Donation Store Acquisition

Hey, everyone - today is a quite exciting day for us! We've made our very first software acquisition: DonationStore.

What's a DonationStore?

DonationStore is a Minecraft-focused webstore, platform - very similar to things like BuyCraft, CraftingStore, and MinecraftMarket if you remember that from back in the day. However, unlike virtually all of these platforms, it has one huge perk: the ability to self-host.

Most Minecraft webstores are SaaS solutions - you're reliant on other services to host your store. And while this can have some perks, it also means that if that platform ever goes away abruptly - much like MinecraftMarket did a number of years back - you're screwed. With DonationStore, however, this is not the case - since you can run it yourself, you'll be able to keep running it for as long as you like, even if the developers behind it decide they're done working on it. Speaking of which...

How did this acquisition take place?

DonationStore's creator and lead developer until now, Mark Barrett, reached a point where he simply wasn't interested in continuing the project himself anymore. It's not that he didn't have any love for the project - but he just didn't have much time personally to work on it any longer. As such, he announced to the DonationStore Discord server that he was open to offers for a sale. A couple months later, he ended up shutting down all of DonationStore's cloud-hosted stores and formally wound everything down, with only the primary DonationStore website remaining. A little bit later is where we came in.

Myself and @Rikez went back and forth a few times and eventually decided that we would reach out to him and see where things could go. Now, several months later, we've at long last closed the deal - and we will now be carrying the torch forward.

What are your plans for DonationStore?

Initially, our focus will be on just becoming accustomed to the codebase, figuring out how it's all put together - in order to effectively continue providing updates down the line. We'll also be exploring options for reintroducing the DonationStore Cloud offering, though this will be happening a bit more down the line.

However, it's not just us by ourselves doing this - as some of you may know, we don't exactly have a large team of developers. On top of that, I don't exactly know much Python - the language which DonationStore is written in. As such, Michael (Rikez) will be leveraging his own company, Errite Softworks, to lead the charge when it comes to the nitty-gritty development work. I'll be doing more frontend work and focusing more on the user experience. For those of you familiar with some of Errite's current work and are concerned with the news that Errite is taking on a new project, fear not - their current project, DeviantCord v4, will be completed and released well in advance of any active DonationStore development.

What does this mean for Blamite?

Not much, currently. In terms of the amount of time I have to work on the project, the introduction of DonationStore into the Elaztek family won't really change much - as again, I won't be doing much of the deep backend development for the platform. As such, most of my efforts will remain on Blamite and on Chaotic United - just as it always has.

In the long term, however, if DonationStore performs exceedingly well, who knows - maybe it could someday lead to being able to start hiring some part-time folks to work with us? We're quite a ways off from that being the case, and it may indeed never be the case - but regardless, the worst case scenario is that Blamite continues as it always has.

Where can I learn more about DonationStore?

The two best places to learn about DonationStore is on the DonationStore website, and on their Discord server as well - both linked down below. For the most part, most announcements and communications will continue happening on those channels, rather than over here (save for any particularly significant announcements).

For now, though, that's all we've got. If you've got any questions, feel free to ask in the comments below, the forums, or Discord!
 

DonationStore Discord: https://discord.gg/yJAT93zZCy

DonationStore Website: https://donationstore.net/