If you've downloaded Meatbot Massacre, you're probably familiar with how the Ransom Model for distribution works. If you haven't, head on over to http://www.danielsolis.com/meatbot/, get the game, read the theory. I'll wait.

If you want to read more about the Ransom Model, head on down to http://www.gregstolze.com/ransom.html or, if you want to hear me talk about it, try http://www.onthemedia.org.

Now, I'm doing it again with a roleplaying game called ...in Spaaace!. You can read about that at www.gregstolze.com too. More importantly, you can donate money to it at http://www.fundable.org/groupactions/inspaaace/ just like people did for Meatbot Massacre. The difference is, this time you get your money BACK if I don't make my goal. Unfortunately, the other difference is I've only got 45 days.

Will the pressure work? I guess we'll find out. Keep me informed of your opinions, doubts, hopes and questions.

-G.

One of your links to In Space on your website is broken.

www.gregstolze.com/inspace


It isn't there. The link is on your games.html page.

Greg: your piece on the aftermath of the Meatbot ransom was very interesting. However, I'd like to posit a question. You presumably have some thoughts about this: how do you figure out how much to ask for? I imagine that both the designer's perception of the value of his own work, as well as his perception about what the market will carry, will influence the amount. How do you figure the numbers? Also, in the long run vision, how do you figure ransoms will stack up to other methods of payment in terms of profit? The latter is a too wide question to answer exactly, but I'd be interested in any indications or preliminary thoughts.

If anybody else has analysis or data on the questions, I'd be interested about it. The ransom model seems like a good tool in a publisher's arsenal, and I might well end up using it some day myself. Just now it just seems that we really have no idea at all about how to apply it. No "common wisdom", as it were.

Actually, I swam around Greg's site (great site for name promotion, written with a warm voice and full of interesting stuff, by the by) a bit, and it seems that the ...in Spaaace! ransom is calculated from the number of words and costs for the graphics. Is that right?

That certainly seems like one quasi-reasonable way of figuring out appropriate payment. Certainly it seems to be the norm in the American writing world in general. Don't know how sensible it is for rpg design, though. Especially I'm not sure if I'd want to encourage writing in lieu of design, when it's the design we supposedly pay for.

But anyway, that's another topic. I for one will follow the progress of the ...in Spaaace! ransom with great interest. Good luck with that!

Interestingly. Eureka miniatures uses something like this with their 100 and 300 clubs. While not entirely the same as the ransom model, it does share some common ideas. The link for that page of their site:

http://eurekamin.com.au/custom.php

It seems like Greg's idea has a parallel out there.

Thanks for the heads-up on the broken link.

As for "how much to charge," yeah, it's based on art cost and per-word. (Soon, I should have the art to show.) I gave myself a little raise with this one, but it's still well within the per-word cost I get from mainstream publishers. As for the $10 minimum donation on Fundable, I set it a little below the median donation to MBM. I'm hoping that the return policy embedded in Fundable will encourage some of the roughly 1400 people who downloaded MBM and didn't pay anything to take the limited risk here.

-G.

Who's wondering when the posters here are going to donate, hint hint.