That’s how much ad revenue this project generated from August 31st, 2009 to December 31st, 2009. That works out to something like five bucks a week. That is to say it would, if i hadn’t already spent twice that amount on hosting bills, domain fees, and shipping costs. Honestly i can’t say i’m surprised because i never expected this to work, but i did try my best and ended up putting in way more time than i could’ve imagined.
The list of obstacles is pretty long: everyone seems to have adblockers now, everyone’s leeching content wherever they can find it, and there’s nothing to leverage because apparently everyone considers video game material less valuable than camcorder footage of cats falling off chairs. Even within our own community, all these “news” sites have popped up to capitalize on SF4’s popularity by consolidating all website traffic (by stealing visitors from true content-producers).
Writing a good article takes all day. Creating a video takes much longer. Copy/pasting an excerpt and a link takes 20 minutes. I don’t want to take that route. If anyone has any solutions, please speak up because right now these issues seem insurmountable.
For a while i thought u2b partnership would be the answer, but they’re frustratingly unresponsive and dealing with them is proving to be a complete waste of time. My combo videos get embedded everywhere but less than 5% of viewers ever find their way back to Sonic Hurricane, and less than 1/5 of 1% bother subscribing to my channel.
Obviously i could fix this by disabling syndication so that everyone would be forced to link out to my videos (how i link out to CV Spotlights) instead of embedding them on-site. That would probably double ratings, comments, and subscriptions, but i’m sure the view count would take a huge hit. I don’t have infinite time or resources so it has to be one or the other. The problem here is, youtube offers zero guidance about which approach they want taken. So far i’ve gone with embedding for view count because at least that keeps discussion alive within our community on SRK, instead of all getting sucked into the u2b trap.
Please don’t get this twisted. This isn’t about finding a shortcut to make money. I’ve been running this website for eight years and never once tried to make a dime off it until last summer. This is about sustainability.
Take a look at the sheer quantity of articles and multimedia i’ve produced over the past few months and compare it to the rate before. See, i have two gears i can go to. I’ve spent the past few months in unsustainable all-out gear and it’s impossible to keep up without support. Maintaining a regular schedule and meeting deadlines make this feel like work. My favorite part of creating combo videos has always been being finished – sharing with the community and watching one or two cool things develop as people react. Well, it’s been a long time since the last time i wasn’t working on a video. It’s exhausting!
So it looks like i’ll have to scale back to the way things were before – two or three videos per year along with a handful of articles. That’s as much as i can manage without treating it like a job on a regular schedule. As the past few months have proven, it’s hopeless to expect this to generate anywhere near part-time minimum wage. It would’ve been nice if i could scrape together enough to get by doing this on the side. Sadly, it doesn’t seem plausible and there’s no sense in forcing it with ugly things like pop-up ads or whatever else people do for cash.
I’m sorry, you guys know how much this community means to me, but what i’ve been doing is simply not sustainable.
I have some things i’d like to wrap up, like the Street Fighter Footsies Handbook series and a few pending screenshot caption prizes. Then unless something drastic changes, i’ll have to scale everything way back. Every currently weekly update will probably become bi-monthly, if i can even maintain a regular schedule at all. I know it’s disappointing to hear that, but nobody can say i didn’t try, right?
Damn, I’d hate to see this go, but I can imagine you haven’t got the time or money to keep this up. I was actually wondering if you had a job or not, churning out a combo vid every 2 weeks.
Maybe you can get a deal with a videogame website to feature your content, kinda like AVGN and Screwattack? I don’t know man, I’m not a business guy.
If a solution does not arise: Thanks for all the hard work you put in to entertain/educate us, Maj. Do whatever you need to keep loving the work you’re doing, in stead of it becoming a chore.
I just subscribed to your Youtube channel(I check this site pretty much daily, so I didn’t see the point at first) and clicked on one of the ads, you never know.
I hope someone will come along with a brilliant idea to change things around though. Sonichurricane must live!
(P.S.: Maybe next time, if you want to speed it up again, don’t go all out like you did just now, because at the rate you’re going, all on your own, you’re probably gonna burn yourself out even if you did get paid enough. I’m not trying to be a smart-ass or something, but a vid every 2 weeks, that’s pretty intense on top of all the articles and whatnot.)
how about taking donations via paypal instead of using ads and partnerships?
Bob Sagat: Well, i tried to do it the best way i thought it would work. A new combo video every week would’ve been unreasonable but i figured the biggest key to success would be having a regular rhythm for everyone to have a reason to come by here. It worked too, in terms of how cool it’s been to watch this whole thing develop.
But at this pace i would need like two million visitors per month to make this work out and i just can’t imagine that ever happening. I think it’ll cap out at about 100k-150k monthly visitors and even that’s bound to take a huge dive once the SF4/SSF4 madness passes and things go back to normal.
Donations. You’ve given so much to the community, I don’t think the community would have a problem with giving a little back ;p
N00b_Saib0t, Robin: Sirs, it’s incredibly gracious of you to even offer donations as a suggestion, but i don’t want to go that route for a bunch of reasons.
First off it seems totally unreliable. Considering all the positive feedback i’ve been getting, i don’t doubt that i’d get a few donations in the first month, but after that it’s probably gonna die down and then i’m back to square one.
Second the whole prospect is intimidating! Let’s say i get $250 in donations the first month, then like $50 every month after. That’s not really gonna solve anything. But what about the one guy who donated $40 the first month? He could’ve bought SSF4 with that money and played it for a year. So i believe he’d have a right to expect me to entertain him for a year. How do i make it up to him if i have to quit after two months?
Third i just don’t want to be taking people’s money without giving back anything tangible. You know, costing our community money as i’m trying to contribute to it seems backwards. It just doesn’t feel right.
To donate is to fund/to contribute, not buy services ;p
As Bob sagat suggested, a partnership could work out.F youtube, they only feature vlogs of shane dawnson or or incredible boring lifes.There are cool sites, like screwattack, machinima?
Or you could make a DVD of your combo vids.
How about a commission/bounty system.
“I’ll put out the next TACV when the pot goes this high.”
Make the total public, and allow donors to show/hide their names and donations.
If someone gives a big gift they can get their own request.
This is basically how real artists make a living. Your reputation is big enough that it might work.
I certainly don’t want to see you end up under some messianic complex, but I am glad you’re putting considerably more thought into donations and the monetary gain than some folks in the community have. I can’t lie and act like I see things like “pro gamer” training with names like “Gootecks” and “Perfect Legend” and don’t roll my eyes at the advertising. “Street Fighter Legend.” Come the fuck on, that’s not helping the community.
However you decide to continue this, I hope you keep it on your terms, Maj.
I’m all for Noob or Damnit’s ideas. Also, replace the google ads with something better? I have a tendency to ignore ads by google or really any ads that are only text links. They somehow seem shady to me. Not to mention nothing but links to “take a quiz, then you need to sign up, it was all a trick to get your info.”
Get some actual picture ads up and preferrably ones to legit companies and I would click them like crazy just to support you. It also helps if you have a bar indicating how much you’ve made or something so we don’t forget you need our help.
Also, I just come here for your vids, but if subscribing to your youtube channel would help, I’ll go do that now.
Whoops, to clarify I don’t “just come here for your vids” I mean when I want to see if you have any new vids up I come here, and not youtube, lol. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
For the record. I’d donate, np.
Smileymike101: Are combo DVDs even legal? I guess one thing i could do is compile a DVD of everything i’ve done from 2002-2008 and then sell it for however much it would cost to make $5 or whatever. Essentially it would still be a donation cuz all that stuff is available for free on sh/classic, but at least people would be getting something tangible in return.
Then i could use the money to keep going until i’ve finished a TACV with every SF4 character, then compile them all into a second DVD plus one or two bonuses. Again it’d be over 90% freely available content but i think that’s the only way to go because making a DVD from scratch would take absolutely forever and then everyone would just pirate it anyway.
But yeah, it would take a lot of work because i’d have to learn a lot about making DVDs and getting them printed and setting up payment methods and so on. Not to mention i have no idea how to go about obtaining permission for this kind of thing. Something to think about, i guess.
If it gives you any comfort, every single person that is doing similar things in the community is on the same boat.
We are only powered by our personal passion for FGs and by the support of the rest of the community.
Even if you don’t update once a week, every update (whenever it comes) is still greatly appreciated.
Keep up the good work and don’t let things like this get you down!
I believe that, people who actually “works” on things like this like making Combo Videos, writing interesting and informative Articles, etc, they do it just for love, to share whit the community, to learn, to discuss about it, to be usefull and give to something in return to all the people who helped us inthe past doing things like this, you’ll never expect to win a single dollar whit this, but keeping a site like this alive trough all this years isnt free i know….hosting all the videos isnt free i know and thats the difficult part of this “unpaid job” and its really sad, because you always will need someone or something to support you in any kind of way, like donations, adds, etc.
Dis you ever thing on moving all the site content into a Blogger site? and hosting all the videos in free hostings like Megaupload for Example, i know it will not look so “professional”, but the people who really apreciate you work will dont mind about it, waiting 40 seconds for downloading any of you videos is worthy enough for any serius Fighting Games Fan, believe me.
If you need help whit the blog desing for example, i really will help you if you need it, and i think that a lots of people will offers themselves to help you whitout even thinking about it.
You give us a lot through this 8 years of Sonic Hurricane’s Life and i really hope and expect that you can solve all this problems soon.
Good Luck Maj.
BTW, Sorry for my crappy english.
~ Keiko.
tataki: Dude, trust me, i know. I’ve been around long enough to know who’s doing what for which reasons.
The question is, how do we make this work? We’ve all seen monetized gaming channels on u2b and gaming websites which seem profitable. How does someone authoring fighting game content (articles, videos, etc.) get from here to there?
Everything i’ve done up to this point has been totally open and i’ve updated you guys on the situation every step of the way. If i figure it out, you’ll know too. If i don’t, maybe you can use me as an example to find a better road.
There’s a pretty long list of lines i’m not willing to cross and if i can’t figure out how to make this sustainable then i’m not blaming anyone but myself. I didn’t make this post as some kind of hidden way to get you guys to feel bad for me and click on ads for a day. That would be incredibly short-sighted of me.
If i can’t find any way to make this work on my own terms, then it comes down to a combination of two reasons:
1) i’m not clever enough
2) the community isn’t set up in a way to enable it
It is what it is, and i’m fine with that. I understand there’s a thin line between “trying” and “forcing” but trust me, i know how foolish and ineffective the latter would be.
I think FrameAdvantage has a pretty good system, if you donate like 25 bucks you get a T-shirt. And those t-shirts are pretty amazing, why not do something like that?
As I work in a web advertising company, I know how a specialized website as yours with so few visitors can be hard to make sustainable. I think that partnerships like Bob Sagat suggested could be a good deal. Another option is to affiliate with online game stores, insert specific fighting game ads and receive money based on actual sales that come from your website. If I’m not mistaken, Amazon.com works that way, and so do many others. As most of your visitors are people who are really looking for fighting games, that would work better than semi-random Google ads. In example, a banner for a TE Stick would be much more adequate, and receive more clicks (and maybe even sell) than the ads about sustainable development I’m seeing now. Try reading about concepts like CPC and CPA.
Even so, I find it hard for one person alone to make a website better for profitability and at the same time produce quality content. You could try making this site a multi-person effort and call another CV producers to help you, dividing the efforts and making it easier to multitask.
Any way you opt to act, I thank you for the entertainment and education your posts brought. And I really hope you can find a way to keep this up.
Wow, never really thought about how much more went into this website besides all your blood and sweat. I dunno how these things work, nor have any meaningful suggestions about how to keep the website up. If it somehow worked out, I’d definitely buy the DVD compilations of your work to support you.
How much are the programmable controllers anyways? I’ve got a ton of ideas, but can’t execute them due to, my execution is subpar, none of my friends want to try and my gf has trouble doing a SRK. I would gladly contribute to the TACV videos to help you out though.
I don’t have any suggestions for the site, but have noticed the amount of content you’ve been producing lately and it’s incredible. It’s totally understandable if you want to scale back and focus on something else for a while, personally I don’t think any reasonable person would feel entitled to more of your free content at the same rate.
At the very least, you’ve shown that you CAN keep up this amount of work for an extended period of time, provided it pays. So if you can show this to a game company, retailer, or content provider like 1UP, revision3 or whatever, they may have ideas about how you could make combo vids (and other fighting game related vids) for a living. For instance, there’s already a number of “gaming journalists” who get paid to play games on video and put together trailers and so on. I think you’d be better qualified to do that than most of them.
If it’s any consolation, I’ve turned off my ad-blocker for your site. Your Ryu Combo video got me playing Street Fighter IV. I love reading your technical articles, it appeals to the technically obsessive side of me, wanting to perfect everything.
you could try Caffepress.
Get your “Sonic Hurricane” T-Shirts today!
This may seem stupid and I know no Capcom is a international company but you’ve added so much hype to their game, you’ve taught them things they didn’t know, you’ve gone down routes that show how versatile it is and you’ve made their games look real pretty through your screenshots I mean hell to them you’re the Sonichurricane crew. Surely them of all people would not want to see you shut down. Talk to them if getting your content featured elsewhere is what’s needed then I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to speed that along. Really sad to see this going but if it’s a chore don’t do it.
Or maybe you can divide the workload a little? Maybe some people who responded to the challenges that you like can help you put together your combovids, if you steer them in the right direction like a director?
hey maj, i totally understand what you mean. it is very unfortunate that it’s impossible to do what you love, and make just enough to at least break even.. we all appreciate very much all the hard work, the hours, the quality articles/videos you produce and i’m sure there are tons of other people who support you..
i know that enabling donations isn’t a solution, but it is at least a temporary fix for the time being. it might buy you a few months to just think things over instead of realizing the tank is empty and pulling over the side of the road.
passive income in a street fighter community is almost impossible. i know you hate to commercialize things, but we are at a time period where you have to actively pursue financial gains otherwise you just can’t sustain as you have described above.
i wish you good luck and let me know when you have donation page up. :)
I have a few friends that help me organize tourneys for SF and other games, here in Sioux Falls SD, but we always lose money doing it so i know where you are coming from! It is not about making money but having fun, however doing it online is worse because of the residual fees (It’s like a phone bill for example) so it bites the wallet even worse. I am in the process of getting more people to sign up on this site and to subscribe on your u2b channel so i hope it helps!!!
Let me know if there is a better way i can help because This is probably my favorite site so i want you to keep at it!
Keiko: Hosting costs aren’t a major concern. I’ve been paying them every year and it’s a small price to have a home for all the random things i make. The real issue is how much time i’m burning through. It takes me 30+ hours to make a combo video for one character, which earns me roughly $3. It’s really hard to justify that investment every week if i know i can spend the same amount of time delivering pizzas to earn 80 times that much money. Yeah, of course i love making combo videos, but believe it or not, i also love driving.
Luisthepanda: T-shirts might work if i had any graphic design skills but i have none and even then i don’t know why anyone would buy a Sonic Hurricane shirt over SRK gear. I have thought about it and maybe at some point i’ll give it a shot.
wilerson: Thanks for the insider perspective sir. I’ve tried Amazon affiliate ads for brief periods before, like during Thanksgiving weekend and such. I’m guessing most people have learned to ignore that stuff since every SF website seems to have TE stick or game preorder banners. Maybe i should look into different advertising services than google ads though. To be honest i don’t really understand how ads can be profirtable or who clicks on ads. Our whole community is pretty much allergic to them and i can sympathize because i don’t like ads either. I can’t imagine what it would take to get any genuine interest in bison steaks and hurricane shutters or even those shady browser-based games. So far i think all i’ve been getting are sympathy clicks.
harejordan: Trying to find programmable controllers at this point is a waste of time. If SF4 is the game you’re interested in, the easiest answer is getting the PC version along with screen capture software like Fraps/Camtasia and automated scripting software like AutoIt/AutoHotKey. Unfortunately i can’t really help you with that cuz i’ve never tried them, but maybe i can talk one of my friends into writing an introductory article about using them.
CPS2: Haha i guess it still counts as a regular schedule if everything is three to six hours late like clockwork.
jamheald: Capcom’s been great so far. If i could reach someone at u2b and they told me what they needed from me, i think Capcom would help me out. The problem is u2b doesn’t give a fuck. Their phone number is an automated message telling you to “check the internet.” Anyway i’ll ask Capcom for permission to make a combo DVD. They’ll probably say no but i wouldn’t blame them for that.
IC IO IM IB IO: Thanks dude. Just letting someone know or sending them a link to one of my videos/articles is more than i can ask. Everything else will either take care of itself or it won’t – not for lack of trying, but like i said, there’s no sense in forcing it.
Bob Sagat: Um, here’s the thing. I’ve actually tried collaborating with people in this community before. It doesn’t work except in very small, very specific circumstances. And it helluva doesn’t work when money and responsibility are involved. I’ve tried several times and i get burned every time. The single worst experience i’ve ever had in this scene was trying to collaborate on a website. I’m sure LB will back me up on this. That shit was not fun.
Plus if i get two people to help me out and we triple our traffic/clicks, that won’t help any of us. And how would we split the money if it ever becomes successful? Sonic Hurricane has been my website for almost a decade now. So if someone comes along and splits the work with me down the middle from this day forward, is it fair to give them half? No. Is it fair to deny them half? No.
And these messy situations cost friendships. Because no one ever gets paid a fair sum for their work, because working for nothing is what the game industry is all about. There are hundreds of thousands of kids who’d love to make game videos as a part-time job. So to u2b and the rest of the world, there’s nothing special or rare about what i’m doing.
Finally, if someone has a video they want to make or an article they want to write, they absolutely should do it on their own and get full credit for it. If it’s good enough and insightful enough, the whole community will pass it around. It’s not like this website has some magic power that summons good content. There’s no inherent benefit to anyone out there for sending me an article to publish versus setting up a blog and publishing it themselves.
If this was about doubling or tripling traffic, i wouldn’t even bring it up. I’d just stay patient and quietly work toward that goal. The problem is, the real goal is fifty times where i’m at. Considering the fact that all my stuff already shows up literally everywhere within our community, i don’t know how much higher the ceiling can go. It’s not like anything i ever do is gonna show up on yahoo’s front page.
I would buy a sonic hurricane tee over some SRK gear. Really.
im pretty speechless on the matter but i can say it will be a severe unfortunate event if your website were to close down. Whenever I come here all i think is “man this guy know’s his shit”. Thanks for the well thought out discriptive, informative and enlightening articles and videos. I wish there was a way i could help.
All I can say is your position is completley understandable Maj and it is sad that you can’t get more monetary recognition for all your hard work. However thank you for your frequency of updates so far and everything you’ve given to the community which is already far more than most people will ever contribute. I still look forward to all your articles and videos yet to be created, even if it is at far less regular intervals, and I’m sure I will still be enjoying this site and its content for a long time to come.
Regarding the T-Shirt design.You could make a contest to post designs and it’ll have lots of good responses.
Regarding adblock, PALGN.com.au somehow managed to detect if a browser was using it and instead of the ad, a little message popped up along the lines of ‘We need these ads for revenue so please consider unblocking this domain on adblock’
It helps people to realise the effect it has. And I think when they realise they are more than happy to unblock favourite websites, I know I was.
Also does more clicks help or just simply viewing the ads?
I think Smileymike had a good idea, and a well-designed shirt will sell to people who had never even visited before(and potentially bring new people in). You could even do pre-sales or at least an interest check to try an ensure you will make a return on your investment. If once was to go the route of pre-sales though, I would have the shirts made up locally or through a very reputable distributor if possible to ensure there isn’t a fiasco with the shirts not turning out right or not being shipped. Alternatively, maybe some in-depth combo and character tutorials in exchange for a donation. I don’t know, just throwing out ideas.
Hm, I thought this guy was in the same boat as you, except he was commisioned by Gametrailers/Screwattack and Spike TV do make his content. Now he posted essentially the same thing you just did. http://cinemassacre.com/Home_page/frameset.html
I suppose everybody burns out even if they’re doing what they love. I know I do.
Kareeem: Thank you sir, but that’s not a battle i want to win. I’m down to compete against anyone except SRK.
mrkimchi52: That sounds cool, but to be honest it seems beyond my coding ability. And i kinda doubt that anyone with adblockers installed would ever bother clicking on ads anyway. As for how it works, google sends out whatever ads they want in the space i provide. Most ads require clicks and don’t give anything for views. Some of them do pay for views, but it’s like a few pennies per thousand views. (Btw google frowns upon websites openly asking for clicks, for obvious reasons.)
Such a darn shame. I had already kind of gotten into the habit of getting my fix of interesting videos and fighting game analysis. I totally understand where you’re coming from, though. I’ve been kicking around the idea of making my own combo videos but I’ve never had the time to do so. Not even the quick and dirty stuff made in Windows Movie Maker or the like.
Not sure how many subscribers you have via your RSS feed but you should consider putting ads in your RSS feed. Plus, you might want to get the feeds to only publish a small portion of full articles encouraging more traffic.
Also, you could consider periodically mentioning that clicking on ads supports the site.
More importantly though, if you think of the site as a branding exercise where you show obvious levels of knowledge and tutelage then you most certainly could make money from premium content DVDs or what have you. Gootecks has been pimping out his SF secrets thingie with Arturo’s tips, stuff like this would probably be a wee earner.
Oh, and not sure you can do anything about it but the Google ads on the site aren’t all that relevant. Relevancy would probably help. Maybe that and link exchanging with other similar sites to drive traffic.
hi, i like a lot all your work, i have seen your problem too, not in the same way, but alike.
im from mexico, i live in a city with a very small community of fighting gamers, all they have things to do so we only play a few times in a year and the only way to learning, at least for me is seeing videos, reading articles and playing with my brother (14 years old, hehe he is learning fast).
I love play in tournaments, i have won several tournaments of GGXX in my city, I’ve been playing fighting games for 17-almost 18 years.
The point is that i’ve seen a lot of projects about communitys of gamers falling down because they didn’t want to make a profit from the community, they say that they do all “for love to art”, in this moment there is no community in my city about gamers of any kind, the problem is how you approach the profit.
You can make a dvd of your combos and give it free, but with the option of receiving a donation, i dont think that capcom will have something to complain.
See the donations like a contribution for your works done, if your content weren’t good you can be pretty sure they wont be donating something, dont see the donations like a obligation for keeping the rhythm.
You say something about receiving a donation with the value of a game, you could ask for donations no more of ten dollars, this way you can receive donations without the feeling of taking too much.
Even you can ask for donations without the dvds, is great all the things that you have done.
You can make shirts, cups, keychains, posters, etc, dont enclose to a few things if you feel that you are competing with SRK, sell something different.
If you have multiples entries of money everything will be more easy.
Haha sorry for my bad english.