Welcome to Donation Drive 2015!
First, the short version -- if you’d like to help GWJ keep the lights on, keep building the amazing community, keep pumping out great articles, keep the Gamers With Jobs Conference Call going, keep making videos and magazines and radio plays and all kinds of stuff then go to → patreon.com/gwj.
You’ll find all the instructions you need to donate and get your thank you reward there. There’s also a video in which I make it kind of weird at the end. I do that.
Thank you very much for all your support. You make all this possible.
[One important note -- if you do support the site and want the rewards make sure the email you use for Patreon is the same on you use for your GWJ account.]
Now the longer version. If you’re interested in knowing more about why we’re moving to Patreon this year, I wrote about that a couple of weeks ago. You can find that here.
Beyond that, there may be a few additional questions, so I thought I’d try to tackle a few of them here. If you have questions, let us know, but please be patient. We’re new at doing it this way too, so we’ll probably need to figure some things out on our end as well.
How do I donate to the site? -- Ok, good. This is an easy one, because I just mentioned it a moment ago. Go to Patreon.com/GWJ, enter an amount you’d like to pledge each month, enter your payment information and you’re good. Thank you, you’re awesome.
Can I use PayPal like I used to? -- We are moving away from PayPal so we’re not offering that as a way to donate this year. If you need an alternative way of donating to the site, we can accept snail-mail payments. If you’d like to donate by snail-mail please PM me through the site or send me an email at: [email protected].
… but I liked just donating a lump sum -- We are still accepting and grateful for any single sum donations. We recommend using Patreon to donate and then once it has processed cancel the recurring payment. We know it’s not ideal, but getting onto a single system is pretty critical to us being able to manage the site’s budget. We’re sorry for any inconvenience, and if you run into any trouble drop us a line, and we’ll work with you to get it fixed!
I don’t live in the US, can I donate? -- Yes -- at least according to Patreon’s FAQ -- your funds will be converted to USD. Here’s what they have to say -- https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us...
Wait, isn’t there still stuff to be done from 2014’s drive? -- Yup, there sure is, and we still have the money set aside and we’re going to deliver on all of them. We want to listen to a new Radio Play, for example, as much as you, but getting the right people together at the right time is taking longer this time around than predicted. For this reason we tried to avoid doubling up on any rewards on the Patreon for the few things still outstanding from last year.
Are icons still part of the deal? -- Absolutely, and there will also be a new icon for this year. We have a few people in the community who have been with us for all 13 years and donated every year, so we couldn’t leave them hanging without a new look.
Sweet, when do I get my icon? -- We’ll periodically update icons as we get donors, though I suspect we’ll probably start handing them out toward the end of the drive. It depends a little bit on how easy the new system in Patreon is on our end, and frankly we’ve just got to learn how to work in the new system. Thanks for your patience in advance, and don’t panic if you don’t get your icon updated right away. We’ll post a follow up article as we know more.
I have a juice box. -- Man, sweet juice box, but that’s not really a question.
I just wanted to show it off, anyway any big goals for this year? -- It’s going to be a little hard to tell how we’re doing at first. It depends a bit on how many people do a lump sum payment versus how many set up a recurring amount. It won’t be as easy as it has been to keep track during the drive on how things are going, so we probably won’t make any decisions until October about how the drive went. But, overall, our first goal is $2,500/month (which would be in the ballpark of our historical donation drive annual total). If we make it to that amount and hold at or above that amount through Oct. then the Gamers With Jobs crew will play an ongoing, monthly pen and paper game and record the proceedings for all to enjoy! We may also add additional goals if we clear this one.
Cool, now what do I get for my money -- All the reward tiers are based on US dollars. It breaks out like this:
$2/month -- Golden community icon for the fourms
$5/month -- Icon + Access to GWJPlays (youtube.com/gwjplays) videos a day early.
$10/month -- Icon + GWJPlays + a bi-monthly live streamed Q&A chat with members of GWJ and the Conference Call
$15/month -- Icon + GWJPlays + Q&A + access to a monthly game night with the GWJ crew.
$20/month -- Icon + GWJPlays + Q&A + Game Night + we’ll read a custom short message from you on the air of the Conference Call.
$50/month -- What? Seriously? Ok, all the other cool stuff, plus if you maintain this tier for a year, Shawn and I will get online and talk to you about what kind of project you’d like to see to match your awesome level of support. You’ll work directly with us on making something great for the site, and best of all, you get to help come up with what that something is.
When does the Donation Drive end? -- This is another area where the move to Patreon changes things a little bit. Technically we will be accepting support year-round, and there will be a link to the Patreon on the site year-round now. But the Donation Drive itself still only lasts a month, and after October 15, we’ll pretty much stop talking about support or the Patreon. You’ll always have normal access to and an easy way to find the Patreon though, not just for those who want to donate, but also in case people who have donated want to make any changes.
Anything else? -- Probably, but the big answer to this question is if you have more things you’re wondering drop a line in comments, send us a PM or even reach out to [email protected] and we’ll try to get you an answer.
And, thank you one more time. Even if you aren’t able to contribute your dollars to help the site, so many of you do things both little and big every day to make this an amazing and rare place on the internet. We are so grateful for your time, your support and your awesome contributions. Thanks for making GWJ great!
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And backed!
in.
Done!
Have my money*!!!
*some of it
...I've noticed that mine is very tight, it needs quite a lot of force and I'm not wild about that - MrDeVil909
Switch: 8085-5599-2499
And another site goes to Patreon. That makes 58 different sites that I'm donating to with Patreon...
This is great! I've been hoping you guys would jump on patreon.
Work & Play
And in.
"Suburbia holds more than you'd care for" - Mark E. Smith
It seems you CAN use PayPal on Patreon. Just wanted to point that out for those that were not aware you could do so.
“Hacked by bourbon, maybe.” - Jonman
And I'm in.
Well, I've got this cabbage...
I apologize in advance for any weird "also support" suggestions that come up.
And I'm in.
It's easy to play piano: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time.
I can't handle monthly or a significant sum this year... At $5/month for the icon, that's $60 a year. Is that the minimum amount for a new icon, then?
Teacher by day, gamer and musician by night, husband and father all the time.
No, the minimum for the golden icon is just $2.
It's easy to play piano: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time.
So I signed up for $5 and because I am in Holland, EU VAT rules kick in. Which is new to me, as my two other causes didn't have that on there. If I change a pledge it might be changed as well.
But it pisses me off to no end that I have to play $6 now. Having $1 a month just wasted for something not made or produced in the EU. I've sent out an email to Patreon to see if this is reasonable, to tax something not made and sold in the EU. Will see. Otherwise I might as well close my patreon account.
Thanks, Taoist! Plavonica - yeah. That sounds like a hassle! I might just go old school and send a handwritten note and check hahaha!
Teacher by day, gamer and musician by night, husband and father all the time.
I'm in.
PSN: psu_13
Hey, I just backed at the $10 tier because you guys are music to my ear-holes, but I did want to feedback that the $10 and $15 tier rewards are going to be a bit tricky for international peeps. I'm approximately 12 hours ahead of y'all, so getting into a Q&A chat or game would be pretty tricky to sort out. Just a thought for next time, keep up the awesome work crew!
podcast | Battletag: flaxeh#6952
Done. I suppose it's time to see if Patreon's "add a post" tool was made less sh*tty for sharing a creation.
YouTube | Twitch | Blog
SW-3864-9679-7572
And done. Hope this goes well for you guys!
I stream stuff!
In!
One maybe-bug report: Upon completing my donation, I was greeted with this:
I'm guessing that "None" is something that can be customized? (This was using Firefox on a Windows 10 PC, if it matters.)
Aggro Magnet Games
None showed up on Chrome on Win10 as well - also, in like Flynn!
You bastard, Tanglebones. :)
ClockworkHouse wrote:Yay! My Sony bone is getting tangled!
thrawn82 wrote:Tanglebones is a better man than I, in tears at my desk.
Donated, presuming I figured this Patreon thing out correctly. It seems to have worked.
Also, thanks to Elysia and the crew for the custom 'cheese wedge' icon from last year's drive, it's great!
In as well.
A much better option! I'm in.
My patreon account is linked to a "safe" email address as I've been contributing to GG harassment targets. You want me to make a new account or can I send someone a message confirming my address?
Never mind I just changed my site email address.
Done!
Steam: [GWJ]MeatMan | "Now I know where to go if I have a hankering for testicles." –Higgledy
And done.
I may have skimmed a bit, but it's pretty sweet that our donation earns us a juice box this year.
Done!
Yeah. Mmmm. Although I'd be okay with digital (pdf?) juice box delivery to save on shipping costs.
Aggro Magnet Games
Tried dividing out my usual lump donation but I hate fractions so GWJ gets a slight bump from previous years. Stupid arbitrary 12 months in a year mumble grumble.
Politely rude. Briskly vague. Firmly uninformative.
Dangit! "Please make sure your GWJ forum account email matches your Patreon email account so we can get you your icon!"
I have my own domain so I can have as many e-mail addresses as I like; every site I sign up for gets a separate email/password, and my e-mail filtering is based on that too. (eg, private messages from GWJ show in the inbox, patreon emails go to a crowdfunding bucket...)
I guess it doesn't really matter that much, if someone thinks I am getting younger and younger as my icon never changes, then that's their problem.
I write music and stuff. | RoughneckGeek: I stop reading a thread when Q-Stone becomes the voice of reason.
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