[Fien]

Originally Posted by Martin Gantefoehr

I believe an important part about the whole kickstarter game funding thing is that both sides (artists and funding crowd alike) have to deal with it in a serious, responsible and respectful manner -- even (and especially) when problems arise.

When the second Kickstarter project I supported failed to deliver, I decided to “research” other funded projects, to see how well they had performed. I was shocked at how many didn’t succeed for one reason or another. In virtually all cases in my (probably highly unrepresentative) sample, the backers were at first patient and understanding when things didn’t work out. It was the other party who didn’t post updates, didn’t reply to questions in public/private.

Game development is inherently a high-risk business. It's not at all unlikely that a project will fail, fall behind schedule, run out of budget, not turn out as envisioned, or get abandoned altogether. It happens with publisher-managed projects -- and there's no reason why anything should be different with crowd-funded projects.

There's always a chance that important team members leave the project, get sick, get pregnant, loose faith, burn out. And it's always possible that underestimated creative problems, technical issues, financial trouble, bad scheduling, or plain and simple lack of experience break the project.

All true. Add to that lack of transparency of projects, from the backer's perspective. If I'd known beforehand that a couple of totally inexperienced twenty-year olds were going to have their goods (not games) manufactured in some obscure factory in China, I'd have canceled my pledge immediately.

Kickstarter is essentially a venture capital platform.

No, I don't agree. It is crowd funding, a category of its own, with the same high risks but without the potentially high financial returns of venture capital. And without the means to research the viability of a project. (No venture capitalist would invest money on the basis of trust!) For many, if not most backers the “return” of their investment is of an emotional nature. I’d even go so far as saying that is an essential element of crowd funding. They are happy to contribute to someone’s success, be part of it, etcetera. I’m sure I don’t need to explain all that. Big, big difference with venture capital.

So, yeah. Put your money into the projects of those who you trust.

I did just that. And felt betrayed. I've posted about it before, no need to go into it again. (Heather Logan apparently worked for TellTale, designing games. I can see how that would inspire trust!)

But don't be too harsh on them if things don't work out.

I am harsh when I feel they deserve it. For me, Heather Logan symbolizes all the people who received money, but fail to deliver and choose silence as the easy way out instead of being accountable.

My message remains unchanged: I have been stupid and perhaps gullible. More than once. Do not do as I did. And Big Names don’t mean a bloody thing.