You may (or may not) know that I am currently working on a tutorial set/video diary for my latest Unity Project. Basically, I’m documenting the whole development process.
The tutorial set is currently up to 10 hours and is a massive undertaking of time. We have only just scratched the surface with this dev, so there will be far more parts still to come (i doubt we are even 1/4 way done).
Whilst I would love to keep the dev totally free, I do seem to be turning away daily work, to continue with it.
So, what would you be willing to contribute… see poll at top…
My most expensive option is $9.99 (which I guess is a Burger Meal and a Pint of Beer - to put things into perspective).
Please please please complete the poll honestly.
AND… if you have clicked the donation option, I am assuming you would donate, so take that into account before selecting it.
If you manage to do very good tutorial and decide to make more than one, you might want to consider making mail order DVDs similiarly to Gnomon ( http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/ )
If the videos are good and include nice source code along with a good workbook, $10 is far too cheap. If it saves one hour of time it is already worth $50, probably more. When something is priced too low, it affects perception of the product’s quality.
I saw a Unity book for making games on the iPhone and quite frankly it didn’t look that good, yet it retailed for $40. For another comparison, Goldstone’s book is $50 at retail and $42 on Amazon.
With regards to this tutorial set/diary, it’s not structured in a formal way and is very geared towards showing this project’s development.
Having said that, the tutorials and code shown are generic enough to be used in most circumstances.
I’m thinking more along the lines of, you have watched the first 10 hours, seen the style and have enjoyed them… would you be willing to contribute a token amount to see the remaining parts?
As you can understand, documenting the entire process is very time consuming. The development would be far further forward if i was just working behind closed doors. That said, I believe it is a valuable asset for people to see and want it to continue.
In a perfect world i would like this system too. But, to be honest, how many people would genuinely pay, even a token amount… i think it would be a very small minority.
Being a high school student means you have no money? I don’t think being in high school matters. A lot of students get a part time job.
On topic: I believe that if the videos can teach me some tips and tricks and save me time, I would gladly pay $20+. $5 is dirt cheap and I would not go below that.
you look at some of the things that have been done like this and you will be surprised - you will get alot of people just getting it bc they can - but the serious people interested in learning will not disvalue your time and effort
there was an indiegame package that they had a name your own price thing for a couple months ago - was like 5 indie games - they made 500k plus if i remember right
if your videos are quality and worth watching people will donate to your cause - that said its really a question of how much time you are putting into them - for commercial products they cant do pay what you want bc they would never cover their costs
so answer : you should ask people to pay w/e your cost is
With this type of material, that’s a pretty tough call. Trouble is that this type of material is often thought of as freely available, especially for ‘indie’ aimed software. Granted, it appears the volume of what you’re proposing would surpass what’s generally free, but stuff on 3dbuzz, for instance, is more than enough for most people if compared to something they have to whip out their CC for.
I would consider revenue sharing with other websites (youtube does ad revenue sharing, I’m sure they’ll fleece you good, but it’s freaking youtube :)), and perhaps extracting more money from larger studios through licensing terms, higher quality videos, Unity Pro feature demos, etc. IMO, you’re just going to lose a dramatic amount of exposure without being visible on the sites people generally go to for this info. But the types of ‘scalable’ payments that have been discussed here have plenty of success stories, and I think it makes more sense for this type of content.
The problem I see is that larger studios wouldn’t think twice about throwing down much more money than you propose, and hobbyists aren’t generally going to throw down any money, unless they get ‘hooked’ on it first. But since I’ve never sold such a thing, and have seen no numbers, it’s all just speculation :).
Gee wiz, throw in some different and advanced topics and I would pay $30+. Throw in some specialized workflow stuff that saves me hours and hours and I’d pay 59.99. For example, I’d love to know the workflow/tips of a professional XSI/Unity developer.
Whatever price you end up going with, make sure some of it is free! I don’t mean like free givaways, but something to show the quality of the tutorials. For example, if the tutorial is 1 hour long, maybe a 5 minute teaser of what you can expect to learn from it. If you draw people in they’ll be more willing to pay.
All the first 17 parts will remain free and there will be a teaser for newer parts.
I think I will try it with a one off subscription of 9.99 as most people are willing to pay something. People have said maybe charge more, but to be honest, it’s not really about the money. A token amount is fine, as in a perfect world, I would like it to be free. It’s more just to try and claw a bit back from other work I’m turning away to work on this.
