EA's New Terms of Service

IMPORTANT: This post is no longer relevant. Please read my update here.

EA recently released a statement clarifying its terms of service, including its stance on payment for mods and CC. Although they did not explicitly mention an end to early access, many people believe this is implied.

How this affects my Patreon

This has no immediate effect on my patrons, since I do not currently have anything in early access anyways. I have been very open about my early access benefits being paused while I focus on modding tools.

Having said that, though, I will be making some changes:

• Removing early access benefits. While none of us know EA's exact policy regarding 2-3 weeks of early access yet, I will be removing alpha/beta early access benefits from all tiers, effective immediately, since I am not currently offering them anyways.
• Adding supplemental benefits. To make up for the removal of early access, I will try to come up other ways to thank/reward those of you who are supporting me. I do not know what these are yet, but I will keep you updated as I think of them.
• Offering refunds. As I state on my website, anyone who signed up thinking they would get early access, only to realize I am not currently offering it, can reach out to me and ask for a refund. As of now, since all tiers are effectively benefit-less, anyone* can reach out to ask for a refund for the past month, and I will grant it, no questions asked. 

All other aspects of the tiers will stay the same, including names, pricing, Discord roles, and personalized mod versions.

*Landgraab patrons ($8 USD tier) can only request a refund if they have not had a personalized mod version created for them.

Plans going forward

If we find out that early access or other monetization practices are allowed, I may change my tiers again to reflect that – including, but not limited to, bringing back early access for alphas and betas.

Regardless of anything we hear from EA, I will try to come up with new benefits for my tiers, and will not be reinstating early access until I actually have something to put in early access, so as not to confuse new patrons.

TL;DR

This does not immediately affect me and/or my patrons. I am removing early access benefits for my tiers going forwards, though, and may reinstate them if EA releases another statement.

Please do not use the comments on this post to speculate about what EA's TOS actually mean. No one knows what they mean with 100% certainty, not even their customer service reps. The only way we will know is when/if EA's legal team decides to follow up on their statement.