POLL: Should we test investing part of the Preservation Fund to archive even more unseen games? (Patreon)

Other great websites like Hardcore Gaming 101 are successfully adding more and more games in their archives thanks to paying authors for good articles.  As Unseen64 is mostly written by volunteers, we don't get any money for the articles we write and currently we are not able to add more than 4 games a month, being busy for the rest of our time with our day-jobs. As we have enough donations in the Preservation Funds to be safe with emergencies and even if we did not reach the next Patreon goal yet, we are thinking about to start testing to expand the Unseen64 archive with a system similar to the one used by HG101. If we start to pay a little money for good articles, then we could do less freelance work and use some of that time to add even more lost games to the archive. It would be great to preserve 8 (or more) lost games every month, instead than just 4, as we have a long queue of games that are waiting to be added to the site since years ago, this would speed up the process.

As we would still like to have a core of articles made by passionate, volunteers writers, we though about a complex system to incentivize added content: we would not pay an author for their first monthly article, but only from the second one. This means that each author will have to write at least 1 not-paid good article every month, before to be paid for their second (and third, and so on) good article. Naturally the rate would be related on the length of the article (short article = paid less, longer / deeper articles = paid more) and to the quality / importance of the game (an average looking game that did not have many interesting features = paid less, an interesting, ambitious game from a popular studio = paid more) and the novelty / exclusivity of the content (an article about a lost or beta game that was already known or written about somewhere else = paid less, a new lost game that was not known to the public before that article = paid more). The preservation of new, previously unseen screenshots and videos would also be one of the characteristic to be evaluated. Also only the fifth monthly article published on Unseen64 would be paid, to keep the current 4 updates a month as volunteer work: so even if a single author would write and publish 4 articles in a month, if there will not be any other articles published on that month, those 4 will not be paid. This is to incentive multiple authors to write at least 1 article every month and to not use donations to publish the same number of articles that we already publish usually as a voluntary contribution to the cause.

Here’s the system we are currently thinking about: starting from the rates used by Hardcore Gaming 101 for their authors, we would like to have a max recompense of $30 for a 1,000+ words article (being it an interesting, well written and original one). We would not pay more than this for longer articles, to limit the expenses and at the same time receiving contributions only from those people that really love to write about unseen videogames. $30 for a 1,000+ words article is a very low recompense, if you think that the more interesting and evasive lost games probably need dozens of hours to research and write. Still, most of us would be happier to work for less on something we truly love than to get paid more for a boring freelance job. We’d like to test the following rate system, that could be improved and expanded in the future (for example to include interviews).

It would be a combination of different characteristics that mixed together create the most suitable rate for each type of article:

Length of the article:

• An original, well written article of 250+ words: 2.50$

• An original, well written article of 500+ words: 5$

• An original, well written article of 1,000+ words: 10$

Novelty / exclusivity of the content:

• The beta / lost game was already known, someone wrote a bit about it online (sites, forums, blogs, wikis) or in a magazine before, but the new article have more organized and expanded info (Example: Dino Crisis GBC): 1.50$

• The  beta / lost game was already known but no one wrote much about it before, the new article have exclusive details and deeper info (example: Game Zero): 3$

• The lost game was unknown (or we only knew its title and nothing else) until this new article about its development and cancellation (example: Banjo Kazooie: Grunty’s Curse): 5$

Related media:

• The article has new screenshots or concept arts that were not published anywhere else before: 2.50$

• The article has new videos and images that were not published anywhere else before: 5$

Quality / historical importance of the game:

• A lost game that could have been bad to play, but that still have an historical importance for some good reasons (example: Mario Takes America): 2.50$

• An interesting lost game that had the potential to be loved by gamers at the time (example: Zenith N64): 5$

• An interesting, ambitious lost game with original features from a popular studio (example: Perfect Dark Core) : 10$

Each article would be evaluated and discussed before to be published and paid, to confirm its details, check for exceptions and special cases in which the rate system could not work as planned.

What do you think?

Should we test this rate system to save more beta / cancelled games in the unseen archive? Please, leave your comments and suggestions below! Let us know what you think! If feedback will be positive we can test it in the following weeks!

Big gaming networks such as IGN or Kotaku have the resources to own powerful servers and to pay a team to work full-time on their websites, keeping their sites online and publishing daily updates. We don’t have their resources, but we think we have something better: we have you, a community of gamers that know why it’s important to remember beta and cancelled games. Thanks for your support!