Why no ads? (Patreon)

Earlier today I posted some Youtube statistics as I was reflecting on the 10 month birthday of Noclip. One of those numbers was 3.7 million. That's the number of views our channel has accrued since launching on September 12th of last year. Another number was $0.00 - the total amount of revenue said views have generated from advertisements. 

This caused a number of people to ask; Why? Why not run ads on these videos? If only around 4,000 people are funding all of this, why shouldn't the millions of others who watch these video contribute in some way? 

It's a good question, and one that has several answers. Let's start with the answer I like giving the most, and then move onto more practical ones.

1) To Show It's Possible 

For me, Noclip isn't just about making documentaries about games. It's an opportunity to try and prove that an editorial outlet can operate without advertising. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with individual businesses selling ad-space. But there is a wider problem with the pervasiveness of advertising in the media that most people are trying to ignore away. Most in the media would like you to believe that it's impossible to run a company without plastering advertisements all over the product, or engaging in paid-for content which intensionally blurs the line between editorial and ad. And while I do think this is a significant challenge, I don't believe it is impossible.

I believe that through funding all of our work through patronage, and by not taking hand-outs from publishers at any stage, Noclip demonstrates that high-quality video can pay for itself. That's not to say there aren't obstacles for a lot of people. I was fortunate enough to have an audience before starting Noclip, and I have yet to prove that this concept is scalable. But at the very least Noclip has shown people that it's feasible, and the mission is only getting started. The next phase is to see if we can grow our patrons to support a full team.

2) Creative Freedom

To work in online video is to pray at the alter of the view-count. That's the way it works for the majority of people. Whether you are a massive website or an individual streamer, revenue and views are curves that dance in unison. That is not the case with Noclip. There is a connection between output and patronage, but it's far less direct. In essence, the type of content we create - it's focus, length, voice, thumbnail and title - is agnostic to patronage. Patrons care that something is getting made with their hard-earned cash. They care about the quality of the product. But aside from that I enjoy incredible creative freedom.

This means that the projects I decide to undertake are based on my creative heartbeat. There are very few people working in online video, especially in games coverage, that can enjoy that level of freedom. That can decide to create an hour-long video about a flash game about amphibians and end up with record numbers of patrons by the end of the same month. 

And as views ≠ revenue we're not pressured into creating click-bait titles, misleading thumbnails, or splitting long videos into a dozen shorter ones. This level of creative freedom results in better creations and happier creators. If Noclip can prove its possible, then hopefully others will follow.

3) Licensing

Making movies is expensive. Making videos for the internet is relatively inexpensive. Noclip exists because we take the production pipeline of the latter, and apply it to the former. The traditional distribution channel for most documentary style productions is to sell it to a studio, pitch it to streaming marketplace or sell it privately. To do any of these things you need to do a lot of complex and costly licensing. You need to license or have permission to show anything you don't own. This includes any music you use, third party footage, locations and brands that appear in said footage, b-roll and much more. 

Noclip licenses music for our docs. We pay private artists, and use music library services. We also license footage from time to time. The intro footage of the frogs from that doc about the flash game - we bough those clips for about $60 each. But if we were running ads on these videos, or attempting to sell the videos on Steam, we'd be paying a lot more for the music and footage we license. The deals we have with our providers hinge on whether we monetize the final production.

In essence, by giving the videos away for free we actually come off better financially. Some videos would probably make a profit (our DOOM series has done really well) but plenty of others would actually make a loss. Regardless of how it all balanced out in the end, we're back to a situation where the number of views is influencing the type of work we chose to do. 

Conclusion

There is a purity to Noclip that I really enjoy. I chose the projects that excite me. We have a tight-knit group of patrons who are responsible for funding the work entirely. None of the documentaries are behind a paywall of any description. As far as I'm concerned the final docs no more belong to me than a graffiti artist owns a tag. They are paid for by patrons. Full stop.

I appreciate people wondering why we don't run ads on our videos. But I don't want folks to think they are getting to watch these videos for free because I didn't have the heart to run adds on them. You are getting them for free because that was the entire point of this project.

So please. Guilt free. Enjoy the docs. 

And if you still feel guilty, we could always use more patrons.

- Danny