You're probably thinking of heat-applied vinyl. That could get damaged if the dryer is too hot, although I've put numerous shirts through mine and not had a problem. Printed vinyl does tend to be more fragile than the solid color stuff, though, and I can definitely see it being damaged in a washer/dryer.
Screen and digital printing, though, are dried using several hundred degree heat, though, so those shouldn't be a problem. They aren't as conducive to single-run printing, though, especially screening, so there's a good chance Cafepress uses significant amounts of printed vinyl.
(P.S.) I print t-shirts. Yes, I've poked the devs about it.

Oddly, considering how much the playerbase uses the ads for communication, this would be a meh idea; 3 of the 4 ads that are up right now for me on the game page are related to game play - and most of the ads that run that aren't play related are run by players who want to share their other hobbies with skyrates.

the ads have become an odd little organic extension of the community that many people who would pay hand over fist won't want to see disappear.

Thes.

I'd suggest looking at Kingdom of Loathing as a good example of 'gentle' income generation. They don't have a pay-tp-pay "wall" around any part of their game, or run ads, but they sell merchandise and in-game special items. Basically they created items purely for people to buy, with a new item every month, with old items no longer available, so there's a coolness factor in having the special item from three years ago. The items are of some in-game value, but not destabilizingly so - mainly they are fun, odd things. But they don't let you simply "buy better stuff" than what you can otherwise acquire in the game by playing diligently.

If skyrates' terms (which are far less silly than KOL) I could imagine offering special models of airplanes or weapons or weapon modes for sale. For example, you could offer a unique plan for sale for one month, or sell a unique airplane by auction, etc. So yes, to a degree, it's "unfair", but as long as the value of the unique things is more in their uniqueness than in their stats, and if the unique things are only available in limited quantities, I think it's fine - one player with a "Bolo" can't destabilize the game. You could also give an 'award' to people who donate, and have that award displayed on their character stats (skills) page, list donators on a web page, etc.

Taking it a step further, allow people to collect things, and display their collections in their home island. Or on their airplane, if people could see each other's airplanes.

And then we can have a plane hanger to store these unique planes that one gets the chance to buy it. Wouldn't want to be stuck in a goldfish for the rest of the game

-Evelene

NO! I like my games free! Of course I understand you do need to make some money in order to maintain the game. I like the micro payments option best, as long as it doesn't pull stuff like some games where you can buy yourself to the highest level. The velvet rope ideas are good too. As long as they don't create huge gaps between non paying and paying players

Definitely this. I think that small in-game items, like painting your plane, or buying different characters, or even buying extra gun-mods would really be popular. Also, I love the auctioning planes idea. After-all, 10 people with extra-pimped plane really wouldn't make much of a difference

I think in game, and outside game merchandise would be fine (as long as it did not significantly affect stuff), and I would probably buy it, but if i had to pay for the game, I would quit.

The problem with a KoL-style system for Skyrates is that Skyrates is not stable the way KoL is. People who buy items in KoL can think of them as an 'investment' - and yes, I realize this is pretty ridiculous - because those items are essentially permanent.

And it's hard to commit to something like that in SR, when most of the systems are in a weird kind of non-finalized limbo. You could say that this is a reason that the SR team should really commit to and finalize systems, rather than scrapping them and redoing them over and over again. But I'm sure we can all think of a few reasons that might not be a valid basis for criticism.

I like the donation buttons. I think putting responsibility on the community to pay for the server can be effective. Of course, we have to wait for a while to see how that ends up in the long run. Hopefully we don't dry up after a few months.

Anyways, what I'm getting at is that merchandise should make lots of people happy. Devs get some cash. Players get some cool swag. Win-win. It's important though, to offer more than just two halfassed t-shirts and the mug/mousepad/sticker logo combo that everyone else does.

Some interesting food for thought here: What Gamers Think About Microtransactions (Gamasutra)

The instability of SR would be a problem, but it isn't too hard to fix. Let's say you get a special plane by buying it, like a golden zeppelin or something. After the reset, you would no longer have it, but you might be able to buy it back for a reasonable amount of G-squigs. Or you could pay to make a plane permanent (though this could be unbalance, by letting someone start with a Leviathan or something high-tier).

The only way you could have planes that you keep after a reset would be to have both hangers and a minimum flight time in order to be able fly it.

...Or if they were crappy. You could potentially have permanent Balloons.

Yeah, but what if you buy a gun mod, and then they completely scrap the gun mod system? Or the mod system? Or whatever?
I'm not saying you can't find a solution - probably just have a selection of things available, and if one gets removed, allow a choice of replacement. But it's certainly a complication.

There's also the matter of KoL's in-game economy, as compared to SR where no item trading is possible. But I'm not sure that it would make such a big difference.

I haven't read this whole thread, but my thoughts are that adds are good, custom avatars & planes are good. The problem is that you would loose a custom plane after a reset. I liked the ransom idea someone talked about, and the idea of getting things if you donate X amount. Transferring real money to skyrate money isn't good. I think it takes fun out of the game for everyone. A lot of people seem to like the idea of skyrate T-shirts and such. I like the Idea of full time staff working on the game.

I'd just like to mention that Zazzle is having a St. Patrick's Day sale that ends tomorrow. If you'd like a shirt, now's the time!

I'm eying the Inverse S1 Dev Team Shirt in a green babydoll. The blue is prettier, but the green is green...

P.S. Devs, it might be nice if the t-shirt link were a bit more prominent on the Store page. Right now, it looks like either a header or an alternate way to buy forum titles.