Age of the Geek

A New Way To Pay
 
     Well that didn’t last long.
     Last week I wrote about Valve’s spectacular failure to convince PC gamers to pay for mod content. Between me writing the column and it seeing print, Valve decided they had enough, refunded everybody’s money, and shutdown the program.
     It’s not that there shouldn’t be an avenue for modders to get paid for their work, but clearly this was the wrong one.
     Fortunately, the Internet has come up with several other avenues, which are rapidly becoming a larger part of the overall economy.
     In the case of modding, the virtual “tip jar” seems to be the preferred option. Rather than pay up front for a game mod that may or may not work, you can have the mod for free and make a donation directly to the modder’s PayPal account.
     I’ve done this myself. Open Broadcaster Software is a free program that I use in my video editing hobby. It really is a great program, and the developers working for free offer better tech support than any professional company I’ve ever seen. My donation won’t buy them more than a nice burrito, but hey, how many people get a free lunch with their hobby?
     But that’s the kicker, isn’t it. Turning hobbies into full time jobs. I can’t imagine the developers of Open Broadcast Software make enough in donations to live on, but in other cases that could be the case.
     It seems that in the wake of the economic recession and the loss of low-skilled jobs, people are becoming more and more inclined to look for ways to monetize their hobbies. It’s the American Dream of the 21st Century.
     To that end, the “pay what you want” model is gaining prominence, particularly online where the whole world can be your audience. It seems contrary to the usual economic procedure of “I make this, set a price, and sell it,” but it’s working. If you sell something for $10 to 10 people, you make $100. If you give it away to 100 people and 10 of them decide to give you $10, 20 decide to give you $1, and the rest just take it for free, you’re still ahead.
     That doesn’t seem like a realistic situation. After all, why would anybody pay for something when they don’t have to? And yet, reality has proven time and time again that they will.
     Just look at all the “free” games out there that generate millions of dollars in revenue. Many people play them without spending a single dime. Others may throw in a dollar or two before they get bored. Most of the revenue, however, comes from the “whales.” High spenders with money to burn on extra turns in “Candy Crush.”
     Maybe it has something to do with the ever increasing income gap.
     Of course, even beyond “pay what you want” is the Patreon method.
     Patreon is a relatively new website looking to be the next step beyond Kickstarter when it comes to the crowdfunding market. By signing up to Patreon, you can set up a system where people will just give you money for being you.
     Lewis Lovhaug makes internet videos where he reads and critiques comic books. These videos are completely free. He produces them and posts them for the whole world to see. On top of whatever ad revenue he makes from his videos, he has a Patreon account that generates $2,641 a month. There are 488 people willing to give him money every month just so he can keep doing what he does.
     And he’s far from alone. Many online creators are using Patreon to supplement their incomes or at least make sure they break even on their hobbies.
     Personally, I donate $1 a month to five Patreons of people or groups whose work I like enough to buy them a good burrito once a year. Yes, I operate on a burrito-based economy.
     I am also apparently a cheapskate because the average donor on these accounts gives between $5 and $7.50 per month. I may be buying them one burrito a year, but other people out there are clearly making up the difference.
     Of course, all of this operates in something of a legal gray area. Team Four Star, for instance, is a group of creators famous for their parody series, “DragonBall Z Abridged.”
     “Dragonball Z Abridged” is, as is said before every video, “a non-profit fan-based parody,” and that is true to an extent. They do not sell their videos, nor do they collect ad revenue on them. Doing so would quickly earn them the wrath of both Toei Animation, who owns the Dragonball franchise, and Funimation, who holds the license to distribute Dragonball in North America.
     But while Team Four Star cannot sell or collect ad revenue for “Dragonball Z Abridged,” they can collect the $6,189 per month that fans donate to their Patreon account.
     Just because you can’t sell something no longer means you can’t make money off of it. (And kudos to the guys at Patreon, who collect a dime for every dollar that passes through their website, for figuring out how to make a living by facilitating online panhandling).
     First the Internet changed how we pay our bills. Now, for some at least, it’s changing how they generate the money to pay bills, too.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and may try setting up a Patreon of his own, if only to supplement his burrito budget.