Yup... and if you are worth that HR will pay up and tell you to keep it quiet not to start an avalanche of raises
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Still, the main point of that “cost of living” but was to ensure people had transparency in how the money was spent and nobody cried foul if part of the money was also used to pay for food, mortgage payments, etc... stuff you would not tell your employer, but you need to tell to those that kind of finance you.
Also, we are taking of what $800-900 a month after taxes and Kickstarter fees (9-10 people for 2 years)?
Who knows how much this guy got paid to work on Sonic Mania.
As for KS campaigns, the money is supposed to go towards the actual product development, and not to pay for someone's home, car payments and monthly sub plan to Hulu.
Now some people will say, the KS people are broke and the point is for the money to go to making the product and for living costs. Well, if that's the case, say it.
But I bet zero KS campaigns will tell you that $100,000 goal is actually $50k product development, and $50k to cover food and rent and salaries.
If you go for a business loan asking for $1,000,000 to set up a store, the bank wants to know how much goes to paying people annual wages, and how much actually goes for leasing and buying shit to stock shelves and insurance.
If you go for a mortgage, it goes to the home. If you need $300,000 to buy a home, you get a mortgage for $300,000. You don't ask a bank for $500,000, where $200,000 of it goes to your bank account to pay for a car and a pool table. Although it can be done with second mortgages, but the onus is you have to pay it back with legally binding contracts. With KS, they can walk and there's nothing you can do about it aside from the handful of good natured people I've read who gave back the funds.
The problem is all these KS ask for money, half of them probably don't even materialize, and you have no idea how much of the funds raised goes to their living costs vs. the product vs. buying stupid shit.