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[Egan_BW]

Yes, you get to be EA and kill off Maxis or whatever because they stopped making good games.

[ndkid]

Well, in saying your second paragraph, don't expect me to ignore your first.

Suing a non-profit that you donated to seems really dishonest to me. If you're willing to sue them, then why did you donate to them in the first place? just to get a shirt? If that was your aim, why didn't you actually just buy a shirt? This is obviously not completely analogous to a game kickstarter, but it sums up my opinion.

Because they offered me a shirt that was different and better and more to my liking than the shirts on the open market. I grant, if they were just offering a shirt that was already available on the open market, there'd be no reason to make the donation. But if they offer me a "gift" or "reward" or "consideration" for my donation, they can keep calling it a donation all they want, but we've moved into a quid pro quo.

[Ludorum Rex]

Suing a non-profit that you donated to seems really dishonest to me. If you're willing to sue them, then why did you donate to them in the first place? just to get a shirt? If that was your aim, why didn't you actually just buy a shirt? This is obviously not completely analogous to a game kickstarter, but it sums up my opinion.

I generally approach crowdfunding contributions as no-strings-attached donations, like you and many others. However, this is not how Kickstarter presents crowdfunding. Under the old set (pre-2014) there was actually this stipulation:

"Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill."

This is extremely harsh for projects where the reward is the end result of the project. A t-shirt, art book or soundtrack can be delivered even if a project fails, but it is very difficult to deliver a game or gadget that for whatever reasons the project simply could not complete.

I guess this is why it was changed to the current "Accountability" section of the Terms of Use. This section is much softer, but does require the developer to maintain a high standard of communication, disclosing financial information (ie how the backer funds were spent), and to maintain complete honesty in all communications to backers.

Both under the old and new Terms of Use, I find it perfectly reasonable why some people would have a different angle than you and me. Kickstarter very clearly does not present itself as a platform for no-strings-attached donations. In fact they expressly state that there is accountability.

Personally, the only privilege I require for my contribution to a project is the right to bitch and moan if the project doesn't uphold reasonable ethical standards. But on the other hand, consumer protection laws (and contract law) exist for very serious reasons. An agreement has to matter if the weakest actors in an economy are to be protected. Crowdfunding is no exception to the rule of law. Thus, I strongly believe authorities and backers have a right to take legal action when an agreement is broken.

But in this specific case: I think any kind of legal action against KDG would be absurd, and a case of kicking someone who is already down. However, backers have every right to be angry, upset and/or sad at the developers. Not for lack of progress or missing deadlines. But for not adhering to a higher standard of communication.

In the end (and that's specific to this project), my disappointment is primarily with Kickstarter and how they present themselves as something they are not. In practice there is zero accountability, and that should be made very clear to backers. It is my opinion that Kickstarter itself is misrepresenting the nature of their platform, and this is at the core of disagreements such as the one in the previous couple of posts.

[jhxmt]

Since charities are under no obligation to actually do what they set out to do (and quite often... they don't or do bare minimum).

Not sure whether this is different across the Atlantic, but in the UK charities are under an obligation to run themselves in a way that supports their stated objectives (see the Charity Commission's website for more info).

Re: the whole Kickstarter is a charity/investment/purchase debate - currently, I don't think it's any of those things.  Currently it's Kickstarter.  Charity donations, investments, and purchases have all been tested time and time again in multiple legal settings, with hundreds and thousands of court decisions feeding into our understanding of what they are.  I don't think Kickstarter's got to that stage yet.  At the moment, it's Kickstarter.  Caveated "I Am Not A Lawyer" here, obviously.

I basically treat Kickstarter projects like investments that I'm willing to see go bust.  I do my research ahead of time, but I accept that they're at the high end of my risk curve - and I expect the reward/level-of-backing balance to reflect that.  "If I spend $10, I might get a game (50% probability) versus I might lose my money (50% probability)" means that I'm expecting the game to be worth at least $20 to me personally before I'm willing to go for it.  Once I've paid in, I then don't care (in theory) which way it goes.

Of course in practice I'd rather I got the game than lost the $10.    Just like I'd rather my investments grew 40% in a year rather than dropping 40%.  But if I've accepted the probability of losing it, then I'm okay with that outcome - it was priced in, effectively.

Edit: ninja'd, L.Rex has some good points re Kickstarter's own presentation of themselves.

[Neonivek]

Looking it up a typical way Charity scams work, without being illegal, is they basically spend most of their money paying themselves, and secret parent companies, to hold fundraisers (often giving the higher ups HUGE cuts) and give very little of the money raised to the actual cause (typically about 10% but this can go far lower even 0% though those are few).

It is very easy to become a filthy rich owner of a charity this way. Non-Profit only means the COMPANY can't make a profit.

AND!!! Yeah the UK isn't different. In fact though the reports are conflicting they could be even worse then the United States.

[penguinofhonor]

The term doesn't even mean that much. Your non-profit company can make a profit as long as you can show that its primary purpose is something besides profit, like education. Though I'll admit I don't know how strict the standards you have to meet are.

[Neonivek]

The term doesn't even mean that much. Your non-profit company can make a profit as long as you can show that its primary purpose is something besides profit, like education. Though I'll admit I don't know how strict the standards you have to meet are.

From what I researched Non-profit only means they don't pay out to share holders.

[Xgamer4]

In the end (and that's specific to this project), my disappointment is primarily with Kickstarter and how they present themselves as something they are not. In practice there is zero accountability, and that should be made very clear to backers. It is my opinion that Kickstarter itself is misrepresenting the nature of their platform, and this is at the core of disagreements such as the one in the previous couple of posts.

I'm not even sure that's Kickstarter's fault. I suspect that, if they could, the way the present themselves is exactly how they'd like things to go. Unfortunately, though, Kickstarter themselves doesn't really have any teeth... the best they can do is extract a promise from the project creator that a project will follow those guidelines (the terms of use), but if a project promptly fails to do so after being funded... well... there's not much Kickstarter can do. Kickstarter can't force the money to be returned, and for both business and liability reasons injecting themselves into that struggle by refunding backers themselves and going after the creator would be monumentally stupid. The best they can do is remove a project from the website, but that just acts in the creator's favor by removing record of a broken promise and removing a place backers can complain.

Then there aren't any real legal teeth yet, as there's little precedent for something like Kickstarter, and funding those teeth by dragging a creator to court and creating precedent is going to be cost-prohibitive at best and... you get this mess.

[Neonivek]

Kickstarter honestly does its job and outright lays down the outline the projects need to follow.

Sure they themselves have little legal power over the projects within them... But the contracts they laid out is what allows the funders to sue.

[sirvente]

Charity offers a shirt if you give them money
Give them money
Don't get a shirt
If you take against this you're the dishonest one

why do you put special moral burdens on the consumer?

[ChairmanPoo]

You know, I was writing a rant on this, but I've decided to keep it simpler instead

Some here argue I'm supposed to take funding a KS game as either charity or gambling. I don't, and I won't.  I don't have enough time or motivation to chase the developers over a couple of bucks, but I don't think that what they did should be regarded as an expected or normal outcome, and I won't begrudge others the right to voice their displeasure at them.


For me the moral of this story (and other similar ones) is that kickstarter is a lousy, lousy, system,  with little to no security and an extremely uneven burden of power, and that you should be wary of funding anyone who is not tried&true (and even that is being far more generous than I feel the system deserves).

[Ludorum Rex]

To clarify: I don't think Kickstarter should litigate left and right, and drag every project that gets in trouble to court. But when we do see this disagreement on what backers can expect over and over again, that is a sign that Kickstarter is not communicating properly. When I click the button to back a project, Kickstarter has a disclaimer that is not a store, and that the responsibility to deliver is on the project. But there is also a link to learn more, which in huge letters start out with:

We take our responsibility as Kickstarter's stewards very seriously. It's our job to provide a system deserving of your trust — by proactively screening for potential problems, by investigating issues brought to us by our community, and by still being exceedingly clear that even with these steps not every project will go as planned.

Our goal is to provide a safe and trusted platform where people are honest and open with one another as they collaborate to bring creative projects to life.

To a lot of people that is going to read like Kickstarter is doing something actively to make sure projects abide by the Terms of Use. Consumer laws and business culture varies from country to country, so while the Anglo-Saxon countries see the route of litigation as a normal thing for a consumer to pursue, that is completely alien to a lot of other cultures.

I think Kickstarter is being dishonest when they claim to screen for problems, have Terms of Use that are practically unenforceable, and are much more hands-off than they present themselves. If they want to be a safe and trusted platform, they need to improve communication and probably also screen their projects better.

When only 33% of all computer game Kickstarters manage to deliver something, that is an important piece of information to give consumers. They are a business and they take a cut of the funding - that gives them some responsibility to do more than deliver legal ammunition to slighted backers.

Crowdfunding is a fantastic opportunity for new and interesting projects to get funding, but I fear that in the long run this will be ruined if the expectations are not very clear and shared by all. I am optimistic that it will end up in a good place, but I really hope the platforms improve and get more active in promoting high ethical standards.

[umiman]

Edit: I wrote a sarcastic post about gamers being stupid and I should capitalize on it when I realized... I actually could with the things I sarcastically posted.

So I'm going to be doing it now for real.

[Xgamer4]

We take our responsibility as Kickstarter's stewards very seriously. It's our job to provide a system deserving of your trust — by proactively screening for potential problems, by investigating issues brought to us by our community, and by still being exceedingly clear that even with these steps not every project will go as planned.

Our goal is to provide a safe and trusted platform where people are honest and open with one another as they collaborate to bring creative projects to life.

To a lot of people that is going to read like Kickstarter is doing something actively to make sure projects abide by the Terms of Use. Consumer laws and business culture varies from country to country, so while the Anglo-Saxon countries see the route of litigation as a normal thing for a consumer to pursue, that is completely alien to a lot of other cultures.

I think Kickstarter is being dishonest when they claim to screen for problems, have Terms of Use that are practically unenforceable, and are much more hands-off than they present themselves. If they want to be a safe and trusted platform, they need to improve communication and probably also screen their projects better.

When only 33% of all computer game Kickstarters manage to deliver something, that is an important piece of information to give consumers. They are a business and they take a cut of the funding - that gives them some responsibility to do more than deliver legal ammunition to slighted backers.

Two things:

1) Are they not doing anything? Every Kickstarter I've seen, barring a few exceptions that tend to get fail spectacularly and/or get called out, have a presentation that suggests they creators are willing and capable. There's only so much Kickstarter can do to sanity check a project, and Kickstarter certainly can't see the future. At the very least, the vast majority of projects that reach the site at least present themselves as possible and aren't immediately a stupid idea. They've even gotten better at curating the gaming section. I've seen a distinct drop in "I'm the ideas-man on an MMO where you can do *literally everything*! Give me moneys." projects. This actually feeds into..

2) You cite a 33% success rate. I'm not entirely sure where that number comes from - especially since a report Kickstarter themselves published puts it at a far-lower 12ish%. Is that really a terrible number, though? Does anyone know what percentage of projects a risk-happy publisher would can internally? I bet it's a reasonably-large number... they just have the knowledge and expertise to end non-starters before they drain too much money.

[Neonivek]

For me the moral of this story (and other similar ones) is that kickstarter is a lousy, lousy, system,  with little to no security and an extremely uneven burden of power, and that you should be wary of funding anyone who is not tried&true (and even that is being far more generous than I feel the system deserves).

The problem is that Kickstarter is at worst a necessary evil to just having the corporations decide what we want with the lowest risk material imaginable.

Even with all its problems this is still a FAR better world we live in because it exists than without.