Project Eternity is Most Funded Gaming Project on Kickstarter

[dark_knight33]

[citation][nom]Achoo22[/nom]I, for one, think the idea of giving money to for-profit agencies without any possible return is absurd.[/citation]

This ^^^ is my feeling exactly. The best possible result for a "donor" is a cheaper copy of something they could have bought in a store anyway. The developer sets their own pay scales & costs after the fact and can simply waste the money while delivering nothing and have no consequences.

Where is the actual business plan here? All I see is a decent trailer to so far an empty promise.

Donors assume all the risk, developers keep all the rights, and there is no way to mediate the process. It's a completely one sided arrangement. Even EULA's offer more protections, and that's pretty sad.

 

[ph1sh55]

what is so hard for some people to understand about kickstarter.. These aren't investments. People that are funding these aren't funding these for a return other than they hope that the product could see the light of day. They think it would be cool if x product existed and are offering some of their charity to help it on when it quite likely otherwise wouldn't. It doesn't mean it will come to fruition, but they are trying to help it reach that point.
That's it.

Anyway there is some legislation trying to be pushed through which would better facilitate kickstarter type sites to function as investor capital, which would bring all of those aforementioned benefits. But as you see, all of those additional protections are not necessary for people to pledge their dollars to help with something.

 

[dark_knight33]

what is so hard for some people to understand about kickstarter.. These aren't investments. People that are funding these aren't funding these for a return other than they hope that the product could see the light of day. They think it would be cool if x product existed and are offering some of their charity to help it on when it quite likely otherwise wouldn't. It doesn't mean it will come to fruition, but they are trying to help it reach that point.
That's it.

Anyway there is some legislation trying to be pushed through which would better facilitate kickstarter type sites to function as investor capital, which would bring all of those aforementioned benefits. But as you see, all of those additional protections are not necessary for people to pledge their dollars to help with something.

That's a naive point of view. Take away the whole "Pledge X or more to get this reward" and watch those "donations" drop off almost completely. People aren't donating, in their mind they are paying in advance an expecting to get a product in return. Kickstarter hasn't been around long enough to burn people to the point that this makes it into the public eye. Kickstarter has even gone so far to acknowledging this point that they changed the rules and pointed out that Kickstarter is not a store: http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store

To think that everyone, or even most people that have pledged money is treating it strictly as a donation is ignoring the reality of the situation. Most of the high profile projects are getting the high dollar amounts because they put some money into marketing their project and people are suckers for marketing.

Once something like Project eternity *doesn't* deliver, the s*** will hit the fan, and Kickstarter will have a much harder time.

 

[doveman]

So Amazon take $400,000 of that $4m and Kickstarter take another $400,000? For what?

Screw that. I ain't gifting any more of my money to them in future.