Earning money from skinning...
Sunday, October 3, 2004 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
One of the things we've been wanting to do with WinCustomize 2005 (WC2K5) is to enable skin authors to earn income from contributing to the site.
One idea floating around works as follows:
The top 20 skinners would get a percentage of the quarterly revenue from WinCustomize subscriptions if they themselves are subscribers OR have Journeyman access or higher.
The top 20 would be calculated based on a point system that is derived from the # of WC subscriber downloads of their skins and themes. Some sections would count more than others (a WindowBlinds skin counts as 1 point, a wallpaper would count as half a point - we would post the point system so people could see how many points a download in each section would be but it would be largely based on effort and what areas we want to promote at that time).
What do you think?
 |
|
Page 3 of 3 | |
|
|---|
Reply #42 Monday, October 4, 2004 5:04 PM
Also keep in mind that not all of the top 20 authors have Journeyman level and that level is not required to benefit from the revenues. All that’s required is a paid subscription and fair quality uploads.
As far as detractors complaining for paying for something, the only thing they are paying for is a subscription to support the site and to have limitless downloads. Stardock will be the one taking a percentage of 'THEIR' revenues and awarding it to the authors in a fairly distributed way, so authors shouldn’t feel as if they have to comply or offer any kind of support or updates of their work.
On the issue of authors selling their work, it will not be done thru this idea. As far as I know (and if I understood correctly) the selling of premium skins will be a part of WC2K5 and it’s a feature offered only to certain authors (Masters and such)
Top authors as they stand right now, are people that have continuously contributed to the site and (obviously) are putting out work that people find very appealing otherwise they wouldn’t be on that list. In the past 2 yrs I've seen many artists come and go, a lot of them give up because they don’t get downloads, or get negative comments or simply get bored of skinning. That is why this idea is good, because it will encourage and give an incentive to the artists to strive for better quality work.
Regardless of the pros and cons, I think the idea is good enough to give it a try. Heck....it's so crazy it might just work
Reply #44 Monday, October 4, 2004 5:39 PM
I would like to see a system put in place, which gives younger and less known artist a chance to break into the circle of the established authors such as Pixtudio and TSF, who after all are fully blown professionals and have been in the business for years. Something along the lines what Black Xero mentioned earlier sounds reasonable.
Reply #45 Monday, October 4, 2004 6:40 PM
It's the absolute perfect incentive for both parties...skinners want $ and subscribers want better skins! All those non-subscribers now have a HUGE reason to subscribe. Genius!
Reply #46 Monday, October 4, 2004 7:07 PM
Please read this carefully:
This is no a premium skin discussion.
It's basically a discussion of whether to share a percentage of the money we receive via WC subscriptions iwth the top 20 skinners.
I think we'll probably have to shelve this idea given that I can't seem to communicate this concept in a thread amongst regulars. So forget the idea.
Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
- Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
- Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
- Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
- It's simple, and FREE!
|
|
Page 3 of 3 | |
|
|---|
Reply #41 Monday, October 4, 2004 11:41 AM
great idea, that would definitely be a worthy idea. One of the things I was dissapointed about was that I only got two skins that were subscriber only skins. I expected to find a whole bunch of skins in the library that were previously unaccessible when I bought my subscription.