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[Delioth]

I'd be down with that.

I'm an almost broke Comp Sci major, so I couldn't help with funding it and haven't gotten to coding for websites and such, but I'd be willing to learn it (My classes are going too slow, so I need more to do.). I'd also be willing to run some games, whether I get any proceeds or not-I have so many ideas floating around but I know there are only so many players on the bay12 forums, and relatively few who are consistent(see spoiler:rant).

I wholeheartedly support you- why is there a (very) creative outlet that has no possible way to profit from? I mean, I had a teacher who once said the key to happiness is to take what you love and find a way to make money from it. Some people really have a passion for storytelling- so let them profit from it. In the meantime, have a free section of the forums for people who aren't so passionate/do it on the side can still have their forum games, but maybe put an ad or two on the page- just to make that section pay for itself. Have an opt-in ad on paid sections (so a gm can either have the thread pay for itself with an ad or can support the page from his/her own earnings).

I'm probably talking too much, so I'll stop now.

Spoiler: rant (click to show/hide)

I mean, I had 6 people express interest and say they were going to participate in my pf campaign, but only 4 made a character sheet/concept at all, and only 3 of those finished. I also seem to have lost a player along the way... he might be back sometime though. I think I can run this thing with 2 players. As a shameless plug, head on over to After the Rifting, a high-power pathfinder campaign in the midst of a joint demon-devil invasion sparked by an imprisioned god breaking his chains (that were forged by 2 other gods) and entering the world once more. Will probably go to epic levels easily.(I mean, you start at CR 15.

EDIT: Also, the proper spelling is 'paid.'

[Harry Baldman]

Not only that, there really isn't anywhere on the web that is ALL ABOUT FORUM games, whether attached to a comic or game, forum games are seen as an after thought.

There's a perfectly good reason for this. You need a community to work from beforehand. Forum games are seen as an afterthought because they are an afterthought - people come to a forum because it concerns another interest of theirs, develop a liking for the community, and decide they'd like to play a game of some sort with willing participants. It's only when the forum games section actually gets pretty huge that it starts to draw people all on its own. If you start a forum game dealie forum, you're going to have no community there to begin with. And to get more players, you need a community. To get a community, you need more players.

Forum games are the most dynamic story telling and interactive medium today.

This is probably a sign that 'dynamic' is, more than ever, more buzz than word. What exactly do you mean by 'the most dynamic interactive storytelling medium'? Are forum games supposed to be dynamic themselves? Because they never are. Are they as good as playing with a group in person? They're absolutely not, but they're effortless to schedule, don't require you to make yourself in any way vulnerable (like sounding out your group of not overly fond acquaintances for whether any of them like D&D might) and can take way more players. As a format, forum games largely seek to imitate, and often do so poorly. On a basic level, they're on average not as satisfying as most other forms of game (though you can play in 20 at a time and try to make up for it in volume). So how are they exceptional? Potentially large player counts? Lesser involvement for players and GMs? No real barriers for entry?

Spoiler: rant (click to show/hide)

I mean, I had 6 people express interest and say they were going to participate in my pf campaign, but only 4 made a character sheet/concept at all, and only 3 of those finished. I also seem to have lost a player along the way... he might be back sometime though. I think I can run this thing with 2 players. As a shameless plug, head on over to After the Rifting, a high-power pathfinder campaign in the midst of a joint demon-devil invasion sparked by an imprisioned god breaking his chains (that were forged by 2 other gods) and entering the world once more. Will probably go to epic levels easily.(I mean, you start at CR 15.

Spoiler: counterrant (click to show/hide)

Have you considered that it's not really a matter of player interest? Consider this:

1) You're asking people to make high level Pathfinder characters, which, if my experience making D&D 3.5 level 1 characters for a forum game has not steered me wrong, is tedious, especially when the reward for doing so is points 2 and 3.

2) You're playing Pathfinder, which is crunchy as hell, since it's derived from D&D 3.5. You're doing it over the forums, which means roughly 95% crunch in terms of turnage (as a ballpark estimate), which is tedious. Pathfinder just isn't at all paced for a forum.

3) You're playing Pathfinder at high levels, which is probably tedious natively due to astronomically inflated numbers of basically everything.

Combine all three points, and what do you get? Correct! It's a good game ported to a woefully inadequate platform, to put it in video game terms! And it's tedious!

It's actually a common problem in forum games, the whole porting thing, partly arising because GMs and players in question both as a rule want to get themselves a good, meaty RP campaign, but forget to account for the pace of a forum RP.

[GameBoyBlue]

@Delioth welcome aboard! If I continue to make forum games, something that I am likely to do, then I will endeavor to incorporate a way to support myself from it. I live simply, and I don't share the American dream of a lawn and large house with a mortgage. Put simply every dollar means more to me than those attempting to support an ego padding lifestyle. Doesn't mean I don't like nice things, of course. And I'd be fine with extra success.

Something I've learned already, is it's a no-no in paypal's book to use the word, 'donate' to make more than $10,000 if you are not registered as a non profit organization. Obviously I want to create a profitable community, so I will acknowledge this. Often times blogs have a 'buy me a coffee/beer' button, ironically I don't consume either, but it is something I am able to do now.

Humble Bundle ( https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly ) has an interesting set up that's worth commenting on. You can yes pay what you want, you can also choose how your money is given out, to the developer, to the site, and to charity. I see no reason we couldn't offer a charity component.

Even if we don't carbon copy this format, I think it's a valuable lesson on the leading edge of what needs to be accomplished.


I made an amateur site, which will quickly move if someone makes a compelling argument for another website builder. If we find something we like we can begin paying for extra bandwidth, though I really don't know we may need to build one from scratch to facilitate revenue models that we may wish to incorporate. http://forumgamesunlimited.createaforum.com

[Nirur Torir]

I think it would be much better marketed as a forum dedicated to forum games than as a "get paid to GM" forum.

If the point was to get rent money, I'd run a quest and allow buying votes and events. Unless I'm already quite popular, it's probably not going to work, and the blatant cash-grabbing will just annoy the regulars. (I'd also avoid more 'personal' games, like Civ-clones or dungeon crawls with specific players controlling their own characters. Fewer players probably means less donations, after-all.)

As a forum dedicated to forum games, that happens to have an easy way to donate to a GM? It could work. I'd want a special sub-forum for games with paid features, including "One update every $X."

Do you know what legal issues you'll run into? Many people (not so much on Bay12, I've noticed) like running games using or based off of existing IPs.

[GameBoyBlue]

"One update every $X"?

That's brilliant Nirur! That's a perfect way to include paying and none playing gamers.

I think small population games are possible, but if you want to increase financial support per player, you will need to ramp up the quality. I think the only limit to this is creativity and support. I could see things reach the level of a video game or movie if the artists collaberating get behind bringing one idea to life enough.

I feel there will probably need to be a video game/ movie sections ect. as ideas could develop in those directions. The focus is on interaction and immersion, so designer interest could bleed into those directions.

For all intensive purposes, it is a forum focused on forum games. It is important to what it is trying to accomplish to note the monetary component, and willingness for a monetary component, as it's just not being done currently, or at least has low visibility.

[Stirk]

I don't really like the idea, to be honest. Forum games are supposed to be, well, games. The GM is as much a player of these games as the players themselves are. Paying them to play with you is kind of...sad? I mean, if I paid someone to show up and DM a game in person, I would kind of feel like my life hit a new low.

Supply/demand is also important. Basically, there is near-infinite supply for free. If the GM likes Gming, then he probably even has some free games not on the "pay-program." And the "Quality" of people who do it "professionally" has to compete with people who do it solely out of the love of the game.

I mean, why pay for someone to play a game with you? Isn't the point of forum games to have a cheap (free) way to spend your time? I grew up never able to spend any money online, but spending an absurd amount of time on it. Forum games are one of the ways I managed to do that, it just doesn't seem right to charge for it.

In the end....why do you feel Game Masters deserve payment for playing a game? Including yourself, of course. If it is "They invest time in it", then you might as well have the game masters pay the players as well. They also invest loads of time into their games. If not, then why do they deserve money?

[GameBoyBlue]

It may be helpful if those visiting the site, can sort threads/games by how and or if they are monetized, and what genre of game.

[Nirur Torir]

I think small population games are possible, but if you want to increase financial support per player, you will need to ramp up the quality. I think the only limit to this is creativity and support. I could see things reach the level of a video game or movie if the artists collaberating get behind bringing one idea to life enough.

Let's say it takes 2-3 hours for me to update a specific game with 8 players. Updating every other day would then take ~38 hours. To earn $304, $8 an hour, I'd need an average of $38 per player for the month, before fees and taxes. That's not likely to happen if they're in several games. If I could just upgrade the quality, I could probably find better pay than minimum wage elsewhere.

I don't really like the idea, to be honest. Forum games are supposed to be, well, games. The GM is as much a player of these games as the players themselves are. Paying them to play with you is kind of...sad? I mean, if I paid someone to show up and DM a game in person, I would kind of feel like my life hit a new low.

Supply/demand is also important. Basically, there is near-infinite supply for free. If the GM likes Gming, then he probably even has some free games not on the "pay-program." And the "Quality" of people who do it "professionally" has to compete with people who do it solely out of the love of the game.

I mean, why pay for someone to play a game with you? Isn't the point of forum games to have a cheap (free) way to spend your time? I grew up never able to spend any money online, but spending an absurd amount of time on it. Forum games are one of the ways I managed to do that, it just doesn't seem right to charge for it.

In the end....why do you feel Game Masters deserve payment for playing a game? Including yourself, of course. If it is "They invest time in it", then you might as well have the game masters pay the players as well. They also invest loads of time into their games. If not, then why do they deserve money?

I don't see it as much different from writing amateur fiction. If people want to give someone money so they have more time to GM games (or write stories), why shouldn't they? There's tons of free quality stories on the net, yet people gladly buy more.

[GameBoyBlue]

I think small population games are possible, but if you want to increase financial support per player, you will need to ramp up the quality. I think the only limit to this is creativity and support. I could see things reach the level of a video game or movie if the artists collaberating get behind bringing one idea to life enough.

Let's say it takes 2-3 hours for me to update a specific game with 8 players. Updtating every other day would then take ~38 hours. To earn $304, $8 an hour, I'd need an average of $38 per player for the month, before fees and taxes. That's not likely to happen if they're in several games. If I could just upgrade the quality, I could probably find better pay than minimum wage elsewhere.

Well there's many reasons to make a forum game. You could take a forum game about a spaceship crew of 8 players, and after getting a working forum game format going, turn it into a video game, board game, or even live action roleplay. This may be the 'forum dedicated to forum games' mentality, or at least the game focused, rather than income focused aspect to it. So yes perhaps in that regard the pay off is what they do with it after a forum game.

However I think we will see things we've never seen before, so if you look at how good crowd funded movies have gotten over time, it's easy to see what happens when a creative avenue becomes more available and accessible to the creator.

I literally only need little more than $100 a month at this station in my life, so $10 per player for 10 players per month is in the realm of practicality for me. I don't know that is is actually the most clear cut method. Perhaps even if there are only a few members, if it is something others can spectate and support from a distance, like an interactive web comic where people pay to be characters and interact. With talented artists you could see how this could get really interesting.

[GiglameshDespair]

"One update every $X"?

That's brilliant Nirur! That's a perfect way to include paying and none playing gamers.

It seems more of a way to not get any updates at all... unless the number is very low, you'd need a solid backing before the game started to get any significant amount of updates.

The question is: do forums games give enough bang for their buck, so to speak? I can buy Sid Meier's Alpha Centuri +expansion for £4. If I've played it for 30 hours, that's 7.5 hours of entertainment per pound. I don't think a forum game has given me 30 hours of enjoyment. Not even close.

Lots of people are interested in forum games because they're also free. Even things like webcomics make their money off adds and merchandise, rather than donations. 10 dollars is £6.40. Are you able to provide 48 hours of entertainment a month for that price, to make it equal to Alpha Centuri?

[Empiricist]

Yeah, there's always the matter of competition. You'd be competing with videogames and free forum games which is quite an issue seeing as there seem to be plenty of high-quality forum games being run for free and quite a lot of videogames that will likely be cheaper in the long run than that system.

It simply isn't feasible from a business point of view.