Green_Hilltop: You did notice this thread is from May 2015, right? And cbingham just bumped a year old thread? ;) Don't worry, both KS's got funded and like I said, they are close to finishing the game for real this time around! (well, they could've last time too probably but decided to go bigger and stuff). :)
Jonesy89: Derp, I'm an idiot. However, I do still raise the general KS question of what would have happened; if someone runs a KS in the future, I am going to be a whole lot leerier of pledging if it turns out they can just decide to hold the game ransom for more money after a successful initial drive.
They didn't hold the game ransom, you didn't look at the KS at all, right? I don't remember the details but I do know they just asked for more money, and were going to release the game in one way or another, even if it would be smaller (and could be incomplete). Besides, you saying they are holding the game ransom implies that they already had it finished in some form and they wouldn't have released it unless you gave them more money, which is wrong. They didn't have it finished at that point. If you go through the updates, you can actually see at what percentage they were with the dialogue, quests, programming, UI, art assets and so on. So there even isn't any kind of 'holding it ransom' you can speak of. That's like saying an artist is holding his notes and unfinished sketches ransom after you and others gave him money to draw a comic. He still needs to ink them, colour them, add speech bubbles etc.
But since you mentioned that you might be a bit more wary with other KS projects now, that raises a question -did you know that there have been several projects that were successfully funded but failed before? Either because it was a scam, the devs/creators overestimated their skills, they didn't manage the project well, they didn't know the shipping costs together with KS fees and physical production of the goodies would take up most of their raised mone or they decided it wasn't viable? Projects have failed before the Hero-U campaign was even launched, but in most cases when the creators knew what they were doing and had done such projects in the past (esp. all the video game related KSs), they succeeded. So unless this is completely new for you and you never heard about the failed KSs, you shouldn't be worried more since this risk has been there all along.
Besides, with KS projects you are never guaranteed they will succeed. Actually, if they failed, you aren't even entitled to a refund, unless it was a scam. But if you want some piece of mind - just go for what seems like it might succeed, it's not overambitious for its money and the devs have some history. And they have a chart they shows what they'll be spendign the money on, to make sure they won't overestimate (or forget about the KS fees). Most video gaming projects that have been done by teams that knew what they were doing did great, like DD: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity or even Quest for Infamy was a successful KS project!
