know what to do about it. Lyonesse and I have talked about her coats. She doesn't own the original art and can't alter it for recolours, which again is understandable. It's really too bad because I feel that if the original artist had just put mittens or gloves on the hands, it would've been perfectly appropriate and avoided the entire problem. Most people don't wear a heavy outdoor coat without some kind of glove or mitten.

But just the other day, I saw a brand new CW (not a recolour of old art) that came out in base 2. And I gotta say, it pissed me off that people are still doing this, even though it wasn't an item I'd personally buy or use, because there are people who would who aren't white.

Anyhow, the racial thing is a digression, but I think rewarding people who don't do things like this is a good idea.

@Cresenta

I didn’t see the comment about removing CSC slots but I haven’t been following this board very closely. I can see why it was brought up. There are already so many ways people bend that rule to make USD the more favorable payment option. I think that rule needs to be updated to avoid people coming up with work-arounds and then better enforced.

Oh I def agree that no one should be forced to take CSC! I was just expressing that I hope some CSC slots will be available for people like me regardless of the change. However you are right and I have seen that those that don't want to do CSC slots already use the loophole so I guess it wouldn't change a thing if it was taken out officially. Those that want to accept CSC still would do so. I guess we'll see. ^-^

@Cresenta I was the one who brought up the csc rule being removed. I brought it up mainly because while I can afford to offer csc slots (and will continue to do so when ever I can, even with the rule removal!) I know some people cannot afford to, and I see a lot of people (especially in the art market) quit entirely when they realize Subeta wants a cut of their profit for their work.

Right now the current rule is easy to abuse or manipulate, and I don't know if staff can police it in a way that's fair all around to everyone. It's also not fair that traditional art can be paid for with just USD, and that implies that a physical copy of something is worth more than a digital one (which obviously isn't the right message to send on a site that's 100% digital and wants us to spend money on those digital goods lol)

TLDR; there will always be people who try to help people out who don't have USD to spend, I just want to see artists being treated more fairly because csc often is like being paid nothing for your time and work, especially when you've got everything IRL to take care of.

@Cresenta Yeah, quite a lot of people already work around the rule to avoid it and I'd rather just see the rule removed entirely. I believe that most of the people who don't work around it will still offer CSC options (for recolors, for premade designs, maybe occasionally even for full comms). I think it would just remove the loophole issue that I know bothers a lot of folks.

I understand where you're coming from on the racial issue, I do. But I'm not a paint white demon IRL. I generally don't commission mods because b20 doesn't sell any better than b8 (actually, it sells worse than all of the natural tones). My point about it is that forcing people to either hide the tone (which is increasingly difficult if you want a unique pose) or not allow them to release unless they do all of the 10 standard bases wouldn't work. People would just stop releasing. I appreciate when artists can find a workaround for the mods that just the skin tone sections over portions of the base itself so that area can be left transparent, but it's not always possible. I honestly don't think it's about race nearly as much as it's about what works for the bases people use most frequently - and while that might be a symptom of systemic issues, forcing people to pay for recolors for every base isn't going to solve it. Nor would banning mods that didn't hide the skin tone or be formed in a way to make the skin tone section transparent.

The mod I released that had visible hands had to be adjusted quite a bit from the original release design in order to have transparent hands and it /still/ didn't sell well enough. The original design was more popular but less usable because of the base tone issue.

has already stated further up the board that he's working on a solution to the entire limb issue, which will hopefully make this a moot point - but until that happens, I don't think people (releasers especially, who are already paying quite a lot for these) should be forced to spend more money. And, unfortunately, the other bases tend not to garner enough interest to fill a batch :/

I don't agree that CSC equates to absolutely nothing in terms of payment but I do understand that USD is actually useful irl while CSC is only useful on Subeta. CSC doesn't help pay bills, I totally get that.

I understand. :) I hope you are right. I guess time will tell. I feel like most of the artists I have worked with so far opened CSC slots because they felt like it and not because they had to. And seeing how many of those there have been it does give me some hope that I'll be able to keep releasing things after the change. Albeit perhaps little more slowly than I am now but regardless at least it's likely to not be a total dead end. I hope anyway. ^-^