Susan Wilson's Kickstarter discussion (split topic)

[SqueakyCat]

Anyone who can't spot this as a scam deserves to have their money taken.

 

Susan agrees.

 

[duskwind]

The money raised here is no longer going to summer camp for the little girl.  It's to start a .com that will assist young kids to learn about game making, staffed with industry volunteers.

There's nothing about that on the front page of the kickstarter; presumably you have to become a backer to find out what your money is going towards, which seems extremely dodgy.

[Azure79]

Wow, over 20K raised. 

 

Personally I think the project may have started with good intentions, but she should take it down if the original purpose has been replaced. I think she's asking for more trouble that what 20k is worth with the backlash she will receive from the underbelly of the internet. 

[babaganoosh13]

Patrick Ewing is apparently on Susan's side, stating:

 

 

"Sure, we make a lot of money, but we spend a lot too!"

[rjshae]

• 9 year old building a game Kickstarter -- $23K raised
• Bloom Kickstarter headed by skilled female artist with a professional development team -- $13.8K raised

Go figure.

[Malcador]

Artist should have framed it as her fighting against patriarchal oppression. Would have vacuumed all the social justice warrior's dollars that way.

[duskwind]

Bloom Kickstarter headed by skilled female artist with a professional development team -- $13.8K raised

Actually a male artist, just a very feminine one. But talented either way; Bloom deserves more support.

[rjshae]

 

Bloom Kickstarter headed by skilled female artist with a professional development team -- $13.8K raised

Actually a male artist, just a very feminine one. But talented either way; Bloom deserves more support.

 

Oops, sorry.    Thought I saw a 'she' in there somewhere. No matter.

 

Definitely loving the art though.

Edited April 2, 2013 by rjshae

[Elerond]

 

• 9 year old building a game Kickstarter -- $23K raised
• Bloom Kickstarter headed by skilled female artist with a professional development team -- $13.8K raised

Go figure.

 

If people were half as intrested to promote good projects as they are spread information about questionable project, much more kickstarter project would get funded, but some reason bashing people (which actually usually works better promotion than any praises that people could give, as people need to see on their own what causes such uproar) is more popular than supporting people.

[Maria Caliban]

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

[babaganoosh13]

It threw me off a bit when I looked in the Video Games section today. They gave it a big facelift, and got rid of all the tiers above $500, as well as joined Kick it Forward.

 

it seems as though Kickstarter put bans on a bunch of the trolls there who only signed up to make comments. As well, they apparently slapped the wrists of legitimate people whom do back projects and said negative stuff and/or trolled and/or "didn't play nice" and/or expressed legitimate concerns when Kickstarter wouldn't respond.

[nikolokolus]

The people running kickstarter ought to be ashamed.  They violated their own terms of service (particularly the "no funding my life" rule).  That said, I don't see much point in camping out in the comments section and constantly spamming the same critiques over and over and over.  If people want to flush their money down the toilet on that thing then I say let them.  But it does make me wonder about the long-term stability of the platform when the rules seem to be enforced so erratically.

[duskwind]

It threw me off a bit when I looked in the Video Games section today. They gave it a big facelift, and got rid of all the tiers above $500, as well as joined Kick it Forward.

But it still only says "My goal is to raise $829 to cover the cost of RPG Camp" and "any extra toward a laptop". The camp is only running for the one week. So that's a very expensive laptop, even with 5% taken out.

[Elerond]

 

It threw me off a bit when I looked in the Video Games section today. They gave it a big facelift, and got rid of all the tiers above $500, as well as joined Kick it Forward.

But it still only says "My goal is to raise $829 to cover the cost of RPG Camp" and "any extra toward a laptop". The camp is only running for the one week. So that's a very expensive laptop, even with 5% taken out.

 

Project newest update gives some details how they plan use money now. And it looks like that camp is changed to week in M.I.T. Game Lab

Assuming $23,600 in funding, the anticipated usage of proceeds is as follows:

$4600:  The first thing to do is take 20% off the top due to processing fees and failed transactions

$5000:  Next is the cost of product reward fulfillment and mailing

$6000:  Travel and costs associated w/working with M.I.T. Game Lab (One week of one-on-one mentoring that will be recorded with the video released for free so other kids can learn from the experts at M.I.T. Game Lab along with a weekend GameJam)

$5000:  Custom Art

$2500:  Laptop

$500:    Kick It Forward

[Tigranes]

• 10% failed transactions is an unreasonably high estimate - I've heard of 2% but never 10.
• $5000 also seems high for a bunch of t-shirts, mousepads and caps that are all completely white background & simple black design, but hard to say without calculating in detail. 
• $5000 for custom art by professional artists for the game, as far as I can see. Sure, I suppose when you have so much lying around, you might as well put it to something that directly aids the game. 
• $6000 to stay at MIT for a week... what are they taking, first-class planes for the entire family? 

It could be disingenuity, but in this case I think they were always going to have a problem because their particular project is hardly scalable. If they make $50k what are they going to do, hire a 10 person team for Kenzie? Go to 3 different RPG camps? At least her entrepreneur background means, maybe, she will keep a good handle on spending.

[Elerond]

 

•  If they make $50k what are they going to do, hire a 10 person team for Kenzie? Go to 3 different RPG camps? At least her entrepreneur background means, maybe, she will keep a good handle on spending.

 

They acctually have $50k stretch goal, but I don't can say if it is better or worse what you descripted

 

 

$50,000 Stretch Goal

There is an opportunity to add real value with a $50,000 stretch goal to fund music, sounds and more art under a Creative Commons license. To make it special, as @RC suggested, we could add a few additional game-related rewards:

* Physical CD with a case that's signed by Mackenzie.

* RPG Development PDF or Book signed by Mackenzie which will include all of the drawings, sprites, and media created by Kenzie and other professional artists along with other fun tidbits.

[BruceVC]

I am just glad that this sham of a KS hasn't raised more than $25k, it seems to be stuck on  $23K for a while now

 

Hopefully in the last 8 days they don't get much more.

 

Also read the latest comments on the KS page  to see some more legitimate issues with this KS

Edited April 8, 2013 by BruceVC

[Amentep]

The people running kickstarter ought to be ashamed.  They violated their own terms of service (particularly the "no funding my life" rule).  That said, I don't see much point in camping out in the comments section and constantly spamming the same critiques over and over and over.  If people want to flush their money down the toilet on that thing then I say let them.  But it does make me wonder about the long-term stability of the platform when the rules seem to be enforced so erratically.

 

From what I gather, their attitude is that its not a 'fund my life" kickstarter because there is an end product (the game) that is promised out of it; I'm not sure that I necessarily agree but I can see their argument, at least.

[babaganoosh13]

I am just glad that this sham of a KS hasn't raised more than $25k, it seems to be stuck on  $23K for a while now

 

Hopefully in the last 8 days they don't get much more.

 

Also read the latest comments on the KS page  to see some more legitimate issues with this KS

Assuming that one who contributes just doesn't go on once a month or so to Kickstarter, if they haven't pulled out by now, they probably wont. It's their money, and they know what they're spending it on, and who they're giving it too.

 

It will be interesting to see if Kickstarter screws up like this again. Perhaps they'll direct them to Indigogo.

[babaganoosh13]

 

The people running kickstarter ought to be ashamed.  They violated their own terms of service (particularly the "no funding my life" rule).  That said, I don't see much point in camping out in the comments section and constantly spamming the same critiques over and over and over.  If people want to flush their money down the toilet on that thing then I say let them.  But it does make me wonder about the long-term stability of the platform when the rules seem to be enforced so erratically.

 

From what I gather, their attitude is that its not a 'fund my life" kickstarter because there is an end product (the game) that is promised out of it; I'm not sure that I necessarily agree but I can see their argument, at least.

Exactly. It probably seemed like a nice thing to them at the time. I mean, I can appreciate helping a kid reach their dreams. I'm a dad. I was a kid once, a while back. Arguably, my maturity level is that of a kid a lot of the time.

 

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if this was just some regular, working class family with no real baggage instead of Harvard graduate CEO's of a company that made $100M from Kinkos, whom have tried stupid things in the past with crowd funding ideas. I'm sure there would have been some blow back, but nothing close to the scale of this.

[Elerond]

 

 

The people running kickstarter ought to be ashamed.  They violated their own terms of service (particularly the "no funding my life" rule).  That said, I don't see much point in camping out in the comments section and constantly spamming the same critiques over and over and over.  If people want to flush their money down the toilet on that thing then I say let them.  But it does make me wonder about the long-term stability of the platform when the rules seem to be enforced so erratically.

 

From what I gather, their attitude is that its not a 'fund my life" kickstarter because there is an end product (the game) that is promised out of it; I'm not sure that I necessarily agree but I can see their argument, at least.

Exactly. It probably seemed like a nice thing to them at the time. I mean, I can appreciate helping a kid reach their dreams. I'm a dad. I was a kid once, a while back. Arguably, my maturity level is that of a kid a lot of the time.

 

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if this was just some regular, working class family with no real baggage instead of Harvard graduate CEO's of a company that made $100M from Kinkos, whom have tried stupid things in the past with crowd funding ideas. I'm sure there would have been some blow back, but nothing close to the scale of this.

 

Actually she is not Harvard graduate, she only has credit from Harvard's Bussiness Schools Owner/President Management program that is short additional education program for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs. And she wasn't CEO kinkos.com, but only Executive Vice President (second to CEO) and kinkos.com was venture capital company (so owned by those who funded it and one of the majority owners was kinkos itself, who in 2000 buy other investors out and shaked founders and workers of kinkos.com [including Susan Wilson, who was on of the founders], leaving them somewhat penniless, from whole transaction).  But otherwise I agree with your post.

[SqueakyCat]

Well, I was over at NeoGaf and was surprised to see a thread on Ms. Wilson's escapades still going.  This project was successfully funded almost one year ago and, apparently, only a 15 minute demo has been released.

 

Some highlights:

 

KS Comments

 

Poor MCA

 

Those Pesky Technical Issues

 

Sorry for the necro, but some of those comments at NeoGaf are hilarious. 

 

 

[Drowsy Emperor]

There is so much flowery critic bull in the Bloom promo video over a dozen pics and one very confused looking in game scene, it makes me want to puke. The whole thing looks about as erratic as the designer's gender.

 

 

With the way the Kickstarter has been printing money for anyone and everyone I'm seriously considering a visit to the US to open up a phantom video game company, post a project and watch the spice flow.

Edited April 5, 2014 by Drowsy Emperor

[Lexx]

So is this a real scam now or are people actually overblowing this? I've read some stuff here and there, but I am not really sure what to think about it right now.

[Serrano]

Okay, so first of all, why would anyone kickstart some nine year old into a game dev school. Really? Do people seriously not have better things to do with their money? What if she got bored after the first week and decided she didn't want to make a game anymore, because legal obligations or not, SHE'S NINE!? And secondly, of course the demo is awful and short, it was made by a nine year old. What the hell were people expecting? 

 

This story is a horrible snapshot of humanity both for those heading the project and those who put money into it. And how the hell did MCA and Brenda Brathwaite(?)  end up on a pannel with these people?

Edited April 5, 2014 by Serrano