Auctioning Items for Fire Relief Charities

Saltypatra · January 16, 2020, 5:08am

You read that right! As many of you know, we devs are Australian, and as such will be auctioning off a series of goodies/exclusives to help support our firefighters.

There is an initiative on Twitter running under the hashtags #gamedevsforfiries and #gamedevsforfireys that we are joining. (You can read more about the initiative here.) Lots of game developers are auctioning exclusives, or their skillsets, to raise money for charity. We have three things available on Twitter for your perusal!

The first item is a unit of Warhammer High Elves painted by Sirrian himself! (God he’s talented, how ridiculous is that?)

You can bid on them here.

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The second item is a hardcover copy of the Lorekeeper, written by Sirrian and published here. He will write you a note on the inside, and a bunch of our developers will sign it for you.

You can bid on it here.

The third is a custom Gems of War t-shirt designed by our very own Nimhain! You can choose the Mana Surge t-shirt, or have your favourite troop put into one of the other two designs. We will design the shirt, make it, and ship it to you at our own expense.

You can bid on it here.

(Please note that you must be on Twitter to participate in this initiative, as that is where it is run. If people really want another Lorekeeper made available, I will see what I can do about auctioning one here.)

Saltypatra · January 16, 2020, 12:21pm

Y’all keep talking about how much you want shirts, so here’s your opportunity!

Clark · January 16, 2020, 5:29pm

While it cuts into the bottom line (we know how you hate that) how about you put up things for sale with all profits going to support the firefighters?

Zepp · January 16, 2020, 6:36pm

I love the items and the cause, but the ‘reply to a tweet’ auction style is going to strangle your auction. You may be better off additionally making threads on the forum for each item and take bids here as well. Since it is not live bidding, it doesn’t hurt to have multiple locations.

I cannot wait to finally receive a custom Ragnagord T-Shirt.

Also I don’t see anyplace listing the auction end time/date.

awryan · January 16, 2020, 6:52pm

That would require publisher approval. What they are auctioning off is basically private party that’s for the most part Gems of War related. So they have full control over the products you can see in the OP. Assuming Sirrian owns the copyright for Gems of War related material. If he doesn’t, well I don’t know AU copyright law so we’ll leave it at that.
With the figurines I hope they factor in the cost to ship something internationally as fragile material. (Can’t be cheap.)

Saltypatra · January 16, 2020, 9:46pm

If you read the tweets, we are shipping at our own expense. The reason this is happening on Twitter is because that is where the initiative is taking place, and other companies and developers are participating.

We are unable to raise money in game, so are doing what we can with what we have. When we saw this iniative go up we had to jump on it!

As per the website the bidding closes on the 22nd of January.

awryan · January 16, 2020, 10:50pm

If the individual uses social media like Twitter…
Which I personally don’t… But thank you for the explanation nonetheless.

Saltypatra · January 16, 2020, 11:00pm

And that’s fine, but everything was clearly linked.

I was thinking of auctioning another Lorebook on the forums if people are interested?

Slypenslyde · January 17, 2020, 2:35am

Since you posted everything as a reply to itself, in most Twitter clients (including the official ones) it’s impossible to discern which tweets a person is replying to.

Please delete and repost separate tweets for each item so people have half a chance of participating.

AMT · January 17, 2020, 3:35am

This please.

I was going to try my luck at an item, assumed the tweets would lead to an ebay link (like every half-decent auction on the internet), instead saw the chaos that we were expected to navigate… The end.

Saltypatra · January 17, 2020, 3:51am

I’ve never had that issue @Slypenslyde, even on mobile. Sorry to hear that it’s hard to navigate! If you feel it’s necessary I can repost them as separate tweets.

The reason we aren’t using Ebay or an external site is that the initiative is held on twitter, and we are specifically participating in it.

As mentioned earlier, if there is enough interest, please let me know and I can auction additional items on these forums.

captain_video · January 17, 2020, 4:23am

I was somewhat surprised GoW didn’t contribute a game DLC to the Humble Australian Relief Bundle. That isn’t on Twitter either.

rojo · January 17, 2020, 4:38am

The bids are in Australian currency so $1 is about .69 cents US. So a $50 bid would be around $35 US

thelastdragon · January 17, 2020, 4:40am

now that you mention it exchange rates are going to royally screw over some people sadly depending on what country their in unless the site itself calculates the exchange rate before submitting

rojo · January 17, 2020, 4:48am

So 1 Euro is $1.61 Aus and $1 Us is $1.45 Aus. Those may be most common I think.

GemsOfWar · January 17, 2020, 5:56am

@Saltypatra
This is me letting you know that there is enough interest - Please auction additional items on the forums (Specifcally T-shirts)
Thank you

ChunkyMono · January 17, 2020, 6:38am

Truly talented, he did a phenomenal job with those Elves. I am not on twitter, but even if I were, I would not be able to make a bid commensurate with my perceived value for those miniatures. Well done.

I wish you and the other auction participants well in your noble quest. I was not aware that a Lorebook existed. I am intrigued, but have no doubt that would be out of my price range as well.

Best wishes.

Slypenslyde · January 17, 2020, 1:40pm

Hint hint: there’s a reason you’ve had to tell multiple separate people the bidding is already higher than they’ve replied. Let me provide some examples.

Here’s what Tweetdeck, the official professional Twitter client shows. Note you can’t see anything but wrong bids:

Here’s what a person using the official web client will see. Note there is absolutely no way to see replies to this specific tweet, and Twitter itself reports there are 0 replies.

(The forums makes it way too small):

You may have some fancier client that does good threading, but it’s important to check it out in the least common denominator clients. I know my Twitter shit, this is just one of my 15+ accounts and I’m not even a big fish:

I could probably hunt down the invisible mentions you claim put that bid at $50 Aussie bucks but in my view the book’s bid is $15 USD. According to the official Twitter web UI, you are lying and I’m the only bid. Part of being a professional who uses social media is understanding how to reach the dumbest possible followers. If it takes more than one click to see replies, 90% of your target audience isn’t going to bother.

Alternate proposal: create a unique hashtag like #GoWFireAuction1 and require bids to include it. Even really bad clients tend to get hashtag searching right.

I’m not trying to be stingy, if I don’t win the auction I’m making a donation anyway. But I’m not going to get in a bidding war based on your opinion that a tweet somewhere out there has outbid me.

(Also just in case:

The tweet I posted has the sense that I mean to beat the 50 AUD bid but since I can’t see replies to the tweet I have no idea what to bid because it might be higher than 50 AUD. Just pick a number bigger than the current bid by 10 Aussie bucks.)

Slypenslyde · January 17, 2020, 2:38pm

Seems like some people with 350k followers on Twitter are also using eBay:

UKresistance · January 17, 2020, 8:37pm

Australia fire fighters charity puts out a yearly calendar… that my wife doesn’t buy anymore lol