What type of negative experience on Substar If i may ask? Substar doesn't work for everyone it seems but for some it's really great.
There's a lot of pressure that goes along with taking monthly donations. I felt persistent guilt when I wasn't working which means I was pushing myself to work 12+ hours a day. Many developers do the opposite, they know they have a monthly guaranteed payment coming so they lax on work. It also inspires developers to never complete a project. When I announced Avalon would be complete, 30% of my Patrons dropped support. It still took me four or five months to complete it too. There are some developers that stretch out their releases for months just to keep a project in production.
It's not that it's inherently a bad system but it certainly has its pros and cons. Selling my product when I complete milestones feels more natural. I can work at my own pace and I get rewarded for accomplishments which feels more gratifying. It allows people to pay for a tangible product instead of simply having faith in the artist and donating based on the artist's previous work and their promises.
The major reason though is probably that I have a difficult time with jealousy. I have a bad habit of comparing my numbers with other artists in the community and I get extremely depressed when I'm significantly less popular than others. It's something I'm trying to work on but currently my sin is envy.
Hey... I have considered the same thing many times. Getting paid monthly and only releasing every 3rd month . BUT... I work my ass off every night and every weekend week after week and even though I don't release an update each month I feel I have worked for it. It is up to patrons to sponsor or not, we as devs do not force anyone in fact I am so grateful that I do have fans for my games.
Your last comment regarding jealousy. Although I don't agree that it's jealousy but rather a fear of feeling rejected. I have those. I look at games that released this year and they patron support numbers are 5 no 10 times more than what i have to show for 3.5yrs of doing this. I have thought about stopping 4 times since bringing out my latest game. 7 times when i did RTP my previous game. NO it's just feeling depressed cause we both know how hard we work at it and our products are worth it. Unfortunately most players want easy fap games with non existing stories not something that actually has a story with character arcs. Now and Then game is prime example. As much as I shouldn't say it as a dev, i am little jealous of iLS for writing such an amazing story, yet he gets way less support than either of us.
SO... relish in the support you do have and keep going forward and ask you players if they mind paying monthly and having to wait for an update. I have a feeling 95% would say they don't mind ( i have actually asked my patrons about this yrs ago). In patron you can always choose the option for players to pay per project..
And trust me you have nothing to worry about, your games are super good.