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KickStarter Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption - adventure-RPG from the creators of Quest for Glory

Mustawd

Guest
I'm not an accountant, but my understanding of what Corey described was:

(1) Take out $X HELOC.
(2) Pay cost-of-living expenses out of $X. Treat salary as a business expense that nets to zero.
(3) Deduct interest on HELOC from other income.
(4) Pay no taxes on sales of Hero-U until revenue exceeds $X (or possibly $X + interest).

You’re still paying interest. Albeit likely low rates if they took it out a few years ago. Also, why are they even takijg out a loan? If you’re rich you just spend your own money and deduct it as a business expense. It’s even cheaper than taking out a loan and payng interest.


EDIT: I’m not a tax weirdo, but pretty sure you can only deduct the interet
Off the HELOC. Maybe someone can provide citation on #2 of what MRY is talking about.
https://www.quora.com/Would-it-be-l...-it-when-purchasing-so-I-can-avoid-income-tax
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transolargames/hero-u-adventure-role-playing-game/posts/1233204

Would it be legal to direct my income into an account not owned by myself, and deposit it when purchasing, so I can avoid income tax?


Corey Coles said:
As baldly phrased as that, no, it would be illegal

LOL.


Carl Heintz, CPA, MBA, CEA said:

Clearly not legal. You earned the money, you owe taxes on it. These kinds of “diversion” tactics are considered to be tax fraud. Don’t go there.

As depressing as it may sound, forget about trying to “beat” the tax code. Minds much smarter than yours or mine have been at it for a long time and the bottom line is, it’s a no-win endeavor.

The best approach is to use the tax code to your advantage. Find legal loopholes, such as 401(k) plans and deferred comp plans. Use those. In the end, pay the tax you owe. It’s good Karma, and the right thing.

MRY...Dude what??
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
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Messages
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California
Not really sure what the question is. I was describing what I understood to be the Coles' approach to the project. Not sure how may different ways to say that I'm not sure it's a valid approach, only that it's their approach
 

Mustawd

Guest
Not really sure what the question is. I was describing what I understood to be the Coles' approach to the project. Not sure how may different ways to say that I'm not sure it's a valid approach, only that it's their approach

I see. The TL;DR on what Corey posted is “I pay zero income tax because I have zero income” Everything is ancillary. The S corp is just good tax/business advice. Nothing more and nothing less.

I asked for citations on your point #2 that mentioned some method of taking out a HELOC and deducting it as salary (or something. Not wuite sure I followed what you were tryng to say). I guess I was expecting that from your post. Not Corey basically saying “We made zero monies, so we have zero income tax. Also my accountant recommended we create an S Corp so we can use tax loss carryforwards”

I mean, again, that’s valid advice. Not sure how that explains that takijg a HELOC to pay for your under budget game is either 1.) A good business plan or 2.) Proof that you’re wealthy. Not even sure it proves that taking out a HELOC is cheaper than using your own funds. But whatevah. I’m bored. Let’s just quit this and assume the Coles are millionaires. Congrats Corey.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
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Messages
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I'm sure I'm being dumb. But what I'm understanding Corey to be saying is that if they take out a HELOC of $X and have profits of $X, they would pay zero taxes, even if n% of $X is "use[d] ... to pay our living expenses." (Indeed, it's not clear to me that the HELOC was used to pay anything other than their living expenses.) Taken to its logical conclusion, that would mean that a person could pay himself a salary equal to a game's expected return, fund it with a loan, and then pay no taxes at all on his income. That isn't how I understand taxes to work, and it seems to me a considerable tax advantage if that's how the Corey's are doing it, since it would mean that if Hero-U made $300k, their take-home income would be $300k, not $300k minus taxes.

As for their being millionaires, you can poke around the same Quora posts I did. For instance:
Is it a normality to meet millionaires in the US?
Yes, but you can’t tell the difference between a millionaire and a non-millionaire. Most millionaires are seniors who worked for decades and saved and invested some of their income.
(The Coles are 62 and worked for decades and Corey frequently posts about investing, but maybe he's talking about people he knows.)
Would you feel rich if you had between $5-10 million? What would your lifestyle be like?
Yes, $5 million is plenty to “feel rich”.
(In fairness, this could be academic, but it's a weird question to answer if you're not rich.)

Anyway, like you said, it's a boring topic. I just don't get any kind of "we're going belly up" vibe from the way they talk about their choices on this project. Everything he says is more consistent with someone who is relatively pleased with how things worked out.
 

cruelio

Savant
Joined
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Messages
369
It's more complicated than that because it sounds like they have lived tax-free during the development process.
Even assuming the Coles have no idea this thread exists, you do them no favors pretending everything is A-OK.

Who knew posts on a forum about children's entertainment could be so important to the life, the universe, and everything. Well this guy knew. The big time Mr. Accountant who posts on a forum about children's entertainment.
 

Mustawd

Guest
It's more complicated than that because it sounds like they have lived tax-free during the development process.
Even assuming the Coles have no idea this thread exists, you do them no favors pretending everything is A-OK.

Who knew posts on a forum about children's entertainment could be so important to the life, the universe, and everything. Well this guy knew. The big time Mr. Accountant who posts on a forum about children's entertainment.

This forum is known for its honesty. It has nothing to do with the universe and everything. All I’m saying is maybe people should start being a bit more honest about what happened here. Is that really a controversial statement?


. I just don't get any kind of "we're going belly up" vibe from the way they talk about their choices on this project. Everything he says is more consistent with someone who is relatively pleased with how things worked out.

I disagree, but I’ve already mentioned why.

As for their being millionaires, you can poke around the same Quora posts I did. For instance:
(The Coles are 62 and worked for decades and Corey frequently posts about investing, but maybe he's talking about people he knows.)
(In fairness, this could be academic, but it's a weird question to answer if you're not rich.)

Yah, the examples you provided do seem pretty academic. He doesn’t seem to really be talking about himself specifically.

Taken to its logical conclusion, that would mean that a person could pay himself a salary equal to a game's expected return, fund it with a loan, and then pay no taxes at all on his income.

There are some issues with what you’ve described. Also, I was undercthe impression the loan was taken out to help fund the game.

Anyhow, let’s drop this. I was mostly bothered with the lack of people calling a spade a spade. Aka this was a shittily managed project and the Coles were naive, foolish and out of touch when it came to managing their KS funds. I do hope their personal finances are ok. But if not I’m not really gonna lose much sleep over it.

Good talk tho. Thanks MRY.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
News on the Coles' next games: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/transolargames/hero-u-rogue-to-redemption/posts/2281931

They're now working with Fig.

Patch 2 Live. Upcoming games and projects.

Patch 2 has passed testing, and we released it a couple of weeks ago. We're already working on another very small patch that fixes some issues with the game launcher for players who have 16:10 ratio monitors. Previously we only supported 16:9 and 4:3 monitors.

As usual, the patch will also include some minor game play improvements. For example, talking to a character after midnight sometimes results in information that should not have come up until the "next day." We'd have made it much easier on ourselves to enforce a midnight bedtime, but when have we ever taken the easy approach in game design?

Game books - art book, bestiary, hint book, yearbook, and soundtrack - are in progress. We're just starting on the hint book, and the yearbook needs a major rework. The other three are nearly complete. We would like to have the yearbook done before we ship boxed games, but we might have to ship them separately to ensure backers get their boxed games in November.

I am working with Fig to crowdfund a Nintendo Switch version of Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. Fig is also helping us with an upcoming advertising campaign for the PC versions of the game. I'll post project details when the campaign is ready to launch.

Our team is also currently working on not one, but two, upcoming games. Hero-U: Wizard's Way will be every bit as ambitious (or more so) than Rogue to Redemption, and will take us several years to complete.

26cd7b3d607862e7314b547e739a58ea_original.jpg

Postcard from Summer Daze at Hero-U

In the meantime, we're focusing on Summer Daze at Hero-U. This is a smaller-scope game that we hope to complete within a year. It focuses on character relationships as the player tries to prepare for and run the Harvest Festival. You can't do it alone! We are designing Summer Daze to work on mobile devices as well as PC's.

Send your friends to http://www.hero-u.com/ to learn more about Rogue to Redemption, and visit there to communicate with the team and other players on our forum.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
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Messages
5,703
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California
(1) I think it's great that they're going to make more games. I hope, as long as they're having fun doing it, they make games until their bodies can't do it any longer -- it's a great way for them to spend their golden years.

(2) People will crowdfund an advertising campaign. That's how generous the spirit of oldschool gamers is toward the heroes of their youth. (Which makes the Coles' jab at Western vs. Japanese gamers even lamer.) It is almost unimaginable to me that poorer people would give money to richer people to run commercial advertising for a paid game, but, like I said, that's the kindness that people have for this stuff.

(3) Summer Daze at Hero-U should just use the PANIC at Multiverse High! engine and be done with it. Also, is Shawn now a mechanic, too? Or is that a new character?
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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Also, is Shawn now a mechanic, too?
Um, even though Shawn looks kinda genderfluid, I'm pretty sure getting sex reassignment surgery wasn't part of his plans.
Eh? This looks like the same character to me, just somewhat more stylized. Same hair color, similar hair style, similar outfit (vest with jacket-style front flaps), same boots, same eyebrows, similar belt, etc...?
26cd7b3d607862e7314b547e739a58ea_original.jpg

ShawnandtheTreasure.jpg

The color scheme on the vest even matches Shawn's original design:


I assume he's just in a shorter shirt because of summer heat...?
 

V_K

Arcane
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at a Nowhere near you
Eh? This looks like the same character to me, just somewhat more stylized. Same hair color, similar hair style, similar outfit (vest with jacket-style front flaps), same boots, same eyebrows, similar belt, etc...?
You must have really bad eyesight if you don't see the boobs outline in that pic. That's in case overly broad hips weren't a dead giveaway already. It's very obviously a girl.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
A bit more details on the two new games: http://hero-u.com/summer-vacation/

Summer Vacation

Remember those halcyon days when we were young and looked forward to a fun Summer vacation after months of schoolwork or a steady job? It was all about taking some time off to relax and recover from the stress. (One of the big reasons I became a school teacher was so I could continue to enjoy my Summer vacation…)

This Summer, after more than five years of development, we launched Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption. It was a tumultuous journey from the start. We had to invent and reinvent the technology and the game all along the way. In addition to the game, we created two different t-shirts, a stuffed Meep, two different hats, key chains, posters, screensavers, coins, two manuals, and two different Kickstarters. It’s been a wild ride.

So it’s Summertime, the game has shipped and I can finally sit back and relax, right?

Nope.

We still need to finish work on the Art of Hero-U book and the Yearbook. Then there are the packaged games and the thousands of autographs. We have to make sure all the rewards get out to our backers.

ArtBook.jpg


Art Book Cover


And then there’s the next game that needs to be designed and scripted… Hero-U: Wizard’s Way. We’ve already created character designs for the new main characters. They all have their own backstories and their personal goals. Wizard’s Way will have a slightly more serious attitude and tone than Rogue to Redemption. Events from the past will haunt our heroine. Danger surrounds her. She’s in for an exciting adventure at Hero-U.

WizardwayCast.jpg


Some of the Wizard’s Way Cast


Wizard’s Way is every bit as huge and complex as Rogue to Redemption. It’s going to take years of work and testing before we can put on the market. We need to do a lot of writing and design to do in order to make this game.

As if that wasn’t enough to do on my schedule, I decided that we needed to create another game at the same time we’re developing Wizard’s Way. Why am I so crazy as to do two games at once?

HeroUWizardWay.jpg


Wizard’s Way


Rogue to Redemption took far too long to create. We created a game engine from scratch, we had to go from 2D graphics to 3D, and we made mistakes that we had to fix. We won’t make those same mistakes with Wizard’s Way, but we’re sure to make new ones. We expect the game will take at least two, and probably three years to design, write, develop, and test.

That’s a long time to go between games. We also can’t spend that much time developing a game with income from only one shipped game.

Money is good. It’s a way to pay the artists and the programmers for all the work they do for us. It’s the way we keep food on the table. It keeps our eighteen year old cars running.

We don’t need to get rich. We just want to make enough money to keep doing the things we’re doing. The things we love to do. Things like creating great games…

So we thought – “How about we design a game that is simpler than Wizard’s Way will be? One that focuses on characters, relationships, and stories? How about an Adventure Tale full of Nuts, Dates, and Daring-do?”

SummerDaze_Mockup.jpg


Summer Daze Dining Hall


So we came up with one. It’s the distillation of a game down to its basics with simple, elegant artwork and a light, cartoony character style. And it’s set at Hero-U.

“Summer Daze at Hero-U” is a very different game from Rogue to Redemption even though they share many elements. It takes place the Summer before Shawn and his motley band of Disbarred Bards join Hero-U. It’s all about a Disbarred Bard who gets into trouble with Mr. Terk and the Headmaster… or else it’s all about a Wizard who wants to do the best she can.

Summer Daze will let you choose who you want to play. You can be a tricksy mischief-maker like Till Apfelbaum or a serious, Hermione-ish do-gooder like Ifeya Kinah. The character you choose alters the situation, the other characters, and the events that occur in the course of the game.

And it won’t take five years to create it. Well, we’re pretty sure it won’t. :)

So that’s what I’m doing on my Summer vacation – dreaming of a remote beach on Sardonia in the shadow of an old castle. It’s a good thing I love what I do.

SardoniaPostcard.jpg


Postcard from Sardonia
 

Jarpie

Arcane
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Messages
6,597
Codex 2012 MCA
People will crowdfund an advertising campaign. That's how generous the spirit of oldschool gamers is toward the heroes of their youth. (Which makes the Coles' jab at Western vs. Japanese gamers even lamer.) It is almost unimaginable to me that poorer people would give money to richer people to run commercial advertising for a paid game, but, like I said, that's the kindness that people have for this stuff.

What jab was that? would like to see a quote.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
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California
By the way, I thought this exchange was pretty funny:
The Coles said:
Some Guy said:
You guys pay what you want. If I'm spending $35 I'm going to get AAA games. You don't charge AAA prices for indy games in my book. Daedalic and Wadjeteye regularly release adventure games at the $20-25 price point and they are extremely high quality, day 1 purchases, so I don't see why this studio couldn't do the same. I'm trying to give them my money, but I won't do it if I can get 50+ hours and a AAA experience for the same price.
That's a common attitude in the U.S. I'm told that Japanese gamers have an opposite attitude - they are less willing to pay a lot for a mass-market title, and happy to pay $100 or more for a "boutique game" that appeals to what they are looking for.
It needs some kind of Andhaira-style clickbait summary like: "Fed-up developer WRECKS ungrateful American fan who can't live up to Japanese standards."

The thing that's amusing is that U.S. gamers paid them over half a million bucks -- about a thousand such gamers shelling out $100+, and some madmen going up to $7,500 or $10,000.
Here you go.
 

Curratum

Guest
To the developer's credit, they personally reached out to me on Steam in private chat and we worked together and they implemented a custom launcher / front-end fix to fix an issue that was preventing my specific setup from playing the game properly. The guy on the other end was super-nice and I am glad we got it worked out in the end.
 

newtmonkey

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Goblin Lair
The thing about Japanese games is bullshit anyway. AAA games in Japan are often priced around 70-80USD, while games from smaller (but still decently sized) developers tend to me a bit less (60-70USD). Most indie games are 20-30USD. The only games that are even MORE expensive than AAA are niche games released by massive corporations like Koei Tecmo (mostly their strategy games) or limited edition versions with sexy anime toys or whatever.

But it's a moot point anyway, cuz NO Japanese developers are living tax free based on mortgages or whatever because they got 500,000USD from fans lolz.
 

Jarpie

Arcane
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Codex 2012 MCA
By the way, I thought this exchange was pretty funny:
The Coles said:
Some Guy said:
You guys pay what you want. If I'm spending $35 I'm going to get AAA games. You don't charge AAA prices for indy games in my book. Daedalic and Wadjeteye regularly release adventure games at the $20-25 price point and they are extremely high quality, day 1 purchases, so I don't see why this studio couldn't do the same. I'm trying to give them my money, but I won't do it if I can get 50+ hours and a AAA experience for the same price.
That's a common attitude in the U.S. I'm told that Japanese gamers have an opposite attitude - they are less willing to pay a lot for a mass-market title, and happy to pay $100 or more for a "boutique game" that appeals to what they are looking for.
It needs some kind of Andhaira-style clickbait summary like: "Fed-up developer WRECKS ungrateful American fan who can't live up to Japanese standards."

The thing that's amusing is that U.S. gamers paid them over half a million bucks -- about a thousand such gamers shelling out $100+, and some madmen going up to $7,500 or $10,000.
Here you go.

When it comes to pricing your product, you have to look at the market objectively, if other similar products costs 20-25 bucks, you can't expect people to pay 35 bucks for yours. I rarely see games priced between the indie prices and AAA prices, unless my memory fails me. One of the things I learned in the studies for BBA (well, it is common sense IMO) is to find the balance between the price and how much it'll sell, you price your product too high, people won't buy it, but there's usually the threshold for price vs. sold units. They could really uses someone competent handling the business-side, but I doubt they'd listen.

Generally speaking, I get it that devs pour their sweat and tears into their games, but it'd be IMO very important to think of it as a product, also to have a very clear picture of their target audience/segment. You have to know who will buy your game, and how many buyers there are potentially, you also have to sell it to them. It's also important to tailor your games for it, can't expect game like Serpent in the Staglands to sell hundreds of thousands copies, which is very much made like the early 90s games, with all that encompasses. Same goes for Hero-U, the name alone is off-putting, I can't believe they actually kept it. It sounds like mobile shovelware thrown out to make a quick buck, it shouldn't be a big mystery why people aren't finding it.
 

Boleskine

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Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...osts/2281931?cursor=21541003#comment-21541002

Tyson - All three of those rewards will be included in game boxes whenever possible (most of them). We hope to get everything out in late October to early November in plenty of time for Christmas.

Toaster - The reason I said "several" (not "many") years is that I'm being cautious after badly underestimating the time to make the first game. We plan to do it in two years, but there's a good chance it will take three. Remember, Rogue to Redemption took nearly a year in the testing phase - almost as long to test as I originally predicted it would take to develop, test, and deliver the game. So I'm not going to come out and say it's a "two year project" knowing how many things can delay it on the way there.

At the moment, the delay is in even starting development. We still need to finish the books and physical rewards deliveries for Rogue to Redemption. The Switch port and funding campaign will also eat a lot of my time. And of course Summer Daze will be a huge dent in Lori's time, optimistic as she is that she can design two games at once. (She has done that before with QG1 VGA and QG3 at the same time, but designing and writing a game are huge tasks, let alone two in parallel.)

Given all that, realistically I'm guessing that we'll start principal development on Wizard's Way in six months to a year, and likely closer to the latter. If it then takes two years to finish, there's your "several years" - three to be exact. Add in any sort of delay - and something is almost certain to occur - and we could easily be into 2022 before launching Wizard's Way.

That's one reason why we felt it important to develop the smaller game, Summer Daze, before continuing the main series. Another is that we're testing new scripting technology. For Rogue to Redemption, we used a custom scripting system ("Hero-U Composer") that is very powerful, but puts some restrictions on us. We're using Summer Daze at Hero-U to test scripting in Ink, a 3rd-party scripting language that has been used by several interactive fiction and adventure games. If it works well for Summer Daze, we'll use it instead of Composer for Wizard's Way. We think it's more prudent to test it with a smaller game before committing hundreds of lines of dialogue in Ink to Wizard's Way that might have to be rewritten in Composer later.
 

TheWorld

Educated
Joined
Apr 11, 2017
Messages
44
Mmm i wonder... if they are starting to work on Wizard's Way and Summer Daze has the game really gone so badly (between kickstarter, steam, and gog)? Either it's earning (which seem low from what you guys have written) managed anyway to cover their expenses, or these guys are richer than it looked like (even considering corey's posts)
 

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