Really, Escapist? You guys are seriouly asking for donations? Just to send Yahtzee to PAX!?!?!?

[THE_NAMSU]

snip

Didn't watch video, but I agree with you. Shouldn't this money go to a better, cause?
If I must be honest, the extra money people donated for Alison's surgery should have gone to charity.
EDIT:

The escapist needs donations to send one person to PAX? Is there something I am missing? After ALL the ads they put on this site NONE of them can put up 5K?

Exact same thing I was thinking, their ads last like 20 or so seconds as well =/.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

How about you let people spend money on what they want? If they really are "scamming" us then they won't reach their goal and probably won't do something like this again. If they do reach their goal it means that enough people wanted to see Yahtzee at PAX. Not a hard situation to grasp. Let people spend their money in anyway that they want.

P.S. That guy in the video is one of the biggest assholes that I've ever seen.

 

[SinisterGehe]

That is why it is called donating! It is voluntary! If the fans want him there, they could as well pay for it.
That dude in the links, seems more of a dick and fails to realize that there are people who like to spend money on things that make no sense...

 

[Haelium]

Well, Yahtzee did put the escapist on the map; so why not?

Because there are people starving all over the world, millions of fatal diseases, natural disasters and environmental problems. If people have money to spare to charity, it should go to them, not getting Yahtzee to freaking PAX. Who care's if Escapist is on the map or not, compared to the worlds problems? And even so, why should we repay him with donations when he already gets paid for what he does?

Watch out, the Randites are going to be here any minute to whine about how altruism is bad. I am amazed how fucking stupid this community is.

On the point of the Alison thing, thousands of hard working Americans with jobs that actually contribute to society rather than criticising games are in the same situation every day, do they get donations? No, they're fucked because they don't have a fan base.

In the end people have the right to waste their money on whatever stupid shit they want. But I have the right to say that they're fucking stupid.

 

[Suijen]

There are probably better causes out there, but I agree with some of the posters here. If they want to sponsor Yahtzee to go to PAX, there shouldn't be any real opposition to it. I like to think of him as a poor English celebrity.

 

[EeviStev]

Him asking for donations was obviously sarcasm. T.T

It is you, isn't it?

Anyway, Who would donate money to send Yahtzee to PAX and for limited edition merch? Perhaps huge ZP fans who are going to PAX anyway and are willing to put down for a possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something awesome and personal with the object of their fanism.

EDIT: You can send me money to NOT send Yahtzee to PAX, if you feel so strongly about it. Just $450 gets me some weed and Skyrim.

 

[James Crook]

I think you guys are being a little irrational in thought, i mean first off, it's fucking expensive to take a trip to America. from the other end of the world. Plus no one wants to ever catch the cheap airlines especially for a long flight, and also YOU DON'T HAVE TO CONTRIBUTE. NO ONE IS DEMANDING YOU HAND OVER YOUR HARD EARNED DOLLAR. IT IS TOTALLY UP TO THE PERSON WHETHER OR NOT THEY WANT TO DO IT OR NOT. but then again people have a hard time comprehending this as they see anything which doesn't affect them in anyway as a threat. Don't think i'm talking right? See all the nit shits on Metacritic that bombed the Portal 2 user review thing.

Edit: If you might also notice America seems to be in a bit of debt and Australia has the stronger dollar. which still doesn't change the fact that everything here in Oz is expensive as shit.

EDIT: also The Escapist cleared up some confusion

"There's been some confusion about what exactly we're trying to achieve. As any of you that have seen us at PAX know, we typically only send a small contingent of Escapist staff. We're hoping to do something bigger and better for PAX Prime - a grand meet-up that includes food, beverages, and Yahtzee. This is not a charity drive. We are pre-selling merch and swag and if we hit a minimum threshold we'll make a big presence at PAX. If we don't, the orders will get cancelled, we'll have our usual spartan presence at PAX."

Ah! Thank you very much for helping us ease up this discussion.
That's it, guys, they're just raising money for a big presence at PAX to get more traffic to the site, perhaps. And I bet that if they got some leftover money, it'll either go back to us, the community (some kind of big prize for all of us) or to charity, such as Child's Play, the charity the Penny Arcade guys have been supporting for years.

And about the video: I just watched it, went to see the guy's channel. Seems like he gets off at flaming The Escapist and Yahtzee, and is being quite obsessional over it like the Valve staff is being obsessional over hats for Team Fortress 2. Also, he's a ****, like you guys said, but I'd like to go further: he's such a humongous **** that a douchebag straight from Jersey Shore wouldn't even fit him.

 

[Kross]

they do not need the donations, as I'm sure they have more than enough in ad revenue to fund this trip themself

Your blind faith in ad revenue is staggering. I don't have access to the numbers that you do, but ads most certainly do not cover all of our current costs, although it's the largest non investor contributor. Never mind the extra it takes to fly people around for conventions.

There's no issue on anyone's end if the money isn't raised by people who will be at PAX and interested in the benefits. It just won't happen, and we'll figure out a different approach next time.

 

[Kross]

Equating webcomic artists - the vast majority of whom struggle to scrape by - with a million-dollar-plus news institution like The Escapist (an institution that could easily foot a 20k bill) is hilarious

That's amazing! And probably much more hilarious then you intended! *runs to tell everyone we're finally getting raises*

Ooh, I can finally get another database server too! *dances*

 

[James Crook]

Equating webcomic artists - the vast majority of whom struggle to scrape by - with a million-dollar-plus news institution like The Escapist (an institution that could easily foot a 20k bill) is hilarious

That's amazing! And probably much more hilarious then you intended! *runs to tell everyone we're finally getting raises*

Ooh, I can finally get another database server too! *dances*

Woah, hello, an admin stepping in to calm the shitestorm down.
Like I said in an earlier post, The Escapist, even generating several thousand dollars, cannot cover Yahtzee and his team having a 20-hour-plus trip from Australia to Seattle, in a comfortable-enough fashion so he can rest, catch up with the jet-lag, and be ready for PAX, plus the additional hotel rooms for the additional staff, plus the food, drinks and stuff, plus getting the bigger Escapist venue at PAX to accommodate for the increased number of visitors coming to see Yahtzee and the extra staff.
All of this shit's crazy expensive, and I'm pretty sure The Escapist is already paying for a big part of it.

 

[ejb626]

Don't want to donate to Yahtzee? Don't. Case closed. Move along.

Not sure why you posted a link to some jealous youtube guy, all his vid consists of is a rant against this website, fans, and the guy who put the site on the map. Then he asks for his own donations. How droll.

Him asking for donations was obviously sarcasm. T.T

And I'm quite aware that if I don't want to donate, then I shouldn't, but it just seems like they could've done this whole donation thing better. Still, I it's way better than partners on YouTube who just ask for money, for no reason at all, and for nothing in return.

Yeah, I guess this isn't something to make a fuss about. I just wanted to point out that this sounds a bit.........dumb. :/

I'm just stating my opinion, nobody has to agree.

I'm mostly bothered by the fact that the Escapist is an established company who could probably pay for this themselves, but they are instead exploiting the fanbase. Also the fact that it has to be First Class, at least e-beg for Coach.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

Here's the thing: I would like to donate, but quite literally can't, because the buy-in is MUCH too high and the announcement came MUCH too late. I would have happily dropped the 60-100 bucks to go to PAX if I had been informed of this event in advance, but because of how late it arrived, I can't. And because I can't attend, now it's suddenly twice as much for a simple poster? Maybe that works for people with tons of disposable income, but I'd venture so far as to say that most of those people do not visit this website.

I don't hate The Escapist or anything for this, I'm just saying that it's kind of like having your friend call you up and ask if you'd like to fly to the other side of the US to go to a concert that's already sold out. You probably would WANT to go, but it's not even an option.

So those saying "don't like it, don't donate" have no actual grasp on the situation whatsoever. There are some valid complaints being expressed here that could improve this thing for an attempt next year and remove a LOT of the major criticisms against it, so don't just handwave them off as "don't like it, don't donate"....because that won't fix it, and if it bombs this time, they won't ever try it again.

Not to mention: when has ignoring a problem ever made it better? The rationale behind such an illogical approach is staggering. Most of us don't hate The Escapist for doing this drive, contrary to what these posters seem to believe. We're just disappointed that it was presented poorly, announced far too late for any of us to rush out and get PAX tickets, and the buy-in for most of the prizes is so high that it requires having a significant disposable income in order to obtain something of much lesser value.

Well said, good sir or madam. A month or two's advance warning should be mandatory for any event where a good portion of the merchandise has to be picked up in person.

"Don't like, don't donate" seems like a variation on "don't like, don't watch." The cognitive dissonance required to make such a statement on a website where people review products appears staggering. Hand-waving statements of this sort seem more like subtle ways of saying, "I don't like what you have to say, so shut up so I don't have to respond to your argument."

What, so we can say Duke Nukem Forever was a pile of expensive garbage, but mention that the escapist's swag is overpriced and that's not okay? 'Kay then.

I also would really have liked to see some links somewhere in the donation information for charities or something. Y'know, since the audience is people with loads of disposable income. The people who can afford $750 for this sort of deal might want to consider sending some cans of food to their local charities. 20k would keep one of the Raphael House locations running for probably about a month. :/ Just saying.

 

[tthor]

I'm frankly a bit annoyed by all this "If you don't like it, don't donate!" pablum. That kind of "just ignore it and it'll go away" mentality puzzles me. The inescapable truth is that people send messages through their actions. Crazy, right? These messages are often up for interpretation - cf. racism in Resident Evil 5, homoeroticism in 300, so on. Things have subtexts and connotations - that's your lesson in common sense for today. The important thing is that these subtexts and connotations must be deconstructed and understood so that we don't just passively absorb what we are told. That's how other pablum - cf. Michael Bay - becomes billion-dollar institutions.

In other words, where there is a message, there deserves a comment.

The Escapist sent a message by trying to offset a business expense through crowdsourcing funds. A lot of people very legitimately took offense to the possible implications of this message - that a site that apparently "currently generates over 25 million page views each month" (according to this hilariously-outdated page [http://www.themis-media.com/content/properties/escapist]), hosting numerous paid advertisements from countless AAA game developers, is either too business-inept to have 20k on-hand to fly their people to PAX Prime or too greedy to absorb a simple business expenditure. I can't think of any other explanation (maybe you can?). And I don't think it's business ineptitude - quite the opposite, actually. Wanna know why?

Well, you remember two years again when Yahtzee was at Game X [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-escapist-presents/1039-Live-Chat-with-Ben-Yahtzee-Croshaw]? The same convention that The Escapist co-sponsored? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/92010-Philly-Game-Convention-GameX-Partners-With-The-Escapist] That should be proof-positive that The Escapist has no problem getting Yahtzee to go anywhere (as much as they want to try and sell that "he's hardly ever seen outside his home of Australia." [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111921-Meet-Yahtzee-at-PAX-Get-Stuff]). That was two years ago, and The Escapist has only grown more obtuse with ad-placement since then.

Point being that this is a grave disrespect to The Escapist's readership that they expect the people who already fund their very-successful gaming news enterprise - an enterprise big enough to co-sponsor their own gaming convention - to foot their business' bills. It makes you all out to be saps. Why defend it? Why try to deflect criticism directed at an entity that is insulting you?

This, this, god damnit this. The Escapist can easily afford to fund this trip themself, the very fact that they want us to fund it ourselves, after all the ad revenue they have been making off us, is just insulting

 

[Mr. Sparzy]

they do not need the donations, as I'm sure they have more than enough in ad revenue to fund this trip themself

Your blind faith in ad revenue is staggering. I don't have access to the numbers that you do, but ads most certainly do not cover all of our current costs, although it's the largest non investor contributor. Never mind the extra it takes to fly people around for conventions.

There's no issue on anyone's end if the money isn't raised by people who will be at PAX and interested in the benefits. It just won't happen, and we'll figure out a different approach next time.

Thank you for informing me on this matter.

 

[Illithidae]

I'm relatively sure that Yahtzee is only asking for that amount because he's not going to spend so much just to fly to PAX for a while and then fly back. He doesn't seem like the person to spend his own money on something he doesn't seem to have any deep interest in seeing.

 

[my_ledge_ends]

Equating webcomic artists - the vast majority of whom struggle to scrape by - with a million-dollar-plus news institution like The Escapist (an institution that could easily foot a 20k bill) is hilarious

That's amazing! And probably much more hilarious then you intended! *runs to tell everyone we're finally getting raises*

Ooh, I can finally get another database server too! *dances*

Maybe I should rephrase? I dunno, there are a hundred qualifiers I coulda shoulda thrown in that post. I fired it off quickly because the comparison he made was pretty ridiculous. I then made an "educated guess", which is only half-a-step above a baseless claim. In my rush to decry stupidity I did some stupidity of my own. I was tired, I guess. Or just stupid.

Truth is I have no clue exactly what you guys make, since you're privately owned and thus have not, to the best of my knowledge, released an earnings report. You state right above the post I'm quoting that ad revenue, while "the biggest non-investor contribution", is not nearly enough to cover all the costs of running The Escapist. I'll take your word on that.

The flip side, though, is a key part of that statement: "non-investor". You guys have investors. That's not a bad thing - far from it - but it contributes to the problem. People feel they're being insulted because The Escapist does take in a lot of money, at least on the gross-side of the revenue line. The obvious part of that revenue is the ad revenue, which is non-trivial and right in our faces and directly supported by readers, so it gets held up as the poster-child for Escapist revenue. That's fallacious, but as a feeling it has some slight merit because of the aura that The Escapist projects, which is of a professional institution/entity. It means to project as a relatively relaxed one, but...well, look at some of the language in the press releases for the fundraiser (should I make a point of the fact that they're press releases? Part of me says yes, another part says no). The intro to Susan Arendt's "Meet Yahtzee" post, written in textbook marketing-speak. Or Russ Pitts concerning the RocketHub page: "We've partnered up with one of the leaders in online fundraising to help you get your chance at a brush with stardom..." (you can't tell me that sentence isn't plucked from nearly every other "joint venture"-esque press release). Overall the language is pretty relaxed and informal, but because of details like these it has a formal air about it.

And that's the rub. As much as your demeanor tries to belie it, formally speaking The Escapist is a business, and a big (enough) one. You generate almost 300 million page views a year. Your ads are from AAA games. You have investors. Your own sprawling "secret compound". The Escapist has moved - and maybe always was, I don't know - well beyond the "friends collaborating over the cloud"-type situation that defines most of the webcomics alluded to in the comparison that drew my now-nested-quoted ire. At the end of the day when Shamus Young wants to air Spoiler Warning on The Escapist he has to call up Susan or Russ back at the corporate compound or on their corporate-supplied Blackberries and make his pitch (do they actually have those? Whatever, you know what I mean). And then Susan and Russ and a lot of other people have to decide if the readers and the investors will go for it. And when they make a decision to do a fundraising stunt like this, to get funds to ship their highest-profile contributor to the biggest non-E3 gaming expo, they have to consider that their audience might treat them as a corporation - as big business looking for a handout, not some guy needing money he can't get for something he needs. That's the plight of corporations - sometimes they have to act like corporations.

This appears to be a moot point, though. The press releases are no longer on the front page, Yahtzee's announcement video is private, and the RocketHub page is down. I guess five days in you all had a change of heart. Maybe it was because a guy on YouTube or on these forums bitched loud enough. I have no clue.

 

[LuckyClover95]

Well, Yahtzee did put the escapist on the map; so why not?

Because there are people starving all over the world, millions of fatal diseases, natural disasters and environmental problems. If people have money to spare to charity, it should go to them, not getting Yahtzee to freaking PAX. Who care's if Escapist is on the map or not, compared to the worlds problems? And even so, why should we repay him with donations when he already gets paid for what he does?

Watch out, the Randites are going to be here any minute to whine about how altruism is bad. I am amazed how fucking stupid this community is.

On the point of the Alison thing, thousands of hard working Americans with jobs that actually contribute to society rather than criticising games are in the same situation every day, do they get donations? No, they're fucked because they don't have a fan base.

In the end people have the right to waste their money on whatever stupid shit they want. But I have the right to say that they're fucking stupid.

I don't think you're calling me stupid, but I just have to check.
And I agree.

 

[Haelium]

Well, Yahtzee did put the escapist on the map; so why not?

Because there are people starving all over the world, millions of fatal diseases, natural disasters and environmental problems. If people have money to spare to charity, it should go to them, not getting Yahtzee to freaking PAX. Who care's if Escapist is on the map or not, compared to the worlds problems? And even so, why should we repay him with donations when he already gets paid for what he does?

Watch out, the Randites are going to be here any minute to whine about how altruism is bad. I am amazed how fucking stupid this community is.

On the point of the Alison thing, thousands of hard working Americans with jobs that actually contribute to society rather than criticising games are in the same situation every day, do they get donations? No, they're fucked because they don't have a fan base.

In the end people have the right to waste their money on whatever stupid shit they want. But I have the right to say that they're fucking stupid.

I don't think you're calling me stupid, but I just have to check.
And I agree.

No, I was calling the Randites on this forum idiots, and I'm going to use this opportunity to repeat that statement.

Objectivists are idiots.