"In business, it is always better to use someone else's money than your own."
The sooner people internalize that rule, the better. I evaluate every Kickstarter now based on the people behind it, as well as the concept. There is a distinct difference between an amateur and professional, between a bedroom developer and a team trying to pay salaries and pay rent on their building. They have different needs, different goals and different capabilities.
It's why I ended up not backing any inXile projects. Or Steve Jackson. Or a lot of these professionals. They've got every right to use KS as loosey-goosey investment sourcing. But I'm not interested in backing professional businesses/business personalities anymore, unless it's about resurrecting an IP that I'm insanely devoted to.
Instead, I'm interested in backing dreamers and could-be professionals, new IPs from newbies. Those are the projects that get my love, when they align with what I'd like to see. Sure, it's riskier. They may not be able to hack it, their product might suck donkey balls. The same risk exists for professionals and amateurs, just in different amounts.
But Kickstarter is all about wish fulfillment, the backers and the creators, and frankly, people with millions to their names are capable of fulfilling their own damn wishes. If someone just wanted to create a thing, and fuck the financial outcome, that's a motivation I can get behind. That's a dream and a wish I'm willing to take a gamble on, that's where the magic happens, to me.
The rest? I grow more cynical with each passing year, especially when were starting to see serial Kickstarters, like inXile. That's not how I want to see Kickstarter get used, and that's not how I personally think it works best. After the 4th, 5th, 6th? inXile KS (assuming any of this stuff they've done is truly good and successful), it becomes a case of seeing how the sausage gets made, economically speaking. When a successful company with a warchest starts telling you "This could only happen because of YOU!", it should start setting off BS sensors in everyone's head. That's the tag line, not reality, for some of these people.
And, at least as it relates to game, we STILL haven't truly seen the proof in the pudding on ANY of the games that rode the initial video game Kickstarter wave...or who continue to.
Does this mean I'm in favor of the publisher model overall instead of the crowdfunding model? I dunno. Dealing with publishers forces developers to be accountable in ways that they're not with crowdfunding. That lack of accountability is worrisome to me, and I've kind of become anxious about how a lot of these big projects finally shake out.