Filmed in black and white “because it’s serious,” this is Daniel (@dungeondive) working through something that genuinely unsettled him — and openly expecting to catch flak for it.
The trigger was Flying Frog launching another enormous Shadows of Brimstone Kickstarter before Forbidden Fortress had finished delivering. Daniel wasn’t interested in the pledge, but spent a sick day on the couch watching the game’s largest Facebook group in the hours before launch, and what he saw there changed how he views the hobby. People asking repeatedly when they could start giving their money. People pledging five hundred dollars for multiple copies before anyone knew what the stretch goals contained. And, most troubling to him, backers who admitted they couldn’t afford it being told to open a credit card or pledge $25 now and make up the difference in the pledge manager.
When he suggested it was fine not to spend money you don’t have — that anyone who backed even one Brimstone campaign already owns more game than they can play, and the rest hits retail eventually — he was the one chastised for it. He left the group and turned off notifications.
What follows is unresolved by design. He wonders aloud whether people encouraging overspending are justifying their own, questions whether he should ever do another Kickstarter preview, and asks viewers to call him out if his channel ever starts functioning as an advertisement. No conclusion, just a resolution not to be part of the problem.
Daniel asks to be called out if his channel ever becomes an excuse to spend money. Where’s the line between enthusiasm for a game and selling it?