$123k Kickstarter Game Cancelled, Money Already Spent

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Kickstarter is getting all kinds of bad press lately because of people like this. :(

The short version: The project is over, the game is canceled. After much deliberation I've had to make this decision. I've informed Keith and Lee and neither at all happy with this situation. Every possible mistake was made, some due to my inexperience in board game publishing, others due to ego conflicts, legal issues and technical complications. No matter the cause though these could all have been avoided by someone more experienced and I apparently was not that person.
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This is why funding kickstarter is nothing more than gambling. Hey, if you got money you don't know what to do with (firstworld problems) you can buy something that doesn't exist yet and hope they make it. Or, you could what us old, cynical bastards do and wait until the finish product actually exists before giving up your hard-earned cheddars.
 
Monkey God said:
This is why funding kickstarter is nothing more than gambling. Hey, if you got money you don't know what to do with (firstworld problems) you can buy something that doesn't exist yet and hope they make it. Or, you could what us old, cynical bastards do and wait until the finish product actually exists before giving up your hard-earned cheddars.
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Not really. The Kickstarter TOS states that they have to deliver the product or issue full refunds.
These guys will get sued for fraud by the state attorney.

The only risk with kickstarter is you get a low-quality product.
 
I am still surprised how many projects actually get backing and how much.
 
J Macker said:
Not really. The Kickstarter TOS states that they have to deliver the product or issue full refunds.
These guys will get sued for fraud by the state attorney.

The only risk with kickstarter is you get a low-quality product.
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Spoken like someone who has no experience in this arena. You can't get blood from a stone. The money is GONE. What are they going to do, put the guy in debtors prison? Make him work it off in a chain gang?
 
TotalBiscuit has said this many times, and I agree with him wholeheartedly... you should only donate to a Kickstarter campaign if you have disposable cash and you don't mind taking a risk.

I've backed a few projects, and to anyone who asks why, tell me what major publisher was going to fund a game like Planetary Annihilation or Star Citizen? If they fail, then I'm out some cash and that's a bummer. But to me, it's worth the risk to a) hopefully get a fun game to play in an under-appreciated genre and b) show that those genres are still viable.
 
LOL
2011: game just needs some cash to get figurines molded and board run made
May 2013 :its at the printers and the figurine molds are ready for peuter
45 days later: Ya not one thing got made, quit my job, moved out of my house and lived off the 100k for over a year, and i gotta find a job and ill make a small fund to pay off the non kickstarter backers first.

At least the Sicphone amplifer guy had an excuse : ya the company that made the sic transistor went under. Hell the guy even found a high end normal transistor that was a drop in replacement and shipped all the kits out.
 
This is the exact reason that I won't fund any kickstarters (or play the lottery). What a waste - this dude will NEVER pay these people back, it's going to be like putting a homeless person/convicted felon on probation and expecting him to pay a monthly supervision fee on top of court-ordered fines. I'm sure that his priorities are to operate transparent bank accounts and restrict his personal satisfaction in order to pay off pre-orders and then backers (which is BS as well).....
 
I've backed over 20 campaigns. One I demanded (and received) a refund due to failing to deliver on a met stretch goal without prior disclosure. Another I'm fairly certain has turned into vaporware. And I'm beginning to have some doubts on a third. However, I've received the "rewards" from four and am happy with those.

That said, I've never really bought into the "Kickstarter is not a store" notion. Yes, in the strictest sense it isn't a store in that there is, ideally, no existing stock to be sold. However, you can't deny that it is a site for placing preorders for products (I'm talking about tangibles like books and games, not something like technological exploration). Calling them "rewards" is a clear dodge and ignores all practicality (and possibly some legality).

I wish Kickstarter would formally acknowledge this, or at least institute some sort of separation between campaigns - i.e., those that, if funded, are aimed to generate a physical item versus those for which the ultimate goal is a non-tangible, like renovating a playground or the creation of a stage play. As it is, backers truly are playing Roulette with their money on, ironically, an Amazon-sponsored site, which isn't right on a variety of levels.

Regarding this specific campaign, it technically wasn't a failure since it far surpassed its original funding goal. I'm not entirely sure in what category it falls, but I can certainly sympathize (and possibly empathize) with backers who now, apparently, won't even get a desktop wallpaper for their troubles.
 
KingSmoth said:
This is the exact reason that I won't fund any kickstarters (or play the lottery). What a waste - this dude will NEVER pay these people back, it's going to be like putting a homeless person/convicted felon on probation and expecting him to pay a monthly supervision fee on top of court-ordered fines. I'm sure that his priorities are to operate transparent bank accounts and restrict his personal satisfaction in order to pay off pre-orders and then backers (which is BS as well).....
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^^ this. not a $ spent on kickstarter. However, I bought Shadowrun on steam and will enjoy that now that it has been developed and released.
 
Monkey God said:
Spoken like someone who has no experience in this arena. You can't get blood from a stone. The money is GONE. What are they going to do, put the guy in debtors prison? Make him work it off in a chain gang?
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The monetary sum is relatively small, but if enough of them get PO'd about it they can lawyer up and take assets if need be.

Just curious, where did it mention that the money was already spent?
 
$123k of incompetence related humor. Let's all have a laugh. :D
 
Going to watch this and see if anyone gets their money back or at least the guys behind this get sued.
 
The guy sounds seriously sorry......

But......

Quit my job.
Got no money.
Gonna find work and pay you back, I promise.

Bet he had fun last year with the rest of the dough, though.

A board game called.....The Doom that came to Atlantic City???? That's a bag of fail right off the jump.:eek:
 
Monkey God said:
Spoken like someone who has no experience in this arena. You can't get blood from a stone. The money is GONE. What are they going to do, put the guy in debtors prison? Make him work it off in a chain gang?
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No but the c-sucker needs to sell his house then.

"My hope now is to eventually refund everyone fully."
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LMFAO. Thats about the most limp, knock-kneed commitment to repayment I've ever- "I hope to pay you back bro"
 
werzinator said:
The monetary sum is relatively small, but if enough of them get PO'd about it they can lawyer up and take assets if need be.

Just curious, where did it mention that the money was already spent?
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What assests? Again, all the lawyers in the world won't get blood from a stone.
 
I have yet to see any kickstarter projects that even interest me in the slightest. Yeah there is some cool stuff but nothing that I wanna waste money on. Like the occulus rift. Yeah it's cool and neat, but I'd never want to use some shit like that...
 
Monkey God said:
Spoken like someone who has no experience in this arena. You can't get blood from a stone. The money is GONE. What are they going to do, put the guy in debtors prison? Make him work it off in a chain gang?
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Combine those ideas and let prisoners run a gang chain on him, video tape it, and sell it to rainbowluv.com. 80% of the proceeds go to repay the debt, and it might even help stop prison gang rapes, at least for that weekend since everyone will be too tired.
 
If I had backed this project, I would be demanding a refund from kickstarter. If they did not I would file a charge back with my credit card. If kickstarter wants to reap profits from this then they also have to many up responsibility. It is no surprise some people are using kick starter as a way to live large on other peoples money for a year or 2.

Law suits are probably going to start.

What boggles my mind is how many people throw up kick starters asking for X and receive 3x and STILL fail miserably, this case is just way to obviously a fraud.
 
I don't have an issue if one of the few kick starters I have gone for dies. But they have been $20 or so. I figure it is gambling anyway, pay less now, help a dev, get a cheaper product early. But I would be pretty pissed if I had gone for one of the bigger packages.
 
werzinator said:
The monetary sum is relatively small, but if enough of them get PO'd about it they can lawyer up and take assets if need be.

Just curious, where did it mention that the money was already spent?
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Not too difficult to read between the lines. First he says that the money was approaching a "point of no return", then he gets to the apology portion by saying he "hopes" to pay everyone back fully with constantly-updated financial information to a bunch of strangers on the internet. Yeah, it resembles a letter from Nigeria.
 
Kickstarter: where you don't have to work to scam people, they voluntarily throw money to you.
 
rudy said:
If I had backed this project, I would be demanding a refund from kickstarter.
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And they'd be telling you to pound sand. Kickstarter is only a means of connecting you with people you want to give money to.

Kickstarter wants this kind of stuff to happen even less than you do, but they aren't liable.
 
But kickstarter is the person who took my money if you want to get a person in trouble the way you do it is to find someone else who is powerful and make their life hell. When kick starter sees hundreds of chargebacks coming in guess what, they will start moving a little faster, after all they took a cut of every sale that was made so no matter what their is at least 5% in their coffers they need to cough up.

My credit card company will hold on to me and if I tell them to charge back they will do it. Because they are not going to lose 10s of thousands of dollars in transactions over a $100 sale.
 
kickstarter = donation hub

I've very little sympathy for people complaining and wanting their money back... this isn't like a pre-order, folks...

that being said, those who fail hard with their projects have a pretty nasty strike on their resume and reputation overall. I'm sure some might not care, but I wouldn't be surprised if this guy is just ruined emotionally due to this - not that we should suddenly sympathize with the developers, of course... but it's all a big risk and there are no guarantees.
 
Oh let this Kickstarter thing die already. There is a reason these people could not get VC money.
 
Youn said:
kickstarter = donation hub

I've very little sympathy for people complaining and wanting their money back... this isn't like a pre-order, folks...
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I really don't understand this mindset. By any and all measures, how is pledging money for "rewards" not effectively pre-ordering items? All you're doing is using some highly questionable legalese to relabel the terms, but the net result is the same - I give you money in exchange for a tangible that will later be produced. To me, that is the very definition of a pre-order.

Even Kickstarter's ToS states that failure to produce promised "rewards" requires that the project creator issue refunds.

From where is this idea that Kickstarter is a "donation hub" coming? Kickstarter isn't running a charity gateway (at least, not yet).
 
fleggett said:
I really don't understand this mindset. By any and all measures, how is pledging money for "rewards" not effectively pre-ordering items? All you're doing is using some highly questionable legalese to relabel the terms, but the net result is the same - I give you money in exchange for a tangible that will later be produced. To me, that is the very definition of a pre-order.

Even Kickstarter's ToS states that failure to produce promised "rewards" requires that the project creator issue refunds.

From where is this idea that Kickstarter is a "donation hub" coming? Kickstarter isn't running a charity gateway (at least, not yet).
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It's a donation and a pre-order. Kickstarter isn't a sales gateway either.
 
how do kickstarter themselves earn money? do they take portion out of it?
How does it work on refunds? do they still take portion regardless of whether it was a success or not?
 
Welcome to the wonderful world of investing in startups.
Note, some fail.


As for seizing his assets, doubtful though it really depends on how he incorporated The Forking Path, Co.
Chances are, his personal assets are protected.

Besides, anything from Kickstarter might be considered as unsecured debt which means "take a number" and "Good luck with that"
 
LeninGHOLA said:
It's a donation and a pre-order. Kickstarter isn't a sales gateway either.
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That doesn't make any sense. A donation implies giving money while expecting nothing in return (except perhaps warm fuzzies). A pre-order is tendering money while expecting something in return. Kickstarter is most certainly the latter, as the "somethings" are clearly enumerated in the various campaign tiers.

I agree that it isn't a sales gateway to deplete existing stock, but in no way, shape, or form is Kickstarter solely a charity hub. You >might< make that case for a site like Indiegogo, but not Kickstarter.
 
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