Apr 29, 2018
204
195
Kinda weird they brushed you off. You asked them on their discord? If I were them, I wouldn't refuse free assets done right tbh.
Not weird at all in a commercial project, really. I can't speak for the devs here, but basically there's legal risks if an entity that's not registered as a non-profit or government organization uses volunteers, because any benefits you give a volunteer counts as compensation for their work, which brings employment laws into play.

So for example, say you're making a game, a volunteer programmer puts in 200 hours of work into it, you sell the game for $50, and give the programmer a free copy as gratitude for helping you out. The volunteer can now turn around and sue you for only "paying" them $50 for 200 hours of work, criminally below minimum wage.

It's not even theoretical, back in 2000 volunteer GMs for Ultima Online sued Origin Systems over this exact issue: they volunteered to moderate the MMO, got some benefits in return for it, and wound up filing a class action lawsuit to get paid for their work instead. The industry learned to not use volunteers after that.
 
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