Child's Play withdraw from further funding from RME

[deanb]

I know

[TheMightyEthan]

Then why do you keep saying "the PA guys" are opposed to changing the ending? It was only one of the PA guys.

[deanb]

Well the PA ...people/company/association/group then? Tycho is but one person at Penny Arcade and the only one shown to be okay with it (which is probably why he was the one writing post about it).

[RockyRan]

1. That's a problem resolved with clarification. Not just going "Stop donating to your charity altogether!". Which has resulted in more confusion that it has resolved.

 

I don't think you understand the kind of trouble this was giving PA. They were getting random calls about people thinking there's some kind of "goal". They were getting a bunch of calls from PayPal for people who wanted to withdraw their donations when things were clarified. They had to start dispelling rumors that CP and RME were one and the same.

 

They really shouldn't be the ones clarifying shit. They're not the ones who started the association, why should they be going around wasting their time trying to clarify to every half-wit that the effort and charity are two separate things? They got plenty of shit to worry about, they don't need to be babysitting RME's fallout. They owe RME nothing and it's obviously starting to become a burden for them.

 

 

2. But those that feel there's an association between CPC and RME are stupid and most likely few and far between. If I was to feel there was an association between Children in Need and promoting catholicism would they pull out of accepting donations from Catholic schools? No way, they're not morons. RME are hardly cashing on this, it's not some Product Red dealy-o of slapping a charity on your expensive branded gear n going "hey buy our product it supports charity". Nor is it gaining them any publicity. At least CPC wasn't contributing to any publicity until the PA guys posted about it and made a big deal out of it. (See the above link where Kids Need to Read actually are somewhat providing publicity). In fact it was more likely the other way round, this RME/CPC incident certainly seems to be promoting Kids Need to Read at least, I'd never heard of it until now and I'm sure that was the same with Child's Play.

 

Again, CP was getting quite a bit of grief over it, as per their words. Whether or not you want to believe that is your prerogative, but that's what they said and that's what I'm assuming is true.

 

Regardless of what RME's intentions were, donating to CP was certainly not their end goal. It was part of their goal, to say "we're not just angry nerds, we can put money were our mouths are".However, as non-offensive as they might try to be about it, the simple fact of the matter is that they're only doing this to legitimize their own agenda in the end. Otherwise, why would they even do the donations in the first place? Compound the fact that PA was starting to catch a lot of grief over this and it's a no-brainer as to why they just put a stop to it. They really aren't obligated to babysit arbitrary efforts that really have nothing to do with their charity.

 

This is something Penny Arcade very much wanted to be part of. Child's Play maybe not so much, but maybe don't have the PA guys speaking up on your behalf, the same PA guys that spent last week knocking the idea of disliking and amending the end.

 

That doesn't mean they want to bring in their charity into it. I'm sure there's a lot of shit each individual employee wants to further on their own, but PA is PA and CP is CP. Just because they support RME doesn't mean they should automatically support what's going on here. They're not obligated to and, as one sharp-chinned fellow once said, "they never asked for this".

[deanb]

Sorry, I meant for RME to clarify it. i.e put in big bold letters "this is a charity not a kickstarter" or something. Though I highly doubt in their 10 years of operating this is the first time they've had confused people. Though what PA should be clarifying is why specifically under their new ruling RME is bad, but many other causes and products are fine to continue using Child's Play.

 

 

Again, CP was getting quite a bit of grief over it, as per their words.

They said "we did receive some negative mail", which would be about it. The main concern seems to be confused people, which as I said could have been resolved by asking RME to clarify about the charity donations. I'd imagine being irrevocably attached the to "lol rape jokes are funny, dickwolves" people is the biggest issue the charity has ever and will ever have.

[RockyRan]

They said "Nothing like this has ever happened in the almost 10 years the charity has been running, so it kind of threw me for a loop", so suffice to say it goes a little deeper than simply "confused people" as you put it. PA already clarified why specifically under their new ruling RME is bad. They said "Child's Play cannot be a tool to draw attention to a cause.Child's Play must be the Cause". It's pretty clear RME wasn't following this.

 

This is all really simple. RME started doing this, the cause for their participation in the charity is murky at best, and it started burdening PA through no fault of their own. I fail to realize what PA did wrong, they're not obligated in the least to babysit RME or their donors.

[Chewblaha]

Also doesn't help that Mike (Gabe) thinks there's no problem with the ME3 ending.

Edited March 25, 2012 by Chewblaha

[Eleven]

This is what tycho said on the PA post:

 

As the main point of contact for Child’s Play, Jamie has been buried under mail about this situation. Apparently some of the people giving to the cause seemed to think that they were paying for a new ending to Mass Effect. She’s been asked what the goal is, and how much they need to raise in order to get the ending produced. We’ve also been contacted by PayPal due to a high number of people asking for their donations back. This is in addition to readers who simply couldn’t understand how this was connected to Child’s Play’s mission. We were dealing with a lot of very confused people, more every day, and that told us we had a problem.

 

From comments on various sites, RME already had notes/clarifications in place that this is just a charity, and that its not related to their goal (that's how I understood it). These are people who are pro-RME and are commenting on how stupid people are, those who are asking for their donations back. I doubt a simple clarification on the website would help that much. People who can't read, will still be unable to even if you put it in big bold letters.

[TheMightyEthan]

Actually I've read that people who use the internet a lot have developed ad-censors in their brains and so putting something in big, bright, bold letters actually makes them less likely to notice it.

[Thursday Next]

I think you have to take a step back from this and accept that it is PA's charity. If they feel that accepting these donations goes against their principles, if they feel that it compromises the integrity of Child's Play, and if they decide they do not want to be part of the RME message, then that is their call to make, obviously Dean and others would approach the situation differently. That's not to say that either approach is right or wrong. If it were me, I would feel uncomfortable with someone doing something in my name without discussing it with me first, even if it would be to my own financial benefit (but that's not to say that I wouldn't take the money, I'm a mercenary at heart).

 

RME could have said "donate money to this random paypal account and we'll give it to charity", if they had, people would have been reluctant to. They would have doubted the organisations motives and honesty. By associating with Child's Play RME legitimised themselves, and I'd suggest they did so unfairly.

[deanb]

Child's Play are perfectly fine to accept or refuse donations from whoever they want. As I've said I just don't see why in particular RME is to be singled out from any other organisations that raises money for CPC, nor are their new terms exactly clear beyond RME definitely not being allowed. If I was to put a CPC donation link on the side of the forum I'm sure PA/CPC would have no issue with it, despite the fact it not being allowed under the new policy. Which is where I take issue with their new ruling, there's nothing wrong with what RME was doing, it's an issue with what RME was.

 

I'm curious as to what motives and honesty are to be doubted? Their motives have been made rather clear, and it's hardly like they'd lie about disliking the ending Also how would not having a donation drive for CPC would make them any less or more legitimate?

[Thursday Next]

Put simply, RME and Child's Play do not have a common interest as such there is a greater potential for them to have a conflict of interest.

 

Child's Play have a goal to raise money for kids. RME have a goal to change the ending of Mass Effect. These are mutually exclusive goals so they should not be associated. While these goals are not in conflict at the moment, there was a chance that they could have been one day.

 

For an example of how RME is leveraged by Child's Play Google RME. You will see that there is nothing about Retake Mass Effect on the front page. Google Child's Play. The second hit is the charity. If you Google RME Child's Play the entire front page is about RME and Child's Play. Clearly the association with Child's Play boosted awareness. Those who are better at Google analytics can probably compare the number of hits before support was pulled as that move has undoubtedly caused a spike, nevertheless the association with Child's Play boosted awareness of the RME campaign.

 

Now, if the association had been allowed to continue and at a later date RME decided it wanted to switch to a Kickstarter model, then they would have used Child's Play to boost recognition and then started funnelling money into their own project, a clear conflict.

 

I'm sure I said this before, but they would have had the same result if they had used any brand. If they'd said "Support RME and buy a Happy Meal" McDonald's would have put a stop to it.

[deanb]

 

 

 

We maybe have different google histories mind. Maybe worth noting that RME actually has more consistent result than Child's Play (which also turns up the chucky film first, at least that won't cause any confusion in what the charity is about ).

 

Google Trends struggles for comparison(since RME is only about 2 weeks old), but it's kinda clear that the only time Child's Play in anyway boosted awareness of the campaign was when they stepped in last week and said RME wasn't to donate any more, whereupon the high-profile of PA/CPC then put both CPC and RME into the limelight. Classic Striesand Effect, only by singling out RME did PA/CPC draw attention to them.

 

 

 

 

I really don't understand how a gaming charity and a gaming group don't have any common interests, or even conflicting interests at that. The conflict of interest is only with Penny Arcade, which does push the concept that RME are being singled out, so while PA/CPC have this new rule it's unlikely to be enforced upon any of the groups that for the past 10 years have been fine, unless in the future Penny Arcade have further conflicts of interests with those raising money for CPC.

 

Also you're aware what Kickstarter is right? You can't kickstarter this

[Thursday Next]

Sorry, I meant for RME to clarify it. i.e put in big bold letters "this is a charity not a kickstarter" or something.

 

Also you're aware what Kickstarter is right? You can't kickstarter this

 

Was just responding to your suggestion that this might be misconstrued as a kickstarter thing.

 

Also, I didn't say compare with "Retake Mass Effect" (which is rarely used in conversation) I said compare with "RME" (which is the common abbreviation).

[deanb]

If we're wanting to use abbreviations:

 

They both luck out. We're only calling it RME and CPC here because it's a fucking pain in the ass to type the whole thing out every time.

Any time it's posted about in the news it's the full "Retake Mass Effect" e.g:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-23-retake-mass-effect-3-protest-claims-victory-after-bioware-vows-to-address-controversial-ending

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/retake-mass-effect-childs-play-fundraiser-stopped-6367778