Most of the Shenmue 3 stretch goals? :D Like undefined ''Level system'' or other undefined stuff. But mainly I said that because of KS being used a site for collecting research grants for FF and they were citing an intangible goal. So if KS wishes to allow similar projects they should differentiate them, IMO.

"crowdfunding theft" is probably a very appropriate term. However in this case it was easy to prove since it was about physical items (a card deck) where you can easily see the unfair treatment by the absence of any physical objects.

With digital games it will be harder to prove faults in each case. After all a dev could just release the product in a faulty state with not much value and say that this is what the backers were backing. Also it could be that the financial calculation was unrealistic from the beginning and no backer ever could expect as much. Or they have been additional, unforeseeable difficulties in the process or crowdfunding projects could only fuzzily declare their goals, rather unterstating what they want to deliver. And in the end the money might be gone anyways without a possibility to get it back.

Everyone has to understand that crowdfunding is extremely risky, especially in the early stages. It's good that there is actually some legal framework, especially to prevent clear misuse but in many cases it will be hard to really prove a wrongdoing and also get your money back (it just may all been used up and gone already).

So, everyone should be very careful with crowdfunding and/or see it more as a charity donation.

My impression as a backer was that my influence or control on the business was very much restricted. So what exactly does a business angel do except giving the money? Also only a small minority of my backed projects delivered on time and in good quality. My angelic love for Indie developers is unfortunately used up now. I would now rather only l back projects in middle to late stages of development with more trusthworthy statements about features and expected dates.

The exception was actually Wasteland 2 - I would back that again any day. Brian Fargo has my complete trust.

All in all crowdfunding is maybe all about trust and trustworthiness.

I don't understand what "collecting research grants for FF" means, so please explain a bit more.

Shenmue 3 level system, that's not any different than Broken Age or Wasteland 2 or many other games.

KS was used to gather money for doing research by feminist frequency. They weren't offering tangible outcome of the funding.
I'd always thought KS projects had more solid grounds for people investing in them. Guess I was wrong and most KSs are really unconfirmed products.

Are you talking about Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes vs. Women? That was a project to create a series of videos, which is a tangible goal.

I think what he means by "tangible" is that she was paid to do proper research and ended up producing a series of videos with stolen footage of games that she admitted to knowing very little about, presenting nothing more than a series of misandric opinions and producing videos that really could have been done (and probably were) on prosumer hardware.

She supposedly wanted to produce researched documentaries on misogyny in gaming. She produced videos of herself in front of a camera spouting off opinions. Not even researched ones - just opinions, as in "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one".

The new series that she has announced sound marginally better, but Tropes vs. Women was an astoundingly frank example of where Kickstarter fundamentally goes wrong.

Yes. If I recall she said she was ''going to prove sexism in video games'' which is both vague and intangible. And clearly different from at least a somewhat set goal of creating a game right? She offered an intangible goal as tangible and that is at least a bit anti-donater.

Although one probably does not need to prove it to know that sexism will very likely be present in at least some video games (after all sexism is almost everywhere) I could not find anywhere the "going to prove" part.

From the KS page of Tropes vs. Women: "This video project will explore, analyze and deconstruct some of the most common tropes and stereotypes of female characters in games. The series will highlight the larger recurring patterns and conventions used within the gaming industry .. Each video will be between 10 and 20 minutes long and available online for free ...I will be researching and playing hundreds of titles from across the gaming industry"

I just copied the tangible parts and many of them are actually fullfilled.
- video project (check)
- female characters in games (check)
- highlight some patterns and conventions (don't know but I guess if you talk about something repeatedly it counts as highlighting)
- video between 10 and 20 minutes long and free (check)
- playing hundreds of games (don't know, probably not)

Much research was actually not really promised anywhere. I don't want to defend her but I would say that there is at least one good thing about it, the discussion the whole series created, even although it was so bad, was actually necessary.

What should backers learn from it (and all the other cases like for example DoubleFine (not very fine)):

Back only if you trust the people and have good reason for it, back only late stage, detailed projects with lots of tangible information about likely outcomes, back only if you would also be comfortable to see your backing as a donation, don't back too much. Otherwise don't back at all.

No, not really. She said she's going to make videos and said what's going to be in them, quite specifically (i.e., she said which stereotypes she's going to show). It's a completely concrete goal with a clearly defined end result. It's certainly not more vague than Broken Age or Wasteland 2, and I think that if you took a Tropes vs. Women backer and a Double Fine Adventure backer and asked them up front what the end result would look like, the Tropes backer would have predicted it much better. (Take a look at the project.)

Very well stated.

I'm often surprised at how often people treat Kickstarter like some sort of pre-order storefront or standard investment equity deal -- it's NOT, and that is stated pretty clearly in several places throughout the site . It's basically a donation to a project you think is worthwhile and which you'd like to see succeed, but are never guaranteed results. Kickstarter has always been intended to be a grassroots effort where individuals with an idea and a dream could find enough capital to make their ideas become a reality without having to rely on big corp and investment overlords who may take ownership of the intellectual property and who could potentially change the entire direction of the project to make the end product more profitable at the expense of the original vision.

Of course there are some cases of outright fraud in which no attempt is made to actually fulfill the aims of the stated project -- these projects should be reported to and investigated by authorities and if found to be fraudulent within legal definition the creators deserve to face the full consequences of breaking the law. But there is a big difference between someone committing deliberate fraud and someone who had good intentions, tried their best, but simply failed due to lack of experience, skills, or circumstances.

If you want more legal protections and assurances than donation, then forget Kickstarter, start your own VC group and get a good lawyer on your team. Also, no matter how well-researched or how well-vetted a startup looks or how much capital they have to work with, they still fail and fail often. That's part of the game and why even the most solid startup investments still carry with it some risk.

Yes, indeed there is a big difference, but the problem is, that it's very difficult to find out what is the case in reality. How can you learn about the intentions of someone? This is extremely intangible. If someone fails it will always be a possibility that the one who failed did this on purpose. There are black sheep everywhere and if the ratio of cheating creators who are only after the money increases on KS there will be a confidence crisis and everyone, even the honest creators will suffer.

That's why according to the ToS of KS creators actually have to deliver or have to make a best faith attempt. But I see the problems with enforcing or even remotely proving this.

That's why I advocate not to back early stages projects. There might be a lot of potential and honest people with good ideas but not enough money out there but looking at a single page of mostly diffuse statements about what could be or could not be does not inspire enough trust and confidence in me. They should first ask their friends for money and come to KS later when their project has progressed more. Also I don't like giving money to tricksters.

That's true. VC companies also calculate with a quite high failure rate but then I give their businesses are even more risky but I guess they also have much more informations and insight into what they are backing. I wish with KS creators would also give more information (although that might be risky from a perspective of possible competition) so I can judge better if the project will be successfull or not.

As a summary, there is an issue of trust and information with KS to a certain degree and until we find ways to build up trust better and to convey more information, KS and grassroot financing may well remain below its true potential. Although it still works quite well because many people seem to just like to throw money at everyone, this party may not last forever. While commerce is maybe not the most important part of KS it should not be forgotten too.

How they see themselves: Co-founder Perry Chen: "...we focus on a middle ground between patronage and commerce. People are offering cool stuff and experiences in exchange for the support of their ideas. People are creating these mini-economies around their project ideas. So, you aren’t coming to the site to get something for nothing; you are trying to create value for the people who support you."

That's of course not a good reason to abstain from backing, unless you know you're a lousy judge of character (or can't detect when something is too good to be true). Besides, far as I know the vast majority of projects aren't a fraud, and the majority do deliver products. So the risk is rather low on that front. There's still risk that the end result won't be what you as a backer hoped it would be, so of course anyone truly risk averse shouldn't back on Kickstarter.

Backers should go in knowing that there's a small chance that they'll lose their money, a big chance that the project will be late to deliver, and there's no guarantee of the end result. But if you back a dev team with experience, especially one who published stuff recently, and even better, published stuff you think is good, then the overall risk is rather low. If you back a project that already has a demo, and you like the demo, there's a good chance that the ends result will also be to your liking.

I stand corrected! My response too was hasty and I should've fact-checked it better.

Totally agreed. That's the thing. I think what is missing for me is just a better track history of the teams or the team members, kind of which projects they have done in the past (on which plattforms) and how these turned out.

Then if I only back projects that have a demo or which on its page gives lots of information and details about serious planning I think I will be perfectly happy if occasionally a project fails.

Not necessarily. Hubris, luck and changed circumstances can affect the outcome of a Kickstarter significantly. Especially so when the quality of the work that you are familiar with from that developer largely came about from the developer working under the carrot-and-stick principle with a publisher.

Kickstarter is basically the carrot without a stick, and it has a nasty habit of making developers fall in love with their own legacy because they think they've earned that carrot automatically. See in particular Peter Molyneux, Keiji Inafune, Tim Schafer.