When Goonhammer started back in 2018, our goals were pretty small: Have a place to post our battle reports and other longform content that didn’t fit on the SomethingAwful forums. Then we started thinking about how we could write tactics articles and reviews and, next thing you know, we’re suddenly one of the most popular Warhammer sites on the internet with dozens of contributors. January 2020 was our largest month to-date from a traffic standpoint, and despite being only 29 days, February is set to be even bigger. We’ve been incredibly humbled by the community response to the site, and continually amazed at how great our readers have been when we’ve met you in person and interacted with you in online communities.
But this rise in popularity is not without cost: As we approach the neighborhood of a million or more monthly page views, our server costs have skyrocketed, and we’re now looking at spending thousands of dollars per year to keep the site up and running. Many of you have asked us over the last year how you can contribute or help out and so we can finally give you an answer:
- Goonhammer now has a Patreon! You can donate to the site on a monthly basis, and we’ve included a button on the right side of the page for this. We’re working on tier rewards (head over to see what the current ones are), but the important thing to know is that None of our site content will be gated or restricted to Patreon subscribers. Your primary reward will be knowing you helped support the site in our mission to keep creating great content talking about the games we love.
- Goonhammer has merch for sale on Redbubble! We’ve made t-shirts, prints, and other swag available featuring some of the art that Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones has done for the site. If you’re looking for a ‘Marine Kondo’ shirt, we’ve got you covered.
Again, we appreciate all of the support that you’ve given us over the last year and a half, and appreciate anything you’re able to contribute.
-The Goonhammer Team
Answering Some Questions About This
- Does this mean you’ll be gating content or going subscriber-only?
No. We are fundamentally uninterested in gating our content behind subscriptions. Anything available to Patreon subscribers will be things that we normally wouldn’t post on the site, like polls or live Q&A sessions. The same Goonhammer content we’re posting now will continue to be available, even if you don’t want to donate. - Who is my money going to?
We incorporated in the U.S. in January, creating Goonhammer, LLC. We’re currently working through a lot of the backend processes around that but our goal is to distribute membership among Goonhammer’s authors/contributors. - What are you going to do with my money?
First and foremost, we’re going to pay server costs to keep the site running. On the off chance we make more than that, our current plan is to use the rest for site improvements and funding things like the Goonhammer Open Tournaments we’re running in the US in July and the UK in September. After that, we’ll figure out how to best reinvest it into the site’s operations. Our goal is to keep providing the best quality content we can and improving the quality of the games and hobbies we all love. - What about having ads on the site?
We will never have ads on the site. - What about sponsored content?
We’ve talked about sponsored content and affiliate links but it’s not something we’re wild about. If we do endorse or promote something however, it’ll always be something that we ourselves are big fans of or that we feel benefits the community in a positive way. - I have other questions.
We may be able to answer them! You’re always welcome to reach out to us via email at contact@goonhammer.com.
