
Mother raising money through Kickstarter to send daughter to RPG camp - jmount
http://www.playereffort.com/?p=3884
======
jmount
Just in case my title gets de-editorialized. I submitted this as 'Fraud:
Millionaire using Kickstarter "girl controversy" to raise money.' (did have to
edit out some typos on my part) The kickstarter isn't raising money for camp
(as you might guess), but for single rich individual.

I am all for more funding to support young girls in computing. I would just
like to see it applied to those that would not receive such benefits without
additional help.

I am not for "shaming" in general, but I feel exposure is the only way to try
to set this right. And this is ongoing, Susan Wilson has not withdrawn the
Kickstarter which has collected over $22,000 to send a rich girl to summer
camp.

~~~
EliRivers
So is your problem that the money is going towards a training course, or is
your problem that she could have raised the money some other way?

Where is the fraud, by the way? What is she lying about? Are the people who
are choosing to give their money to this being totally fooled and they think
their money will be spent on something completely different?

~~~
jmount
My problem is rich people soliciting donations for their selves (under the
sneaky implication they are somebody who needs this).

As to Fraud from the Kickstarter: "My goal is to raise $829 to cover the cost
of RPG Camp." The fraud is the implication the girl needs the money and won't
get to go if we don't fund it. Or any implication this will help other girls
than this one. Additional fraud is the Kickstarter is being run by a minor who
can't enter into contracts, set up Amazon/Paypall accounts and so on.

I guess it isn't fraud if you have enough after the fact apologists.

~~~
_delirium
Isn't much of Kickstarter rich people seeking donations for themselves? It's
not like Peter Molyneux, a multi-millionaire, needed to get Kickstarter
donations, but he did anyway. Presumably he just didn't want to spend his own
money on building a game prototype.

I guess I'd leave it up to the funders of a particular project whether they
think giving already-rich people more money is a good use of their own money.
Some kind of mandatory disclosure of existing net worth could be an
interesting twist, to make sure people aren't misled about the requester's
existing financial situation. But I doubt KS would go for that.

------
smoyer
Most millionaires become rich by keeping as much of their income as they can
... I guess it's easier if you're willing to give up a good reputation in the
process. When I read the KS campaign, I thought it was a bit weird that the
mom was obviously doing the writing, but I hadn't researched Susan Wilson at
all. Maybe she was really just trying to show her daughter how to reach for
her dreams but she'll have to be careful with the extra money or she'll teach
her the wrong things. I'd suggest using the extra money to send needy kids to
the computer camp.

------
jessaustin
If Kickstarter doesn't stop this sort of thing, it will soon be overrun with
this sort of thing. I'm not necessarily against soliciting charity for those
who may not deserve it (after all that would mean I'm against most non-profits
in the USA), and there may be a sustainable business model for it _somewhere
else_ , but if this becomes "a thing" it will detract from the point of
Kickstarter.

------
mnicole
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>) comes to mind as a much better
way to tell the story of a child's passion through their eyes.

~~~
niggler
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)

~~~
Jare
Two questions:

\- What do you think about the usage and portrayal of the sons here?

\- What do you think of the $10K reward where the boys apologize?

Followup question depending on your answers:

\- Do you approve of teaching about dishonesty by behaving dishonestly?

My own answers:

1) Disgusting and manipulative 2) I don't believe she would do that, but if
she did then... 3) That's repulsive

~~~
niggler
We don't know the underlying family dynamic, but the storyline that is being
sold here is:

\- Girl proposes idea of making a game

\- Brothers were skeptical: "She tried with my brothers but they weren't
interested."

\- Brothers challenged girl, maybe saying something like "you can't do it"

\- Girl says "watch me!" and asks mother about going to this RPG camp.

So if you believe that actually happened, the $10K reward where the boys
apologize is a really clever lesson. The girl gets her money and the boys lean
a lesson about not being overly cynical (after all, someone would have given
her $10K)

Of course we don't know what actually happened here.

So my answers are:

(assuming everything stated is true)

1) Disgusting and manipulative (I never would want to cast any of my children
in a negative light)

2) Brilliant if it actually happens: no better time than now to stamp out
cynicism and negativity

But of course, that assumes the story line is 100% true.

If it turns out not to be the case, then I agree that the entire situation
soup-to-nuts is repulsive.

------
zalzane
The only thing that -really- bothers me about this kickstarter is that people
kept donating after it had passed its goal by such a ridiculous amount. I can
understand it ending at a few hundred dollars more than they asked, but 20x
the original asking amount? Really?

It's as if the people donating don't really care that donating more money may
complicate things - they just want to donate so they can get their daily "I'm
such a nice person" high.

I can't help but wonder whether or not this controversy would have even
happened if the donators had stopped at the target amount of 800 dollars.

------
Metapony
There are so many girls whose parents aren't millionaires who need our help
that I am a little shocked that so many people were misled in backing this. I
think Susan Wilson's comments on the kickstarter are a fine example of
shooting yourself in the foot. It's actually a little funny to see the
comments go from very positive at first to negative as more and more concerns
are raised. It's She's clearly exploiting her children and the goodwill of the
community. I'll be very surprised if Kickstarter doesn't put a stop to this
very quickly.

~~~
torya
some women would do anything for money.

~~~
Metapony
Now I didn't, and wouldn't, say that. (That's a rather rude thing to say.)

I do think that Susan Wilson probably doesn't need the money. But more
importantly, I think this kickstarter (and however much notoriety it
generates) is more what Susan Wilson is after here. It's almost finely crafted
to be controversial, just at an edge of what is acceptable, and will be
something she can cite for the next decade in interviews. It's clear that this
particular woman doesn't need the money, but the fame she generates in
exploiting her child is priceless.

edit: for clarity

------
tomasien
I don't think this is fraud, but I'm not sure it's currently allowed on
Kickstarter. The problem is, this is "$829 so I can go to camp", not funding
the game itself. So normally the excess money is explicitly for continuing to
develop whatever is being funded, but in this instance that may be LIKELY but
it's not explicit.

However, having a bunch of money and being able to afford something without
Kickstarter is meaningless in this equation. The fact that the mom is a
wealthy person has 0 pertinence.

~~~
waterlesscloud
The pitch copy explicitly says the money over the goal will go to extending
her time at camp, up to the length of the entire summer.

I don't know how much that would cost, but I think we're probably past that
now, and I don't see any indication what the rest will go towards.

I've wished in the past that Kickstarter required some sort of open accounting
for projects funded through them. But in practice I don't know how that would
work. There's no effective leverage outside of setting that as a standard. If
someone didn't, nothing could be done other than community pressure.

------
keiferski
I don't get it. Is it fraud because she already has enough money to pay for
it, but opted to use Kickstarter instead?

How is that fraud? Is every millionaire startup founder who raises capital a
fraud as well?

~~~
itafroma
I think there's a fair bit of double standards here. Here's a short, by-no-
means-exhaustive list of well received, wildly successful Kickstarter
campaigns started by multi-millionaires who could've easily offered the
funding themselves:

* Double Fine Adventure (Tim Schaefer): [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublefine/double-fine-a...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doublefine/double-fine-adventure?ref=live)

* Yogventures (the Yogscast): [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/winterkewlgames/yogventu...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/winterkewlgames/yogventures?ref=live)

* Veronica Mars Project (Rob Thomas or Kristen Bell): [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-m...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project?ref=live)

* Wasteland 2 (inXile Entertainment, run by Brian Fargo): <http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2>

* Torment ( _2nd_ Kickstarter run by inXile Entertainment, before even fulfilling Wasteland 2): [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera?ref=live)

* Project Eternity (Obsidian Entertainment, a AAA games company, run by Chris Jones): [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternit...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity?ref=most-funded)

* Project Godus (22 Cans, run by Peter Molyneux): [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/22cans/project-godus?ref...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/22cans/project-godus?ref=live)

Why a nine-year-old girl and her ostensibly well-to-do mother get called out
as "fraud" but not everyone else is something I don't really understand.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I figured out what bothers me about this Kickstarter- There's almost nothing
about the actual "project", that is, the game.

This is all that's said about it:

"As I said in the video, I want to create an RPG that isn't too violent and
isn't filled with bad words, still has a good story line & cool graphics, but
has shorter cut scenes, less menus & fewer controls. And most importantly, I
want a game that allows team members to face danger together and get hurt but
doesn't kill team mates off & eliminate them from battle."

That's it.

There's tons and tons of stuff about...well, everything but the supposed
project. The game itself is secondary, if that.

So it's hard for me to see how this is really about a project and not about
sending someone to summer camp. If that's the case, it would seem to very
clearly run against Kickstarter's rules.

~~~
itafroma
I think that's a fair criticism: definitely one of the reasons why I didn't
decide to back the project.

And I think the idea that this is may be really about paying tuition instead
of finishing the game is something that's fair to report and let Kickstarter
decide whether it violates their terms of use.

Overall, it looks like a bad Kickstarter campaign to fund, but it's not fraud
and the level of vitriol about it is over the top. Bad Kickstarters happen all
the time[1], but they don't get this crazy amount of hate.

[1]: <http://www.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters>

------
pud
I don't think this is fraud.

Looks to me like a mom & daughter made something together and put it on the
internet.

I live in an affluent part of San Francisco (Noe Valley) and last week saw
lots of rich moms selling girl scout cookies with their daughters, mom doing
all the "work." Is that fraud?

Also, nowhere do I see anything in the article (or the CNN article it links
to) about the mom's finances. Just because you have a business does not mean
you're rich -- it often means the contrary.

~~~
mikeash
Fraud requires a lie, which I don't see. Apparently "fraud" now means doing
something that you don't like.

Personally, I think this could be great, if the parents are doing it properly.
The daughter is learning how to achieve her goals with assistance from other
people who give willingly, instead of mooching off mom and dad. A lot of
children are lucky if they can manage to learn this lesson by the age of 18
(or later... I wasn't exactly an early bloomer here myself), and, managed
well, this kid is going to have a good handle on it much faster than that.

~~~
mercurial
It's a lie by omission. As a backer, you're missing a critical piece of
information which would cause a lot of people not to fork over their cash. The
only hint you get that mommy is not living from government handouts is that
it's said she "sometimes has to hire programmers and developers for her work",
and that she is a "business person", which might as well mean a freelance web
developer struggling to make ends meet.

So what is little Mackenzie Wilson learning? How to achieve her goals "with
assistance from other people"? Or that you can find plenty of suckers on the
Internet if you pull on their heartstrings just enough?

~~~
mikeash
The default assumption now is that people are living off government handouts
until proven otherwise? Huh?

~~~
mercurial
The default assumption is that, when you have to ask money from strangers to
fund your kid's holidays, you're not flush with money. I used "government
handouts" to drive the point home.

------
rogueSkib
Older siblings tend to give little siblings a hard time in general, regardless
of their gender.

This is most definitely a publicity stunt at Kickstarter's expense.
Millionaire's begging others to fund their child's camp is not something you
see every day, and it most certainly doesn't belong on Kickstarter.

------
rogueSkib
This reddit post sums up everything wrong with this, quotes the broken KS
rules, and links to evidence:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1awnzx/so_you_know_th...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1awnzx/so_you_know_that_kickstarter_for_the_girl_who/c91g8yn)

------
citricsquid
Just skimmed the article and kickstarter page so maybe this is addressed
already: (speculation) surely this isn't about the money, it's about publicity
for the game camp? They don't need the money if her profile is to be believed
(although the amount of supposed millionaires around that are dirt poor means
it's plausible she isn't rich). She probably has some connection with the game
camp.

Edit: actually I want to revise that statement, on looking through her website
links I think it's more likely this is advertising for _her_ , she's trying to
build a brand. I assume she'll go a long way off the back off "next on USA
Today, the crowd-sourcing mom!" or something. She's got her own female
entrepreneur thing at fundher.com. Maybe that's it.

~~~
jmount
Then why don't they collect money for the camp instead of for themselves?

------
EliRivers
Conversation already running here:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5427771>

and here:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5425235>

and probably elsewhere as well.

~~~
olalonde
Out of curiosity, are you in any way affiliated with this Kickstarter? Your
comment history shows 10 comments on the topic so far, mostly siding with the
mother.

~~~
corin_
If your opinion was on the side of the mother wouldn't you find yourself
commenting quite a few times given the bombard of comments on the other side,
without the need for a hidden agenda?

~~~
jessaustin
Given the comments made, GP has a valid question.

------
infoman
report abuse now: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susanwilson/9-year-
old-b...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susanwilson/9-year-old-building-
an-rpg-to-prove-her-brothers-w/report/new)

~~~
infoman
I don't know if it is alright but i made a new news item of this with a clear
call to action and hope we can take this project off kickstarter. let's get it
done, hack0rs

~~~
infoman
Save Kickstarter from scam - report this fake sexist project (kickstarter.com)

------
Smudge
It's not fraud simply _because_ the mother is a millionaire. But it's probably
against Kickstarter's policies nonetheless:

> Kickstarter does not allow charity, cause, or "fund my life" projects.

I suppose one could construe summer camp tuition as "training" and the new
laptop she'll be getting (see "Where is the money going" section) as equipment
costs. But that's really not what is happening.

------
niggler
For those wondering if kickstarter will do anything about this:

It's pretty clear that kickstarter is happy with getting the 5% cut, and I
wouldn't be surprised to see more of this in the future.

~~~
illuminate
Yup. Just as eBay doesn't care about shill bidders that bid up the price,
Kickstarter doesn't ~really~ care about their users getting scammed through
violations of their TOS as long as they make their cut.

------
downandout
This is not fraud. If the basis of the campaign were that her family is just
too poor to send her, that would be fraud. But that is clearly not in there.
As far as whether she needs it or not, many kids with rich parents don't get
to enjoy that money. Some rich parents are just downright cheap and selfish,
and others want to teach their kids the value of a dollar. My guess is that
the daughter asked for the money, and mom wanted to teach her how to go out
and get it instead of just asking her. They worked together and created a
successful campaign.

The people calling this fraud are jealous. They look at their own kickstarter
campaigns that aren't nearly as successful and wonder why they haven't been as
"lucky". Looks like the mother is successfully teaching her daughter how to
make her own luck, and that isn't a bad lesson to learn.

~~~
FireBeyond
"and others want to teach their kids the value of a dollar"

In this case, the value of a dollar being "I'll overproduce a PowerPoint, spam
some celebrities and women's groups on Twitter, we'll include a few pictures
of you being all cute and smiling, and people will just throw money at you!"

"They worked together" - BS. Their merchandise includes beer coolers with
adult slogans. Their marketing includes spamming of women's rights groups, and
celebrities. You don't honestly believe that this was driven by the nine year
old, and not her multimillionaire debt collecting mom, who made her initial
fortune squatting on kinkos.com, do you?

~~~
downandout
>In this case, the value of a dollar being "I'll overproduce a PowerPoint,
spam some celebrities and women's groups on Twitter, we'll include a few
pictures of you being all cute and smiling, and people will just throw money
at you!"

In today's world, this actually seems to be correct.

------
inmygarage
I am a backer of this project, and after reading this post I am still very
happy to be involved.

There is so much involved in this project that simply isn't financial.

Going through the process of putting up the Kickstarter project creates
accountability and motivation for Mackenzie to actually build and finish the
game because she now has a group of people cheering her on from the sidelines.

To me this is exactly what Kickstarter is about: supporting creative
endeavors. The financial aspect of it is secondary...don't you think Kirsten
Bell could just bankroll the $2m Veronica Mars movie herself? Probably. But
with Kickstarter you get the benefit of a built-in support group, and I am
just as happy to support Mackenzie whether she's from a rich or poor family.

~~~
jcc80
This mom previously tried to raise $20k to make...capes. How much of this
$20k+ do you think the 9 yr. old is getting? She's also spamming celebs and
women's groups on twitter - <http://i.imgur.com/b4l2fI2.png>.

I'd be happy to back a child interested in tech but I don't think her daughter
made this - <http://i.imgur.com/F03oG3e.png>.

------
olalonde
This comment on Reddit is quite interesting:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1awnzx/so_you_know_th...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1awnzx/so_you_know_that_kickstarter_for_the_girl_who/c91g8yn)

------
DividesByZero
Strong argument for a 'maximum' cap on kickstarter funding.

~~~
georgemcbay
How would it be decided, though? By the person posting the Kickstarter?
Despite claiming to be about raising less than $1,000 this Kickstarter
allotted up to 5 rewards for $10,000 donations -- so I'm going to guess in
this case they wouldn't have voluntarily put a sane cap on this.

~~~
petercooper
It could be a multiple of the original amount, perhaps. That is, at a 2x
multiple, say, an attempt at raising $800 could go no further than $1600.

~~~
eridius
Terrible idea. That would have severely impacted all of the high-profile
projects to date.

Whoa, HN double-posted my comment. Never seen that happen before.

~~~
petercooper
The thing is, the big heavily funded projects I can recall all got to that
stage by essentially _selling_ something (the OUYA stands out in this regard).
And Kickstarter now seem to be making the point that it's not about selling
stuff but just raising enough to produce something you can sell separately
later. So while I don't actually agree with my own idea, it would seem to fit
with the new line of thinking over there IMHO.

(Happens to me every now and then, but the software is smart enough to [dead]
the dupes, somehow.)

~~~
eridius
Sure, they sold something. This is the first "high-profile" (whereby that I
mean I'm actually seeing it on HN or some other aggregator that I read)
Kickstarter I've seen that isn't really about the actual thing being created.
That said, backers are actually getting a copy of the game, plus other perks,
just like any other video game kickstarter. The only reason there's any
controversy seems to be the fact that the mother in question could presumably
have afforded to do this without the kickstarter. But as others have said,
just because she could have afforded to do this another way doesn't make the
kickstarter somehow wrong.

(And yeah, HN did [dead] the dupe, which I then deleted, I've just never had
this happen before).

------
rmc
Can't really see the fraud here.

------
SODaniel
Fraud? No. Distasteful, dishonest, stupid and incredibly callous? Yes.

------
SODaniel
Why was the title rewritten and the thread effectively killed?

------
flippyhead
If it's the mom saying "hey look kid you need to earn your way in this life,
but if you really want to go to this camp, one thing you could try is
kickstarter" then that's great! I had plenty of super wealthy friends growing
up and the ones that tended to be of solid character had parents that led them
in such ways. Why does a parent having a ton of money necessarily mean the
approach advocated for the child to take/learn should be different than for
less wealthy parents?

Though I do agree kickstarter ought to disallow this sort of thing regardless.

------
jcc80
Brilliant way to capitalize on recent news by this mom. Smart lady. Her
daughter will be thrilled when she finds out enough money was raised for her
to attend the camp. As for the rest of the money...

------
infoman
they have spent more than 1000$ to pay for the video and want less than 1000$
funding. clearly marketing for mothers business

------
infoman
vote this up ? <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433664>

------
supbeta
oh my...

------
torya
i just contacted kickstarter via email.

i hope they take down this cheating fraud bitch. she has a lot of nerve to be
so blatantly stealing other people's hard earned money.

~~~
EliRivers
Is it still theft if you tell them in advance what you want it for and they
choose to give it to you? Our judicial system says no, but your opinion is
considered valid too!

~~~
torya
A thief is a thief, it doesn't matter if she pimps out her kids to Johns on
the internet willing to pay the cash for a fuck. As long as she takes the
money she is guilty, and human trash too.

~~~
EliRivers
Perhaps you don't know what theft is. Theft is taking something that belongs
to someone else (without permission) with the intent of keeping it.

She is not taking anything. People are choosing to give her money. She's not
(obviously) defrauding anyone either; she explained what the money is going
towards. Maybe it is all a scam and she doesn't exist and it's going on coke
n' hookers, but you don't know that any more than I do.

You, however, don't like this, and you don't like that people are choosing to
give her some money, but you are unable to express yourself clearly.

All you have is your pathetic rage and your inability to explain what you
don't like about the situation. Does it make you feel like a big man? Are you
going to start issuing death threats now? You're safe to do that; this is your
new throwaway account, yes? So you can let you inner rage out without losing
any of your precious social approval.

~~~
torya
What about those people who invest money in an unknown ponzi scheme? Bernard
Madoff stole billions yet the victims gave to him willingly.

~~~
EliRivers
Am I really going to have to be an online dictionary? That's fraud.

