3 ms·

My opinion is that if this were a more sincere Kickstarter that focused on the child, I'd give it a pass. Instead it reads as a mother's ignorant views on sex a

by mnicole 14y ago

My opinion is that if this were a more sincere Kickstarter that focused on the child, I'd give it a pass. Instead it reads as a mother's ignorant views on sex and sexuality ironically being used to generate sympathy for gender issues and, ultimately, profit. She even manages to hate on developers by saying "as a businessperson" she feels like she's "at their mercy" instead of taking some responsibility and educating herself before hiring people she feels used by. She says she's glad her daughter's getting into it so she no longer feels swindled. What a great attitude to have about an entire industry and one's own willingness to learn. Regardless of her wealth, I'm not cool with people taking advantage of Kickstarter by exploiting children, people with different lifestyles and serious social issues. Her Twitter campaigning illustrates her intentions even further. An honest campaign would have been much more driven by the child. When I was this girl's age, I would have pounced at the chance to show people the nerdy stuff I was doing so I could prove how badly I wanted to go to a game dev summer camp, especially because I was a girl. If my mom put this together, I would have been embarrassed and ashamed. Do away with the weird over-produced secret agent PowerPoint template of a presentation and ridiculous TLDR written by the mother. Do away with the weird marketing materials (a beer koozie that says "I drink like a girl, keep up!"?). Like any other gaming Kickstarter, I want to know more about what I can expect from this game rather than vague bullet-list promises to be "unlike other games", especially when the original cost was only going to cover 5 days of development. The girl has an entire diary of game ideas she could help sell herself with, but instead of substance I get to read trying-to-be-funny commentary not at all written by a 9-year-old. Caine's Arcade (http://vimeo.com/40000072 http://vimeo.com/40000072) comes to mind as a much better way to tell the story of a child's passion through their eyes.

niggler 14y ago
Lemme give a counterpoint: What if the lesson here were to teach how to raise money? What if it were to go through the actual process of building a game (which includes far more than just writing the game)? Instead of looking at it as a scam, this is a mother who is trying to teach her daughter some valuable life lessons that I wish I learned when I was young (I'm male, but that's beside the point). To put it in terms more germane to technology, she has a brilliant pitch (appealing to gender issues), really good reward items (lots of people get burned by underpricing those) and a really modest goal (even if she doesn't finish the game, everyone chipping money into the kickstarter feels good)
- mnicole 14y ago
  Is that how you want to teach your daughter how to make money? Throwing your own kin and women you see as lesser than you under the bus? Spamming people over Twitter and Facebook with those same hateful messages for attention? Guilt-tripping a young girl that she'll become some nameless plastic woman on an old guy's arm if she doesn't learn enough? It's shameful; putting one type of person above another is the exact opposite of appealing to gender issues. There's nothing wrong with being one of the women in the presentation if both parties agree to those terms; there are dating sites specific to it and some men (and women) honestly enjoy that role. Who are we to judge them? That whole part of her campaign is distasteful and doesn't do anything but emphasize discrimination. It has nothing to do with why that little girl should enjoy education and yet it was the most emphasized part of the video. The rewards are continued proof that she has the means to fund the course herself. Having greater incentives means more people will pitch into her grand scheme of profiting off of above "gender issues". There's no feel-goodery in helping a rich mom sell her daughter out when there are plenty of girls out there who want to do this without the money or mothers to exploit them.
  - niggler 14y ago
    "There's no feel-goodery in helping a rich mom sell her daughter out when there are plenty of girls out there without money or mothers to exploit them.' If you didn't know the mother was rich, would you feel the same way? If the mother was destitute yet really creative, and wanted to teach the child certain lessons so that the child could avoid the same fate as the mother, would you be so offended? "Spamming people over Twitter and Facebook for attention?" When I was young, I used to go around town with a stapler and a bunch of flyers. Twitter and Facebook is the digital extension of that. "That whole part of her campaign is distasteful and doesn't do anything but emphasize discrimination" Suppose you wanted to teach your daughter the fundamentals of business. The fact still remains that there were at least 1100 people willing to chip money into that storyline. And if the lesson here is to find an underserved portion of the market and cater to them (many many many articles discussing this very matter brushed the front page), this project fits the bill. "The rewards are continued proof that she has the means to fund the course herself." To put it in perspective, many of the projects on kickstarter could have been funded by the project creators. The Tim Schafer kickstarter could easily have been funded by the man, yet I don't see anyone complaining about that.

by mnicole 14y ago

niggler 14y ago

Lemme give a counterpoint: What if the lesson here were to teach how to raise money? What if it were to go through the actual process of building a game (which includes far more than just writing the game)? Instead of looking at it as a scam, this is a mother who is trying to teach her daughter some valuable life lessons that I wish I learned when I was young (I'm male, but that's beside the point). To put it in terms more germane to technology, she has a brilliant pitch (appealing to gender issues), really good reward items (lots of people get burned by underpricing those) and a really modest goal (even if she doesn't finish the game, everyone chipping money into the kickstarter feels good)

mnicole 14y ago
Is that how you want to teach your daughter how to make money? Throwing your own kin and women you see as lesser than you under the bus? Spamming people over Twitter and Facebook with those same hateful messages for attention? Guilt-tripping a young girl that she'll become some nameless plastic woman on an old guy's arm if she doesn't learn enough? It's shameful; putting one type of person above another is the exact opposite of appealing to gender issues. There's nothing wrong with being one of the women in the presentation if both parties agree to those terms; there are dating sites specific to it and some men (and women) honestly enjoy that role. Who are we to judge them? That whole part of her campaign is distasteful and doesn't do anything but emphasize discrimination. It has nothing to do with why that little girl should enjoy education and yet it was the most emphasized part of the video. The rewards are continued proof that she has the means to fund the course herself. Having greater incentives means more people will pitch into her grand scheme of profiting off of above "gender issues". There's no feel-goodery in helping a rich mom sell her daughter out when there are plenty of girls out there who want to do this without the money or mothers to exploit them.
- niggler 14y ago
  "There's no feel-goodery in helping a rich mom sell her daughter out when there are plenty of girls out there without money or mothers to exploit them.' If you didn't know the mother was rich, would you feel the same way? If the mother was destitute yet really creative, and wanted to teach the child certain lessons so that the child could avoid the same fate as the mother, would you be so offended? "Spamming people over Twitter and Facebook for attention?" When I was young, I used to go around town with a stapler and a bunch of flyers. Twitter and Facebook is the digital extension of that. "That whole part of her campaign is distasteful and doesn't do anything but emphasize discrimination" Suppose you wanted to teach your daughter the fundamentals of business. The fact still remains that there were at least 1100 people willing to chip money into that storyline. And if the lesson here is to find an underserved portion of the market and cater to them (many many many articles discussing this very matter brushed the front page), this project fits the bill. "The rewards are continued proof that she has the means to fund the course herself." To put it in perspective, many of the projects on kickstarter could have been funded by the project creators. The Tim Schafer kickstarter could easily have been funded by the man, yet I don't see anyone complaining about that.