Trying to "improve" our Patreon (and we need your help)
Added 2019-03-28 00:01:27 +0000 UTCHi everyone - as you are all aware, we started simple with our Patreon, just a single tier (1$ or more - we're already very thankful to all our patrons in that tier, giving 1$, more or sometimes much more!), no goals. However we feel that we can give more and improve this Patreon with new tiers and making it richer in content.
Here are some things we were thinking of: Early Access, Patron-only giveaways, Patron-only content (Extended interviews, Original Content, etc.), Goods or Patron names in credits.
For goals, honestly we don't really know where to start, an idea we had was to systematically provide more subtitle languages for our content (in addition to English & French), but we are definitely open to suggestions.
What do you think? What would you like? We want to remain as transparent as possible in the process, so feel free to let us know of your thoughts!
Thank you for your support!
Alex
Comments
Maybe set a goal for a special feature-length episode or some other pet project, from time to time. Also, seeing your reply below, I'd enjoy the Q&A and medium write up on process. Call it a pipe dream, but an Archipel art book would be awesome, although I realize how intensive and costly that could be.
João Aliano
2019-03-29 10:50:23 +0000 UTCThank you all for taking the time to answer, your insights are really valuable to us (apologies if some of my replies may resemble each other a bit.). As a quick summary of the replies above, we’ll review what we can offer in terms of early access, patron-only content, extended interviews and Merch to order to “improve” the Patreon soon (including goals as well!). As for creating more content, we are currently quite limited in terms of time & resources, but we want to keep a solid base of one monthly toco toco and Cutscenes, with some other content along the way, such as the Dreamcast documentary we’ve previously talked about (moving along slowly but surely). Thanks again for your support! Alex
Archipel
2019-03-29 09:37:41 +0000 UTCThank you Michal for your comment. We tend to be careful when it comes to sharing too much on future projects, as even some of the things that we are currently shooting have a slight chance of not making it in the end (to be fully transparent, we almost cancelled the release of one of our recent videos). We don’t want to get people’s hopes too high or take the risk of disappointing them (Japan can be complicated sometimes…). However, we’ll try to remain transparent and keep the same approach we’ve had so far and share info on the videos we’ve been making progress on!
Archipel
2019-03-29 09:33:09 +0000 UTCThank you Renaud for the reply - giveaways directly through Patreon may be tough as WaLter pointed out in his comment, but we’ll keep looking at what we have to offer for the rest, while also reaching out for the opinions of people who are not (yet?) on Patreon.
Archipel
2019-03-29 09:30:44 +0000 UTCThank you Michael for your long-time support and for making the step to Patreon! As I mentioned in a reply above, we’ve thought of making our latest series Cutscenes patron-only, but we decided not to in order to give our guests the visibility, although we’re still thinking of patron-only content if we find the right format. As WaLter pointed out, it seems that giveaways are a no-go as an addition to new tiers, we’ll probably keep doing Twitter and consider Discord. As for the name in credits, we also had that “producer” aspect in mind (which interestingly enough doesn’t seem to passionate a lot of people here…), we’ll think about it while also asking for people’s thoughts on Twitter and YouTube if that could be motivate more people into joining us on Patreon. Regarding doing more videos, to be fully honest 2018 left its marks on us, we’ve powered through into making more (and some more) varied content, the past few weeks have been intense as well with the 42-min toco toco special, the first Cutscenes ep and the 35-min Hidengen episode, so I think the immediate next step for us will be rather toning down a bit and to keep our base content (as stated above, a monthly toco toco and probably Cutscenes), in addition to adding in content in a more sporadic manner (upcoming Dreamcast doc, etc.), nevertheless more -will- come!
Archipel
2019-03-29 09:25:43 +0000 UTCFirst of all thank you WaLter for pointing out the raffle rules, we weren’t aware of that. We currently hold our giveaways on Twitter (with one currently running: <a href="https://twitter.com/SailToArchipel/status/1106891603149385729)," rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/SailToArchipel/status/1106891603149385729),</a> but we may think on holding them on the Discord, available for patrons regardless of tier (unless that is frowned upon as well…). As for early access, for toco toco I honestly think that max we can do would be around 1-2 days (as many other people seem to do for “heavier” projects) - for a format such as Cutscenes giving a week early access is more realistic and allows patrons to have a good step ahead. Regarding photos, we’re fond of the idea but it may be tough to achieve within our current state of always running around during shoots, but in the future we can look into having someone else give us a hand on this. However as shared in a reply above, merch is definitely something we could look into!
Archipel
2019-03-29 09:20:36 +0000 UTCThank you João for the kind word! Our goal is definitely to see the community grow bigger and gather more support. We would love to make more episodes (there was a time when we used to make two toco toco episodes a month, back when the series had a different format), but it will most likely be difficult for us in our current state, we will keep a solid base of regular content (a monthly toco toco & probably Cutscenes) for our viewers - but there’s only so much we can create with our time and resources. We’re also keeping in mind the idea of patron-only content, if we can find a format that fits.
Archipel
2019-03-29 09:18:03 +0000 UTCThank you Daniel. This is also something we would like to pursue as some interesting stories don’t make it to the final cuts (like Akiman explaining why Blanka is green just to give out an example that we thought of and shared on Twitter sometime ago…). It does take time to dig in past interviews to create that content, but we think it can bring more to the idea of having a more complete “archive” of the creators we cover.
Archipel
2019-03-29 09:11:02 +0000 UTCThank you for amazing work! Personally, I'm not a huge fan of early-access, exclusive original content for patrons or names in the credits (I agree with previous comments - the wider audience, the better). What I'd love to see is a discussion about future plans and maybe a sneak peek of creators that you're considering for future episodes.
Michał Prażuch
2019-03-28 16:18:33 +0000 UTCHi everyone, give-aways, goods and additional content: difficult to say no to this! names in credits / early access: not really interested. agree with the above comments, uncut longer interviews or bonus scenes are always a plus.
Renaud Regner
2019-03-28 10:50:54 +0000 UTCHi guys. First of all, thank you very much for doing this - been watching you for the last two years, and was very excited when you announced you are coming to Patreon. When it comes to additional tiers, I think you can start from some exclusive content for patrons (not necessarily interviews, so your regular audience would not feel alienated), and then add some physical giveaways. I no longer care about my name being included in the video (although I think it would be appropriate for higher tiers to be recognized as a "producer" of sorts), but I am more than willing to pay you a lot more than 1$ if it means more videos from you. Keep up the good work, guys - here's to more to come!
Michael Siyatskyy
2019-03-28 08:00:40 +0000 UTCI don’t think patreon exclusive content is a good idea, but early access is a nice incentive to become a patron. The early access doesn’t necessarily need to be on all your content either. I think Toco Toco should remain untouched, but you could have other videos like the encounters at TGS or cutscenes come out 3-7 days later to the public. Something I’d personally like to see are high quality photographs of the different locations you visit while interviewing people. It doesn’t have to be a giant photo book for each interview maybe just 1-2 photos per location. You could make something like this a 3 to 5 dollar range support tier. I don’t need my name in the credits to feel like my support to you is worth it. As for pateron only giveaways you may want to read this <a href="https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/204199489-Can-I-offer-a-raffle-as-part-of-a-reward-">https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/204199489-Can-I-offer-a-raffle-as-part-of-a-reward-</a> Merch at some point would be cool.
WaLter Pickles
2019-03-28 05:13:20 +0000 UTCmore episodes is all I could ask for... Early access is all right I guess, but cutting off the penniless part of the audience from any of your video content would be a shame. Id love to see you building an audience even larger. Your content is just so good, more people should be seeing it, so Im a bit hesitant on anything that would impede or condition access from public domain.
João Aliano
2019-03-28 05:05:56 +0000 UTCPersonally I'd love to see extended interviews either way.
Daniel Ward
2019-03-28 00:04:16 +0000 UTC
