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Dying of Exposure - When an Industry Expects Free Labor
- oliverkinne
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- All things tabletop.
When you're starting out as a freelancer, things can be tough. You haven't got any clients yet, you probably also have no prior work to show to prospective customers, at least no professional prior work and you're probably still working out a few things to make sure you can work effectively and efficiently. After all: time is money. At least that's how it should be. In reality though, as a new freelancer, you will probably charge less than other, more established people in your field. You might even consider doing some work for free, so you can prove yourself to a new customer and also build a portfolio of work that is your track record for future jobs. That's all fine, if that's what you want to do. The problem comes when an industry expects you to work for free or for only very little financial reward or maybe for compensation in kind.
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- hotseatgames
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Anyway, they said "People can absolutely get rich in the board game industry. I've met both of them!"
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This is a problem for paying ancillary folks like artists, editors, and even game designers. It's also a problem because the audience starts expecting ALL board game companies to act like the big ones in terms of production value, catering to critics and reviewers, and broad audience appeal when in fact a garage based game dev might be ecstatic over 500 game sales of a hand cut cardstock game and be happy with just a narrow appeal to just those couple hundred people because their motivation is the love of that project, not a plan for world domination driven by stockholders.
It's tough. One the one hand its probably pretty cool knowing your 500 words are read by SOMEONE, just a few years back that alone would have required printing services, an editor as gatekeeper, and limited distribution bandwidth. But of course the problem now is that there is always SOMEONE ELSE to write/blog/stream an opinion, thus the audience can just move on if they don't like what they see. There is a sort of supply glut due to the low bar to entry, not so much a demand problem.
Just know you'll drink for free should we cross paths at a game con
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- Sagrilarus
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So at times I've edited materials, at no charge, because I didn't want the person I knew to put out B- material. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses after all. I didn't look at it as Exposure, just a favor to a friend.
And until recently, say 15 years ago, I think the industry was small and chummy enough that that kind of work happened all the time. Translations, rules reviews, playtesting, etc, were all something you did for the community.
With one publisher now dominant, how does one handle that? Your buddy Kevin is publishing his super-good worker placement title that's sure to change the industry through them. But he can't write a complete sentence to save his life. Do you leave it to Big Corp LLC to take care of it? Or do you help a buddy out?
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- hotseatgames
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Shellhead wrote: I had no delusions about getting rich off my single published game, but my co-designer and I were still disappointed. We were offered the choice of a flat sum of $300 each or a royalty. We both took the flat sum, and that was the right decision because there was no second printing after the smallish first run sold out. And the retail price was only $14.99. We also got 3 free copies each of our game. I gave one to my parents, one to my girlfriend, and kept one for myself.
The best part is seeing someone make a video about your game and get paid more than you did for making it.
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- Disgustipater
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I'm skeptical that would make a difference in getting future work. The only thing you could demonstrate by working with someone is a volume of work, not a quality of work.
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- Andi Lennon
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Shellhead wrote: I had no delusions about getting rich off my single published game, but my co-designer and I were still disappointed. We were offered the choice of a flat sum of $300 each or a royalty. We both took the flat sum, and that was the right decision because there was no second printing after the smallish first run sold out. And the retail price was only $14.99. We also got 3 free copies each of our game. I gave one to my parents, one to my girlfriend, and kept one for myself.
What was the name of your game man? I'd be keen to check it out.
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Andi Lennon wrote:
Shellhead wrote: I had no delusions about getting rich off my single published game, but my co-designer and I were still disappointed. We were offered the choice of a flat sum of $300 each or a royalty. We both took the flat sum, and that was the right decision because there was no second printing after the smallish first run sold out. And the retail price was only $14.99. We also got 3 free copies each of our game. I gave one to my parents, one to my girlfriend, and kept one for myself.
What was the name of your game man? I'd be keen to check it out.
Vampire: Dark Influences
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