CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big Ten => Topic started by: OrangeAfroMan on April 22, 2019, 02:02:10 PM
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I honestly don't know the answer, and nothing on the Kickstarter FAQ helped.
I want to have all teams mapped out (all info researched and available to input) for my college football board game OR even a team set of every team provided (482 teams) printed out and ready to send out before I start officially selling the product. Basically, I'm wanting to have plenty of product on-hand, so when sales start happening, I can get it out quickly.
So someone buys the game and wants '72 USC, '79 Bama, etc, I can just have them on-hand and get it out.
The issue is that for me to get from here to there, it will just take lots of hours of work by me. Expanding the inventory from the top 3-4 teams per season to the top 10 is bold, but it's for the good of the product and the customer.
Paying myself for all those hours of work (previously unpaid - soooo many hours already) unethical in any way? It's using donated money to the project, it gets the project closer to market....is paying myself $15/hr okay?
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I think paying yourself if it does not "get to market" would be unethical, but not if it does.
I think a person (not you at all) who shams this to get a salary and really has no real intent of getting it finished is a crook.
A person who takes a piece but delivers is not. IMHO.
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Agreed. As long as paying yourself doesn't imperil the project getting to market as you've promised your backers, then it's not an ethical concern.
The key is whether you would risk non-delivery because you paid yourself. If there's no or minimal risk, I wouldn't say there's any ethical dilemma.
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I would guess if you pay yourself something, that incentive would help the product come to market quicker
I agree with Cincy and Bwarb
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I think paying yourself if it does not "get to market" would be unethical, but not if it does.
I think a person (not you at all) who shams this to get a salary and really has no real intent of getting it finished is a crook.
A person who takes a piece but delivers is not. IMHO.
i don't completely disagree, but i do think people, like oam, who are making an obviously honest effort at getting to market are fair to take a pay, even if it ultimately doesn't make it to market. if it's a business, then payroll for development is normal cost and nothing unethical about it. businesses try and fail all the time to make something to market, and payroll is part and parcel to their development, failing or not. if it's hobby funding, then that's more grey area. but, imo, oam's showed enough effort to suggested he's strongly trying to make it a marketable product, and i'd have little issues with him taking a % of any contribution i'd made as compensation for his time and effort.
also, from experience in dealing with startups a decent amount, if he's genuinely trying to make market, but fails, he'll most likely have eaten far more costs personally sunk into the business than anything he might have taken back out. if it fails, it'll likely be a net negative for him personally regardless if he takes a payroll cut or not.
ask drew about this site. it's marketable and he's trying his damnedest. i don't know for sure, but i doubt he's taken anything home from it. yet, anyway. but even if he'd done so at close to 100% (unfeasible), i'd be willing to wager he's sunk way more into it personally than he'd have gotten back out of it so far. that's also not taking into account his time and expertise in setting it up in the first place, which has tremendous value in itself. it's a hobby for him as well, but also a potentially lucrative business venture. i'm hoping he's taking some home soon. same with oam.
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Okay, that sounds good. I hadn't even thought about it getting to market or not and risk on their end because if it's all a big failure and never comes to fruition, I can still easily get them whatever team card sets they'd want.
The only iffy situation would be a huge order for one person, say, 30 team card sets, it would take some time, but I could do it.
I'd also use the money on materials and all that, but I wouldn't take that next big step of pricing thousands of game cards from China, etc, which is what gamemakers do, once there is obvious need for that kind of supply.
While the demand is relatively low/undetermined, I'd be making it all myself and I just think paying myself will be a great motivator in remaining productive.
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The key is whether you would risk non-delivery because you paid yourself. If there's no or minimal risk, I wouldn't say there's any ethical dilemma.
Yeah, there's no risk there.
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I've just been really inconsistent with it - going weeks without touching it to travelling to board game conventions going fishing for interested players, making tweaks and improvements, etc. in spurts.
The school year only has another month, so I'm looking at this summer as the "get busy living or get busy dying" moment of this thing. I'll have the time to create the amount of product I'll want to have and I'll go ahead and effort to get some interested parties contributing financially, etc. and see how it goes.
It's mostly fun toil work that I enjoy, but it can be a bore. Trying to find the leading defenders in sacks for 1978 Houston isn't always a hoot. Hell, Miami of Ohio finished 10th one of those years in the 70s, finding the deeper stats on them will be really fun.....
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To the person that voted "No, it's unethical" - I'd just let you know that I've already put hundreds of dollars into this and hundreds of hours of time into it. To the dozens (if not 100+) people who have contacted me, eagerly wanting the game, not paying myself for the time it takes to get it to market will 100% slow the process. I've been plenty motivated and still am, but when I've got 5 spreadsheets open and I'm squinting at a pdf of a 1982 media guide, the fact my time is volunteered to something that may or may not pan out (on a big scale) can be taxing.