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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Frylock" data-source="post: 5979014" data-attributes="member: 38140">That's a good characterization of what I said with only one caveat. The involvement of "established" companies isn't necessarily "taking advantage" of the system. A big company doing so would be "taking advantage" not only of the system, but of the poor saps who have loyalty to those companies. Small but established companies would arguably strike the balance I suggested between 'meeting deadlines/producing good content' and 'getting otherwise unfinanced projects financed.' I'm reading this to mean, "being the 'new guy' in the RPG industry requires produc[ing and paying]  out of his own pocket . . . ." That's true of the traditional business model and for damn good reason. However, isn't that why you have something like Kickstarter? It's an alternative means to financing, and it's existence depends on filling an otherwise unmet need in the community. If that's not "getting the new guy his start," then what is it?However, one of my concerns that I didn't discuss, but you raise here, is a very good point. IMHO, project creators should be required to prove that they're taking on a 'significant' portion of the start up costs. I have no strict definition of "significant," but certainly someone going to the trouble of creating a corporate entity and overpaying people like me <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> to obtain trademarks would qualify (assuming those things aren't covered by the financing goals of the project) because they are expensive.I'm trying not to pin down specifics because I'm not qualified to do so, but because you're asking, if I created something like Kickstarter, I'd start from the following premises:1. If you're "big," you aren't permitted to create a project.2. You must either (a) give your backers an ownership interest (making them "silent partners" is fine); or (b) prove that you're taking on significant costs (i.e., risk) yourself.Note that, as in the case of the projects I've backed, (b) can be satisfied by providing the backers with true value for their contribution. For example, if I'm producing a 3PP book for D&D with a retail value of $30, then your contribution of $30 (or even $25) gets you a copy of that book. I haven't always seen that, but again, I'm no longer looking. Maybe things have changed. By giving people true value for their money, the initial run is not profit-bearing, but it allows the content to be created, which means subsequent print runs would be relatively cheap and worth personal risk due to the success of the project.If a thorough analysis of the issue would result in a change to my views, than so be it. Posting here has been spit-balling for me, and the more we discuss, the more my views might change. Also, for all we know, Kickstarter might be performing such an analysis right now. As I see it though, it currently looks like the Ladders commercial and leaves me feeling nauseous. Hopefully, Kickstarter will evolve, and we'll get a stronger contributor to the community for it. One thing on which we can all agree 100% is that the goal is noble.</blockquote>

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