Posted from an update on War Balloon Games’ kickstarter talks about how easily money flies away. They earned a total of $36,967 from kickstarter, but how was that money really used? According to them, $2,000 weren’t transferred due to no-shows, and another $3,000 was deducted from kickstarter/Amazon fees. Down to $32,000, there were addition fees for prize fulfillment, costing a whopping $10,000. That’s right, $10,000 that was supposed to be for the game was gone. Still, they had about $22,000 left. War Balloon Games also mentioned how time consuming packaging the rewards were, plus shipping and handling was a big part of the expenses.

Onto making the game, just the music costed $6,000 to create. Poster art costed $2,000, new iPads costed $1,000. It all adds up, doesn’t it? After all that, they had about $13,000 of the original $36,000. Basically, just by doing almost nothing, almost all profits were gone. They have to make money somehow, right?

Unfortunately, there were still more expenses to be paid. The cost for them to hire attorneys, startup fees, and CPA totaled for $4,000. PAX East sapped an additional $3,000 as well. All of those totaled to $16,000. Leaving just $6,000 for profits, counted as income, but then there’s income tax. Just like that, $36,000 were slashed to $4,000. War Balloon Games included addition tips about using money wisely and how you should spend your kickstarter money on their update post. Lesson to be learned: Don’t waste your money, even if you have a lot.