Gemini000 wrote:Yeah, I know, Kickstarter has its place and that some of these projects may never happen without it, but it really concerns me just how many things are using it to essentially squeeze money out of fans just for a CHANCE to make something. That's really what it comes down to, because if something on Kickstarter reaches it goal, gets started, but then goes overbudget, how do you finish it and give back to the fans you just took from? Ask for MORE money from them? x_x;
You use the principle of "buyer beware" - not all kickstarters are created equal. Tim Schafer's adventure game is a better bet than a complete unknown with an unrealistically low budget and nothing to show for it, because Tim has a working company (doublefine), a history of being able to ship (very, very good) games, and so forth.
The Shadowrun KS is a better bet than your no-name startup, because likewise, Jordan Weisman has a resume of doing things well (Shadowrun, Battletech, Earthdawn) and has a functioning company with products on the market.
And yes, there is nonzero risk in funding a project, but the publishing industry that only funds "sure things" churns out drek like Call of Battlefield: Modern Combat Evolved XVIII - Generic Brown Manshooter Waist-height Cover Edition! And sadly, that seems to be where we're stuck right now.
So you use your brain. You already do this anytime you're making a nontrivial purchase. You don't just go into a car lot and buy the first thing you're offered at sticker price. You don't go to eBay and buy from the guy with terrible grammar and -400 feedback. You buy medication from a reputable pharmacy, not the homeless guy with a bag full of unmarked pills on the street corner.
Gemini000 wrote:Plus, there's some completely pointless stuff on Kickstarter too: Things that shouldn't take more than spare time and hard work for a single individual and shouldn't be on Kickstarter at all.
"There is some stuff on X that's bad, therefore all stuff on X must be bad" is a pretty weak argument (it's called a composition fallacy).
Gemini000 wrote:The overuse of Kickstarter concerns me and I don't really want to promote anything on it at the moment.
Just my two cents. Take 'em or leave 'em. 😜
Well, you're certainly entitled to not promote anything you don't want to, but I like to think of KS, where it can be successful, as an alternative to developers having to run through an abusive publisher like EA or Activision, produce things that don't meet strict requirements for maximising profit while minimising price (don't confuse this with "not turning a profit"). Overuse is a red herring - if it's a successful method for self-publishing, of course people will use it. You don't see anyone bemoaning the overuse of "publishers", although there are certainly complaints about the content and conduct from said publishers. But the take-away is that becoming popular or well-recognized doesn't automatically make something bad.
And this system certainly isn't unprecedented in history. If you look back before the era of consolidated commercial publishing, most art was created by means of a patronage arrangement. A wealthy individual would typically sponsor songwriters, artists, composers to create content and entertainment for them.
The rise of crowdfunding reminds me of this - we're seeing a form of a patronage system here, except we're able to apply it to a connected world. We're no longer limited to only nobles and the wealthy being able to afford creative content, since we have a near effortless way for very large numbers of fairly average individuals to converge on a product or producer and effectively create a distributed patronage.
In the end, though, I do think it's worth at least considering each individual proposal as an individual proposal, rather than automatically writing it off under a blanket stereotype that all crowdfunding projects are empty money grabs, and doomed to fail.
If all else fails, use fire.
