Ransom Method: Follow the Money

[GregStolze]

Per Ron's request, I'm starting a new Ransom Method thread.  Here goes.

MBM: Full ransom was met, so I split the cash between myself and Dan Solis.  (I'd paid Thomas Manning beforehand, and he got a piece of excess donations.)  Had it failed, all gathered funds would have gone to Hesed House (a homeless shelter).

Executive Decision: Full ransom was met, and delivered to the Red Cross as promised.  ED was done through Fundable, IIRC, so had the ransom failed, the money would have returned to the pledgers.

...in Spaaace!: Full ransom met.  All for Stolze.  Done through Fundable.

GM and PC articles from my web site:  NOT done through Fundable, and explicitly begun with the understanding that I'd keep all cash (and use it to fund art for REIGN) whether the articles were released or not.  The ransom hasn't been met, but since it's not through Fundable I'm leaving it open -- theoretically, people could fill out the ransoms over the next year or something.

WordSlave: This fiction experiment was done through Fundable, so when the ransom went unmet the donors got their cash back.

Any questions?  I haven't bothered to look for ED, MBM or ...iS! on pirate sites because, hey, that ain't shit to me.

-G.

[Eero Tuovinen]

I know these have been mentioned before, but care to include the ransom amounts as well for those who haven't followed this since the beginning? While you're at it, how long did each of these take to be fulfilled or to plateau (for those that haven't been fulfilled)? Perhaps there's some conclusion that can be drawn at this point already about the size of the market and such.

[David Artman]

In addition to Eero's request for ransom totals and time to fulfill, I would be interested to know:
  a) Approximate time to produce each work.
  b) Approximate word count of each work.
Those two metrics would provide both net hourly and per-word income values, once divided across the totals.

In the end, I think those income values would be the key determinant for someone considering ransom. The ransom model is ideal for securing an income *as a writer is paid*, and some might consider that sufficient compensation when compared against the risk/reward extreme of publishing "on spec," which is the default income model for many indie publisher-writers.

Thank you for your candor;
David

[Daniel Solis]

Greg asked me to post any hard data I had, but sadly I paid much less attention than he did. (As many know, I'm the most business-avoidant guy around.) All I can offer is the ransom model page on Meatbot Massacre's promo site. Not much more info there, but it was written shortly after that first ransom had been completed, so you can get a bit of sense of being in that moment.

[GregStolze]

I'd challenge Daniel for "most business avoidant" but the big trends were: Large boost any time someone brought it up on RPG.NET, and a surge towards the end as people started thinking "Hey, maybe that crazy fucker will DO IT if he doesn't get the money!"

-G.

[sean2099]

Hi all,

I had some questions about this method.  To your collective knowledge, has anyone broke down the ransom into parts?  One thing I thought about was what if you stated something like, if 1000 dollars is raised by day X, the full product will be released for free.  However, if we only get 700 dollars, the product will be released but there will be little or no artwork.  Maybe at 500 you will only have a text product. 

Another thought...disclosing what things cost like I am spending this much on art, this much for editing, etc so that the donaters see where their money is going.  I don't know if people would feel better by seeing this or if they would tighten their pocketbooks once they see the figures.

I know the figures are off but I was trying to illustrate a couple of points.

Thanks,

Sean

[GregStolze]

Mmm... I think the people who'd be interested in "X for editing, Y for the cover" are a vocal minority.  Most gamers, I would think, don't want to be bothered.  Hell, I don't want to be bothered and I'm a "publisher".  (The Forge, I think, presents an atypical example.) 

Contingent Ransoms ("Pay more and get better!") could work, but to me they're more trouble than they're worth.  My primary goal with the Ransom Method was to make things as easy as possible.  The idea of yanking art is particularly weird, since the effort of redoing the layout would seem pretty extreme.

-G.

[daMoose_Neo]

Of course, it would depend on the project.
Working on my card games, if I'm running a set of 50 cards at $35, which is a rate used here, or the $40 to $50 I usually pay, we're talking almost $2k in artwork. In my case, a partial ransom (At $X raised, I release X cards, At $Y raised, I release Y cards), could not only be an easy process (Individual cards as opposed to books), but one players could potentially jive with. I find that when I start talking the economics of producing the game I manage to get people more interested in what it would actually take to see the game expanded.

[joepub]

Nate,

That would work especially well for cards.
Plus, it lets players decide what they want to see more of if you allow them to donate money to factions instead of the overall game.

That way I can put $X into Vampire and $X into "New Faction", and if enough people follow suit there will be some rad cards produced in those fields.

[sean2099]

Mmm... I think the people who'd be interested in "X for editing, Y for the cover" are a vocal minority. Most gamers, I would think, don't want to be bothered. Hell, I don't want to be bothered and I'm a "publisher". (The Forge, I think, presents an atypical example.)

Contingent Ransoms ("Pay more and get better!") could work, but to me they're more trouble than they're worth. My primary goal with the Ransom Method was to make things as easy as possible. The idea of yanking art is particularly weird, since the effort of redoing the layout would seem pretty extreme.

-G.

I was aiming for the idea or term contigent ransom.  Perhaps art wasn't the best example...Nate, good idea to extend this to card games. This model would make the cash expenditure less risky plus serve as a survey.  If you had several ideas and know of good artists, playtesters, etc., people would vote for their favorite idea, saving you the trouble of making a game no one wants.

Cool.

Sean