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[Cruxador]

The burden of proof is on him, then. It's as simple as producing the prototype.

Not if he ain't the one wanting to sue for fraud on sketchy claims.

[Damiac]

Jeez, in your world how does anyone ever get in trouble for fraud? Are they all just really, really stupid?  Like, in your mind, is it not a scam unless the guy writes a signed and certified letter admitting it was a fraud?  In your mind, can he just say "I lost that prototype it totally existed" and be off the hook?

I swear, the theranos device definitely worked last week! You can't prove it didn't used to work and then suddenly stopped working!

Here's another good one. How can you be sure that although he only ever distributed green food coloring, the guy didn't really have a secret formula to turn water to gasoline?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_pill

And before you guys break out your credit cards to run and back these, they were scams, prosecuted by the government already. 

[ZeroGravitas]

The burden of proof is on him, then. It's as simple as producing the prototype.

Not if he ain't the one wanting to sue for fraud on sketchy claims.

i've been resisting getting all legal scholarship on yall who keep saying things like this, because it's tricky to explain.

yes, it's absolutely true to say that the plaintiff has the burden of proving his case by a preponderance of the evidence.

but if someone files a complaint that says, "this is what happened, these specific communications were made at these specific times and in these specific messages, and based on these facts i believe i was defrauded, and that the defendant is concealing the truth," then as long as those grounds are reasonable, and, most importantly, based on further facts not available to the plaintiff, then the burden shifts to the defendant to produce evidence to the contrary.

edit:

Jeez, in your world how does anyone ever get in trouble for fraud? Are they all just really, really stupid?  Like, in your mind, is it not a scam unless the guy writes a signed and certified letter admitting it was a fraud?  In your mind, can he just say "I lost that prototype it totally existed" and be off the hook?

I swear, the theranos device definitely worked last week! You can't prove it didn't used to work and then suddenly stopped working!

Here's another good one. How can you be sure that although he only ever distributed green food coloring, the guy didn't really have a secret formula to turn water to gasoline?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_pill

And before you guys break out your credit cards to run and back these, they were scams, prosecuted by the government already.

yeah, this is pretty much the layman's way of explaining the exception to the general rule that you have to allege and prove facts. if your case is based on the premise that "someone is actively concealing the truth" then you just have to show the circumstances and why your belief that there's fraud is reasonable.

[E. Albright]

If you wanna "get all legal scholarship" on us all, you might wanna be a bit more accurate. Not all jurisdictions settle for preponderance of evidence as the standard for civil fraud cases, even in the US. The venue matters quite a lot.

And even if someone were to file suit, software development is a whole lot fuzzier than the straightforward engineering KS suits cited above. What constitutes a "fully implemented engine" for an under-specified project can and would be a matter of serious (and not perforce bad faith) dispute.

[Damiac]

Yeah, it would seem he could get out of that if he could provide software that performed as described in his pitch, even if it was bug ridden, ugly as hell, and not fun.  Why he wouldn't send that out to give the backers something to play with is an interesting question (Not really of course, that software never existed).  The claim of perfectionism rings a bit hollow considering the state of the 'mod tools' he distributed.

I mean... if you guys think that software exists, don't you think he should send a copy to you, so you have something while you wait for the finished product?  And then that would shut this whole conversation down instantly. The initially described game sounded fun, I'd give it a try.

[E. Albright]

You're very confidently assuming facts not even vaguely in evidence.

IIRC, he claimed he had a fully implemented engine. An engine is not necessarily (or even generally) a game; it's the underlying framework on which the game is built. An engine supports functionality, but does not implement it, and that's quite aside from content/art/etc. On actually fleshing out the features and adding content, systems that seemed to be fully functional can turn out to be bug-ridden garbage if you don't have proper testing in place... and no matter what they think of their motives, I don't think anyone in their right mind would suggest KDG had anything even vaguely resembling good enough software engineering to do incremental (let alone rigorous) testing.

IOW, it doesn't need to be about "perfectionism"; incompetence, underestimating the quality of their development, and backers/uninvolved bystanders like you reading more into what was said than you should have would be more than adequate to explain why they didn't ever release the "fully implemented engine".

(I also suspect you don't really get just how irrational a clinical anxiety disorder can make someone. Not being willing to release something incomplete/broken/whatever need not be about "perfectionism" and its implied "I'm too proud to do the right thing" undertones at all.)

[ndkid]

Yeah, it would seem he could get out of that if he could provide software that performed as described in his pitch, even if it was bug ridden, ugly as hell, and not fun.  Why he wouldn't send that out to give the backers something to play with is an interesting question (Not really of course, that software never existed).  The claim of perfectionism rings a bit hollow considering the state of the 'mod tools' he distributed.

I mean... if you guys think that software exists, don't you think he should send a copy to you, so you have something while you wait for the finished product?  And then that would shut this whole conversation down instantly. The initially described game sounded fun, I'd give it a try.

So you are willing to stipulate that if Josh did possess an ugly, bug ridden, unfun prototype, then, despite the long, drawn out saga, he did not originally commit fraud (according to the pertinent US jurisdictions)? Would you further stipulate while you consider the likelihood of such a prototype having existed when the initial claims were made (I don't think it coming into existence after the fact would help his case) extremely low, there has not been evidence to the public that rises to the level of "proof" as to its existence or non-existence? That we are assuming that, if it did exist, it would have been presented already?

I admit, I'm in the camp that finds the notion that Josh's behavior has been exceedingly unseemly impossible to dispute, the camp that finds the idea that Kickstarters gets its pound of flesh regardless of whether the project succeeds or not also unseemly, and the question of which of the KS projects that started out as intentional scams versus the ones that fail to deliver on their promises despite good intentions pretty irrelevant to my life (since I put money in expecting to get a thing and got no thing either way), so I'm mostly asking because I'm trying to make sure I understand everyone's priors.

[nenjin]

I'm starting to think we need a drinking game revolving around the TWS thread. Might at least make the back and forth more interesting.

For example: every time someone writes "fraud", drink.
Every time someone writes "proof", drink.
Every time someone writes "working game", drink.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Then everyone dies of liver failure and we can let the thread sink into obscurity again?

[Rose]

So apparently lot being able to live up to your promises is the same as deliberate deception. Okay.

[nenjin]

Then everyone dies of liver failure and we can let the thread sink into obscurity again?

We're all about solutions 'round here.

[Cruxador]

I'm starting to think we need a drinking game revolving around the TWS thread. Might at least make the back and forth more interesting.

For example: every time someone writes "fraud", drink.
Every time someone writes "proof", drink.
Every time someone writes "working game", drink.

That which sleeps yet does not dream

[Damiac]

Yeah, it would seem he could get out of that if he could provide software that performed as described in his pitch, even if it was bug ridden, ugly as hell, and not fun.  Why he wouldn't send that out to give the backers something to play with is an interesting question (Not really of course, that software never existed).  The claim of perfectionism rings a bit hollow considering the state of the 'mod tools' he distributed.

I mean... if you guys think that software exists, don't you think he should send a copy to you, so you have something while you wait for the finished product?  And then that would shut this whole conversation down instantly. The initially described game sounded fun, I'd give it a try.

So you are willing to stipulate that if Josh did possess an ugly, bug ridden, unfun prototype, then, despite the long, drawn out saga, he did not originally commit fraud (according to the pertinent US jurisdictions)? Would you further stipulate while you consider the likelihood of such a prototype having existed when the initial claims were made (I don't think it coming into existence after the fact would help his case) extremely low, there has not been evidence to the public that rises to the level of "proof" as to its existence or non-existence? That we are assuming that, if it did exist, it would have been presented already?

I admit, I'm in the camp that finds the notion that Josh's behavior has been exceedingly unseemly impossible to dispute, the camp that finds the idea that Kickstarters gets its pound of flesh regardless of whether the project succeeds or not also unseemly, and the question of which of the KS projects that started out as intentional scams versus the ones that fail to deliver on their promises despite good intentions pretty irrelevant to my life (since I put money in expecting to get a thing and got no thing either way), so I'm mostly asking because I'm trying to make sure I understand everyone's priors.

Uh... yes I think. He outright said he had a working engine and modules, and also described playthroughs of the game as if they had actually happened.  This is what my whole fraud allegation rests on. He (or the project) was unjustly enriched due to him lying about the existence of the risk of the game never being made.

Yeah, I think you got the rest of my position right.  If he were to release said game, or game-like object, it would show such a thing existed.  I suppose one could argue he lied about having it then made it, but that would be a hell of a lot harder to prove.  In that case I'd say I was wrong about the fraud.  The lack of proof of something's nonexistence is certainly not proof of its existence.  It's literally impossible to prove it doesn't exist.  However, if I accuse the dev of committing fraud, it becomes extremely easy for him to prove it does exist, by showing that it exists. 

Finally, my assertion that I am so confident it doesn't exist, even though as I said it can't be proven, is based on a few things.  Most obviously, lots of people are mad at him and think he committed fraud, and releasing it would make that go away.  Also, he's demonstrated previously that he is perfectly willing to release barely working garbage to get the backers off his back (See the release of the 'mod tools').  His 'business partner' claims he was also fooled by Josh, and that he never saw a working game (Not that said business partner is exactly trustworthy himself).

So apparently lot being able to live up to your promises is the same as deliberate deception. Okay.

If you're literally not going to read anything anyone else says, maybe just don't post. We've been over this like 3 or 4 times in just the last day...

[Cruxador]

Finally, my assertion that I am so confident it doesn't exist, even though as I said it can't be proven, is based on a few things.  Most obviously, lots of people are mad at him and think he committed fraud, and releasing it would make that go away.  Also, he's demonstrated previously that he is perfectly willing to release barely working garbage to get the backers off his back (See the release of the 'mod tools').  His 'business partner' claims he was also fooled by Josh, and that he never saw a working game (Not that said business partner is exactly trustworthy himself).

I think you're underestimating his isolation. I think it's more likely that he is recoiling from criticism and community interaction than that he is so engaged with the community that the complaints of a relatively few people (I haven't seen fraud allegations in many of the vanishingly few places that this game is still discussed) to the extent that he lends them undue credence.

I think you might also consider that people aren't static vaccuums, and his releasing the mod tools didn't get a hugely positive reception or reduce complaints in the long run, so why would he repeat something that didn't work? On top of that, consider his feelings - why would he release something that's probably buggy and very underwhelming when he now has a vastly improved version that, from all appearances in his videos, at least basically functions? Anything it doesn't show many be entirely lacking, including some pretty fundamental stuff, but even what's in the videos is above the level of what he initially showed. So from his perspective, it's more sensible to just continue working on the game and have something better to release in the future. The fact that he does this very slowly is not necessarily related to that consideration.

[Damiac]

I mean... all that could be true. It could be true that he accidentally summoned real eldritch horrors creating this game and he's doing the most noble thing possible by refusing to release it or talk about it.  Maybe he's actually the second coming of a messiah, and he's accomplishing what he set out to do right now by getting us to communicate with each other.

Going off of what was presented, it seems more likely that what's happening is what appears to be happening.  He made false claims to help get more backers, thinking he could accomplish what he claimed he had already done.  He kept hitting roadblocks, and disappearing for long stretches of time. He occasionally resurfaces, promising weekly update videos, then vanishes again. 

It sure looks like someone who lied about having a foundation to a game they thought they could make, couldn't make it, and are just doing the absolute bare minimum to avoid the appearance of having just abandoned the project.

Also, what ever happened with the other kickstarter he allegedly started in the meantime? I remember hearing something about that, but it was forever ago.