spellarena
patreon
What can we do better?
🕑 Added 2020-02-22 13:45:02 +0000 UTCHello, dear patrons! In April, it will be an equal year since we decided to create an account on Patreon and start creating maps and RPG-related additions. Now we're doing a little summary and we want to ask you for help.
During the 11 months we've been experiencing an emotional rollercoaster - from a few patrons and support dollars to a total of 173 supporters. This is a huge success for which we thank you very much! We love you!
We would like you to feel special here because only thanks to you can create and pay our bills every month. It will probably not come as a surprise if we write that despite the creation of 42 maps and a dozen or so additions, this type of activity is still not profitable.
We draw our maps by hand, so it is a process that requires time but also human resources. We do not render, we do not use photos on which we apply filters in Photoshop. Everything starts with a piece of paper and a marker.
The price standard for Patreon is a price range of $1$-2$-5$ - this means that the creator cannot completely devote only work here. Unfortunately, we also know that for a large group of our patrons even 1$ a month of support is a huge financial effort. What is the vicious circle from which many creators try to get out by either increasing prices or give up and close their account
This is a source of enormous emotional tension for us - on the one hand, we want to create better and better materials for you, but on the other hand, we see how difficult it is for more patrons to join.
No wonder - there is a lot of free materials on the Internet and paying for something that you can click and download for free is very big. We see this often in comments on Reddit and other social networking platforms.
We don't want to increase prices, but we are also not able to create more maps during the month. The only way out is to specialize. And here we have a request for help. To you, our patrons.
Is there anything you would like to see here that you haven't seen elsewhere? Maybe a set of maps or extras? Maybe we should add a mini adventure description to each map? Or maybe you don't need paper maps but you prefer us to focus on virtual tabletop?
We're listening - you decide!
Comments
David - very interesting observation, thank you!
David Ford
Hi there, I've only just subbed so my opinion is not neccessarily massively helpful but i do support a few creators. What I would say is that when I look over a creator to decide if i want to support them I consider a few things: 1) How much am I going to get for my contribution. For you $1 gets quite a lot and is definitely worth it. 2) What do I get for supporting higher tiers. Here is where you lose me, I don't really need access to your line art, your discord or your files. These things are nice but not worth upping my membership. If for example you had additional variants of maps at higher tiers that might push me to up my pledge if the variants were interesting enough. For example giving maps a cosmetic face lift can add a lot of value. For example: Demon Temple is a map that I like, however I may not have any demons in my campaign. Change the lava to a necromancy undead greed and maybe add some skeletons and you have "Temple of the undead", i have a lot of undead in the campaign in my current campaign and that would be a map i could actually use. Sorry if this seems a bit mercenary, of coruse we want you to keep creating more awesome content but when money enters the equation my mind immediately goes to working out the value of what I am paying for.
Hi Juliana. Thank you for sharing your opinion. We're looking at the VTT very carefully. As far as voting is concerned, we are already doing it and preparing the maps that collected the most votes (this month, for example - all the maps we drew were suggested to us in the vote).
Juliana Broam
Hello, I am a follower, but not a patron. I would love to be a patron, but due to being disabled and on a very limited budget I cannot be. I understand you cannot survive giving away your maps for free and appriciate the hard work a hand drawn map takes to create. From what I see trending and can understand is more and more people are going to VTT due to scheduling and finding players. Like myself, I am an online DM because where I live does give me the opportunity to find players for my games, but online I can find a plethera of players who are from all over the world. I would say focus on maps for VTT, but don't limit them to Roll20. I know many who use fantasy grounds, Tabletop simulator and other platforms similar to Roll20. I like you have both gridded and no gridded so they can be used in Tabletop simulator or Roll20 style environments. Why not let your patrons vote on the type of maps, assets or tokens they would like to see next? I know a lot of patrons are doing this and it seems to be working for them. I hope this helps you.
