Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[forsaken1111]

It might be worth the investment to get them following you then sell ad space on your twitter feed.

[Draco18s]

And if that was the rule, that they were successful then we have to shutdown Shadowrun, Orge, Wasteland Sequel, Carmengeddon, Leisure Suit Larry, Order of the Stick, Double Fine Adventures, and whole host of others I'm forgetting about.

Um, no?

Shadowrun (Harebrained Studios) is producing a game which I will be able to play when it's done.
Ditto Wasteland, Carmageddon, and Doublefine Adventures (Ogre I'm usure about, as I didn't see the actual kickstarter, but assume it falls here as well)
Order of the Stick used the money to publish their strip into books that I could then hold in my hands.

Penny Arcade?  They're going to use the money to pay bills so they can make more stuff that they're going to give away for free.

If I donate an arbitrarily large amount of cash* to PA's project, what do I, the consumer, get out of it in the end?

Nothing.

Absolutely.

Nothing.

Except the satisfaction of knowing that I helped a hugely successful company pay their bills.  Or maybe a t-shirt with their logo on it (big whoop).

Heck, if I PAY THEM $7500, I get the HONOR of being their OFFICE BITCH for a day.

I mean, hell, if people are willing to pay other people to do other people's work, where are my rabid fanboys?  I've got ALL KINDS of neat projects I would love to work on for, but for one reason or another, I can't.  I'd love it if someone would pay me seven grand and do the work too!

*By which I mean "$25 gets you my book"/"$15 gets you my game on Steam" level found in other projects.

[AlStar]

Hell if it's okay to kickstarter just to 'free up staff to create content' then I could toss myself on there. If I made a million dollars I could stop working and create content, after all.

Um, that's the entire point of Kickstarter. You are, in fact, free to make up a project that asks for a million dollars so that you can stop working and create content.

[Aqizzar]

Hell if it's okay to kickstarter just to 'free up staff to create content' then I could toss myself on there. If I made a million dollars I could stop working and create content, after all.

Um, that's the entire point of Kickstarter. You are, in fact, free to make up a project that asks for a million dollars so that you can stop working and create content.

The irony being that unless you're already famous, and therefore previously successful at some point in your life, you have pretty much zero hope of getting more than a couple people to chip $10 towards your pie in the sky ideas.  It feels like it should be whining to say that, because no shit people who've already proven they can complete a major project are going to get more attention, but if the ideal of Kickstarter is that anybody can crowdsource a pile of capital if their idea is good enough, let's not kid ourselves about how realistic that is.

[forsaken1111]

Hell if it's okay to kickstarter just to 'free up staff to create content' then I could toss myself on there. If I made a million dollars I could stop working and create content, after all.

Um, that's the entire point of Kickstarter. You are, in fact, free to make up a project that asks for a million dollars so that you can stop working and create content.

Within the bounds of Kickstarter's rules, yes.

[Jackrabbit]

Penny Arcade?  They're going to use the money to pay bills so they can make more stuff that they're going to give away for free.

If I donate an arbitrarily large amount of cash* to PA's project, what do I, the consumer, get out of it in the end?

Nothing.

Absolutely.

Nothing.

Except the satisfaction of knowing that I helped a hugely successful company pay their bills.  Or maybe a t-shirt with their logo on it (big whoop).

Nonsense. They're asking the community to give them money so that they can produce more content for the community. You don't get nothing out of it and if you honestly think that all this is is helping a company pay their bills you need to look at it again and read the bits where they say what you'll get if you donate (it's the QnA section down the bottom and also it's most of the page too, where they list the comics and content they're planning to make if this goes ahead). If you didn't want what they're offering, you don't give them money. That's the whole idea. What about this is a problem? I mean, if this doesn't work and Penny Arcade just carries on, is that a good thing from your perspective and if so why? And if they succeed and their fans give them the freedom to produce more content and do away with ads, is that a bad thing? How could it possibly be?

I really don't understand your objection here. Penny Arcade have leveraged Kickstarter as a platform to allow their fans to have a direct say in how they want Penny Arcade to continue and you're upset about this?

[nenjin]

Penny Arcade is a comic, primarily. It has other business interest but its primarily a web comic.

If they raise exactly $250,000, what, exactly, will they be producing with that money that they wouldn't have otherwise produced?  I can find nothing in their entire...thing other than "remove ads from the leaderboard page."

Where was this bitching with Orge with Steve Jackson games?

I'm sorry but, weren't you part of the thread about 20 pages back where we did NOTHING but talk about Ogre, Steve Jackson, and why many of us thought it wasn't appropriate for KS?

And this looks like yet another instance of "successful personalities press the internet button to make their fans projectile vomit cash at them." I'm in agreement with others that "pay my bills" and "help me do stuff!!!11", from a wildly successful start up who has had no problem "doing stuff" and "paying bills" up until now....is a shameless cash grab.

I swear, the more of these things I pay attention to, the more unquestioning fandom seems like sheepdom. I like a lot of things in life, bands, games, companies, music....I don't just throw cash at them because they ask for it though. With other projects I've disagreed with, at least they came with a product, and the only question to me was "could you have done this without KS?" PA seems to be testing the boundaries of how far their fans will go to give them money for essentially nothing.

Or to put it another way, projects like this seem to be successful companies "cashing in" on their fan love. The product/goal at times seems pretty incidental.

[kaijyuu]

I see both sides of the argument here, but I'm on the side of "appropriate for kickstarter."

If you want to argue that Penny Arcade should make their own crowd sourcing system instead of using Kickstarter, I suppose that's fair. It's pretty grey area for KS's rules, after all. And they wouldn't have to worry about KS's cut!

...But I am feeling a little undercurrent of PA hate

The irony being that unless you're already famous, and therefore previously successful at some point in your life, you have pretty much zero hope of getting more than a couple people to chip $10 towards your pie in the sky ideas.  It feels like it should be whining to say that, because no shit people who've already proven they can complete a major project are going to get more attention, but if the ideal of Kickstarter is that anybody can crowdsource a pile of capital if their idea is good enough, let's not kid ourselves about how realistic that is.

"The rich get richer, and the poor poorer" applies to far more than just money.

[Draco18s]

Nonsense. They're asking the community to give them money so that they can produce more content for the community. You don't get nothing out of it and if you honestly think that all this is is helping a company pay their bills you need to look at it again and read the bits where they say what you'll get if you donate (it's the QnA section down the bottom and also it's most of the page too, where they list the comics and content they're planning to make if this goes ahead).

Don't I get that for not-donating too?  What's the incentive to "donate" versus "not donate, but they make the goal anyway"?

If you didn't want what they're offering, you don't give them money. That's the whole idea. What about this is a problem? I mean, if this doesn't work and Penny Arcade just carries on, is that a good thing from your perspective and if so why? And if they succeed and their fans give them the freedom to produce more content and do away with ads, is that a bad thing? How could it possibly be?

Hmm.  Let me see.

If the goal is to get the fans to pay them money for what they do...

...Why didn't they create a paid subscription service?  Those that care enough about the content to throw $25 at them now (and next year, and every year after that), could be asked to pay $25 a year as a subscription and get access to exclusive content (and no ads!)

Those people that don't?  Ads and less content.

Amazing how it works, and it doesn't need Kickstarter.  Websites have been doing subscription services for decades, so much so that there's an HTTP error code for having not paid.  (No really, "402: Payment Required")  It's not used, but it was built into the specification in anticipation of such paid services.

[nenjin]

I honestly have no problem with PA. I just object to people feeling like all the fan love and support isn't enough already, they should see how much money they can get if they simply ask for it.

[Levi]

I kind of think it feels a little shady to be honest.  It seems to boil down to asking for donations, which isn't quite what kickstarter is for.

I don't see why they can't just run the same thing on the PA website instead of using kickstarter.

[Draco18s]

I don't see why they can't just run the same thing on the PA website instead of using kickstarter.

Precisely.

[Derekristow]

Don't I get that for not-donating too?  What's the incentive to "donate" versus "not donate, but they make the goal anyway"?

...Why didn't they create a paid subscription service?  Those that care enough about the content to throw $25 at them now (and next year, and every year after that), could be asked to pay $25 a year as a subscription and get access to exclusive content (and no ads!)

Maybe they are just nice people who want everyone to have the same access to everything, but they don't have the money to do that now?

What is your incentive for donating to Toady?  He'd probably keep making Dwarf Fortress anyways, and he doesn't have a hard monetary goal to achieve either.  There is no "incentive to 'donate' versus 'not donate, but they make the goal anyway'?", except that you want him to be able to work on the game.

From the looks of it, they also want to see if this is a viable thing without risking their actual business on it.  If they reach their goals, they can do this again next year in a different way, knowing that it will work out.  I agree that Kickstarter was an odd choice of platform though.  Through their own site would have been a lot less controversial.

Sorta-Edit: On reading the FAQ, they seem to be saying that they don't have the manpower to set up a Kickstarter-like system for themselves, so they're going with something that already works well and is highly trusted.

[Draco18s]

Maybe they are just nice people who want everyone to have the same access to everything, but they don't have the money to do that now?

Huh?  Who's the "they" in this sentence?

What is your incentive for donating to Toady?  He'd probably keep making Dwarf Fortress anyways, and he doesn't have a hard monetary goal to achieve either.  There is no "incentive to 'donate' versus 'not donate, but they make the goal anyway'?", except that you want him to be able to work on the game.

Ah.  But Toady isn't doing a Kickstarter project is he?  He could, but he isn't.
Heck, he'd probably even have a better rational than PA does for doing a Kickstarter.

From the looks of it, they also want to see if this is a viable thing without risking their actual business on it.

How would have putting a shiny "donate to us" button on their site, with a shiny "here's our goal, we'll remove ads if we reach it!" been any more risky?

I agree that Kickstarter was an odd choice of platform though.  Through their own site would have been a lot less controversial.

This is my primary objection.  I have no qualms with people throwing money at them, or them trying to raise money to make their site better.  I have issues with them doing it through Kickstater, as Kickstarter is meant for projects and "fund my website" is not a project.

Sorta-Edit: On reading the FAQ, they seem to be saying that they don't have the manpower to set up a Kickstarter-like system for themselves, so they're going with something that already works well and is highly trusted.

http://www.indiegogo.com/
Indie GoGo doesn't care if you donate all the money to charity (as evidenced by Bear Love Good, Cancer Bad).

[Sergius]

I think the whole point of the argument, is that for example, Toady could start a Kickstarter project "create Dwarf Fortress/bring it to a playable state" (let's say that it just sits in his hardrive and isn't yet playable by anyone) and the end result is that the Internetz goes from "No Dwarf Fortress" to "Dwarf Fortress Exists" (even if it's just an alpha?). But it would be against the rules to Kickstart "pay me so that I can work on Dwarf Fortress some more" or "finance one week/month/year of DF coding random stuff".

Also, the prizes for donating can't be the REASON for donating. The reason is "to make product X". Otherwise, I'll just make a Kickstarter project called "Get T-Shirts for $15" without any actual startup happening.

Now, it's easy to dismiss all this as "Anti-Penny Arcade Hatedom Internet Movement of Hatred" for people who have problems thinking about things objectively.

It would make more sense to make a start project "Make an Automata book" or "Make a complete Lookouts book". But those are just "stretchgoals". The primary goal for reaching the minimum is "remove ads". How long? Until the money runs out?