Just curious if there has ever been an attempt to monetize the IFDB by means of a storefront on Steam, Itch, GOG or in some other way?
Why though? Monetise for whom? The Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation? The games are freely released, putting them behind a paywall would be a bad idea (morally, logistically, reputationally etc.).
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IFDB isn’t under author control, though, which confuses a lot of people. It’s a database for reviews and links and information about a game. It would be like making moby games or IMDb into storefronts.
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The games are freely released
To be precise: the games are provided by authors with the expectation that they’ll be available for free. And if we did make money off of them, we’d have no way to share it with the authors.
We might imagine doing some kind of pay-what-you-want storefront, but it would be by arrangement with individual authors.
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I am assuming Clint really meant “monetizing the IF Archive” (which is where the games live). It’s a common confusion.
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I would imagine IFTF might see a notable community backlash if they tried to monetize the entirety of the IF Archive, regardless of the details. Nothing’s impossible of course, but perhaps not advisable.
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What would people think about having a more obvious donation button on these sites? (Like the one on ifcomp.org .)
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Donations from last year were far below target, compared to the year before. (Yes, I know, COVID-19.) This has nothing to do with the main conversation, to which I say why?
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I think that would be fine and non-controversial. Everyone using the site benefits from site maintenance of which some part of the donations would go.
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I would suggest that, in the least, there be more prominent indication on the IFDB pages that it is a service provided by IFTF (like the footer of most of the IF Comp pages).
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(This is a tangent, but falls under the general heading of IFTF fundraising.)
Donations from last year were far below target, compared to the year before.
The IFComp donation targets are a bit arbitrary! There’s no hard reason that we ask for $10k. It’s just a number that’s seemed to work in the past. Some years we set it lower.
Looking at the donation amounts:
2023: $7523
2022: $10380
2021: $10396
2020: $8500
2019: $7883
I don’t think I have a record of the goal numbers for each year, only the totals received.
Not sure what story to tell about these numbers. One obvious factor is that in 2020 and 2023 (and 2024) we did fundraisers for NarraScope. There may be a certain amount of donor fatigue when we ask for money twice per year.
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Wow, I didn’t know this! That makes much more sense now. Apologies. (I joined the IF community soon after 2022 IFComp ended.) 
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indeed I was scratching my head between Max’s “Covid flex” and Zarf’s list of '19 to '23 estimates (UK sense)…
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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A donation button would not be controversial. I imagine some form of paywall would be.
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A discreet donation button for IFTF is a positive thing.
Pay to play related to the IFTF gives me a bad feeling.
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The idea of paywalls has been discussed in IFTF planning meetings. Also using Google ads or some other form of ad-based monetization.
I think it is fair to say that both of these ideas were filed under “no thanks, no way.” :)
My take is that a paywall puts a barrier between our material and the public. That directly violates our mission as an educational nonprofit.
(My take on ads is that they don’t violate our mission, they just make the website into a shitty experience. But also, once you are dependent on ad revenue, it’s hard to spend your time doing anything but optimizing ad revenue.)
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I already monetised IFDB by threatening one-star reviews unless authors paid up. I’m rich now.
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IFDB’s purpose is to provide information about a work and point people to where to acquire them, whether it be for free or linking to a storefront. There are commercial games with listings, for example:
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Yeah, but the IF Archive has a different mission, and, as Zarf pointed out, this question has more to do with the IF Archive than the IFDB.
One thing that could help authors is IFDB integration with Itch io’s pay-what-you-want feature.
However, I expect Itch io users are more interested in donating to begin with, so it might not help authors that much. I’ve never made money in this way, so I can’t say for sure.
@mathbrush IFDB isn’t under author control, though, which confuses a lot of people. It’s a database for reviews and links and information about a game. .
Because IFBD is publicly editable, I guess any sort of author monetization based on external links comes with the risk of incentivizing phishing.
I guess the community is small enough that this is unlikely, but the admins would probably rather not have to deal with it or prevent it.
In @Hanon 's example, the link to the buy page is low risk because someone would have to actually by the game in order to illegally redistribute it… maybe’s there’s even DRM. For free and pay-what-you want games, there’s not so many barriers to creating a fake page that directs payments to someone other than the author (though Itch.io does have a reporting feature).
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