Crowdfund a Kevin Smith Video Game If You Hate Your Money

Some of us here at Inverse are bigger Kevin Smith fans than others. I’ll see Yoga Hosers in a theater. But I hate myself and I hate everyone else and I like to see them suffer, so maybe my motivations aren’t as pure. Plus, I love cinema made for the Director and absolutely no one else. It’s a new version of auteur theory that is both gross and wonderful. If you still can’t tell which side of the fence I’m on: it’s both.

Smith has been such an influential figure in my life. His DVDs of talking at large crowds about funny in-jokes made me want to be a standup comedian — forgetting that first you should probably be hugely successful if you want large crowds to listen to your bullshit. Oops. Some of the movies matter to me more than others. Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms, though.

The Bluntman and Chronic parts of the Askewniverse never meant much to me, so I’m as surprised as you to see them in video game form today. Much more surprising — I’m supposed to crowdfund this?

Look, I understand that we take down every project sent to crowdfunding by a major celebrity. Shaq-Fu could’ve been funded by Shaq, but I also understand that guy has very little investment in wanting to play that game. Kevin Smith, however, is now doing unboxing videos for paid YouTube channels. So why is he on Fig asking to make this happen? (If you’re unaware, Fig is the new Kickstarter platform that doesn’t limit larger investments, and also allows large investors to actually assume ownership and make money off of completed projects — it was the jumping off point for funding Psychonauts 2.)

What does this mean for consumers? The game looks finished. This game was probably going to be released anyway, but releasing it without any investment keeps the project in the black from day one. The Fig goal is to get $400k in the next 37 days, and as of a few hours into day one, that total is already over $50k, so this will absolutely get financed.

For $5k you can be in the game, and for $10k you can be in Smith’s next movie as an extra. Everything underneath that is pretty unimpressive, including contributing a “yo mama” joke at the $2k donation level, which comes with a signed t-shirt!

Yeah. I dunno either.

Why are Kevin Smith fans, myself included, so itchy to fork over stupid amounts of money to see his every whim realized? I ask this of myself, as someone who spent upwards of $45 on one of his An Evening With Kevin Smith DVDs back in the mid-2000s. Is it because we see ourselves in him or is it because we just can’t say no to the guy who gave us Dogma? Either way, you’ll certainly be able to attack cops as a couple of stoners on your mobile devices soon, even if you don’t contribute money now.