[update, 14th Feb 08] Many thanks to
Arwym, Zylos and one anonymous donator for their contributions
.
Also, to people suggesting ad-clicking sprees: That is a bad idea. Firstly, it is dishonest, and secondly, google is smart about such things, and simply clicking as many ads as you can will just invalidate your clicks. Click ads that interest you by all means, but don't click ads because of the fact that they're ads on RMRK please
=========== Original post ===========
The monthly cost to
host RMRK and everything associated with it is $95-105, depending on how generous you are, such as if you include domains and other things.
Monthly turnover from google ads on RMRK is around $20-30ish, $45-55 maybe on an exceptionally good month. Yesterday, RMRK made 40 cents. Google only pays out once your balance passes $100 (so we can next expect them to in april possibly, or more likely may)
RMRK's reserve cash pool is enough for this month's (feb) bill on the 21st, but nothing for march or april so far.
The yearly cost to operate RMRK is around 1,200-1,300 dollars. See a problem here? Read on.
We think we could probably squeeze all the money required to run rmrk from RMRK itself, but there's a few reasons why we do not do this.
1) We hate ads. RMRK has a banner ad at the top, but this is only on the default theme. Also, any member can hide them. We really
don't want to
force ads on members.
2) Donations. One problem is lots of members are underage, so don't have any cards or paypal accounts or anything like that. Also, there's pretty much no incentive. Let's compare with another RPG Maker site, hbgames.org, which gets quite a few donations (or "sponsors") and quite likely makes a profit. This is relatively easily done in the following ways:
Limited to donators:
- badge and colour of username (well, we do this)
- extra pm box space (
all members on RMRK receive unlimited storage space)
- can moderate your own topics (again, everyone here can)
- custom titles (again, free to all here. You actually get two, one is only editable by mods and admins but it's done for free on request)
- special forum (I guess the closest equivalent here would be extra access or RMRK+, but these are done on merit and have nothing to do with money)
- file space (every member here can attach ridiculous amounts to a post if they wanted to, up to 80Mb (8mb file limit, 10 files per post) in just one post. Downloading of attachments is allowed for anybody, even guests, so long as they have permissions to view the forum it is attached in of course.)
- Hosting and an @hbgames.org email address. We don't do this for 2 reasons. Firstly, we are essentially a download site and a forum. We are not a webhosting or email service, and we are not going to outperform other dedicated (and even free) providers in those fields. Secondly, security. Should we really be giving out php enabled webspace to any John Doe out there willing to waste a buck? We didn't think so either. Possibly a project hosting feature would be neat, but this, like all other RMRK perks, would be given free to all RMRK members.
- did we miss something?
Anyway, if there's a feature, We'll give it to everyone. We don't really believe in "selling" extra services like some other sites do. If it doesn't cost us anything extra to provide those perks, so why should we charge for them?.
Therein lies the obvious downside though. The lack of added perks results in alot less donations.
Don't see this new post as a whining ~boohoo our site will not pay for itself
~ post, as it is not. RMRK has operated on a loss for years now, but as is popularly known, money does not grow on trees, and our reserves are currently a little dry.
Those who were ever curious about donating should
Read this page on donations. We won't try and sales pitch you into clicking that donate button with "packages" like some other sites do, you will get absolutely nothing, sans this small
badge, but if you have the means and are willing to help out this community, this is what we're in need of the most right now.
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