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Easy Allies |EZOT| Good Vibes and Good Hype

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H

Hasney

Member
Dammit, fixed the link. Not sure how the variable transaction fee works, it's 5% on your first month regardless, but it goes up or down depending on how many people/money is backed.
 
L

luchadork

Member
Volotaire said:
Firstly assume the the continuous dropoff from their Patreon income (let's assume 5k) so it is down to 27k. I think this is a fair and good estimate.

Patreon takes a 5% cut. That's about $1350 off per month.

27 - 1.35 = about 25.5k .

Their yearly income is 25.5 * 12 = 306k

Significant sunk costs such as video games, equipment, etc. Let's assume the mics are 4* 200, sound mixer is 200, new furniture is 500, and other equipment is 200. A well equipped PC, perhaps VR ready too and with capture cards, will be about 1000 - 1500. Assume purchasing video games, without the support of publishers initially, is about $100 per month so about 1200. There may be other costs I am forgetting too.

Let's assume a nice round 5k for this year.

Assume Brandon needs to pay for additional electricity and heating bills for using his garage in excess of normal use in business hours. This could be very expensive. Let's assume 5k for now.

Let's assume Brandon and one other person are working full time. Let's assume, given the high wages costs of LA, the years of expereince they have gardened, and having a superior work - hours - leisure balance they position their salaries at $50,000 each (perhaps less for the first year). That's 100k for full time wages.

We than have another 7 people (if Don is joing part time) who are working for EZA in differing capacities and hours. Let's assume they put in 1/4 of the time that the full time employees each put in. This means wages of 12.5k each. Assuming everyone works the same hours (there will be nuances and different circumstances) and assuming Don will work as well, that's 7*12.5 = 90k

Wages = 190k

Then we have tax as others have pointed out. I am not familiar with US Tax law, but let's assume a 40% rate.

They may have to take out various types of health and work insurance packages that may be made mandatory by law. This will be another large chunk.

Add in trips to expos (such as E3) and trips to PAX (to host panels and visit their fans) which will include accommodation, tickets and insurance. This is slightly mitigated by the fact that they live in SA.

In summary, this is a very expensive business venture to support more than, at the most, 3 people at their current Patreon income.
Click to expand...



40% tax rate? theyre in america goddamn it. not communist russia...

lets do this over. average salary in california is 51k. lets round it down to 48k cause of 'getting to do what you love' tax and also 48 is easier to math for 12 months.

thats 4k a month. times 9. thats 36k they need to be generating. thats before tax.

now individually... 48k a year after tax is 37k according to
http://www.taxformcalculator.com/state_tax/california.html

i'm in sydney and you could live here off that. and LA is cheaper than sydney. and thats assuming they make no other money from twitch or sponsors.

with that said, if they want to try and make more money by going in another direction i completely understand.
 
W

Wagram

Member
luchadork said:
40% tax rate? theyre in america goddamn it. not communist russia...

lets do this over. average salary in california is 51k. lets round it down to 48k cause of 'getting to do what you love' tax and also 48 is easier to math for 12 months.

thats 4k a month. times 9. thats 36k they need to be generating. thats before tax.

now individually... 48k a year after tax is 37k according to
http://www.taxformcalculator.com/state_tax/california.html

i'm in sydney and you could live here off that. and LA is cheaper than sydney. and thats assuming they make no other money from twitch or sponsors.

with that said, if they want to try and make more money by going in another direction i completely understand.
Click to expand...

There are benefits though. All of that equipment they bought for the business and any game they purchase going forward can be written off in tax returns.
 
M

mishakoz

Member
Volotaire said:
Firstly assume the the continuous dropoff from their Patreon income (let's assume 5k) so it is down to 27k. I think this is a fair and good estimate.

Patreon takes a 5% cut. That's about $1350 off per month.

27 - 1.35 = about 25.5k .

Their yearly income is 25.5 * 12 = 306k

Significant sunk costs such as video games, equipment, etc. Let's assume the mics are 4* 200, sound mixer is 200, new furniture is 500, and other equipment is 200. A well equipped PC, perhaps VR ready too and with capture cards, will be about 1000 - 1500. Assume purchasing video games, without the support of publishers initially, is about $100 per month so about 1200. There may be other costs I am forgetting too.

Let's assume a nice round 5k for this year.

Assume Brandon needs to pay for additional electricity and heating bills for using his garage in excess of normal use in business hours. This could be very expensive. Let's assume 5k for now.

Let's assume Brandon and one other person are working full time. Let's assume, given the high wages costs of LA, the years of expereince they have gardened, and having a superior work - hours - leisure balance they position their salaries at $50,000 each (perhaps less for the first year). That's 100k for full time wages.

We than have another 7 people (if Don is joing part time) who are working for EZA in differing capacities and hours. Let's assume they put in 1/4 of the time that the full time employees each put in. This means wages of 12.5k each. Assuming everyone works the same hours (there will be nuances and different circumstances) and assuming Don will work as well, that's 7*12.5 = 90k

Wages = 190k

Then we have tax as others have pointed out. I am not familiar with US Tax law, but let's assume a 40% rate.

They may have to take out various types of health and work insurance packages that may be made mandatory by law. This will be another large chunk.

Add in trips to expos (such as E3) and trips to PAX (to host panels and visit their fans) which will include accommodation, tickets and insurance. This is slightly mitigated by the fact that they live in SA.

In summary, this is a very expensive business venture to support more than, at the most, 3 people at their current Patreon income.
Click to expand...

My analysis:

There are 9 of them, for now at least, with only Brandon being full time. However lets assume everyone from the group gets paid the same. Each could earn about 2k a month, give or take, which is a great part time salary, considering right now they show up a couple times a week for only a few hours at a time. Thats about 18k and lets kick in an additional 3k for Brandon being full time, thats 23k in wages. Yes the rest are part time but with the majority of the work being at night and a couple times a week, they have the freedom to do other things.

That leaves roughly 7k per month in expenses, which is a lot of money for expenses. Im assuming these are going to be front-loaded with equipment buying, but really, its perfectly sustainable. Really, I think they should find a studio for 2k a month (it can be a dump, it just needs to look nice on camera) and use a place that doesn't look amateur like the garage, although i enjoy the charm.

And hopefully this is only the start. Patreons have gotten as big at 80k a month, they just need time to adapt an audience and E3 is the perfect time, especially since a good number of people saw what happened last E3 and loved it.

And I think they can adopt a full-time situation when the patreon gets to 50k a month. Thats not great income, but I don't think they will ever have to be in an office 40 hours a week either. The great thing about video production is that it is extremely flexible.

The issue I hope EZA can avoid is bad execution. I think that they are overwhelmed by the Patreon response and haven't quite strategized yet, but I hope they do soon because if they want success, and they do, they have to actively show just how good they can be beyond their GT fan base. I don't think Ian's show accomplished that and EZA is missing some production value, not a lot of graphics, even missing twitter handle overlays.
 
T

Tankard

Member
How much are we expecting the support to drop next month? 5 to 8k? I don't know what is normal for a Patreon over the initial pitch.
 
R

RiverKwai

Member
luchadork said:
i'm in sydney and you could live here off that. and LA is cheaper than sydney. and thats assuming they make no other money from twitch or sponsors.
Click to expand...

You forget that this isn't free income though, even a company with 9 people in it is still a company and pays various and sundry overhead like corporate tax, insurance, healthcare, licensing fees and etc. Are any of them an attorney in their spare time willing to work pro bono? Probably have to retain one of those if not. Setting up and maintaining a business ain't cheap. :)
 
D

Darth Smurf X

Member
I'm no tax expert, but since they are using a lot of their own homes/equipment/utilities/etc for this business, many things can be written off as a business expense. Right? Or am I completely off?
 
R

RiverKwai

Member
Darth Smurf X said:
I'm no tax expert, but since they are using a lot of their own homes/equipment/utilities/etc for this business, many things can be written off as a business expense. Right? Or am I completely off?
Click to expand...

I'm sure a lot of things can be written off, but that may or may not help significantly. Tax write offs are not 1:1 with tax savings.
They can help push you into a lower tax bracket, but it's not like writing off 5k a year in video games is going to save you 5k in taxes if you are 10k over the lower tax bracket.
 
D

Darth Smurf X

Member
RiverKwai said:
I'm sure a lot of things can be written off, but that may or may not help significantly. Tax write offs are not 1:1 with tax savings.
They can help push you into a lower tax bracket, but it's not like wiring of 5k a year in video games is going to save you 5k in taxes.
Click to expand...

True. But it helps.
 
N

NuttSack

Member
Volotaire said:
Let's assume, let's assume, let's assume and more assumptions.
Click to expand...
Alright, calm down with all this speculation.
This is the first week, they'll be setting up other things as time goes.
Also, the number you see on Patreon is after removing fees, the 5% is already counted.
 
Mikey Jr.

Mikey Jr.

Member
Dunno, I thought the same thing too. "33k! You could employ everyone for that!"

There is 8 of them. They are not stupid. They've seen the numbers and thought the exact same thing we have. They know their financials and what they are and are not capable of at this point.

If they say they can't do it, then they can't. I'm sure Brandon sat everyone down at a group meeting and laid out the facts.
 
V

Volotaire

Member
luchadork said:
40% tax rate? theyre in america goddamn it. not communist russia...

lets do this over. average salary in california is 51k. lets round it down to 48k cause of 'getting to do what you love' tax and also 48 is easier to math for 12 months.

thats 4k a month. times 9. thats 36k they need to be generating. thats before tax.

now individually... 48k a year after tax is 37k according to
http://www.taxformcalculator.com/state_tax/california.html

i'm in sydney and you could live here off that. and LA is cheaper than sydney. and thats assuming they make no other money from twitch or sponsors.

with that said, if they want to try and make more money by going in another direction i completely understand.
Click to expand...


[
mishakoz said:
My analysis:

There are 9 of them, for now at least, with only Brandon being full time. However lets assume everyone from the group gets paid the same. Each could earn about 2k a month, give or take, which is a great part time salary, considering right now they show up a couple times a week for only a few hours at a time. Thats about 18k and lets kick in an additional 3k for Brandon being full time, thats 23k in wages. Yes the rest are part time but with the majority of the work being at night and a couple times a week, they have the freedom to do other things.

That leaves roughly 7k per month in expenses, which is a lot of money for expenses. Im assuming these are going to be front-loaded with equipment buying, but really, its perfectly sustainable. Really, I think they should find a studio for 2k a month (it can be a dump, it just needs to look nice on camera) and use a place that doesn't look amateur like the garage, although i enjoy the charm.

And hopefully this is only the start. Patreons have gotten as big at 80k a month, they just need time to adapt an audience and E3 is the perfect time, especially since a good number of people saw what happened last E3 and loved it.

And I think they can adopt a full-time situation when the patreon gets to 50k a month. Thats not great income, but I don't think they will ever have to be in an office 40 hours a week either. The great thing about video production is that it is extremely flexible.

The issue I hope EZA can avoid is bad execution. I think that they are overwhelmed by the Patreon response and haven't quite strategized yet, but I hope they do soon because if they want success, and they do, they have to actively show just how good they can be beyond their GT fan base. I don't think Ian's show accomplished that and EZA is missing some production value, not a lot of graphics, even missing twitter handle overlays.
Click to expand...


Sorry, should have corrected myself. I mean 40% above a certain threshold income like the UK operates their taxbands. The UK dose not tax at 40% at that income either. It was very erroneous of me to slap bang the UK system, in a rough nature, onto the U.S. system.

But the real message behind my post was that there are a lot of costs associated with a project such as this that many people tend to not know about, rather than generate an accurate estimate. It is hard to sustain all the team with full time jobs without additional sources of income in the future or a part time model, which they are pursuing.

NuttSack said:
Alright, calm down with all this speculation.
This is the first week, they'll be setting up other things as time goes.
Also, the number you see on Patreon is after removing fees, the 5% is already counted.
Click to expand...

EDIT: Yeh sorry, we shouldn't really be speculating about this. It's just that when you see posts about how they could sustain most of the crew with their current funding full time, I find it analogous to when people are talk about the costs of a Kickstarter and game development/businesses. There are a lot of costs that people tend to ignore.
 
K

King Beyond the wall

Member
Couple of points about these calculations:

Corporation tax (atleast in the uk) is only applied on profits, so that should only be removed at the end of the calculation.

These calculations only take into account the Patreon monies - they ignore the 600+ twitch subscribers each paying $5 per month, donations and ads also on twitch, as well as youtube ad money. It's also likely we will see other monetisation such as short spoken ads at the start of the podcasts as others do. As the channel continues to grow in popularity each of these will become increasingly important.

I think the foundation and potential is certainly there for easy allies to become a full time thing for the entire crew.
 
P

PanicFreak

Member
Mario007 said:
So if they are making 32k a month, and lets say all the fixed costs equal around 5k per month... thats 27k for 9 people. That works out as a monthly salary of 3000 for each of them... surely thats a full time salary.
Click to expand...

That probably doesn't cover the amount Ben drops on Hearthstone content in a year!
 
H

Hasney

Member
Ben's stream works fine on the phone. If there is an automated license claim on the music, they can stop it from working on mobile. If it was a setting they hit, I would have thought they'd clock this one too.

Another recommendation from me to watch that too, it's great.
 
W

Wiggy

Member
ilium said:
Yep, works fine on my laptop but not on my mobile app. Weird.
Click to expand...

youtube blocks vids because of music on mobile but not desktop a lot, happens to my channel all the time. Its really annoying too as thats where most views come from these days.
 
I

ilium

Member
Wiggy said:
youtube blocks vids because of music on mobile but not desktop a lot, happens to my channel all the time. Its really annoying too as thats where most views come from these days.
Click to expand...

I see. So if they mute the video during the specific segment with music in the brackground it should work again I assume?
 
H

Hasney

Member
Roberto Larcos said:
Did we get an answer on whether the 12-hour launch stream will be on YouTube?
Click to expand...

They mention that people have the first chunk of it offered to them, so I'm guessing they will. Obviously be slower than these ones though as they have to actually get the file, then upload 12 hours of video. Someone might split that one by game too.
 
F

farisr

Member
Roberto Larcos said:
Did we get an answer on whether the 12-hour launch stream will be on YouTube?
Click to expand...
Lilalaunebaer, the person who recorded the first part of the stream that didn't make it to the twitch archive is in touch with them. And last I heard, Bloodworth was trying to download that first part, so it seems like they do plan on putting it up.
 
D

doctorblurg

Banned
Dumb Game monday vote is up for patrons and jeez those are some "games"

I personally picked all star karate cause.. well I dont really know it just sounds painful
 
Mikey Jr.

Mikey Jr.

Member
Why are people obsessed with Spyro? That has the best chance to be a good game.

Choose Space Chimps! You know thats gonna be hot garbage.

And anything for the Wii is gonna be a bad game. It'll be some waggle bullshit as usual. And not fun to watch.
 
B

Bloodworth

Member
The marathon is taking longer since we lost that first chunk. I've also learned in this time that my home upload speed isn't good enough to do much of anything. Will have to upload part 1 from Brandon's house.

Got together with my roommate this morning to switch ISPs though, so I should be in better shape next week.
 
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