**Part 2 for this post**
Kickstarter seems like it was made for BYOND, or vice versa. Why? Well, Kickstarter was founded in 2009 to help fund indie projects and games.
The whole point to Kickstarter is to help fund Indie projects *hint hint BYOND*. Since 2009, 4.2 million people have donated $654,000,000 (654 million) USD for 43,000 projects. Our annual goal (based on our monthly goal of 5K) is $60,000. We have over 30,000 active users, almost as much as the number of kickstarter supporters, so why not sign up BYOND for kickstarter?
Cyanide and Happiness. This is a small little comic that's been going on since 2005, run by four dudes submitting offensive, daily comics to their website with a few animations. Their project raised, in less than a month, over $770,000 of their $250,000 goal to create one video animation per week.
If they can do it, so can we. First of all, Kickstarter is, IMO, one of the best ways to make a project public. So by submitting BYOND to Kickstarter, we not only raise money for BYOND, but we make BYOND very public and supported.
Now here's the small catch: you have to provide something worth paying for. Let's say we only raise 100K. That would still be enough for 1 year and 8 months of funding, plus extra donations directly from the site. I'm sure Tom and friends (he could hire another person with all that money) could whip up something worth paying for. Here are some of my ideas about some of the rewards that could be offered:
$5: Kickstarter Benefactor Title (A star that shows that you donated to BYOND via kickstarter)
$12: Three month membership + Benefactor Title
$16: Six month membership + Benefactor Title
$25: One year membership + Benefactor Title
$40: Two year membership + Benefactor Title
$65: Six year membership + Benefactor Title
$100: Ten year membership + Ultimate Benefactor Title + Front Page for your Hub for a month
$250: Life Membership + Ultimate Benefactor Title + Hub Front Page for a year
Etc, etc.
Now guys, I realize these rewards blow because they're either useless to new people, or a bit over priced (only by a few dollars, plus you'd get a title), but I can't put any physical items on here because we may not be able to offer physical items, such as T-shirts.
Although, I did make a basic BYOND T-shirt design. If anyone wants to add to it or make previews of their own merchandise that could be available (such as cups, jackets, bracelets, necklaces, etc), post in the comments.
Thoughts, BYOND?
ID:1290472
 Jun 12 2013, 12:47 am (Edited on Jun 12 2013, 8:06 pm)
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It shouldn't really take longer than a week or so to put together a decent Kickstarter. Let's say roughly 60 hours of hard work if Tom and Lummox spend 30 hours a week each normally (we can assume they're putting in a looot more time).
I think the main worry is that it won't even be worth the single week they put into it, because the 'promise if funded' probably isn't going to offer much of anything new (that doesn't appeal to those outside of this website, anyhow). If those that use the website aren't donating enough to keep the project alive now, then they're not going to do so for a membership + benefactor title (also, they have to through the process of signing up to KS, if they're not already a member). It's best to target those already signed up with KS and offer them something for their funds. Now, say it were for something else, that actually provides a fresh product... A new game engine, for example, and the data + facts are provided in their video, that they're capable of getting it live (over 15 years of BYOND, 30k active users, bunch of fun games, etc--quite the accomplishment!) then setting a goal of 100k doesn't seem too unrealistic if the campaign is up to scratch. In the video, we could even have testimonials of current software developers providing short comments on how Tom's product changed their life and paved the way for their career. A lot of fun stuff can be done marketing wise, because this project has done a lot for people. Plus, as for the technical appeal, there isn't much of anything like BYOND available. You have some easy to use engines that target single-player games (Game Maker/RPGMaker) and then things that are a lot more complex / scary. BYOND takes care of the tedious stuff while giving a lot of power to the developer. Tom and Lummox are both experienced programmers that have worked with a game creation engine for such a long time. I think they'll have a very good idea of what developers want and something like that has a lot of potential in the Kickstarter world. They can take the best features of BYOND and modernize it. Anyone that's lurked Kickstarter has seen projects explode. No reason why a new project posted by the BYOND developers, when taking their skill and experience into consideration, couldn't do the same. I think it's worth a week of Tom's time, at least! As for a Kickstarter with the aim to revive BYOND's development path, I can't see it doing too well. If BYOND's staff thought otherwise, they would have made one long ago, I think. | |
They don't want to make a new engine, though. That has been expressed over and over in public, and I really can't blame them. That is a huge commitment, a huge workload, very stressful, and could eventually go downhill too.
I'd love to see Kickstarter be the solution, but I sadly doubt it will be. The only way it could be is either if the current BYOND can somehow make an appeal without having to agree to difficult obligations, or if members of the community can somehow put something together and handle it their selves. The first one isn't something I think many expect to work, though I wish it would, and the second is a bit much to expect from the community. Everyone definitely needs to keep brainstorming, but Kickstarter, merchandise, and advertising have been the go to ideas for a while now; we really need something else. It's just not clear what yet. | |
Toddab503 wrote:
They don't want to make a new engine, though. That has been expressed over and over in public Out of curiosity, Todddab, could I be linked to those posts? I've not read Tom's view on the matter and would like to. | |
anything except make games
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Yeah you could easily setup an account with one of those free merchandise websites (someone fill this part in), plenty of people would be willing to buy anything with a byond logo on it; I've thought about it a few times myself.
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It seems after seeking out these posts again that the opinion kind of varies. The time in which the posts were made are so far apart that it may just be a change in opinion, but either way here are a couple pages that contain Toms responses related to that, Kickstarter, and more:
http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=893467 http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1168212 There's another about the remake, which I think is more recent somewhere, but it could be in one of like three different threads that each have multiple pages so I can't find it right now. There's also probably a few more Kickstarter posts, several if you count ones Tom wasn't involved in, but hopefully these links help a bit. I wouldn't say they set anything in stone, but they give you the impression that it would be too much and isn't gonna happen. | |
Kickstarter would be amazing for BYOND. That is all.
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Again, BYOND merchandise was attempted, and failed outright. Nobody wanted to buy any of it.
  It glows! | |
Yes but how much does it cost?
Price point is everything and of course easy access. If there is a small simple page that people could browse really quickly, with low price point mugs and such I'm sure people would buy. It is a matter of using one of the services that do it for you and not trying to manufacture or pay to manufacture anything yourself, that way it can't really fail rather it just doesn't get many sales. Mugs, cups, t-shirts, clothing articles such as hats, arm/head-bands/etc, stickers, and other such things could bring in a little bit of revenue. It is a matter of making them easy to purchase and find, when someone gets that feeling they would certainly buy it if they had the immediate chance. | |
AERProductions wrote:
Yes but how much does it cost? http://web.archive.org/web/20070222173634/http:// www.cafepress.com/byond | |
It was as cheap as the printers allowed it to be, it had everything you mentioned and then some.
However, those 'free' companies who you're talking about, aren't free if you're using the merchandise for business purposes; including benefiting an existing business. At a certain point they start making you pay for their services. | |
Is that controlled by Tom or someone else? It is a matter of getting that market to a place where people can see it.
A page on this site wouldn't hurt. Edit: Ah, hmm. Well we can brainstorm some other methods of generating revenue, nothing is a silver bullet of course and the more you do the more you make, obviously. | |
AERProductions wrote:
Is that controlled by Tom or someone else? It is a matter of getting that market to a place where people can see it. It ''was'' controlled by Mike H (long time real life friend and colleague of Tom), I think. It doesn't exist anymore. There was a link to it (store.byond.com) on the sidebar of the website in 2005. | |
We had the BYOND Store up for like 5 years and I never saw a penny from it. I'm sorry, I just don't believe coffee mugs are going to save BYOND!
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It won't make that much money because BYOND is like a fat girlfriend. You like tappin' dat 200 pound walrus booty but you don't want everyone else to know about it. Same with BYOND, we like it but wearing a BYOND shirt would make us look too nerdy around our peers.
I could do a BYOND lanyard though, or circle-shaped dogtag with the logo printed on it. Still like you said though that wouldn't be enough. | |
Become a member or renew your membership and receive a FREE BYOND lanyard courtesy of EmpirezTeam.
Sounds pretty good to me. | |
BYOND isn't that big or big of a deal to have merchandise support it. The big deal is more of what can be created FROM BYOND.
Maybe instead of looking at just BYOND on the surface we should be focusing more on what can be derived from using the software and try and make some cash from that. | |
SilencedWhisper wrote:
Maybe instead of looking at just BYOND on the surface we should be focusing more on what can be derived from using the software and try and make some cash from that. You mean like making games? Don't be silly, that's crazy talk! A.T.H.K wrote: Become a member or renew your membership and receive a FREE BYOND lanyard courtesy of EmpirezTeam. I meant "do" as in I wouldn't be afraid to wear a BYOND lanyard or dog tag in public. A shirt though is taking it too far. | |
Physical items don't have to be big, it would be simple and quite inexpensive to create something like a BYOND wristband or even a T-shirt. While Zazzle and Cafepress make this easy, they also take a rather large cut (compared to going to a printing company.) My dad is a graphic designer and I've grown up around that my entire life, I would be happy to help out with anything needed from that aspect.
That said, companies that back kickstarter projects are looking for long-term advertisement on their part, inclusion in a new 'Backers' page for their company name and logo is a lot more attractive then a byond membership that a company would probably never use.
Just ideas to think about. A lot of game projects have different tiers of products, Digital and Physical items are seperate until a certain backer level.
I think that BYOND should go for something like this. Set your goal small ($10-15k) and then push for stretching that number.