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Remember I promised some cool announcement in my last report? So, here it goes!
That means anyone will be able to access all content, all working files, all stuff while we are working on episode. So, anyone will be able to follow and learn from our working process.
But… how about spoilers?
I believe there are many people who do not want spoilers and would like to avoid watching in-production content.
Previously, since 2015, we were sharing in-production content only for those who were supporting us on Patreon platform (“Paywall” model, that is).
In production of this episode I wanted to make our in-production content available to everyone, regardless of whether he pays or not (see below why).
So, I’ve come to a very simple solution:
RE-GIST-RA-TI-ON
That’s it. All content with spoilers will be hidden for regular site visitors by default. But any visitor will be able to register a free account and enable option to display spoilers. The hidden content becomes visible for that user when he is logged in. So simple!
This also provides some very rudimentary entry threshold: people generally hate registration, so they do not register unless they care. This is like an open “fan-zone”.
Also, some content will be shared as Gumroad download, where people can (optionally) donate any amount for downloading (or enter “zero” to download for free), like here.
How about Patreon then?
That completely changes our relationship with Patreon and our Patrons.
Access to in-production content was the only incentive we provided to our Patrons (well, actually there were also a “logo on homepage”, but it has no demand for months).
Everything described above means that we have no special incentives anymore.
From now on, Patrons do not have to pay us if they want access to in-production content – they will be able to get it for free.
And that changes role of Patreon platform for us – it’s not a tool for “premium memberships” anymore. Now it is just a tool (or, you can say “a channel”) for collecting monthly (recurring) donations, nothing more.
Of course, now there is a risk to loose our Patrons. Of course there is. On the other hand it is so tempting to make this experiment – to get away from a concept of “market” and build a project around the concept of “giving”. And… I have a strong suspicion that majority of our Patrons are supporting our project not because of being rewarded, but simply because they want to help us. In any case, we will know soon! ^__^
How come?
After release of Morevna Episode 4 I’ve had a lot of thinking. Thinking where we go, what we are good at and what are we bad at.
My plan was simple – to identify our strengths and weaknesses, and then amplify what we are good at and put less in what we are bad at.
And no matter how much I thought, I got the following: I am good at sharing and I am bad at selling.
After that I remembered about Patreon – all those years I was struggling to invent more incentives, to keep rolling existing ones… and deep inside there was always a feeling that this isn’t the right way.
So, I decided to share more and sell less.
When I’ve come to that decision I felt an incredible relief. Deep inside it was like feeling as walking in the right way. So this is how it is. Glad to finally share it with you. ^__^
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P.S. I remember many of you are still waiting for sources of Morevna Episode 4 to be published. Sorry, last months I was mostly busy with preparing new release of Synfig and upgrading our web infrastructure. Now the release of Synfig is very close and I hope to get done with source publishing soon!
14 Responses
That good!. I hope to see you soon, I always like the idea of showing progress more clearly.
I’ am glad you liked! How is your project? I see a lot of cool stuff on your website!
Very slow. I moved from home and had a lot of work and little time for my project.
It is a good idea to show progress or that the public can participate.
I see. I like your experiments with face capture. It is very interesting.
yes :D. Also I am treating to do mocap for rigid
“Mocap for rigid”? What’s this? ^__^
“mocap” is motion caption. I am not a fan of the rotoscope but it makes the animation cheaper.
“rigid” is a new method for animation in blender. this turns the drawings or 3D into dolls move with much more naturalness.
Very cool! Yes, I really interested about mocap as well. I saw your experiments with mocap and webcam. That could help us to animate Koschei model.
Also, that “Bump” effect you shown here – https://4232.cf/experiment-in-blender-❤/ – it also looks very interesting!
Companies are generating a lot of patented software for live animation, software libre needs more real-time solutions.
Bump is a good way to generate 2D relief, I really like it.
Avoiding paywalls sounds great for such project dedicated to freedom!
Is that registration/login already implemented? If so, I cannot seem to locate it on morevnaproject.org. I hope it won’t break RSS/Atom feed as Patreon introduction did!
(Also, are one-time donations via paypal still possible? I can’t find it on the page, but seem to recall doing it in the past)
Hey Matija! Glad to hear from you! I hope RSS/Atom feed works for you now. ^__^
Regarding registration/login – I am still working on organizing things for that, so it is not visible on frontend yet. What I want to achieve – is to allow registered user to choose if he wants to access in-production content or not. Partially, this is needed because in the future I plan to set-up Discourse forums, which we will use for collaboration works. And it is logical to allow users have same account for this website and forums. So, for example, someone might want to register (to participate in work on forums), but don’t want to see content with spoilers. So, I need to make in-production optional and it should be easy to enable.
Currently, you can register via this link, but consider that things are not complete yet ^__^ – https://morevnaproject.org/wp-login.php?action=register
About donations page. Yes, one-time PayPal donations are still much appreciated! I am currently in the middle of heavy website reorganization, so some things may temporary disappear from time to time. ^__^” The donations page is here now – https://morevnaproject.org/donate/?type=all
Also, at the top of the frontpage – https://morevnaproject.org/ – there is a indication how much donations collected in total for month (this includes donations from all sources, not just Patreon). So now it’s more clear how much we get. ^__^
Yeah RSS works nicely, thanks! WP registration worked, and sends me to /wp-admin; don’t know if that is expected…
BTW Paypal link wanted to charge a fee of $2.21 for $5 donation, which seems excessive (44% fee! I don’t remember them doing that before, at least they weren’t telling me), so I’ve chosen bitcoin this time… But you might want to check if that is normal for paypal donations?!
Hi! Thank you very much for your donation! In fact, this is the first ever donation we’ve got via BTC. ^__^
> BTW Paypal link wanted to charge a fee of $2.21 for $5 donation, which seems excessive (44% fee! I don’t remember them doing that before, at least they weren’t telling me)
Unfortunately, PayPal’s fee depends on combination of source/destination country of payment. For example, there are no fee (or very low fee?) to send money between residents of same country, but when sending to different country they charge a fixed fee + % (https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/what-are-the-fees-for-paypal-accounts-faq690). So, the fee got this high because of fixed fee part.
Right now I am in the process of preparing papers for registering Non-Profit NGO. In this case we should get much lower fees for donations and some other advantages. On the other hand we I will get a burden of managing NGO, but at some point this is necessary anyway if we want to keep going seriously. ^__^
> WP registration worked, and sends me to /wp-admin; don’t know if that is expected…
Yes, this behavior will be different in the future. Thank you for testing!