Topic: Kickstarter for new Pure Nintendo Magazine UPDATE: Exclusive content

[Kairon]

I think maybe they released this kickstarter a little half-baked. They probably should have had more of a marketing plan in place, probably a video that revealed more about exclusive content and the specialness of the project, and reward tiers that were better thought out (For example, why no $25 tier for Subscription PLUS a sticker? That'd be a cool sticker!). I think maybe a big mistake was not giving small donors more choices right from the get go when they got most of their views, and especially more choices above the $20 level but below the $50 level.

[BeautifulShy]

Well with 4 hours left in the kickstarter they have made their goal.

[Kairon]

Dear god, that was close! I really didn't think they'd make it!

[CM30]

Just e-mailed the admins of the site to congratulate them for making their goal.  Like others here, I didn't expect them to make it, they were a good few thousand short just sometime yesterday.

[Drizzt]

Awesome, I can't wait. Hopefully this magazine will be like the phoenix rising from the ashes of Nintendo Power.

[broodwars]

So the Kickstarter got funded.  Well, I hope it works out for you, because I believe the market has shown what will happen.

[MegaByte]

It's pretty likely that they filled in the funding gap with their own funds. The gap rapidly closed, but there was little change in the number of supporters.

[Kairon]

I've heard that kickstarters do tend to accelerate and do tons of their funding in their last few days...But in this case, there was 1 backer who gave $4000.

[ThePerm]

I've been so wanting to start a kickstarter project. Also, ifd you're close to your goal, and you weren't the main contributor...its a good idea to put the last donation in. That is probably what happened here. If you contribute to yourself, you dont have to incentivise yourself, and you get to have the profit from starting it. However you have to make more then 3% back for it to be profitable because kickstarter charges you 3%

I've posted links to kickstarter stuff, but they have never been mine.

[Spak-Spang]

This is the one thing about Kickstarter that I do not fully trust...that idea I can throw some last minute funds...sometimes quite large numbers into the mix just to get the funding...and really, there are some projects that are questionable.

[Kairon]

How is it questionable to pay your own money to fund your own project?

[UncleBob]

How is it questionable to pay your own money to fund your own project?

It's an ethical thing.

They said they needed $20,000 to fund the magazine.  If they only really needed $16,000, then they should say they need $16,000 and include a stretch goal if they want.

Also, they posted:

@Maxi I know!! We just got a huge backer and just a few hours to spare! Thanks to everyone for their support! Let's see if we can get to the 200 backer mark!

Which would be flat misleading if it wasn't a third party who actually made a donation.

I hope it turns out that it was a third party - otherwise... ick.

[TJ Spyke]

Using your own money to help it not unethical. If you want to talk about ethics, what about the Penny Arcade guys? The point of Kickstarter is to raise money for projects, but the greedy guys at Penny Arcade used Kickstarter just to get rid of the ads on their site (not that there were many ads anyways) for 1 year. That is unethical as there is no project there.

Also, it's not unethical if one of the guys used their own personal money for it (it would only be unethical if the company used its money for it). I think every Kickstarter project could have lower goals if the people used more of their own personal money.

[NWR_insanolord]

I don't see how what Penny Arcade did was unethical. It may not have been within the established norm of Kickstarter, but I don't know how you can argue they violated any ethical codes with it.

[CM30]

If there's nothing ethically wrong in what Penny Arcade did, there's nothing 'wrong' in what Pure Nintendo may have done either.  Not that I think what either group did was ethically wrong in any way, and hey, no one donated based on false premises.

[Chozo Ghost]

Using your own money to help it not unethical.

To be fair, what you consider ethical or unethical is sometimes outside of the mainstream.

[marty]

How is it questionable to pay your own money to fund your own project?

It shows really bad money management.  The kickstarter cut and financial fees means your throwing away 10% of your pledge to recover money from a project that would have otherwise been a failure.  However much it costs you to clear your goal should have already been factored into the equation.  The larger the disparity between the goal and the backers, the more you are losing by backing yourself.


What PA did seems to violate ks policy to the letter (no fund my life projects), but I'd be shocked if ks forewent a big amount of cash just to follow their own rules.

[TJ Spyke]

I don't see how what Penny Arcade did was unethical. It may not have been within the established norm of Kickstarter, but I don't know how you can argue they violated any ethical codes with it.

The point of Kickstarter is to help fund projects, Penny Arcade used it just to pay their own bills ; which seems to also go against the rules of Kickstarter, specifically the "No "fund my life" projects." It's no different than a individual doing a Kickstarter for people to pay their rent/groceries. I think Kickstarter let them get away with it because PA are pretty big, and Kickstarter wants that 3% fee. At the bare minimum, it goes against the principals of Kickstarter, "Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects" (right from the website). How is getting fans to pay for their ad bills a "creative project"?

[NWR_insanolord]

Well, the comic they produce is a creative product, and they had people fund it via Kickstarter instead of advertisers funding it. Also, all te stretch goals they had were extra creative things they might not have been able to do otherwise.

[TJ Spyke]

The funding wasn't for the comic though, it was specifically to pay for their advertising bills. They have almost no ads anyways. And how is this different than something like a musician asking you to pay for their rent and groceries? They need those to be creative, and you are paying for it instead of an employer. At best, Penny Arcade violated the spirit of Kickstarter. At worst, they flat out violated Kickstarter's rules and Kickstarter looked the other way so they could get the $15,844 fee they got (3% of what Penny Arcade tricked people into donating). PA was never in any financial trouble, and the site would have continued the same either way, all this did was have people pay for their bills (and more, so they pocket the money) instead of outsider advertises. It was nothing more than a "fund my life" project.

[NWR_Neal]

I know with Penny Arcade, they discussed it with Kickstarter a lot to make sure it was kosher. I could see Kickstarter getting $$$ signs in their eyes because PA is a big draw, but I can't fault PA for what they did. Obviously people wanted to support the site. I didn't personally donate, but people showed their support for that with their money.

On the other hand, seeing a Kickstarter pretty clearly passing the success threshold by a contribution from what is probably the organizer is weird and backwards. They lose money (Kickstarter's cut, Amazon Payments' cut) off of that, and it shows that, guess what, people actually don't give that much of a **** about your product. They might be happy now, but in the long term, I can't see this succeeding if the Kickstarter indeed was only successful because someone on the team threw down $4000.

I guess there could be some angel who loves the idea of a Nintendo magazine to put down that much money. If so, I'd like to talk to that person. This little site called Nintendo World Report could use some scrilla scrilla.

[ThePerm]

Penny Arcade:Explanation

generally websites need advertisers to pay for the content to be created. Using a kickstarter pays for the content to be created without advertisers. They aren't paying for advertisers, they are paying to not need advertisers. The project for Penny Arcade is "a couple years of penny arcade". Its not a "fund my life" project. Its an allow me to continue to make my popular webcomic without having icky ads and or getting a part time 9-5. This sort of thing is called micro-patronage.

The Magazine: Its not unethical to add you're money in. Adding money to get money means that you only net less money. If the project goal was 16,000 and they really didn't have 20,000 by the deadline then adding 4000 would still net the project 16,000. So, you say the project should only be 16,000 if that's all it will earn? No.

one should expect to profit off projects. You can't do any project unless you make some sort of profit. Why? Because to do a project you need time. To have time you can't have too many obligations like a drone job. To not have a drone job you need money, because you must pay rent or mortgage(unless you're wealthy, in which case why kickstart? or also lowball your project)

When I kickstart any project, my rent would be factored into it. I would really like to make a 7000 dollar movie like Robert Rodriguez...but in reality it wouldn't be 7000. He was married at age 23 and his wife was taking care of the living expenses. The 7000 he did get was from participating in pharmaceutical studies. In a way...that was his kickstarter. I don't know what his rent was, but lets assume it was 700 a month. It took about 6 months to film and edit and sale his movie.  So, really his movie cost about 11,600. Which is about how much bellflower cost to make.

[UncleBob]

I think some people are taking the word "unethical" too harshly.

In my humble opinion, if Pure Nintendo was asking for donations but misrepresented their need, it's tacky.  That's all.  I don't think they should go to jail or Kickstarter should pull the donations or anything like that.  Just that it's tacky to think that they had their hats out for money that they didn't need.  That's all.

[TJ Spyke]

Does Screw Attack or Penny Arcade needy money? Hell no. Screw Attack wanted money just to have a convention. Penny Arcade wanted fans to pay the advertising bills.

[Kairon]

I don't think it's that they didn't need that money. If that's what even happened. After all, this is all alleged. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Anyways, I figure that worst case scenario, some poor soul just committed to living off of ramen for a year just to finish this kickstarter by the deadline.