5 ms·

Nine-year-old girl’s $829 Kickstarter to build game passes $10,000 after one day

13 points by chrisdinn 14y ago

christiangenco 14y ago
Brace yourselves for the massive wave of "I'm a X year old kid who wants to make Y" kickstarter campaigns.
peripetylabs 14y ago
Great initiative. It may be wise to steer the kid towards something more educational, like a Snake clone in Python or something. RPG Maker teaches nothing.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- bsilvereagle 14y ago
  “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” - William Keats For what she's after, I think a first game in anything is good. The technical knowledge will come later after the passion has been ignited.
Smudge 14y ago
From Kickstarter's policies: > Kickstarter does not allow charity, cause, or "fund my life" projects. In the "where's the money going" section of her project page, it's pretty clear that this money was going to go towards tuition for a week-long summer camp, and also a new laptop. I'd put these squarely in the "fund my life" categories. If all she's doing is asking for a hand-out, her success sends the wrong message. (Maybe there's more to it though, and I do think that this kind of campaign is, in general, a very good thing!) Technically, the project also adheres to this policy: > Everything on Kickstarter must be a project. A project has a clear goal, like making an album, a book, or a work of art. A project will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it. Assuming she sets out to produce an RPG, perhaps she can use some of this money to pay for game assets, writing, editing, etc. Or, alternatively, she could pay for other kids to attend RPG camp (or other STEM camps). I really do hope could be turned into something very positive, but I have my doubts.
- MoreMoschops 14y ago
  It's a training course that the people building the product need to go on (which, in this case, is a single person). Some kickstarters might send two of their people on a 3D animation course. Some might buy an expensive set of textbooks and other such training material. This one sends someone on a residential RPG course. Some kickstarters might need to buy some expensive hardware that she could not otherwise afford. That's exactly what this one is doing. I could not disagree more that it counts as "fund my life". "Fund my life" would be paying for things that she was going to have to do anyway, such as paying the rent and bills (which she probably doesn't, being 8 or however old she is, but that kind of thing is "fund my life").
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    So I could do a Kickstarter to fund a long European vacation?
    - EliRivers 14y ago
      No, you've missed the point completely. In English, "vacation" and "training course" do not have the same meaning; don't be fooled by the fact that they both involve living away from home. The Kickstarter policies are clearly listed on their page, but the point is that you have to be making something; producing a product. If you'd checked, you'd have seen that vacation is explicitly listed as forbidden. For example, you could be making a book about European art, and to do this, you need to go to Europe. In this case, one could argue that she's getting money for tuition, which is against the rules, but it's part of the disallowed "fund my life", which implies that it's things that are already part of her life. Without the kickstarter, she's not going on the training course; it's not part of her life. It's an essential part of producing the product at the end of the kickstarter.
      - waterlesscloud 14y ago
        No, I get the point. It's just that it opens such a blatant loophole that the rules might as well not exist.

13 points by chrisdinn 14y ago

Brace yourselves for the massive wave of "I'm a X year old kid who wants to make Y" kickstarter campaigns.

Great initiative. It may be wise to steer the kid towards something more educational, like a Snake clone in Python or something. RPG Maker teaches nothing.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
bsilvereagle 14y ago
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” - William Keats For what she's after, I think a first game in anything is good. The technical knowledge will come later after the passion has been ignited.

Smudge 14y ago

From Kickstarter's policies: > Kickstarter does not allow charity, cause, or "fund my life" projects. In the "where's the money going" section of her project page, it's pretty clear that this money was going to go towards tuition for a week-long summer camp, and also a new laptop. I'd put these squarely in the "fund my life" categories. If all she's doing is asking for a hand-out, her success sends the wrong message. (Maybe there's more to it though, and I do think that this kind of campaign is, in general, a very good thing!) Technically, the project also adheres to this policy: > Everything on Kickstarter must be a project. A project has a clear goal, like making an album, a book, or a work of art. A project will eventually be completed, and something will be produced by it. Assuming she sets out to produce an RPG, perhaps she can use some of this money to pay for game assets, writing, editing, etc. Or, alternatively, she could pay for other kids to attend RPG camp (or other STEM camps). I really do hope could be turned into something very positive, but I have my doubts.

MoreMoschops 14y ago
It's a training course that the people building the product need to go on (which, in this case, is a single person). Some kickstarters might send two of their people on a 3D animation course. Some might buy an expensive set of textbooks and other such training material. This one sends someone on a residential RPG course. Some kickstarters might need to buy some expensive hardware that she could not otherwise afford. That's exactly what this one is doing. I could not disagree more that it counts as "fund my life". "Fund my life" would be paying for things that she was going to have to do anyway, such as paying the rent and bills (which she probably doesn't, being 8 or however old she is, but that kind of thing is "fund my life").
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  So I could do a Kickstarter to fund a long European vacation?
  - EliRivers 14y ago
    No, you've missed the point completely. In English, "vacation" and "training course" do not have the same meaning; don't be fooled by the fact that they both involve living away from home. The Kickstarter policies are clearly listed on their page, but the point is that you have to be making something; producing a product. If you'd checked, you'd have seen that vacation is explicitly listed as forbidden. For example, you could be making a book about European art, and to do this, you need to go to Europe. In this case, one could argue that she's getting money for tuition, which is against the rules, but it's part of the disallowed "fund my life", which implies that it's things that are already part of her life. Without the kickstarter, she's not going on the training course; it's not part of her life. It's an essential part of producing the product at the end of the kickstarter.
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      No, I get the point. It's just that it opens such a blatant loophole that the rules might as well not exist.