Situation About Game Development.

[Loyal]

So, over the past few months or so I've been involved with a group of people with the object of making an indie video game. The type of game, where/when it will be released, and other such details aren't important at this time (maybe later), but just to set the background.

Some time ago the idea came up to use Kickstarter to raise funds for game development, once we've developed enough to show something to the public. With that, we'll be able to afford things like useful software, hard supplies or computers, maybe even a paycheck since we're all basically college students just doing this in our free time. Good idea, comes with the benefit of basically free marketing, which we need because obviously nobody knows who we are.

Recently we got into discussing just what sort of rewards we should award our backers. Credit acknowledgments, sketches, things like that. The head of the project puts forth the idea that the largest reward, however much it would be for, would be to write a single backer in the game as a playable character.

I oppose this for a number of reasons. Chief among them being reputation. As mentioned we're a bunch of nobodies, trying to make a name for ourselves, and I'd prefer that we not be known as "that company that sold out on their very first game," or something similar that overshadows whatever (already miniscule) merit or scorn we earn from the game itself.

Otherwise I'm concerned from an artistic standpoint, as any character devised in this manner would probably feel very out of place in the story. Further, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of setting a precedent that we'd be willing to arbitrarily sell select aspects of our development to some random shmuck with cash to blow.

The reasoning behind this reward was that it would "involve the community more closely," which is something that we decided long would be a focus of our company. But I feel there are far healthier ways to go about that...

Am I being paranoid here? If not, what can I say to convince my project head not to go through with this? What might I be overlooking?