Pixlriffs is cancelling his Patreon. Why?

Pixlriffs is a large Minecraft content creator on YouTube, so why is he cancelling his Patreon page? Why is he closing down Pixlrift, closing down his Minecraft server? And what can we learn (or should we learn) from this?

Pixlriffs is the creator of the Minecraft Survival Guide, he's the voice of the Hermitcraft Recap, a player on the Empires SMP this year with fWhip and other creators, and he recently commentated the Hermitcraft Rivals or Twitch Rivals livestream. He's also had brand deals with NVIDIA and others.

So why would a successful creator like Pixlriffs cancel his Patreon service? With 235 patrons, Patreon is surely a massive boost to his income, but at what cost? Perhaps it's linked to what we discussed last episode, talking about creator burnout and quitting YouTube before you get burned out as a Minecraft creator (or other content creator).

That episode (about burnout) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwpvMFK7GG4

Let me know your thoughts.

Pixlriffs' YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgGjBqZZtAjxfpGSba7d6ww

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Minecraft Creator Podcast - a new podcast by Minecraft creators, for Minecraft creators.

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Website: https://leigergaming.com
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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is the Minecraft creator podcast.
This is a new episode that I just recordedthis week, I wanted to actually push out
the one that I had planned because I feelthis is important to discuss and it builds
on last fortnight's episode about burnout.
Pixlriffs is a large content creatoron YouTube, and this episode is mainly
focused around him, but also a widerdiscussion that we can have with
a decision that he made recently.

(00:20):
As of today, which is the 9th ofAugust for me, Pixlriffs has decided
to close down his Patreon and allof the associated tiers with that.
Now that includes a server thathe's been running for several years
called the Pixlrift, a Minecraftserver that's got a lot of members.
At the moment, it looks like about 130+players, so it's quite busy and it's

(00:41):
become too much for him to maintain.
Now, I want the larger discussionwith this because I've seen this
pattern repeat with others as well.
Xisuma, or Xisumavoid, a couple ofyears ago now closed down his Discord.
He still has his Patreon running,but he closed down his Discord to
non-patrons to make it more manageable.
So only paying access whereaspreviously it was open to all and

(01:04):
had hidden channels for patrons.
Now this decision was made as he wasgrowing to help cope with demand, instead
of just having a constant spam of messagesthat you'd get with a small number of
patrons and potentially infinitely largenumber of free people, joining the server,
being a fantastic part of the community,but generating a lot of discussion.
It just makes it hard to keep upwith if you're also creating content.
Pixlriffs has donesomething similar today.

(01:25):
He's not only closing down the Minecraftserver, but he's closing down the
whole Patreon, closing down the tiersas he feels like he can't keep up
with it, and he's had to reject anumber of offers as a result of this.
Let me read part of thissnippet that he is written out.
And I quote, I plan to close downmy Patreon campaign by the end of
this year, this would include theclosure of the Pixlrift, the server.
We will continue to run the server in1.17 until the Minecraft 1.18 update

(01:47):
is released, at which point the currentworld will be made available for download
and the server will close indefinitely.
The decision has not been made lightly.
And he wants to stress, that it's notthe actions of a certain person, it's
just overwhelming amount of pressurefrom everything that's coming at
him as a growing, really successful(and well-deserved success) creator.
Now, Pixlriffs is the creatorof the Minecraft Survival Guide.

(02:09):
He's also the voice ofthe Hermitcraft Recap.
He plays on the Empires SMP nowthis year that you might've been
watching with others like fWhip.
He also commentated the HermitcraftRaiders or Twitch Raiders stream
that was happening recently.
And he's a co-host with Joel Dugganon The Spawn Chunks podcast, which
is a fantastic, amazing Minecraftpodcast that I would recommend you
listen to, mainly aimed at playersrather than creators like this one.

(02:31):
Going back to burnout like the lastepisode, we need to be careful that
we don't overburden ourselves andthese creators, I wholeheartedly
support their decisions they've made.
I think it's the right decision.
I think maybe at some point I might haveto make similar decisions, unfortunately.
At the moment I'm small enoughthat I can be active in my Discord
server to a certain degree.
At one point, it's going to get that...
if you as a creator grow too big, and youhave too much coming in from all sides...

(02:54):
other creators, other viewers, maybebrands - that kind of thing as well,
which he has, Pixlriffs has had a fewbrand deals, so that makes sense too.
There comes a point where you needto figure out, even if you're a
full-timer on content creation, youneed to figure out where your time is
spent and what you focus your time on.
And I'm saying this podcastand all the podcast episodes
kind of for myself as well.
I want to go back and listen to this,and the advice that I'd give is to

(03:18):
again, make sure that what you're doingis sustainable as Plastic Scot said
last fortnight in the previous episode.
And by that, it means constantlyevaluate that even if the decisions
you've made in the past, like tolaunch Patreon are still sustainable.
As things are changing, as the situationis changing, you might grow to the
point where you need to change yourmind and do things that are better
for your physical and mental health.

(03:39):
And I think that's really important.
What do you think?
Let me know.
I hope you found this discussion useful.
I'm really looking forward toseeing your feedback and your
comments and your thoughts on this.
Hopefully you support theirdecision, just like I am.
I'm Leiger Gaming my link tomy channel is in the show notes
and I'll catch you next time.