I’m incredibly proud to announce that Hipsters of the Coast has launched a Patreon campaign to help allow our fans to both support us financial but also have input into the growth of our current and future content. Through this initiative we’re hoping to strengthen the bonds of our community, support the amazing content creators here, and build new and exciting products for everyone.
I want to use this space to answer what I feel are the two most important questions around crowd-funding. First, why should you, the reader, give us any of your hard-earned money? Second, what are we, the content producers, going to do with it? Obviously if you enjoy the content here and you feel compelled to support us then just head over to the Patreon campaign and sign up! But for those of you interest in more detailed answers, let’s dive in.
Why Should I Give You Money?
Well, for starters, your support would help fund the amazing content we generate for many years to come. If you enjoy Aaron and Jerry’s crazy deck designs, or you enjoy Kate, Zac, and Nate’s analysis of Legacy, or you enjoy Shawn, Jess, and Carrie’s game and social commentary, or you just like Matt’s artistic tastes, then you probably want to see more of that content in the future! Helping to fund our operations will help us keep this content flowing.
But, let’s not just make this a completely altruistic endeavor. We do have rewards starting at $1/month, the base patronage level. First up is a patron-only newsletter. This isn’t terribly exciting but it will have patron-only content that you won’t be able to find on our normal site. Next up is a monthly playmat raffle. Everyone who supports us, no matter what level, will get both the newsletter and entry into the raffle. In fact we’ll be auctioning off two playmats every month. The grand prize winner will get a tournament playmat from one of our writers collections. The runner-up will win an official Hipsters of the Coast playmat.
Make sure you check out the Patreon campaign to find out what October’s playmat raffle will be!
The next level of patronage is $3/month and will give you an extra entry into the playmat raffle (though you can only win the grand prize or be the runner-up, not both). In addition to this, patrons at this level will get access to polls that will help us drive future content generation. This will almost always be at least once/week and will include things like picking deck ideas or draft archetypes you want to see covered, game design questions you’re curious about, and new content ideas you would be interested in.
Moving on we get to the $5/month level which includes all of the above and more. First off is a third entry into the monthly raffle. Sweet. Next up though is exclusive access to some of the ongoing secret projects we have brewing at Hipsters of the Coast. You’ll get regular updates on project status and beta access to new projects. I can’t reveal anything we have in the works, but in the past we’ve been known for the Top 100 Magic Players list (which spawned the Top 25 Wizards now produces), the Map of all PPTQ Locations, and our Instants-Speed effects chart for every expansion.
There’s one more level of support which we’ve limited to one patron and asks for $35/month. This is the baseline cost it requires to pay for our webhosting every month. If someone is so gracious as to take on this burden then we will gift them with all of the $5/mo rewards, a free official Hipsters of the Coast playmat, two additional raffle entries (five total), and any other free swag when we create it (t-shirts, tokens, dice, etc.).
What are we Going to Do With Your Money?
If you’re enticed by the rewards outlined above, then what are you waiting for? Go support us on Patreon! Okay, some of you probably want to know what we’re doing with the money before you give it to us, and that’s perfectly okay! You can see on the campaign that our first goal is set at $100/mo. What does that cover? It covers our $35/mo webhosting fee (mentioned above). It covers renewing our domain registration. It also includes the cost of our ongoing projects. This includes database servers, application servers, gremlin bribes, and more webhosting costs for new projects (learn more about our ongoing projects as a $5/mo patron).
Once we clear that first hurdle, the next one is compensating our writers. We currently have over a dozen amazing individuals regularly contributing to Hipsters of the Coast purely for the love and joy they get from being part of this community. We want to be able to improve the quality of our content and keep our current writers able to continue to produce the high-level product you all know and love. To do that we plan to compensate them on-par with the rest of our industry, but we need your help to get there.
As we continue to grow and gain supporters this will obviously change but we promise to keep every one of our supporters apprised of how we’re using their money and how we plan to use it in the future.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns feel free to reach out to us on Twitter or Facebook and we’ll be glad to reply.
Sincerely,
Rich Stein
Chief Hipster