# on crowd funding as war on crowd funding as war - via theodore miles ludonaut "campaign" - noun **+** military operations for a specific objective **+** systematic course of aggressive activities for some specific purpose: a sales campaign **+** the competition by rival political candidates and organizations for public office "reset" is a single scientist co-op first person puzzle video game being developed for pc by theory interactive ltd ir post kickstarter campaign analysis states they reached ir funding goal through luck and a big nothing to loose push consider both crowd funding and kickstarter as socially janky often distasteful games of mass consumer psychology and simulation rather than true human inter-communication the ideas and assumptions underpinning campaigns are usually those of conflict as theory interactive state no campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy the central use of a war metaphor - crowd funding as a matter of winning hearts and minds'; overwhelm the garming public with content and they'll willingly surrender ir wallets // video here this combative attitude perfectly harmonises and-or conflicts with the subdued melancholy and coolly seductive tone of reset's debut game trailer - sad lonely robots in a rain soaked post apocalyptic landscape // video here get more material out - make a large splash - capture as many eyes for our "[war] campaign (..) compromise the integrity of our vision one wonders what that vision is and how it's possibly an integral one the effect of real life rubbing against a micro team keeping up the fort that is a tough strictly mechanical vision (of reaching a funding goal) needs aggressively defending - oddly from real life and suddenly we saw an ammo box next to our feet" and "we started shooting in all directions" indie game developers as the a-team from the 80's indiscriminately spraying hype on and at ir target crowd - battle hardened wolves marking / marketing ir territory in this age of noisiness you must make more noise to stand out from the noise what's uncertain is if people vitally interested in life and its meanings - not just gamers and ir silly games - want or need shouting at loud brash fiscal demands however clever or effective have nothing to do with the human truths of simple well told stories if anything "reset" is really about emotions of isolation and uncertainty - the concept of soul - our entire future survival and the fantastic other-worldly scientific strangeness of a quantum universe yet the unfortunately reality of reset as a "campaign" is that these truths are somehow merely strengths to be exploited - marketing opportunities to seized by grasping heavily armored fists on some fevered virtual indie gold rush jonathan blow is correct for once; video games are only meaningful and worth interacting with as truthful expressions of the human condition // republic of bob