I think the $5000 from donations is just a start, Tom will have to integrate other means of profit as well so that Byond doesn't just rely on the random gifts of it's community. He needs something that gives a steady reliable income in the long run.
However donations are a excellent start and not to say our community isn't reliable, but donations alone aren't going to be enough.
We need more traffic by means of Search Engine Optimization and therefore more members buying memberships and also more incentives to have people subscribe to games and memberships.
It will be a gradual process but I am sure with several sources of steady income, that $5000 dollars a month can be a much higher reliable income for Byond.
I applaud Tom and his new direction and pray for continued success and development of this great project.
Advertisements and Memberships were supposed to be the long-term profits. Those aren't working out too well, I say go to cafepress and make BYOND merch. Mentioned it before, I'd like to have a BYOND shirt with a more retro feel(if I could ever afford it). Wouldn't solve the issues, for sure, but it'd help. We need more appeal too, a more social aspect to the forums would be a start, more website interaction means more ads being seen and a higher chance of clicks, and more involvement with the site will usually lead to a membership eventually down the line. A more appealing front page too, http://www.byond.com/ just isn't appealing to me. Peronally, a new logo that loads into a video about BYOND(fading between the DM features, and DS; to show what the site's about), and bringing back some of the old member perks *cough*CSS*cough*.
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No CSS because Tom wants this to be more of a professional environment.
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Make a approval period for your CSS? Would increase the workload of the moderation team, maybe even call for a extra mod or two; but it'd work for me. If the moderation team assigned to CSS doesn't agree with your changes, deny the change and have them keep their current. Otherwise, approve(if it's 'professional' enough for them) and give people a lot less of a reason to complain about memberships and their worth.
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Ripper man5 wrote:
No CSS because Tom wants this to be more of a professional environment. These stars aren't helping :P they are to big and ugly imo.. | |
NNAAAAHH wrote:
Make a approval period for your CSS? Would increase the workload of the moderation team, maybe even call for a extra mod or two; but it'd work for me. While I like the general idea of having a CSS once again, this will just lead to more complaints to Tom about moderators if we were to be in charge of approving/denying a users CSS. give people a lot less of a reason to complain about memberships and their worth. If anything, it'll actually increase the reason for people to complain because it's a membership perk; something that was paid for. A prime example is when hub creation was membership-only (not sure if it is now), we received a lot of complaints that they paid for a membership and their hub shouldn't need to be approved because of it. LordAndrew knows what I'm talkin' about. As for the Fund-o-meter, I like it. It's a shame that people now know that I didn't donate that $1,000,000,000 but I'll eventually get over it. I might donate a bit, but if I do, I'd like it to be enough to put me near the top twenty. Unfortunately, donating would make me feel competitive and would eventually put me on a ramen diet, so I'm hesitant on throwing my money around. | |
Customization of a personal page is different than a main feature to a site(Hey, CSS for hubs would defiantly rake in some members.). I know I wouldn't complain about needing my CSS to be approved, it's like having your hub approved; it'll happen if you have everything you need and follow the guidelines.
I understand the complaints about hubs being a member's perk, because that was one of the main features of the site(being a part of the development aspect to BYOND and all). Complaints on needing to follow guidelines to having custom CSS is just idiotic. By the way, I still believe you donated a billion USDs, I just don't think Tom wants everyone else to know ;) lol. | |
Does the meter include all revenue, or just from memberships/donations, or just donations alone?
As far as gift memberships, I don't think that many people are waiting around for a free membership. I didn't buy a membership for about 10 years, until I was almost ready to release ASCII. At that point I was about to buy a membership in order to be able to make a hub for it, and suddenly I received a mysterious gift membership (I still don't know who it was...). Perhaps someone saw that I was making progress and deemed me worthy - in any case, now that I have the membership it gives me some extra motivation to keep working on games and to keep contributing by donating or extending my membership, and I remind myself that someone helped me out with the initial membership...not to mention BYOND staff helping me out by allowing me to use the software for free for the ten years it took me to reach my current skill level. | |
i would donate if i could
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I like these changes, it is mind boggling just how far ahead Teka is apart from everyone else though.
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Magicsofa wrote:
Does the meter include all revenue, or just from memberships/donations, or just donations alone? I agree with your question, I'd like to know as well. If memberships add to that meter and coincide with the list of donations on the hub, I'd buy a multi-year membership when possible rather than donate 5 dollars at a time. | |
Memberships help BYOND pretty much the same way donations do, minus the tiny fee they have to use to host your files.
Still don't know why I see Teka buying a 6-month membership for someone, then donating $20 with the membership. Makes more sense to buy a longer membership. Guess he's trying to give BYOND as much money as possible and hopes after their six-months is up they'd renew. | |
I like this, Tom! People need visual reminders; not everybody is as generous as Teka. I think the meter on the site and in the pager should help the cause a lot. If there's anything this whole ordeal as taught me, it's that there are a lot of people here that really care about BYOND and the work that you guys have done. The least we can do is give a little to the cause. The best we could do is continually strive to make some good games!
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A.T.H.K wrote:
Ripper man5 wrote: I think it matches the site nicely. | |
Nice update, Now it's far more obvious why i can never afford anything for myself.
I do think this will help Byond, Though I will be slowing down with my donations as i need to save up for myself, But that's pretty good for the competitive climbers who may wish to over throw me :) I can already see some new benefactors rising :) and a lot of people donating small amounts, so Thanks guys! ~The stars are a neat idea and kind of.. pillow shaded :P | |
The fund-o-meter isn't updating properly for me, it still looks a hair over 1,500 not a hair close to 2,000.
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Hold up, it just updated to 2000. I guess it only updates on the halfway marks and the 1000s... Also, I just noticed my membership went from 70 days to 5 years. Well thank you.
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BYOND uses some kind of weird cache stuff; just do CTRl+F5 to force it to update.
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I think that the donation prompt asks for a USD donation, and whatever funds you have are converted into the donation made and removed from your account that way.