Culture Fund

[mdinire]

If this system was put in place then I think the people who pay deserve to get a good bonus from doing so. Something like getting software two weeks before the public release would tempt people or exclusive versions of games or something physical, like stickers, sent to them .

 

[OrR]

Some advantages would probably be good for motivation but people should not sign up exclusively because they expect something like that. In the end it should still be about voluntarily giving for something you received for free.

The free software will still be free if you are a greedy bastard (or poor) and refuse to give any money for it.

I think you're missing the point here. Most devs don't start a project because they are expecting money. They start a project because it is of personal interest to them, and any money that people donate is a bonus. If they wanted money for it, they'd have made people pay for it.

It should be pretty obvious that I understand that much. However, I want to advance that little bonus so that it becomes a little more substantial. It would be great if people would be giving money to devs by themselves. And some people do. But I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who would be giving if they had a little encouragement and pressure to do so and it would be easy for them. What's wrong about leveraging that potential?

Please don't try and make it seem as if people who don't pay for software that is released for free seem like they are 'greedy'. I don't think badges should be allowed, as people will use it as a status symbol and as a free ticket to flame people without one.

Well, the whole point of the badges would be to put a little pressure on people who aren't paying. However, I agree that there have to be measures in place to keep it from becoming intimidating. Some simple forum rules about not flaming someone because he doesn't have a badge should be enough, though.

 

[don]

The more I keep thinking of it (and reading the comments of people who haven't understood a single bit of the idea behind the thread), the more I think it is a great idea. The key here is not "I *have* to donate" or "my money goes away for crap I don't want", the key is the payment of very small amounts, and that's incredibly clever.
Even if you disregard the idea of a subscription service (which might after all not be that good, I'd guess some sort of prepaid donation card would be better)... just imagine having 10e on your donation card. you can donate very small amounts via the service. Any homebrew game you played more than once to test it should be worth, say 25 cent. It's a ridiculously small amount for you, but if 100 people donate 25 cent to a homebrew game, it's 25e for the creator, and that's a nice bonus.
If you're in the user position, it's damn easy to just say "BUT THE DEVELOPERS DON'T DO IT FOR THE MONEY", but i've rarely seen a dev turning a donation down. Furthermore, since you're all about luring new devs to the scene, imagine how attractive such a donation service could make a platform to new devs.

So, next one who's shouting "I WANT TO DONATE AS MUCH AS I WANT TO ANYBODY I WANT", that's exactly what the service is for.

 

[Null]

Some simple forum rules about not flaming someone because he doesn't have a badge should be enough, though.

:lol: People follow forum rules?

 

[OrR]

Forum rules can be enforced if necessary.

 

[Null]

Forum rules can be enforced if necessary.

I've just been reading the forum rules and it seems that we already have a non-flaming rule (or similar) so your idea has already been implemented.

 

[A_SN]

i've rarely seen a dev turning a donation down.

Well I have (turned down donations). You can't donate to me on SourceForge and once someone said they'd donate to me I said I'd rather have them donate some of their time to experimenting with my ARSS and give their money to the red cross instead.

 

[Orkie]

Well I have (turned down donations). You can't donate to me on SourceForge and once someone said they'd donate to me I said I'd rather have them donate some of their time to experimenting with my ARSS and give their money to the red cross instead.

Maybe you should've taken it given that you are struggling to find a job .

I personally think this is a good idea. I don't have a job either so any amount of money is useful.

 

[MisterBrisby]

I like that fund-idea but the subscription classes seem to be too expensive on a monthly basis. I would rather do it like this:
BRONZE: 5 Euros
SILVER: 10 Euros
GOLD: 20 Euros
- and no platinum subscription at all.

I think that would make things more affordable and more attractive for people here.

But I think that system would work well. The folks at AROS (Amiga Research Operating System) use something similar to collect money for their bounties and they do that for quite some time now.
Look here: http://www.thenostromo.com/teamaros2/

 

[JakeK]

Even if I were earning $1000 bucks a month you'd never find me on this subscription thing. I agree with A_SN. Although I don't dev it up I would prefer that people give there hard earned money to a much better cause.

Orkie I think you just shot yourself in the foot.

"I don't have a job either so any amount of money is useful." To me it sounds like you want the money fro the wrong reasons. Plus just because you made some free software doesn't mean you deserve money. If you think you do then put a price on your software.

If anything MisterBrisby is on the right track for a subscription service.

Anyone willing to throw away 170 bucks for the platinum service needs to get their priorities right. There are plenty of more things that need your money more than a dev making software because they want to make it.

 

[fishybawb]

Summing up:

People get software from developers. They aren't required to pay for said software. Some people feel morally obliged to contribute - at the same time boosting developers' morale (whether they asked for donations or not is irrelevant), other people can't/won't donate, shit happens, the devs who dev for their own enjoyment will continue, those who were in it for the money but too stupid/naive to make it a commercial product will go away.

The only problem will occur if you have more developers who expect money than those who do it for the enjoyment/challenge/whatever. That's never been the case with the GP32/GP2X scene, so I don't see why it'd be any different for the Pandora.

 

[don]

Even if I were earning $1000 bucks a month you'd never find me on this subscription thing. I agree with A_SN. Although I don't dev it up I would prefer that people give there hard earned money to a much better cause.

Orkie I think you just shot yourself in the foot.

"I don't have a job either so any amount of money is useful." To me it sounds like you want the money fro the wrong reasons. Plus just because you made some free software doesn't mean you deserve money. If you think you do then put a price on your software.

If anything MisterBrisby is on the right track for a subscription service.

Anyone willing to throw away 170 bucks for the platinum service needs to get their priorities right. There are plenty of more things that need your money more than a dev making software because they want to make it.

By now, we already established that you're very cheap. Your posting is a big pile of steaming feces.
You don't have to donate if you don't want to. Don't try to stop a perfectly good idea just because you're used to get (or to fetch) everything for free. Fine, you won't have a badge then, who cares? It's not the end of the world.

If you're a homebrew dev who wants/needs cash, you have two possibilities, either release your project as commercial software or wait for donations. The former one doesn't really work these days, since people wouldn't even pay $5 for a game that's not absolutely perfect and polished to a level that'd make million dollar game companies proud. In addition, people slag you and your games off, not to mention that you'd have to found a company and pay tax in most countries.
So there's the second alternative, donations. And that's where this service would come in handy.

Regarding your "just because you made free software doesn't mean you deserve money" - what makes YOU deserve free products? What if devs would be: "ah well, just because they bought a $200 console doesn't mean they deserve my free software"? Keep in mind you'd end up with a $200 paperweight if it weren't for the people who aren't even worth 25 cents of donation in your opinion.

 

[Vorporeal]

What would make a lot more sense would be to just Paypal 20 dollars or so onto your account, then be able to take money from your account and give it to developers. This would allow you to give small sums of money, while avoiding recurring Paypal fees and the like.

 

[Zarneth]

I wouldn't touch a subscription with a 10 foot pole unless there was some sort of actual commitment behind it. Which is not something you can expect from a single developer.

Whenever it comes to Games, Music and software I tend to download a copy first, illegal or otherwise, and if I like it or find myself playing it a lot I'll then always go buy a legit copy. Sometimes I'll even finish a game, THEN go buy it and never end up playing it again. But it works for me, and I feel that it's reasonably ethical. (As opposed to being bated by media and hype into to buying something shit without trying it beforehand. And there's SO much mass produced SHIT software out there.)

I can see myself possibly doing something similar for Pandora software. If some kind of donation system is made. It'd be nice to be able to pay $50, and then divide it how I see fit between the few developers whos software I use most. If I had to deposit the amounts individually to the developers though there would likely be a lot of overhead cost making small donations more worth doing. (small donations from multiple people would potentially add up, or even just think of it as shouting the dev for lunch!)

 

[Orkie]

Orkie I think you just shot yourself in the foot.

"I don't have a job either so any amount of money is useful." To me it sounds like you want the money fro the wrong reasons. Plus just because you made some free software doesn't mean you deserve money. If you think you do then put a price on your software.

Sorry, I didn't realise it was such a terrible sin to hope to receive enough money to use the bus to get into town every now and again. But I guess that is a sin in itself - developers should not leave their house!

You may think I've shot myself in the foot, I think your baseless assumption that I simply want as much money as I can get out of greed shows that you are 'not a very nice person'.

Oh, I did try selling a game once but it caused such a big argument at gp32spain about whether people should be 'allowed' to sell games for money, I decided it wasn't worth my effort. That recent thread in the news forum doesn't fill me with much confidence either.

 

[javaJake]

deleteme

 

[Vilmos]

The sad truth is that if you want to receive money for your game then you have to sell it. Even a "crappy" non-polished game will earn more money than the best free game that accepts donations.

 

[J201605]

I love all the great homebrew but if someone is making a completely original non ported homebrew game and it is of really high quality I think they should sell it somehow for $1-$5, i would like it if there was a subset of games inbetween full commercial games like payback and totally free little homebrew titles because it would allow them to be legitimately reviewed and it would ensure that there was a bigger selection of high quality titles like sqdef which would be the perfect example of a game i would happily pay $1-$5 for but would never think to donate for.

 

[OrR]

Selling things in the 1-5$ range is still difficult online. If you transfer the money via Paypal, a big chunk of it will be eaten by the fees. Independent from my donation/subscription concept, I think it would be a great idea if Craig, ED etc. would set up a system to make this possible. Example: You pay 20$ to the shop and can then choose ten small 2$ games to download.

Selling games instead of giving them away for free has a few positive and negative implications to consider. Selling a game makes the developer get more money in most cases. It also means that less people play the game. Everyone pays the same for the game whether they can easily afford it or have to save up for it, whether they play it all the time or only for a few minutes.
If everyone would be fair and idealistic, donating would be the better system. Unfortunately that is not the case. The goal of my subscription/medal idea is to make it more attractive to be fair and idealistic and thus make donations a better way of income for developers than it is today.

What also has to be considered is that some things can't be sold. Emulators and other applications under GPL for example, or most game ports. Still, there is work put into them, and rewarding the developers for it makes sense.

 

[Goity]

I'm sure this is a great idea if you're an emulator writer. Otherwise? Not so much...