I doubt 90% of teenies and skids on here even know what's venture capital or simply what is capitalism. Tom you are making a huge mistake for asking a bunch of trolls and nonsensical teenagers about MONEY. or worse: investing MONEY.

VC's Definition anyone?
Risk Capital

More reading:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-rosenbaum/venture-capita l-danger-an_b_556543.html
From VC's Boss: Tom Perkins >> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/13/us-perkins-idUSTRE 78C4ZT20110913
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=294 6
http://bsr.london.edu/lbs-article/605/index.html

Some more actual research:
http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=risk+and+independent+vent ure+capitalists&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=
ScGJT-etMMrgggfS_-zHBg&ved=0CDAQgQMwAA
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7qm9h594

risk=bravery.

when you nut up and take the capitalism route, you are not only showing how profitable this massive community is, but just how innovative and commercially savvy we are. when YOU make a business decision as crucial as this, it shows that every backing member has that "go-getter" ability.

take the VC route. it would not only allow for a better image for this company, but every contributing member.

You could do it, but you should be VERY careful not to stray away from your mission statement and destroy the very thing that made NG so popular. The whole ''Everything, by Everyone'' is what made NG so unique.
You've kept this site running for 13 years, and maybe it's time for NG to go bigger than before. However, remember what happened to Youtube. Don't be like Youtube. :(

Don't sell Newgrounds. It's not worth the potential destruction of the site.

It could end well, but just the same, it could turn Newgrounds into YouTube or even cause its ruination.

At 4/14/12 09:58 AM, Korriken wrote: I'd say take option C. Newgrounds artists get together and develop games to sell. Surely after Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers a company would take something made by the newgrounds community and run with it.

make a demo version and put it on newgrounds, once it gets in a nice bucket of positive reviews, show it off to a few companies and see what happens.

I really like this idea.

Also, I have to say I don't support the VC option. It seems too much like selling out to companies that don't have any interest in the community that has been built here, only for whatever profit that they can glean from it.

Granted, while there could be a great return and the site could really expand and grow, I honestly don't think it's worth the risk of, as others have said, becoming a YouTube.

At 4/13/12 08:31 PM, ZJ wrote: It's clear that your law school has turned you away from the Timmy we all knew and loved and into a cold, calculating bastard who's obsessed with money (i.e. true lawyer). What a shame.

I'm not obsessed with money, but if it is a choice between allowing my site to limp along, praying for traffic/advertisement revenue to increase, or getting a huge influx of money at the expense of independent ownership, I would likely choose the latter 99 times out of 100.

Somethings are worth more than money, Timmy. Guess you don't see that yet. Got some growing up to do . . . Better to die a beloved poor man than a rich asshole.

The naivety of your last sentence makes it clear that I'm not the only one who has to "grow up", ZJ. This isn't a black/white issue where Tom is a saint if he refuses the funding and a cold-hearted "asshole" if he accepts it.

If I were in Tom's position, I would take the investment money at the expense of the site's independent ownership.

Better for the site to exist and thrive under a Google.com ownership than to die a slow and revenue-bleeding death over time.

Keep going solo.

At 4/13/12 03:56 PM, TomFulp wrote: 2) Take VC money. Spend the next five years being AMAZING, sponsor every game developer and every artist and rule the entire internet. IT MIGHT WORK,

I like the sound of being an NG shareholder, but then again, selling out to VC does sound like it makes NG mainstream, as opposed to underground, where we almost belong...

At 4/14/12 07:04 PM, citricsquid wrote:
Newgrounds being like Youtube would be the greatest thing in the world, newgrounds should aspire to be as supportive of content creators as Youtube is.

No. Just because you sold out and made a shit load of money to feed ducks with while skipping community college doesn't mean that it would be the same for newgrounds.

At 4/14/12 07:22 PM, citricsquid wrote:

At 4/14/12 07:18 PM, DickBuns wrote: No. Just because you sold out and made a shit load of money to feed ducks with while skipping community college doesn't mean that it would be the same for newgrounds.

wat

I didn't stutter.

At 4/13/12 03:56 PM, TomFulp wrote: An increasing number of people tell me that Newgrounds should consider venture capital.

Venture capital means that investors give you a lot of money, and in return you do something that makes them rich. Because most websites don't actually figure out how to do that, the solution is generally to sell to a much larger company with disposable income and a fear of losing their own relevancy. Like how Facebook just spent $1 billion on Instagram because people weren't using Facebook for photo sharing as much as they used to.

Venture capital is fun because it lets you be really self righteous and everyone wants to hang out in your aura of money. Tumblr is cool because they let you post stuff and they don't have ads. Did you know they have raised over $125 million in venture capital? Is your page full of pictures gonna make their investors back that $125 million + profit?

Tom you and I both know that if you went VC then you would slowly have your creative power taken away from you and the investors or VC would start pushing you around and end up turning you in to Kongregate you know what I mean Tom don't give in to the power of GameStop don't do it tom it leads to RUIN!!!!! what attracted me to newgrounds is that it is rather indie it is not owned by a massive company and that the dude that made it is someone I would have as a friend unlike facebook....

Anyway there are two paths for NG, let me know which we should try because both have their ups and downs.

1) Keep being NG no matter what the cost. Yeah you are a big disappointment but we believe in you.

2) Take VC money. Spend the next five years being AMAZING, sponsor every game developer and every artist and rule the entire internet. IT MIGHT WORK, NG might become so successful the investors will get rich and back off, and it will be such a success it can just keep being a success forever.

Thoughts

i say keep NG the way it is but i think it would be better known in the world than fade into obscurity.
(sorry for my english, im just not used to it)

At 4/13/12 04:12 PM, TomFulp wrote:

With money I think I could turn NG into a billion dollar company. I just don't have good evidence for what would happen to it after that.

I know that this quote is back from page one but I just wanted to say that it's precious.

Making a billion dollars is the easy part, I just don't have a good idea of how I would spend it all yet.

VC all the way, man!

I would prefer you take the path which retains Newgrounds as it is. I frequent this site because of what it is and is not, so if it were to change I would probably leave.

Then again, I am not the professional here Tom, use your own Judgement, after all it's your sweat and tears we're just along for the ride.

Go for it! :O

An idea would be to have contests or some incentive to have all the artists on this site to produce material advertising whoever is sponsoring us.

I think you know the company better than us. If you feel like going for the money, do it.

Erm... I'm not too keen on Newgrounds being sold, so don't take the money!

At 4/13/12 03:56 PM, TomFulp wrote: An increasing number of people tell me that Newgrounds should consider venture capital.

Venture capital means that investors give you a lot of money, and in return you do something that makes them rich. Because most websites don't actually figure out how to do that, the solution is generally to sell to a much larger company with disposable income and a fear of losing their own relevancy. Like how Facebook just spent $1 billion on Instagram because people weren't using Facebook for photo sharing as much as they used to.

Venture capital is fun because it lets you be really self righteous and everyone wants to hang out in your aura of money. Tumblr is cool because they let you post stuff and they don't have ads. Did you know they have raised over $125 million in venture capital? Is your page full of pictures gonna make their investors back that $125 million + profit?

Anyway there are two paths for NG, let me know which we should try because both have their ups and downs.

1) Keep being NG no matter what the cost. Yeah you are a big disappointment but we believe in you.

2) Take VC money. Spend the next five years being AMAZING, sponsor every game developer and every artist and rule the entire internet. IT MIGHT WORK, NG might become so successful the investors will get rich and back off, and it will be such a success it can just keep being a success forever.

Thoughts

If you take people's money, you have to "take their advice." When it's just you, it's JUST you. You saw the reaction to the redesign. How would your stress level have been if those comments and complaints were from investors instead of all us NG junkies?? Also, it's easier to get them IN than it is to get them OUT if/when you want to. How can NG make money to re-coup the investor's $ + profit? If you can re-coup money for them, you can get money for you. And me. Because you luv me. <3

If you want NG to be taken seriously, then you may want to look seriously at some of the issues around the site.

1. People have mentioned how some people think this is a hentai site. Perception is very important. I was shocked by the animations that were up during the redesign down-time. Some animations were very good, as NG used to be. Unfortunately, enough of the 'Newgrounds Update Bulletin' animations were homo-themed that even I found myself raising an eyebrow. Now, those of us who have been around here for a while know it's a joke, but what about the others? If you have them, go back thru and add up what percentage had cock jokes, gay-like characters, Wade and Stamper washing the tank in short shorts, and that sort of thing. If people think this is a gay site, the reputation is damaged. I know this isn't a gay site, and I've seen some crazy stuff in my time here on NG, but even I was embarrassed by the amount of gay-related stuff posted up during that time, so I can imagine what others might have thought.

2. The quality control needs a boost. When I started here 7 years ago, good animations got thru, but unimpressive, incomplete, broken, spam, or bad stuff got blammed. People have forgotten what quality is, or maybe new people have never been taught. The Portal has had too many tests, trailers, incomplete parts and bits, spam, and unimpressive stuff get thru. I have a solution, though. I've suggested it before, but maybe in this light it will help.

If any flash ever gets to a score of 1.00(?) or less, and stays there for a week, then it should be blammed automatically by the system. This ends spam flashes because they will eventually be deleted. This helps with quality control because if something makes it thru judgement, but then drops in score, the error eventually goes away. Heck, blam score is 1.50, so why should anything with a lesser score still be on here? I know authors who have many submissions with all or most of them having less than 1.50 scores, and people's opinion of NG is based on what this site retains and presents.

My vote is if you can pay the bills currently, then stay sovereign and refuse the investor's VC. ...or find other ways for people to invest? If you have the bills being paid, the site can be streamlined and improved, and income sources can be added and improved, all while remaining stress-free (relatively). If you have to please the investors, the pressure can be unrelenting, and that takes the fun out of what you've built for yourself (and us). And what was Newgrounds built for in the first place? A labor of love by "some dumb kid" which has also managed to pay your light bill for longer than you originally imagined.

"...No, it wasn't made by some giant company - just some dumb kid" -Tom Fulp's profile

Sorry that's so long. Hope this helps, Tom.

exedor :)

You know this post was being sarcastic over the years of newgrounds people have been telling tom that the site is a goldmine but tom would NEVER go VC it is against the way he works as he knows what would happen if we had VC i the site it would fuck it up they would stop allowing certain flash get rid of art and music and god know what else this post was a joke and many of you are taking it serious :)

Alright, so I haven't been on here for a couple of years now, and in a random moment typed in newgrounds.com/bbs like I used to.

Then I came across this thread, and when I read the first fifteen replys I got to say I was shocked with how many people said 'take the money'.
I loved Newgrounds in the years, and I still have respect for it because it gives young people space to be creative, complete with an awesome community at that.
If you go for the Venture Capital it would kill newgrounds at what it is. It would become a money making machine, capitalistic at that. I see newgrounds as an idealistic organization. Idealistic doesn't mean profit is not an option. However it does mean you won't go selling your soul for money and take the risk everything that Newgrounds is goes to shame.

Don't do it. Keep it as it is, sure it may stay obscure, it might not be as big as it could have been. But it will be Newgrounds, through and through.

Definitely the money, your always giving back to the community of NG and would be awesome if you had more money to sponsor my games :P Venture capital is a great opportunity for you just try to keep high control over it (:

How about, "no"?

Tom, to keep it very, very short, the only way you'd get a bucket-load of cash would be for you to be able to have some plan that would allow you to generate high revenue in the future and the only way to do that would be for you to radically change NG.

No, simply sponsoring everything on earth won't be enough; building a reputation is nice and helps, but the internet is fickle and people can easily change from site to site (remember how Yahoo once dominated searching?). So sure, it'd help build a reputation and all, but then what? How would you generate returns on the investment? And how would you stop someone else from copying what you just did?

I.e., what would the money allow NG to do that won't be easily copied? And how would this change allow for NG to make more money?

Furthermore, NG's reputation has always been 'edgy', so to speak, and about being free from corporate influence and whatnot, and you'd most certainly lose that by taking the VC openly. Finally, many, many old timers would probably be insulted by this move and may even give up on the site completely, although obviously they're a minority.

If you really want to cash in on NG, please do so; in a sense, you and everyone else that's worked here for so long deserve to reap the rewards of creating NG. Just realize that it's hard to do so without losing what NG is all about.

Stay solo NG!

The debate's over guys. Tom decided not to take the money, read his other post after this one.

Now stop posting. Continuing this debate is like beating a dead horse, it's pointless.

What makes Newgrounds cool. Well, it allows relative unknowns find a platform for their animations, music or whatever and find a fanbase, or be ridiculed for their shoddy artwork. But, they have a chance to improve. Which was unique. I mean, Newgrounds as you can see has been going on for 17 years. Course, the Newgrounds we know didn't really pick up till 1999 when the account system was first introduced. I guess at a certain point when the entrepreneur becomes a business-man, a full blown CEO of a company not just a fun idea you threw together for your and a few friend amusement. Its now Everything, By Everyone and everyone is entertained in some way and it's not just you contributing.

Which seperates Newgrounds from a lot of other sites. THere are flashes that are horrible, they get blammed and removed from the system, the ones that do are usually the result of mass 5 fives from say the Kitty Crew or Clock Crew of the old, some of which do get removed because Newgrounds isn't stupid. The other ones that make it through despite it's content are the workings of illwillpress. Seriously, he blows. Hell, his shit has gotten blammed, some based on hate, but mmost on the merit of his work being stale, old, garbage and ran into the fucking ground. Course, the cases where he has had his Foamy stuff blammed someone steps in and says "hey we liked that flash, trolls mass blammed it" THen his works get restored. But, otherwise, it's a "oh your work is lame? tough shit, stop being bad"

Of course that's not how Tom would word it.

If you're going to support every artist, do not lose sight of what makes Newgrounds different from Youtube. Ensuring quality stands paramount to quanity. So even a well established artist can be held up to scrutiny for making a subpar animation. Course, if being a horrible writer and a loud and obnoxius and unfunny character counted for something, Egoraptor would not have many flashes here. Just saying.

Enough raving. Newgrounds isn't EbaumsWorld. Tom would never sell this site at all, but this isn't selling the site, this is trying to get his money makers more money and help him make more money. Capitalism, feeding the system. But, yes, on Newgrounds, the artist comes first, the site is just that, the place to host and spread the word about the artist. This is the age of social media and Tom Fulp never became a dick that saw a flash and said "yeah, this is my flash, see there's a watermark on it that proves it!" No. As much as I hate a lot of artists here, their work is theirs.

Would VC take that away? Will selling out force your artists to sell out to companies they're not comfortable with? A choice should always be an option for people

Other than that, I say go for it, just remember Newgrounds can never be bought, it has a niche that is too big to any organization to buy. Start making money Tom. But do it your way, free of bullshit.

tl;dr long ass post when I am tired and yeah I guess it's not bad just as long as this doesn't go totalitarian, IE IGN/Gamespot and silences critics it's fine. MONEY!

At 4/15/12 12:08 PM, MattTheParanoidKat wrote: What makes Newgrounds cool. Well, it allows relative unknowns find a platform for their animations, music or whatever and find a fanbase, or be ridiculed for their shoddy artwork. But, they have a chance to improve. Which was unique. I mean, Newgrounds as you can see has been going on for 17 years. Course, the Newgrounds we know didn't really pick up till 1999 when the account system was first introduced. I guess at a certain point when the entrepreneur becomes a business-man, a full blown CEO of a company not just a fun idea you threw together for your and a few friend amusement. Its now Everything, By Everyone and everyone is entertained in some way and it's not just you contributing.

Which seperates Newgrounds from a lot of other sites. THere are flashes that are horrible, they get blammed and removed from the system, the ones that do are usually the result of mass 5 fives from say the Kitty Crew or Clock Crew of the old, some of which do get removed because Newgrounds isn't stupid. The other ones that make it through despite it's content are the workings of illwillpress. Seriously, he blows. Hell, his shit has gotten blammed, some based on hate, but mmost on the merit of his work being stale, old, garbage and ran into the fucking ground. Course, the cases where he has had his Foamy stuff blammed someone steps in and says "hey we liked that flash, trolls mass blammed it" THen his works get restored. But, otherwise, it's a "oh your work is lame? tough shit, stop being bad"

Of course that's not how Tom would word it.

If you're going to support every artist, do not lose sight of what makes Newgrounds different from Youtube. Ensuring quality stands paramount to quanity. So even a well established artist can be held up to scrutiny for making a subpar animation. Course, if being a horrible writer and a loud and obnoxius and unfunny character counted for something, Egoraptor would not have many flashes here. Just saying.

Enough raving. Newgrounds isn't EbaumsWorld. Tom would never sell this site at all, but this isn't selling the site, this is trying to get his money makers more money and help him make more money. Capitalism, feeding the system. But, yes, on Newgrounds, the artist comes first, the site is just that, the place to host and spread the word about the artist. This is the age of social media and Tom Fulp never became a dick that saw a flash and said "yeah, this is my flash, see there's a watermark on it that proves it!" No. As much as I hate a lot of artists here, their work is theirs.

Would VC take that away? Will selling out force your artists to sell out to companies they're not comfortable with? A choice should always be an option for people

Other than that, I say go for it, just remember Newgrounds can never be bought, it has a niche that is too big to any organization to buy. Start making money Tom. But do it your way, free of bullshit.

tl;dr long ass post when I am tired and yeah I guess it's not bad just as long as this doesn't go totalitarian, IE IGN/Gamespot and silences critics it's fine. MONEY!

Nobody's reading the other news thread, how pathetic... You instead continue what's already been concluded in the next topic.

It's been resolved, move on. Tom isn't going for VC, read the other fucking topics after this one. This thread is outdated.

And there's nothing good about losing our speech/criticism, that's terrible. VC has way more cons than pros.
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Money is a horrible thing. But you should keep ng no matter what.

At 4/15/12 12:33 PM, Steff wrote: Money is a horrible thing. But you should keep ng no matter what.

money is just a means for trade, which is a good thing.