I am making a large game with just a small group of talented friends as independents. Since it’s not a company, we would need a donation for some better equipment, marketplace modeling, and possibly (though also possibly not) commissioning. I read the policy and it said you pay 5% royalty if your kickstarter offers game benefits but this would not have that. Everyone who plays the game will work for what they want. But I may give tributers a hand-made gift unrelated to the game like a thank you card made by cricut or something. Would I still have to pay royalty?
I’m not sure I follow. If the Kickstarter contributions are not for game access or some other in-game benefit, then there is no royalty on those contributions. If they get t-shirts or something like that, there is no royalty.
It sounds like you might also be talking about donations, but I’m not sure. There is no royalty on pure donations that do not get the donator any kind of game access or in-game benefit.