Penny Arcade Sells Out

#1

Post by gilrain » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 3:40 PM UTC

Penny Arcade Sells Out
kickstarter.com

Re: Penny Arcade Sells Out

#2

Post by thatusertwo » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 4:53 PM UTC

An internet without ads would be amazing.

Re: Penny Arcade Sells Out

#3

Post by wkdown » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 4:57 PM UTC

For $500, they will retweet one of your tweets "within reason".

Wow, put me down for TWO!

Re: Penny Arcade Sells Out

#4

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 5:00 PM UTC

Interesting take on the crowd funding issue.

I expect to see more of these sorts of creative things. Advertising debt is annoying. And sadly people like PA with their 2 ads get nailed because people have been so massively inundated with ads all day that even one more is painful.

Another experiment they haven't tried, but would be good to run, would be to make the site subscriber only with the long tail free. So imagine a site where if you subscribed it was ad free and every few days you got a new comic. There is the 'free' site which is content that is a year old and has advertising on it, and there is a totally free site which has the two years old or later and its got no ads on it.

Of course its not as useful for topical content but its an interesting experiment.

Re: Penny Arcade Sells Out

#5

Post by Zimahl » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 5:17 PM UTC

I enjoy Penny Arcade. That said, it seems like an awful lot of money for an ad-free website.

Aren't they making enough off of merchandise, their expo, their games, etc., to make the site ad free? From what I understand they are wildly successful (monetarily as well as publicly) so why do they need the public to literally give them money?

Re: Penny Arcade Sells Out

#6

Post by Zimahl » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 5:28 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #4

Interesting take on the crowd funding issue. I expect to see more of these sorts of creative things. Advertising debt is annoying. And sadly people like PA with their 2 ads get nailed because people have been so massively inundated with ads all day that even one more is painful. Another experiment they haven't tried, but would be good to run, would be to make the site subscriber only with the long tail free. So imagi…

Unfortunately for PA, their content is probably 90% games/pop culture topical. After a month it'd be completely stale and irrelevant (with exceptions of course).

I think the better move would be to have pay users not have to see any ads. Simple web re-design to remove that for pay users, otherwise free users still have to look at the ads. There are a ton of sites that do this and are quite successful.

Re: Penny Arcade Sells Out

#7

Post by arn » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 5:53 PM UTC

Zimahl wrote: post #5

I enjoy Penny Arcade. That said, it seems like an awful lot of money for an ad-free website. Aren't they making enough off of merchandise, their expo, their games, etc., to make the site ad free? From what I understand they are wildly successful (monetarily as well as publicly) so why do they need the public to literally give them money?

My initial reaction was that $1 million seemed low to replace their advertising revenue for a year.

I don't know the site statistics, but they have a large staff, and are a very popular site. Gaming/entertainment is a solid area of advertising.

Looking at their site though, they don't have a ton of ads, so I guess that helps explains it. And their primary source of revenue seems non-ads (expo, etc...), and probably see their site as their advertising/lead generation.

Re: Penny Arcade Sells Out

#8

Post by adventureful » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 5:56 PM UTC

thatusertwo wrote: post #2

An internet without ads would be amazing.

A $45 billion kickstarter for 2013 should do the trick for the US market.

Re: Penny Arcade Sells Out

#9

Post by portmanteaufu » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 5:57 PM UTC

Zimahl wrote: post #5

I enjoy Penny Arcade. That said, it seems like an awful lot of money for an ad-free website. Aren't they making enough off of merchandise, their expo, their games, etc., to make the site ad free? From what I understand they are wildly successful (monetarily as well as publicly) so why do they need the public to literally give them money?

From the FAQ:

Advertising paid for rent, wages, health insurance, utilities, all the normal stuff that you pay for when you have fourteen souls working together. That money keeps the lights on while we do the things people expect from us: thrice weekly content drops, two annual shows, the scholarships, Child's Play, etc.

Re: Penny Arcade Sells Out

#10

Post by gfosco » Tue, Jul 10, 2012, 6:03 PM UTC

wkdown wrote: post #3

For $500, they will retweet one of your tweets "within reason". Wow, put me down for TWO!

The rewards are totally lame, and insanely priced. I love the comic, and really it's not worth a dollar of mine to remove the ads I don't even look at. The Kickstarter goal doesn't even remove the ad from the Comic page.