Topic: KICKSTARTER KOMBAT (Read 27645 times)

Royal☭ · « **Reply #20 on:** July 10, 2012, 12:55:23 PM »

Ooh, oh man, I hadn't noticed that Penny Arcade may actually be charging people to work for them.

A² · « **Reply #21 on:** July 10, 2012, 01:30:30 PM »

People have asked how could they give Gabe & Tycho money without advertising for years now. This is the experiment.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #22 on:** July 10, 2012, 01:33:06 PM »

No I mean literally charging people to work for them:

Quote

PLEDGE $7,500 OR MORE
1 BACKER • Limited Reward (1 of 2 remaining)
Intern at Penny Arcade for a day! You'll be put to real work under the supervision of Khoo. (you will need to arrange travel)

A² · « **Reply #23 on:** July 10, 2012, 01:44:39 PM »

Having watched their series and seen their workspace, I would fucking pay to work there.

Brentai · « **Reply #24 on:** July 10, 2012, 02:01:04 PM »

canttellifserious.jpg

Doom · « **Reply #25 on:** July 10, 2012, 02:38:42 PM »

Loads Penny Arcade to catch up on about a month's worth of comics, entire advertising on site consists of single banner above comic.

So the experiment is... ah... what if we could cover server costs, and then just pocket the extra?

Well, that's probably the scam behind a lot of Kickstarters that go over.

Edit: For God's Sake I checked the actual Kickstarter and they have pictures illustrating the goals. Can you imagine a world where a 300x800 vertical bar isn't on the side of the news post? For half a million dollars...

François · « **Reply #26 on:** July 10, 2012, 02:56:44 PM »

If by "pocket the extra" you mean paying 14 salaries + benefits and the office rent and whatever else you need to run a company, then yes?

Gabe has a mansion and a boat, and who knows what depraved accoutrements Tycho affords himself; if their goal is to merely stuff their rectums with dollar bills the current advertisement system would keep suiting them just fine.

Doom · « **Reply #27 on:** July 10, 2012, 03:00:11 PM »

Aside from some of Gabe's shittier outbursts, I enjoy PA and admire their business power.

I'm just amazed that the Kickstarter is literally "imagine a world without some easily ignored ad bars." Nerds deserve every fleecing they get.

Ted Belmont · « **Reply #28 on:** July 10, 2012, 03:18:48 PM »

Note: the 250k amount is for ONE AD. Completely ad-free will require $1,000,000, and even then it's only for a year. They plan to do this all over again next year if they can get away with it. That's a million potential dollars taken from other projects that actually need the funding and exposure and DON'T violate Kickstarter's own policies.

A² · « **Reply #29 on:** July 10, 2012, 04:09:27 PM »

Well, apparently Kickstarter said it was okay to the businessguy before they launched it, so there's that.

Also, gabe's said in the past he's kind of disgusted with gaming media/journalism/advertising in general. So this is more a move to tell advertisers to fuck off completely, that they're not needed.

Which I can't support enough

: (Link leads to a wikipedia article about one of the more egregious examples of stupid game marketing)

Ted Belmont · « **Reply #30 on:** July 10, 2012, 04:27:13 PM »

Yes, they said it was totally cool to ignore Kickstarter's own previously enforced policies and pretend PA is the complete opposite of what it is. Now why in the world would they do that? (HINT: It rhymes with 'honey'.)

Kayma · « **Reply #31 on:** July 10, 2012, 04:36:35 PM »

OOO - yah is intriguing. I love hat it's open, and $99 is't an unseasonable price level for what they're touting.

It's taking every fiber of my being not to throw $50 at OCRemix for theirs. I will only ever listen to or use the MP3s, but got I love physical media what is wrong with me?

The Penny Arcade one... gotta say, I'm not on board. The rewards are lame, and their ads have never been intrusive... they're usually quite well targeted and for things of quality that I might be interested in.

Ted Belmont · « **Reply #32 on:** July 10, 2012, 04:59:12 PM »

Quote from: David Brothers

If people want to spend money, they’re gonna spend money. Ain’t nothing I can do about that. But that’s no reason to not say “Hey, I think this is messed up.”

It’s not that the money would be put to a better use elsewhere, including their Child’s Play charity. It’s that I don’t feel comfortable with two dudes who have mocked the worth of Kickstarter in the past and who apparently make a considerable amount of money already asking for handouts from consumers and offering “we’ll all of our ads if we make a million bucks” in exchange. It’s gross. It’s double gross, considering the rationalization of their business manager.

Zaratustra · « **Reply #33 on:** July 10, 2012, 05:33:30 PM »

Fully agree with David Brothers there.

Also: It detracts from Kickstarter as a platform for new projects and moves it one yard further into a place where you can get money for anything as long as you're famous.

And the ads, frankly, are not a big deal. PA is not a porn site with banners plastered on all four sides. If the ads were particularly intrusive or jarring, PA wouldn't be popular in the first place.

Büge · « **Reply #34 on:** July 10, 2012, 05:35:30 PM »

Quote from: Teddy Bearmont on July 10, 2012, 08:28:50 AM

I'm always a bit wary of these kind of pie-in-the-sky kickstarters, because even if they are completely honest, there are a lot of hurdles that can pop up even after they've been successfully funded, and that's a lot of money that could easily just vanish into thin air.

I'm still morbidly curious about Ryan Sohmer's Kickstarter-funded LICD pilot. You'd think that if the project were moving forward, we'd hear about it, right? As near as I can tell, there hasn't been a peep from him.

Zaratustra · « **Reply #35 on:** July 10, 2012, 05:37:34 PM »

A disturbing trend I'm seeing up close with the Dice Age kickstarter is developers that get funded, and then discover the money they made is not enough to fulfill preorders and rewards when shit starts hitting the fan, repeatedly.

Ziiro · « **Reply #36 on:** July 10, 2012, 05:56:29 PM »

I'm waiting for the first lawsuit to come from this. Someone will sue a kickstarter they donated to for not delivering, and everyone else who paid in could be a part of the lawsuit.

A² · « **Reply #37 on:** July 10, 2012, 05:59:59 PM »

I imagine Kickstarter's had an entire legal firm ready to lawyer everything to the ground ready to go ever since the OotS and Doublefine kickstarter went stratospheric.

Or is it already in Kickstarter's TOS/EULA/contract that they're not liable for any failed to deliver? I seem to remember reading some news story about how Kickstarter openly said they won't help you.

EDIT: Found this. http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/6/27/3099051/backers-rights-what-kickstarter-funders-can-expect-when-they-pledge

Quote from: article

Kickstarter can't issue refunds on completed projects, a company representative reiterates to Polygon, as all transactions are solely between community members. Similarly they don't oversee the "performance or punctuality" of projects and only require creators to agree to make a "good faith attempt" to fulfill project rewards by its estimated delivery date. These refer to rewards that are granted to a backer for pledging: They can include things like a t-shirt or a chance for their name in the credits, but very often they include the result of the project, like a copy of the game. But once funded those policies are only enforced with a suspension of the account, which does nothing to put the money back into the hands of scammed backers.

Agreeing with Ziiro, that sounds like a lawsuit snafu waiting to happen.

Mongrel · « **Reply #38 on:** July 10, 2012, 06:24:06 PM »

Yeah, there's been repeated public statements about they're not responsible if successfully-funded projects go off the rails and into the crapper.

Now, I can kind of understand that when you get behind the idea of Kickstarter as an investment model. But the average person does not exactly have venture capital experience, plus most kickstarters are an emotional sell anyway.

What will really kill Kickstarter is if the site really gets a reputation as being a big scam on a overall basis. If too many projects crap out or too much money vanishes, the site will be toast. Now that's not based around any one event, that's more of an aggregate thing over time. There might be some "significant failures" or lawsuit attempts that will punctuate things, but the real impact will be a gradual and collective shift in opinion that Kickstarter is just a con job instead of a dream factory.

Rico · « **Reply #39 on:** July 10, 2012, 07:40:44 PM »

I'm really disappointed in the fund breakdown for OCR. A thousand-dollar studio/mastering budget isn't going to get them shit. I'd much rather not have 11 grand go to printing and distribution, not get physical media, and actually get a decent product for my $50.

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Author Topic: KICKSTARTER KOMBAT (Read 27645 times)