Kickstarter and other crowdfunding

[Grath]

Just coming to post that.

They're closing in on a quarter of the way to the million-dollar goal; I've never watched a Kickstarter move like this. It's like a telethon; the numbers keep going up as I watch them.

Nice to see people still care.

It went up by ~450k over the course of this afternoon.

[Büge]

Wow. I clicked on it this morning and it was around $30,000. Now it's over $800,000.

[Thad]

$980K and climbing. We'll see if it hits the goal before I start driving home.

I'm guessing yes. It's almost 5 o'clock on the west coast; I expect a big spike as everybody gets home from work.

Also it's gone up by about $5K in the time it took me to write this post.

EDIT: Past the goal, 10 minutes later.

If you're interested in a devil's advocate position, Caitlin Dewey of the Washington Post notes that the new Reading Rainbow is a for-profit company and will be charging money for the new content rather than giving it away for free as in the PBS days, and that there are literacy charities you could be giving that money to. Those are fair points, I suppose, but it's hard for me to be cynical about this.

[Kayma]

At the very least, it seems that they plan to provide the services of this app to educators for free; I guess, then, charging personal usage. I think the best argument against their thesis is that RR kind of assumes basic reading ability; it's not going to teach a kid to read necessarily, but could certainly foster and improve ability.

That said, it's hella rad. Getting this on mobile devices is probably where it needs to go.

[Thad]

At the very least, it seems that they plan to provide the services of this app to educators for free

Only at low-income schools. At least, that's how it's been framed so far; we're still waiting on stretch goals. Given that the Kickstarter is already on the verge of going twice as high, I'm hoping that's going to mean more subsidies for free educational use.

I think the best argument against their thesis is that RR kind of assumes basic reading ability; it's not going to teach a kid to read necessarily, but could certainly foster and improve ability.

That was always the point, though. Indeed, in an NPR interview LeVar chafed a bit on the pressure to shift the show's emphasis toward the mechanics of reading in its later years.

I absolutely agree that there needs to be more emphasis on teaching kids to read. But that was never what Reading Rainbow was about; it was always about how cool books are.

[Thad]

Separate post, since it's not about Reading Rainbow and in case someone wants to split at some point:

Rifftrax wants to do Godzilla (1998)

New stretch goal: if they hit $250K, they'll do Anaconda next.

[Metal Slime]

Shards Online Unlike most other Kickstarter games these guys came in with something playable and have been putting up pre-alpha builds for backers to mess around in. Tried it and it has potential for sure. Sadly they don't seem to be getting funded all that fast.

[TedBelmont]

Cringe, an indie comic anthology about personal stories of humiliation. Not that any of us would be able to relate to that.

Also, October Toys has acquired the license to Skeleton Warriors, and is trying to bring them back, starting with Baron Dark. Looking kind of iffy on whether they're going to make their goal, though.

[Thad]

The Reading Rainbow Kickstarter has 4 days to go and is $800K short of the $5M stretch goal. Now wouldn't be a bad time to kick in. (I got paid today and might be able to throw some money their way.)

Oh and also apparently Seth MacFarlane will match your donation. So actually they only need to raise $400K to get to $5M.

[Thad]

Last day for the RR Kickstarter. I'm starting to see numbers tick up -- not as fast as on that first day, but definitely noticeable if you keep an eye on it for a minute.

Looks like they'll make that $5M.

[zaratustra]

Some friends of mine are running this Kickstarter and I'd consider it a solid if you could spread the word around to interested parties:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/86 ... eval-shmup

[Blossom]

Ice-Pick Lodge are kickstarting a remake of Pathologic. Give to this. It's important.

[Thad]

Hullabaloo, a hand-drawn steampunk animation project by some Disney vets.

So far the Indiegogo campaign has raised more than triple their initial goal, enough money to make three shorts, each with a full orchestra on its soundtrack.

[Lyrai]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/83 ... -anime-rpg

A personal friend of mine is attempting to turn his hand at writing pen & paper RPG stuff into moneys. This is his kicked starter.

[Bal]

Do you enjoy hurting other people?. Then this Jacket figure might interest you. If you're looking for some resin masterpiece, this isn't it. It's along the hyper articulated mold, and it comes with three heads, and several of the more common weapons. There are more heads/weapon sets that have been unlocked as stretch goals, but they cost extra if you actually want to get them.

[Bal]

So another team at Uber want to make an RTS now that Planetary Annihilation is out the door, and I have to say it looks fucking delightful. It's called Human Resources, and the short synopsis in the pitch video sums it up pretty well. The machines were taking over, so in desperation humanity summoned the Ancient Ones. Oops. Now it's dueling apocalypses, and humans are the primary resource for both factions.

[beatbandito]

Who the hell would think the thread for kickstarter projects would be in a thread called just 'kickstarter'? Crazy.

Anyway, the game itself looks pretty fun, hopefully a better realized version of Paranautical Activity. But the real shining gem of STRAFE is the trailer.

[TedBelmont]

Hey, remember Godus? Turns out they can't actually deliver, and the lead dev was never paid.

Why do people keep giving this man money

[MarsDragon]

Honestly if you're not expecting Molyneux to over-promise and under-deliver by now then you haven't really been paying attention. That's what he does.

[TedBelmont]

Honestly if you're not expecting Molyneux to over-promise and under-deliver by now then you haven't really been paying attention. That's what he does.

Kickstarter has created dozens of amateur Molyneuxs, so if nothing else it's amusing to see the original come along like, "nah, let me show you how it's done".