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Millionaire tries to get $829 via kickstarter to send daughter to RPG maker camp?

yogloo

Member
That susan wilson is a piece of shit. I hope either this gets cancelled or kickstarter gets sued to hell and back in the future.
 
Exactly, it's like me asking them to fund me to help me become a solicitor and if they do, I'll represent them one time for free when I get my degree.

Sound ridiculous? That's because it is.

Also, here's a hilarious comment by her made 2 years ago on this TechCrunch article:



I've highlighted the best bits.

I went on her about.me page by accident, I almost fell of my chair.

sounds about right, my mom is clearly the dad of the house lol.

moms are strong.
 

moka

Member
Does anyone else feel that this could become a great franchise?

Episode 1: McKenzie vs RPGMaker
it´s live now on Kickstarter

Episode 2: McKenzie vs The Pony Remark
- Kenzie´s mean brothers say she can´t ride a pony because she´s a guuurrrll. Susan decides to start a new Kickstarter project to show them. Target is to raise $829 for pony camp. Extra money will go to the purchase of the pony and the stable. $10K reward tier has the boys clean the stable as a punishment. Every backer will get a video of Kenzie riding the pony and a horse shoe with the Keep Up! logo.

Episode 3: McKenzie vs The Pool
- Kenzie´s mean brothers say she can´t swim a kilometer because she´s a guuurrrlll. Susan decides to start a new Kickstarter project to show them. Target is to raise $829 for swimming camp. Extra money will go to bathing suits and a pool in the garden. $10K reward tier has the boys clean the pool when autumn sets in and it´s full of leafs. Every backer get a bathing cap with the Keep Up! logo.

Susan, if you plan on using any of the above ideas, let´s split $.

I have nothing to say. OOOOOOFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.
 

Patryn

Member
Isn't KS setting legal precedent by keeping this up? What happens when the next person comes and they get theirs taken down? Can't they cite this one and now say they are being unfairly treated?

KS is not the government. They can't set a "legal precedent." They have the ability to change their TOS and do pretty much whatever they want. As long as they are not discriminating based on legally protected classes like race and so on, they have the freedom to do what they want, which includes accepting and rejecting KS proposals for whatever reasons they wish.
 

Bboy AJ

My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Exactly, people are defending it by saying it might bend the rules a bit but doesn't completely break them. What if I created one for myself to help pay for my University fees but I'd promise to create something for backers once I'm done. Would it get taken down? Maybe I should try.

No, that's too iffy. Make it EXACTLY the same as hers, just with you, the fat, balding, old white man trying to go to RPG camp. If it's an exact mirror, just with a different person being supported, you will succeed.

And the best part is that people will donate. People will donate as a "FUCK YOU" to this KS.
 
There have already been Kickstarters by men making RPG Maker games that have been successful, and they didn't even need the money for training or a laptop, they just took it as salary for making the game and used some of it to send backer rewards.
 
I really hope all the projects I'll want to donate jump onto IndieGoGo or something new. Because after this I'm not donating to anything on Kickstarter anymore.
 
Does anyone else feel that this could become a great franchise?

Episode 1: McKenzie vs RPGMaker
it´s live now on Kickstarter

Episode 2: McKenzie vs The Pony Remark
- Kenzie´s mean brothers say she can´t ride a pony because she´s a guuurrrll. Susan decides to start a new Kickstarter project to show them. Target is to raise $829 for pony camp. Extra money will go to the purchase of the pony and the stable. $10K reward tier has the boys clean the stable as a punishment. Every backer will get a video of Kenzie riding the pony and a horse shoe with the Keep Up! logo.

Episode 3: McKenzie vs The Pool
- Kenzie´s mean brothers say she can´t swim a kilometer because she´s a guuurrrlll. Susan decides to start a new Kickstarter project to show them. Target is to raise $829 for swimming camp. Extra money will go to bathing suits and a pool in the garden. $10K reward tier has the boys clean the pool when autumn sets in and it´s full of leafs. Every backer get a bathing cap with the Keep Up! logo.

Susan, if you plan on using any of the above ideas, let´s split $.

Something about strangers buying a 9year old daughter swimsuits... will clearly attract the news... for maybe a different reason.
 

shandy706

Member
I'd say people like this woman is what makes true, honest, hard working people look bad.

I don't think I've met any 9 year old girls who list Borderlands 2 and Dragon Age as their favorite games..

It's more than possible, but that speaks volumes for how a good a mother this woman is.
 

Shinta

Banned
I'd say people like this woman is what makes true, honest, hard working people look bad.

I don't think I've met any 9 year old girls who list Borderlands 2 and Dragon Age as their favorite games..

It's more than possible, but that speaks volumes for how a good a mother this woman is.

Well, she said the picture was "dated." And she's trying to "figure out" how to film her for the project.

She may be older than 9 years old for all we know, and just said so to make it look more compelling.

Something about strangers buying a 9year old daughter swimsuits... will clearly attract the news... for maybe a different reason.

She already had her son on there, topless. And for $10,000 he will personally "apologize" to you. If genders were reversed, it would already be on the news as is.
 

Shosai

Banned
Well I posted my personal response, not as a representative of anyone but myself. It's still kind of surreal that she ended up commenting on my small, personal Destructoid blog.

I'm still honestly not sure what to think about the whole situation, but I felt I should say something.

Isn't this the exact outcome you wanted? The whole issue started when this project was allowed to exist and go forward by kickstarter and its backers. The people with an actual stake in the project.

And now we, the unrelated third parties, get a say in how their money gets spent. We can even demand that she refund the money to the backers, because as we know, that's not something the backers can figure out for themselves. It's our duty to protect them.
 

Shinta

Banned
Isn't this the exact outcome you wanted? The whole issue started when this project was allowed to exist and go forward by kickstarter and its backers. The people with an actual stake in the project..

Not the exact outcome, but I have no regrets. It's incredibly shady, and I'd rather KS just canceled it.

And now we, the unrelated third parties, get a say in how their money gets spent. We can even demand that she refund the money to the backers, because as we know, that's not something the backers can figure out for themselves. It's our duty to protect them.

Her and Kickstarter are the only ones with a say in it. Honestly, her even offering 4 Chan the option to decide makes it look like she doesn't value her backers' contributions at all. I told her to cancel it, or ask the backers in as transparent a way as possible.

She openly admitted she has no real plan for spending their money.
 
Not the exact outcome, but I have no regrets. It's incredibly shady, and I'd rather KS just canceled it.



Her and Kickstarter are the only ones with a say in it. Honestly, her even offering 4 Chan the option to decide makes it look like she doesn't value her backers' contributions at all. I told her to cancel it, or ask the backers in as transparent a way as possible.

She openly admitted she has no real plan for spending their money.

Well, I guess as a debt collector she´s used to just taking people´s money. Now she actually has to do something with it...
 
Well we should just flood Kickstarter with similar male Fund My Life campaigns. They've set a precedent now and if a similar male one gets shut down then it's a clear case of sexism.
 
I really don't think Kickstarter considers making a game in RPG Maker a "Fund My Life" campaign, because there's been plenty Kickstarters like that in the past. If you want to make an RPG Maker game, you can make a Kickstarter and ask for money. Others have done it before and been successful.
 
The only guideline I think has been broken is the Twitter spam one, which Kickstarter itself says "puts your project in jeopardy of being suspended," not that it's a 100% zero tolerance policy.

I don't think KS has any other good reason for taking down the Kickstarter according to their policies.
 
Does anyone else feel that this could become a great franchise?

Episode 1: McKenzie vs RPGMaker
it´s live now on Kickstarter

Episode 2: McKenzie vs The Pony Remark
- Kenzie´s mean brothers say she can´t ride a pony because she´s a guuurrrll. Susan decides to start a new Kickstarter project to show them. Target is to raise $829 for pony camp. Extra money will go to the purchase of the pony and the stable. $10K reward tier has the boys clean the stable as a punishment. Every backer will get a video of Kenzie riding the pony and a horse shoe with the Keep Up! logo.

Episode 3: McKenzie vs The Pool
- Kenzie´s mean brothers say she can´t swim a kilometer because she´s a guuurrrlll. Susan decides to start a new Kickstarter project to show them. Target is to raise $829 for swimming camp. Extra money will go to bathing suits and a pool in the garden. $10K reward tier has the boys clean the pool when autumn sets in and it´s full of leafs. Every backer get a bathing cap with the Keep Up! logo.

Susan, if you plan on using any of the above ideas, let´s split $.

It could totally be a Kickstarter franchise!

Then when she gets older...

Episode 16. McKenzie vs. an Expensive Private School

Episode 24. McKenzie vs. a New Car

Episode 46. McKenzie vs. a New Mortgage
 

Shinta

Banned
She will probably get her mortgage kickstarted.

edit: ooh, I get it. She'll get everything kickstarted. Good one, guys.

oh_you.jpg
 

iammeiam

Member
I really don't think Kickstarter considers making a game in RPG Maker a "Fund My Life" campaign, because there's been plenty Kickstarters like that in the past. If you want to make an RPG Maker game, you can make a Kickstarter and ask for money. Others have done it before and been successful.

The difference is that this isn't to fund the game, at all. It's to fund tuition to camp (in one of the updates she clarifies it's not even to fund camp, so much as girl power rahrahrah as the girl was already going to camp prior to the brothers insulting her and driving the creation of the campaign.) One of the camp activities is making a game by the end of the week--this isn't to get her training to then go home and make a game, it's paying for her to go to camp and getting the result of whatever she makes there. As far as I know, this is the first time Kickstarter is being used to pay for a class with the project being essentially taking the class.

It's a violation of the standards Kickstarter has previously claimed to have; their rules, they can change them, but they lose ground to reject other projects for failing to meet standards because they're choosing to allow this one.
 

MBison

Member
There's a picture of "Kenzie" playing video games in the backers only update section and personally I don't think it looks like the girl on the front page.
 
The difference is that this isn't to fund the game, at all. It's to fund tuition to camp (in one of the updates she clarifies it's not even to fund camp, so much as girl power rahrahrah as the girl was already going to camp prior to the brothers insulting her and driving the creation of the campaign.) One of the camp activities is making a game by the end of the week--this isn't to get her training to then go home and make a game, it's paying for her to go to camp and getting the result of whatever she makes there. As far as I know, this is the first time Kickstarter is being used to pay for a class with the project being essentially taking the class.

It's a violation of the standards Kickstarter has previously claimed to have; their rules, they can change them, but they lose ground to reject other projects for failing to meet standards because they're choosing to allow this one.
What does it mean to "fund the game"? Making a game in RPG Maker generally doesn't cost anything but time and the price of the software. Kickstarters are used to make a creative project, and the way to get to that end goal isn't so strict, if past Kickstarters are any indication.

If the path is: Create Kickstarter ---> [???] ---> release a product, many many Kickstarters fall under that, where the ??? isn't as important or nonexistant. There's even a past RPG Maker Kickstarter where the money was only used to send backer rewards, the rest was pocketed by the guy who made the game.

I don't see why paying for camp or a laptop is any different than pocketing the money as a salary or spending it on equipment or paying someone else to create art or whatever, as long as the game gets made and released.
 
While I like the OP having all the info in it, this is just muddying the waters. She wants the conversation to be about how much money she makes - not about how this is violating the TOS.
 

Adam Blue

Member
To keep the integrity of Kickstarter, there needs to be a basis of what needs to exists for a game to be Kickstarted. What we're shown is nothing. The Kickstarter is therefore not for the physical game, but the idea that a game can be made by this person.

This is a grey area that will open up prejudice in the future.
 

Shinta

Banned
I don't see why paying for camp or a laptop is any different than pocketing the money as a salary or spending it on equipment or paying someone else to create art or whatever, as long as the game gets made and released.

I get that's what you think, but at this point you're just repeating it over and over.

Personally, I still think it's totally different because we're talking about education. Doesn't Kickstarter require that people have a reasonable chance of completing the projects they promise?

If you literally are saying that you don't even have the knowledge and skills to deliver the product, but if you go to school (and pass the class) then maybe you might ... does this really qualify as someone having a reasonable chance for success here? They literally don't have the knowledge of how difficult it even is to make the product yet, because they don't even know how to make it yet. They can't even tell if they will be able to make it, because they don't even know what making it entails yet.

It seems totally different from someone who wants to do a photography project, but say, needs a camera.
 

Shosai

Banned
Tomorrow evening my "Get me to the SuperBowl" kickstarter is going up.

But you have to say you're making a Superbowl trip documentary. Just film yourself having drunken good time. Voila! It fills the product requirement

There have been many kickstarters that have been basically this. This is far from new

Personally, I still think it's totally different because we're talking about education. Doesn't Kickstarter require that people have a reasonable chance of completing the projects they promise?

If you literally are saying that you don't even have the knowledge and skills to deliver the product, but if you go to school (and pass the class) then maybe you might ... does this really qualify as someone having a reasonable chance for success here? They literally don't have the knowledge of how difficult it even is to make the product yet, because they don't even know how to make it yet. They can't even tell if they will be able to make it, because they don't even know what making it entails yet.

It's a nice concern, but Kickstarter really has no way of fairly determining if a person is qualified enough carry out any given project. It's a whole different issue to imply that kickstarter should impose education or work experience requirements onto project leads.
 
Pretty sure if anyone has a project they want to make, they can create a Kickstarter, put out that project, and use whatever money is leftover however they want, including Superbowl tickets. Plenty of Kickstarters have gone over budget and the money has gone to the creators as payment.

Look at the really big ones: that money is going towards salary of employees, who then use that money however they want. For people working for themselves, they pay themselves that salary.
I get that's what you think, but at this point you're just repeating it over and over.

Personally, I still think it's totally different because we're talking about education. Doesn't Kickstarter require that people have a reasonable chance of completing the projects they promise?

If you literally are saying that you don't even have the knowledge and skills to deliver the product, but if you go to school (and pass the class) then maybe you might ... does this really qualify as someone having a reasonable chance for success here? They literally don't have the knowledge of how difficult it even is to make the product yet, because they don't even know how to make it yet. They can't even tell if they will be able to make it, because they don't even know what making it entails yet.

It seems totally different from someone who wants to do a photography project, but say, needs a camera.
I can see why that doubt exists, but this isn't a current policy, unless I've missed it, so the Kickstarter isn't breaking any rules. That's why I think Kickstarter hasn't taken down the project. Any of the projects on Kickstarter have to be taken somewhat on faith that the person will be able to do them, and if one doubts that they don't have to donate.
 

vg260

Member
Yuck. Raise a bunch of of money to pay for something she can afford to prove a point to her ill-mannered boys. Come on. Try good parenting.
Encourage your daughter, and tell your boys to not be brats, not try to cash in on your own bad parenting. Shameful.
 

kingkitty

Member
At this point I think a lot of us jumped to conclusions, thinking Susan was actually worth a million, or even a hundred million. So the title might need a little reworking. But millionaire or not, she aint poor, and she admits that. She admits she can easily send her kid to camp but wants to "prove a point."

From what I gather, this Susan character seems like a hopeful entrepreneur who is trying to hit it big. Maybe those lame t-shirts on her kickstarter is what she's banking on. Or maybe all the media attention. Perhaps both!

I don't see the kickstarter getting pulled at this point tho.
 
Here's a question: Let's say I want my son to become a race driver in the future, would it be within Kickstarter's TOS to get his own personal Ferrari kickstarted so he can train on the track?
 
Here's a question: Let's say I want my son to become a race driver in the future, would it be within Kickstarter's TOS to get his own personal Ferrari kickstarted so he can train on the track?
There has to be a specific creative project, the rules state that 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. A project is not open-ended." It can't be used to fund someone's life goals without a specific project attached. The project is some sort of produced object.

If your son has some sort of project he wanted to make about racing, such as a short film, that required going to a race track etc, it would probably be accepted. It'd have to fall under the categories of: Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, or Theater.
 

Shinta

Banned
Here's a question: Let's say I want my son to become a race driver in the future, would it be within Kickstarter's TOS to get his own personal Ferrari kickstarted so he can train on the track?

You should have your newborn pledge to become President of the United States so he can pass a special bill for people.

That way everything from birth to his presidency is just part of the cost of getting to the project goal.
 

Brak

Member
Kickstarter is dead. No matter how they respond at this point, I don't want anything to do with them.

Susan Wilson has entered a true nightmare here, and she will almost certainly be regretting this for the next month.
 
So I got an email from Kickstarter this morning.

Last night I sent an email to Susan Wilson complaining about how her project was unethical. Today, Kickstarter sent me an email saying I had abused their system and now features on the site are going to be withheld from me.
 

Slavik81

Member
What does it mean to "fund the game"? Making a game in RPG Maker generally doesn't cost anything but time and the price of the software. Kickstarters are used to make a creative project, and the way to get to that end goal isn't so strict, if past Kickstarters are any indication.

If the path is: Create Kickstarter ---> [???] ---> release a product, many many Kickstarters fall under that, where the ??? isn't as important or nonexistant. There's even a past RPG Maker Kickstarter where the money was only used to send backer rewards, the rest was pocketed by the guy who made the game.

I don't see why paying for camp or a laptop is any different than pocketing the money as a salary or spending it on equipment or paying someone else to create art or whatever, as long as the game gets made and released.
The difference is that this kickstarter is not about the product. Nobody cares about the thing being produced. I think the pledges are being given largely as acts of charity.

It's outside the spirit of the rules, if not the letter.
 

Shinta

Banned
So I got an email from Kickstarter this morning.

Last night I sent an email to Susan Wilson complaining about how her project was unethical. Today, Kickstarter sent me an email saying I had abused their system and now features on the site are going to be withheld from me.

Sounds like it's time to withhold your money from the site for good.
 

mre

Golden Domers are chickenshit!!
I bet she was influenced by this kickstarter that she she contributed to: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...llaboration-by-a-mom-and-10-year-ol?ref=users

Looks like it started 3 days before hers. It features similar objectives, including a filmmaking workshop this summer, but has added the all-important girl-power rhetoric plus child-shaming (the brothers) that has caused this RPG kickstarter to be so divisive. Of course, this kickstarter also features a little girl who has actually produced films already.
 

ido

Member
This is ridiculous, and I don't believe her glassy eyed innocent response.

The project was, quite clearly, to prove her sons wrong. That was it. It was a fucking bet.
 
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