How it all started
A long time ago in a land far away, Jahlon was just minding his own business playing Archeage during Alpha and he was linked up with three different small groups that merged into one guild on the East of the test server. None of the leadership from any of the small groups wanted to step up and lead the guild, and so Jahlon was just sort of nominated to do all the leadership things for the guild. During all the deliberations of what to call the new guild a lot of various names were throw out, but since the majority of the players who had linked up together were care bears, and there is nothing wrong with carebears for the record, people said it was a Paradox that these people could function together. Thus, the name Paradox, or more specifically Paradox Gaming, was born.
This worked well in Alpha and then the early launch of Archeage NA, but sadly it is very difficult to take a group of carebears and merge them into PVP players, and sadly that is what Archeage is at its heart, a PVP game. Paradox the guild sort of lingered around for a while, until it was turned into a new player guild. Borrowing from the idea of Eve Academy, Jahlon and a handful of other players turned Paradox into the newbie guild on the East for Salphira, helping people along with their quests, Halsa Weapons, Obsidian Gear Farming and so on. This worked fairly well until a junction in Jahlon’s life where he found himself retired at 37 years old, which is just a little young to have nothing to focus on in life. Building off the idea of an educational series of content, and the idea of a school or academy, eventually Jahlon and company figured Network would be a great way to flush out the product and the Paradox Gaming Network was born.
Initially, several other content creators, or more specifically several other people who said they wanted to make content, said they would make content, but they never took the plunge. It was about this point when Jahlon started making absolutely terrible Archeage 101 videos; however, instead of quitting, Jahlon stuck with it and gradually the videos started to get better. Over time, Jahlon kept making videos, mostly Archeage 101 content, but occasionally venturing out into other games, and then eventually settling in as an Ashes of Creation content creator. Between making videos between those two games, community members thought Jahlon should try streaming, so in the fall of 2017 Jahlon moved into Streaming.
Like all people who try to make content, the growth was slow, but the progress was steady and two years flew by in the blink of an eye bringing us to the fall of 2019. What should not have been a problem, was a problem because by some miracle both the YouTube and the Twitch channels became profitable. Due to complicated tax issues, Jahlon had to stop making content for a period of time while he figured out all the tax repercussions and how to properly set up a business around the content creation, and if it was even worth setting up a business around the content creation. Between the fall of 2019 and the Covid-19 pandemic, Jahlon figured out how to do things properly, bringing his channels under the umbrella of Paradox Gaming Network, Incorporated.
Now, this is an important moment to mention that the name of your business and brand is so very important in content creation, and if you ask him, Jahlon will tell you that his choice in names was terrible. If you want more of that story check out the content creation page on the importance of your name.
After coming back to content creation with all the legal pegs and pieces in place, Jahlon did a rebranding from his original stuff to a more Steampunk flavored brand. Now that the company was up and running, and generating income, a lot of different things started to happen, the most notable being the birth of PGN Music.
PGN Music
Several times while making content, Jahlon would find DMCA Free or Copyright Free Music and then use it, and then within days, weeks, months or sometimes just hours, the content would get copyright struck. Now, if you’ve never made a YouTube video, when a piece of content gets hit with a copyright infringement, it's not a small deal. For people who are trying to make a living, or supplement a living, with their content creation, copyright claims divert all the ad revenue to the person claiming the content. Taking a large portion of the company's holdings, Jahlon commissioned three music albums, a pair of Jazz albums and Steampunk Dreams. From there, PGN music has been off to the races, and since 27 July 2021 has released 40 albums and a number of singles bringing the total number of copyright free, DMCA Free, royalty free tracks on the label up to 484 with more to come in 2024.
Extra Life - Out Best Achievement
No discussion of the Paradox Gaming Network would be complete without discussing Extra Life. Over the past five years, this very small and highly dedicated group has raised $13,801.02 with 244 donations received and a 2024 goal of $2,000. Whether you can donate directly or all you can do is support by watching, sharing, liking and hanging out with the streamers who are supporting Extra Life, you are making a difference. The wonderful people at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, the group Paradox Gaming Network raises money for, have stopped in often to remind people how powerful even a $1 donation is. To the right you will see a message from Rady Children’s and how far they can stretch even the smallest donations. That is why we continue to support Extra Life and the Children’s Miracle Network as a community, because they are a charity organization that ensures 100% of the money actually gets to the children.
If you would like to make an Extra Life donation through the Paradox Gaming Network Extra Life page, please visit here
Paradox Gaming Network Funding
Speaking of money, a question that comes up often is: Where does all the money raised by the various Paradox Gaming Network income streams (Twitch subs and bits, YouTube ad revenue, Donations and Spotify plays) get applied?
As a C-Corporation Paradox Gaming Network, Incorporated pays 21% Federal and 9.5% State Income tax on everything earned and as PGN, INC is operated as a cash-basis business those taxes have to be paid quarterly as the income is earned. After that, there are a few small expenses the company has for third party services like the yearly charge for Distrokid, the monthly charge for the email address, and then the domain fees for the various domain names the company owns and the web hosting. Once all the mandatory bills are paid, the remainder of the money goes to Fiverr artists to produce music for the PGN Music label. Occasionally PGN will give a small gift card to a community member who does a lot of work for the community, specifically artists who have made emotes or images for the company, or people who have completely and totally restructured the webpages. Finally, PGN makes a small donation to Extra Life each year, generally in the form of donation matching, matching dollar for dollar donations that come in during a specific time frame on game day. How much does Jahlon get compensated? Exactly zero dollars, and this means no round about ways that people have said he compensates himself. Everything Jahlon uses from his gaming PC, to his monitors, headphones, mic, camera, games, and even the top hat and costumes are all paid for by him.
It should be noted that PGN, INC does not bring in a lot of money. There are some streamers who make more in one day than the company makes in an entire year, and that is ok. We have enough funding to keep the things going that need to be kept going.