It’s no surprise that everyone hates advertising. But do you hate ads enough to want to give Penny Arcade a Kickstarter donation so they can remove what few ads they have on their website?
Penny Arcade has launched a Kickstarter campaign today, called “Penny Arcade Sells Out”, which seeks upwards of $250,000 to remove only some of the advertising on their website—namely, the leaderboard. Should the fund reach $525,000, they’ll remove all ads on their homepage. If they get up to $999,999, they’ll remove all the ads.
Among other rewards for those who pledge money to the campaign, pledges who donate $1000 will even get added to Gabe’s Xbox Live friends list for a year. Donate $7500 and you can intern at Penny Arcade for a day.
Needless to say (or perhaps it needs to be said) the campaign seems like a piss-take of Kickstarter in general and is a part of Penny Arcade’s longstanding dislike of Kickstarter movements.
While it’s curious to see whether they’ll actually manage to reach their goal, one thing’s for certain in that they certainly won’t face the scrutiny that others—namely Anita Sarkeesian’s Female Tropes in Video Games documentary series—have experienced in the recent days and weeks for pursuing Kickstarter funding for legitimate projects.
Should they succeed at their Kickstarter, then they’ll effectively “prove” the stupidity of Kickstarter in general and make off with a whole lot of free cash for doing absolutely nothing. Bravo, Penny Arcade.
The best part about it all is that should this campaign be successful, they'll run it again next year and do it all over again.