The Root of All Evil

           

"The CRPG Addict" is about to enter its tenth year. Clearly, it's here to stay. In some ways, it has become as much of an addiction for me as the games themselves.

Unfortunately, it is long past time to consider how I can better justify the amount of time I spend on the blog. I average 15-20 hours per week. If I had spent that time on real work instead, Irene (my patient wife) would have a lot more stamps in her passport.

As my longtime readers know, I have struggled with this for years. Reflecting a sense of humility that would make Lord British proud, I've never felt that my work contributes that much to the world--certainly, not enough that should require people to pay money. I also didn't want to create any barrier, psychological or otherwise, to readership and participation on the blog.

Irene, who is much more of a capitalist than I am, recently sat me down and pointed out a few things:

1. People get paid for ephemera all the time. Some woman has made like $6 billion simply selling a huge list of things that don't suck. There are sites that make money off of reprinting my own content without permission.

2. With the different mechanisms available these days for monetizing writing, I'm literally just throwing money away by refusing to do it.

3. She would really like to go to Greece someday.

Hence, over the next year, I am launching a three-pronged approach to earn some pocket money from the effort I put into "The CRPG Addict." These are the prongs:

A Patreon Account

Readers have been encouraging me to do it for years, so I finally did it. I got through the entire setup process before I realized that you can only use it to make recurring monthly donations. I thought it could be used for one-time donations. (Technically, you can use it that way and just cancel after one month, but that seems like a pain.) I thus don't expect very much from it, but I set a recommended donation level of $12 per year to support an estimated 120 entries. If I get a lot of feedback that says, "Hey, I'd support you with a quick bump, but I don't want to be charged monthly," I'll consider a different platform or just remove it altogether.

My YouTube Channel

Over the coming year, you're going to see more videos posted, and YouTube offers a fairly easy monetization process, which may occasionally require you to watch an ad before the video plays. I need 1,000 subscribers to the channel before they'll allow me to do that, and I'm only a little over half that, so in lieu of making a Patreon donation, I would ask you to subscribe to my channel. I've already passed the "watch time" threshold that they set. Eventually, I'll get around to adding video links to the two play lists.

Addictive Adventure: The Complete History of Computer Role-Playing Games

I'm not promising anything yet in terms of a release date--although shooting for my 10-year anniversary is an obvious goal--but I can say that I've at least started work on editing my material into book form, and that I will make it more of a priority than in the past. The first volume will cover 1975-1983. I may ask for help with aspects of it as we move forward.

I hope none of these mechanisms prove intrusive, nor lessen your enjoyment of the blog. If they do, use the comments section for this entry to discuss the issue or otherwise provide feedback on the plan. It is my intention that none of these efforts will affect the content, approach, and quality of the blog.