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Hello everyone, The 2024 Budget and Expenses reviews our costs from the past year. The 2025 Feature Roadmap showcases our plans for user contributions, organized into milestones called “tiers.” We’re excited to show you what we’ve been working on and where we’re headed next! Recent Security Breach We want to take a moment to address the recent security breach that affected Art Fight. For more information, we encourage you to revisit our recent Security Announcement. We want to take accountability for some missteps in how we handled this incident, particularly for how we announced it in our Discord. We recognize that our use of vague language in the announcement message, and simply linking it with no summary of its contents, could cause panic. While we hoped this would help avoid the spread of misinformation by encouraging users to read the newspost in its entirety, we recognize that this was an anxiety-inducing choice in the face of an already frustrating and frightening situation. Following this, we updated the #announcements channel with an FAQ to better explain the situation. But by that point, we understood that the damage had already been done. Going forward, we will be more thoughtful with our announcements—internally, we are developing clearer standards for how newspost announcements are made to ensure information is accessible to everyone, such as providing quick summaries for important newsposts such as this one. What Happened? A thorough explanation of the breach, and the steps we took to rectify it, can be found in our recent Security Announcement. The security breach stemmed from a vulnerability in our BBCode system which allowed a malicious party to attempt to gain user credentials. This exploit potentially affected users who viewed the recent Terms of Service Update Newspost from approximately May 24th, 2025 ~3:00 AM MST / 9:00 AM GMT to May 24th, 2025 10 AM MST / 4:00pm GMT AND had their browser login autofill enabled on artfight.net. This vulnerability has been fully patched, and the affected newspost is safe to view. Our dev team has since taken steps to create additional security frameworks to catch and prevent malicious scripts before they affect the userbase. We want to emphasize that we did not know about this vulnerability, and if we had, it would have been addressed immediately. Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) We hear your frustration with the delays in releasing necessary security features, particularly since Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) was promised in Tier 1 of our 2024 Contribution goals. We apologize for our lack of transparency. Art Fight was unable to hire a developer until recently because of the ongoing leadership transition and unexpectedly high AWS bills in 2024. Maintenance and improvements to the website, including all developmental work that has been completed up to this point far, has been carried out by a small team of volunteer developers who support this community in their free time. When we first looked into 2FA last year, it was determined that several upgrades to our infrastructure were needed, which also contributed to the delay. This year, we found a means to implement the feature, and planned to release it before Art Fight 2025. Earlier this month, we were notified of an attempt to harvest login credentials from certain staff members. In patching this, we accelerated work on 2FA to more immediately protect both our staff and our community. Unfortunately, we were unable to complete development before the exploit on May 24th. Following the breach, our developers worked tirelessly to roll out the feature ahead of schedule. This incident highlighted an urgent need to prioritize user security and proactively implement preventative security measures. We are actively exploring options to better support site infrastructure and development efforts going forward, which will be detailed below. What’s Next? As we prepare for the upcoming fight, our developers will continue to focus on identifying and implementing numerous security fixes site-wide. Following the breach, our team has committed to prioritizing additional user security measures, including login notifications via email and additional backend improvements. These features are the highest priority, and we hope to have them out as soon as possible. We are formalizing a cyber response plan in the event of any additional attacks. Before the beginning of this year’s Art Fight, we are hoping to contract a cybersecurity specialist to help us further identify potential security issues by simulating attacks to assess and help resolve security vulnerabilities. 2024 Budget In 2024, Art Fight received approximately $142,000 in contributions and about $68,000 from merchandise sales. For the 2024 fiscal year (FY), our expenses totaled approximately $121,000. On behalf of the entire staff team, we want to extend a huge and heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who supported us through 2024 and into 2025! We're genuinely blown away by the outpouring of support we’ve received. Our users keep Art Fight alive—we could not run this event without you. We are eternally grateful for everyone who chooses to participate in our yearly event and as active members of our community. All of us on the staff team have the immense pleasure of being reminded every day just how strong and dedicated the community we have built together is. Thank you for your continued commitment to Art Fight; we cannot wait to show you what we have planned next! 2024 Expenses
The majority of our expenses (75.4%) went towards our image hosting platform and servers on Amazon Web Services (AWS). This was by far our largest cost. While higher server costs are expected for a website like Art Fight, 2024 was our first full year operating on AWS. Having moved from our past server provider (Linode) in late 2023, migrating our servers to AWS meant that we would have a significant amount of tools to help combat site slowness and downtime. While we did notice some significant improvements with site stability, the first day of the event experienced some downtime. This downtime was unrelated to traffic, and was rather due to some additional server monitoring tools that we had added. Once resolved, the site was generally stable throughout the fight! Additional minor downtime was due to necessary maintenance periods initiated by us, resulting in an extension to the event for the inconvenience. Although the site’s stability improved, our spending heavily spiked. Migrating to AWS was a big change, which meant that some optimizations were not yet made and this caused our bill to rise. Following the fight, several improvements were made to our environment, and we’re actively working to further mitigate cost while trying to ensure that the site stays up and fast. We have already begun making additional improvements by bringing in experts to review our server architecture and guide us in reducing costs. Scaling our infrastructure to match the explosive growth of Art Fight every year is a known challenge, and we’re committed to making meaningful improvements ahead of this year's (and future) events. Here is a simple breakdown of the categories shown on the pie chart: Servers – $91,300 (75.4%): Costs for Amazon Web Services, which hosts our servers and images. Taxes – $16,000 (13%): Payments made for government tax obligations. Advisory Services and Contractors – $8,600 (7.1%): Payments for contracted work, including our art assets, artists, and server optimization support. Cost of Goods Sold – $3,200 (2.6%): Expenses tied to merchandise sales, including inventory, shipping, and packaging. Recurring Software and SaaS – $1,900 (1.6%): Software subscriptions Art Fight needs, such as Zendesk, Mailgun, etc. Business Expenses – $100 (0.1%): Miscellaneous expenses such as licenses and Discord Bot services. Contribution Bar Contribution Tiers are designed to outline a single year's development cycle and help track the milestones needed for such work. As we prepare for 2025's event, we’ve taken the time to reassess the current tiers based on our current development plans and the goals set for 2024. We also wanted to mention that going forward, merchandise sales will not directly impact the contribution bar, due to our shop being off-site. The contribution bar will only show contributions made directly through the site. We’ll make sure to provide updates whenever a merch campaign has finished, and also include a breakdown of merchandise sales and where they are going in the next budget post. Additionally, we wanted to disclose that there has been a mistake on our part with the contribution progress bar. It was still displaying combined totals from both 2024 and 2025. This was unintentional—the bar is meant to reflect progress toward only the current year’s goals. We’ve corrected this, and the bar now shows contributions made from January 1st, 2025 onward. To avoid any future confusion, the progress bar will now reset each year on January 1st. 2024 Contribution Tiers During 2024, we reached Tier 3 of our Contribution Tier goals. Thank you so much for the support! Our developers have been able to complete the following: Ability to resize icons and thumbnails: You can now crop images on-site in places where images were previously limited to certain dimensions. This includes profile avatars and thumbnails for both attacks and characters. You can also now add borders to attacks on-site! Blocking Improvements: A number of fixes regarding the blocking system have been made. If you block someone, they shouldn't be able to see you anywhere on the site (search, featured users, random, etc.), and vice versa (if someone blocks you). Additionally, if you have someone blocked and go to their profile, it will now be hidden by default. You can unhide it by clicking a button that will temporarily allow you to view their profile. Bookmark improvements: folders, mass delete, and bookmark icon in searches Bookmark Folders: Bookmarks can now be grouped into folders, with customizable names, descriptions, colors, and icons. You can have a maximum of 7 folders, not including the 'Unorganized' folder, which is where your unsorted bookmarks will be by default. Bookmarks can be moved between folders by editing the bookmark directly or selecting multiple bookmarks while inside a folder. We also have changed the layout while viewing bookmarks, but you can switch between the new version and the old layout by interacting with the view switcher. Reply button: Allows you to directly reply to another user’s comment. DOB Change: Allow users to change their birthday once per account, in case of error Global CSS Toggle: Gives users the option to globally turn off CSS via user settings. Multiple improvements to moderation tools. Multiple bug fixes, including hotfixes to the above features. The following features were not finished in time, but we cover the plan for these features in the “2025 Roadmap” section below. Tier 2 New Feature: Discovery Page A new page on the site that allows for different search options, replacing the old search feature A place to showcase different types of users (e.g new to the site, low defenses) Contributors relevant to each respective search will be marked with a special decoration to indicate what type of contributor they are (Supporter, Supporter+, Premium, VIP, VIP+, Sponsor) Implement a modmail system to allow moderators to message users without using their personal account. Includes templates/canned replies. Ability to perform moderation changes on multiple attacks, characters, etc. Extra character images for Supporter+ users Character CSS for Premium Members Tier 3 Overhaul the filtering system to allow users to more effectively filter their characters and attacks, with an emphasis on reworking how our Sensitive Content filter works. Character pinging (instead of a link, it shows the character's name) Allow users to input an Art Fight user in the credit section, instead of just a link Various email notifications (when you get attacked, when you get messaged, etc.) We would also like to address the aforementioned owner compensation included in Tier 3. We previously stated this number to be $22,000, but with the 2 previous co-owners stepping down, the sole owner’s responsibilities have increased. With that in mind, we are opting to reassess the amount in the future. At this point in time, the owner has not taken any compensation, and will not do so until explicitly stated. 2025 Roadmap & Contribution Tiers Paid Developers Due to our unexpectedly high AWS bill, we re-budgeted to ensure we had enough funds to both hire the right person, and had more than enough to keep the site healthy. However, now that we have stabilized our budget and are confident with the outlook, we are excited to share that we have hired a paid developer! Their priority for the coming months will be to finish up the remaining 2024 tier items, and then focus on 2025’s tier items. In addition to this new developer, we are also opting to compensate our current dev fuzzyfuture for his time spent on implementing emergency features, including the additional security features listed in our 2025 tiers. fuzzyfuture has been a part of the Art Fight team since 2024, and has spent countless hours implementing tier items that were supposed to be paid for. He will continue to assist with developing core features to Art Fight for the foreseeable future! We’ll continue to publish the breakdown of compensation in next year’s budget post. The new developer will be responsible for finishing any outstanding 2024 tier items, listed below in order of priority: New Feature: Discovery Page A new page on the site that allows for different search options, replacing the old search feature A place to showcase different types of users (e.g. new to the site, high battle ratio) Contributors relevant to each respective search will be marked with a special decoration to indicate what type of contributor they are (Supporter, Supporter+, Premium, VIP, VIP+, Sponsor) Ability to perform moderation changes on multiple attacks, characters, etc. Implement a modmail system Attack button directly on character, autofills character information Extra character images for Supporter+ Character CSS for Premium members Overhaul the filtering system to allows users to more effectively filter their characters and attacks, with an emphasis on reworking how our Sensitive Content filter works Character pinging (instead of a link, it shows the character's name) Allow users to input an Art Fight user in the credit section, instead of just a link Various email notifications (when you get attacked, when you get messaged, etc.) We're working on finding the best way to easily communicate when work on each feature begins and when we foresee their potential completion. Once we’ve completed all outstanding tier items, our developer will focus on implementing the 2025 tiers as they are reached. We are also hoping to implement a better way for users to be updated whenever a tier item is completed, so keep an eye out for that! 2025 Roadmap These are our projected tiers for 2025. These tiers are not meant to be set in stone, but rather a rough estimate that can better communicate our future goals for the site. The tiers are representative of funded work; we still have guest developers who are free to work on features they'd like to implement, and our team has additional planned features to improve the site and business, so you may see some new features added in addition to our tiers! We have 3 goals for 2025, plus an additional stretch tier. If a tier is reached, certain features and goals can be achieved, which will be outlined below. We will be sure to keep you updated as we hit tiers and communicate when a tier item has been completed!
Tier 1: $120,000 Moderation Tools / Report System Allow users to edit and close pre-existing reports New Features Allow users to group their characters into folders Only visible when you click "all characters" on a user's profile Contributor Features Review and whitelist more CSS properties Premade CSS themes for Premium users to choose from Section for official themes Section for user-submitted themes, with proper moderation tools User QoL Updates Permission Improvements Allow users to select which filters they do not wish to be attacked with Allow users to rearrange character image order Allow tagging an Art Fight account when inputting credits "This character has been updated recently" notification
Tier 2: $160,000 Moderation Tools / Report System Introduce a report priority system New Features Search a specific user's characters and filter them by tag Official way to display 'related characters' within a character's profile If a character is owned by a different user, that user is required to accept or decline a related character request. User QoL Updates Automatically save drafts of attack/character submissions Organize achievements by year Notifications tab in settings that lets you filter what notifications types you prefer
Tier 3: $200,000 New Features Ability for admins to publish "Seasonal Prompts", which will work similarly to the Art Fight event in July: New page to view prompts for the event Once a prompt is active, users can upload artwork based on the event's prompts Special spot on their page for submitted prompts Automatically receive badges for participating once the event is complete Contributor Features A Discord bot to link to an Art Fight account Track and maintain contribution roles Notify users of attacks, messages, etc. Allow for more payment methods to be used for contributing User QoL Updates Indicate whether or not you are mutually following a user Rate attack history Way of detailing a user's previous teams within the statistics tab General improvements to stats Having stats visible for both teams when you switch teams
Stretch Tier 1: $350,000 Add specific color schemes (instead of just light mode vs dark mode) Develop forums on Art Fight Complete site redesign! Accountant and Business Advisor Additionally, we are excited to announce that we’ve onboarded a business advisor! They have been assisting us with behind-the-scenes work, such as prioritizing, managing, and maintaining accountability for the huge number of moving pieces across the business, including organizing development plans, merch sales, and finances. We have also hired an accountant and purchased accounting software, allowing us to more effectively manage our finances and taxes, putting money where Art Fight needs it most and helping us effectively budget for the future! Thank you for reading our 2024 Budget & 2025 Roadmap newspost. We are extremely excited for AF2025, and you should expect to hear some news about the Theme Reveal date in early June! Which theme do you hope to have this year/which is your favorite? Edit (05/31/2025): Due to user feedback, we have chosen to remove "Add a notification for bookmarked characters" from the roadmap. The reason we initially chose to include this feature is due a common problem where a character will be hidden before a user gets a chance to attack. However, we realize that this might cause some to be uncomfortable and are removing it. Edit (06/01/2025): Clarification regarding HTML editor: We originally chose to put our migration to an HTML editor into Tier 1 to indicate that it was our next priority. However, this has brought up some questions. To clarify, the move to an HTML is one of our next priorities after the implementation of our aforementioned security tools are finished. Clarification regarding alt text: We understand the concerns regarding alt text, an accessibility feature, being in Tier 2. Following these concerns, we have made the decision to remove it from the Tiers entirely, and internally prioritize it as well. (责任编辑：) |
