On Supporting Artists
Recently, via itch.io, I released a 1.0 version of my Blades in the Dark hack for the Dark Sun setting, called Blades Under Tyr.
Despite interest and positive feedback, in terms of economic compensation, the return has been less than I’d hoped for something I put more than 4 years into. The game has been downloaded somewhat over 200 times right now, but has brought in only $23 in donations, most of that from a single heroic downloader. This comes out to around 10-cents per download. This is hardly a rousing financial success — significantly less than rousing.
I’m going to use this to jump on my soapbox for a moment and explain this is why indie creators burn out.
I have 30 years of frustration with how people talk about artists and creators, and how I’ve observed those same people actually treat artists and creators. The disparity is wild.
Creatives across all forms of media know that PWYW or donation-based products are overwhelmingly consumed for zero compensation. Creators who release PWYW products, like free PDFs, are lucky to get 1% of downloaders to donate on such products regardless of where that floor is set: asking for even $1 is likely to get you about as much as asking for $10. I’m going to talk specifically about the tabletop gaming community here, but know that this applies across fan communities.
Now, if you are part of that 1%, thank you, but also note you are in the minority here. You should feel special: you are doing the right thing.
However, the 99% majority who download and dash — what I’m going to call “the PWYW phenomenon” — is just one example of how the tabletop gaming community is not as supportive of artists and creators as they believe they are as a community. The PYWY phenomenon starkly reveals how the community is unwilling to pay even a minimum — not even pennies! — to support artists and creatives. The community prefers by 99-to-1 to take your creative work for free.
Worse, pointing this out in even the most gentle manner invites belligerence and insults, gets you called ‘greedy’, and should you suggest supporting artists for real? Just turn off your DMs for a week.
Every artist and creator has a story about this (probably more than one story), and while a few ugly interactions on social media aren’t proof, they do underline the problem showcased by the numbers. In my case, one person went out of their way recently to prove my point.
I had brought up that I could afford to eat this month if everyone who downloaded the project had donated a mere dollar; this random gamer took that opportunity to come in swinging, responding that the very idea of asking downloaders to toss a creator pocket change was an unreasonable imposition, that we should be kissing ass whenever someone did care about our work.
They then pontificated how if they liked something they would pay for it, but shouldn’t have to pay for it unless they liked it and used it, then told an anecdote I think they believe made them look like an artist-supporting hero but… well…
…they brought up how they loved a free web series so much they told all their friends how great it was, downloaded it, printed out all the volumes at a print shop (in hardcover with slipcases), spending $700 of their own money to do so. They proudly offered this as proof people will pay you if a product is good.
I’m sure you see the problem(s), but in case you’re a bit like that guy and don’t, I want you to take note: none of the money they spent went to the actual author.
They vanity printed all the stuff they had received for free. At no point did anyone pay anyone involved in the creation of the series simply because this individual valued the product. They did not support the artist — at best they supported their local print shop.
And this is the problem: the gaming community wants the product, they want personal value, and the community also complains about creators being under threat, but then they 99-to-1 do not consider the cost of the prevailing attitude towards creative work or its effect on artistic production.
Consider that many in the community regularly make the choice to pay $60 for a polished splatbook most of them will never read, but turn around and make the choice not to pay $1 for a PWYW download because they argue they “might not find it valuable or use it” — unlike the $60 splatbook that sits unused and unread on their shelf?
Everyone in the community says they support artists and writers, and yet if everyone complaining about, for example, the impact of AI on artists were to spend $1 on projects by small, indie creators each time they posted or liked in support of us, or every time they complained about AI on our behalf (or somewhat ironically yelled about theft), that would actually support us. We can’t eat outrage. We can’t eat tweets. We can’t eat likes. Social media is like being paid with “exposure”: something that looks valuable, that isn’t valuable in the ways we need. Likes and tweets are equivalent to “thoughts and prayers”: without action, they are performative.
Don’t get me wrong: please tell people about our stuff because that’s the only way people can find it to support it…but you have to support it, too. You can’t vanity print the material, tell your friends, and pat yourself on the back as if that makes you some patron of the arts.
Artists have forever dealt with the “you should be happy I stole your work for my product — it’s free exposure” people. Professional GMs being paid for their time and effort were originally met with the completely toxic insistence GMing should only be done for free and compensation was perverse. These are both versions of a rampant “you exist to serve me” school of thinking: a problematic cultural attitude of entitlement we feel to other people’s work.
But it is especially egregious coupled to the associated devaluing of the people who create that work while commodifying art itself, a structure wherein artists have been reduced to producers rather than creators. Wherein rather than the attitude of “You’re an artist, and I want to support you making art. Here is some money. Go make art”, the prevailing attitude is “You’re an artist. Make me some art. I don’t know if I’m going to pay you, though. Now get to it.” Or just simply not considering the artist at all: they become the invisible labor behind the product.
The tabletop gaming community, as shown by the numbers involved in PWYW downloads, is afflicted with the attitude of the consumer only caring what they can personally, immediately obtain from a transaction, what value it provides to them, and the cheaper they can get it, the better (with free being the best) — the creator themselves, however, isn’t even worth pocket change.
Even with a mere $1 tier on Patreon, 95% of people still sign up at the free tier rather than support an artist with a lousy dollar every month. But if you don’t feel ‘a player kit book of fan fic’ (or whatever the donation-ware product you’re downloading) is worth even a lousy dollar, maybe don’t download it to begin with? The excuses to avoid doing so — to download and consume for free, without providing support — are astonishing, varied, and strident.
Here’s the thing: starving artists don’t create art. They starve.
Maybe support creators for their time and passion, not just your use, if you want them to keep creating?
Now, if you’re just as dense as that poor commentator earlier, and your reaction here is something along the lines of “make better art”, then I’m going to point out you somehow missed the entire first half of this post. We have. You still refuse to pay us for it.
You could have supported sixty small, indie creators with a dollar each for the cost of one shiny splatbook you bought that you have never read while you stand there lecturing about utility and quality and art. And if the creators and artists at WotC are the ones you want to support? Then by all means spend your money there!
At the same time, WotC doesn’t care if they lose one sale, because it doesn’t hurt their margins. But $60 means I eat this week. Even if I get there $1 at a time.
So, again, I reiterate: maybe support creators for their time and passion, not just your use, if you want them to keep creating?