Pinny Arcade seems to be a serious thing now, so I was wondering if we should open up talks to becoming official Pinny Arcade pin dealers?
Maybe we don’t have the volume necessary, I don’t know, but I think it could help people come looking for us if we had an official collector’s set Pinny Arcade pin. I mean hell, all these 3rd party publishers have them (with requirements like “pre-order our game”). It seems we could have a “donate to child’s play” requirement… Thoughts?
Pinny Arcade
[quote=“emimonster, post:1, topic:1378”]
Pinny Arcade seems to be a serious thing now, so I was wondering if we should open up talks to becoming official Pinny Arcade pin dealers?
Maybe we don’t have the volume necessary, I don’t know, but I think it could help people come looking for us if we had an official collector’s set Pinny Arcade pin. I mean hell, all these 3rd party publishers have them (with requirements like “pre-order our game”). It seems we could have a “donate to child’s play” requirement… Thoughts?[/quote]
Technically the brigade can’t sell anyone on site at PAX, its why we give away the cookies for free. There are also a lot of issues around us actually selling anything in general. I was exploring the idea of selling some shirts and totes to start covering some of the brigade costs (web hosting, domains, pins, patches, business cards, supplies, etc), but its really complicated because we can’t actually become a true organization for a variety of reasons that can’t be discussed here on the open forums.
I’m planning to start a brigadier thread to discuss some of these cost issues though.
I’m not saying “sell” pins. They’re for distributing (like a scavenger hunt). I’m saying, like with cookies, when people donate to charity so generously, it moves me so much I just have to give them a pin out of the kindness in my heart.
Either that or we can trade, like enforcers do. Only I’d recommend that all the pins we receive when trading our Cookie Brigade pins could be donated to dinner auction or desert bus or whatever.
[quote=“emimonster, post:3, topic:1378”]
I’m not saying “sell” pins. They’re for distributing (like a scavenger hunt). I’m saying, like with cookies, when people donate to charity so generously, it moves me so much I just have to give them a pin out of the kindness in my heart.
Either that or we can trade, like enforcers do. Only I’d recommend that all the pins we receive when trading our Cookie Brigade pins could be donated to dinner auction or desert bus or whatever.[/quote]
I think trading could be a cool idea. We’ve had our own pins in the past, a couple of us have them, they were gracious donated by Karmacappa. They were also unfortunately crazy expensive so we’ve been unable to make more since. Though we have discussed trying to do another run of them since they were well received.
We usually do the 1.5" buttons for buttoneering that are for brigadiers to give out, and some other people have made cool custom pins in the past. We could definitely re-explore having another run done of the metal pins we had in 2011. We would just need to figure out how to cover the cost, PA can’t have an official relationship with us so I don’t think we’d be able to get official Pinny Arcade pins.
They looked like:
The brigade has had lots of pins over the years, but pinny arcade collectors want “official pinny arcade” stamped on the back and to have it be part of the set, you know? I’ve done a lot of pin distribution for the PAX goers who have always been pin traders (mostly forumers who make their own awesome pins), and last year at PRIME the brigade had those fantastic 3D printed ones in 3 colors! But yeah, I think we could extend out to the crowd who aren’t forumers and don’t know about the brigade yet if they have to find out about us in order to complete their pinny arcade set. And the prospect of then being able to make an awesome pinny arcade collection of traded pins for desert bus or the dinner or something… even better!
Hi, I’m PedroAsani and I run the Pinny Arcade FAQ. I am more than happy to approach Mike about getting you guys a Pinny Arcade Pin.
It will raise your profile, get more people eating cookies (the cookie “shots” at Prime were excellent, BTW) and hopefully get more money for Childs Play.
The next FAQ will be going to Mike at the end of the month, so I’ll put it on there. Design-wise, if you have ideas send them to me. The PA forums are the best place, but I’ve mail-enabled this account in case I can’t find this thread again.
My idea is a cookie, naturally, but instead of chocolate chips, power-ups from games. Mario star, mushroom, Link triforce, etc. If you have something else in mind let me know.
As to the “you guys can’t sell anything”, I will ask if that applies to Pins. It could be that you can sell the Pins (or “sell” the Pins), and since they were selling at $5 for Behemoth or $10 for Scott/Kris/LRR, no reason you can’t do them at similar prices with the money going to Childs Play.
If you trade for them then we should be able to find a way for you to make use of them. Unofficial Blind Boxes, perhaps.
[quote=“PedroAsani, post:6, topic:1378”]
Hi, I’m PedroAsani and I run the Pinny Arcade FAQ. I am more than happy to approach Mike about getting you guys a Pinny Arcade Pin.
It will raise your profile, get more people eating cookies (the cookie “shots” at Prime were excellent, BTW) and hopefully get more money for Childs Play.
The next FAQ will be going to Mike at the end of the month, so I’ll put it on there. Design-wise, if you have ideas send them to me. The PA forums are the best place, but I’ve mail-enabled this account in case I can’t find this thread again.
My idea is a cookie, naturally, but instead of chocolate chips, power-ups from games. Mario star, mushroom, Link triforce, etc. If you have something else in mind let me know.
As to the “you guys can’t sell anything”, I will ask if that applies to Pins. It could be that you can sell the Pins (or “sell” the Pins), and since they were selling at $5 for Behemoth or $10 for Scott/Kris/LRR, no reason you can’t do them at similar prices with the money going to Childs Play.
If you trade for them then we should be able to find a way for you to make use of them. Unofficial Blind Boxes, perhaps.[/quote]
Pedro,
It’s a bit more then just the fact that we can’t sell, and while I’m happy you’re willing to approach Mike with the idea though I will admit I’m concerned.
The deeper issue is that PA can’t officially acknowledge the brigade. They love us and help us as much as they can, but end of the day its all very covert because PA has agreements with the convention centers and the convention centers absolutely do not want anyone giving away food for any reason what so ever.
But to give you an idea here is a paraphrase of something Khoo would never have said at PAX East for the Khoo & A because obviously he’s never heard of the Brigade:
[b]Brigadier:[/b] Do we still need to remain covert or will the cookie brigade ever be able to operate in the open. [b]Khoo: [/b]Every venue has an exclusive food and beverage vendor, at PAX prime and a lot of events that is Aramark. It's against their regulations to use any other food vendor, which is why we're not having this conversation. That said we've only had one issue at Prime and I'm sure it'll be fine. If you have any problems, let me know and I'll learn about it for the first time, and be shocked to the GM of food service and tell them its for the kids and think about all the stuff people will buy to wash down those cookies.
I don’t think an officially recognize Pinny Arcade pin for a group Khoo should know nothing about will be appropriate as much as I love the idea. Maybe if we can start doing more non-PAX events, but right now I don’t think its going to be a good idea.
I thought about a “Community Organizer” pin or “Child’s Play” pin or something like that, that has nothing to do with the brigade, and nothing to do with cookies, butttttt some cookie brigade people happen to carry them? Kind of like how there’s 3 specific enforcers who carry the enforcer pin. Maybe people who play a huge part in the community carry them (like Lexi, for example).
I’m just trying to think of ways to get people who know nothing about us to seek us out.
But yeah, we need to let PA maintain plausible deniability of CB existence, so we’d have to have pin wielders have some “other” role that associates them with “Community” or Child’s Play or something totally unrelated to “they also happen be a person who gives out free cookies”.
In any case, we have to weigh risk vs reward and the risk might be way too high : )
Singling out the Cookie Brigade I can see being a major risk. But the pin is something I’d love to see happen.
What if next year there was a “community” set, celebrating the events organized by the forum-goers at each PAX? So for example, the button trading, the poke-crawl/tri-wizard, etc. I’m sure the folks who’ve been doing more PAX’s could give better examples. If you put it within that set, it could potentially smooth out that risk, as they can say it was celebrating not just PAX, but the community that’s sprung up and created their own events out of PAX and the Cookie Brigade is part of that.
Ransim, you mention non-PAX events…
What if, you got the Cookie Pins at a non-PAX event, and then traded them during PAX? Nothing wrong with that, right?
And what if that non-PAX event happened to be the Thursday night pre-PAX party?
[quote=“PedroAsani, post:10, topic:1378”]
Ransim, you mention non-PAX events…
What if, you got the Cookie Pins at a non-PAX event, and then traded them during PAX? Nothing wrong with that, right?
And what if that non-PAX event happened to be the Thursday night pre-PAX party?[/quote]
The risk is more it being in the official set which is then on the official Pinny Arcade website. The risk is in PA actually acknowledging, in a very public way, that the brigade exists and they know about it.
Off topic, but grats pedro for the shout out in Penny arcade today.
[quote=“kintyre, post:12, topic:1378”]
Off topic, but grats pedro for the shout out in Penny arcade today.[/quote]
Thanks. Really didn’t expect anything like that.
I’ve asked Mike about a CB Pin. The only concern he voiced was in mixing Penny Arcade and Childs Play. They are aware that their reputation isn’t always conducive to the kind of publicity a charity needs.
As for the risk of PA acknowledging the CB, I think it’s a touch overwrought. After all, they acknowledge you onstage at every PAX and on the CPC website.
I’m going to leave this with Mike for now, but I still get questions about this. If they continue to ask I will probably include it in the December or January FAQs, as well as approach Robert for more of the contractual/legal wrangling.