It's to do with the stupid rules in my country for people like me who can't work cos of disabilities and stuff >.< Cos I get government aid to buy food and pay bills etc. you're basically not allowed to have a lump sum of money like something you'd get from crowdfunding go into your bank account because they would see it as earnings/income, and then you'd immediately lose your aid and have no money to buy food :(
It really sucks because if I ran a Kickstarter, I wouldn't get any money for myself, it would purely be for funding voice acting and art for the project so 100% of that money would immediately be going to pay other people, but it's still not allowed because they don't care what it's for. There's no distinction >.< They see it's money that you have, so you must not need the aid.
I had this whole big meeting with a guy whose job it is to advise on money and such, and he basically just said to me, you can accept one-off donations of support from people as long as they don't exceed X amount per year, but any crowdfunding would immediately trigger losing the aid. It's the same reason I can't commercialise any of my games pretty much :( Cos he said to me, as soon as they see that you're gaining money from them, it counts as income, so you would lose your aid money, so unless I'm confident I can actually make a living from selling my games and earn enough to pay bills and buy food, then it's better to keep them free for now.
And I don't think I'd get anywhere near enough money to live off of trying to sell my games x3 sooo yeah, I'm basically stuck in this weird kind of limbo where I'm reliant on the aid money and can't afford to lose it, but it means I can also never really make any progress in trying to turn my hobby into something I can survive on >.< Other political parties want to make changes to the system to include a kind of safety net that allows you to keep your aid while you venture into trying to make something from your endeavours, like self-employment, but without the fear of completely losing the aid money if things don't work out, or with getting to keep like half of the aid money while making yourown small amount of money alongside it.
But the current political party we have in charge atm (who have been in power for aaaaaages) basically hate the disabled and anyone who isn't able to work for whatever reason, and so they make it as hard as possible for you to be independent >.< They randomly kick people off of the aid for the tiniest of things. Like there was a case in the news recently where a lady who has 12 different disabilities (including physical ones that mean she can't walk more than a few metres unaided, so she has to use a mobility scooter to get around), and she had the government aid cos she couldn't work due to her disabilities, and they took it away from her after a recap assessment over the phone deemed her fit for work o.O You could be dying and they would deem you fit for work! And they want to introduce new rules next year on the mental health side of things that say you don't qualify for the aid unless you are actively in crisis. Honestly, I don't even have the words to describe how disgusted I am at them as a government for the way they handle mental health in general. It makes me extremely angry and sick to my stomach :( They basically just see you as a liability. They want you working, or dead. But they do nothing to actually help you get better or get into work >.<"
Thank you ^-^ I shall definitely be spending plenty of time with my family! It's pretty much the only time of the year I get the opportunity to game with my dad because it's the only time of the year he gets off of work besides weekends x3 So we're planning to play through all the Dark Pictures Anthology games together, me, my dad, and my brother :D
I'm annoyed that I haven't managed to release my Winter VN Jam project for when I hoped to though cos I wanted to release it this Friday just gone, haha. It's finished in the sense that everything works in-engine. But it's missing a hefty chunk of voice acting cos one of the VAs got ill and won't be able to finish recording until January, and I've been so busy with visiting family and Christmas prep that I haven't had a chance to test exported builds or make a game page for the project yet T_T It sucks cos I wanted it done before Christmas so that I could relax over Christmas week and not have to worry about it x3 But instead I'm gonna have to do testing and make a page and stuff after my family go to bed each night cos if I don't release it by 31st December, I will have missed the jam deadline >.<
Hope you get to do the same and eat lots of tasty noms as well :3 <3