About eleven years ago Penny Arcade was on the brink of collapse. We had recently recovered the rights to our own work after accidentally selling them to a shady internet aggregator. The good news was that we could keep making Penny Arcade but the bad news was we had quit our jobs and we were broke. We talked about giving up and begging for our jobs back but I convinced Tycho to try something first. The Wayback Machine has a couple priceless snapshots of the day we decided to ask you for donations. Going back and reading those posts today is really amazing. For almost two years we ran this website entirely on your generosity. You paid for our rent, food, video games and in return we made PA three times a week as well as a bunch of extra content. A lot has changed in eleven years. PA has fourteen employees now, we put on two massive conventions every year, we run a worldwide charity, we produce our own video games and web show. It’s a major operation now and running it off of donations again seems impossible. Or is it?
Today we’ve launched a Kickstarter to fund Penny Arcade for one year advertising free. It is at its core a return to the concept we had eleven years ago. Back then we considered it begging but today it’s called crowd funding. I don’t want you to get the idea that Penny Arcade is any kind of trouble. Honestly if this Kickstarter doesn’t work nothing here will change. The reality is that we can continue working for advertisers but if we can, we’d rather work for you. Please take some time to check out the kickstarter page and read through all the details. There’s a lot to this idea including new projects from Tycho and I as well as some really cool rewards for backers. We’ve posted a FAQ on the Kickstarter page but please feel free to send me any questions you have about the project. This is a very big deal for us, it could mean a massive shift in the way our company works. Maybe this idea is just too crazy or maybe it isn’t. Either way I’m very curious to see how this goes.
-Gabe out
