Our Final Budget Revealed
Wednesday, August 8, 2012 at 4:02PM We got all your money, and we’re totally going to spend it! Costs Already Paid: Costs to Pay Before Completion:
Specifically, when all the fees were taken out by Amazon and Kickstarter, we received $26,495. Thanks again everyone, that is awesome! Combined with what we had left in the bank, that puts our current available funds at $30,508.
Getting there cost us some money along the way. Specifically, below are our costs for promoting the Kickstarter and fulfilling the t-shirt rewards. In addition, we’ve had to pay some costs of doing business during the past nine months. Not a lot, but some. And of course our biggest cost, which is ongoing, is salaries for Austin and Jonathan (who’re working way cheap against back-end profit sharing, while I’m working for salary-free against back-end profit-sharing). We’re also considering hiring a fourth person to do two months of work to help us make sure the game gets done on time.
These numbers are all accurate within 5% or so, as they’re based on my own quick calculations and rounding, not detailed accounting records.
Software and Services (Quickbooks, Survey Monkey, Sublime Text Editor): $550
Legal (State business reports): $450
T-Shirts (production and shipping): $1500
Advertising for Kickstarter (My Brother, My Brother, and Me, Web Ads, Facebook ads): $2500
Salaries $5500/ month January through July (including Federal and State taxes): $38,500
Total Spent Thus Far: $43,505
Salaries $5500/month August through October $16500
Possible Freelance/Temp Help: $4000
FMOD license (sound integration tools, don’t have to pay until we ship) $1500
Total Projected Costs: $22,000
That leaves us with $8,508 left over for advertising and unforeseen costs.
Total Projected Budget: $74,005
So, we should count all the money you fine supporters pledged as being like pre-sales of the game, which means we’ve earned $26,495 from the game already. That means we need to earn another $47,510 to break even.
What actually happens with that sales money when it (hopefully) starts rolling in is a little complicated, but cool. Up to the first $5000 will be used to pay Mark, who’s doing sound and music for the game. That’s his budget, based on his hourly rate. It’s looking like he might come in under budget, so this number might be lower, we’ll see.
After that the income will be split between Me, Jonathan, and Austin in proportion to the amount of salary that we deferred while working on the game. So, Jonathan and Austin both were working at less than half their full salary rate and I was working for nothing. I’ll be paid a little less than half of what comes in and the other two will be paid a split of the rest. For the record, my salary rate is the same as Austin’s, and Jonathan’s is a little higher than ours.
Once we’re all paid back our deferred salaries, then what comes in after that is split between us in proportion based on the amount that we were paid (our salary rate). Now the investor gets paid back too, at a rate based on the investment as if it were salary (i.e., as if the investor had been an employee who’d earned $42,000 or so in salary). A chunk also goes back to Mob Rules Games to cover costs and maybe fund another project.
Quick math (as opposed to detailed analysis), suggests that we need to sell about 15,000 more copies of the game to get make back our budget and then another 10,000 or so to pay off everyone’s deferred salaries. So, if we can sell more than 25,000 copies of the game, then we’ll start seeing those magical residuals/royalties/whatever.
25,000 copies would be great, great numbers for a first-time indie game, but not, I think, impossible. The better the game the better our chance of course, so that’s where all out focus needs to continue to be.
Back to work!
