I'm a bit late to the party, but I just saw Kombat's excellent response to Dave Snider's tweet requesting ideas for a premium Whiskey Media. I have a number of ideas I presented the last time this came up, but I would like to reiterate those as I would love to pay money for them. 
 
This is a particularly timely question for me as I just paid another of my favorite web communities, reddit.com. I now have reddit gold membership which includes a "trophy" on my user page in addition to a few features and the promise of more features down the line. The gold membership is really little more than a donation drive right now. I paid $30 for a year, and I really don't care if I get anything else for it. In fact, I didn't pay to get the things they gave me in the first place. For me, it was a simple decision. Here's a site I love that is struggling. If I can pay the $30, and all I get is that the site survives, that is worth $30 per year to me. Maybe Whiskey Media needs to do something as simple as a donation drive like this even if only to get the ball rolling. Start out at a low price for charter members, give us some idea of what features you want to implement in the future, and hit "go." 
 
As far as the specific features I would enjoy, I definitely agree that existing features need to stay free. I believe the staff itself has stated none of the existing features will be taken away from users. The features I would most love are related to blogging. The Whiskey Media blogging platform is excellent and robust but needs a few more features to be complete. It would be really nice to be able to save drafts. There are many times I would like to start on a post and finish it later. Taxonomy features would also be helpful like tagging and categories. Here's a list of some other ideas for premium features not related to blogging: 

• user video hosting
• a VIP forum (This wouldn't eliminate all trolls, but, in general, people willing to pay are less likely to be trolls.)
• user blacklisting (with which I could never see content from my blacklisted users again)
• priority access to beta codes and giveaways

Paying for any website is dumb. Sites can make plenty of money off of advertising. This is a video game site, not bangbros.

" Paying for any website is dumb. Sites can make plenty of money off of advertising. This is a video game site, not bangbros. "

Merchandise. Boom.

So, why would the staff be interested in doing this if they were already making enough money by advertising and selling merchandise (both of which they already do)? It seems you guys have a really low opinion of Whiskey Media to suggest they are already doing two things which would make them enough money to sustain the site and now are just suggesting this additional revenue stream as some sort of money grab. The reason we are seeing this idea being put out there is because the advertising and merchandise are not making enough money... not so Dave Snider can buy a Ferrari.

" So, why would the staff be interested in doing this if they were already making enough money by advertising and selling merchandise (both of which they already do)? It seems you guys have a really low opinion of Whiskey Media to suggest they are already doing two things which would make them enough money to sustain the site and now are just suggesting this additional revenue stream as some sort of money grab. The reason we are seeing this idea being put out there is because the advertising and merchandise are not making enough money... not so Dave Snider can buy a Ferrari. "

" @RecSpec: Exactly. I never understood why they made their t-shirts so hard to get.  Plus most of the content on this site is user created, makes no sense to pay for something that we contribute to. Also they have some of the worst video game coverage around, you usually have to wait ages to get a review, and they post news stories late. They are funny, and their quick looks are cool, but its not enough to justify a subscription.  "

" Paying for any website is dumb. Sites can make plenty of money off of advertising. This is a video game site, not bangbros. "

" Merchandise. Boom. "

I don't understand why everyone is freaking out about this. I paid for GameSpot. I'll pay for this. At GameSpot, the community was never "segregated" or anything like that. Whatever they do, I'll no problem supporting the site.

I still think there would be a way to make money off merchandise.
 If your goal is to make money off it, that is.
 
The other stuff wasn't really a "Let's monetize this" thing as you said, but a service to the community.
As long as it is part of the overall equation, and not the whole thing, it could work.
 
But yeah, there is no simple solution to this. Just a ton of ideas.
Subscribing to THIS site wouldn't make any sense. 
I really don't see what they could offer that would be worth money.

only site i've paid for is Something Awful and that was a one off payment as 10 dollars.  
 
I won't be paying for anything though. I can't wait for the forum to turn to shit when people turn into elitist douche bags,

Remember that post where I said that a subscription shouldn't deprive users of content? This is exactly what I was talking about. It's a plan that's not screwing you over for not paying.

Anything to do with the forums is a bad idea when it comes to a premium account, people will think because they've paid some money it gives them permission to spam and act like asses. When they get banned, well, there will be problems won't there? Or at least Giantbomb will get a pretty bad reputation. 
 
I mean charging for non-forum content is fine, as long as banned forum users can still access their paid content on the main site.

 

• user video hosting
• a VIP forum (This wouldn't eliminate all trolls, but, in general, people willing to pay are less likely to be trolls.)
• user blacklisting (with which I could never see content from my blacklisted users again)
• priority access to beta codes and giveaways

" Merchandise. Boom. "

They don't make money from merchandise. The shirts and hoodies are things they've thrown together for fun and to serve their community. Their profit -- when there is any -- is extremely minimal. More often than not, however, they actually lose money on their branded merchandise. "

" @Kombat said:

" Merchandise. Boom. "

They don't make money from merchandise. The shirts and hoodies are things they've thrown together for fun and to serve their community. Their profit -- when there is any -- is extremely minimal. More often than not, however, they actually lose money on their branded merchandise. "

They could make money from merchandise though. Easily. "

" @Kombat said:

" Merchandise. Boom. "

They don't make money from merchandise. The shirts and hoodies are things they've thrown together for fun and to serve their community. Their profit -- when there is any -- is extremely minimal. More often than not, however, they actually lose money on their branded merchandise. "

They could make money from merchandise though. Easily. "

How about if I give Whiskey Media twenty-five bucks a year, they have a dedicated team to fix all of the big bugs that have been left untouched for the past six months or so. I'd happily pay for that, 'cause that shit just ain't happenin' now.

" @davidwitten22 said:

" @Kombat said:

" Merchandise. Boom. "

They don't make money from merchandise. The shirts and hoodies are things they've thrown together for fun and to serve their community. Their profit -- when there is any -- is extremely minimal. More often than not, however, they actually lose money on their branded merchandise. "

They could make money from merchandise though. Easily. "

QFT. They could easily make money doing merch if they switched to a better merch company. I have a ton of experience with selling merch and its easy to do if you have the market for it and it seems pretty obvious that they do. All they have to do is send designs to a screen printer like mammothprintshop.com, then have them send the shirts to a merch fulfillment company like merchline. Mammoth handles all the printing, Merchline handles all the shipping and the storefront, and Whiskey sits back and earns money. An intern could have a Whiskey branded e-store up in a few days at the most. "

If only the US government knew about the infinite earning potential of merchandising! Instead of all this taxation mess, they could just have some shirts and coffee mugs printed up saying "U.S. Government" and watch the money to roll in!
 
Just because merchandise may bring in enough to keep your lemonade stand afloat doesn't mean it's a one-size-fits-all solution to all the world's money problems. Serving up video (among other things) to tens or hundreds of thousands of users is an expensive proposition not to mention paying the salaries and benefits for the people who are creating this content.

" not so Dave Snider can buy a Ferrari. "

" @raddevon said:

" not so Dave Snider can buy a Ferrari. "

He actually wants a Delorean.  "