For many creative people out there, Kickstarter has become a fantastic way of getting funding for projects that may not otherwise see the light of day. From comics and music to film and video games, the site has become a platform that can successfully turn dreams into reality. But what about us: the backers?
![Title - The trouble with Kickstarter]()
Homesick by Lucky Pause was the first Kickstarter campaign I backed in February 2013. Over the past year I’ve gone on to back fifteen projects in total, the majority of which have been in connection with adventure games (no surprise there), and as a team we’ve shown our support to thirty-three campaigns since we started the site. This rate averages out to be over two-and-a-half new projects we give our backing to each month; so what is it about the platform that’s causing us to become so disillusioned with it lately?
Let’s get into the meat of this article by starting with a bit of history. Kickstarter, which raises funds in categories such as art, fashion, food and video games, has driven the majority of the growth in crowdfunding since its launch in 2009. Highs include the campaign by Double Fine for adventure game Broken Age which raised over 800% of its intended target; and there have been enough lows to fill sites devoted to ridiculing bad projects. Outside of gaming, the crowd has funded a RoboCop statue for Detroit, a bucket truck dance performance and Chug, a travel show featuring a guy drinking beer.
Despite all of this creativity, my opinion of Kickstarter has dwindled recently for various reasons and I’ll go into these below. I’ll be honest though: this is the only platform our team has ever made use of and so the same may or may not be said of sites such as Indigogo and others. And although I may seem very negative in this post, I do believe that crowdfunding can be a wonderful and beneficial thing for both creators and backers – if campaigns are handled in the right way.
![Crowdfunding can be a wonderful thing - if campaigns are managed in the right way.]()
Crowdfunding can be a wonderful thing – if campaigns are managed in the right way.
Backers see it as ‘buying’ rather than ‘funding’
One of the major problems with Kickstarter is that many backers see their pledge to a project as a purchase. But this isn’t the case: when you give your money to a campaign, you’re supporting the creator’s dream to make something they want to see exist in the world. Pledging isn’t the same as pre-ordering a product and there’s no guarantee it will ever be produced.
In fact, the site itself wanted to make this clear after a number of notable failures and published blog post on the subject on 20 September 2012. They described several changes and stated: “It’s hard to know how many people feel like they’re shopping at a store when they’re backing projects on Kickstarter, but we want to make sure that it’s no one… We hope these updates reinforce that Kickstarter isn’t a traditional retail experience and underline the uniqueness of [the platform]… We created [it] so more creative work could exist in the world, and last week’s changes are in service of that mission.”
The company’s Terms of Use declare that they’re not liable for losses relating to ‘rewards or any other use of the Service’. These make it pretty clear they consider themselves to be the middle-man only: “Project Creators are required to fulfil all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose rewards they do not or cannot fulfil.” They go on to say that they’re under no obligation to become involved in disputes between Users and any third-parties and, once a project is funded, they aren’t responsible for issuing refunds.
![Kickstarter's Terms of Use make it clear they're just the middle-man.]()
Kickstarter’s Terms of Use make it clear they’re just the middle-man.
So if something goes wrong with your reward, if it doesn’t turn out the way you expected it to or if it doesn’t end up getting to you at all, it’s ultimately up to you to resolve and hope the projects owners pull through for you. Do I have a problem with this? Not entirely, because at the end of the day Kickstarter is a business like any other and – putting it bluntly – they’re trying to cover their own arses. It’s a platform that introduces creators and backers, and it’s up to users to listen to their common sense to decide whether a campaign is worth pledging to. If Kickstarter were to be held responsible for every single entry, they’d find themselves in a pretty messy (not to mention financially unstable) situation.
What I do have an issue with however are those backers who don’t understand the philosophy behind crowdfunding and see it as a pre-ordering system rather than a way of financing someone’s dream. When they pledge to a project and it’s delayed or doesn’t progress in the way they want it to, they take to the internet to cry foul. Don’t get me wrong, there are some unscrupulous creators out there and I’ll go into this a little later; but such complaints create an element of controversy around almost every single campaign. Seriously, go to Google and search for ‘Kickstarter controversy’ and you’ll see what I mean.
These disputes put potential users off using crowdfunding platforms, resulting in less finance being available to worthy and imaginative projects that actually deserve a chance. I know the legal stuff can be boring but if you’re new to Kickstarter, it’s probably a good idea to read their terms to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into before parting with any of your hard-earned cash.
![Search for 'Kickstarter controversy' and you'll get plenty of results.]()
These controversies can put potential users off using crowdfunding platforms.
Controversy now surrounds a lot of campaigns
I said in my point above that controversy is created by backers who don’t properly understand the crowdfunding way, but the reverse is also true: sometimes the creators themselves are at fault. Our team has only been using Kickstarter for a little over twelve months and already we’ve seen a number of projects that have received a lot of negative attention for one reason or another. Here are a couple of examples…
Back in April last year, I wrote about a campaign entitled ‘9 Year Old Building an RPF to Prove Her Brothers Wrong’. Mackenzie, aided by her mother Susan Wilson, was trying to raise $829 to cover the cost of attending an RPG programming camp for a week so she could learn to make a game that wasn’t ‘too violent’ or ‘filled with bad words’. A Reddit member raised red flags about the project, going into detail about the fact that Wilson is a self-declared millionaire who sold a company she co-founded for $100 million, and backers’ comments quickly turned sour.
Then in September, we published a preview on Victory Square Games’ point-and-click adventure Elementary, My Dear Holmes. In response to this we received a comment asking whether we would be doing a follow-up on their ‘Kickstarter funding irregularities’ and so, in the name of good journalism, we did just that. Our full report is here but here’s an overview: a number of project owners signed up to the Free the Games fund, a scheme run by OUYA under which they would match every dollar up to a total of $250,000 for campaigns that met their fundraising targets. Unfortunately, suspicions were raised around the identity of certain pledgers and the way that funding was being generated, and this resulted in some campaigns being pulled by Kickstarter.
These are two of the controversies we’ve covered here at 1001-Up.com but there are more recent examples too. Take the campaign to fund a Veronica Mars movie. Almost a year ago, creator Rob Thomas took to Kickstarter after Warner Bros showed no interest in funding the project; but when the film was released this month, backers found themselves locked into using the company’s own Flixster platform just to be able to watch it. Their reaction has been strong and immediate, with many taking to social media to let it be known they’re less than pleased.
There’s also the fact that big names are now cashing in on the system and some of the projects that Kickstarter is signing off on are a little… shall we say, dubious. These are two points I’ll cover in more detail later on. As mentioned in my first point above, negative experiences such as these put new users off coming to crowdfunding platforms and this ultimately reduces the amount of funding available to worthwhile campaigns that deserve to be successful.
How do you know whether a campaign is worthy of your backing? Look for creators who share a clear plan for how their project will be completed and who have a history of doing so; and if they have no demonstrable experience in doing something similar or don’t share key information, take that into consideration when parting with your money. At the end of the day the decision to back something is yours so, as Kickstarter says on their FAQ page: “Use your internet street smarts.”
![The decision to back something is yours, so use your common sense.]()
The decision to back something is yours, so use your common sense.
Big names are now cashing in on the system
As mentioned above, one of the most recent controversies to hit crowdfunding is that big names are now cashing in on the system. Examples include Zach Braff’s campaign for film Wish I Was Here (which then went on to secure millions from a traditional film financier alongside the $3.1 million already received from Kickstarter); and the project by Spike Lee for a new movie about ‘human beings who are addicted to blood’ (for which he faced questions about his use of crowdfunding due to his successful career making studio-backed films).
I asked the 1001-Up.com team for their thoughts on Kickstarter and this was one of the concerns raised by Ben. The man himself said: “I’m concerned that it’s being taken over and dominated by big names in the industry who are turning to it because other methods of funding have dried up. Part of me thinks it’s fantastic that Double Fine and Chris Roberts can generate huge sums of cash for their games but at the same time that cash could be used to give a young, promising developer their opportunity to create a new Monkey Island or Wing Commander.”
Projects from the likes of Braff and Lee have managed to raise more money than any others on Kickstarter, but they’ve also unleashed criticism that the people who need crowdfunding platforms the least are the ones benefitting from them the most. The company has countered by saying that such campaigns draw hundreds of new backers who then go on to support other projects; but I’m sure they’re not going to argue about their five percent cut, and it’s smaller creators who are going to suffer when big names steal the limelight.
Indeed, it’s all turned very commercial of late: creators are now able to hire ‘experts’ who say they’ll ensure a campaign’s success. For example, Lucas McNelly from Maine, US is one of these crowdfunding consultants; he handles around ten projects at once and provides services from advertising advice to the running of day-to-day operarations. He also receives a cut of between five and thirteen percent from campaigns that meet their targets and takes home around $25,000 a year. (And yes, we’ve received email communications from similar experts regarding the campaigns they’re managing.)
If an expert isn’t enough, creators with little social-media presence can buy attention from a number of services. CrowdFund Promotion offers its customers access to twenty-one Twitter accounts with 90,000 followers, with a guaranteed 1,500 retweets for just $74. Obviously, project owners tend to keep quiet about employing such services so their traffic doesn’t look fake. Maybe it’s the way of business nowadays but this, along with the consultants, doesn’t sit very well with me; it seems completely against the original spirit of crowdfunding and I don’t like the thought that part of my pledge is going to one of these companies.
If you want to go ahead and back a project by a big name, or one that looks expert enough to have employed professional services, then by all means go ahead. You’re more likely to guarantee the delivery of your rewards this way and we’ve done it ourselves by pledging to 22cans’ Godus and Double Fine’s Massive Chalice. But we’ve also backed some wonderful video games created by smaller and unknown developers, ones that truly deserve to succeed; keep an open mind, don’t automatically go for the safe bet, and you may find something on Kickstarter that’s very unique and special.
![We've backed big names such as Godus, but we've also supported some great smaller titles.]()
We’ve backed big names such as Godus, but we’ve also supported some great smaller titles.
The quality of available projects is declining
This is one of my biggest gripes with Kickstarter right now: the quality of new projects appearing on the platform seems to be declining over time. Be it a campaign that doesn’t provide enough information about its concept or developers, or one whose attributes simply don’t appear to be worth the amount it’s asking for, my backing rate and decreased tremendously over the past couple of months. Lately I’m having difficulty finding anything that interests me and it’s been a while since something really made me excited.
One of the reasons for this reduced quality could be the big names as discussed in my point above. Here’s Ben’s take on the situation: “At the end of the day I see it as a double-edged sword. One where remakes and new ideas from the great developers of the past can see the light of day but at the same time, it’s beginning to stifle the very people it was designed to help and that’s a very sad thing. In time, I’m sure a balance will be struck but right now the market is still trying to find its feet and the big boys are, unsurprisingly, dominating. After all, if you had some cash to back of these guys, wouldn’t you rather back a sure-thing rather than the risky outsider?”
Another reason for the lack of good campaigns is the fact that everyone now thinks they can do it, and the best way to explain this is by making a comparison to the YouTube Generation. There was a time when a select number of talented online celebrities made a living from the service, but the whole world has jumped on the bandwagon and the market has become saturated with some pretty terrible vloggers. It’s the same with Kickstarter: there are a lot of people out there who think they have what it takes to run a successful crowdfunding campaign and make a video game that’s going to become the next-big-thing. The result is a platform featuring a number of projects from creators who have little experience, little skill, or little common sense.
![The quality between available projects varies greatly.]()
The quality between available projects varies greatly.
There’s an example of this I can share with you although I’m unable to name names. I have a friend who quit his full-time job approximately four years ago to make mobile games and he’s since managed to earn himself a grand total of around £2,000. Before starting this site, he approached us about the possibility of managing a Kickstarter campaign for him; he wanted £15,000 to make a new game which was basically a rip-off of a classic from the 1990s. Because he wanted this money to pay himself a wage rather than fund his idea, and the fact that his previous titles hadn’t exactly made him famous, we politely declined.
I recently read an article in a newspaper and in this Kat Hannaford, editor of Gizmodo UK, said that Kickstarter could do with more quality control ‘as it’s awfully hard sifting through the junk sometimes’. While I agree with her that it’s hard to find good campaigns nowadays, I don’t believe this is entirely in the spirit of crowdfunding. Obviously there should be constraints that mean creators share all necessary information for backers to be able to make an informed decision, but surely any further kind of control would result in a restriction on creativity and openness?
The only advice I can give here is not to back anything you have any doubts about or is asking for a funding target that seems way too high for the concept. Take your time to dig through ‘the junk’ referred to by Hannaford and you may still manage to find a diamond in the rough. Hopefully the quality of projects will increase again over time, but unfortunately I don’t see this changing any time soon…
![Keep looking and you may find a diamond in the rough - like we did with The Long Dark.]()
Keep looking and you may find a diamond in the rough – like we did with The Long Dark.
Kickstarter as a company seem more interested in money than creativeness
According to Kickstarter, their mission is to ‘help bring creative projects to life’. They say: “We believe creative projects make for a better world, and we’re thrilled to help support new ones. Building a community of backers around an idea is an amazing way to make something new.” So why does the company seem more interested in their profits of late?
The reason I say this is because, as mentioned above, they’ve signed off on some pretty dubious campaigns recently. For example, take the project for Above the Game: A Guide to Getting Awesome with Women by Ken Hoinsky, a book that encourages men to aggressively dominate the opposite sex if they want to get laid. Here’s some of the advice offered by this ‘talented’ author in case you’re interested: “Decide that you’re going to sit in a position where you can rub her leg and back. Physically pick her up and sit her on your lap. Don’t ask for permission. Be dominant. Force her to rebuff your advances.” (I’d rebuff his advances with a swift kick in the balls.)
Hoinsky used Kickstarter to raise 800% of his target. After widespread protest, the platform called the project ‘abhorrent and inconsistent with our values as people and as an organisation’ – but still allowed it to be funded and took their five percent cut of the earnings. In response to a blog post by comedian Casey Malone, the company published the following statement: “Material that a project creator posted on Reddit earlier this year was brought to our and the public’s attention just hours before the project’s deadline… Based on our current guidelines, however, the material on Reddit did not warrant the irreversible action of cancelling the project.”
![According to Kickstarter, this was 'abhorrent and inconsistent' - but the campaign was still funded.]()
According to Kickstarter, this was ‘abhorrent and inconsistent’ – but still funded.
They went on to say: “As stewards of Kickstarter we sometimes have to make difficult decisions. We followed the discussion around the web very closely. It led to a lot of internal discussion and will lead to a further review of our policies.” I can’t help but feel that the company would have acted differently if Hoinsky’s awful book encouraged racism or homophobia rather than sexism, something which is sadly seen as the ‘norm’ in many arenas – or if the campaign hadn’t been pledged around 765% of its $2,000 target.
They were quick to announce that they passed $1 billion in pledges from over five million backers on 03 March 2014, and this is something that was picked up on by Phil. Our eligible bachelor (who has no need for Hoinsky’s rubbish) said: “The boasting about the $1 billion mark just goes to show how much they care about the money rather than the quality of projects and their end benefits. The fact that the website itself is horrendous for searching and indexing shows they’re only interested in profit rather than improvement.”
We can only hope that Kickstarter start putting their focus back onto the concept behind the projects they sign off on and improvements for their site, rather than the profits they’re raking in. But in the meantime, there are a number of other crowdfunding platforms to check out including Indiegogo; just beware of projects that are using more than one at the same time or seem to bounce between sites after failing to meet their targets.
![There are other crowdfunding platforms out there besides Kickstarter.]()
There are other crowdfunding platforms out there besides Kickstarter.
So, based on all of the points I’ve put forward in this post, will the 1001-Up.com team continue to use Kickstarter? In all likelihood yes: despite becoming a little disillusioned with the site of late, I still believe it’s a great way to be put in touch with new developers and interesting concepts you may never otherwise hear about. We’ve met some fantastic teams and individuals through the platform, and had the opportunity to demo some inspiring games. And sure, as a backer you may receive a wonderful reward after a successful campaign; but what’s fulfilling is knowing that you’ve helped make somebody’s dream come true. There’s nothing like seeing a thank you and your name in the end credits.
Since starting the site it’s been our mission to support independent developers and that’s not something we see changing any time soon. We’ll just have to search a little harder, sifting through the junk (Hannaford’s phrase again), controversy and commercialisation for the next special project to back. It will be interesting to see where the future of Kickstarter lies; but it’s clear judging by the sheer number of platforms and the amount of money backers are putting up to support good ideas, that crowdfunding is here to stay.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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