ROMchip 2025 Fiscal Report

Welcome to our 2nd annual financial breakdown—where we show you exactly where every dollar goes at ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories.

ROMchip is entirely reader-supported. We don’t run ads, charge article fees, or rely on institutional subsidies. Instead, we raise our budget each year through our fundraiser, then spend or allocate down to zero by investing in labor, publishing infrastructure, public programming, and future improvements.

Last year’s budget (2025): $9,388.43. This total reflects donations made to ROMchip, after subtracting our fiscal sponsor’s 7% fee.

Where the Money Went: $9,388.43

• Copyediting: $2,937.50 
• Website Fund (for present and future upgrades): $2,161.92 
• Ongoing Website Maintenance: $1,500.00
• Freelancer Fund (deposit for future commissions): $1,150.00 
• Freelance Tech Support: $775.60 
• Fundraiser Gifts & Swag: $319.08 
• Business Services: $242.67 
• Discretionary Fund: $301.66

People Power
As always, a significant portion of our budget went directly to paying people: freelance editors, web developers, writers, and technical specialists. This past year, an astounding $8,525.02 was earmarked for these individuals. This includes: our copyeditor Mary, who works across each issue; Jeff, our new web developer; and Cody and Consort, who provide backend support and technical infrastructure for ROMchip’s streaming events. This total also includes freelance writers subsidized through the Freelancer Fund. That means 91% of money raised went directly into the pockets of freelancers and self-employed individuals. We’re proud to invest in the labor that makes game history accessible.

Expense Breakdown

Copyediting – $2,937.50
Our largest single expense in 2025 was professional copyediting. We paid Mary a total of $2,937.50 across two invoice cycles, covering both issues of ROMchip released this year. Mary reviews every published article through two rounds of edits and ensures our writing is clear, clean, and consistent with house style. 

Website Fund (for future upgrades) – $2,161.92
In 2025 we allocated $2,161.92 into a dedicated Website Fund. This allows us to contribute money to these funds year over year, helping us afford the sometimes larger costs associated with web development. 
If you read last year’s report, you may recall that we were using a web host/service provider called openjou openjournalsystems.com. OJS.com tried to take us to the cleaners last year, doubling their hosting fees for the 3rd year in a row (from $2K to $4K). They were insisting our custom build made maintenance too labor intensive. Communication and professionalism broke down in our correspondence, and we hustled to find an alternative rather than drop nearly 50% of our budget on just web hosting, without any additional upgrades or support.
I reached out to contacts in the NYC tech scene, and was introduced to Jeff. We shifted money from other funds into the website fund, so we could not only pay Jeff to migrate our site for us, but to pay for other improvements as well. Over the course of 2025, Jeff build custom tooling to speed up our XML publishing workflow. It’s dropped the amount of time it takes to prepare a Word doc for publication from 1+ hour to about 15 minutes. We love this for us, and consider it a worthwhile expense. 

Ongoing Website Maintenance – $1,500.00
Jeff now handles our web maintenance on a quarterly schedule, $500 per (since we hired him mid-spring, he only did 3 quarters of maintenance last year). This work includes software updates, backend tweaks, and regular bug fixes.

Freelance Tech Support – $775.60
We paid Cody and Consort $387.80 each for their ongoing technical support of ROMchip’s public programming. Both are returning collaborators who run our Twitch streams, manage OBS configurations, and keep everything looking sharp and running smoothly during live broadcasts. Their work is essential to the success of ROMchip Presents and our annual Twitch fundraiser, and we’re grateful to continue working with them.

Freelancer Fund (deposit) – $1,150.00
We deposited $1,150 into our Freelancer Fund: a special internal fund we use to commission work from non-academic writers, translators, artists, or researchers. No payments were made from this fund in 2025, but we have two works currently in development for 2026. Funds are drawn from this pool to pay contributors whose work wouldn’t otherwise be institutionally supported, ensuring ROMchip stays open to independent voices.

Fundraiser Gifts & Swag – $319.08
We spent $319.08 on custom swag, postage, and packaging to send thank-you gifts to early donors and top-tier fundraiser supporters. This included thank you cards, high-quality logo stickers, commemorative plaques for Patrons, and all related mailing supplies. All items were mailed directly by the editorial team. These small gestures go a long way in building and maintaining the community that sustains us.

Business Services – $242.67
This covers several line-item expenses required to operate ROMchip as a registered business: everything from our domain name to our registered agent to our business mailbox to our state mandated biennial statement fee. We were able to reduce about $180 in costs by switching to a cheaper registered agent in Albany (rather than using Legal Zoom).

Discretionary Fund – $301.66
We added $301.66 to our flexible cushion of discretionary funds—used for unplanned needs or saved for new opportunities. This years discretionary fund contribution is low because we allocated a greater amount of money to our website fund.

Thank You
Your donations power every article, every livestream, every editorial back-and-forth—and we hope this transparency helps show just how far your support goes.

Thank you for believing in ROMchip. We’ll see you in the next issue 💸