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11 backers
666 dollars
All backers at the $55 or more threshold
All the shitty projects this dipshit started before: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/654955049/created
Sounds legit

Seriously, how does rubbish like this make it to the front page? At least with other Kickstarter things that have made it here, there was some legitimacy and momentum already behind the project. However, this is pure shit.

I saw a board game today which had "10 sided D10":
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

(Guess one could go creative in dice designs but .. it really is the standard.)

They don't care about users freedom what-so-ever. All they care about is market share.

The product that can't stream protected media has no market --- which means that it can't and won't be used to introduce DRM-free streaming media to users.

Many premium content providers such as Netflix require DRM support. Matchstick has undertaken the mission to develop DRM as an independent project with the open source community...We plan to use the Microsoft PlayReady technology and are excited to bring premium content to Matchstick. We'll keep you updated as we work to contribute newly developed source codes for DRM back to the open community. It's our goal to make sure open source technology doesn't mean 2nd tier content and experiences!

February Update --- Product Delay, Hardware, DRM, Content, and more!

There is a lot to be said for a standardized DRM platform based on open-source code. Time is short, It is becoming almost impossible to buy an HDTV without integrated WiFI and its own suite of apps.

VIZIO E241i-B1 24" 1080p 60Hz Razor LED Smart HDTV $178.

actually this https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... is that step ...

Sigh.

Gjoni did not *claim* that Zoe got a positive review in exchange for sex, at any point. He did not "later admit that didn't happen"; he later clarified that he never made such a claim, even though it was already perfectly obvious, to anyone who actually *read the blog post*, that he never made such a claim. He only claimed that the relationship happened, which is not in dispute (even Totilo's response cedes this).

Gjoni's blog post was not in any reasonable sense "a long attack screed", which again is obvious to anyone who actually read it. He did not at any point post the story to "the *chan boards"; he posted it on the Something Awful forums and Penny Arcade forums, and then moved it to a Wordpress blog after those posts were deleted. 4chan found the link on their own. It was ( http://theflounce.com/harassme... ) a recounting of gaslighting and emotional abuse that he suffered in that relationship, that I am 110% confident would have been taken seriously by you and everyone who thinks like you if the genders were reversed.

Some people, other than Gjoni, have erroneously claimed that such a review happened, because of a combination of it fitting the evidence / their mental models, and the natural corruption of rumors. What *did* happen is that Grayson painted an unusually positive picture of Quinn's involvement in the GAME_JAM debacle ( https://archive.today/qErD0 ), noting her as the creator of DQ in that article (at a point when neither she nor her game was notable), two days before joining her on a trip to Las Vegas; gave DQ top billing on a list of 50 newly greenlit games on Steam ( https://archive.today/iS4Ru ) - the only one to include a screenshot; and beta-tested DQ (his name is listed in the credits in the HTML source) without ever disclosing this fact in any of his coverage. Twitter search results confirm that he has at least known Quinn on a personal level since at least June of 2012 ( https://archive.today/j5DW0 ).

(More info: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index... )

As for criticism of Sarkeesian, if you think that's all the criticism amounts to, you are *seriously* delusional. The content of many games has been blatantly misrepresented; for example, she spoke about how Hitman:Absolution rewards and expects certain behaviour (shooting the strippers in a strip club in one particular mission), over top of footage that shows the player being *explicitly penalized* for it, and which LPers of the game overwhelmingly don't do. More to the point, she argues from a framework wherein any act of violence against a woman in a game is inherently evidence of misogyny and proof of encouragement of "violence against women", while literally orders of magnitude more violence against male characters in the same games is completely ignored. But you don't even have to look at the videos to criticize her for the fact that in spite of receiving over 25 times the funding she asked for on Kickstarter, she is halfway through a series that is now *over two years overdue* ( https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... ). There are also over 3,000 people to whom she owes "your name in the video credits".

It's like I've grown up in a fairly cold climate, send a person from the tropical regions here and have him dress like me and I swear he'll think it's cold, damn cold.

Interesting. There was an article last week about cold climates and BMR. Loosely put, the hypothesis is that if you're mildly cold (55-65F), you'll burn calories trying to keep the body warm, but it's not so cold that hypothermia/frostbite are a risk. We're not talking the Arctic Circle, more like San Francisco 75% of the year. Sure enough, there's also a kickstarter. Although the plural of anecdote isn't data (it'd be difficult to do a double-blind clinical trial, althrough I suppose you could compare three populations, one wearing a vest at 55F, one at 65F, one with a big bunch of weights without coolers, and a fourth control group doing nothing), we may see some testing of the hypothesis in the coming years.

Sounds like this: https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

There are "magnetic" filaments, such as https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... and the iron and stainless steel from http://www.proto-pasta.com/ . They have iron or stainless steel particles mixed into PLA, so magnets stick to the printed parts, you can magnetize them, etc.

his workplace was harassed until he was fired:

This is an increasingly common tactic used by people who disagree with other people.

You're a racist? Let's get you fired:
http://gettingracistsfired.com...

You're a scumbag who doesn't deliver on a kickstarter? Let's bother your parents:
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Sure, this isn't new - the latter is just an extension of small-town "you come around here doing that again and I'll be talking to your mama". But the motive and intent are different. It's not about the parents being the authority figure instilling some sense into the kid, but about harassing the parents so that they, too, will blame the 'kid' for woes.

In the former case, it hinges on when things you say are personal, and when they are things you say as a representative of a company.
Post on company blog - company.
Post on facebook with place of employ listed - apparently, company.
Post on twitter with no place of employ listed but people find out through your name and location anyway - according to that blog, company.
Post on a random forum under a pseudonym but given enough searching around have your place of employ found - if you're thinking this should be personal, you're disagreeing with that site.

Increasingly, "what you do in your personal time is your own business" no longer flies, because whatever you do in your personal time can - thanks to the pressure power of social media - very much become your employer's business... even if they have no issue with you personally, but get negative attention for employing you.

Any outside activity must not interfere with your ability to properly perform your job duties

- From one employee manual, in context about outside employment but easily interpreted to also apply to these cases.

Without patents, the information wouldn't be lost, it would be tied up as trade secrets, forcing every competitor to reinvent the proverbial wheel

Patents are routinely issued on inventions that are obvious to one skilled in the art of reverse engineering. For example, contributors to FFmpeg have disassembled and documented plenty of video codecs.

"Obvious to one skilled in the art of reverse engineering" means obvious to someone who has seen the invention, taken it apart, figured out how it works, etc. And duh, once you've studied something in intimate detail, of course it's going to be obvious. That's irrelevant though - the question for patents is whether the invention was obvious at the time of invention, before anyone got to see what the inventor did.

rather than simply paying a small royalty to the first inventor and going on to invent the next improvement

And in a lot of cases, the royalty isn't "small" at all because the inventor wants to exclude a category of products from the market entirely. Think of when the late Steve Jobs promised that Apple was prepared to go "thermonuclear" on Android.

Good point - that's why we don't have any Android devices on the market.

/posted from my Android tablet

Without copyright, art would only be created under patronage systems where the wealthy commission works that they want

We have working patronage systems now.

Kickstarter is not a patronage system. If it was, then we'd have Neal Stephenson locked in a dungeon.

In addition to restricting the number of works, this would also restrict the number of viewpoints, as only those wealthy patrons' desired works would be created.

It doesn't take "wealthy patrons" to produce a work expressing a viewpoint. Anyone who owns a personal computer and a year of Internet access can self-produce and self-publish a work in plenty of forms, such as the written word, a podcast, an animated video, or even a video game.

Yes, and because they hold copyright in that work, they can charge for copies and prevent others from re-publishing it without paying royalties. If there was no copyright, they'd take that year, self-produce and self-publish, and the next day, everyone would have a copy for free, and they'd have no income from that year of work.
Or, conversely, as I said, they would have only published that work for their patron, who paid them in advance to create it, under a contract where they couldn't publish it anywhere else. Artists gotta eat, man.

Without patents, the information wouldn't be lost, it would be tied up as trade secrets, forcing every competitor to reinvent the proverbial wheel

Patents are routinely issued on inventions that are obvious to one skilled in the art of reverse engineering. For example, contributors to FFmpeg have disassembled and documented plenty of video codecs.

rather than simply paying a small royalty to the first inventor and going on to invent the next improvement

And in a lot of cases, the royalty isn't "small" at all because the inventor wants to exclude a category of products from the market entirely. Think of when the late Steve Jobs promised that Apple was prepared to go "thermonuclear" on Android.

Without copyright, art would only be created under patronage systems where the wealthy commission works that they want

We have working patronage systems now.

In addition to restricting the number of works, this would also restrict the number of viewpoints, as only those wealthy patrons' desired works would be created.

It doesn't take "wealthy patrons" to produce a work expressing a viewpoint. Anyone who owns a personal computer and a year of Internet access can self-produce and self-publish a work in plenty of forms, such as the written word, a podcast, an animated video, or even a video game. Net neutrality is in theory orthogonal to copyright, though this is complicated by the co-ownership of XFINITY and NBCUniversal by Comcast.

Check out https://www.kickstarter.com/pr.... That's exactly what we are trying to do. We are still long way to go, but we will get there.

Seems like this is a striking copy of the original uArm project.

> Differentiation is difficult in the smartphone market these days.

> all are nice upgrades but are only iterative

Please give us one huge upgrade - simple QWERTY. Last QWERTY phone is N900 from 2009. The next will be Jolla+TOHKBD in 2015 just thanks to a community funding effort (but still with weak hardware from 2013). Everybody in forums wants QWERTY but no single manufacturer makes one.

Huh? I can immediately name two examples of a modern QWERTY phone here or here.

> Differentiation is difficult in the smartphone market these days.

> all are nice upgrades but are only iterative

Please give us one huge upgrade - simple QWERTY. Last QWERTY phone is N900 from 2009. The next will be Jolla+TOHKBD in 2015 just thanks to a community funding effort (but still with weak hardware from 2013). Everybody in forums wants QWERTY but no single manufacturer makes one.

Interesting both QWERTY phones also run Linux OS (that is not Android) despite both features are technically completely unrelated. And there are very few non-QWERTY Linux OS phones.

http://news.slashdot.org/story...

Here they talk about the volunteers contributing their time and money to make the sets:
http://thescene.com/watch/wire...

Just watched the first episode -- impressive and made by volunteers. Subsequent episodes are being made with some Kickstarter funding.
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Here is a good explanation, based in part on research done by the Federal Reserve, on how creativity flourished best when people earn enough that money is off the table as a worry (that means about US$75K+ in the USA) and people have autonomy in their work, increasing mastery facing a challenge, and a sense of purpose.
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Frankly, I think very few artists are motivated by money. This is even more true if you broaden a definition of art to include so much of what people do as hobby crafts or fan fiction or local folk song writing or creative cooking and so on.

Money plays a role in the life of an artist in Western society of course because, in an exchange-emphasizing economy, we all need to get money somehow to pay for food and lodgings and material and so on -- including paying for our kids. And to put a lot of time into some craft, you need to find a way to support yourself that leaves time for learning and doing it. Especially for anyone with a family, if it is not your day job, your time to put into it is otherwise going to be severely limited. Some people still make it work by dedication and generally sacrificing other relationships and responsibilities, including by pushing them onto siblings or the state.

See for example, "The Murdering of My Years":
http://books.google.com/books/...
"Looking back on their lives, people often ask themselves "Where did the years go?" "The Murdering of My Years: Artists and Activists Making Ends Meet provides a wide ranges of provocative answers to that question. Edited in the style of a documentary, "The Murdering of My Years is a compendium of stories by activists and artists about how they manage to get by in America. They talk about the jobs they've had (as cabbies, organizers, waitresses, clerks, drivers taking scabs to secret scab trainings, telemarketers, etc.), how they were initially politicized, the nature of their art, and how they feel about working (or resistance to working) in a political context. The stories range from the absurd to the heartbreaking, from the exciting and strange to the depressingly banal. The book examines the pain, disillusionment, and fundamental hopelessness that afflict many workers. It also tells stories or triumph, joy, and subversion in the workplace."

As is made clear in that book and others, the "starving artist" concept is mostly a myth. If you're starving, making art is generally the last thing on your mind. However, it's true that people who are obsessed with an idea or a technique may well end up starving because they prioritize their art over making money. But the actual suffering process rarely lends much to the art's production -- even if previous suffering might inform some future art in terms of shaping an artist's sympathies (as it might for anyone in any profession).

I think it more likely the urge to create generally comes from within and is sustained by intrinsic motivation of love of the craft and the product. If people just want money, there are more reliable ways to get it than trying to appeal to a fickle art audience. No doubt some few people do make become artists to get rich,

For N900 replacement look for Jolla+TOHKBD.

Since both Slashdot and the Independent pointedly avoid linking to the Kickstarter page in question, here it is:

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

It would be a nice irony if this story helped the project get funded.

This whole ads business needs to go away. Seriosly, stop trying to convince people to buy your garbage.
Create a nice web site for all your site so that people can search and compare. And for all independent publishers there are other means to get a buck.

https://www.kickstarter.com/
http://www.patriondigital.com/
https://www.indiegogo.com/
http://www.patreon.com/
etc.

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

No affiliation.

How about a Kickstarter project for a new coloring book, "Her Highness Builds Robots: Princesses for the 21st Century"?

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

BrainBackups Openworm Deep Mind Lovotics Neurogrid

Check out the CANBus Triple: https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... They have huge adoption in the Mazda community

Check out the CANBus Triple: https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... They have huge adoption in the Mazda community

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... I think that they have some left.

"We've produced a PC game, which you can buy now at example.com. But we think it would be an even better experience on a non-PC platform. Please help us fund a port of our game to $console." This isn't exactly the same as "production" because you can see almost "the exact form of the game" by playing the PC version with an Xbox 360 controller or by watching the video of the PC version. But it isn't exactly the same as "distribution" either because some engineering is still needed for the port. Under your criteria, would porting a completed application to another platform be closer to "distribution" or "production"?

Distribution. Because the game itself already exists. The key point is the purpose of porting is to allow close to the same experience on a different platform.

Some of the Kickstarters I fund are for international releases of anime that are currently only available in Japan. I don't know what the packaging or menu structure of the disc for the final product will be verses the Japanese release. Maybe it will be a simple Amray case, maybe it will be the same packaging as the Japanese release, Maybe it will be unique for this region. Maybe there will be special packaging for only Kickstarter backers that will not be produced again later -- making the Kickstarter edition collectable and potentially more valuable. These are creative points that have to be realized, but these are still Distribution campaigns because the core product (the anime itself) is already there. I know what the video and audio content will be, and that is what I'm really paying for. It's not an "investment", IMHO. I am expecting a copy of the anime for my contribution so it is a purchase for all intents and purposes once my card is charged.

My mistake for using the term "distinct" before is there are campaigns that can be more one than the other.
For example: I actually did fund a game production campaign despite just saying I usually avoid these. But the game is being released freeware. In fact, the first two parts are already released at this point and you can get it from Steam and other sources.

Because the game is available for all and I don't really need to take part in the crowd-sourcing campaign to get it, or buy it later, I actually considered this a Charity campaign. I didn't spend much, and what I got for my contribution was access to beta builds. To me, even if the game turned into something way different I wouldn't be bothered so much, because I frame the whole thing as helping creative individuals realize a dream, so to speak. This is a bit different than people contributing larger sums with a promise of a playable game they personally want and have certain expectations for, expectations that may not be met given the creative process.

What is a creator obligated to do once their project is funded?
When a project is successfully funded, the creator is responsible for completing the project and fulfilling each reward. Their fundamental obligation to backers is to finish all the work that was promised. [...]

And:

What should creators do if they're having problems completing their project?
[...]
If the problems are severe enough that the creator can't fulfill their project, creators need to find a resolution. Steps should include offering refunds, detailing exactly how funds were used, and other actions to satisfy backers.

Project creators are directly answerable to their backers. As with any retail contract, they are free to offer alternative reward, but the customer can cancel the contract and demand refund for failure to deliver.

What is a creator obligated to do once their project is funded?
When a project is successfully funded, the creator is responsible for completing the project and fulfilling each reward. Their fundamental obligation to backers is to finish all the work that was promised. [...]

And:

What should creators do if they're having problems completing their project?
[...]
If the problems are severe enough that the creator can't fulfill their project, creators need to find a resolution. Steps should include offering refunds, detailing exactly how funds were used, and other actions to satisfy backers.

Project creators are directly answerable to their backers. As with any retail contract, they are free to offer alternative reward, but the customer can cancel the contract and demand refund for failure to deliver.

According to Kickstarter's TOS:

When a creator posts a project on Kickstarter, theyâ(TM)re inviting other people to form a contract with them. Anyone who backs a project is accepting the creatorâ(TM)s offer, and forming that contract. ...

If theyâ(TM)re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers.

So Kickstarter is saying that backers need to sue the project creator for breech of contract if they fail to deliver what was promised. The contract Kickstarter creates between the backer and creator is legally binding, and creators have a responsibility to fulfil it.

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Though it's not got much support as yet (I am a backer).

Actually, what gamergate is doing is criticizing several women's elaborate conspiracy theories about gaming and gamer culture. If you're going to compare, do it on like terms. Sarkeesian did the same thing, though I think she's smart enough to have done it purposely. She had a ton of tards give her 160k in 'sympathy' money to make a few youtube videos. Not bad. She probably thinks people like you are useful idiots.

Or, you know, maybe there's actually $160k worth of people who disagree with you and are actually interested in seeing feminist literary criticism of videogames, and Anita was in the right place at the right time to target that untapped market.

Maybe some of these women are self (or having others) posting fake threats, or they are troll posts. Who knows. What really matters is that these women are purposely taking these 'threats' seriously to drum up drama.

I find it interesting that if it was men who were pulling stunts like anita's, they would NOT be getting away with it. Who really has the privilege again?

Yep, men have never made 10s of thousands of dollars off Kickstarter stunts.

I agree with you, so much that we are doing a kickstarter that supports us making improvements that fix all of this. I invite you to check out what we've done so far (fixed the upgrade/uninstall) with the new chocolatey (a totally rewritten client that is due out in Q4 2014). We've even implemented package moderation to increase the quality of packages on the community feed - https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

So OneGet is a package manager aggregator. One of the providers is Chocolatey, which is attempting to make improvements to become a true package manager (wrt to cleaning up everything when uninstalled no matter where crap ends up, pinning, and a couple of other things it still doesn't do, everything else is covered) - we have a kickstarter going now to make those improvements a reality, which in turn will make OneGet that much better. https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

The (fairly) popular Chocolatey NuGet windows package manager has a kickstarter going on right now to fund some dramatic improvements on an already awesome service. If you like having options, you really should consider backing it. https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

And it's pretty cool:
The integrated space plan is an update of the document originally drawn up in the 1980s, and has been variously rediscovered since.

It's a long-view look at where we need to go and what we need to get there. In the 1980s, commercial spaceflight was envisioned somewhat differently than it's happened, and robotics have gotten way more capable, so the refresh is definitely needed.

According to the kickstarter page, the campaign is over $170,000.

A $51 pledge gets you one shipped to your house in the USA.

Just to have an idea of what is involved for a much simpler device with the same budget (a silly 3D printer): https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... [kickstarter.com] Basically those guys have also asked for 100k, got them, spent a year on it - and went bust. At least they had the balls to admit it and are going to refund the backers.

Wait, so these guys had 100K just laying around that they could use to refund the backers? Why'd they bother with kickstarter, then? I smell a ratatosk.

The problem is that this device will never get built. 100k is a ridiculously low budget for the production of a device of this complexity. Just to have an idea of what is involved for a much simpler device with the same budget (a silly 3D printer): https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... Basically those guys have also asked for 100k, got them, spent a year on it - and went bust. At least they had the balls to admit it and are going to refund the backers. Going to an assembly house with less than a million in budget? Forget it, they won't even speak to you.

That leaves assembling these cameras in a garage, by hand. Which means soldering those nasty BGA by hand - good bye any reasonable yield, not to mention that those chips aren't exactly cheap.

Which leads to the second point - I have serious doubts about their BOM costs. If they are planning to sell the camera for $500, with the FPGA/SoC costing about $100 alone, that can't work out. The 4k camera sensor is likely in the similar range (probably more - 300fps 4k sensor? Those things cost hundreds of dollars just the bare sensor ...). Which leaves about $200-300 for everything else on the camera *INCLUDING THE MARGIN* to pay all their expenses/salaries (and they have a LOT of people on the team!). Then there are fairly expensive licensing costs for anything HDMI related, USB related (USB vid/pid costs alone around $5k!), EMC compliance testing and certification (obligatory if they want to sell it in EU/US, it is ~$10k/iteration depending on type of the device), case molds are few thousands each iteration ...

In short, unless they have an order of magnitude larger external funding as well this isn't happening. Period. They may have a prototype which perhaps works (who knows, the videos could be fake, all pictures are labeled "concept drawings/renderings", irrelevant testimonials about open source, etc.), but they have no idea how much the manufacturing is going to cost. And I doubt that this is going to be a charitable undertaking with the team paying for this out of their own pocket.

The concept is sound, depending on the project. Sometimes the person/team already has a working prototype and only needs the funds to be able to manufacture the item in larger quantities at a lower price.

As an example, The Link was a very successful project. And the end product is exactly as described and works as well as any other huge commercial corporation would have been able to produce.

Other Kickstarter projects, however, such as those "We need two million to make a game" where the team only has one guy who knows photoshop and has an idea for a game, and another who knows how to make music but no programmer at all, you usually need to steer clear of those.

This is useful, but

I've backed a project that's currently been running late. Like 18 months late. Updates are random, and while follow-ups are promised, they don't happen in timing promised ( https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... )

Big question is how do we deal with a zombie (dead, but not admitting it) project? According to the previous project, all backers seem to be entitled to refunds, but there's no mention in this post as to even how to flag this for KS staff.

Here you go:

free energy

Try Kickstarting A Novel

You mean like this ?
This proves it possible although (as in the case of Star Citizen, and the likes) it got successfully funded because the book has big names behind it: Zach Wiener and Boulet.

I'm always amused when wanna-be novelists want people to give them $50,000 to write a novel in a year and discover that no one will give them money. The novel must be written first.

The book COULD be not finished yet:
- ...if it comes from a known guy. Popular author which has already shown able to produce good work. Can have successful kick-starter (I have this great idea that I want to write about, but my current publisher considers it a bit riské and doesn't want to shell out all the money for it).
Basically, any idea proposed by Terry Pratchet would get insta-funded, no matter how weird the premises.
- ...if it again follows the "prototype" rule. Wannabe authors writes "Chapter 1" on his free time and decides that he want to get paid to make the rest instead of having a main job and doing the book on the side. Wannabe authors makes chapter 1 available. Interested reader notice that current work is better quality than the crappy fan-fic which pollute the interweb and that the wannabe authors shows promising qualities. Book might get funded.
- slight variation of the above: a blogger who has shown very good and promising writing ability. Nothing from the book exist yet, the authors hasn't written a book before either, but has repeatedly shown to be able to output massive amount of written material with a good sense of humour.

Notice that, both situation could also work with a publisher. The only reason to go for Kickstarter is if for some reason no publisher is interested in the material it self (the project is REALLY weird, or the main theme is controversial, etc.)

The main difficulties won't be finding potential funds for Kickstart (as in fact, the main difficulty won't be finding a publisher neither, if the project isn't too much weird).
The main difficulty would be the lack of experience in handling a publishing project.

Thanks for writing in. Unfortunately I'm unable to comment further on our terms, as it is a standalone documentation of our policies.
Regards,
Alfie

I don't even know what that means.

Basically,
Alfie doesnt want to go into the details of the companies terms and conditions, as they are already disclosed in their online documentation for the public.
https://www.kickstarter.com/te...

Theres also a hint of him suggesting he hates his job and cant be bothered to assist your original query. Typical brickwall response "heres a macro response, i cant be bothered to deal with you today"

This is just like any project. The electronics projects are the worst. I remember seeing this iPad display adapter. They wanted to raise 15000GBP. Pledge 65GBP and you'll get the circuit board ready to DIY the display.

I wanted that. So I after a quick search I went to abuse mark and ordered an adapter ready to go for 20GBP.

They are kickstarting a product that already exists for 3.5x the price, and it looks like people fell for it.

most kickstarters that I've seen get big money, like the iPod dock & blender/boombox/coolerwere recursive projects...the 'thank you' gift is the product that the company you're supporting is trying to make

it's silly...but i'm glad kickstarter and the like exist...they should just adapt their message & rules just a bit to make this weird moebius strip of commerce and charity unnecessary

as far as gaming, if people want to donate money to an idea, screenshot, and prayer then I think they should be able to...

fyi, that ipod dock kickstarter i linked to above is an insane roller coaster & exhibit A of how kickstarter can be good and bad...the guy ended up barely breaking even after a new ipod design came out right during his production and he had to do several recalls...it was a disaster...

IMHO the Elevation Dock is an example of...something...i'm not hating but it's obvious most of these kickstarter millionaires have no clue what they are doing & spend more time on pictures and the video than product design at times...but that's my jealousy. If people want to throw money away for questionable 'innovations' then that's their choice...the system exists, not all kickstarter products will be crap

most kickstarters that I've seen get big money, like the iPod dock & blender/boombox/coolerwere recursive projects...the 'thank you' gift is the product that the company you're supporting is trying to make

it's silly...but i'm glad kickstarter and the like exist...they should just adapt their message & rules just a bit to make this weird moebius strip of commerce and charity unnecessary

as far as gaming, if people want to donate money to an idea, screenshot, and prayer then I think they should be able to...

fyi, that ipod dock kickstarter i linked to above is an insane roller coaster & exhibit A of how kickstarter can be good and bad...the guy ended up barely breaking even after a new ipod design came out right during his production and he had to do several recalls...it was a disaster...

IMHO the Elevation Dock is an example of...something...i'm not hating but it's obvious most of these kickstarter millionaires have no clue what they are doing & spend more time on pictures and the video than product design at times...but that's my jealousy. If people want to throw money away for questionable 'innovations' then that's their choice...the system exists, not all kickstarter products will be crap

Thinking on these two kickstarters

Mighty #9, basically a game similar to Mega Man, it had some basic concept art and rough drawings, but I'd hardly call that anywhere near 50%

SpaceVenture, same deal. Concept art, some rough ideas. Mostly, from guys who are known to produce.

If you don't have a reputation already, and no prototype that's at least semi-functional, then really you've got nothing much to offer other than a promise and a prayer.

You have no way to show whether your idea is feasible. You have no way to know how much work is actually involved. I have no way to know that you won't be taking my money and using it to fund a Caribbean vacation or drug/drinking habit.

Seriously, for a computer game come up with an intro video that shows you can make it look good, and a few rough gameplay concepts that show you can make it *run*. You still have: level design, art design, storyboard design, voice acting as needed, sound production, etc etc. You're not even close to 50% at that point, but at least you can show that you can make *something*.

But, without reputation, you have to either have a great idea that's unique and desirable, *really* good marketing, or something tangible. Notwithstanding the dude that kickstarted potato salad, that's just weird...

Thinking on these two kickstarters

Mighty #9, basically a game similar to Mega Man, it had some basic concept art and rough drawings, but I'd hardly call that anywhere near 50%

SpaceVenture, same deal. Concept art, some rough ideas. Mostly, from guys who are known to produce.

If you don't have a reputation already, and no prototype that's at least semi-functional, then really you've got nothing much to offer other than a promise and a prayer.

You have no way to show whether your idea is feasible. You have no way to know how much work is actually involved. I have no way to know that you won't be taking my money and using it to fund a Caribbean vacation or drug/drinking habit.

Seriously, for a computer game come up with an intro video that shows you can make it look good, and a few rough gameplay concepts that show you can make it *run*. You still have: level design, art design, storyboard design, voice acting as needed, sound production, etc etc. You're not even close to 50% at that point, but at least you can show that you can make *something*.

But, without reputation, you have to either have a great idea that's unique and desirable, *really* good marketing, or something tangible. Notwithstanding the dude that kickstarted potato salad, that's just weird...

To be fair, Wasteland 2 hasn't happened yet.

Technically correct (which is always the best kind of correct) but since the release date is only ten days away, it's kind of a BS argument.

The supporters of Kickstarter are always pointing to games that haven't been released yet as examples of its success.

The spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, aptly named Planetary Annihilation, raised $2.2M on Kickstarter and just released last Friday after two years in development. The only major thing that wasn't ready for the 1.0 release is offline play and the developers have already stated that it will be their first major goal after release.

"The supporters of Kickstarter are always pointing to games that haven't been released yet as examples of its success."

Faster than light. Shovel Knight and Shadowrun have been successful, the first Shadow run was rough but they more then made up for it with Dragonfall. Developers who've never made a game in a genre or been away from it for many years go through a learning curve as they relearn the ropes of making that certain type of game. So that is somewhat forgivable.

Kickstarter has defintiely been abused but to say its a total loss is idiotic, I'm awaiting Retro

Shovel knight

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

http://www.gog.com/game/shovel...

Faster than light

http://www.gog.com/game/faster...

Shadowrun Dragonfall

http://www.gog.com/game/shadow...