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Just to give something of a perspective.
I’ve backed 13 Kickstarter projects and 2 Indiegogo ones. I currently have 9 Kickstarter completed and delivered with the other 4 in production - 3 of which were held up by Covid and the other by Covid/being picked up by a publishing house. There is a SLIGHT shadow hanging over one but I’m pretty confident all will be delivered. Of the 2 Indiegogo one has been delivered and the other has been seriously delayed but I knew that was highly likely when I backed it. This second one I thought long and hard about as it was a physical product, being manufactured in China during the middle of Covid and the very serious lockdowns there demanded by the Chinese government. The design company was very small and I knew I was taking a risk and, if it all went tits up, I’d lose close on £600. But, and it’s a very big but, I knew what I was risking, it was a product that I both wanted and had a need for (to do with my hands if you’re curious). I could lose the money which would hurt, but I went in with my eyes wide open, my brain in gear and, should it fail, I’d no-one to blame but myself.
The warnings about crowdfunding are clear and unambiguous - it’s a risk like any investment so only put up what you can afford/are willing to lose.
As always - Caveat Emptor 
Life is what it is.
If the former, it’s potentially the perfect vehicle for a con. Present a concept. Present “investment levels that are low enough as to not raise suspicion. Then sit back and do nothing except publish vague updates such as “First draft of completed design document completed.”
I’m not overly familiar with U.S. law but surely that would amount to some form of legally wrongful conduct like fraud or deceit. If not outright breach of contract. It certainly would in my country.
AKA Charo
i honestly think you all are a bit too harsh on developers - i’d estimate at least 90% if not more game-related crowdfunding projects were ran by people who wanted to get their product out there, not hucksters trying to get a free ride by pretending to work on a game.
first thing they experienced was probably that running a kickstarter project is a lot of work. literal work. similar to social media/hook up sites, the content that draws people to the site is generated by users - that’s a a serious investment of time, money and energy on top of the development process.
the other thing: while developers would probably benefit from a service that promotes a handful of serious projects, the site itself wasn’t going to waste any resources on things like quality control.
so you have to make yourself get noticed - so you have to go on twitter/forums/discord, promote your project and deal with.. well, people like us.
you’re constantly paying for everything that does generate some income - this comes on top of your regular taxes, so i hope you have an accountant or get ready for some fresh new headaches.
if you have a large following (an industry giant looking to shine once more, for example), you have an incredible advantage. if you’re not: good luck convincing people who don’t know you to believe in you. (honestly, to do this well, you might need to do a media study, or at least a course - again, legitimate extra work)
and it might not work out.
were the actual scams (besides the site itself)? sure. but as far as i know, they didn’t involve games. were there scammy elements in real crowdfunding campaigns? yeah - like vaguely worded tiers suggesting access to a product, but only offering something like a “free wallpaper” or something. again, i don’t remember seeing that in game-related campaigns.
i honestly believe most of these devs were taken for a ride. like you.
were the actual scams (besides the site itself)? sure. but as far as i know, they didn’t involve games.
Elementary, My Dear Holmes was so scammy that Kickstarter cancelled the project even though it was going to be funded.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1375982935/elementary-my-dear-holmes
I seem to recall that it involved some third party doubling the funding if the Kickstarter campaign got funded, and then the developers backed some higher tiers of their own campaign to get money from that third party.
Or perhaps it didn’t go like that… But some project went just like that, if it wasn’t the Holmes game, then it was something else.
In any case, something triggered Kickstarter to cancel the Holmes game, and as we know, Kickstarter hardly ever takes any actions, so something was wrong with that one.
There’s always an element of risk in something like Kickstarter, just like there’s an element of risk if something is funded via conventional means. I’ve seen my share of projects, crowdfunded and traditionally funded that have failed for one reason or another, generally because of poor management, unrealistic expectations and planning. And some have been flat-out scams, which have genuinely affected on lives of others, like outsourcing companies that have been left without their proper payments when the project turns out to be a flat-out scam, leaving people unpaid.
Personally, I’ve been surprisingly lucky with Kickstarter, in terms of delivered projects. Not all of the have been top-notch games, but most of them delivered at least something. Even so, I’ve placed money only on one project I’d call a scam, but then again, it’s entirely possible it was just a result of naivety on the project’s creator’s part. Another is more of an iffy thing, as it just seems to be a result of many misjudgements from a part of old game developers, who might have misjudged what modern tools can do versus what their old tech could.
Anyhow, I’ve been mostly soured by the overly optimistic nature of many of the KS projects I’ve backed. Many seem to misjudge the actual amount of time that creation needs. Or their own skills. Most of them go over time, and I’m as such fine with that, but I don’t see a reason anymore to partake in those ventures.
If the former, it’s potentially the perfect vehicle for a con. Present a concept. Present “investment levels that are low enough as to not raise suspicion. Then sit back and do nothing except publish vague updates such as “First draft of completed design document completed.”
I’m not overly familiar with U.S. law but surely that would amount to some form of legally wrongful conduct like fraud or deceit. If not outright breach of contract. It certainly would in my country.
I’m sure US laws are just as strict. But you have to know that catching KS fraud would be a terribly difficult thing to do,.
For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.
If the former, it’s potentially the perfect vehicle for a con. Present a concept. Present “investment levels that are low enough as to not raise suspicion. Then sit back and do nothing except publish vague updates such as “First draft of completed design document completed.”
I’m not overly familiar with U.S. law but surely that would amount to some form of legally wrongful conduct like fraud or deceit. If not outright breach of contract. It certainly would in my country.
I’m sure US laws are just as strict. But you have to know that catching KS fraud would be a terribly difficult thing to do,.
Maybe. If the “developer” could present all their design documents and the half-completed game to the consumer protection bureau or court. But that’s a lot of work, and why bother in the first place?
AKA Charo
i really doubbt consumer protection would apply. best case scenario you are considered a consumer/user of the site itself.
I looked up that Sherlock Holmes games and it’s actually quite an interesting scam - not the bait and switch/jet-tactics, but rather a funding scheme with fake investors. This had to do with the incredibly… let’s go with shortsighted promise by Ouya’s “Free the Games Fund”: to double a (successfully) crowdfunded game’s money, on the spot.
In other words: the scam wasn’t so much pretending to make a game and getting cash, but.. putting what i suspect is private capital into the project, under different guises, in order to trick a dumb company into doubling the total sum. The guy behind this scheme is now a self-described serial entrepreneur and investor.
Again: you can be grumpy at people without bulk wealth/investors, trying to get a creative project going, failing and alomst inevitably getting into some sort of financial trouble. But those are not the people taking you for all they can.
edit: to be fair to kickstarter - it connects people with money, which results in finished projects. some of these projects might not have been made when relying on venture capital, grants and wealth in their own social circles - on the other hand, a lot of ‘em wouldn’t be funded projects that failed anywy. the set-up, however, is low key exploitative and offers very little in terms of protection for its users, developers and backers alike.
i really doubbt consumer protection would apply. best case scenario you are considered a consumer/user of the site itself.
Well like I said, I can’t comment on US or EU law but if they’re anything like my country’s laws the creator could be liable:
-it is likely when a backer backs a campaign that a contract will be formed between the creator and the backer for the delivery of the product. Depending on the terms of that contract and the reason the campaign failed and the product was not delivered, the creator may be liable for breach of contract;
-in Australia, a creator may be subject to claims under the Australian Consumer Law for misleading and deceptive conduct for any misrepresentations made in the campaign material;
-the ACCC has power to enforce the Australian Consumer Law and to bring proceedings where it believes that statements, claims or other representations are misleading or deceptive.
We do have fairly strong consumer protection here though, something which I’m aware might be seen as “socialist” in the US where lies & deceptions seem to be the bedrock of the nation’s commerce.
AKA Charo
ha wow, that is particular! probably a good idea from the perspective of consumer protection, though i’m not sure how well it works considering the basic structure of crowdfunding contracts, the specificity of the charges and different jurisdictions worldwide.
i think there’s an inherent diffusion of responsibilities and obscuring of the actual mechanisms behind this “democratization of investment”, from the side of the service itself. consumers tend not to base their investment on rational information like risk assessments and cost/benefit analysis + their investment isn’t significant in and of itself. there’s almost no leverage.
for the devs, kickstarter also offers little more than the ability to create and maintain a profile on the site. For any chance of success, devs have to take on maintaining this profile and doing ads and stuff like that, all the while drawing traffic towards kickstarter.com, for free.
i’m kind of curious about the future of crowdfunding - maybe a broader interpretation of consumers rights would help (though i don’t see how it helps these devs). i honestly don’t know how art, entertainment and everything in between should be funded - if anything, i’d say different mechanisms work for different types of work/media. i do think there should be clear distinctions between (systematic) funding, purchases, donations and investment.
I didn’t mean to imply that game developers were con men. Despite the fact that my success rate is below 20%. I did mean to imply that a crowdfunding site, such as Kickstarter, offers a seemingly perfect environment for scam artists to flourish.
It’s like Facebook denying any responsibility for what their users publish on their site. Which court cases have shown is not “always” a valid defense.
Kickstarter presents itself as a platform for crowdfunding enterprises. And, by stating the caveats, as mentioned in Gamekeeper’s post, denies any responsibility for any crowdfunding user problem, even if actual fraud is involved, while it still takes a cut from all revenue generated.
It just seems that those who take advantage of the lack of oversight, including those that provide the platform, should be held accountable when things go wrong.
For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.
It just seems that those who take advantage of the lack of oversight, including those that provide the platform, should be held accountable when things go wrong.
Would you say the same about ebay? Why should platforms be responsible for the fraudulent activity of its users?
AKA Charo
It just seems that those who take advantage of the lack of oversight, including those that provide the platform, should be held accountable when things go wrong.
Would you say the same about ebay? Why should platforms be responsible for the fraudulent activity of its users?
And a natural extrapolation from there would be email providers for allowing scam emails to be sent.
Criminals the world over will use anything to grab gullible people’s money or goods. Sadly that’s what a pretty large number of humans think of as being acceptable.
Just thought of an even further extrapolation. The WWW is probably the biggest facilitator of criminal activity in the history of the planet. Shut it down or at least hold Tim Berners-Lee accountable 
Life is what it is.
[...]a crowdfunding site, such as Kickstarter, offers a seemingly perfect environment for scam artists to flourish.
Exactly.
Kickstarter [...] denies any responsibility for any crowdfunding user problem, even if actual fraud is involved, while it still takes a cut from all revenue generated.
Exactly. At the very least, they should not allow people who have not delivered the goods to their backers, to start another KS project. But the reality is that scammers can scam again if they feel like it.
It just seems that those who take advantage of the lack of oversight, including those that provide the platform, should be held accountable when things go wrong.
The platform being held “accountable” is taking it too far imo. But their policy of doing nothing at all is pretty bad.
Would you say the same about ebay? Why should platforms be responsible for the fraudulent activity of its users?
Ebay does take some responsibility with their Buyer Protection Program.
And a natural extrapolation from there would be email providers for allowing scam emails to be sent.
I don’t know about your email provider, but mine does try to prevent scam and spam.
Butter my buns and call me a biscuit! - Agent A
And a natural extrapolation from there would be email providers for allowing scam emails to be sent.
I don’t know about your email provider, but mine does try to prevent scam and spam.
So does mine but fails. I’m getting spam on my little used Hotmail account at the moment and since it’s only ever been used on Facebook and YouTube (both for research reasons)and in the first case used once and the second used twice, it would appear that that address has been farmed somehow.
But. You miss my point. I was pointing out the ludicrousness of trying to hold platforms to account. Those extrapolations were doing that and nothing else. They can do a best case scenario but that will never be enough for some people. It’s 100% what they want or “we’ll sue!”. Something of an American affliction that one but the UK isn’t doing a bad job these days of trying to emulate it 
Life is what it is.
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