Several words about the whole Penny-Arcade Kickstarter thing, and why I'm upset about it.

For anyone lacking context on this, Penny-Arcade, the successful webcomic that has spawned 3 annual gaming conventions across two continents, launched a Kickstarter on Wednesday May 8th asking for funding to produce new episodes of their once defunct podcast. Their goal for this Kickstarter was $10. As of this writing, they have raised $45,811. If you're interested in reading more on this Kickstarter, heck, here is a link to it - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pennyarcade/penny-arcades-podcast-downloadable-content-the-ret

So. Context out of the way.

I am the first to admit that I am not a fan (to put it mildly) of Penny-Arcade for reasons completely unrelated to this Kickstarter. And when I vented (not politely, mind you) my frustration with this on Twitter today, someone whose opinion I respect and Twitter I enjoy pointed out that I "have a big axe to grind" with them, I stopped to ask if there was anything actually wrong with this, or if my previous opinions are coloring my current perceptions. While it's impossible to say to what degree my irritation with these particular personalities informed the severity of my negative reaction, I realized that either way, it would have been negative.

KickStarter is a lot of things to a lot of people, but from my perspective it's two things: incredibly optimistic and under constant attack. At its core, KickStarter is about taking people who want to innovate or create, people who have ideas and drive, and remove the financial limitations keeping them from making their ideas a reality by asking people to help get these ideas off the ground. It's one of the rare instances where democracy and capitalism seem to make perfect sense - someone says, "I want this thing to be real, if you want it to be real then please, vote with your dollars." To me, that's exciting and beautiful.

But the system is under attack. This is an engine that runs on that optimism, and as people grow increasingly jaded about it, the engine starts to sputter. KickStarter only works if we're willing to believe not just in the projects, but in the people who want to make them real and could not without our help. And from my perspective the number one thing causing people to grow jaded is the co-opting of this system by large corporations and major celebrities. People with massive, established fan bases, who could finish their project of its own accord and then send it into the world to succeed or fail commercially, without crowdsourcing. People, I assume, like the team at Penny-Arcade.

Let me make this clear: I make some assumptions about Penny-Arcade, and about Michael Krahulik & Jerry Holkins, the creators and face of the company. I have no knowledge of the finances of their company whatsoever. But mostly I assume that they do, indeed, have enough money to produce and distribute a podcast without the need for their fans to front load the cost. I assume this because they have built, by any estimation, an empire. Their company which used to be a two man webcomic operation now spans a videogame news site, a charity, the aformentioned three intercontinental gaming conventions, merchandise, books, tabletop and videogames and a reality tv series for the web. These are not beleaguered creators tried from navigating the waters of art and commerce. These are people who are, again by any standard imaginable, a massive financial success.

So, they do not need our money. And they don't need our money so badly, that they set their goal to $10, and simply accepted any amount you'll give them in order to produce their podcast. Theres no declaration of "We need $50k to make this happen," or "$10k will get us the equipment we need to do this right." None of the risk of the system is present - it's all reward for them. It's reminiscent of a scene in which a cartoonishly conniving salesman is fleecing some eager customer. The customer sees something they want, something exciting to them and asks how much it is, and the salesman smirks and replies, "How much you got?"

But we're all adults here, right? I mean, we can spend our money on whatever we like, and they're not stealing anything from anyone. How is this different from putting a donation box on their own website and saying 'whatever you pay us, we'll make a podcast, donations appreciated'? They've gamed the system by setting such a low goal and followed the rules of KickStarter and are shrewd businessmen making money. But to me there's a difference between following the letter of the law and the spirit of it.

In addition to adding to the slow heatdeath of KickStarter by being another massive entity coming with palms out - a known quantity demanding funds they could acquire some other way and presumably do not actually need - there's something pure and good about helping people realize their dreams when they couldn't otherwise. The reason they chose to launch this as a KickStarter campaign instead of using the infrastructure built into their own website is because there's a feeling of togetherness inherent in helping the helpless - KickStarting something feels righteous. It feels like you are giving someone their shot at something great. And they are taking advantage of that excitement and altruistic impulse and that offends me. Buying something on their website is a transaction. But backing this project? That will make you "feel good inside." That's what Jerry says, anyway, right in project the description.

It's crass. It sucks the magic out of what should be a way for people to prop each other up and turns it into a mechanism for exploiting a pre-existing audience. And for those saying that it doesn't take away from anyone else, well, here we are talking about Penny-Arcade instead of projects that might actually need our help to come to fruition. So for all these reasons it offends me. I defend KickStarter as a tool to pry art out of the jaws of commerce, to friends who despise it (hi, Kevin) and strangers who don't understand it, and nonsense like this project and Zach Braff's weaken that defense until, eventually, there's going to be nothing left worth defending.

-Casey-

TWO NOTES:
1. While writing this, at 2AM, their total increased by two thousand dollars. So.
2. Here's a project by an amazing local artist, who doesn't have a media empire and is trying to support herself through art, who can't simply make this happen without our help. If you're going to give $10 to someone, give it to her -
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/49028176/babys-first-mythos?ref=home_location

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