Now, to reiterate, I'm not condoning going online and spewing venom at people. I don't think it's ever OK to start insulting someone personally, or threatening them with violence, or any of that. There is nothing that makes that alright. Ever.
What I am condoning is holding them accountable, insisting on a return of your money, and pointing out the major flaws in what they're doing. And I'm condoning that when they aren't fulfilling their obligations. Note that delivering a finished product right on time isn't considered one of those obligations. Here is what it says in Kickstarters' FAQ.
What should creators do if they're having problems completing their project?
If problems come up, creators are expected to post a project update (which is emailed to all backers) explaining the situation. Sharing the story, speed bumps and all, is crucial. Most backers support projects because they want to see something happen and they'd like to be a part of it. Creators who are honest and transparent will usually find backers to be understanding.
It's not uncommon for things to take longer than expected. Sometimes the execution of the project proves more difficult than the creator had anticipated. If a creator is making a good faith effort to complete their project and is transparent about it, backers should do their best to be patient and understanding while demanding continued accountability from the creator.
If the problems are severe enough that the creator can't fulfill their project, creators need to find a resolution. Steps could include offering refunds, detailing exactly how funds were used, and other actions to satisfy backers.
So, many developers on Kickstarter do run into delays. That's sort of normal. Almost anyone who's ever done software development can tell you that delays happen, and in any dev's early days, they were the worst judge possible about how long something will take.However, sometimes it's more than just delays. Enter 'Code Hero', a game that was pitched on Kickstarter quite a while back. It was pitched to be an educational tool, a game revolving around coding that could teach kids rudimentary programming skills while keeping them engaged with a game. The developer asked for $100,000 and got $170,954.
Over a year and a half later, there is still no game, and the developer cut off pretty much all communication with the community. He admitted to burning through all the funds, including that which should have been reserved for physical items that were pledged for. All the dev has done so far is admit to being out of money, and released a mostly broken beta. He's no longer operating in good faith, as he won't communicate with the community. There's even been talk of a class action lawsuit against him, though it wouldn't do any good since he doesn't have any money left anyway.
Then there are instances that are straight up scams. I can't recall the name of the last one I'd heard of right off the bat, but they had put together a very good pitch. Then, an eagle-eyed surfer noticed that some of the concept art they had up seemed very familiar. Upon a bit more inspection, it turned out the, and I use the term loosely here, developer had lifted the entirety of the art assets from someone else's project. Needless to say, much hell was raised, and the project got shut down by Kickstarter.
Then there are projects that smell distinctly of scam. Take Gridiron Thunder. Now, before the owner of that project decides to threaten me with a lawsuit, they aren't doing anything illegal or against the rules. I'd count on them not doing so, the lead dev has been a lawyer in Silicon Valley for over twenty years. If anyone knows how to get through the legal system, it's him. But, what they're doing is highly unethical.
They started up their project to develop a football game for the Ouya game system, and to make use of the Ouya 'Free the Games' fund. This fund will match any money raised in a kickstarter for a game in return for 6 months of exclusivity on the platform, so long as the game raises $50,000, and will match up to $250,000. Now, I'm not going to go into how bad of an idea that is to begin with. Suffice to say, it's a stupid idea.
Now, Gridiron Thunder raised $171,009 by the end of it's campaign. From only 183 backers. That means, on average, each backer gave $934.48. Each. This is the highest average for a game project ever. By a massive margin. Of those 183 backers, 23 claimed no pledge levels, so they just threw money at it with no return what so ever. That's also exceedingly fishy. I can't recall having ever seen that happen before.
Even fishier is how many donations came from accounts that had just been registered, and had never donated to a project before that. And how many of those new accounts had the same name. And how many of those accounts shared their surname with the founder of the company. Now, if he wants to funnel money into his own project to make sure it succeeds, that's fine by me. I have absolutely no problem with that.
Where my problem lies is that this is specifically set up with Free the Games. Which means if he invested say, $50,000 into his project, that means Ouya will now double that. He's using this fund not only to double what his fans will put into the game, but his own preexisting capital as well. And that is incredibly dishonest and unethical in my book.
It would be one thing if the game looked good, but it doesn't. I've seen their demos. The game appears to be absolute, complete, unadulterated crap. They have made exactly 2 models, one of the players, one of the football, a few skins, and used a Kinect to motion cap all the animation. The game is terrible, slipshod, and it will not sell. There is a reason that it had so few backers. This game was clearly assembled in less than a month, and he's going to get not just the $171,009 that the Kickstarter raised, but that amount again from Free the Games, bringing him and his exceedingly small team's haul for a month or so worth of work up to a whopping $342,018. For what is truly a horrible game.
And, to make it worse, Free the Games, a fund that could genuinely do some good for the platform if they lower the bottom limit a bit, is a capped fund. They will only spend one million dollars running this promotion. This awful game, developed by a horribly immoral company, is going to use up almost a fifth of that fund.
And Andrew Won, the founder of the studio, has nothing more to say about it than that he didn't realize that the numbers were unusual, and that he's done nothing illegal. To you Andrew, I say this. You may have done nothing illegal, but you and your company have done something incredibly immoral. I am ashamed of you, and I am ashamed to say that someone like you exists in an industry that I have grown up treasuring. I genuinely hope you one day realize how wrong you have been here, and endeavor to live your life in a less parasitic way. Your actions may have kept another indie developer from being able to realize their dream. You may have stolen away another man's bread, another man's livelihood. And you should be ashamed of yourself.
Hmm, I guess I went against what I said when I started this entry. That was a pretty broad personal attack. Alright, I'll amend that. There is a very, very small number of situations where something like that is called for. But do notice that I never started cursing, I never threatened, and I never got irrational.
Tomorrow, if I can find the time, we'll talk about a project I've been voluntarily involved in for the last year. Another project that got its life from Kickstarter. We'll be talking about Castle Story, from Sauropod Studio, along with all the ups and downs they've experienced over the last year since their Kickstarter, leading up to the early release of their game on Steam this coming Monday. See you all then!
EDIT: Just as soon as I finished this, I looked up some news. It turns out that it's good news. Ouya has, very wisely, changed the rules of Free the Games. The minimum required has been lowered from $50,000 to $10,000, first off. Also, they require games to have 100 backers per $10,000 raised, to keep people from gaming the system like Gridiron Thunder did. And, even better, they lowered the required exclusivity period from the previous ridiculous 6 months to a single month, and it excludes PC. So, devs can release on PC and Ouya at the same time, just not on other consoles until a month has passed.
And, even better, these new rules count Gridiron Thunder out. They will no longer be getting a single dime from the Free the Games fund. This makes me very happy.
Major props to you, Ouya, this was the proper move. I'm proud of you. I am, for the first time, considering trying to get my hands on one of your consoles.
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