Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="eyebeams" data-source="post: 3530202" data-attributes="member: 9225">No. It's whoever produces for profit product and hires layout and art at substandard prices or for nothing for the sake of producing a book they claim is for profit. Is it ethically consistent for a creator/publisher to pay crap wages to people who provide production assistance while boasting about the prifitability of their model, or is that really the kind of boasting more appropriate to, say, slumlords?Yet that's part of the indie SOP: use the goodwill of the community as a pretense to undercompensate people involved in production. And of course, it also helps to glorify the creator/owner at the expense of everyone else involved, so that you can ignore their contribution -- including how much they got paid. Naturally, this doesn't apply to true &quot;one man band&quot; projects, where everything is produced by the creator. But it's clear that the definition of indie held dear by that community only applies to things the creator signs off on -- Heroquest's acceptance by the Forge proves that the creator doesn't even need to design the game himself.The experience that made me decide that the community's practices were't acceptable to me was when at one point, I was due to release a game with an indie designer/publisher. I whinged about paying for art and layout, but was told:&quot;Oh, in this community, they'll do all this great work for free! Like the cover of my game, [redacted]/ Art, layout, none of it's going to cost you anything, really.&quot;This person also volunteered to do his bit for nothing, too.No thanks.People deserve better, even when they think they don't.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="eyebeams, post: 3530202, member: 9225"] No. It's whoever produces for profit product and hires layout and art at substandard prices or for nothing for the sake of producing a book they claim is for profit. Is it ethically consistent for a creator/publisher to pay crap wages to people who provide production assistance while boasting about the prifitability of their model, or is that really the kind of boasting more appropriate to, say, slumlords? Yet that's part of the indie SOP: use the goodwill of the community as a pretense to undercompensate people involved in production. And of course, it also helps to glorify the creator/owner at the expense of everyone else involved, so that you can ignore their contribution -- including how much they got paid. Naturally, this doesn't apply to true "one man band" projects, where everything is produced by the creator. But it's clear that the definition of indie held dear by that community only applies to things the creator signs off on -- Heroquest's acceptance by the Forge proves that the creator doesn't even need to design the game himself. The experience that made me decide that the community's practices were't acceptable to me was when at one point, I was due to release a game with an indie designer/publisher. I whinged about paying for art and layout, but was told: "Oh, in this community, they'll do all this great work for free! Like the cover of my game, [redacted]/ Art, layout, none of it's going to cost you anything, really." This person also volunteered to do his bit for nothing, too. No thanks. People deserve better, even when they think they don't. [/QUOTE]

Verification