Its not just the ads that they'll stop doing. That's just the thing you'll notice the most. But yeah I'm not sure about them asking for money every year but then again I guess it just depends on what they produce on the back of it and whether people think it was worth it or not.
And yeah the only reason they can even attempt this is because of the fan base.
Its definitely a interesting business model.
It's certainly an interesting idea. I'm not sure I want them to succeed though. Hmm.
I don't know what the operating costs are for Penny Arcade, but I'm willing to bet they're pretty staggering given the number of hits and amount of content they're publishing. My understanding is that part of their problem is that they have to shill for advertisers on the one hand while ripping it out of the advertised products the next day and they want to free themselves from that dependence.
That said, it's an odd way to do it; I would have thought that a subscription service would be a better way to do it as an ongoing funding mechanism, I feel as though the kickstarter thing should be for one-offs rather than using it as a business model.
Also, the astonishing level of irony from all of the games press going on about how what Penny Arcade are doing is shady & money grabbing whilst their entire site is basically one giant advert for the game of the week (which no doubt they will review fairly and without bias) has been quite entertaining.
I don't like the idea of Kickstarter being used to help give existing, and profitable, companies more money if they already have the means with which to achieve their funding goal. It's why I think Kickstarter, as a concept, is a great thing BUT Kickstarter being used to get Tim Schafer's company funding that they could easily have got elsewhere was a dodgy move because there are great games trying to get money through KS and failing because they have so little exposure while already-established companies such as DoubleFine are able to flash their name around and get whatever they want... and more.
For Penny Arcade to use KS to make their site ad-free is just taking the piss a bit, in my opinion. Advertisers are already covering their costs, and I'm sure they make a fucking TONNE of money from having two PAX expos a year as well as merchandising... so I think it's a shit move.
Can you imagine Coronation Street going on KS to ask people to give them money so they could do away with the three minute ad break in the middle and the three minutes at the end, giving people six minutes of extra content by covering their costs elsewhere? It's just stupid. If you're not making enough money to produce all the content that you want, then drop your salaries.
As for $500 getting you a tweet. I see that sort of bullshit all the time on KS. Pay us $5000 and our lead designer will not only sign your game, but deliver it to you in person and take you out to lunch. I saw another one where two guys running the show would record a voicemail message for you to use on your mobile. How fucking up your own arse do you have to be to think that you're worth ANY money at all?? Would I like to sit down and have lunch withBilly MitchellRandy Pitchford? Maybe, yeah, but I wouldn't pay $5000 for it no matter how much money I had. If someone thinks that their time is worth that amount of money, to the people who helped put them there in the first place by supporting them and buying their products, I don't particularly WANT to get to know them.
Oooooooh it's an invisible signature... oooooooooh!!
Life's greatest battles, often are fought alone.
I love the idea of kickstarter, not that I've ever had the money or the inclination to actually support anything.
I've enjoyed the Penny Arcade stuff and I've always seen them as a force for good on the interwebs, so I hope this kind of shit is a joke. Like Mark and a few others have said, they are not a new company, it's all about them paying the bills and if they are really stuggling financially why not close down a PAX or something. It seems to me like a corruption of the whole idea of kickstarter and I'm suprised to see PA doing it.
£500 for a retweet. My 72 followers can see the bullshit you type for just the low low price of £1.50
Yeah I've had time to think about this more, being at work. I think its a grabby, grabby shit move. As Kickstarter has identified, it's a portal for projects for people to fund. These cunts have got more money than most sites going. As Marks pointed out, they do the two expos a year and although I've never read them, I know who they are.
This could be, as Blucey has identified, a very slippery slope downwards. Imagine the shit that could spring up.
It would like GamingLives starting one saying "Give us money so we can pay writers and produce more content for the site". It doesn't make any sense. The end goal is unlimited. We could just keep doing that indefinatley.
So is it only me who thinks that its not evil or money grabbing then?
Lets assume that the £1m they are after to make the whole of PA ad free for a year is what they turn over per annum via advertising and selling their art and/or design services. (Turn over being the operative word and not necessarily profit) The fact that they don't have to spend time on sorting out the advertising and doing the design work frees them to create more of their own content for the fans to enjoy. I don't see a problem with that if the fans are willing to back them to do it. I would have an issue if PA then went on to charge for that additional content as then some people, e.g. the backers, would be paying twice to see it. However I doubt that they would shoot themselves in the foot by doing that.
Perhaps kickstarter was not the correct medium to do it but I guess it was convenient and if KS thought it was breaking rules then I guess they wouldn't have allowed it right?
I see peoples point that they don't really need to do it but I don't think needing to do it is the point here.
No, I agree with you on the principle, just not the method.Originally Posted by Ste
I just don't see the point. What they are basically doing is taking a free service, comic stuff and all that, and making readers pay for it through kickstarter, so that they can take down adverts and create more content.
The only changes seem to be, the readers pay through kickstarter and ads that are not very apparent are taken down.
If I pay for this kickstarter thing, does that suddenly mean they are going from a three day a week comic to a 5 or 7 day a week comic. Will they give me free entry to PAX? Maybe I get a retweet.
I just don't see the point really. If it was a case that they don't have the time to do advertising, drop the game you are producing or one of the two conferences you are running and get some of your time back. Hire someone to do that shit for you. If it's about not having enough money from advertising, drop one of the conferences you are doing, fire some staff and don't fucking beg money from kickstarter.
I dono. I just don't get it ya dig.
Here's how I see it boiling down...
Let's say we were able to get enough advertising in to pay all the GL writers. That's fair, and it's what we want to do.
We spend years working under the model whereby, as long as we have advertising, the writers get paid... and we don't have enough to pay the writers then they're free to just refuse to write. That seems fair to me.
Then, all of a sudden, we decide we don't want advertising BUT we still want to pay the writers... so where do we get the money from? Oh... we could actually ask our readers to pay us loads of money for content which they were, until this point, getting for free!
I think it's a shit attitude. It's fair enough to expect advertisers to pay for real estate on your site to keep it going, but to expect your readership to actually pay for something which, ordinarily, would have been free... I just can't get behind that one, ethically.
Oooooooh it's an invisible signature... oooooooooh!!
Life's greatest battles, often are fought alone.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks