And the hits just keep on comin’!
Wowio is now part of Platinum Studios and wouldn’t you know it? Former Platinum advocate and all-round chatty fella, DJ Coffman, has decided to pick apart the new agreement for Wowio distributors for everyone to enjoy.
Until you’re up and making webcomics yourself (which, judging by the crop we currently have to choose 
from, would be about 98% of our viewing audience) this probably won’t shake up your day too much, but it is interesting nonetheless. Coffman takes a look at such important aspects as royalties:
In light of Platinum Studios telling me that Hero By Night only generated 800 bucks in ad revenue for a webcomic that has been online since October 2006 and consistantly had the HIGHEST pageviews on all of Drunk Duck… I don’t have faith that they can either A. figure out real well paying advertisers, or B. tell the truth about how much they actually made off of web advertising revenue.
As well as the unnecessary “you can charge people for it if you want to” clause in the contract. It’s perfectly acceptable to ask for compensation for your work, heck, it’s even encouraged once you reach a certain level of performance, but to allow PlatiNowio to take 50% of the profits is ridiculous when there are plenty of other, do-it-yourself methods out there that allow the creator to retain 100% of everything. To help you out, there are even books that have been published to assist you in this venture.
Given the recent history between Coffman and Platinum, his take on this new joint project is a welcome one indeed. I know I would be wary about entering into any contract with Platinum about anything, but the again, I’d leap at the chance to sign a contract for anything right now.
On the one hand: DJ Coffman has an obvious axe to grind against Platinum (rightly so), and so anything he says is likely to assume the worst and therefore biased.
On the other hand: It’s fucking PLATINUM. If anyone knows how they treat their artists, it’s him (and given that they basically killed Hero By Night, I’d say he has every reason to assume the worst.
On the other other hand: The new Wowio contract looks much worse on the surface than the old one. Everything about it seems suspect (and 20% on ad revenue and 50% on retail revenue is INSULTING, especially when there are enough DIY methods out there.)
In short, it looks like yet another company that doesn’t understand why most webcomics folk go it alone in the first place.
How they treat their artists? Supposedly (and I don’t know if this is true or not, but I haven’t heard him dispute it) they paid him nearly 100k to do Hero By Night. I certainly wouldn’t mind being treated like one of their artists if that’s the case.
I had a great conversation with some guy named David who works there in San Diego over the weekend and he pretty much beat me over the head that I could still do my own thing, that Wowio is an AND not an OR. AND I had a book on Wowio for a few months before it went dark and it seemed to increase my web traffic, if anything. Seems like I can DIY and get that 20% and 50%.
I’m not saying I trust Platinum. From all I’ve heard they have had some pretty sleazy dealings in the past and they probably are in this to make a quick buck, but there’s nothing saying I can’t make my own quick bucks at the same time. I love my comic and I’d never sell it to anyone, but I certainly wouldn’t mind it paying a few bills for a while.