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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/575109064/penny-arcade-sells-out

Gabe and Tycho are giving us the opportunity to have them take leave of their advertisers and become a fully fan sponsored webcomic. They start removing ads at 1/4 million, and when they reach $999,999 they remove all ads, including those on the comic page.

The incentives are pretty nice at the higher levels, and they are hoping to be able to move the people that are currently marketing the comic to advertisers over into more creative roles, which only means more PA creations for us.

I'm a cheapskate, so I won't be participating, but I suspect some of you would want to know.

One of the more interesting teases is that they might have a stretch goal that convinces them to convert everything over to a creative commons license... Aside from xkcd I can't think of a single webcomic that is creative commons licensed.

This is stupid, PA are stupid, and I wish they would take this down since it completely is against Kickstarter's Rule 1

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Charlie. The whole point of Kickstarter is to give someone the chance to do something that they ordinarily couldn't afford to do. PA is the most successful webcomic and has no need to ask for more money from their fans. Not to mention that those earlier tier bonuses are really not worth it. $15 for a goddamn certificate? No.

Charlie Don't Surf said:

This is stupid, PA are stupid, and I wish they would take this down since it completely is against Kickstarter's Rule 1

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Eh...that's debatable. They specify a time limit (1 year). It could be framed as a "no ads for a year" project. That said, I don't like it much either. They don't offer very much in the way of enticements. If it is funded, fine by me, but I kind of hope that it isn't because I think they can do better than that.

I disagree, though I do think it's a stretch. The project has a clear goal, which is to eliminate advertising on their site for one year. It will eventually be completed, at which point they'll do it again, or go back to using ads. They will be producing content once funded that they would not produce without a successful funding. They are providing rewards for those that support rm. it's not a charity or a cause. It's not a fund my life project. It's not one of the prohibited projects or rewards.

But, ultimately, kickstarter is in it for the money, and they'd be stupid to take this down. I suspect that if this is successful pa will do it themselves next year and cut out the third party.

I can't address your assertion that pa is stupid since that's a matter of taste and very subjective, but I suspect you're smugly happy to know that there are millions of people who disagree with you on that point.

Kickstarter said:

1. Funding for projects only. A project has a clear goal, like making an album, a book, or a work of art. A project will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it. A project is not open-ended. Starting a business, for example, does not qualify as a project.

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There are several goals for this project.

This isn't a creative project, though. Unless you count removing ads as creative.

The only thing about this is PA is asking for money from their legions of fans. And the sad thing is, they'll not only make their goal, but far exceed it. And for what? For PA to make more money. I don't see any other goal here aside from that. I don't see where this is going to improve PA's creative output or anything.

I supported Order of the Stick's Kickstarter because Rich was trying to put one of his books into print. As a result of it, though, he now has ALL of his books in print for the first time ever. Given the stress he goes through, that must be a great burden off his shoulders.

ThatNickGuy said:

This isn't a creative project, though. Unless you count removing ads as creative.

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Creativity isn't a requirement, per their guidelines.

Yeah. Sorry, I misspoke with that. OotS' Kickstarter wasn't necessarily creative, either, I suppose.

But it's still a million (billion?) dollar company now asking for more money.

They're going to make new content, if funded, that they will not make otherwise. They are planning on moving some of their team from advertising into creative roles so new content will be made.

Doesn't that fulfill your requirements, or is there something else that's bothering you about it?

Note I'm using 'you' generally, since there are several people who appear to disagree with it....

Let me just pay $7,500 to be an intern, let me just reach down and do that, it'll be a good idea

On top of that, I suspect they are making more than a million dollars a year on advertising, which means they are actually asking for a pay cut so they can pursue more endeavors without being shackled to advertisers.

I'm not supporting them, but I don't understand the apparent dislike of this use of crowd funding. Does it go back to not liking artists who beg for their art?[DOUBLEPOST=1341952925][/DOUBLEPOST]

Charlie Don't Surf said:

Let me just pay $7,500 to be an intern, let me just reach down and do that, it'll be a good idea

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I initially thought that was... Unique as well, but as I thought about it, there is no school that, for $7,500, will give you three months of hands on training on how Khoo is successful.

We're I on a similar career path I would seriously consider it just as an educational/training opportunity.

Of course, you'd also be subjected to Scott Kurtz, but there's a downside to everything, isn't there?

My point of the dislike (swaying away from the "creative project" argument) is that they're already a vastly successful enterprise who could very likely afford to do what you mentioned above, regardless of the donations or not. That's what bothers me the most.

Also, I think they're asking WAY too much for digital copies of books. For that price, other Kickstarter projects have offered actual physical books.

The entire purpose of this project is to replace one revenue stream with the same revenue for less work so that they can set their people to do other things. That seems the definition of a "fund my life" project.

There's nothing actually coming out of this for the backers as a tangible project outside of "the joy of not having ads while you browse the site you already browse for free" and a couple tier rewards.

Much as I like PA, I think this really violates the spirit of KS, much as it might follow the letter by having milestone fundraising goals and tiered "rewards" (which also seem pretty lame).

Kickstarter is a relatively lawless frontier. People are going to push the boundaries there. The Kickstarter of old will not stay that way for long. People have sought funding for science projects and other crazy things. It won't be the indie art funding center for much longer, I suspect.

I wonder when we'll see political parties start to use it?

MindDetective said:

Kickstarter is a relatively lawless frontier. People are going to push the boundaries there. The Kickstarter of old will not stay that way for long. People have sought funding for science projects and other crazy things. It won't be the indie art funding center for much longer, I suspect.

Click to expand...

I suspect you're right, but this is less "pushing the boundaries" and more "going back to the good old days of putting up donation links on random websites".

I always forget what some sites look like without adblock...

Penny-Arcade are doing an experiment, and asking if anyone would like to fund them for an ad-free PA for a year, they can do so.

If it doesn't fund, no one is out any money, nothing changes and people can read their free comics.

If it does fund, PA goes ad-free for a year, and people can still read their free comics.

I guess I just don't see the villainy here? They're not holding the comic ransom. They're trying something new as the source of their funding.

Though, I have to say that the ads have never bothered me. In fact, they're one of the few sites whose ads I regularly click, because it's usually games I'm interested in, and they're never pop-ups/sound producing/any other annoying type of ad.

I'm sensing a fear or jealousy to all this, as though a P-A kickstarter will siphon funds from other "more worthy" projects. I say let it go, and if people want it, it'll get funded. If not, then there's no harm done.

I initially thought that was... Unique as well, but as I thought about it, there is no school that, for $7,500, will give you three months of hands on training on how Khoo is successful.

Click to expand...

From the Kickstarter:

Intern at Penny Arcade for a day! You'll be put to real work under the supervision of Khoo. (you will need to arrange travel)

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A day. One day. Of interning.

A day?

Wouldn't it be delicious if half the day was spent running out to get lunch for folks?

More power to 'em or whatever but I could give a shit if Penny Arcade has ads on it.

I took flak for disagreeing with getting fans to pay your printing bills for you to sell more books and I see some of the same folks balking at this. I see no difference. I will support neither.

While I think the idea is cool, not having any ads (kinda like Homestar Runner did back in the day), I feel like the incentives they're offering aren't ...really...

I dunno, I don't think I would want to donate a lower level (which is likely all I would be able to afford) because there's really no change in how I will enjoy PA. Also, I don't really get any "rewards" or whatever Kickstarter calls them

God I hope this wasn't Khoo's idea as it's a monumentally bad idea.

The irony of them bitching about people abusing Kickstarter in a comic from last year isn't lost on me.

Soliloquy said:

From the Kickstarter:




A day. One day. Of interning.

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I fail at reading. One thousand dollars an hour? I think they're treating this like an extension of the child's play charity dinner. I wonder if people will actually spend such huge amounts for so little reward...

"Update #1: $550k Stretchgoal
One of the things that excited us most about the idea of trying an ad-free model was the amount of time it would give us to actually make comics. Currently, we do all kinds of creative services projects that are part of the existing model, but in their absence, that's all time we can put to work for you. We have a ton of weird settings, and ideas for more, that are simply not possible with the schedule the current system imposes."

I hope they hit this goal. There's no denying their talent and most of their side projects have been pretty good. If they hit this goal you can damn sure bet they will put 100% in churning out content. If it were some other webcomic I might be skeptical thinking they're just trying to milk out a few buck but these guys have given back so much I don't doubt this is anything more then them wanting to get to a place to create without distractions. I don't regularly read PA but I respect the hell out of those guys.

stienman said:

I fail at reading. One thousand dollars an hour? I think they're treating this like an extension of the child's play charity dinner. I wonder if people will actually spend such huge amounts for so little reward...

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Without a doubt

stienman said:

I fail at reading. One thousand dollars an hour? I think they're treating this like an extension of the child's play charity dinner. I wonder if people will actually spend such huge amounts for so little reward...

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One of the two available is already gone.

While it'd be nice for them to have more time for content... these rewards largely suck and/or are disproportionate to the money spent. That's kind of the problem with doing a Kickstarter that isn't for the purpose of creating something specifically, such as a new comic by them. It feels like the charity rewards, but those make sense since it's a charity.

Wait, on their theoretical ad free page, they have ads for their own store still. I know they don't get revenue for those ads but that seems kinda wrong.

Adam said:

God I hope this wasn't Khoo's idea as it's a monumentally bad idea.

The irony of them bitching about people abusing Kickstarter in a comic from last year isn't lost on me.

Click to expand...

Considering the first reward is the $1000 pledge from the comic, I think it's safe to bet that it's not lost on them either.

I signed up. I use ad block, but I like some of the things they mentioned if it gets fully funded, like full strips and blog posts in RSS (okay that's one of the biggest things for me).

You know what they say, a fool and his money...

I have a dream, that one day I can read the entire blogasphere from Google Reader.

wana10 said:

I always forget what some sites look like without adblock...

Click to expand...

I’m not going to write a prologue to this rant. If you want the details on what PA is doing, visit their website, read the beginning of this thread or visit their Kickstarter page.

I will, however, set the stage with my limited and probably incorrect understanding of their business structure. PA is a media company made up of three separate and distinct business units: Penny-Arcade proper which would include the comic, the Penny Arcade Report, Trenches, the website, forums and merchandise, PAX the gaming expo ran by David Coffman and Child’s Play, their gaming charity administered by Jamie Dillon. PAX and Child’s Play can be considered self-sustaining, in that the income generated by the activities exceeds the expenses. There is concern that portions of Child’s Play are used as revenues towards Penny Arcade proper which I won’t get into, and PAX absolutely does support parts of Penny Arcade which I don’t think is entirely a bad thing for reasons again I won’t get into.
The Kickstarter project goals, as outlined currently, are to replace the ad revenue currently used to support the site consisting of two unintrusive ads seated at the top and the right hand side of their main screen. These ads usually feature some artwork designed by PA and the games themselves are usually held in high esteem by the PA staff. The ads run over pre-specified campaign lengths I would venture range between 2 weeks and a month in length. The ad revenue, according to Khoo, could be replaced by a Kickstarter that brought in between $250,000 and $1,000,000 per year. The replacement of the ad revenue with Kickstarter revenue would mean that the sales force tasked specifically with generating ad interest could then be tasked with project/creative work.
PA hopes to follow a similar model to NPR, yearly donations by patrons, absolving PA from any corporate pressures in their advertising, focusing the media portion of the company on generating content instead of generating business.

Issues:
1) NPR isn’t solely supported by donations.
Individuals make up only 39% of NPRs revenue stream. Corporations provide 17%, various levels of government provide 16% and foundations, universities and grants make up the bulk of the rest. Ignoring the fact that NPRs individual revenue stream has actually shrunk year over year, NPR is also a historical organization with a tremendous amount of volunteer support that works in concert with its funding drives to keep it running. The volunteers don’t support NPR because of the content, they support NPR because of the ideal behind ‘free’ public radio. PA is a for-profit media business.

2) You aren’t donating to PA, you are subsidizing PA.
To get semantic, a donation is a gift for charitable purposes. Putting money into Kickstarter for PA isn’t a donation that will allow PA to survive, it’s a subsidy that will allow its ad people to focus on producing content. Looking at the value of PA, you have Mike’s artistic ability, Jerry’s writing ability and Ben’s writing ability with PAR. The ad people who I’m sure are very talented in their own right are the benefactors of the Kickstarter in that they are ‘freed’ to pursue other opportunities. Back to the initial analysis of their business model, I suspect that the ad people sell Mike’s services for the ads that appear on the site as a value-add. If the ad people no longer have to worry about ads, Mike no longer has to draw ads and can now focus on projects he enjoys; leading back to the original point. You are paying so that Mike doesn’t have to do work he doesn’t enjoy, analogous to bailing out the banks so they don’t have to worry about their capital adequacy.

3) Kickstarter wasn’t made for “Support my Life” drives
I have no intention to go into too much detail on this point other than to point you to Kickstarters Project Guidelines:
1. Funding for projects only. A project has a clear goal, like making an album, a book, or a work of art. A project will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it. A project is not open-ended. Starting a business, for example, does not qualify as a project.
As Mike and Jerry have both explicitly said the intention if this succeeds it will be a yearly goal.

4) It cheapens Kickstarter’s Brand
Kickstarter has bent their rules a little to allow PA to use KS for this purpose. In doing so, it has undermined in a very public fashion both its purpose and its mission – to provide a ‘kickstart’ for projects that would not have ordinarily succeeded without the crowdsourcing function that Kickstarter provides. What comes as a surprise to some people is that Kickstarter makes 15% off of each Kickstarter, so there was a monetary reason for why they’d want to approve a potentially large kickstart like PA. Unfortunately, what was originally perceived as a tool for philanthropy or business development now can be labeled simply a money-grab for Kickstarter.
5) It underscores the fact the PA guys don’t understand their brand.
A quick definition: Brand is how people perceive you, branding is how you wish people to perceive you. For the longest time, PA was ‘the underdog’, mocking those on high for silly decisions, tearing apart quite vociferously the fiscal machinations of large companies who had little regard for their customers. And a lot of their support from the community came about because of this ‘knight in web armor’ ability to effect positive change by virtue of their position and multitude of fans. This brand empowered the support of disaffected consumers; a simple post about one game could either guarantee success or utterly destroy. And as that power grew, it emboldened the more vocal PA staff (Mike) to push more and more into an ‘attack ‘ mode. With Kickstarter, PA may have thought that they still were the small guys who could depend on donations in order to survive. Unfortunately, they aren’t the small upstarts anymore, they are the EA of webcomics, with a relatively large contingent of paid staff and several ongoing projects that require their attention. PA isn’t a webcomic anymore, it’s a business, despite their protests otherwise. For PA to use Kickstarter as their funding stream is no different than Activision crowdsourcing Call of Duty 5.

6) Justifying the use of Kickstarter has taken over the messaging of using Kickstarter in the first place.

I’m just going to copy and paste tweets here from various players at PA.

Robert Khoo ‏@rkhoo
Fail or Succeed, our readers are the best. The potential implications of the move for all content outlets is very exciting to me.
Mike Fehlauer ‏@mikefehlauer
The furnace of the ad model consumes time and creative energy that could go toward creation and expansion of original PA content.
BenKuchera ‏@BenKuchera
@JimSterling That's the entire point, not worrying about ad sales or space is going to allow for more content. It's an additive thing.

7) This isn’t 2000. The dot-com bubble popped.
If this kickstarter succeeds and it is run again next year, will the same people be expected to put up money? Will there be enough interest from other parties to continue kickstarting without relying on a small, but dedicated group of fans to continue their support? If we assume that at the end of 2013, the 2014 funding kickstarter didn’t succeed and ads appear all over the PA site again, what will subsidizers have gained through their cash? A website that caters to their needs? No, the site will continue to operate as it has been. The PA group won’t be beholden to their customers any more than they were beholden to their advertisers – except now those customers control the funding directly as opposed to being the indirect product. And customers are fickle; employment is high especially in the tech sector – your fanbase doesn’t have the dollars to throw at a nebulous concept. Or at least your mature fanbase doesn’t.

8) Additional comics should be run as their own Kickstarter
We’re hearing some ideas around short issue comics like Automata. Wouldn’t it have been wiser to run Automata as its own Kickstarter to gauge interest in the comic versus PA as a whole. It’s a bit of market research that most companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for, but PA would have been paid to do it. Instead of incrementalism, they’ve jumped into infantilism: the demand for everything, right now. There is no accountability for any of these extra projects rolled into the greater good of an ad-free PA site.

Adam said:

*snip*

Click to expand...

This is better than anything I could write on the subject. I'm going to go ahead and pretend that I wrote it.[DOUBLEPOST=1342028334][/DOUBLEPOST]

Soliloquy said:

I’m not going to write a prologue to this rant. If you want the details on what PA is doing, visit their website, read the beginning of this thread or visit their Kickstarter page.

I will, however, set the stage with my limited and probably incorrect understanding of their business structure. PA is a media company made up of three separate and distinct business units: Penny-Arcade proper which would include the comic, the Penny Arcade Report, Trenches, the website, forums and merchandise, PAX the gaming expo ran by David Coffman and Child’s Play, their gaming charity administered by Jamie Dillon. PAX and Child’s Play can be considered self-sustaining, in that the income generated by the activities exceeds the expenses. There is concern that portions of Child’s Play are used as revenues towards Penny Arcade proper which I won’t get into, and PAX absolutely does support parts of Penny Arcade which I don’t think is entirely a bad thing for reasons again I won’t get into.

The Kickstarter project goals, as outlined currently, are to replace the ad revenue currently used to support the site consisting of two unintrusive ads seated at the top and the right hand side of their main screen. These ads usually feature some artwork designed by PA and the games themselves are usually held in high esteem by the PA staff. The ads run over pre-specified campaign lengths I would venture range between 2 weeks and a month in length. The ad revenue, according to Khoo, could be replaced by a Kickstarter that brought in between $250,000 and $1,000,000 per year. The replacement of the ad revenue with Kickstarter revenue would mean that the sales force tasked specifically with generating ad interest could then be tasked with project/creative work.

PA hopes to follow a similar model to NPR, yearly donations by patrons, absolving PA from any corporate pressures in their advertising, focusing the media portion of the company on generating content instead of generating business.

Issues:
1) NPR isn’t solely supported by donations.
Individuals make up only 39% of NPRs revenue stream. Corporations provide 17%, various levels of government provide 16% and foundations, universities and grants make up the bulk of the rest. Ignoring the fact that NPRs individual revenue stream has actually shrunk year over year, NPR is also a historical organization with a tremendous amount of volunteer support that works in concert with its funding drives to keep it running. The volunteers don’t support NPR because of the content, they support NPR because of the ideal behind ‘free’ public radio. PA is a for-profit media business.

2) You aren’t donating to PA, you are subsidizing PA.
To get semantic, a donation is a gift for charitable purposes. Putting money into Kickstarter for PA isn’t a donation that will allow PA to survive, it’s a subsidy that will allow its ad people to focus on producing content. Looking at the value of PA, you have Mike’s artistic ability, Jerry’s writing ability and Ben’s writing ability with PAR. The ad people who I’m sure are very talented in their own right are the benefactors of the Kickstarter in that they are ‘freed’ to pursue other opportunities. Back to the initial analysis of their business model, I suspect that the ad people sell Mike’s services for the ads that appear on the site as a value-add. If the ad people no longer have to worry about ads, Mike no longer has to draw ads and can now focus on projects he enjoys; leading back to the original point. You are paying so that Mike doesn’t have to do work he doesn’t enjoy, analogous to bailing out the banks so they don’t have to worry about their capital adequacy.

3) Kickstarter wasn’t made for “Support my Life” drives
I have no intention to go into too much detail on this point other than to point you to Kickstarters Project Guidelines:
1. Funding for projects only. A project has a clear goal, like making an album, a book, or a work of art. A project will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it. A project is not open-ended. Starting a business, for example, does not qualify as a project.
As Mike and Jerry have both explicitly said the intention if this succeeds it will be a yearly goal.

4) It cheapens Kickstarter’s Brand
Kickstarter has bent their rules a little to allow PA to use KS for this purpose. In doing so, it has undermined in a very public fashion both its purpose and its mission – to provide a ‘kickstart’ for projects that would not have ordinarily succeeded without the crowdsourcing function that Kickstarter provides. What comes as a surprise to some people is that Kickstarter makes 15% off of each Kickstarter, so there was a monetary reason for why they’d want to approve a potentially large kickstart like PA. Unfortunately, what was originally perceived as a tool for philanthropy or business development now can be labeled simply a money-grab for Kickstarter.

5) It underscores the fact the PA guys don’t understand their brand.
A quick definition: Brand is how people perceive you, branding is how you wish people to perceive you. For the longest time, PA was ‘the underdog’, mocking those on high for silly decisions, tearing apart quite vociferously the fiscal machinations of large companies who had little regard for their customers. And a lot of their support from the community came about because of this ‘knight in web armor’ ability to effect positive change by virtue of their position and multitude of fans. This brand empowered the support of disaffected consumers; a simple post about one game could either guarantee success or utterly destroy. And as that power grew, it emboldened the more vocal PA staff (Mike) to push more and more into an ‘attack ‘ mode. With Kickstarter, PA may have thought that they still were the small guys who could depend on donations in order to survive. Unfortunately, they aren’t the small upstarts anymore, they are the EA of webcomics, with a relatively large contingent of paid staff and several ongoing projects that require their attention. PA isn’t a webcomic anymore, it’s a business, despite their protests otherwise. For PA to use Kickstarter as their funding stream is no different than Activision crowdsourcing Call of Duty 5.

6) Justifying the use of Kickstarter has taken over the messaging of using Kickstarter in the first place.

I’m just going to copy and paste tweets here from various players at PA.

Robert Khoo ‏@rkhoo ​

Fail or Succeed, our readers are the best. The potential implications of the move for all content outlets is very exciting to me. ​

Mike Fehlauer ‏@mikefehlauer ​

The furnace of the ad model consumes time and creative energy that could go toward creation and expansion of original PA content. ​

BenKuchera ‏@BenKuchera ​

@JimSterling That's the entire point, not worrying about ad sales or space is going to allow for more content. It's an additive thing. ​

7) This isn’t 2000. The dot-com bubble popped.
If this kickstarter succeeds and it is run again next year, will the same people be expected to put up money? Will there be enough interest from other parties to continue kickstarting without relying on a small, but dedicated group of fans to continue their support? If we assume that at the end of 2013, the 2014 funding kickstarter didn’t succeed and ads appear all over the PA site again, what will subsidizers have gained through their cash? A website that caters to their needs? No, the site will continue to operate as it has been. The PA group won’t be beholden to their customers any more than they were beholden to their advertisers – except now those customers control the funding directly as opposed to being the indirect product. And customers are fickle; employment is high especially in the tech sector – your fanbase doesn’t have the dollars to throw at a nebulous concept. Or at least your mature fanbase doesn’t.

8) Additional comics should be run as their own Kickstarter
We’re hearing some ideas around short issue comics like Automata. Wouldn’t it have been wiser to run Automata as its own Kickstarter to gauge interest in the comic versus PA as a whole. It’s a bit of market research that most companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for, but PA would have been paid to do it. Instead of incrementalism, they’ve jumped into infantilism: the demand for everything, right now. There is no accountability for any of these extra projects rolled into the greater good of an ad-free PA site

Click to expand...

Aren't I smart?

Soliloquy said:

This is better than anything I could write on the subject. I'm going to go ahead and pretend that I wrote it.

Aren't I smart?

Click to expand...

You should open a Kickstarter for content generation!

I'm considering opening a Kickstarter for me shaving my head, so the extra time I'd normally spend worrying about doing my hair can be put towards more productive creative projects.

Soliloquy said:

I'm considering opening a Kickstarter for me shaving my head, so the extra time I'd normally spend worrying about doing my hair can be put towards more productive creative projects.

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I'd buy that for a dollar, but travel and lodging won't be included, right?

Adam said:

I'd buy that for a dollar, but travel and lodging won't be included, right?

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Nah. And you'll have to pay for my travel and lodging as well.

Soliloquy said:

I'm considering opening a Kickstarter for me shaving my head, so the extra time I'd normally spend worrying about doing my hair can be put towards more productive creative projects.

Click to expand...

Not to burst your me, burt shaving your head usually takes more time than grooming it (unless you have longer hair than is usual for a man). I shave my head every oher day and it takes easily 15 minutes to do it properly. Not keeping a beard and shaving everything shaves a bit of time (compared to goatee) but still.


that aside, my personal problem with this KS, besides everything Adam's already said I agree with, is that the ads on PA aren't intrusive/annoying at all. Their own "menu" with smakll bits of trenches etc etc is far more obnoxious; the two ads they have don't bother anyone.

This is just trying to go pay-for-content and hoping people will pay enough to help others as well. Having a separate site for those with and without ads, asking $10 a year for those who don't want ads, would probably get you less money...but it'd be fairer. And it wouldn't be bad for Kickstarter. "Donating" to a team of 15 people isn't a donation, it's a subscription.

Bubble181 said:

Not to burst your me, burt shaving your head usually takes more time than grooming it (unless you have longer hair than is usual for a man). I shave my head every oher day and it takes easily 15 minutes to do it properly. Not keeping a beard and shaving everything shaves a bit of time (compared to goatee) but still.

Click to expand...

Who said anything about maintaining a shaved head properly? That was never mentioned in my Kickstarter campaign.

Soliloquy said:

Who said anything about maintaining a shaved head properly? That was never mentioned in my Kickstarter campaign.

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Good point. Too bad it has to have a finite end, I guess you wouldn't even be allowed to do it to keep your head shaved.

By the rules, it seems to me a KS to "stop smopking" would be perfeclty legal. Maybe I'd better start....Hmm....

What has smopking ever done to you?

Covar said:

What has smopking ever done to you?

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Their boardgames suck.

Adam said:

You know what they say, a fool and his money...

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They soon go separate ways?

--Patrick

Haha, anyone notice their mailchimp username and password in the background of their video?

Adam said:

Haha, anyone notice their mailchimp username and password in the background of their video?

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So... Tempting...

From their updated FAQ:

Q: There's a password written on the whiteboard.
A: Yes, we saw it when we filmed it. No worries - it was a temp PW and was changed long ago. But thanks for looking out for us!

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So their experiment ends in about a day, and they've netted about a half a million dollars. What are they going to do for half a million dollars?

- remove the leader board ad from the front page (not the comic page)
- write a 6 page automata comic
- dress Jerry up (hopefully as yummy chan)
- produce another year of the penny arcade show, but this time fashioned as a reality show for comic artists other than PA

They made out like bandits. So little effort for quite a chunk of change, and they aren't going to be giving up much advertising income, the majority of their funding comes from the ads on the comic page.

Chances a good they won't actually get rid of the leaderboard, though, they'll just use it to advertise their other properties.

I still think its funny that others seem to be unhappy or even angry with penny arcade. It's just another way to sell a product, and if you don't buy it then why get angry that someone else is selling it and other people a buying it?

I stand by that one comment I made that 75,000 dollars for a 6 page comic pretty much makes them the highest paid comic creators ever.

It also makes them the smartest and luckiest.

AshburnerX said:

It also makes them the smartest and luckiest.

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And one of the most productive. It's not like they sit on their asses doing nothing all day. Their whole team works really freaking hard.

But it's hard to deny that the only reason they are so successful is because they found the one guy who wouldn't rip them off when they were starting out. They guy who manages their business deserves a shitload of credit, especially because he took a huge risk just helping them out. I think he spent like a year without a paycheck.

AshburnerX said:

But it's hard to deny that the only reason they are so successful is because they found the one guy who wouldn't rip them off when they were starting out. They guy who manages their business deserves a shitload of credit, especially because he took a huge risk just helping them out. I think he spent like a year without a paycheck.

Click to expand...

Khoo is the man and they know it.

I'm not gonna lie: I'm a little relieved that they didn't make a million kajillion dollars on the Kickstarter. They made almost double their goal, but compared to other INCREDIBLY successful Kickstarters, like Order of the Stick and Double Fine, it doesn't compare. For one of the biggest, most successful webcomics out there, I'm surprised it only made this much.

But then, I've been against the idea from the start because the idea of Kickstarter is to fund things that ordinarily wouldn't have the money to do it. Double Fine and Order of the Stick didn't have huge money to work with because they were small, independents. Penny Arcade, on the other hand? Stupidly rich, with an incredibly successful business that didn't need to do this. Plus, they made a mockery of previous Kickstarters by offering some incredibly insulting, not very rewarding rewards.

Also, their pledge rewards sucked pretty hard.

That's what I said in the second paragraph.

So you did!