

9-Year-Old Girl Raises $15,000 to Make Video Game - edtechdev
http://mashable.com/2013/03/22/9-year-old-girl-kickstarter-video-game/

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EdgarVerona
I feel like this was a con, and yet I also feel strong social pressure to not
share this opinion with my friends and co-workers.

1) Did the 9 year old write any of that appeal? I don't think so. Sure, her
mom may have written it with her prompting - but the entire appeal feels too
well-constructed to pull at heartstrings. There's something... gimmicky about
it, something that makes me feel like the appeal isn't genuine.

2) Was this kickstarter really about making a game? No, she's going to a camp
to learn about making games - which is cool in theory, if there actually _is_
a little girl and she actually _is_ going to that camp. But it does also mean
that the whole premise of the kickstarter's title is misleading at best.

3) The sudden stretch goal bonuses (where'd all this merch come from?) seemed
highly questionable as well, and counter to the goal - if she just needs money
to go to some camp, why even HAVE stretch goals? This feels like someone who
played the system, creating a false situation to gain profit from people. I
wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that there isn't actually a kid at all -
that it's not even a parent who got greedy, but someone who just flat-out lied
to get a good chunk of change.

A lot of people I know seem to believe it unquestioningly, which makes me
wonder whether I'm being paranoid. But my gut tells me that if I heard a story
like this while walking down the street, I wouldn't give them a dollar (and I
frequently give people on the street asking for money a dollar). Especially if
they started pulling out merch in exchange for additional donations.

I also love that this article vilifies people who appropriately point out the
skeptical parts of this whole situation. I love a feel-good story as much as
anyone else when it's real... but this situation throws up more red flags than
a well-bribed soccer referee.

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ChuckMcM
Look at her (Susan Wilson's) other Kickstarter [1], her husband, the ex-marine
sewing super hero capes, goal $20,000 raised $400. Clearly Susan is getting
better at understanding the Kickstarter user mentality. And _that_ is what she
is training her kids to understand.

[1] [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susanwilson/the-cape-
pro...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susanwilson/the-cape-
project?ref=users)

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jbellis
This violates kickstarter guidelines against "fund my life" campaigns
(<http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines>). I've used the Report button to
bring this to their attention.

Yes, I know it's a feel-good story, but encouraging this will bring a flood of
me-too campaigns. That's what guidelines are for; Mom can pay for camp the way
the rest of us do.

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EliRivers
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, so it's not part of her
life.

College student asking for money to pay university fees - that's tuition,
that's "funding my life". Training course for the people producing the
product, that they would not go on without the kickstarter and is essential to
the production of the product at the end of the kickstarter? That's not
"funding my life", that's kickstarter.

~~~
jbellis
I'm pretty sure "buying a product" wasn't how it was presented when I first
looked at it... in any case, it's clearly an attempt to get around the rules;
nobody is seriously interested in buying a My First RPG Maker Game on its
merit.

Tuition is a good example; this is exactly like "pay my Full Sail tuition and
I'll give you copies of the games I make there," on a smaller scale.

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EliRivers
No, you're not buying a product. You're funding the creation of a product. If
the kickstarter in question chooses to give people that product, that's
lovely, but it's not what you're paying for.

" this is exactly like "pay my Full Sail tuition and I'll give you copies of
the games I make there," on a smaller scale."

No, it is not. What's the product there? What product am I paying money to
fund the creation of? What do I read about on the kickstarter page that the
course is a necessary part of creating? No product.

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waterlesscloud
So you can fund literally anything.

I could fund a car as long as I produced a book about buying and owning the
car.

~~~
EliRivers
You cannot fund literally anything. Check the rules. "We allow creative
projects in the worlds of Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film, Food,
Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, and Theater. 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."

If you're writing a book about a car that falls into the above, and you put on
your kickstarter page that you need to buy the car in order to write the book,
that's within the rules. Many, many, MANY kickstarters make it clear that they
will be buying physical goods in order to create the product. If you want to
do this, by all means go for it. I wouldn't be surprised if people decided not
to fund it because they think you're trying to get a free car out of them, but
purchase of goods (and services) with the kickstarter funds to help make the
product is pretty much the whole point of kickstarter. In your case, I
wouldn't be surprised if kickstarter themselves decided to squelch your
project on the heavy suspicion that you don't really have a passion for a
creating a book about the car, but that's up to them.

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alanctgardner2
Did anyone else catch "as a business person, my mom says she feels like she's
held hostage by developers". That seems... excessively hostile? It's a cute
campaign, but I think it actually reflects poorly on her mum.

~~~
illuminate
Of course, her mom wrote every quote.

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joshdotsmith
The title of this story should be "9-Year-Old's Wealthy Entrepreneur Mom
Raises $14,000 More Than She Needed To Send Daughter To Camp".

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lucb1e
I wonder what impact that has on her life. Of course it's amazing (and
somewhat lucky), but making this much money on such age... If she makes
anything else in the next decade and it's not going to exceed everything
previously, she might consider it a failure. Not exceeding what you did at 9
years old is pretty depressing I imagine.

~~~
illuminate
The extra money's not going directly to the daughter.

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camus
I'd like to know why people support that kind of project ? it doesnt seem like
this little girl really need money. it's just a question.

