First off, I need to mention that Night Owls has just begun a new story-arc featuring a familiar face (or lack thereof). Be sure to check it out.

Second, River City Mechanical is finally up!

Next, there’s been a discussion on the Webcomic Success Equation I started tinkering with. Anyway, the community over at The Wotch found it and started to discuss it.

Overall, it’s a mixed bag, the initial post was saying that the formula seemed pretty accurate, but dissenting opinions seemed to appear rather quickly soon after. I’ll go ahead and post some of the choice arguments here.

Carson Rodman said: Heh… these things are hard to quantify. I’d replace “niche value” with “demand”. If you haven’t taken Econ, look it up.

I don’t think you can lump together “regular updates” with “large archive” for quantity. A large archive only matters when you first read an interesting comic and do an archive binge. After that, it’s regular updates that keep you coming back.

One thing that’s stood out to me is that once the art is above a certain minimum level, the writing is what carries the story. I don’t read Exploitation Now despite great art because the writing doesn’t grip me. Even with the horrendous early art, I still enjoyed Questionable Content. Anyone else notice this?

In response to this, and pretty much any of the criticisms I have and will likely receive, the formula was rough and somewhat tongue in cheek. That being said here are some others.

Teslsebar said: Well, there’s no single equation that will work for all people… I think the article’s attempt here was to find a generally applicable rule rather than one that works for any individual person.

For example, some people place more value on art than writing, and others on writing over art. However, it averages out so that the two could possibly be considered part of the same equation. I, for one, read several comics whose stories I don’t care for at all, but I keep checking them simply to see the artwork. Other comics have horrible artwork, but I come back for the witty writing. And there are a rare few gems that have both, and I really like those gems…

For quantity it’s similar… a large archive may be enough to get people hooked even if the day-to-day updates aren’t very speedy, while a swift and predictable update schedule may keep people coming back even if there isn’t much story established yet.

All that said, the equation is overly simplistic… the “niche value” number is simply a post-calculation rationalization with no real meaning. After giving accurate scores for the first two, you’ll find high quality comics wallowing in obscurity while comparative garbage floating high on the seas of success, so you stick an arbitrary number to balance the results and call it a “niche value”… like Penny Arcade’s max score. Why is it a max score? Because it’s popular, not because “niche value” has any actual meaning.

No, the actual equation would be huge, complicated, and likely involve a decent understanding of chaos theory. Luck would definitely be a factor, as would be “who got there first” (ie: the real reason for Penny Arcade’s success), advertising and word-of-mouth, web notoriety (eg: the creation of netmemes). Also, the intra-bracket equation would be vastly different, with a lot more differential calculus thrown in for good measure.

But for me, comic popularity isn’t something that needs explaining. In a simplified, rational internet, such an equation could potentially point to ways that ones comic must improve to become more popular, but the internet is not simple, nor is it rational. In the end, it’s best to simply do your best and not pull out your hair about inferior comic X doing so much better than you.

The part I put in italics was most interesting. I’m not sure if the writer there understood that the point of the niche-value was to show that playing to certain fan-bases and the chances of them being highly active on the web trumps most everything else and has the most impact on a webcomic’s success (just look at Ctrl-Alt-Del). The whole point of that was rather snarky on my end frankly, considering I know a lot of quality creators who don’t get the attention they deserve due to a lack of niche-pandering. Maybe I should be more direct in my cynicism though.

Once again, Teslsebar said: Unless you change the math behind the equation, splitting out art quality and writing quality doesn’t actually change anything…. and neither do the quantity variables.

So:
A = art quality
W = writing quality
U = update frequency
R = archive size
(A + W) = “quality”
(U + R) = “quantity”

(A + W + U + R) = ((A + W) + (U + R))

Or if you’re concerned that (A + W)=1..5 and you’d rather see A=1..5 and W=1..5
(A + W)[1..5] = (A[1..5] + B[1..5])/2
(which means, while you get a bigger number, the ratios in the result would be the same)

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, combining the “quality” variables gives you a lot more flexibility in ranking a comic. For example, Order of the Stick. Let’s say you give the art a generous 2/5, but the writing a stunning 5/5. Having the two variables separate would give you 7/10 or 3.5/5. However, you could argue that the writing in Order of the Stick is so good, it actually overrides the fact the art is simplistic. In a single five-scale number, you could give it a 4 or 4.5/5, which you couldn’t do if you separated the art out of the equation. (as the art alone could not possibly rank higher than 2…)

I have the feeling Teslsebar really doesn’t like my silly little equation. It’d be great if they actually informed me rather than making me keep track based on my recent link-to’s in shortstat.

Carson Rodman returns: I get the feeling that somewhere, some psychologist or behavioral economist is laughing at us.

Best thing in the discussion thus far.

Dungeon Warden: There are two other important factors of success that applies to any successful venture: visibility and social marketing.

Visibility is how easy it is to find your webcomic. This includes advertising and page links. These will both raise your rankings in the search engines and make it easier for people to find your comic. No webcomic can become successful if no one knows it exists. As a comic becomes more popular, it gains social standing and grows faster. That’s why it can take a year for your webcomic to catch on but after that your popularity can grow very quickly.

Social marketing has to do with the author himself. This is a factor of how enjoyable his blogs are, how many conventions he goes to, if he’s on a podcast or has videos of his drawings. How friendly and reachable he is are also factors. If you get to know and like the person who creates the comic you’ll be more likely to read the comic. Even if you don’t like it at first, you’re more likely to give it a chance.

Hmm. A few points I can agree with, though I think visibility and social marketing still really doesn’t show the impact of niche-pandering, though it could be potentially jammed under social marketing I suppose.

Anyway, interesting batch of responses so far, it’s a shame they were tucked away in a place where I couldn’t actually see them right away (such as the comment-field). I’ll continue to keep an eye out and see what’s said.

On a final note, if you have any thoughts or disagreements, please, please, please let me know via comment on the corresponding post or e-mailing (hpkomic[@]gmail.com) me. No need to keep in hidden.

Tags: discussion, forum posts, heard on the internet, News, Night Owls, River City Mechanical, the wotch, webcomic success equation

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 am and is filed under Blog, Webcomic Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.