There are plenty of crowd-funding platforms designed for obtaining personal goals such as gofundme which also happens to annoyingly own the domain crowdfunding.com. That alone is reason enough to avoid investing in their platform.
Indiegogo seems to be attracting beggars to their system, and for the sake of humanity, let's pray these people fail. Just on the first page of the Indegogo gaming section there are five people begging for money. Only two of them are remotely worthy funding.
First up, Jordan Abbott who decided he needed a new computer. So what does he do? He claims that he made $1000 from selling his "old items on Ebay," and that he wants another $500.
Hmm... How should I make that last $500? I know! I'll beg for it on Indiegogo
Next! Warchief Ketcheson. His campaign is even more embarrassing.
"My computer sucks, and makes me feel sucky, and I'd love to not feel sucky!"That's phase one of his campaign, phase two? Complain about how his computer "is really loud and keeps [his] dog and [his] family awake at night, and keeps bluescreening."
Seriously, what the fuck? Warchief Ketcheson, enjoy your shitty computer in the magical lands of "Blackfalds, Alberta, United States" as pulled from your profile. If I'm not mistaken, Alberta is a bit more north than the U.S.
David Prindle is a bit more borderline. His campaign is almost worth consideration, but who the hell is David Prindle and why should I trust him with such a vague project?
Prindle claims he would like to start a career making games and that we should all give him money. In return he will be sure to create:
Bastard can't even bother writing out "two" properly. If you are going to ask for money, you need to be at least a bit professional. The one thing this campaign has going for it is promise of YouTube videos:
Animation and level creation could actually be neat to watch. However, I give a rats ass about your son, and how dare you claim that you might do let's plays? That's what "in my free time" really means doesn't it? If you are asking for money, don't say what you might do, say what you will do. If it's something you are not sure you'll do, don't mention it at all in your campaign.
Gábor Balázs is running the first begging campaign to be somewhat legit.
In fact, this campaign doesn't even seem to be begging. The funds are being raised to purchase a better computer for someone "who is currently top 5 in the game called osu!"
This person may legitimately have a fan base that wants to see him twitch streaming, but he has a crap computer that can't handle it. This campaign is for his fans to fund, not for random people exploring Indiegogo.
Well, el diablo, of all the people that seem to be screaming Give me stuff!, you have the most legitimate campaign of the roundup. While, el diablo, hardly seems to be a credible name, his story is that he is "just a guy mad at big bad sony taking my money and running from their broken product."
He wants video equipment in order to pursue other interests, and in return, depending on the amount of cash raised, he will destroy his Playstation 4 in amusing ways and video tape it. Direct excerpt:
£1000 = ps4 gets a bath before bieng[sic] smashed up with a selection of hammers, from regular claw hammer up to sledgehammer.£1500 = ps4 gets soaked in petrol , set alight and then smashed with sledgehammer.
£2000 = ps4 gets soaked with petrol, then i will fire lit arrows at it until it is on fire, then proceed to smash it to pieces with an axe.
£2500 = ps4 shredded with a chainsaw then set on fire.
Im[sic] open to suggestions, on how best to destroy this excuse of a console.
For the record, I wouldn't fund any of these, except perhaps the twitch.tv campaign. Even then, only if I knew who he was and cared about the game. These are all from only the gaming section this week. Do we want this kind of crap on Indiegogo? Should Indiegogo police their platform a bit more? I believe obvious beggars should not be allowed.
What do you all think? Feel free to comment below. Disqus is gone and open commenting is in ^_^
The comment spam quickly came as soon as I allowed open posting. Comments will be moderated, but no account should be needed.