If I could work on OGA full-time, what would people want me to code (or do)?
Once my current project is over, I'd like to start looking into ways to fund work on OGA as a full-time job, which will require several thousand US dollars per month (I've got a baby on the way, so I need to be working for more than subsistence wages in order for this to go over okay with my wife). There are a lot of feature requests and bugfixes that have been pushed to some indefinite point in the future that I call "when I have time," many of which you can see in the feedback forum.
Anyway, regardless of which funding option I go with (several people have suggested Kickstarter), I'll need to list and priorotize a set of goals, as people will be more likely to donate money if they know in advance what that money will be paying for. These goals can either be related to programming, or other things for the site that require time and effort. I could even hone my art skillz if people want. Also, if I go with a kickstarter model, I'd be interested in finding out what sort of rewards people would like.
Anyway, I'd appreciate some thoughts and comments about what people would like to see added to the site in the near future.
Thanks!
Bart
P.S. I've posted this on reddit, here: http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1d11ir/i_run_opengameartorg_and...
Feel free to comment there instead if you prefer. I'll be watching both places.
Comments
I would love to see Feeds for each tag to track new content for them more easily.
A easier / more obvious way to provide derivate works to existing content could maybe encorage to put their modifications back to oga instead of "hiding" them in their projects repositories.
One of the things I like that TurboSquid does is they have this quality/certification checklist. This is useful for finding high quality game-ready assets. I think OGA could benefit from having expert moderators being able to mark games as "Certified Game Ready".
How this might work on OGA.
Example standard we might have on art.
Overall: general high quality, something we'd actually see in a game.
3D: diffuse/normal/spec maps as needed, clean geometry (outfacing normals, no duplicate facets, etc), normalized loc/rot/scale, origin at 0,0,0. Models meant for movement need appropriate rigging. (here we can actually refer to existing open standard instead of writing our own)
Sprite Sheets: frame position and timing data as needed, minimal expected animations represented (e.g. a character only standing might not qualify as game-ready).
Tile Sets: correct full permutations represented for e.g. walls/corners. Tile sizes (optional offsets, etc) specified.
No matter what quality a model is, almost none are gameready. It all depends on what you want to do, your kind of game, kind of engine, kind of style... And today a lot of knowledge is needed to make up to date game art, maybe too much for most peoples freetime.
I would happily pay a reasonable price for the art, if the license allowed use without the restrictions associated with CC-BY or CC-BY-SA, and I knew the money was being split between the site and the artists. And, if the artist wasn't interested in receiving payment for their art, it could be donated to the site.
Or better yet, for the CC-BY and CC-BY-SA stuff, allow a license to be purchased to remove the restrictions, with the approval of the artist, of course.
@Duion:
The critera for what would qualify as 'game ready' would have to be discussed among artists and developers.
@cdoty:
That would have to be up to the artists, however I could conceivably code something to allow artists to do that if they want. Also, CC-BY isn't particularly restrictive, since all it requires is credit. The only exception is for platforms like iOS that have built-in DRM. If you're developing games for PC or Android, CC-BY shouldn't really get in your way.
@cdoty
Open source licenses are not restrictive compared to commercial/closed source ones. If you regularly buy something on the market, you are left-behind with even more restrictive licenses, even though you paid for it.
And CC-BY is not restrictive at all, it just can get complicated in some cases, for example on textures/images. For example you could have an archive of 1000s of textures and everyone is by another one under CC-BY, then you would have to keep track of all names, which is crazy.
@bart
I grazed everything I could find on the net and must say 95% of all models are useless. Sometimes you would be faster with rebuilding from scratch, than fixing a already done but not fitting the needs model. Or you end up with a confusing blend file with a confusing way of modeling and texturing, that you get nowhere at all with the model. You need a certain level of skill to understand what the author has done, so you can continue, otherwise you cannot do much with it and if you have the skill your own, you could also do the job yourself.
It really depends on the kind of game and engine, something totally gameready for project a could be totally useless for project b and so on.
GitHub has become a great collaboration platform for open source projects. I wish there was a similar collaboration platform for artists. Perhaps OGA can fill that spot.
Bart: An option to allow editing of past submissions without pushing them onto the Latest Art queue would be top of my list. As well as generally tidying up the theme's consistency and flexibility. Oh, and another thing, a precise time display for challenge finish times (eg. 24:00Z) and possibly a countdown timer.
In regards to crowd-funding for open-source projects. I've always liked the idea of an ongoing sequence of small feasible targets each building on the last with the result being released at each stage rather than one whopping great one. Not sure if something like that could work within KickStarter's infrastructure/rules.
Duion: Even if you pay for full ownership of a work or if the work released under CC0 or a similar Public Domain equivalent then depending on the jurisdiction the artist may still have full moral rights (such as the right of attribution of authorship), as moral rights cannot be waived in some jurisdictions. Though I certainly do agree that keeping track of all attributions within a large project could be a logistical nightmare.
@surt: I definitely want to fix the issue you mentioned.
As far as crowd-funding goes, I figure I'll set a minimum goal for one month's worth of work, then add stretch goals to do additional months. Ideally, it would be nice to fund OGA as far ahead as possible, but we'll see how it turns out. I have no idea what kind of response there will be.
I suggest Indiegogo over Kickstarter
@InanZen: Why?
1st off i think Kickstarter only offers campaigns for Americans and UK
2ndly you can have a flexible founded campaign where you keep money even if you don't reach the end goal
On the other hand, Kickstarter appears to have more popularity for now.
1st off i think Kickstarter only offers campaigns for Americans and UK
Does that measn that people outside the US and UK can't even send money, or that you just can't run a campaign from outside those countries?
2ndly you can have a flexible founded campaign where you keep money even if you don't reach the end goal
I don't actually want that. Either I need to make enough money to live off of, or I don't want the obligation of having taken money from people.
On the other hand, Kickstarter appears to have more popularity for now.
Ultimately the deciding factor will have to be what will generate the most revenue. I'll take a look at similar things on both sites (if there are any) before I decide. I suspect Kickstarter probably offers a better chance at real revenue.
It means you cant RUN the campaign if you're not USA or UK.
It's not obligation to those people who'll support you. Either they are willing to "donate" or not. Unless you are promising them some kind of "finished product"?
I'd like a PM system, there are a lot of people that know me from here that have expressed difficulty in trying to reach me. I'd also like to have the ability to set up the page you get when you click on my name so that I can show off my favorite submitted art, like a portfolio and have some sort of information if I want to take comissions. I think things like that would help sell the site to a higher level artist.
I'm willing to donate my time and talents to do kickstarter rewards, BTW.
Edit: I'd be willing to make LPC tile assets for a higher tier reward.
Time spent on site promotion would be well spent. More contributors would be the best improvement to the site.
As for rewards, perhaps you could enlist the help of some site memebers to create some art. So for example, to create a pixel art character in the likeness of the donator. Or for a higher donation, create a 3d model in the likeness of the donator (basically the same as the flare portrait marathon).
One thing I'd like is user tiers/titles displayed under usernames for various accomplishments. I think that this tends to speak to people more than things like medals, fun as those are.
Some nice suggestions for site improvements here, but no-one is talking about the obvious issue here: It's highly unlikely that you will get sufficient subscriptions to quit your normal job. At best it might work for a month or two, but then you are back to square one. And imho, you would be just disappointed how little people seem to apprechiate your efforts (which is not necessary true, but donations are a strange beast).
@Julius:
Thanks for the vote of confidence. ;)
Julius have a point there, can you really risk leaving your regular work with a toddler on the way? You should at the very least test it for a few months before quitting your work, maybe both things can be compatible.
Regarding the art contents, im with Clint, we need a "Certified Game Ready" sign and section, rigth now the only way to find (really) useful art is browsing everything, the collections only helped into keeping what people may use (because of the numbers its got now), but without a glorified and very visible "certified" section the site its missusing its best resources. This should include packets of "arts" where the best is put together to easily download (be it music, textures, 2d, 3d) the downside would be the bandwidth use.
Trying to do a workshop from time to time would be a good idea, managed by some pro OGA user (no matter the time it takes) to ensure final quality, and for once a 3D one, which is what mostly anyone making a game wants. Because lets face it, 2d is way easier to do, but most hobbyist want only 3d.
@Danimal: You're making some pretty big assumptions there. For the record, this isn't something I would jump into if it were putting me (and my baby) at any sort of financial risk, and the whole thing with doing this on Kickstarter is that I'll known in advance how much work will be funded. Also, I'm not one for taking silly risks without a lot of thought, and I'm aware that I need a contingency plan should the funding venture fail.
I understand that this isn't a sure bet, but I'd appreciate it if people gave me a little credit. :)
Sorry if i sounded too harsh, flaming is the last thing i want, and i think people is not denying you credit for this project, its advice to not to be too reckless. Which you obviously dont need, so peace :)
I think it would be interesting to have challenges for programmers in a sense that you post up specific images and they have to see if they can be the most creative with those images. I guess though that that wouldnt give you much funding.... In terms of more work though it would perssonaly I would like to have better organization of the submissions. But you know I havent been around OGA a long time, but I thought I would just put my few Ideas in.
@bart-
I think it's great that you want to give back so much to the community you've made, but I'm just wondering how much stuff there is for you to do on the site? Yes, we do need some new features integrated with the website (as Sharm has mentioned), but how you will get paid?
As an OGA employee you would need bare minimum 30-40K income per year. The only way I see this happening is that you are commissioned by people/companies for work, which would take your time away from OGA. You could do more advertisement here, but that'd make OGA an advertisement billboard. Programming/Web development for OGA would be much appreciated, but there is no extra money to be made there.
LPC brought in a lot of revenue, so I'm not doubtful that you can get enough donations for a year or two of OGA work... however that doesn't secure long term (plus KickStarter has a pretty strict rule against "Fund my Life/Help me start a Business" Campain which I feel yours falls under. What you are KickStarting must be a Project as defined by Kickstarter.).
What we really need to be thinking of is: What can Bart do for OGA that will make 30-40K per year and help the OGA community? Once we can answer this and are confident that you will be able to support yourself and your family, we can then think about KickStarter. What kind of OGA project can we launch initially that will give some support money for Bart. I'd like to see the money from Kickstarter be a fall back for you, or money that you can use when there is no income (giving you stability).
Things you'd need:
Of course this is just my opinion. I don't want to be the dream-eater... just being a realist. :) -Curt
Oh and Bart, I'm not saying you shouldn't work at OGA full time. I think you should if that is your dream. We just need to think up a way for you to do it is all. Hope you understand.
Also.. I think it'd be smart to make the Kickstarter project an OGA community project . We can possibly make an Android/iOS/HTML5 game together and then Kickstart it. Use that Kickstarter money and the money made towards the "Barts 6-month security income plan". We all can chip in on the art and make it CC-BY so it's all reuseable.
You cannot really make art that is overall game ready. It depends on the engine and the kind of game you want to do and the amount of quality you want to have.
For an up to date game you would need a well optimized mesh, fit a specific polygon budged and proper texturing, all textures assembled on an atlas texture with proper diffuse, normal, specular etc maps, several level of details, original model, lod 1, lod2, lod 3 and proper collision detection and if you want physics you would also need destruction states, so you add again original model, destruction state 1, 2, 3 and if it is a plant you would also need wind animations. The problem now is, every game engine handles things a little different, so you would need again the same model optimized again for every purpose. Ah and I forgot the proper dimensions the model should have, so that the player will fit through and also proper origin and transforms, so the model will appear where it should. ;)
Requirements for games are pretty high these days and often it is best to design things from scratch to the specific purpose, so there should be a guideline how far "game ready" should go.
In my oppinion a proper mesh with proper texturing would be enough, since the rest can be made very quick, but for example a mesh without textures is pretty useless for me, since I often use a reference picture and textures I made before to model something and when that is missing, it can be hard to figure out how to texture it.
I would suggest implementing more features for artists. There are plenty of users, but OGA is kinda lacking artists. Making OGA more attractive to artists should be a priority.
A overhaul of the way artists can present their art. Bigger thumbnails, the possibility to upload a specifc thumbnail image. (One which isn't shown in the preview images, also a dedicated field for them so more artists become aware of the feature.) A way to highlight high quality art, so they stand more out instead of drowning under all the lower quality assets. A way to define multiple links (instead of just a homepage, for example for Twitter Account, dA, personal art collections... etc.) that are shown on every submission of the artists so that can better self-promote. Thumbnails to some random pieces of the latest art of the artist on each submission, again for better exposure.
A valid question.
First off, it should be noted that OGA is visited by about 100,000 unique people every month now. Even assuming that a) a lot of these people may be bots, and b) some fraction of people visit from multiple IP addresses, that's most likely still tens of thousands of unique users. Obviously, only a tiny fraction of these people will be willing to spend money, but depending on the size of that fraction, it may be all we need. Also, unique hits have roughly doubled every year since the site was first made several years ago. I don't know how long this pattern will hold. It could end tomorrow, it could continue for a few more years. So even if we're not quite there right now, we may be in a year or two.
Secondly, I don't expect one single source of revenue to be enough. Kickstarter may get us by for a while, but ultimately I need to use some of those funds to bring OGA to a point where it can generate a sustainable income, and that means taking time to create other sources of revenue. Here are the definite ones:
Unless traffic becomes a serious (expensive) enough problem that I'm not longer able to run the site otherwise, I have no plans to charge subscription fees for unlimited downloads, etc. I've said in the past that I would never do this, and the only way I would go back on that is if the continued existence of the site depended on it. Even then, I would inform people of the situation and ask for donations first. Note that we are not currently anywhere near this point, so it's nothing to worry about at the moment. :)
I would also be interested in other ways people can think of that we might be able to generate revenue. There are siome other suggestions that would be somewhat complicated to implement, but would be worth considering:
More ideas are always appreciated. Also, I could use some advice on what sites are good for medium websites wanting to sell swag.
Update: Had a couple thoughts on advertising, with respect to what MrBeast said.
I could tie advertising in to account pages. If an artist wants to advertise one or more of their sites, they can upload a banner directly on their user account page and pay through paypal to run an ad on the front page.
Also, since people have suggested setting up pages for their games, I could conceivably do the same thing for game pages.
One other thing with respect to income:
It's notable that the Ardour project sells a GPLed work using a pay-what-you-want model and does just fine:
https://community.ardour.org/s/buy_anon
Ardour is also available for free with many linux distros.
About funding, I think Kickstarter is the only viable option here. Other options are simply pitiful in comparison. OpenGameArt is already widely known so it will be no problem to get the initial support there, it should be enough to get the project sucessful quickly which in turn will attract even more people. Funding about $50k should be entirely doable on Kickstarter. (Much more if it goes viral, but betting on it would be risky.) The question is just the marketing and the backer levels, which would require quite some preparation.
Yeah, I've been thinking about those. It would be good to have a range from "Hey, here's a dollar!" to "I want to give you thousands of dollars for some reason!"
Something like:
Each level would come with its own medal. Obviously these need some work, and I need to know how much each of them would actually cost. I'm guesstimating about 20% or so for each one would go to the donation reward.
Comments?
Irregardless of KickStarter I think financial supporter's badges/medals, with various tiers, which show up on the user page and possibly a compact icon beside the user name on comments/forum posts could encourage some donations.
In regard to KickStarter I personally couldn't give a damn about personal rewards, I'd want to know what will be done to make OGA better and how it will benefit me (as an artist or as an art-seeker).
Oh, a couple more reuests that've long bugged me:
I think, in regard of the target group, it would be good to make a art-pack, rather than invidual art commisions, as part of the campaign. People who fund it with 50$ get exclusive early access to it (like, it is released for everyone else one year later). People who fund it with atleast 100$ get to suggest and vote on what should be part of that art-pack.
T-Shirt's are cool, but I don't think anyone would choose a mug as reward.
Another idea, since most OGA users are content creators themselves, would be to cooperate with a software developer of some commercial game or art related tool and giving it away as a backer tier. (For example 3D-Coat or Spriter.)
Didn't want to sound pessimistic, but I still think you are going to have a hard time getting sufficient funds by donations. Those high unique page-views is likely an artifact of a lot of wanna-be game-developers in their teens which will never shell out some hard cash.
What you could do is offer content management (I outlined it here before: http://freegamer.blogspot.com/2012/12/devcorner-professionalize-your-art... ) for serious game projects. Just make everything up to 250mb free or so, and charge a modest amount above that. I am sure quite a few projects would appreciate the service, as AFAIK there isn't anything comparable out there... and it would give you a pretty steady stream of revenue.
So, back to the kickstarter thing. I looked into the costs for various things, and here's a (somewhat) final list of gifts:
Thoughts?
I'd appreciate a filter for unsufficiently tagged art. This would simplify the process of finding and tagging art.
In regards to letting users tag art: The solution might be to allow tagging for everyone, but to require approvement by the original author or a mod.
I haven't run any kickstarter projects! I haven't even followed kickstarter very closely! But these are my thoughts.
"$15 - The same image, printed as an 11x17 poster and signed." - I'd think in many cases most or all of the 15$ donated would be spent on the fees involved with printing & delivery; I've heard it said by kickstarter project runners that a lot of problems outside of your control may pop up with creation & delivery of physical stuff, so the costs & time can quickly grow out of your hands.
What is the "high-res Sara" anyway?
"$20 - An uncompressed digital download of selected music tracks from OGA." - This suggests that opengameart generally withholds uncompressed music (and maybe by analogy other high-res versions of assets) for unpaid users, while this is not true; it's antimarketing
"$100 - [...] OR a personal chat with BartK (online)." - This sounds silly considering you're available on #opengameart anyway. And for those who do not know that, it'd suggest that you're not available for conversations online by default, because otherwise this wouldn't be a prize - and that's horrible - because you being generally available is a big plus for the site & suggesting the opposite is antimarketing, and asking for money but refusing to be contacted online sounds like something a scammer would do (kickstarter folks being probably suspicious of scammers by now).
Also as by default each tier seems not to include previous tiers, I get the impression that only those who give less than 10$ get a "medal" here to show them as backers of the oga effort? But all backers should get that, it costs nothing & they deserve to be marked for this
I'd think in many cases most or all of the 15$ donated would be spent on the fees involved with printing & delivery; I've heard it said by kickstarter project runners that a lot of problems outside of your control may pop up with creation & delivery of physical stuff, so the costs & time can quickly grow out of your hands.
Printing an 11x17 full color page is about 25 cents. A 9x12 envelope is about 50 cents, and mailing it is less than a dollar. All told, the expense would likely be about $2.
An uncompressed digital download of selected music tracks from OGA." - This suggests that opengameart generally withholds uncompressed music (and maybe by analogy other high-res versions of assets) for unpaid users, while this is not true; it's antimarketing
I'm not sure I agree with that, but I'm curious what the general consensus about it would be. I know that, for bandwidth reasons, there are some songs I've personally made that I have not uploaded in uncompressed wav form, although frankly ogg sounds pretty much just as good.
You're correct that the tiers don't include the rewards from previous tiers. I've been trying to make the rewards cost roughly 20 percent of the total -- including previous tiers would basically double that.
Also, I didn't list the medals on later tiers for brevity. All tiers will receive a medal, and everything $10+ will get a mention on the thank you page.
Maybe it would be helpful for us to say what kind of rewards we'd be willing to put money towards instead of just putting out reward ideas. I think Mr. Beast's idea of a new collection made just for the kickstarter that is made available to all a year later is a very good one, especially with the higher levels having the ability to suggest what should be included. This could be done for other things too like music or sound effects. I think a few previews of those sets would be very useful in gaining attention on the kickstarter page.
Here are some things I'd be interested in as an investor:
A way to donate or show support that doesn't involve money.
A Medal
Something next to my name in the forums to show off how generous I am.
A wallpaper download featuring Sara being epic in a non-genre specific game world as long as the artist was really good.
Advertising for my game/portfolio
One on One time with Bart or perhaps one of the other highly active members of OGA to brainstorm, critique or review my game/artwork.
Early access to a high quality music collection. (this one would only work for me if it was a $30 or less donation level)
Game in a Box art packs where all the art, music, sfx ect are put into one pack for easy download and use. These packs would include brand new material that won't be available on OGA for a while. (Obviously a high tier donation)
I choose a content creator from a list of willing artists/musicians to make me an exclusive asset for my game. (also high tier)
For a ridiculously high donation amount I'll have the people at OGA make me my very own small game from start to finish which I can then edit and redistribute however I want.
This is all I can think of at the moment. I'm not even slightly interested in swag, which makes it hard.
Bart: Remember that you can put multiple rewards at the same donation level. I think that would be very useful for something like this where the donators have such a wide range of interests. I did think the "uncompressed digital download" was a bit odd, I'll admit I don't see why someone would want that if the ogg's sound the same. The CD could be cool though.
Personally, I would be all about the feelies. I would very much like a shirt, maybe a mug. I already have a nice themed mousepad, but I could always use another (since I carry my mouse everywhere with my laptop; touchpads are for chumps.) (That said, the custom mousepad cost me a buck on a special deal).
Originally the reason I added the digital delivery option was because I didn't want to get stuck with worldwide shipping costs, which can be vastly higher. Kickstarter allows you to add a surcharge for worldwide shipping. I think I'll just remove the two digital delivery options.
I adjusted the funding levels a bit:
All tiers receive a medal. All tiers $100 and over get a lifetime supporter account Users with supporter accounts can turn off ads and will get access to features that are still in beta. Supporter accounts will cost a few dollars a month otherwise. There are also $100, $200, and $500 tiers with just the supporter account, for people who don't want the other stuff that comes with those tiers.
Here's my current project description for the kickstarter page. Funding amount and goal priorities are not finalized. Comments would be appreciated. This isn't done yet, so don't be alarmed if something important is missing -- just let me know and I'll add it.
UPDATE: Added Swag Store, moved Supporter Account section to goals.
About OpenGameArt.org
Founded as a hobby project in 2009, OpenGameArt.org (also known as OGA) is now the place to download free and Creative Commons licensed video game art on the web. OGA is home to a friendly and diverse community of artists, gamers, and developers from the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), and commercial Indie gaming scenes. We currently host over 30 gigabytes of art, and serve over 2,000,000 pages to almost 100,000 unique visitors per month.
Why Kickstarter?
I (Bart Kelsey) currently do the vast majority of coding and maintenance on OGA by myself in my limited free time. I also pay for the majority of site expenses (server costs, art commissions) out of pocket, with the help of some donors. In all honesty, OGA is now to the point where there's a lot more to do in terms of coding and maintenance than I have time for. As such, now is the time to do some vital work on OGA and put it in the position to generate sustainable income so that I can switch over to working on it full-time.
Goals
The OGA Kickstarter campaign has a number of goals, focused on improving user experience and giving artists and game developers more tools to work with.
More Art Categories
One of the most frequently requested features is a finer grained set of art categories. These are simple to add from a programming standpoint, but my experience with large numbers of art categories in the past is that without someone to keep the art organized, art submissions will frequently be put into the wrong categories. This goal is in two parts: First, we'll get ideas from the community about what categories to put the art into, and secondly, I'll need to manually sort through the archive and categorize each submission, then make sure new submissions are correctly categorized when they're added to the archive.
Game Project Pages
Another often requested feature is to allow game developers to create pages for their games on OGA. This would have several benefits:
Game developers will be able to flag art submissions that they're using in their games. The art will show up in a gallery on their game page, and their game will be listed in a "Games using this art" section on the art page. It's a great way for artists to show off who is using their work, and game projects to promote themselves.
Game developers will be able to generate a complete set of credits and licenses for the OGA art in their game page in a single click, taking the work and worry out of licenses.
From the game project page, game developers will have the option to purchase an advertisement for their game to run on the main page.
Artist Features
Artists will have the ability to add multiple links to their profile, to promote their personal portfolios, deviantArt pages, and whatever else. These links will be visible alongside their art submissions, as well as a box displaying thumbnails of other art that they've uploaded to OGA. From artists' profile pages, they will (like game developers) have the option to purchase advertising for their portfolio pages.
Game Ready Art Certification
We'll develop a set of requirements (that vary depending on the type of art) to certify that a particular piece of art is "game ready" -- that is, ready to be put directly into a game with minimal fuss. For example, for a 3D character model to be considered game ready, it will need to be rigged, textured, animated, and free of glitches and defects.
Supporter Accounts
Supporter accounts will have access to features that are still in beta, and will be able to turn off advertising. They will also come with a medal that will be displayed by your username with your forum posts, comments, and art submissions. Supporter accounts will cost a small recurring monthly charge. All funding gifts $100 and over come with a lifetime supporter account.
Swag Store
A store where you can buy OGA merchandise, such as shirts, hats, mugs, mouse pads, etc.
Other Improvements
We'll be adding better integration with PayPal so that users who donate to the site can be automatically recognized for their contribution with a medal.
Stretch Goals
Completely Open Source the OGA Codebase
OGA runs on top of Drupal 7, and the vast majority of the code that power it is already free and open source, including some of the modules that I developed for it myself. Most of the code remains proprietary is glue code, specific to OGA itself. Unfortunately, opening this code is not just a matter of releasing it into the wild, since it depends on the underlying custom data structures in OGA's Drupal database; hence, it is completely useless without those data structures to go along with it. In order to open source the codebase, I need to write code that will sanitize the existing OGA database and remove all user information and comments and the vast majority of the art, so that people can download a working (minimal) instance of the OGA database to experiment with. This will allow other people to participate in development and add features to the site.
Redesign the Site
This was probably the most frequently requested change. It wouldn't be a stretch goal except for the fact that it will be incredibly time consuming (not because it's necessarily hard to do from a coding perspective, but because a lot of thought and testing will have be put into it in order to get it right). Redesigning the look and feel of the site will not require a rewrite of the backend code; however, plenty of custom frontend code will need to be written or re-written.
Version Control for Art
One thing that art sites often fail to build into their designs is that art, much like programming, is an iterative process. If this stretch goal is met, features (such as an visual art timeline with embedded comments, "forking" or remixing of art, etc) will be added to OGA that will make it easy to collaborate on art development. Combined with game project pages, this will make OGA into a complete suite for managing art for video game development. Game studios will have an option to pay OGA for private storage of their art, similar to the GitHub revenue model of charging for private code repositories.
Fake Internet Points
If this stretch goal is met, we will implement StackOverflow style points to encourage users to take part in collaborative creation and curation of content. As you earn points, you will be able to re-tag and reorganize art, create art contests, earn months of supporter account status, and get snazzy medals. You will also receive the recognition, admiration, and fulfillment that only fake internet points can provide.
- MORE contests like LPC (maybe every x amount of backers you will organize another contest like LPC y amount of time apart from eachother)
- The 5,000 and 10,000 tiers could have a chance to design a contest like LPC? (pick what kind of art style, rules, etc.)
@Runedrake: Honestly, those create a tremendous amount of work, and would to some extent defeat the purpose of the kickstarter, since I'd be having to spend that time working specifically on the contests and not on improving OGA.
Would it be possible to make contests like LPC almost entirely community run?
My idea here is that you could just announce the contest (explain the art style and stuff) Then the community has a certain amount of time to make art and games. After that time is over and people have submitted games, the community can vote on them and determine who gets prizes (In the duration of the contest people can donate to it, you get some of the money and the rest go to prizes).
It might be a bunch of work the first time to get everything automated like that but all the rest of the times you would pretty much just need to announce it.
Sorry I am not an expert on all this but I just want more things like LPC (even if it is on a MUCH smaller scale).
OGA would benefit a lot from it too because there will be tons of new art that works together
Would it be possible to make contests like LPC almost entirely community run?
It might be, provided you could get sufficient participation.
Teach people about the licenses more (sorry for being so non-specific).
Auto-create attribution suggestions that include title, author, link to user profile, link to art piece, license(s) name and link to license(s) for easy copying to make it easier to use art legally.
Make OGA accessible (especially the upload form and the audio section for people without eyesight). For this, it might be possible to get funding from for-handicapped organizations.
Properly integrate with twitter, facebook, ideally g+, identi.ca and diaspora "page" feeds. Fix image previews (this includes giving bg color to audio preview images, curretnly they are white on transparent). For proper thumbnail display, see opengraph. One example of how to use can be seen at https://github.com/qubodup/jylattfy/blob/gh-pages/index.html Proper social network integration is crucial to growth.
Just some random suggestions. :)
PS: if kickstarter is going to be used, it might be a good step to start using a real face avatar throughout the web. Recognizability and trust come to mind.
PPS: 1. At the top of the art request forum put a table of suggested prices. 2. Give the option to artists that fill free art request jobs to donate 10% of their earnings to OGA in return for a "For the Community!" medal (in the art work submission on OGA?) as thanks for the forum allowing offer and artists to find each other.
Teach people about the licenses more (sorry for being so non-specific).
Honestly, I need specifics for this. Licenses are a complicated mess, and it's difficult to simplify them.
Auto-create attribution suggestions that include title, author, link to user profile, link to art piece, license(s) name and link to license(s) for easy copying to make it easier to use art legally.
Awesome idea. :)
Make OGA accessible (especially the upload form and the audio section for people without eyesight). For this, it might be possible to get funding from for-handicapped organizations.
It would definitely be nice to do this. I'll look into it.
Properly integrate with twitter, facebook, ideally g+, identi.ca and diaspora "page" feeds.
I need an example of this. Social network integration is definitely a good thing.
Added a "challenges" section to the kickstarter page:
Challenges
Most of the goals listed here are relatively low-risk -- that is, if this project is successfully funded, the chance of the stated goals being completed is very high.
The biggest challenge isn't so much meeting the Kickstarter goals as establishing a steady income once those goals are completed. There are several income streams we can pursue in the near future.
The first potential income stream is through supporter accounts (see above for a description). We get about 100,000 unique visitors per month. If even a tenth of one percent of those users are willing to pay $5 monthly for supporter account access, then that would cover continued development on its own. However, the number of people actually willing to pay a subscription fee can be unpredictable at best, so I can't depend on this alone.
Advertising is another possible income stream. Optimally, I would like to sell ad space on the front page directly to artists and software developers so they can get exposure for their projects and portfolios. Web advertising can be difficult to break into, and while the value of the ad space on OGA might be technically enough to support the site on its own, it can be hard at times to find people who want to pay for ads without going through an web advertising agency (which has its own problems, such as incomplete control over what ads show up, and a middleman taking a significant cut of the ad revenue). However, if enough people can be convinced that advertising on OGA would be worthwhile, then it could be a major source of income for the site.
Finally, a custom OGA swag shop that sells shirts, mugs, mouse pads, digital media, and other goodies might be a good way to supplement site income, although it would be unlikely to cover all of our funding needs.
Perhaps, it would be nice to elaborate on the current features and limitations of OGA. From the current project description it is not immediately obvious what does OGA have already. Hence it is not obvious how and why the goals are choosen.
IMO, generally speaking, currently one can interact with OGA in 3 ways:
submit an art piece, search for an art piece, and communicate with other members via forum, art comments, etc.
An registered account allows for some customization of these options, such as ability to track own submissions, ability to organize art by arranging it into "collections" and so on.
"game project pages" and "artist features" goals fall into account improvement category.
"more art categories" and "game ready art certification" - into search improvement category.
"version control for art" - into submission improvement category.
Since you want to make living from OGA, there is another set of goals to
monetize it ("swag store", "supporter accounts", "better paypal integration").
Speaking of current features (and regarding "more art categories" goal),
it would be nice to mention current art categories and provide screenshots and
links to some of the most prominent pieces, a couple for each category maybe.
Besides, a screenshot of the OGA main page definitely won't hurt.
I think you should forget the kickstarter and keep the site as-is... lest we risk ruining a great community for the sake of profits.
Why don't we ask for volunteers to help with the web design and maintenance for free? Or do a donation drive if you want to help cover server costs?
I don't want to sound harsh but I think $3000/month income from a site about free game art is a bit unrealistic, sorry to say.
This site wouldn't be worth visiting if it wasn't for all the artists submitting their work for free. I hope you keep their interests in mind when making your decision.
RE: Social Network integration
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Opengameart/502428436446188?fref=ts currently looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/Oe3bGtF.png (no preview images)
having proper meta elements in the html should solve this by telling facebook etc "this is the image you should use as a preview": [[[ meta property="og:image" content="http://opengameart.org/image.png" / ]]] See https://github.com/qubodup/jylattfy/blob/gh-pages/index.html
@pixel32: I don't know whether it's realistic or not, but if you're right, then you have nothing to worry about. The kickstarter will fail, and things will continue on exactly as they are, and I won't be able to ruin OGA by working on it for a living.
That being said, perhaps you could get into specifics about what part of the plan you feel would ruin OGA, and what part of the plan would are bad for artists?
Also, because it needs to be said: My financial prospects as a full time drupal developer would be significantly higher than what I'm likely to make running OGA. All I want from this is to make a reasonable living making the site better for everyone, including artists, game developers, and whoever else. I most certainly don't want to ruin it. Frankly, if I wanted to get rich, I wouldn't be running this site at all, let alone trying to do it for a living.
Wait I am confused ... don't you want to ask us what new features we would like to see on the OGA site ?!? (granted I have not red all the 55 comments)
If that's the case then you should add a way to imbed youtube videos on the submission description as most 3D models already have that but as normal links (witch take you to the Youtube site).
It would be nice to have an inverted license chooser: Instead of (or additionally to) “show these licenses” I’d love to see “I (want to) use this license. Show me art under compatible licenses.”
I want to see more porn. I'm tired of having to open multiple tabs just to download game art and do other things at the same time. What is this, 2012?
I knew this day was coming. If we're going to get into discussion about the future of OGA and what needs to change, let's get write to the heart of the matter.
It's your attitude.
Bart you are capricious and discriminating. Up till now you have believed that it is good to be such even as you offered a monopoly-priced product and quite frankly bullied people who disagreed with you. This has been the cloud that has hung over your website since the beginning. People don't like you because you mistreat them. They fear, rightly, that if you disagree with them you will simply ban them. If this website becomes dominant in indie gaming, then it becomes the next PoF: a modern-day fiefdom that leverages its dominance to obtain a sense of power for its master, to not only swat dissidents, but keep them disorganized and disadvantaged. Your critics have reason to fear this outcome... in your new world, there could be ostracism for those who can't keep quiet.
This is what needs to change: your attitude towards your visitors and users. This is the price you must pay, unconditionally, for the privelege of living off OGA. The people want a maintainer, not a dictator.
tcauldillg: wut.
If this is satire it's over my head.
@Tcaud-
I think you're confusing management and good judgememt with bad attitude. Communities need order and organization. If it takes necessary some hard decisions, its normal. No ones perfect.
Re: tcaudilllg:
Only "Don't feed the troll." comes to mind.
if you're not just trolling, I'd be interested to hear who or what you're referring to. I certainly don't want to be perceived as a bully, and I can count on one hand the number of people I've banned since the site was founded several years ago. if I'm doing something wrong, give me an example, because as it stands, your post doesn't give me anything to work with.
I posted an appeal for artists to concentrate on making prototype models rather than finished work, because I felt that would make complex projects easier. You deleted the post because I explained the scientific rationale for my reasoning, which you weren't familiar with and frankly dismissve of. I took it up with you on the chat and I got insulted and banned. This was about a year ago.
If free speculation has no place at OGA, then I don't think there will much innovation coming out of a community dominated by OGA as such. Honestly I'm kinda threatened by the sheer centralization of OGA in general. Whenever there is centralization then power can change hands quickly, and without checks and balances a community that has grown dependent on a resource can be held down by the power holder if they choose. I'm seen this on many sites and it is a phenomenon particular to popular internet communities. Anywhere there is abundance and prosperity, negative people will angle to seize it. It's human nature.
You're that guy who was spamming some weird mumbo jumbo social theory website. I have an unedited chat log of the whole thing, which I've posted here unedited so people can review it:
http://opengameart.org/sites/default/files/archive/tcaud.log
Some highlights:
I wasn't particularly nice to you, but you spammed the site anonymously and then came into the IRC channel, guns ablaze, and broke IRC channel rules as well. I also, for the record, never threatened you with any sort of violence. You are one of maybe four people who have ever been banned from the channel, and I stand by my decision.
Bart, your post speaks for itself. Good luck with your endeavors.
It does tcaudilllg, you're a total nutcase.
Bart, your post speaks for itself. Good luck with your endeavors.
I believe it does, and thank you for your support.
Of course, Mr. O'Reily.
Anyway, what features I'd like to see:
1. Being able to reply to a private message.
2. "Textures in Pack" should filter images more, if it finds an SVG file it tries to display it but fails.
ex. http://opengameart.org/content/road-and-water-tiles-from-isometric-set
3. Ability to not save a change as a revision, sometimes it's a minor spelling mistake and it's just silly to save a revision.
4. Allow useres to add their Twitter, Facebook page etc. to their profile.
5. Make "Latest art" two rows instead of one to give new submissions more time on the frontpage.
6. Allow users to feature some of their submissions on their profile page.
7. 4 colums of submissions instead of 3 on user profile, to stay in line with the rest of the website.
Game-ready certification is move in the right direction, but doesn't solve the underlying problem - disparate assets, and a lack of breadth and polish. One can drop assets from OGA into a game full of programmer art, and while it would look better, it won't necessarily look cohesive. Art packs are few and far between.
In terms of utter usefulness, the site should emphasize art packs, and deemphasize everything else. If that requires an infrastructure of collaboration, then so be it.
Imagine this scenario: the site puts up a poll for all those thousands of unique visitors, to vote on a push to complete an art pack for a particular genre. While art contests might be fun for artists, they're of little use to game developers. Let's say visitors choose Beat 'em Ups. For however long it takes, the site funnels all available talent to produce the art necessary for that type of game. Background artists channel the cityscapes of games like Streets of Rage; concept artists create personalities; spriters give them life.
It's the difference between a developer having their art needs met in a single click, and having to scour and collect assets that sort of fit together, kind of.
That joker talking about the perils of centralization isn't just a loon, he's wrong. The site needs more centralization, and art cliques that can pool their man-hours and work together to produce compatible content. The collaboration on the RPG battle sprite collection is the kind of thing that needs to be happening all the time, and it's the kind of thing the site should be spotlighting for all the artists who make their way here.
To put it succintly, make games sans programming. That's what a stranger would expect from a site like this, but it isn't what they're finding.
Addressing the monetization of the site, OGA could do a separate Kickstarter project for each art pack its visitors decide they want. That would fit more in line with the terms of Kickstarter, and would incentivize those developers interested in the resulting assets. Artists would have to sign onto these projects, and agree to meet certain deadlines, receiving compensation relative to the success of the funding.
Change the site visual and navigation. with a good layout you can put advertising on it without bothering much the users. :)
"For however long it takes, the site funnels all available talent to produce the art necessary for that type of game."
For the record, this is simply not how things work. The site's contributors are not a cohesive group under the site's control--they are generally a disparate group of free givers with different styles, abilities and interests. OGA can only direct things either by paying artists (as they have occasionally done, already generally in the service of cohesive art packs) and by running events (like the LPC, also in the service of a cohesive art pack). What you're asking for just isn't really realistic.