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[MrWiggles]

And yet backers expect things, producers promise things, and kickstarter itself does not care so long as it is legally untouchable and gets its cut.

Why should Kickstarter care, and whats wrong with it taking a percentage? The last time I checked, it does cost money and man power to maintain kickstarter.

But it's mostly kickstarter because they have created this system which sometiems doesn't worrk, usually for product and software projects.

I dont get what you're stating here. Kickstarter, or any crowd funding site shouldnt exist unless it always work? And what do you mean by it not working? Quest got its exposure, and payment through Kickstarter. What else should it do?

Kickstarter should take more care before accepting these sorts of projects and they should probably use or create some organisation that gives these people more support and information about the risks involved and which works with them before they even submit the project.

Ah. They should be doing this. Why is it Kickstarter, or any crowdfunding site responsibility to now become a community college and make its participants gain an AA in business management?

Why is any of this kickstarter fault? Did Kickstarter, for this example, make Quest and its virgin businessmen woefully incompetent? Does Kickstarter seek out, or give preferential treatment to the woefully incompetent? Did Kickstarter force them to make their campaign before they were ready? Did Kickstarter prevent them from figuring out manufacturing or any of the business administrative issues before going forward with funding? Did Kickstarter make them frail negotiators after they got the funding? Yea, it is an unfair advantage that Domestic and abroad business get to know how much money you're playing with. But so what. Quest folks were not the first, nor will they be the last to try and negotiate a business deal at a disadvantage. Did Kickstarter prevent the Quest folks from seeking additional venture captial? Did Kickstarter somehow promote, or cause the grief from their internal politics?
 
Seriously, where is Kickstarter responsibility after they did their crowd sourcing?

And if you want to throughly vet anyone before hand and then give some of those folks, a crash course in business mgm., then where does Kickstarter involvement end with their project? Do they then now have to hold their hands? If I fund through Kickstarter is Kickstarter the company now a not-so-silent partner?

And doesnt making the acceptance process more tough defeat the open ended, amateur pursuit of capital for what the fuck ever point of Kickstarter and crowdsource model in general? Crowdsourcing is for folks that wouldnt be able to gain venture capital or other traditional means of funding.

I understand kickstarter can not itself get involved with these projects because that would leave it liable for failed projects, but i think that by NOT doing everything in it's power to ensure the project managers are well organised they are leaving themself liable anyway.

I dont think you do, if you did then you wouldnt be asking for them to do so. Its no a libel thing, its an issue of man power, and defeating the spirit of crowd sourcing to begin with. You want kickstarter to be venture capital, and thats what kickstarter is trying to avoid being.

Why would it leave them open to law suits? When Kickstarter very clearly establishes it roll in this transaction. Might as demand that eBay make sure that every bid is expertly designed to ensure maximum bidders. Crowdsourcing is about /you/ getting your shit together and then following through.

And possibly there should be an option to allow projects to stop getting pledges after a certain point, i've seen so many get in trouble because of problems caused by attempting to get out more rewards than origonally planned for, or prehaps the project managers or product and software projects should need to submit detailed plans showing exacty how they will be able to provide ALL rewards within budget; for instance quotes from particular T shirt printers and postage estimate from post office, etc.

Yep, this entire paragraph sounds like good things to do, if you were going to be doing a crowd sourcing thing. But I dont see why Kickstarter has to make you do any of it. The rewards can be anything. Its their strength. And again, it goes back to the kickstarter project starters doing a half assed job.

Kickstarter already provides tools to limit the number of rewards that can be given out. And you can donate and not get a reward. Thats possible. Its not kickstarter fault that these project starters make poor use of the tools already at their disposal.

These Quest folks thought having a good product was all you needed. They were sorely ill prepared and they only have themselves to blame.

[nenjin]

Maybe this belongs in Other Games? just saying.

*looks at date of post*

*looks at age of thread*

You're a few months late at least on that suggestion. Just sayin'.

[Criptfeind]

And yet backers expect things, producers promise things, and kickstarter itself does not care so long as it is legally untouchable and gets its cut.

Why should Kickstarter care, and whats wrong with it taking a percentage? The last time I checked, it does cost money and man power to maintain kickstarter.

Seriously, where is Kickstarter responsibility after they did their crowd sourcing?

There is nothing wrong with kickstarter taking a cut, I just said they don't care. The not caring is the issue. Or not. It being a issue or not depends on what you think corporate responsibility is. Is it the responsibility of a business to exploit loopholes and do anything they can for maximum profit? Or do they have some responsibility to the people they serve and the people that serve them?

If you think the first way there really is not a moral issue with what they are doing in the short term. Although one could argue that they will eventually kill themselves by destroying all trust in the long term.

But if you think the second way then yes. There is a issue with them only caring for their cut. Once upon a time they did not make it clear at all what they were. The story itself was pretty clear, the lawyer thought that it was basically a shop. That is him being a bad consumer. But it is also kickstarter and Quest being unclear. The fault lays on all. Now recently they have made this better somewhat. Requiring risk sections. Requiring estimated time to delivery. It's a lot better. But I don't really think it is good enough.

[Draco18s]

If you think the first way there really is not a moral issue with what they are doing in the short term. Although one could argue that they will eventually kill themselves by destroying all trust in the long term.

Any company with shareholders, sadly, follows this ideal.
Even if they make statements to the contrary.
(Cough, AIG*)

*Speaking of, the former president of AIG is suing the US gov't for the fact that the AIG bailout was not big enough and tried to get AIG--who has paid back the entire loan and is doing fine, and has several US gov't representatives on its voting board--on board with this.  AIG basically said, "What are you, crazy?"

[Zangi]

And yet backers expect things, producers promise things, and kickstarter itself does not care so long as it is legally untouchable and gets its cut.

Why should Kickstarter care, and whats wrong with it taking a percentage? The last time I checked, it does cost money and man power to maintain kickstarter.

Seriously, where is Kickstarter responsibility after they did their crowd sourcing?

There is nothing wrong with kickstarter taking a cut, I just said they don't care. The not caring is the issue. Or not. It being a issue or not depends on what you think corporate responsibility is. Is it the responsibility of a business to exploit loopholes and do anything they can for maximum profit? Or do they have some responsibility to the people they serve and the people that serve them?

If you think the first way there really is not a moral issue with what they are doing in the short term. Although one could argue that they will eventually kill themselves by destroying all trust in the long term.

But if you think the second way then yes. There is a issue with them only caring for their cut. Once upon a time they did not make it clear at all what they were. The story itself was pretty clear, the lawyer thought that it was basically a shop. That is him being a bad consumer. But it is also kickstarter and Quest being unclear. The fault lays on all. Now recently they have made this better somewhat. Requiring risk sections. Requiring estimated time to delivery. It's a lot better. But I don't really think it is good enough.

Think of it this way.  Kickstarter learned and adapted quick enough to not shaft themselves.  It is a for-profit business venture from what I understand. 
Dealing with collections is a very long term frustrating thing that canwill lead to nowhere.  That, in the long run will do far worse on kickstarter's reputation and backer/'consumer' expectations... then saying outright that they are not responsible for that shit.  You'll never look good playing collections agent versus your 'publishers'... scaring away part of its own lifeblood... and hey most these people have no money/already spent it all, as been repeated multiple times.

Dealing with lawsuits is also a long term frustrating thing... with huge costs that the commissions can never cover for.  It'll totally take the 'profit' out of for-profit.  I am of the opinion that kickstarter will cease to be if it has to resort to start-up lawsuits on behalf of backers for even a tenth of failed kickstarters.  Well, it might flounder about for the first 2 or 3... but someone is gonna look at the lawyer bills and say "Holy bajeezus, we can't afford this!"

[Criptfeind]

I'm not expecting them to have anything to do with lawsuits though. So I'm not sure what you are talking about.

[MorleyDev]

To be honest I do quite like Kickstarter taking a very hands-off approach, namely being an open market platform for projects.  Though they should make that aspect of it a lot clearer...

As not a lawyer, can't they just change the wording of TOS to "They are required to do all reasonable effort to fulfil their promises" and let it become a matter for the courts whether or not the effort was reasonable enough?

[Draco18s]

I find it funny how they are trying to sue a government for voluntarily giving them money.

It's be like Oxfam suing me for not donating £5, and I instead donated £3

It is hilarious.  AIG downvoted the idea, but I think Maurice R. Greenberg (the former CEO) is going ahead with the suit.

[Servant Corps]

In contrary to popular belief, Kickstarter is not all about games.

Source

With much of Kickstarter's funding (and by implication, Kickstarter's profits) coming from games, it's probably inevitable that gaming will be associated with Kickstarter.

[Darvi]

It's far from being the majority, though.

[penguinofhonor]

Note to self: start a dance project on Kickstarter.

[penguinofhonor]

Dance project: I will dance while making a game.

Guys I think I found out how to get any Kickstarter to succeed.

[lordcooper]

I am willing to do dancing for money where is my money for doing dancing please?

[Neonivek]

Here is a feature Kickstarter should add

Funding Culling.

If a project gets overfunded. They should allow the person who runs it to suddenly take back donations to a max set by the person.

or just a funding maximum in general.

[Draco18s]

Here is a feature Kickstarter should add

Funding Culling.

If a project gets overfunded. They should allow the person who runs it to suddenly take back donations to a max set by the person.

or just a funding maximum in general.

Whatever for?