This is the Minecraft creator podcast. This is a new episode that I just recorded this week, I wanted to actually push out the one that I had planned because I feel this is important to discuss and it builds on last fortnight's episode about burnout. Pixlriffs is a large content creator on YouTube, and this episode is mainly focused around him, but also a wider discussion that we can have with a decision that he made recently.
As of today, which is the 9th of August for me, Pixlriffs has decided to close down his Patreon and all of the associated tiers with that. Now that includes a server that he's been running for several years called the Pixlrift, a Minecraft server that's got a lot of members. At the moment, it looks like about 130+ players, so it's quite busy and it's become too much for him to maintain. Now, I want the larger discussion with this because I've seen this pattern repeat with others as well.
Xisuma, or Xisumavoid, a couple of years 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 whereas previously it was open to all and had hidden channels for patrons.
Now this decision was made as he was growing to help cope with demand, instead of just having a constant spam of messages that you'd get with a small number of patrons and potentially infinitely large number 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 up with if you're also creating content. Pixlriffs has done something similar today.
He's not only closing down the Minecraft server, but he's closing down the whole Patreon, closing down the tiers as he feels like he can't keep up with it, and he's had to reject a number of offers as a result of this. Let me read part of this snippet that he is written out. And I quote, I plan to close down my Patreon campaign by the end of this year, this would include the closure of the Pixlrift, the server.
We will continue to run the server in 1.17 until the Minecraft 1.18 update is released, at which point the current world 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 not the actions of a certain person, it's just overwhelming amount of pressure from everything that's coming at him as a growing, really successful (and well-deserved success) creator.
Now, Pixlriffs is the creator of the Minecraft Survival Guide. He's also the voice of the Hermitcraft Recap. He plays on the Empires SMP now this year that you might've been watching with others like fWhip. He also commentated the Hermitcraft Raiders or Twitch Raiders stream that was happening recently.
And he's a co-host with Joel Duggan on The Spawn Chunks podcast, which is a fantastic, amazing Minecraft podcast that I would recommend you listen to, mainly aimed at players rather than creators like this one. Going back to burnout like the last episode, we need to be careful that we don't overburden ourselves and these creators, I wholeheartedly support their decisions they've made. I think it's the right decision.
I think maybe at some point I might have to make similar decisions, unfortunately. At the moment I'm small enough that 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 you have too much coming in from all sides... other creators, other viewers, maybe brands - that kind of thing as well, which he has, Pixlriffs has had a few brand deals, so that makes sense too.
There comes a point where you need to figure out, even if you're a full-timer on content creation, you need to figure out where your time is spent and what you focus your time on. And I'm saying this podcast and 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 again, make sure that what you're doing is sustainable as Plastic Scot said last fortnight in the previous episode.
And by that, it means constantly evaluate that even if the decisions you've made in the past, like to launch Patreon are still sustainable. As things are changing, as the situation is changing, you might grow to the point where you need to change your mind and do things that are better for your physical and mental health. 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 to seeing your feedback and your comments and your thoughts on this. Hopefully you support their decision, just like I am. I'm Leiger Gaming my link to my channel is in the show notes and I'll catch you next time.