Eudaimoneers is an invitation-only boutique ad network for indie gaming publishers and gaming fans
September 22, 2015 4:18 PM Subscribe
Eudaimoneers is an invitation-only boutique ad network for indie gaming publishers and gaming fans
Display advertising on the web is kind of broken. It's become an escalating war of all against all, and gamers are the adblockingest demographic there is. Eudaimoneers wants to call a truce, bring back a little trust and integrity, and make things better for indie gaming site owners, for the gamers who visit their sites, for advertisers who want to reach them, and do some good in the process: we will donate 10% of our revenues to charities selected by network members every month.
In the seven years since I started MefightClub, the MeFi gaming-community offshoot, I've been immensely proud of it as not just a community of people who just want to play games together, but a place where people who had come to expect that their interactions with other gamers were doomed to be unpleasant, because of their gender or race or sexual orientation or for other reasons, were welcome and could feel welcomed. Running the site has changed my life, and I've thought of it as Doing Something Good in the world, a something that could only happen with the collaboration of other good people. It's been enormous fun, and good friends have been made and good times have been had, and we've donated more that $20,000 to charity over the past 5 years.
The name Eudaimoneers is meant to evoke the idea of 'engineers of eudaimonia', engineers of good things, of happiness, of thriving for people. The model for the business is explicitly a cross between the Deck Network (as seen on MeFi and many other places) and the Humble Bundle, two businesses I have much respect for.
Eudaimoneers feels like the culmination of my work on MefightClub and other parts of my life -- my love of building things and supporting community, my love for making websites, my love for gaming and MefightClub itself and the values we've co-created there, my desire to make gaming better in whatever way I could, and many many years thinking about what the good life is, what action is accordance with virtue is, what the point of life should be, and the value of trying to do a little good on a small scale rather than attempting to change the Whole World. And, to be honest, a lot of soul-searching about the corporate takeover of the web, and about advertising and the role it plays in keeping independent web sites alive and kicking.
In the end, I feel like it's better to try and engage and do a little good, rather than sit on the sidelines and glare.
I hope that anyone who runs an indie gaming website or wants to run ads that deliver value to gaming fans will consider getting in touch at the site, and that gaming enthusiasts will appreciate our mission of serving them first and foremost. We plan to have no more than about 30 sites in our network, and no more than about 30 well-vetted advertisers per month.
I'm more than happy (thrilled!) to answer questions or inquiries here or anywhere else. The site has just gone live, and we're ramping up to starting efforts to pull together a network of publishers and advertisers. Join us! Strap on your happiness pants!
Display advertising on the web is kind of broken. It's become an escalating war of all against all, and gamers are the adblockingest demographic there is. Eudaimoneers wants to call a truce, bring back a little trust and integrity, and make things better for indie gaming site owners, for the gamers who visit their sites, for advertisers who want to reach them, and do some good in the process: we will donate 10% of our revenues to charities selected by network members every month.
In the seven years since I started MefightClub, the MeFi gaming-community offshoot, I've been immensely proud of it as not just a community of people who just want to play games together, but a place where people who had come to expect that their interactions with other gamers were doomed to be unpleasant, because of their gender or race or sexual orientation or for other reasons, were welcome and could feel welcomed. Running the site has changed my life, and I've thought of it as Doing Something Good in the world, a something that could only happen with the collaboration of other good people. It's been enormous fun, and good friends have been made and good times have been had, and we've donated more that $20,000 to charity over the past 5 years.
The name Eudaimoneers is meant to evoke the idea of 'engineers of eudaimonia', engineers of good things, of happiness, of thriving for people. The model for the business is explicitly a cross between the Deck Network (as seen on MeFi and many other places) and the Humble Bundle, two businesses I have much respect for.
Eudaimoneers feels like the culmination of my work on MefightClub and other parts of my life -- my love of building things and supporting community, my love for making websites, my love for gaming and MefightClub itself and the values we've co-created there, my desire to make gaming better in whatever way I could, and many many years thinking about what the good life is, what action is accordance with virtue is, what the point of life should be, and the value of trying to do a little good on a small scale rather than attempting to change the Whole World. And, to be honest, a lot of soul-searching about the corporate takeover of the web, and about advertising and the role it plays in keeping independent web sites alive and kicking.
In the end, I feel like it's better to try and engage and do a little good, rather than sit on the sidelines and glare.
I hope that anyone who runs an indie gaming website or wants to run ads that deliver value to gaming fans will consider getting in touch at the site, and that gaming enthusiasts will appreciate our mission of serving them first and foremost. We plan to have no more than about 30 sites in our network, and no more than about 30 well-vetted advertisers per month.
I'm more than happy (thrilled!) to answer questions or inquiries here or anywhere else. The site has just gone live, and we're ramping up to starting efforts to pull together a network of publishers and advertisers. Join us! Strap on your happiness pants!
Role: Founder, web developer, general-doer-of-stuff-that-needs-doing
That's exactly the question that cortex (who I've been chatting with about it) said lots of people would ask (and that I kind of feared might be a problem with the name). I even added a hover-for-pronunciation key to the about page last night!
There are actually variant pronunciations of eudaimonia( εὐδαιμονία) that English speakers use. I favor you-die-mon-ia (which is maybe a little unfortunate in the first two syllables there, but hey, knowing that we're going to die is the deep root of our impulse in seeking the good life, so).
So when I say it, I say you-DIE-moneers.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:43 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
There are actually variant pronunciations of eudaimonia( εὐδαιμονία) that English speakers use. I favor you-die-mon-ia (which is maybe a little unfortunate in the first two syllables there, but hey, knowing that we're going to die is the deep root of our impulse in seeking the good life, so).
So when I say it, I say you-DIE-moneers.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:43 PM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]
Oh, jeez, I guess I should mention -- the Eudaimoneers ad server is up and running, but the example ad block that you see on the site's front page (if you're not adblocking it) is just running test ads for sites in the MefightClub network at the moment, before we actually start (hopefully) building out our publisher network and getting advertisers onboard.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:17 PM on September 22, 2015
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:17 PM on September 22, 2015
Not a gamer, but so in favor of this. Kudos!
PS: you should swap the "either" with an "other" in "either than impression and click totals"
posted by waninggibbon at 1:47 PM on September 23, 2015
PS: you should swap the "either" with an "other" in "either than impression and click totals"
posted by waninggibbon at 1:47 PM on September 23, 2015
Good catch, thanks! I'm still revising the site copy and just added that bit last night, too close to bed time.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:26 PM on September 23, 2015
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:26 PM on September 23, 2015
I had an idea I didn't want to throw away, because it made me chuckle, but wasn't quite right for the actual site, so (although chances are slim anybody's going to see this): enjoy badvertising.co!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:28 PM on October 12, 2015
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:28 PM on October 12, 2015
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