We’re on schedule. A quick look at our roadmap for the year shows we’ve built everything we planned, and as autumn approaches, the very earliest whispers of ‘beta’ susurrate among the crystal arches of Just About HQ.
But for now our doors, while not closed, are a bit stiff (not to you, though, you can sign up here, if you haven’t yet). We’re struck by what’s happening anyway.
Voxel art and the colours of space
Our bounties are a way to inspire and reward the kind of creativity that most other platforms, essentially, just hope will happen as they scale. But as we said when we launched Organic Rewards, we don’t want thoughts of money to overwhelm the passion that leads to this natural creativity.
They haven’t. We’ve seen members not only starting discussions, but making and posting creative original content without any kind of inducement.
If you’re heading to Fanfest - EVE Online’s community shindig - Kane Carnifex has some personal tips on dining in Reykjavík (we’re sure the research was a chore!) Dave rounded up the best early Starfield mods, Swagger Olacar made a gorgeous video about the colours of EVE, and Kirra Luan shared three pieces of their own lovely, fuzzy, voxel art, inspired by For The King 2.
These are just a few examples of the awesome creative stuff our members are posting, so come on back to the platform to enjoy it all.
This is all the more exciting given we’re still in Alpha and there aren’t many of us yet. But as we do scale and see more of this ‘spontaneous’ content, we can collate and publish it just like we do with bounty submissions. We can then share the ad revenue from these pieces with their contributors, so even if you don’t fancy chasing our bounties, you can still get the rewards you deserve for your self-directed brilliance. Here’s a reminder on all these goals.
In the meantime it’s hugely encouraging to see more and more members posting this kind of content, and we’re thrilled to announce a new hire to help nurture it.
The Just About team expands and goes travelling
Jason Boomer joined us this week as our new community manager, and we’re not sure he’d be a better fit if we’d sculpted him from clay: he’s organised in-person events for the Rooster Teeth UK community, founded his own company providing services to the games industry including community design, and is even working on a PhD in digital communities. If you see him on the platform, ask him about Magic: The Gathering.
And finally, for any Just About EVE members who are going to Fanfest, we’ll be there too! Alex will be in Reykjavík with a mission to meet as many of you as possible, strengthen our connections to the EVE community, and complete Kane’s restaurant crawl. If you’ll be there, let us know on Just About EVE!