9 year old raises 20k on Kickstarter for RPG Maker camp.

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Mrsignerman44

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Such beautiful manipulation!!! Exquisite exploitation! Bravo!

She stuck the landing of exploitation, Michael Jackson and Gary Colemen's parents are high-fiving in the background!

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EnduranceFun

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A millionaire entrepreneur who graduated Harvard can't afford to pay for her daughter's summer camp? Fortune made by domain squatting? One of the richest women in the world?

This is such a blindingly obvious scam. If Kickstarter doesn't shut it down they will lose all of my respect.

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JasonR86

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#103  Edited By JasonR86

@jasonr86: I disagree with you here. It becomes relevant if this Kickstarter campaign is allowed to set a precedent for others. Kickstarter's name isn't going to mean very much once everyone begins to associate it with campaigns like this one, which borders on being a scam in my opinion. I also think it's worth discussing the possibility that this campaign will be trumpeted on a site like Destructoid as being a blow against a male-dominated paradigm in video game development, when giving any amount of money to a single girl doesn't even address the problem, let alone giving that girl thousands of dollars. If people are tossing their money in the direction of people like Susan Wilson so her daughter can learn to make video games at summer camp, then there's some far worthier cause that is not getting that money. Plus, it violates Kickstarter's own rules. For that fact alone it's worth talking about it.

I think it's also relevant that this girl comes from an upper middle class family, even if that fact doesn't in any way prohibit her mother from starting a Kickstarter for her. Charity should come from the affluent and go to the deprived, not the other way around. Susan Wilson is an "entrepreneur" who started a debt collection agency (pretty much the scummiest form of entrepreneurship if you ask me) and if you know anybody who's dealt with one of those you're probably aware that scruples are the furthest thing from their business model. I wouldn't put it past somebody like Susan Wilson to see a (perfectly valid) campaign like Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes vs. Women in Games Kickstarter, recognize that there is growing frustration with how male-dominated video games still are which people are willing to combat by giving their money, then exploit that sentiment with a Kickstarter campaign of her own that is sympathetic on its surface.

I might be bordering on conspiracy theorizing at this point, but there's a huge number of flaws in this particular Kickstarter campaign and it's worthwhile for us to talk about it. We're at risk of this becoming a trend and if we don't point out that campaigns like this aren't helping anybody now, then later on, when better people are making worthier campaigns, they're going to be met with a skepticism that should have been reserved for campaigns like Wilson's.

Well, I'll try to address what you said and then I'll end on my final thoughts on this whole thing.

-Kickstarter is already pretty irrelevant to me. If I understand it correctly, as long as the kickstarter is justified enough that the people who moderate the site are ok with its existence then it is allowed to exist. Apparently that happened here. That's that then. Just because it's on kickstarter doesn't mean it'll succeed or fail or anything. It's simply there for people to interact with how they choose. Apparently people felt that it was a worthy kickstarter for whatever reason so that's that. I mean who am I to say they are spending their money poorly or that these family shouldn't be allowed to take advantage of a situation? People spend money on stupid shit all the time. It's not up to me or anyone else to stop them because it is there money and they can do with it whatever they want. They can literally flush it down the toilet if they want. Because it's their money and not mine or anyone else's.

-If it violated Kickstarter's rules then kickstarter should have it removed. It's not removed so, to me, that means that Kickstarter deemed it worthwhile. So that's that too.

-If the issue is with Kickstarter then Kickstarter needs to fix their problem. It's not this kickerstars fault that the site's rules are easy to manipulate. More importantly, this kickstarter only offered people the opportunity to offer money to it. It didn't demand that people give them money. So clearly people felt good enough to give them money. Good for them. I just spend $12 on a car wash because I was too lazy to wash the car myself. Was that a waste of money? Sure it was. But it's my money and I'll spend it on dumb shit if I want to.

-Charity is charity no matter who is receiving it or not or who is offering it or not. From my perspective, Kickstarter may as well be a charity site so I guess I can't see myself getting up in arms about it. For me personally I don't take Kickstarter seriously anyway so fuck it. Again, it all comes down to whether or not people feel that something is worth giving money to or not. If someone willing chose to give money to this kickstarter started by a wealthy family for a wealthy child then so be it.

I'm fine with people discussing this I just don't get getting up in arms about it. So what if people got scammed? It's their fault! It's their money! Spend it more wisely next time. And some people probably think that, even after knowing all of this, this kickstarter was worth supporting. And who the fuck are we to tell them that they are wrong? We have no right to tell people how to spend their money. Again, if people want to flush their money down the toilet, literally and figuratively, they are more then free to do so because it's their money, they've the right to what happens to it, so do with it what you will.

If people take Kickstarter seriously then I get why they would be upset about this whole thing. But honestly how could you take that shit seriously? Again, it's a charity site. I know it attempts to be more then that. But it just isn't dudes.

I guess above all else I'm irritated that people feel they have the right to speak up against how people decide to spend their money. It's not one else's but the money-holders so if they want to offer it all to Bill Gates, the Queen of England, or whoever the fuck else they want then so be it. Stop counting people's money y'all.

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TheManWithNoPlan

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After reading about this kickstarter, I just feel bad for the family involved. They apparently didn't understand what they got themselves into. I also can't believe that there aren't any caps on the amount of money that can be given for something of this nature. Seriously, 20,000 dollars on a 800 dollar campaign! Kickstarter should really look closer at the things they're allowing to pass through. This whole thing just depresses me.

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deactivated-61356eb4a76c8

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@themanwithnoplan: Pretty sure the mother knew exactly what she was getting her family into.

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deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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I love exactly how much she turns every emotional knife she can find.

I also feel really bad for her teen boys. I would be aghast if my mother took to the internet and used it to label me a mean, patriarchal terrorist because I don't want to play fucking video games with my nine year old sister. The woman literally created a video that shows her children in direct competition, and then went to the public to garner support in ... what, publically humiliating her own children? Yes, those privileged white males need to be taken down a peg. After all, they come from a home where they get everything they want all on account of being white and male. Listen to her mother, "there's a gender gap here". In her own household.

And people eat it up. They eat it up and ask for seconds. Too funny for words.

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Branthog

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After reading about this kickstarter, I just feel bad for the family involved. They apparently didn't understand what they got themselves into. I also can't believe that there aren't any caps on the amount of money that can be given for something of this nature. Seriously, 20,000 dollars on a 800 dollar campaign! Kickstarter should really look closer at the things they're allowing to pass through. This whole thing just depresses me.

Sorry, but there's no way they didn't know what they were getting into.

Given the mother's education, the fact that she has used Kickstarter to run a project before, the fact that she runs HER OWN CROWDFUNDING SITE just for women (fundher.com), the fact that she has won awards for "top female entrepreneur of the year" over the last few years, etc . . . this is not a naive woman who has been caught off guard by the scary internet.

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9cupsoftea

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I don't know how kickstarter works, but isn't it likely that the mother herself put this money into her daughter's project?

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chrissedoff

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#110  Edited By chrissedoff
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deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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I don't know how kickstarter works, but isn't it likely that the mother herself put this money into her daughter's project?

It would be awful silly to give Amazon and Kickstarter 10% of money you are giving to yourself.

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deactivated-589cf9e3c287e

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Branthog

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#113  Edited By Branthog

The part I've always had a problem with, in this instance, is that their video was a lot like the videos of outright frauds on Kickstarter. When someone either doesn't have a video at all or their video is just a bunch of static images and text and not even an actual human being talking into a microphone, it tends to be accompanying a kickstarter project that is either an outright scam (such as the Myth IV scam and others) or is simply poorly thought out and launched on spur of the moment.

People need to have some trust in the person they're throwing money at on Kickstarter and one way to do that is prove that you're a real human being and that you're the person you claim. Stand up in a video and say who you are, what your goal is, and why you need funding. It would have taken far less work than the "don't make me have to marry Donald Trump or Larry King, because as a 9 year old girl, I totally know who the hell those old guys are!" thing that was done.

After most of the first day, the mother said that she realized it would be helpful to have a video of them presenting the kickstarter project. So she promised to get to work on one. The next morning, she posted an update about how she tried to do one, but the mean brothers just wouldn't stop throwing a tantrum while trying to make the video, so they just deleted it and gave up.

Ever since then, the response from the mom is basically dismissive of the entire idea of requesting, you know, what EVERY OTHER KICKSTARTER DOES -- a video (if nothing else, it helps prove you're not some stinky middle aged guy in a basement using photos he found on kickstarter to run a scam and it also helps make a connection between backer and backee). But what distasteful way does she dismiss any need or responsibility for doing this? (Even with just her - not her kid, who is supposedly supposed to be running the show)? -- She says she's not going to do it, because the internet is filled with creepy mean child molestors that are just waiting for a video of her 9 year old daughter on kickstarter (I shit you not, she plays that card in almost every update).

Of course, she has no problem putting her half-naked young son on the front page.

All in all, it's kind of gross. I've gone from thinking that this was a well-intentioned project that straddled some lines, but might be hard to make the call on whether it does or doesn't adhere to kickstarter policy and that the ridiculous amounts of money raised were clearly only by people more interested in making a statement about women in technology than actually helping a specific kid (which the mom is clearly exploiting since it has been a burning issue in gaming for two years). But . . . it all seemed generally well-intentioned, if just slightly tinged with a potential bit of slime.

The whole "Mom's photo is on the side, pimping her own women-only crowd-funding charity website" thing and then all of her convenient products (beer covers, shirts, etc) was kind of gross from the start, too.

But the more we hear about the person behind it, the more hideous it all seems. Fortunately, it's all cloaked in sexism, so questioning it at all (even the same way you would and do for every other vague kickstarter project that is lacking information, clarification, or interaction with the creator of the project is simply labeled as being a woman-hating internet troll. It's really kind of genius. It has even won the support of many in the gaming industry, themselves.

And yeah, there's still that sad other little girl. She's only a year older and wanted to raise money to do film projects with her mom (specifically, with claymation). She just wanted a couple things like a better tripod than the spaghetti box she used to slip her iphone in as a tripod, right now. She got funded, but it took over a week to get to her $900 and it stopped just a little over that. Unfortunately for her, she and her mom didn't leverage the whole sexism thing to their benefit. They just said "hey, this is us, here's some footage of the stuff we do, we'd like help making some more of it please".

Also unfortunate is that two things will now happen:

1) Kickstarter will become flooded with the same sort of "fund my life" bullshit that indiegogo is, because this sets a precedent.

2) Other kids (especially boys, but even the girls) who try to do this down the future will not get the same sort of welcome from the internet. Everyone blew their "I care so much about women in STEM" wad on this one. Fuck the next kid. They couldn't even spread it out. Instead of helping a bunch of kids with small projects, let's just blow this one kid way the fuck out of proportion, so it gets a lot of attention and fuck the next guy.

You can also be assured of a few other things:

1) No reputable site (or even popular site) will really raise these issues. In fact, every article I've seen published about this kickstarter just praises the hell out of and then mentions how there are (actual words) "typical misogynist hater trolls asking if this is a scam" (shut up and give us your money, already!).

2) Kickstarter probably won't do anything about it, even though they probably should for the sake of avoiding this becoming an ongoing problem in the future. The PR hit would be massive, since you're dealing with the whole "little kid" thing and "sexism" thing.

3) The backers won't get any sort of RPG (not even a half-assed one with just a few names changed out of the default RPG Maker stock) by the July deadline. (Seriously, that is an insane deadline for anyone -- much less a 9 year old who has never made a thing before who is going to wait until summer, go to camp and learn RPG Maker, then come back and make a game . . . all in like 90 days?!). I'll be surprised if they ever get one at all and if they do, it'll be a long time from now (and they won't care, because that was the token thing to justify the actual cause).

4) The only pledges that will definitely and absolutely be fulfilled are the ones pimping mom's beer cozey's and tee-shirts.

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Branthog

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#114  Edited By Branthog

@chrissedoff said:

@9cupsoftea: No. There's over a thousand backers.

All of them none too bright.

Unfortunately, a lot of them are very bright. In fact, I first discovered this through a message on twitter from a well-respected gaming industry talent and they have been quite taken across the board in the gaming industry with this, over the weekend. I even heard it briefly discussed on a PAX East panel live stream. The problem is people just jump to the page, throw $20 at it, and move on having felt great about themselves and not actually bothering to ask questions like "wait a second -- what fucking 9 year old is afraid of marrying Donald Trump or Larry King? What 9 year old even knows who those two old dudes are?!".

There are some great Kickstarters focusing on kids, from time to time. They rarely feel scammy and usually have a clear goal of some sort. I'm glad to chip in to some of them. In fact, to wash the gross off me from this one, I went and chipped in a few bucks to the one with the girl (posted before this one) who wants to create films and does some neat stop-motion/claymation work.

The only thing worse than thinking you're doing something meaningful while actually just making a meaningless symbolic gesture (aids ribbon, anyone?) is thinking you're doing something meaningful while actually just padding the pockets (or boosting the self promotion of) a manipulative scam artist.

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PokeIkzai

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I just don't see why this child's parents didn't fund their child's dream themselves. If I were a parent and my kid was passionate about something I'd break my back to see them have the opportunity to set out on a course that would see them through to that goal. There's no reason for this to be a kickstarter. I do not want the press to spin this story into one of gamers being misogynistic pigs who don't want a child's dream to be a reality.

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Branthog

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I just don't see why this child's parents didn't fund their child's dream themselves. If I were a parent and my kid was passionate about something I'd break my back to see them have the opportunity to set out on a course that would see them through to that goal. There's no reason for this to be a kickstarter. I do not want the press to spin this story into one of gamers being misogynistic pigs who don't want a child's dream to be a reality.

Because, ultimately, it comes down to promoting the mom's website which is ALSO a crowd-funding service (but specializing in women). If you go to her site and read her promotional stuff, it's full of all sorts of promotional crap. One goal they have is to get one million people to each donate a dollar for . . . I don't know. It's for some crowd-funding cause. It might be a great idea, but it's ALL about sexism and equality and yadda yadda yadda . . . so when you see THIS on kickstarter that manipulates people entirely on the "I'm a victim of mean boys" thing, it can only be viewed as an extension of her mom's business and site.

While it took me awhile to really think of this as scummy, overall, it took me only three seconds of looking at the page the morning it launched, before I saw "FundHer.com" in the mom's profile at the top of the kickstarter and clicked on it and thought "oooh... I don't know if this project is real or not, but this lady is clearly using this as self-promotion for her own crowd-funding site".

But she's not the vile hideous human being. All of us are.

I feel bad for later good causes featuring ambitious kids and crowd-funding, because this is going to leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths (though there are apparently at least 1200+ suckers who will throw money at anything, as long as the kids play on some current social topics, while doing it).

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salarn

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#117  Edited By salarn

@pokeikzai: The answer could be as simple is that they want the kid to learn how to be an entrepreneur on their own instead of being lazy and always having Mom & Dad handle everything.

http://www.cosmoloan.com/investments/10-inspirational-child-entrepreneurs.html

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/smallbusiness/1105/gallery.kid_entrepreneurs/index.html

Dragon's Den has had multiple children and student episodes.

Loading Video...

As with any kickstarter, nobody is required to back it if they don't want to.

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CptBedlam

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#118  Edited By CptBedlam

@branthog said:

3) The backers won't get any sort of RPG (not even a half-assed one with just a few names changed out of the default RPG Maker stock) by the July deadline. (Seriously, that is an insane deadline for anyone -- much less a 9 year old who has never made a thing before who is going to wait until summer, go to camp and learn RPG Maker, then come back and make a game . . . all in like 90 days?!). I'll be surprised if they ever get one at all and if they do, it'll be a long time from now (and they won't care, because that was the token thing to justify the actual cause).

"I'm raising $829 to cover the cost of attending this RPG STEM Camp for kids 9-12 years old for a week (it'll be my first overnight camping trip by myself and I can't wait)"

The game will probably be really short (lol). This is what a day at the camp is like.

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Branthog

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@branthog said:

3) The backers won't get any sort of RPG (not even a half-assed one with just a few names changed out of the default RPG Maker stock) by the July deadline. (Seriously, that is an insane deadline for anyone -- much less a 9 year old who has never made a thing before who is going to wait until summer, go to camp and learn RPG Maker, then come back and make a game . . . all in like 90 days?!). I'll be surprised if they ever get one at all and if they do, it'll be a long time from now (and they won't care, because that was the token thing to justify the actual cause).

"I'm raising $829 to cover the cost of attending this RPG STEM Camp for kids 9-12 years old for a week (it'll be my first overnight camping trip by myself and I can't wait)"

The game will probably be really short. This is what a day at the camp is like.

The impression I got was the kid was attending RPG STEM camp to learn how to use RPG Maker and was then going to go home and make an RPG with it? If it's just an RPG made while at camp (as part of the camp process), then this is even more of a "fund my life" project. I thought it was two separate things "I want to make an RPG, but first I must go learn how to use the software and the basics of making a game"...

Also, as a total aside that I have seen nobody take up -- what the holy fuck is with t he $1,300+ price tag of attending a "week long" (probably less than a week) camp where someone learns "STEM" stuff? Especially if it has any sort of emphasis on "female equality" type of stuff? I mean, if you have $1,300 to send your kid to one week of camp for "science/math/games/whatever", then you already have a leg-up on the rest of society and are not exactly "disadvantaged" and needing to help your kid "overcome adversity". At that price tag, it sounds like a camp for relatively well-to-do kids. I would be FAR MORE IMPRESSED if someone set up summer program where LOCAL kids just came to a school or other facility a few days a week for several weeks (or all summer!) for hands-on instruction and assistance in programming, math, science or whatever other STEM-related subjects interested them. It should cost a nominal amount if the kids aren't "camping" there and if you're using a pre-existing educational facility with pre-existing equipment. You could easily get volunteer instructors (local college kids or other people wanting resume fodder or just to give back to the community) and you could get whatever minimal funding you really needed from local businesses.

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Crysack

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A millionaire entrepreneur who graduated Harvard can't afford to pay for her daughter's summer camp? Fortune made by domain squatting? One of the richest women in the world?

This is such a blindingly obvious scam. If Kickstarter doesn't shut it down they will lose all of my respect.

It seems like a test project on her behalf to see how much potential there is for making money on kickstarter. I mean, seriously, she made her fortune from pre-emptively snapping up URLs and selling them back to the corporations associated with them - and now she runs a debt collection agency. Not the classiest way to make a living if you ask me.

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ArbitraryWater

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#121  Edited By ArbitraryWater
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Branthog

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#122  Edited By Branthog

@salarn said:

As with any kickstarter, nobody is required to back it if they don't want to.

True enough, though that doesn't suffice as a defense for running a scam (or, at the least, manipulating hot social topics and a nine year old and her brothers to pull a buck -- or scam some self-promotion for mom's own crowd-funding company). An elderly woman isn't required to give her money to someone who calls her up on the phone and runs one of those "you've won a free trip" scams on her, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't be as suspicious and vigilant about those scams as possible.

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George_Hukas

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Oh, I see. Its disgusting because its not some shitty Tim Schafer game.

Carry on.

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Bollard

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#124  Edited By Bollard

3 separate people looked at this and thought, you know what, this deserves FIVE FUCKING HUNDRED DOLLARS of my money. I have never been this lost for words on my entire life.

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Branthog

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#125  Edited By Branthog

Oh, I see. Its disgusting because its not some shitty Tim Schafer game.

Carry on.

If that's all you took away from the facts involved, you may want to re-roll for INT, dude.

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salarn

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#126  Edited By salarn

@branthog: What you think is a scam, until proven otherwise. Your opinion or my isn't worth a nickle on the internet, yet so many people are running around making a big deal out of nothing.

The only 'evidence' that this is a scam is that the parents of the child might have paid for this out of their money. Which is no evidence at all, the use of the money is clearly laid out in the kickstarter page and that's enough for some people to support.

I'm not backing it, the end product is not something I want. The RPG she plans on making is aimed at young children which is something I've not been for a while now.

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TheHT

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#127  Edited By TheHT

Oh, I see. Its disgusting because its not some shitty Tim Schafer game.

Carry on.

Yup. Exactly. Nailed it.

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Levio

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Fuck I accidentally gave 50 bucks.

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Carousel

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Check your privilege

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Bollard

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This link is probably worth adding to the OP: http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Shinta/9-year-old-girl-rpg-kickstarter-a-pack-of-lies--249507.phtml

@salarn said:

@branthog: What you think is a scam, until proven otherwise. Your opinion or my isn't worth a nickle on the internet, yet so many people are running around making a big deal out of nothing.

The only 'evidence' that this is a scam is that the parents of the child might have paid for this out of their money. Which is no evidence at all, the use of the money is clearly laid out in the kickstarter page and that's enough for some people to support.

I'm not backing it, the end product is not something I want. The RPG she plans on making is aimed at young children which is something I've not been for a while now.

I don't know, when the mother of this child is one of CNN's "Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs" I get a little suspicious. (http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0912/gallery.most_powerful_women_entrepreneurs.fortune/8.html)

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deactivated-589cf9e3c287e

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@branthog said:

@c0l0nelp0c0rn1 said:

@chrissedoff said:

@9cupsoftea: No. There's over a thousand backers.

All of them none too bright.

Unfortunately, a lot of them are very bright. In fact, I first discovered this through a message on twitter from a well-respected gaming industry talent and they have been quite taken across the board in the gaming industry with this, over the weekend. I even heard it briefly discussed on a PAX East panel live stream. The problem is people just jump to the page, throw $20 at it, and move on having felt great about themselves and not actually bothering to ask questions like "wait a second -- what fucking 9 year old is afraid of marrying Donald Trump or Larry King? What 9 year old even knows who those two old dudes are?!".

There are some great Kickstarters focusing on kids, from time to time. They rarely feel scammy and usually have a clear goal of some sort. I'm glad to chip in to some of them. In fact, to wash the gross off me from this one, I went and chipped in a few bucks to the one with the girl (posted before this one) who wants to create films and does some neat stop-motion/claymation work.

The only thing worse than thinking you're doing something meaningful while actually just making a meaningless symbolic gesture (aids ribbon, anyone?) is thinking you're doing something meaningful while actually just padding the pockets (or boosting the self promotion of) a manipulative scam artist.

In this particular case they showed themselves to be none too bright. It's their money, though, and they can do as they like with it.


While I'm sure there are great kickstarter projects that involve kids, it's more likely to become a charity case than not due to children not being super responsible. This is against kickstarter TOU.

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nights

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#132  Edited By nights

@salarn said:

@pokeikzai: The answer could be as simple is that they want the kid to learn how to be an entrepreneur on their own instead of being lazy and always having Mom & Dad handle everything.

http://www.cosmoloan.com/investments/10-inspirational-child-entrepreneurs.html

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/smallbusiness/1105/gallery.kid_entrepreneurs/index.html

Dragon's Den has had multiple children and student episodes.

As with any kickstarter, nobody is required to back it if they don't want to.

Wait, what?

It's no secret there aren't enough females in STEM professions so part of my Kickstarter campaign is aimed at raising awareness and getting girls thinking about careers in technology at an early age. I want to be a role model for kids - but especially to girls so there are more girls in tech because I don't want to be the only girl in the room. My Mom and I created fun messaging about things girls can do followed by "KEEP UP!" which implies that the person who's supporting the campaign is ahead of others and a leader. Both of these items will be built in the game.

Oh yeah, a 9-year-old totally wrote that. If that isn't mommy handling everything, I don't know what is.

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Set a side the fact that she is rich, or the fact that she google image searched abunch of geek images. or the fact that she is pretending to wright like a 5 year old.

is it against the kickstarter tos, I think so, but im not kick starter

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#134  Edited By Branthog

@salarn said:

@branthog: What you think is a scam, until proven otherwise. Your opinion or my isn't worth a nickle on the internet, yet so many people are running around making a big deal out of nothing.

The only 'evidence' that this is a scam is that the parents of the child might have paid for this out of their money. Which is no evidence at all, the use of the money is clearly laid out in the kickstarter page and that's enough for some people to support.

I'm not backing it, the end product is not something I want. The RPG she plans on making is aimed at young children which is something I've not been for a while now.

That's a pretty shitty attitude. "Hey, it's not your money, so don't give a fuck, dude"! Seriously? Some people happen to give a shit about the legitimacy of crowd-funding and also don't like to see other people scammed.

Having backed 492 projects over three years, advised many backers on the creation and implementation of their crowd-funding projects, consulted on a number of crowd-funding (kickstarter and indiegogo based, as well as others) websites and services, and sniffed out several scam crowd-funding projects long before they were actually revealed to be scammy -- I feel i have a pretty good hand in sniffing out the odd scam here and there, when it comes to crowd-funding.

It sounds like you've barely read anything on this, because the issue isn't that "mom already paid for the camp, so this is a scam". In fact, that's only the shallowest element of it and pretty much irrelevant.

The issues are, among other things, that there are scam projects and those scam projects tend to provide very little in the way of explanation of exactly how the funds will be used (especially when they're seeing a lot of them, over the intended goal), and don't provide a meaningful video. A scam project tends to have either no video at all or one that is composed of stock footage and either text or a text-to-speech voice reading out a statement. A real video with real humans who are actually responsible for the project, presenting themselves and the project to the public are the ones which are less likely to be scams. That was the first thing that concerned me, with this one. That video just smelled of the result of someone who doesn't want to show up on camera and be accountable or (in some previous cases) isn't the actual person running the project.

As I've said repeatedly, I'm not saying that the people running this project and the little girl don't exist -- only that it's reasonable for people to question if they do, because they only provided a couple of snapshots and a shitty video that felt a lot like historically scammy projects seen before. So, to attack people who are reasonably skeptical (and from what I read, initially very polite in their skepticism) as somehow being horrible, vile, sexist internet trolls who "hate a little girl" is fucking absurd. I witnessed people posing the same questions and concerns that I have seen on all the other projects that have (whether actually been scams or not) felt a little potentially scammy.

The other issue is using this as a platform for the mom's self promotion. Her "girl power" products as rewards. Constantly mentioning her "FundHer" company. You have to be fucking blind not to see that the actual camping and RPG part is a trivial element. This is mom capitalizing on hot social issues in an industry troubled by those for the benefit of advertising her own company and cause (and the use of that social issue for her own self-gain is pretty gross). Don't just say that I'm making absurd accusations here, either -- go read her twitter stream. Go read the pages on her FundHer site. She is all about constantly self-promoting. When you back a project, you are backing the people behind it every bit as much, so who they are and what their reputation is matters. Therefor, it's important to consider how much of this CNN Entrepreneur of the Year, Harvard grad, CEO's time is spent doing self promotion and stirring up various gimmics or other money-making schemes (like domain squatting and trying to extort money out of people who rightly own the titles and names of the domains she's squatting) when considering whether that is what she's doing with this kickstarter project.

Then there's the whole issue of Kickstarter not allowing "fund my life" projects, which this easily is (though one could argue that, at best, it straddles the line) and not allowing "charity" projects (which this one absolutely is, since the mom talks about -- from the very beginning, before the money was raised) how the goal of the project was "to raise awareness" (also not allowed) and to help the charitable causes. This is important, because most people don't want crowd-funding to turn into a mess of people throwing up shit about "I want to go Rockband Camp" and "help me pay down my credit card" (the kind of thing actually found and allowed at IndieGoGo -- where I have asserted the mom should have gone, in the first place).

Mom's spamming of celebrities and everyone else on twitter is kind of gross. Bashing on her sons is kind of gross. Using "boys suck!" as her whole rallying cry to get money out of well-intended people is manipulative and gross and does a disservice to the actual social issues that exist outside of her exploitation of them.

Negating everything above, the discovery that mom is a pretty uniquely successful CEO, top entrepreneur, and ivy league graduate who somehow needs $829 to send her poor underprivileged baby girl to camp so she doesn't marry Larry King is just downright fucked up. Above all else, this alone is offensive. Even if everything about this is on the up and up and and it's legitimately all by and for her daughter and just for her going to camp and making a game, and we call this on the acceptable side of the "fund my life" line, and we dismiss mom's war-of-the-sexes bashing and exploitation and lack of a video appealing to potential backers as human beings, instead of with a shitty little power-point presentation . . . appealing to the kindness of total strangers for something you are in no way in desperate need of is fucking offensive.

Think about it -- is there a difference between helping a normal or underprivileged kid pay for a camp that they could attend and learn from that could potentially change the entire course of their life and allow them to achieve something they otherwise could not due to not coming from wealth (or, yes, even being a girl, I guess) -- and Elon Musk putting up a Kickstarter to raise funds to send one of his five sons to soccer camp?

How would you feel if the homeless guy on the corner with the mangy dog who is asking for a dollar so he can survive took your dollar, then everyone else's dollar -- given out of a charitable nature to help someone out -- and packed up his sign and went home for the evening to his gated community and backyard pool? Pretty shitty, right? Because he presented himself as something other than reality and as being in a different circumstance than you gave the buck to him under.

I think it's pretty disingenuous for people to just dismiss some of these single points -- and certainly all of them, cumulatively -- as simply "well, you don't have to back it". Just because it's not my dollar doesn't mean I shouldn't give a fuck. I mean, what kind of shitty attitude is it that all these people have, telling people "stop being skeptical, stop asking questions, stop asking for evidence that this is legitimate, stop asking for an explanation of what the extra $22,000 is going to, stop asking why a wealthy CEO with her own crowd-funding company needs the charity of 1200+ people to send her little girl to camp for a week -- and just go away you filthy, vile, hater, internet trolls!"?

And I'll say it again -- the actual project might not be a total scam. I'm sure the daughter will go to camp and try to make an RPG to fulfill backer rewards. But that doesn't detract from the way in which it seems to violate the spirit if not letter of Kickstarter policy nor the way the mom exploits so many elements of it for her own personal benefit (not her kid's benefit).

In fact, that makes it even more questionable. When you are asking the world for money and they say "hm.. I dunno, man, this smells fishy", the right response is either to ignore it or offer them more information so that they can understand everything and really consider helping you out. Responding by calling everyone sick internet pervert creeps (which is what she basically kept saying every time people asked for an actual video of the actual people behind the actual project, instead of the intelligence-insulting power point she offered) and telling them they should shut up and go away.

Can you imagine if all the other kickstarter projects reacted that way? Holy shit. "Hey, Obsidian guys -- this is seems worth backing, but I'm a little concerned about..." and they respond with "Go away, hater! If you don't want to help, just shut up and stop being an internet troll and hating people!". Come the fuck on.

Everything about this is just fucking gross and I'm sorry some little kid (and her little brothers) are sucked into it, but that's not the internet's doing. And, no, people have no obligation (under any justification you wish to offer) to just turn their heads the other way.

Anyway, it doesn't matter much, now. At the very worst, mom and daughter will be the latest victims of the sexist video game crowd and the internet as a whole and no press is bad press. This is going to do great things for mom's crowd-funding company and her professional profile. That's how these things go.

PS: As I've mentioned, I've backed other similar projects that were about producing something and not "fund my life" and were not exploitative and weren't mostly a mom piggy-backing the kid's endeavor. At the same time this project was going on, I chipped in $20 to some little girl making claymation movies. Gladly did so. Nothing about it came across as either potentially scammy *nor* scummy. I'd have gladly kicked in more money to this one (yes, I initially backed it then pulled out as I came to see more of what was going on, here) -- because I think more kids getting into technology from the production end -- and especially girls -- is pretty fucking cool. But this is not the way I'm willing to chip into that cause. Not this project. Not this mom. Not under these circumstances.

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@theht said:

@george_hukas said:

Oh, I see. Its disgusting because its not some shitty Tim Schafer game.

Carry on.

Yup. Exactly. Nailed it.

I'm interpreting this as a sarcastic response, because I've known TheHT to be far more insightful than to seriously make such a ridiculous comparison. :)

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When I was 9 all I cared about was having fun.

This girl is thinking about becoming a software/video game programmer, and role model for all women around the world, inspiring them to join tech professions mainly because she fights with her brothers? I thought all siblings had these harmless quarrels all the time.

Next week she'll want to be a firefighter or perhaps a lawyer.

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@branthog: Has kickstarter made a statement about this? Is there any way to flag it?

She doesn't seem to be lying about her kids or the intensity with which they play games. She had a previous unfunded project to build superhero capes where she talked about this.

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I've come to the conclusion this stuff is like televangelists for feminists.

Send $10 to your local preacher, and by God, you'll find Jesus in your heart. I guarantee it.

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#139  Edited By envane

Next up: a website that enables debtors to make payments and negotiate settlements online. "An individual will pay more when they're negotiating with a computer than they do negotiating with an individual," Wilson claims. --J.S.

Nice to see she utilized this logic by having a website beg for money on her childs behalf.

the thing im confused with is the focus on the "mean older brothers" that happen to look like a gay couple who had a bit too much to drink on xmas day.

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#140  Edited By TheHT

@branthog said:

@theht said:

@george_hukas said:

Oh, I see. Its disgusting because its not some shitty Tim Schafer game.

Carry on.

Yup. Exactly. Nailed it.

I'm interpreting this as a sarcastic response, because I've known TheHT to be far more insightful than to seriously make such a ridiculous comparison. :)

How anyone could think the problem with this is because it's not a video game someone wants is beyond me. It was probably a troll post, but it was the kind that makes you tilt your head and wonder if maybe, just maybe, it was genuine.

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As someone who just learned about IndieGoGo through a post earlier in this thread I have a serious question: do the people who run kickstarter hate the people who run IndieGoGo?

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When I was 9 all I cared about was having fun.

This girl is thinking about becoming a software/video game programmer, and role model for all women around the world, inspiring them to join tech professions mainly because she fights with her brothers? I thought all siblings had these harmless quarrels all the time.

Next week she'll want to be a firefighter or perhaps a lawyer.

I suppose it's not unreasonable for a child of nine years old to have some unusual ambitions and aspirations if they come from a well-off family and parents who are constantly in the entrepreneurial and business environment. I'm sure children from homes where mom and dad are professional musicians in a symphony are more likely to have aspirations to a musical career at an early age, too. I don't doubt the girl's interest for a second, even if it is fleeting and won't last (as most childhood ambitions do fade - and quickly). I think the part that makes it all take a ridiculous turn is the way the project is utterly smothered by an adult's insistence on featuring exploitation and sexism and the fate of the world as part of this project (along with promoting their own company that just happens to be a crowd-funding kickstarter-like service that focuses on crowd-funding for women).

With the mom out of the picture (not inserting herself everywhere, not being the kid's copywriter, and not injecting all sorts of elements into this project that a nine year old girl would never even conceive of) -- this is a very compelling project that I and many others are wont to throw money at. I discovered it through a well-known game developer's twitter feed and initially thought it was incredible and the response to it terribly heartwarming. It wasn't until I watched the video and started reading through it (and then reading mom's bio, visiting the linked website, digging around about the project leaders as I tend to do for most projects I back) that I lost the excitement and enthusiasm for what she was doing. It suddenly went from being a little kid's cool little project that would be righteous to be a tiny part of to this fucked up sort of potentially overbearing manipulative parent/CEO/business-person/entrepreneur abusing Kickstarter and exploiting cute kids and social issues for self-promotion.

@branthog: Has kickstarter made a statement about this? Is there any way to flag it?

She doesn't seem to be lying about her kids or the intensity with which they play games. She had a previous unfunded project to build superhero capes where she talked about this.

As I posted on the project's comment feed very early on, I think it straddles a lot of "iffy" policy lines and could see reason for Kickstarter to cancel it (they've done this for policy violations in the past) as well as reasons for them to let it skate. I've watched and participated in a ton of kickstarters and I think the generous way to regard it would be "pushing the envelope of what's allowed". If it were on IndieGoGo, however, it'd likely be fine. They allow this sort of thing. IndieGoGo had a woman wanting people to give her money because she was having a hard time with life, in general. Another wanted money to pay off their credit card debt.

As for flagging projects, you just scroll to the bottom of the project page and there'll be a big gray button that says "Report this Project" and you'll be presented with a form to fill out that includes what kind of violation it is (spamming, charity, etc) and gives you a details box to fill out.

Kickstarter hasn't made any statement, but I wouldn't expect them to. The project will probably just disappear one day. Or it won't. They certainly have to be aware of the issue, by now and I know a lot of people have reported it. Some may ask why anyone gives a damn and tell people to mind their own business, but a lot of people are interested in crowd-funding in various aspects of it and even just as someone who browses the site, you don't want it to turn into a crap-load of "fund my life" garbage -- there's enough crap that makes it through the vetting process, as it is!).

I reported the project, but not with some "you have to ban this filth!" complaint. I just reported it and politely said that as someone who is a top backer on KS, I kind of felt odd about this particular project and thought it might be worth them revisiting it to determine if it really falls within their acceptable project policy. Ultimately, it's up to Kickstarter to determine how they want to curate their site, so all we can do is alert them when things might need a second look (such as the actual fully fraudulent kickstarters that have been uncovered in the past).

People have to remember that Kickstarter barely does any vetting. It's not like they call you and look into your back ground or do a google search on your name. They make sure you're in the right category, that you're not just posting a bunch of porn, and that you're not very obviously violating any major policies. People often forget that just because Kickstarter allowed a project to be posted doesn't mean there is any faith or support in backing any of the projects or individuals any more than my local phone company has faith and backing in me, because I'm listed in their phone book. I wish Kickstarter would do a lot more vetting. One of my main concerns about the world of crowd-funding is that too much crap is getting through as is too much potentially scammy crap. As a company, it is in Kickstarter's interest to start more actively vetting and curating their content, because they only earn money from successful projects and people only continue to back projects as long as they feel you are cultivating a service with high rates of legitimate projects and a solid trustworthy reputation. If they don't tighten that pipeline and exercise a little more scrutiny, they are going to cut their own throat and potentially take much of the whole crowd-funding concept down with them.

Anyway, back to Kickstarter removing the project -- I don't see that happening. Personally, I think they should. While I said it straddles a lot of policy lines, I think it might even push them . . . too far to let it set a precedent for future projects. However, I think the fallout from cancelling a kickstarter project for a nine year old girl where the project is just laden and booby-trapped with sexism in tech industries and society would be too of a PR nightmare. Nevermind that the project is actually by the mother (only adults can use Kickstarter) and that all the sexism stuff is dripped on by mom; not the daughter -- cancellation of the project would still earn Kickstarter a massive PR beating across the internet at accusations of breaking a nine year old's heart (and yadda yadda sexism).

I think they're in a catch-22 and it's probably easier to tell their processors to just be more careful about what they let in next time and bite the bullet on this one than it is to publicly set a clear standard about not allowing this kind of thing and facing the heat.

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#143  Edited By salarn

@branthog: Every investment, donation, or use of money should be considered. Money is powerful.

I don't necessarily agree that the mother having having money has any influence on how much money the daughter has. The parent is not required to pay for every whim of their child.

I don't know if it is a scam or not but it doesn't matter, until one of us is appointed as the 'Internet Scam Police' there isn't much we can do except shout into the internet ether trying to be louder than the next person. The thing I would like to know is why this has people so angry to pay $1 to post hateful comments on the kickstarter, and stamp their feet all over the rest of the internet.

Every time a crowd funding gets publicity people go insane. Did you happen to see the number of people who claimed that the 'Skull Girls' indigogo was a scam? How about the "Tropes vs. Video Games" kickstarter? How about the outrage about Obsidian starting a second kickstarter before the first one finishes? The 'Ouya' raised 8 mil and plenty of people are still betting on it being a scam.

The kickstarter asked for less than $900, why is it now over $22k who knows, but it'll be interesting to see what happens. Based on previous experience however, nobody will care this time next month.

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As someone who just learned about IndieGoGo through a post earlier in this thread I have a serious question: do the people who run kickstarter hate the people who run IndieGoGo?

I doubt it. IndieGoGo is a little fish. The fees are about the same (KS takes 5% with 3-5% going to the payment processor -- IndieGoGo is 4% with the payment processor taking their additional share). The primary difference is that IndieGoGo has different types of fundraising methods. For instance, you can say "I want to raise $50,000" and then set it to "flexible funding" which means that even though I said I need $50k, if I only get $5k, I still get to keep it all. They also are more lax about what is allowed on the site (seriously, there was an IndieGoGo project where someone wanted to raise money to pay off their huge credit card debt and another one where some crazy middle aged woman just rambled on and on about all the dumb choices she's made in life and how much her life sucked and she just wanted money to get her shit together or whatever).

I'm sure there are more, but following are just the crowd-funding sites I know of that aren't Kickstarter or IndieGoGo:

  • Fundable
  • Crowdfunder
  • EarlyShares
  • GetFunded
  • RelayFunder
  • WeFunder
  • SeedInvest
  • CrowdCube
  • Oh, and how could I forget McKenzie's mom's crowd-funding service "FundHer".

Kickstarter really did hit gold, though. Other people do all the work and marketing. All Kickstarter has to do is keep some servers running, make a very simple design where other people create all the content, and then tie a third-party payment system into it -- and then they get 5% of every successful project. That's insane. It's fucking genius. It's the kind of thing anyone could have put together with a Rackspace account and nothing more (even the Amazon and Paypal payments aren't to kickstarter -- they go DIRECTLY to the merchant account of the person running the individual project). It's one of those things where you stop and think "how did I not come up with this and make millions?!".

Just from the Veronica Mars project alone, they'll get almost $200,000 USD (assuming it doesn't get more pledges in the next three weeks). And they didn't do anything except let someone make an account on Kickstarter where they could upload a video, some photos, write some text, and pop up an instance discussion thread.


They would have gotten $500,000 from the Ouya kickstarter. They'll get $1,200 just from the amount this girl's kickstarter is at, today, if it doesn't raise another dime.

Which makes protecting the quality of what they accept even more imoprtant. It's a precious golden goose that keeps laying golden eggs for them to collect. If they're not careful, they'll poison the whole crowd-funding concept with poor curation and the whole crowd-funding thing (and Kickstarter, at the very least) will be the next MySpace or Friendster.

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#145  Edited By Branthog

@salarn said:

@branthog: Every investment, donation, or use of money should be considered. Money is powerful.

I don't necessarily agree that the mother having having money has any influence on how much money the daughter has. The parent is not required to pay for every whim of their child.

I don't know if it is a scam or not but it doesn't matter, until one of us is appointed as the 'Internet Scam Police' there isn't much we can do except shout into the internet ether trying to be louder than the next person. The thing I would like to know is why this has people so angry to pay $1 to post hateful comments on the kickstarter, and stamp their feet all over the rest of the internet.

Every time a crowd funding gets publicity people go insane. Did you happen to see the number of people who claimed that the 'Skull Girls' indigogo was a scam? How about the "Tropes vs. Video Games" kickstarter? How about the outrage about Obsidian starting a second kickstarter before the first one finishes? The 'Ouya' raised 8 mil and plenty of people are still betting on it being a scam.

The kickstarter asked for less than $900, why is it now over $22k who knows, but it'll be interesting to see what happens. Based on previous experience however, nobody will care this time next month.

I'm not really sure how you can compare this to those other projects. Those are actual projects with an actual end-result. They weren't disguised "fund my life" projects, even if people disagreed with them. Also, just because people feel this one violates Kickstarter rules doesn't mean they don't feel other projects have, too (like the Penny Arcade one, which was really pushing it).

As for people paying a buck to post comments on kickstarter -- they'll cancel their pledges before the end of the project, so they won't be charged the dollar. The hateful comments also only started appearing, today. For most of the project's life, so far, the skeptical and critical comments were extremely polite and civil and many of them still are (and, note, from both genders). It seems that /r/mensrights found out about the project, however, and it all went down hill from there. That does no good for anyone, of course (now, suddenly, anyone who questions the legitimacy of this project will immediately be lumped in with the guys from a subreddit coming over to talk about feminazis and the feminist conspiracy and blah blah blah blah blah).

And you're right, this will be mostly forgotten in a month, because we'll be on to the next sexism controversy in the gaming industry, by then. There's a never-ending supply of them, ranging from fabricated and bullshit to legitimate and depressing, so we tend not to focus on any one incident for all that long, do we? :)

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Regardless of what happens I just hope the girl really wanted to go to a camp like that, it is certainly unusual, but very cool if true, and that she gets to do it (well I guess she does because it had already been paid for). Good luck to her and I don't want to see that profile photo of her mother ever again.

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This right here and similar comments to this one is the reason why I hate everything:

Frank Plummer about 3 hours ago

Susan, Mckenzie,

... - they are too shortsided and reluctant to see the bigger picture, they ...

The fuck does shortsided mean?

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Imagine all the people that could actually use that money. Its sad that the kickstarter got supported.

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#149  Edited By AlexanderSheen

@fang273 said:

@alexandersheen said:

This right here and similar comments to this one is the reason why I hate everything:

Frank Plummer about 3 hours ago

Susan, Mckenzie,

... - they are too shortsided and reluctant to see the bigger picture, they ...

The fuck does shortsided mean?

If I had to guess, I would say it's some kind of bodily deformity. One side of your torso is shorter than the other, like you are bent sideways(?) But this is just a guess, I'm not a doctor. You should ask Frank for the true answer, but only if you can handle the truth. Can you handle the truth?

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Mcfart

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Whatever, Kickstarter will be dead for video games ones the next consoles come out and publishers start looking for new, interesting IP ideas.