Archon said:
James (of Extra Credits) had looked into to doing it on Kickstarter, but Kickstarter refused to do it because they thought it was just a charity. We also looked at doing it via the same method we use for Publisher's Club, but the infrastructure of RocketHub was far better for their purposes.
That's very interesting, thank you. I find it somewhat distressing that it should be so difficult to find an online method of securing donations for good causes.
The bunch of people I helped to send to PAX previously (Crabcat Industries) had a simple PayPal donation button - but I wonder, were those donations subject to tax? There's clearly a lot more to these issues than appears on the surface for casual donors such as myself.
Archon said:
I'm suggesting that the action of *selling something in exchange for the item PLUS promising to do an event* is actually nicer than just selling something, which is what we usually do. I don't think that's hard to understand.
But you evade my question as to whether anyone would actually pay $50 for a poster if you weren't promising something extra, such as an event. (No need to add "I don't think that's hard to understand"; the fact that I don't have the same opinion as you does not mean that I don't understand what you're saying.)
Archon said:
In order to have Yahtzee present, we have to pay for his time away from his other business projects. He doesn't actually work for free. We also need to send out a pair of marketing folks and not just two journalists like we normally do. As a business, when we send our employees to travel, we have to cover their food, lodging, and flights - that's simply good business practice.
A round-trip ticket from Australia is usually around $2,000. If we want to fly him business class, so that he's not exhausted and sick when he arrives, the cost jumps to close to $10,000.
Having flown distances like those myself at the cheapest available fares without being worse for the wear afterwards, I personally disagree. However, I suppose those business fares exist for a reason: businesses are willing to pay them, and businessmen and -women all around the world expect to receive such comforts as a normal part of their travel-life. To refrain from paying such a fare would, presumably, be a slap in the face for Yahtzee and not the kind of business interaction to which he is accustomed with you. It's not a position I can sympathise with, but, again, I am not forced to pay for it. No one is. You are simply asking for donations. Fair enough. Now that you've explained why this part of the endeavour is so expensive, I think your obligations on this front are at an end. People are free to give, or not give, knowing exactly how the money is being used.
Archon said:
The posters have a cost of production of about $5 and a shipping & handling charge via the fulfillment house of about $4 US and $8 - $12 international. So for every $20, $9 is immediately spent.
So, for the PAX pick-ups (obtained by donating $20 or $40 and at a $5 cost, not subject to shipping), you get a profit of $15 per unsigned poster or $35 per signed poster (minus whatever Yahtzee's fee for signing them is). For shipped posters (obtained by donating $50 or $75 and subject to $9-17 in costs), you get a profit of $33-41 (unsigned) or $58-66 (minus Yahtzee's signing fee). Hopefully I did the math right on that. I understand that a large amount of this will go to offsetting the expenses for PAX, but, again, I don't think it's fair of you to present the alternative as simply pocketing all the profits and spending it seedily, since I don't think people would actually pay that amount for that merchandise if you weren't also promising to spend some proceeds on PAX. However, again, thank you for the transparency in explaining the breakdown of costs.
Archon said:
Finally, we then have to pay for a great fan meet-up with food and drinks in a good venue.
Have you ever hosted a corporate event? An event for 50 will easily cost thousands of dollars if you open up the bar. When we hosted E3 parties in LA and GDC parties in SF, the price is close to $50 per person or more.
That sounds delightful! And delicious. Here's where I think your initial presentation fell down a bit. You've done a good job of clarifying it in this thread, but at first the meet-up wasn't described as including food and drink, which make expenses such as those you've quoted more understandable.
Incidentally, I haven't hosted corporate events, but I have helped to host game conventions and academic conventions at which food and drink was served (lovely stuff, at nothing near your cost). If one is to compare business class flights to the kind of flights the average gamer, such as myself, would be taking, then I think these sorts of conventions would be better points of comparison. ;-) Of course, if you want to take the approach of spending so much, that's your prerogative. I'm sure you have lots of experience in the matter and many good reasons for taking this approach. I'm sure it'll all be lovely and people will enjoy it! But, personally, I know that a lot of gamers are just fine with having a bigger group at the cost of, shall we say, food and drink that's cheap and cheerful. ;-)
Archon said:
If we only get $10,000 then... we won't produce the posters or fly Yahtzee out. We'll do what we usually we do, which is send a small bare-bones contingent to provide coverage.
So wait... If you only get $10,000, then people who have paid $100 to meet Yahtzee won't meet him at all?
Okay: at this point, you can consider me as politely signing out of this conversation. You answered my question about RocketHub satisfactorily, which was my main reason for posting initially. Since I'm not personally donating or going to PAX, it's impertinent of me to expect you to spend your time intereacting with me further. What business of mine is it whether or not Yahtzee will appear to those who have paid to see him if I'm not going to be one of those people?
Thank you for your time and your answers. Sincere best wishes with your business.
We can safely file all this under "big misunderstanding" on both parts.
