Apparently Anita didn't meet her deadline(the estimated time was Aug) and now she wants her backers to submit ideas for her even though she should have had something by now. So what exactly has she been doing this whole time if she can't even put out one video?

I haven't given this thing too much attention for the most part and I want to know your thoughts on the whole thing. This includes non-backers as well.

Damn, this has just made me hate how this woman is doing her project even more. Not the women, nor the idea itself. Just the fact that she has the audacity to ask users to say what games are bad from the thousands of games she bought instead of, you know, playing the games herself and finding out which ones are good and bad for a balanced show!

Wow... the series of events surrounding this woman are increasingly ridiculous.

Part of me really wants to say that perhaps she's so far behind because she can't play through these game fast enough because she sucks at them. But honestly, she thought she could play that many games in that limited time frame while doing to proper research and compiling all the information?

And now she's seeking public assistance in doing the research in half assed manner?

I'm not intimately familiar with the TOS of Kickstarter, but it's looking like she's failing the accountability guidelines under their FAQ. While it looks like backers can't legally get refunds according to the TOS, they would be right in banning her from utilizing the service ever again and publicly denounce her.

But, I'll wait to see her response, which I highly doubt will be anything but an excuse... something along the lines of her continued diligence and educational integrity while admitting she didn't estimate the work load correctly and has been overwhelmed and appreciates the patience and support of everyone. Pretty much a political response.

Anyone care to wager on it?

DevilWithaHalo:
Wow... the series of events surrounding this woman are increasingly ridiculous.

Part of me really wants to say that perhaps she's so far behind because she can't play through these game fast enough because she sucks at them. But honestly, she thought she could play that many games in that limited time frame while doing to proper research and compiling all the information?

And now she's seeking public assistance in doing the research in half assed manner?

I'm not intimately familiar with the TOS of Kickstarter, but it's looking like she's failing the accountability guidelines under their FAQ. While it looks like backers can't legally get refunds according to the TOS, they would be right in banning her from utilizing the service ever again and publicly denounce her.

But, I'll wait to see her response, which I highly doubt will be anything but an excuse... something along the lines of her continued diligence and educational integrity while admitting she didn't estimate the work load correctly and has been overwhelmed and appreciates the patience and support of everyone. Pretty much a political response.

Anyone care to wager on it?

It does seem like one huge scam, especially now she's shifted to backer only updates where you would assume that a large proportion of the backers will also think like her and as long as she is finding anything no matter how tenuous it will be seen as progress in their eyes.

If she is just doing the survey she could have done that *before* she spent a ton of the backers cash on all those games.

Hell in fact most games have their plots and game structures well documented online by fans anyway. Given the extent of the arguments she uses most of the time she won't have to play most of those games to make a video about them.

The way it seems to me, is she hasen't been working on this at all. Rather she's now asking her backers what they thing so she can add those into the list, and have her backers agree and not be angry with her so she may ask for more money later.

The scam meter on this just broke.

"Well, I tricked you fuckers into doing everything else for me, you can do this too!"

Cheeee-rist. She's not really helping this debate.

So she's run out of stuff to copy from her text books and now she's asking the people who donated to her to do her work for her?

DevilWithaHalo:

But, I'll wait to see her response, which I highly doubt will be anything but an excuse... something along the lines of her continued diligence and educational integrity while admitting she didn't estimate the work load correctly and has been overwhelmed and appreciates the patience and support of everyone. Pretty much a political response.

Anyone care to wager on it?

So far she hasn't responded to any kind of criticism. She hasn't had a constructive conversation about any aspect of this. She's just put the worst of the trolls on display to get people to take her side. I don't expect things to change any time soon.

Oh, so all this time she was a con artist?

Color me surprised.¹

^[1]_{Interestingly enough, the color of "surprised" and the color of "everyone should have seen this coming" are very similar to the naked eye.}

Why...do people keep falling for this crap?

And suddenly the problem with crowd funding becomes apparent.

It's a scam. It was a scam from square one. And the kicker is that she has absolutely no legal obligation to really do anything.

This sort of thing usually makes me laugh, but in this specific instance it's just kind of sad. A whole lot of people must have really thought they were doing some kind of good by donating to her...

This site makes me sad. She is accountable to her backers, and never intended to get that much money. That we are still dismissing her for being "unattractive" does lend credence to her argument though.

I don't think it was a scam, and considering she has her Masters and has taught at a college level, I think she may have just gotten in a little to deep and needs a starting point.

acosn:
And suddenly the problem with crowd funding becomes apparent.

It's a scam. It was a scam from square one. And the kicker is that she has absolutely no legal obligation to really do anything.

For it to be a scam it would require intent on her part, and I seriously doubt that to be the case.

You know, at this point it's one of those "too big to succeed" kind of things. If she'd only received the 6 grand she'd originally asked, it'd have gained her enough to pay rent for a while, buy up a handful of video games, and release a film using those fistful of games which would have been acceptable considering the time frame and skill of her work.
But that isn't what happened. She received a very large amount of money over anything even close to how much she asked, and people.. well, we don't do to well when we fall into a large sum of money. If we're not used to having the ability to just buy something whenever we want, being suddenly able to is something we can't really come to grips with. We instantly splurge, partly in that moment where we're in fear we'll suddenly loose it somehow and partly because we're not sure what it is that we are supposed to do with that kinda money.
So, she did, buying up hundreds of hours of research material, showing it off and what not, but the after glow was still there and she didn't think to report to pushing the end date back; which had she at the beginning explaining it'll take far longer then she'd planned to play through it people would have most likely been fine with it.
Now, now she's expected to have some world shattering product. Something far bigger then she'd ever hoped or wanted to try making, and it's impossible. It's not what she does, and the issue is she knows this and is trying hard to get help in the same way the kid with the part time job does before the big test. She's bumming the answers from the kids near her.
Now, I'm not saying she's in the right at all, she took way more donations then she could handle and set herself up for this via pandering to the sympathies of the crowd when she started to put up only the worst remarks the internet had to offer as if opinion and hatemongering was reason enough to hand her more money.
But this bit here that she's started actually makes the project moot no matter what she produces. By grabbing the answers of the backers she's directly pandering to their views specifically ending up with "research" specifically designed by the backer to support their view of game. She'll please those whom paid for the end result to be to their liking, and it'll end up being forgotten for whatever else comes around in a few weeks after people got done tossing rocks at it.
In the end if she makes a product that looks like it's worth the 6 grand worth of resources and time and effort, it's what she set out to do and it's what you was funding. People look at that giant number and feel entitled to have something worth every dime they put in. It's not in her power to make, and perhaps this'll be seen as a good cautionary tale of not dropping more money on a project then the designer needs to deliver on.

Having to deal with people bashing her prob didn't help. But that's lame...

I was going to humor her for at least her first video to see if maybe she had something decent to say that I hadn't had other people do better.

But this, this will not work in her favor. She is going to get a ton of flak for this.

You could say she's a damsel in distress herself.

trollpwner:
What outrages me even more is the fact that she just takes some of this crap totally out of context. Thief 2? A game with incredibly strong female characters? Set in a society where you see women doing the same jobs as men and reaching positions of wealth and power denied in a patriarchal society? Sexist? Because of one escort mission? Fuck off.

It seems they don't even want to try and make this a valid study. This is just pissing me off.

Last I checked, she isn't saying the entire game is sexist, but that it has parts that are.

I have never played the game or watched her videos, but that's what I have gathered from people who have watched.

So, um... It seems she could have planned this better, I guess? I really don't have much else to say. Never got the hate for her from the beginning, don't get why she still generates so much emotion now. Are we just that desperate for new targets now that Jack Thompson is no longer a thing? :/

EDIT: Also, it appears not a lot of people actually seem to understand what the point of this study is. That's nice...

She duped people into giving her over $150000, and spent it on games.
Now she's going to those same backers for ideas.
So she basically scammed her way to gaming, with the false promise of a feminism study.
Did anyone else see this coming a mile away?
Respect < 0

Well, can't say I'm surprised.

OK, I gave her the benefit of the doubt (even though I was convinced she was a con artist) and was waiting to see her work. I wouldn't expect a $130,000 quality product as I believe that's out of her expertise -although consultations could have been arranged- but she could at least put out something worth $6000. This... this. She's done nothing at all? Her supporters are being quiet to boot, even when she's asking them to do her work for her and say which games contain which trope. From the very start of that update you can see her bullshittery; "identifying" these so-called tropes yet only giving a few examples, not even enough for one per listing. How did she identify many of these sexist tropes, claim they're prevalent in gaming, yet actually come completely undone when it comes to actual examples; all within a few sentences no less.

I feel bad for the people suckered in by her lies.

Lol called it.

I'm sorry but the SECOND she walked in and bought over 300 video games I KNEW she was going to do her little project in the WORST way possible. For an "academic" she really chose the worst way to get her "source" material.

Hell I only have my B.A. and even I know if I had that money what EXACTLY to do with it to actually get the research done and it would certainly be a lot more dynamic than buying a bunch of video games as there would be some actual authority behind the project.

I think TVTropes probably has a better analysis of said tropes than she could ever give. And it's free. Still smug, though.

Armadox:
You know, at this point it's one of those "too big to succeed" kind of things. If she'd only received the 6 grand she'd originally asked, it'd have gained her enough to pay rent for a while, buy up a handful of video games, and release a film using those fistful of games which would have been acceptable considering the time frame and skill of her work.
But that isn't what happened. She received a very large amount of money over anything even close to how much she asked, and people.. well, we don't do to well when we fall into a large sum of money. If we're not used to having the ability to just buy something whenever we want, being suddenly able to is something we can't really come to grips with. We instantly splurge, partly in that moment where we're in fear we'll suddenly loose it somehow and partly because we're not sure what it is that we are supposed to do with that kinda money.
So, she did, buying up hundreds of hours of research material, showing it off and what not, but the after glow was still there and she didn't think to report to pushing the end date back; which had she at the beginning explaining it'll take far longer then she'd planned to play through it people would have most likely been fine with it.
Now, now she's expected to have some world shattering product. Something far bigger then she'd ever hoped or wanted to try making, and it's impossible. It's not what she does, and the issue is she knows this and is trying hard to get help in the same way the kid with the part time job does before the big test. She's bumming the answers from the kids near her.
Now, I'm not saying she's in the right at all, she took way more donations then she could handle and set herself up for this via pandering to the sympathies of the crowd when she started to put up only the worst remarks the internet had to offer as if opinion and hatemongering was reason enough to hand her more money.
But this bit here that she's started actually makes the project moot no matter what she produces. By grabbing the answers of the backers she's directly pandering to their views specifically ending up with "research" specifically designed by the backer to support their view of game. She'll please those whom paid for the end result to be to their liking, and it'll end up being forgotten for whatever else comes around in a few weeks after people got done tossing rocks at it.
In the end if she makes a product that looks like it's worth the 6 grand worth of resources and time and effort, it's what she set out to do and it's what you was funding. People look at that giant number and feel entitled to have something worth every dime they put in. It's not in her power to make, and perhaps this'll be seen as a good cautionary tale of not dropping more money on a project then the designer needs to deliver on.

Is that really how Kickstarter works? I mean I finally thought I grasped it on a very, very basic level as using preorders to fund development. That way even if you raise a lot of money you're still basically going to make the same game you were planning to make. I guess it's different with her though since she's asking for research funding (I guess would be the best way to describe it?) In that case she should be using some of that money earned to hire assistants to help her with something like this instead of asking the people who paid her.

Sean951:
This site makes me sad. She is accountable to her backers, and never intended to get that much money. That we are still dismissing her for being "unattractive" does lend credence to her argument though.

I don't think it was a scam, and considering she has her Masters and has taught at a college level, I think she may have just gotten in a little to deep and needs a starting point.

Among the people I've actually seen dismissing her very few are over how attractive she is. The vast majority of it has been that all of her feminist frequency videos are very entry level, that she never considers the economic side of why capitalistic products have a certain divide. For example, she once argued about how women are kicked out of geek culture and excluded from bitorrent communities because of all the porn ads targeted at heterosexual males, not once did she mention that bit torrent is seen as illegitimate and unlikely to get ads from more "Respectable" businesses, and she seemed to talk as if the ads are there for your enjoyment and not out of necessity. Obviously it's better for all involved if the ads are for products that you'd actually be interested in buying but there's more to it.

That along with the fact that her or one of her friends advertised on fucking /v/ about it makes me feel entirely non-sympathetic to her harassment. In fact, I think she wanted it. It takes a spectacular fool to go on to 4chan to advertise a feminist campaign and not expect a backlash.

http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/139813364/

Zhukov:

JeffBergGold:
Unattractive woman who has duped desperate white knights and other unattractive women into giving her money.

Nice job proving her point there mate.

She should hire you.

And she'd still fail to make her point, she's talking about video games not the community surrounding them, and to link two things you need to realize they're not the same, something I do not expect her to even attempt to do.

Tenmar:
Lol called it.

I'm sorry but the SECOND she walked in and bought over 300 video games I KNEW she was going to do her little project in the WORST way possible. For an "academic" she really chose the worst way to get her "source" material.

Hell I only have my B.A. and even I know if I had that money what EXACTLY to do with it to actually get the research done and it would certainly be a lot more dynamic than buying a bunch of video games as there would be some actual authority behind the project.

Now I'm curious as to how you'd actually use 150k on a video series like that.

Zhukov:

JeffBergGold:
Unattractive woman who has duped desperate white knights and other unattractive women into giving her money.

Nice job proving her point there mate.

She should hire you.

Except that doesn't really prove her point considering she isn't doing any social research. The problem with her project is that while she only says she wants to cover tropes in video games, she has already admitted to a forgone conclusion that the video game industry has already proven false.

The assertion she would like to make is that somehow playing video games makes people sexist. However the video game industry and community has already been through this fight before on a federal level with violence in video games. Jack Thompson made the assertion that playing video games makes people violent and even Penn and Teller did an episode on that with Bullshit. The result was that the Supreme Court decided that video games were free speech and that the content of the game was part of that expression of speech. This gives video games in a societal context that video games can be a form of art.

Pretty much Anita is just the video games industry version of Jack Thompson but instead of violence it is sexism. Playing video games and the content of said games does not make the industry, or the people that play video games sexist. The games are expressions of free speech where developers are empowered to explore for better or for worse the lighter and darker sides of humanity or create magical or horrifying worlds that go against every single grain of fiber in what we believe is right.

She doesn't even care about the developers, all she has proven is that she wants the video game industry to make games her way and no one elses. That is why I'm against her, she takes away the freedom of artistic expression from game developers and wants to create stagnation instead of expanding the media. Tropes for better or for worse are tools and to not use them simply because you think they are "sexist" will only stagnate what developers can create. Nevermind the VERY difficult process for developers to actually both PITCH the game to get funding and then market the game to get noticed by us the people that play video games.

She is just in it for her own personal gain and any insults thrown at her doesn't prove her point at all. All it does is show that the person for that one instance is being a jerk towards another person. Anita is not a representation of all women and I'm sure all women would NOT want to be represented by Anita.

OH MY GOD ALL SHE'S DONE IS RENAME A BUNCH OF STUFF FROM T.V.TROPES.

HOW DID SHE GET 160,000 DOLLARS? HOOOOOOOOOOW?????????????????

The worst bit about this is that this is one of the most common tropes that she is looking at if I laid out my game collection I would find so many that support her point so how is she going to fair when the slightly harder to find tropes need to be looked at.

EDIT: The post I quoted here has been taken down and the author suspended, plus it's been brought to my attention that my original post was pretty offensive itself so I've taken it down. Sorry if I offended anyone - was just really annoyed by the original post!