Posted April 14, 2013
Gersen: There is a third choice and the more I think about the more likely it's the one I will end up choosing...
Vainamoinen: No, there is NOT a third choice. One of the backers on the Shadowrun forums was rambling about the third choice for backers to get DRM free DLC. I don't believe it. You don't go on Kickstarter to back a DRM free game just to frigging pirate it afterwards.
One more reason why Harebrained Schemes has killed the Kickstarter mood.
Right now, I haven't heard much about copyright legal actions taken by project leaders of a Kickstarter project against end-users, but if there are some, I will be furious about it. The fact that the threat still even exists offends me. I find it offensive that Kickstarter projects would take the ideas from those business models and use them to put the risk on the backers and then use legal action to keep the public from using the game however they want to.
Perhaps I was naive too believing that Kickstarter/crowd funding would stop issues like this (DRM, copyright, DMCA, file-sharing) from being issues in the first place.
Something this team could have done is have several more small Kickstarter projects for DLC/expansions and then seed them once they're completed. Maybe $20,000 goals? I don't know what they would need but it shouldn't be a lot since the game engine is already made. It seems even simpler to me than using servers.
Post edited April 14, 2013 by KyleKatarn