Patreon?

robertybob

This is more for Jools I guess, but has Patreon been looked in as a model of support rather than one off PayPal donations? If every active forum member here gave $1 a month I Imagine it would raise just as much, if not more, than the one off donations via Paypal.
You don't necessarily need reward tiers, unless you wanted people donating over a certain amount to go onto a 'Thank You' list.

I'm currently supporting Yabause, Unseen64 and TCRF, and I just thought that it would be an excellent method of supporting RetroPie as well.

Zigurana

I would gladly do a monthly contribution.

BuZz

Thanks! I thought about this before - although not specifically for RetroPie, but hadn't looked too much into it. I have an account at least, so I could look into it further.

Would you envisage this to be in addition to the existing donation page, and as a "project wide" thing or a personal thing ? (Not sure of the rules etc - will need to see).

BuZz

If every active forum member gave $1 a month, I could probably work on RetroPie fulltime - not sure if that is a good or bad thing though :) (It feels like a fulltime job already at times!)

robertybob

@BuZz said in Patreon?:

Thanks! I thought about this before - although not specifically for RetroPie, but hadn't looked too much into it. I have an account at least, so I could look into it further.

Would you envisage this to be in addition to the existing donation page, and as a "project wide" thing or a personal thing ? (Not sure of the rules etc - will need to see).

If you like getting donations via PayPal then may as well have it in addition!

I'd do it as a project thing tbh.

One good thing about Patreon is the 'Goals', meaning we can see how much you'd need per month to host the site, upgrade servers, work on RP full time, host bounties for the implementation of new features/optimisations etc. May encourage people to give more than $1 a month!

BuZz

The hosting isn't a lot at all. I spend many hours on the project though - as much as a full time job on top of existing full time job many weeks, but that sounds like being on a timesheet which may take the fun out of it etc.

robertybob

Fair enough, but you're saying you'll consider it? :)

Zigurana

I agree there is something to be said to let a hobby be exactly that: a hobby.
If you do not have a good destination for the money right now, maybe just keep the idea on the back burner.

If somewhere in the future a neat project pops up requiring additional funding, I suspect there is a lot of good-will to make that happen.

On a different note, what about Retropie merchandise? I am always in the market for additional Tshirts...

BuZz

I will consider it yep. Things to think about - would I still have control over the direction or would it be that it is dictated by the contributors then what is worked on etc - and if so would that be something I want to do.

Regarding merchandise, it would only work I guess if a 3rd party was involved who could manage the logistics of it. So where we would get a cut or something. I don't have time to be posting out t-shirts anyway. I know there are sites that do this for tshirts / mugs and so on.

Not sure if that would give us the wrong image though. Although a RetroPie case like the Kodi one might be nice (and some of the profit goes to charity I believe).

robertybob

@BuZz Why do you think you'd have control taken away from you? That would only happen if you gave people the option, for example, to donate a certain amount of money a month and guarantee some influence in the direction of the project (e.g binding polls).

As far as I'm concerned it's no different to donating via PayPal other than it is paid monthly and something you can do once and forget about it.
Yabause is a good example:
https://www.patreon.com/yabause

BuZz

@robertybob I guess I assumed that if people were backing like that they would expect goals etc or to be able to steer the development. I'm not familiar with it so need to read up a bit more.

But sounds fine if it would just work as donations.

Floob

I really like the idea of official merchandise to support the project.
Those Kodi cases are really good (I'm happy with the quality and build of mine), and a similar one for RetroPie could be very popular.

If that or other merchandise is a viable route to fund the project I'd be happy to stump up funds for MOQ from China etc..
Also have shipping options from other businesses.

Although as above, there are a lot of considerations to the right funding model that should be thought out from the start.
Just got excited at the thought of a RetroPie case! :)

You could even use Amazon fulfillment if you wanted to scale things up:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/02/FBA/FBA_UK_RateCard_Aug2016-2.pdf?ld=NSGoogle

robertybob

Any update on this?

FYI any GBA fans, mGBA is now on Patreon :)

tronkyfran

If you need help or someone who does the 3d modeling of that case I would gladly lend a hand.

AmigaGamer

@Floob I agree merchandise something like the kodi case would be good.

One of the most common setup woes people seem to have is controller setup issues.
Maybe theres potential to work with a pi or retro retailer to do some kind of official retropie starter pack

Basic: rasperry pi kit with retropie preinstalled on SD and a couple of wired retro controllers - eg retrolink SNES
Premium : as above but with wireless/bluetooth controllers - eg 8bitdo

BuZz

@AmigaGamer you can't sell preinstalled retropie images or include them with a commercial product due to non commercial licences of many of the emulators

https://retropie.org.uk/documentation/legal-contact/

herb_fargus

@BuZz plus seeing as we have yet to have a cease and decist, once we directly compete with the mini nes with official hardware I don't see Nintendo looking the other way with that

BuZz

Agreed - I don't think we should ever go down that route. Emulator authors would consider it cashing in on their work too.

herb_fargus

@BuZz only thing I'd be comfortable with is the case which I think is a good idea but I'd rather not deal with the logistics of shipping etc.

mattrixk

@BuZz said in Patreon?:

Regarding merchandise, it would only work I guess if a 3rd party was involved who could manage the logistics of it. So where we would get a cut or something. I don't have time to be posting out t-shirts anyway. I know there are sites that do this for tshirts / mugs and so on.

I dabbled in CafePress and RedBubble a little a few years ago. The whole process is pretty simple:

Choose a product (eg a T-shirt).
Upload your image (maybe the RetroPie logo) and place it on the product.
Each product has a base price (say $15) that covers all expenses (manufacturing, distribution etc) and you choose a total price (say $25). The company takes the base price and you get the rest. You could make them expensive and get a fair bit of money from each product, but you won't sell many, or you can make them cheap, potentially sell a bunch, but not make much money off each.

These companies have many different products, like clothing (shirts, jackets, pants, hats), mugs/cups, mouse pads, keyrings and bags, among other things.

You can then point people to your company store (eg: retropie.cafepress.com or something), or you can set up a webstore on your own website using affiliate links.

Obviously you'd need to do some research to find the company that suits you, but you already have images to use (the RetroPie logo name and icon) and a ready built audience for your product so you won't have to spend much time or money on design and advertising.