Feelers For Update Frequency/Content and Update on Rewards

I wanted to post an update to state that I am very content with your production quality and frequency and I enjoy your criticism very much.

Dylan Goldblatt

Some people were concerned about reddit's upvote/downvote system being abused and making it hard to have decent discussion. Remember, you can always make the subreddit private and only give access to patrons. As you said though, that might come off poorly/elitist. It would be a nice benefit, though, to have an "exclusive forum" for people who care about your work to be able to make themselves heard and communicate with each other without worrying about spam / trolls. Hell, maybe that's what the patreon site is for. The only issue is that I don't see any way for *patrons* to start "topics", e.g. if someone had an insightful comment on errant signal as a whole that doesn't necessarily pertain to any one episode. Hope this all gets sorted out and that a satisfactory conclusion is reached!

saltor

i really have no need for more tshirts. you dont really have to bother yourself with it.

Radek Píbil

yeah everyone here out spoke me, so..... *No physically reward (hate those things) *Q&A would be awesome PS: you and everyone are amazing :)

Huwiaden

I agree with most here: No shirts, I don't care about emails, Q&A would be awesome, you need a better forum than the youtube comment section. As to the "exclusive access to campster" issue: You could let the patreons vote on some questions you will definitively answer/discuss and pick some you like yourself.

If you must do physical rewards, keep it video related - DVDs (who gets those anymore?), mp4s coded for iPods and Androids, top tiers for USB sticks filled with all work done so far AT MOST. Making ofs, rough cuts, other material (though this is arguably more work than slapping a logo on a T-Shirt). Or - hear me out - a nicely bound essay book of transcripts / original scripts (and cheaper kindle edition!). However, I also understand the T-Shirt as advertising model is also important - friend of mine still walks around with an "I supported Double Fine" T-Shirt, for example. Errant Signal could increase in views with a bunch of people wearing them at PAX and the like. But Errant Signal isn't a T-shirt kindda thing. Branding - while actually not bad - isn't your thing. It's putting thought into gaming. We want moreof that. I'd feel related if you got a new mic or something with a little thank you video or a "Sponsored by..." quick mention in a blog post.

John Osborne

My feels with things: Physical rewards don't really interest me, don't wear yourself out figuring out how to send out a thousand t-shirts, I would feel my money is going to best use if it keeps you producing content. Publicly viewable Q&A might be nice, or Nate's suggestion of a raffle could actually be a little bit of fun and you wouldn't have to worry about it scaling badly. Finally I'd say don't feel bad about asking for money to make things. I think at the end of each video you should have one of those 'hit here to subscribe, hit here to see previous video' pages at the end, with a Patreon icon as well. I think that'd be better than coming out once or twice a year hoping for more backers. Basically just keep doing what you're doing, and you'll keep getting internet money ;)

Blake Preston

Another vote against physical rewards. Q+A sounds awesome. I also have a selfish suggestion. Would you consider giving feedback on games made by patrons? This isn't intended as a marketing ploy and I would be find if the feedback was private. I also realize this doesn't scale, so the number of requests would need to be very small (or picked from a raffle or something).

Josh

This may get shot down, but how about raffling off games or something to backers? You could buy a copy or two (or see if you can't have them donated in some fashion), then raffle off a copy of the current game being Signaled. Can you see each backer's current backing level? If so you could use some formula to calculate the number of raffle tickets each supporter gets. 1/$, 1/5$, etc. That way if someone wants to buy 5 raffle tickets in a month for a new game that just came out (in case you Signal one of those), then you still make money off of it, even if it doesn't benefit long-time supporters. I would also see if you can't get some physical stuff from the companies themselves. EA tends to have stuff lying around to give out for their bigger games (like CoD and such). Tomb Raider and Bioshock I bet had some t-shirts that you could get from the company. You could raffle these off as well. Not all videos will have this ability, and nobody expects them to. For videos about the medium in general as opposed to a specific game, you could either choose to do a game mentioned in the video or possibly choose to donate money to a charity in the name of the channel or in the name of a raffle winner (Child's Play or the EFF maybe?) Anyway, just some thoughts.

Nate Diamond

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about the physical rewards, they're a pain. The Q&A sounds great and the easiest way I can think of to do it would be to just place another update where people can leave questions in the comments. Just pick whichever you like the best.

Hatuey Diaz

Agreed 100%.

Headless Koala

I agree that we don't need physical merchandise. I do think a Q&A episode maybe once in a while would be nice.

James Smith

Add one more "meh" to physical rewards. As snooty videogame connoisseurs, we care little for such knick-knacks. I'd advise against reddit-style forums because a vast majority of its users understand upvotes as "I agree" and downvotes as "I disagree". It can easily degenerate into a groupthink circlejerk. Now, a -chan style imageboard on the other hand...

ORYLY

Do you have a subreddit? I think that would be a really good place to discuss this sort of thing and to discuss the individual episodes, without having to go through the burden of making a full forum or anything. The reason I gave money in support is for more amazing episodes, so don't worry about things like T-Shirts and such. A Q&A video would probably be really interesting, but I don't think it needs to be exclusive :)

Nathan

* No to physical rewards. * Yes to patron-only Q&A/vlog thingy. * Don't want any updates on the episode progress. * A forum to discuss the episodes might be nice.

Starker

Yeah, I don't think I would go for a physical reward or anything either. Honestly the only thing I can even think of that would fit to do would be maybe to show patrons videos a day in advance or something, but I'm reaching as I think of that. Anyway, I'm giving because I both enjoy and appreciate the work you're doing, and want to see you continue to produce it, so it's not like I need a whole lot to be happy.

neongrey

Joining the chorus against physical rewards. Personally I'm indifferent to backer-specific rewards; in favor of as much communication as needed and desired, but no more (i.e., don't fall into the obligation/expectation trap); and strongly in favor of open access to all content. Just keep doing what you've already been doing, and trust your instincts: your backers already do, or we wouldn't be here.

James Crowley

Like everyone else, I'm not really interested in any rewards, especially if it's going to take away from you making videos. I think we're all doing this because we enjoy the show and want as much content as possible.

Samantha

Dude, get out of my head! This comment is almost an exact transcript of my thoughts reading this post. I think more/better videos is the best reward possible and everything else is at best a distant second.

Ofer Schwarz

Damn, site ate my comment, here I go again: Like others said before me I don't care about physical rewards, the donation is to support your work. Also I suspect it could be a problem with patrons living on different continents! I'd only have one suggestion - sporadically (once-twice a year or maybe more, up to you) organise a small skype round table with other critics (of course with varied positions) on a given topic. Have patrons choose the topic from a list prepared beforehand, then stream the discussion and upload it on YT/alternative sites. This way the partecipants can at least briefly share the viewerbase and get more exposure. I know it would be a pain to set it up, but if done seldom enough it could be doable!

Daniele Canavesio

Oh wow. That is reeeeally hidden. Thanks for pointing that out! I had no idea it was there. It still doesn't have some of the niceties of Subbable, though, like being able to save up and pick from a list of potential rewards. And from the responses so far I'm not sure people are super interested in t-shirts regardless. Still, thanks for letting me know that there *is* a way to find this!

Christopher Franklin

Like many others have said before, the physical rewards don't interest me much, I'd just like to see the same quality in the episodes and the Q&A sounds good too.

*from Patron Manager page, click the "View all current patrons" button

The Golden Witch

You totally CAN track how much each patron has given in total, though. it's right on your patron manager page.

The Golden Witch

I'd love to see the Q&A but don't bother with any physical rewards.

Remi Picot

I share the sentiment of an above poster - I wouldn't financially support the Errant Signal channel if only because of a promise that I'd get some kind of exclusive content. However, I don't think it'd be unreasonable for you to offer such content in order to thank your benefactors, nor would it be so for us to enjoy and take advantage of such content. To me, the idea of a Q&A session would be fantastic - it could give everyone an idea of who exactly you are, and I don't see the harm in allowing patrons exclusive access to answer questions. It seems to achieve an acceptable balance. Looking forward to more future content!

Jonathan Margetts

Chris, pretty please with a cherry on top: t-shirt is the very last thing I want from you. Just focus on what you were doing, nothing more. +1 on Q&A idea, especially backers-only.

Stanislaw

Another vote against physical rewards. They're the most burdensome part of crowdfunding to a lot of successful campaigns - getting things made, shipping them, keeping track of it, etc. Keep up the great work Chris!

JP LeBreton

Good to hear from you! As long as people can disable email notifications on updates, I don't see how there can ever be too many of them. Personally, I think updates of 500 character or more would be interesting. I'm not much into short, twitter-like messages, unless it's used for questions. Frequency wise, I don't think you can post too often, if what you're writing means something to you (like, interesting thoughts on a subject). Once a day maybe - to keep it from turning into a time consuming forum discussion. I think your Q&A idea is great, and I don't think it seems egotistical. I don't care for physical items like t-shirts and mugs, so I can't really comment on that. But I think the kind of people who like your show are the kind of people who understand the problem you outlined, with the lack of a perk bank for rewards. And I think people understand the concept of donating (you aren't *buying* anything) so I don't think anyone would hold it against you if you didn't get into it. Looking forward to future videos! Cheers

Peter

I don't need t-shirts or exclusive sneak peaks at episode subjects. I'm happy just to be supporting this kind of long form content. Don't feel obligated to do a bunch of extra work coming up with rewards and perks.

Aaron

I agree with the idea that all created content should be available to everyone. There are cases where charging for that content outside of the exclusive group makes sense, such as a board game expansion or promotion, but those rewards should none the less be available to the non-exclusive group. Your videos warrant a strong comment system to talk about the subject of the video, and youtube's system just doesn't cut it. Several other YT channels have moved over to Reddit for comments. Potentially, such a subreddit could be used for as frequent or infrequent updates as you want, if your patreons are willing to use Reddit. Thank you for the content!

Aki

Eh, I don't think I could figure out a reward I'd take if I tried. If you're making videos semi-regularly I feel like I got my money's worth. Also, make a sequel to Batman is Sad.

Daniel Coupal

Perhaps I'm in the minority on this one, but I participate in these crowd funding campaigns to support creators, and ultimately to get the content they produce - nothing more, nothing less. I actually find excessive update emails from Kickstarters irritating. The approach I appreciate is when projects set up "backer" environments that are more opt-in. So forums or member areas on their websites that people who crave the behind the scenes info, or want early access to stuff can go get it, without filling the inboxes of people who really aren't interested. Obviously Patreon is a bit different, but for me personally, I'd be happy to just follow you on Twitter and subscribe on YouTube and leave it at that. Not to sound unappreciative or curmudgeonly - our inboxes are already overflowing with communication from campaigns and unless it's important, I'd appreciate less as opposed to more.

James King