Brainstorming potential improvements to driving Krita Dev Fund participation.

[Tymon Dąbrowski]

Poor timing, but in my defense, I started this mail way before the AI
discussion started... won't say sorry for length though, because I think
it's important stuff.

#####################  Emmet's initial email  #########################

*Ad 1) and 5) Tiers and tier pictures*

I like the concept, I only have the complaint that the tiers are very
USA-centric. For example, in my country coffee for $5 would be considered a
luxury spending. A better comparison would be kebab (and it's a really good
size, for me a whole day of eating :D or just normal dinner for one young
man).

I like the idea about pictures for the tiers. I think that it would be even
better than writing it down, because then supporters won't question the
exact amounts, because no one expects the illustration to be 100% correct.

Tiers being compared to real life spending would anchor the amount in the
supporter's mind, so making the decision how much they want to spend on
Krita should be easier. Money is pretty abstract, and people do tend to
overthink spending small amounts and underthink big amounts when it's all
one decision, especially online, so that should help make the value/amount
more realistic, in a way.

*2) Milestones and goals in the Fund:* I don't know the psychology behind
it, but it sounds fine to me. Except that the Fund is currently at ~2800,
so we'd need a new milestone at $5000, or calculate all of them again.

*3) Roadmap:* I think it would be good to have two roadmaps, one for 2024
(what we'll be discussing on Monday, I guess?), and one, more informal,
"what we want to do in Krita in the future", our dreams and desires, things
that we could do if we had more funding. That might encourage people to
fund Krita, because they'll see what they can gain from it.

Likewise, we need to keep doing the yearly summary, because that shows
users what they already gained, and proves that we are doing things for the
money they gave us. Might be a good idea to kind of link it together, for
example adding a link to last year's summary and roadmaps in the next
year's roadmap, or do both at once, etc.

*4) Fund-first, showing widgets:* I agree with things like adding widgets
showing the goal and the current state of the fund in various places (on
the website and in the application).

I do think that maybe we're not clear enough that we need users to donate.
And on Steam, many of the comments state that they're doing it to support
Krita. So yes, promoting the Fund as *the* best way to support Krita and
making sure our users understand that would be good.

However on the other hand, Steam is the thing that gives us money right
now, and we shouldn't neglect that. Below, I'll write some suggestions for
the Steam page.

*6) Corporate sponsors:* I have nothing to say about that. I don't know
enough. Though from the sudden jump in donations, I suspect maybe some
corporate sponsor stopped supporting us? This kind of jump is not great to
have, but I don't know what we could possibly do about that.
I think we just need to make sure that we charge an appropriate amount for
the work we do. Sure, I kind of half-volunteer for Krita, but I wouldn't
want to work for half-pay for some corporation. So we should charge normal
amounts, how usual companies charge for developers' time, not our actual
costs. Plus overhead and some profit, obviously. We can't sell ourselves
cheap. That's all.

######################  Halla's email  #########################

>  I really need help with managing the fund.krita.org website at least!
What does that entail?

###################### My topics #########################

*7) Steam page optimization.*
I've watched some videos about that, and sure, they are usually about
games, but they still have some good points that I believe apply to Krita
as well.
They won't help with people who know what Krita is, but hopefully they can
guide people who don't know what Krita is, but are looking for an art
software on Steam (as in, organic Steam purchases instead of just Krita's
users supporting us there).

- there are only a few tags (which makes it harder to find) out of the
allowed 20
- no trailer (people like to click through it to see the gameplay, or in
Krita's case, to see the tools) - could be just clips of Ramon or David
painting in Krita - we could ask Ramon to make it, though then I'd like to
talk to him exactly how to make it and what to show, because it's different
than yt videos
- no gifs, or even pictures, in the description
- the screenshots mostly just show the pictures you can make in Krita,
there are no tools shown
- the thumbnail, especially the smaller variants, never tell what Krita is
or how good it is. If someone doesn't know Krita, they might think it's an
anime visual novel. Imho splash screen and Steam capsule have different
purposes. Users see a splash screen when they open a program they
downloaded because they already know what it is (or it's a website
background etc.); Steam capsule is shown on listings, and it should show
that Krita is a painting software, because people browsing Steam might not
know about it.

Basically, looking at the current Steam page, a potential user won't know
how good it is: the Description says it is good, but come on, who'd read a
Description without pictures? And there is no evidence of the advanced
tools on the screenshots (I mean there is some, but I think I'd like a bit
more). Look at it from the perspective of someone who never heard of Krita:
the capsule should tell them that yes, this is exactly what they've been
looking for, a good art software. They need to click, and then see the
screenshots, click through the trailer, read through the description and
think: yes, it's a good, professional, advanced program, I'll have
everything I need there. And it won't be in any way scummy marketing: it
would just show Krita as exactly the awesome program it is, and the users
can read that it is free on the website and get it there: so we either get
an immediate sale (which will hopefully later lead them to Krita community,
FLOSS ideology etc.), or a new user, who might still later also buy it on
Steam or donate to Krita Fund.

There are also a few more things we could do, like putting that brush pack
as DLC, etc. What do you think about it? Adding a workshop to share brushes
would be more controversial, so I'm not suggesting that. (In fact, see 10)).


*8) ArchiveOfOurOwn* hosts a yearly month-long (?) fundraiser on their
website and they always get a huge amount of money from it. (They do need
it tbh). See for example here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/y44onq/iconic_how_ao3_will_ask_for_donations_and_then/
- 3x the amount they asked for in the first 24h. They prevent "banner
blindness" by only showing the banner during the fundraiser, (and if I'm
not mistaken, they actually hide it after a few days, not a whole month,
since they probably get plenty enough and don't want more).

There were voices of maybe removing the banner from Krita Welcome Page, and
only showing it from time to time.

What do you think?

*9) "Artists Interviews"* on the website sometimes have Phillip Urlich's
beautiful art, and sometimes kind of lower quality from beginner/amateurish
artists. And it's not updated since 2022. Are we sure that's good promotion
for us? I'm looking at dev.krita.org right now, of course. What about just
putting just one interview - for example the one I mentioned - as an
example, and a link to a page with all interviews so it's not forgotten but
it's also not on the main page? Or both at once, like this:

----------------------------------------------
| *See interviews with artists!*               |
|  ---------                                 |
|  |       |  *Interview with Phillip Urlich*  |
|  |  ART  |  .....                          |
|  |       |  .......                        |
|  ---------                                 |
----------------------------------------------

Another option would be to make several more interviews with really good
artists, creme de la creme, probably found on KA in Featured. On the main
page imho we need to show that Krita is a great, advanced tool for
professional artists, not just a toy for amateurs (no offense to amateurs,
but marketing should show our best). And I don't think we'd be alienating
the audience of beginner artists that way either, because they see that it
can be used for amazing pictures like Soma makes, and beginners usually
want/like to use the best tools.

I always kind of had the feeling that those interviews were a bit stale -
always the same questions that aren't that creative. I have no idea how to
improve upon that, though.

*10) Our own website to share resources.*
We really don't have a good place - Krita Artists is an awesome community,
but we can't really share files there, and it's harder to find good
brushes. It's not terrible, but a dedicated website could be good. We could
have something like Unity Marketplace, and have space for both free and
paid stuff, taking 10-15-20% commision (we could even sell our own, like
Digital Atelier etc.). Eventually we could even integrate it into Krita.
Problem is, of course, that we don't have any web devs except scottyp, who
is a volunteer. And that would require server space and whatnot. I'm not
sure how feasible it is, but it could be a source of revenue.

---
Agata



pon., 23 paź 2023 o 13:50 Halla Rempt <halla at valdyas.org> napisał(a):

> On woensdag 11 oktober 2023 03:55:16 CEST Emmet O'Neill wrote:
>
> > Anyway, I really wanted to keep this short but I’ve blown it. Please take
> > some time to read these ideas and let me know what you think.
>
> Long mails take longer to reply too...
>
>
>
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