Donations

Published on July 15, 2003 By grayhaze In WinCustomize Talk

Upon release of my metalX2 and dinksDX skins, I decided to try a little experiment to see just how willing the general user would be to voluntarily pay a small amount of money in appreciation of the work that went into the skin, and to support future development.

Despite clocking up over 25,000 downloads so far on those skins, I haven't received a single donation. I can't say I'm too surprised because I never believed for one moment that I'd make any real money out of it, but I never for one moment thought that I wouldn't make a single penny!

I'm not telling you this because I'm upset about the lack of donations, or to make anyone feel guilty. I'm telling fellow skinners in case they consider doing a similar thing with their own skins in the future. It's just not worth the effort to set it up.

I find it remarkable that when a discussion about commercial skins comes up you get a multitude of comments about how someone just bought the skin to show their appreciation of the artist's work, even if they didn't particularly like the skin. You also get the people bemoaning the fact that someone dares to request money before they are able to use a skin. Surely the concept of voluntary donations should satisfy both of those crowds, and should at least meet with a limited amount of success?

I'm therefore considering never releasing a free skin again. I may get a lot of people complaining about having to pay for a skin, but at the same time I can at least be relatively confident that I'll get one or two buyers at the same time.

Although I enjoy skinning, I'm perfectly willing to be honest and admit that a lot of what I do is for public recognition, and in the hopes that it may lead on to bigger and better things. As an unemployed graphic designer (something which is becoming increasingly common in this country), I would like to think that someone out there will someday download one of my skins and think it's good enough to offer me some work.

I do create skins for myself, but in all honesty if I only did it for myself I wouldn't spend the amount of time I do on an individual skin. I wouldn't mind the occasional glitch here and there, just so long as it serves its purpose and gives me pleasure. I spend the extra time on my skins for both the reasons mentioned above, and because I want to give the users of my skins the best they could possibly hope for. I listen to comments and try to mold the skin into something the users want, even if that conflicts with my own tastes or needs.

Anyway, after the next update to dinksDX and metalX2, you'll be unlikely to see much in the way of free skins coming from my computer. I'd be interested to know if there are others out there who feel the way I do.

Comments (Page 5)

Anthony R

on Jul 16, 2003

I painted the 16th chapel... I sliced off my ear ... oh woe is me

grayhaze

on Jul 17, 2003

Go and troll elsewhere anthony roberts. Seriously. >

Or better still, try creating a skin yourself and then come back and tell us all about it.

grayhaze

on Jul 17, 2003

And anyway, it's the Sistine Chapel you moron.

juni

on Jul 17, 2003

I added a donation button to my site ( http://koti.welho.com/kruohio/skinz.html ) too. No one has donated anything to the starving artist yet.

Anthony R

on Jul 17, 2003

Oh woe is me

This has been educational.

IPlural

on Jul 17, 2003

grayhaze, I tried to send through paypal on my Discover but kept getting a script error on the page. I'll see about trying it from my brothers house tomarrow though.

grayhaze

on Jul 17, 2003

It's a shame that PayPal does have problems for some people, as on the whole I think they do a fantastic job. In future if I decide to release any commercial skins I'll probably go with a decent credit card processing company though. For these purposes, the costs involved with that are just too prohibitive.

Thanks for trying anyway IPlural.

grayhaze

on Jul 17, 2003

juni >> Do you put a donate link with your skins too? I'm having limited success now, and have started adding more to my skins as a result, but I'm pretty sure it's only down to this thread.

Chef Garry

on Jul 17, 2003

I'm pretty sure it's only down to this thread

Sure it is Gray. I wonder if a note in the comments section might have been more informative. Of course that raises possible issues with WC & SD.

grayhaze

on Jul 17, 2003

Chef Garry >> There's a comment in the description for the skins, in the documentation linked to from the description, and in various other places. Obviously I wanted people to know about the donations, so I covered as many bases as I could.

Chef Garry

on Jul 17, 2003

I see that I should read the documentation before installing but nothing there about donations. My bad but I rarely ask for directions and usually only read the directions when something is FUBAR.

Anyway, my point was that people weren't as aware of the donation request as perhaps one might wish.

juni

on Jul 17, 2003

juni >> Do you put a donate link with your skins too?

Nah, I just have a button on my site. I wanted to see if anyone actually would donate anything. On the other hand, creating skins is very timeconsuming, sometimes I can spend a couple of weeks on a skin. Lots of hard work.

Duff Lite

on Jul 17, 2003

(I haven't read all of the comments, but here's my 3cents.

cent 1. grayhaze, isn't a hobby something you do outside of your regular occupation for fun/pleasure? Some hobbies may cause nothing while others do. But a hobby is still a hobby and if you're planning on making money, then you shouldn't call it a hobby, no matter how much you're planning on making... even if it's "donations"... profit is profit.

cent 2. As with White_Moth's "anology"... I think what White_Moth is trying to say that you shouldn't stop providing others your talents just because of the lack of profit or recognition.

cent 3. Not everyone has PayPal even if PayPal was working "perfectly". (I'm one of those without PayPal not because I can't get an account, but because I don't feel the need for one.)

I'm late, I know, but just wanted to put in what little I have.

Zodiaq~

on Jul 17, 2003

I think what MikeB314 said in post #42 over in the Pay Packs thread makes the most sense...

grayhaze there is no doubt your skins are A+ and worth a price. I can't imagine the time involved with all those subskins and extra features...not to mention the documentation...Which I must say is extremely well done:) Although most users won't read a single word...who want's to read all that just to run a blind? Most just want to click apply and see it in all it's glory;)

Just put out a couple of good skins without all the extra stuff, maybe one subskin? It's not like you have to sacrifice quality...Save that stuff for the Premium versions. The customer feels like they are really getting something for their money when it comes with so many extras and a user guide to boot.

Basically, I believe that giving away the free ones is just good old fashion Marketing. If joeuser can sample your free stuff and is impressed, they are left with the thought, "This skin kickass...The Premium Suites must be INCREDIBLE!!!"

Just an opinion, Listen to MikeB...He's doing it

joetheblow

on Jul 18, 2003

#5 by JourneyMan grayhaze - 7/15/2003 7:23:26 AM So by your reasoning DaWebMassa, the more I inconvenience the users of my skin, the more likely they are to offer money? If I make them go through the whole process of purchasing the skin through a commercial vendor, I'm likely to get more people doing so than if I give a simple PayPal link?

To put it bluntly yes.

It will always be easier to just take something. Evne going through the steps of donating is 'inconvieient'.

But if you know in order to get a product you have to pay for it all of a sudden the inconvenience is muted by the fact that your getting something in return.

In other words you have to go through steps to use the product not use the product and go through steps.

I would advise all who wish to really understand why it works that way, how a comottity is sold, the value of that comotity and what it means to sell, donate or freely give out to learn the basics of economics and become economically literate.

I think if we all become more literate in economics there would be more of an understanding of why things happen and what to do about it.

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.
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!