NiPah said:
Therumancer said:
On reading this I also have to wonder how many people who have donated know exactly what this money is being used for.
The $3,000 was to sponsor a $15,000 open bar VIP party for con staff and people who spent $150 for a VIP ticket (or were one of the 100 people to buy at $95 via the kickstarter).
Source:
http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/28/5946619/gaymerx-nis-america-gaymerx2
Ahh okay, that clarifies things a bit more. I was confused because of what the original article mentioned their ongoing projects were. I'll also say that the link you sent actually makes things sound even more ridiculous to my way of thinking, especially seeing as they seem to be trying to imply it's an attack on gay people as part of the shaming process. At the end of the day NIS America is a fairly small publisher that gets a lot of crap, I still remember back how they released "Cross Edge" in the US and were doing a promotion for the updated "Dash" version coming out, only to be told at the very last second it wouldn't be getting a US release. It seems their Japanese division doesn't even taken them very seriously, and half the time it seems like they have to fight to get even a limited release of a lot of things they try to bring over. I could be wrong, but I can see why $3k is a big deal to them, and really their internal communications have never been a strong point since in following them half the time they seem to have no idea what's going on with their own company. I'm wondering if at this point what they actually committed to and what they knew at the time. $3K for a VIP Bar largely serving con staff strikes me as being even more ridiculous for a newbie specialty con than the projects I thought were being collected for which were at least something for the con and con goers themselves even if over the top for this one's level of establishment.
It will be interesting if we ever get to hear NIS's side of the story, which I doubt we will. Truthfully though, I think this shouldn't be given much more attention or coverage until that happens. It just seems kind of hokey to me, and while The Escapist wasn't bad in their coverage, the link you put up makes it seem even more like an attack/shaming attempt when we just don't have the whole story.
I mean seriously if someone told me "well yeah, we want $3k from you for booze for our con staff and a bunch of big donators. We'll tell everyone the drinks are from NIS America" from people running their second con, I'd tell them to go pound sand, no matter what they were representing. I could be wrong, but I just can't see NIS with it's problems having given a strong commitment to something like that, no matter who was running the con, given the very limited exposure and so on, especially seeing as it's a kind of frivolous expense, the kind of thing you do at cons like this mostly once your big and established to show off. Most new cons don't provide much to the staff at all, and are lucky if someone can set up a counter and write "Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster" on the outside of the Styrofoam cups.
Combined with my previous posts, you might (correctly) get the impression I don't have a lot of respect for this. I don't hit a lot of cons, but having seen what small ones do when starting out, and having attended some local game fests (PnP RPG conventions) and things like that over the years and seen what some of the people organizing those put together, especially when brand new. Not to mention when various cantons and stuff set out to do their first Renfaires through SCA or whatever, this strikes me as ridiculous. It seems to me that because the people involved are making this a "gay" con they expect to be projected right up into the fairly big time, as opposed to starting at the bottom, and working their way up, and they trying to use politics and shaming to get funding and such. The con is fine, but if this is your second outing and you've spent $90k and your basically approaching sponsors as opposed to having one set up as the original organizer, there is something deeply wrong with that... I don't care what cause they are representing. I've met people who would have literally given their left arm to have a third of that to put on an event, with the people involved literally doing everything they can to get or make the materials they need. "Oh my gawd, it's our second con and we don't have an open bar for con staff... boo hoo, it must be because of hatred towards gay people".
When they beg a town for permission to turn part of the green into medieval England for a weekend, build nearly everything they have, and drive around trying to collect as many people from local Cantons to show up, and hope that maybe people will notice the fliers and ads to come and visit, and do that for a few years, then maybe they'll deserve some credit. Right now it seems like a bunch of crybabies.
