This topic contains 9 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by 
Danilo
2 years, 2 months ago.
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Some more consistency wouldn’t hurt, in my opinion.
First you give binary downloads for Patreon supporters as reward with $5+/monthly support,
then you give access to latest binaries using itch.io for free. On itch.io you are able
to download the latest binaries for free. Just by selecting that you want to circumwent
the fees.
Of course this does not make any sense at all!
I was waiting for the next Patreon email and password for download – instead I received
an email with a link to itch.io and free download for everybody…Facebook and Twitter should also get updates more regularily. The latest facebook update
was 1.5 month ago, on 3rd January 2017.I think itch will turn out to be a good thing, fingers crossed.
Well, the paid module is the right way. And Itch.io seems to have high potential.
I don’t know how ‘well’ (or not) in terms of money is offering a pre-built binary, for a ‘open’ language.
Unless there’s some automatism that creates – periodically – a working binary to download and install it, so I would quite happy to pay for having something ‘ready’ and gain time to download/setup/compile etc…ps: [stinker mode on!] … (I’m ready to be insulted of course!! :D) – how much I should pay to have documentation ?
Mark could prepare some ‘packets’ to sell (ie: documentation for modules completed with examples etc) – maybe extern to the in-source code… only the ‘core-basic’ language documentation should be free and available for everyone.
Everything ‘more’ (like sqlite for example) could/should be sold separately.
Of course the ‘packets’ could be an userid+password to access to a locked wiki, so only authorized (=paid) users could access.
Or it could be something to install locally on the user computer or both the solutions.
In many ‘free’ projects support is something paid… so it will be no so much ‘strange’ selling ‘manuals’Just an idea to have money for Mark, a motivation for him to give docs, and docs for the final users.
[/stinker mode off]the more MX2 is out there the better after all things that vanish into the Internet don’t male loads. Coverage would be great for BRL and great for MX2 I would have two types of modules one has a “Made in MonkeyX2” and paid customers who have pledged would get access to modules that font have the Made logo.
@danilo: I agree with that thinking ahead with those decisions about money making. One thing is that people can circumvent the fees others have paid, but the worse thing about it is the feeling those ones have, when seeing that they have paid for something that they could have gotten for free…
@degac: I think, that it is important to think about all options of monetizing mx2, so thanks for sharing this idea and I also agree that the creation of docs in the near future is really necessary. On the other hand I am concerned about this way of monetization, because I think real open source software should be useable without any fees, otherwise it could be seen as an other way of producing crippleware…
The problem is not, that people using monkey are not willing to pay for it. There are just too few of them. So the goal should be to get people to try mx2 by making the starting hurdles (docs, installation, impressive and well documented examples) as low as possible.
@degac:
In my opinion the price should also be comparable to similar products.
If you give $10/month, that’s already $120 for one year, and $1200 in 10 years.
Similar products are usually $80 to $199, often with a life-time license.
Personally I think $10/month is still okay, but I wouldn’t go over the top
and charge for everything like you suggest (docs for example).
The price we pay has to be in relation to the product and market, somehow.Of course, just my opinion.
Well, many other products (similar) are selling ‘support-fee’ (ie: 49,99 per year) + the cost of the original licence (in this case isn’t an OPEN software of course).
Support fee could be always considered (=it does mean that the buyer has some sort of warranty on the stability/functionality of the software he/she bought – like in case of a new OS system)
And about my idea of ‘paid-docs’…
* basic docs (the one that should explain the language itself, and the ‘core’ modules – call it LEVEL 0) should be free and always available.
* other docs (like sqlite in my previous post) could be paid (call it LEVEL 1)
* price of these docs could be very low (ie: 5 USD/year for the sqlite, 7 USD/year for sqlite+another_one etc..) – the logic is copying the ‘google effect’: single low cost but for higher number is still an interesting amount! I suppose none will critic the fact that for (for example) 25 USD I have access to docs and examples about 5 different modules (sqlite, http-curl, IAB etc) – they ‘buy and own’ something – and honestly the logic of ‘donation’ could be not efficient!
* in any case – after some time – docs at LEVEL 1 could be passed to LEVEL 0 (=free for everyone) and BRL/Mark could add ‘another LEVEL 2’ of documentation (ie: video-tutorial, preset of themes, shaders etc – just ideas!)Or you could tell me how much you will pay a ‘paper manual’ (like the Blitz3d) – with all the limits of being of paper.
The idea (of course not perfect!) is to have some sort of regular money flux… donations don’t grant this.
BTW, my are only suggestions, I know Mark’s low (my website(s), my rules!)!
These here’s-how-to-make-your-business-better posts don’t usually go over well.
I was giving to Patreon before pre-built binaries were available… so to me Mark was just trying to give back something to the backers but I doubt it was done as a money making endeavor to entice other people.
itch.io does get a lot of traffic I think and is indie-friendly so it should be a good thing. Mark’s new office sounds like it is smack dab in the middle of indie-goodness so perhaps that is the direction we are going? If there is a way to hook into the game jams with emscripten target working on there right out of the box that would be really cool.
itch.io is a way better option than what was being done before, it makes it way easier to give mx2 some indie exposure. Since it’s not “exactly” a commercial product, this is probably the best form it can take to apply to a new audience rather than living its life entirely in some open source repo or patreon post.
Okay, convinced. Will the 3D module be free or paid (for early supporters)?
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