More Kickstarter abuse

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http://kotaku.com/5892917/millionaire-wants-your-million-dollars-to-make-his-first-game

KICKSTARTER

BY JASON SCHREIER

Millionaire Wants Your Million Dollars To Make His First Game

Meet Ellwood "Bunky" Bartlett. He's a practicing Wiccan, a retired accountant, and the winner of Maryland's Mega Millions jackpot, which netted him $42 million back in 2007.

He also wants your money to help make a game. Using crowdfunding site Kickstarter, Bartlett is asking for $1.1 million to create Your World, a massively multiplayer online game "built by gamers for gamers funded by gamers."

Described as "all of the good things in Second Life, World of Warcraft, Rift, Star Wars: The Old Republic and the like all rolled up into one game," Bartlett's Kickstarter project has been the object of much derision on Twitter today, where some have mocked its lofty goals and error-riddled language. There's no concept art or even much explanation as to how the game will run. It only promises to be "nothing like what is out there."

But if Bartlett is a millionaire, why does he need Kickstarter? I tracked him down to find out.

"A smart investor has partners," Bartlett told me in an e-mail. "I will be investing as well. This also helps me to see if there is actual interest in the type of game I am proposing."

As of this afternoon, Ellwood Bartlett's Kickstarter page had earned $1 of its $1.1 million goal.
I asked if he's ever worked in game development before.

"I have not, but I never owned an investment company or a pizza shop before, but I do now," Bartlett said. "I am the idea man. I think it, get other investors, and hire the right people to make it happen. Been playing games since Pong. I know what I like and what others have said they would like. I will hire those needed to make it a reality."

Bartlett is certainly enthusiastic about this project. His ideas might not be fully formulated, but you can feel the passion and excitement in the description on his Kickstarter page:

[N]o this race against that race. We will be a world of cooperation. We will work together to create a place we all will love. We will still be able to battle each other in Olympic type games, but we will not pit one race against another. We will still have outside forces for us to join together to defeat, but we will not be killing each other. You will surrender to your Victor, but not die. Only the outside forces will be able to kill you and do damage to your equipment.

...

I hope you will fund this game so we all can have a game we will play for years to come!

Of course, the chances of a first-time game producer hitting a milestone like $1.1 million in 50 days are extraordinarily slim.

Almost as slim as winning the lottery.

... he has $20.000 already. Which idiot saw that article and had the thought "... yup. Seems legit."

The world is doomed.

I doubt he makes the 1.1M needed to actually charge the retards.

If he does, then the world is really doomed.

47
BACKERS

$20,551
PLEDGED OF $1,100,000 GOAL

Those are troll donations by the way.

The great people at Idle Thumbs, who had their own Kickstarter and received $125,000 were cool enough to fuck with their donators money and put in a joke $10,000 pledge. They get the money back if it isn't fully funded, but it's a nice and irresponsible way to fuck with people that backed them.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/120873716/your-world/backers

Probably the most ridiculous case ever.

How the hell do you troll someone by pledging money?

He won't get the money. Unless he miraculously gets the full million, which he won't.

It's like people who put ridiculous things on eBay and people make false bids like $1,000,000 on it just to screw with it.

http://www.indiegogo.com/privilegeblaster

people should donate to this instead, has a lot more promise

Now that is quality trolling.

"Using state of the art game development technology like Windows and RPG Maker 2003"

I'M SOLD

I'll see that face and raise you with

Looks like his face would explode any second.

Um....correct me if I'm wrong, but can't he just donate a million to his own kickstarter account, thereby grabbing your fucking money and effectively countertrolling your ass?

What a dumbass.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/120873716/your-world/comments

reinoudabout 3 hours ago
Hookerbots!
Now STFU and take my 10K
Ellwood Bartlettabout 5 hours ago
Ok fine there will be hookerbots.

Yes, I'd have retired from something like accounting, too, had I won millions.

If I won something like 40 million I might see about investing some into an Obsidian game. As long as it was a good one.

Can one legally be forced to honour their pledge. Whose going to track down all the people who, say, donated a hunded or elss. Or woudl they just go after the bigger donaters? Hmmm...

He should pledge a million dollars himself and just walk away with the 20k he just earned.

They charge your card when it's over, and I think the amount is blocked until then.

Problem: Kickstarter takes 5% and Amazon takes 5% of every pledge.

If he donates $1,000,000 of his own money he'll loose $100,000 off the top.

Doesn't Kickstarter have a nice model? At this point effectively $65,000 of what's been donated to Wasteland 2 goes to them for doing exactly jack shit.

Also, I'm pretty sure you can change your pledge (including backing out) right up until the deadline. So only retards could possibly lose money to this guy.