No, protecting me from lies, deceit, and fraud. When I open my wallet and give money based on promises and a deadline if it isn't fulfilled people should be punished.
You need to read linked articles before you post them(2 links to same case...?). The article(s) do not relate to repercussions for failing to deliver the product, missmanaged money or w/e, they are related to rewards that are only KS's binding element.
No one is lying or decieving you. The terms of the deal are clear - you give us money and we will do "our best" to make a game, no guarantees involved.
If you want guarantees, spend your money on finished products instead of donating some else's business.
If it were to fail the only good thing that might come out of it, would be teaching some people not to hand money over on faith alone. Actually who am I kidding, gamers are their worst enemies.
No, protecting me from lies, deceit, and fraud. When I open my wallet and give money based on promises and a deadline if it isn't fulfilled people should be punished.
You need to read linked articles before you post them(2 links to same case...?). The article(s) do not relate to repercussions for failing to deliver the product, missmanaged money or w/e, they are related to rewards that are only KS's binding element.
No one is lying or decieving you. The terms of the deal are clear - you give us money and we will do "our best" to make a game, no guarantees involved.
If you want guarantees, spend your money on finished products instead of donating some else's business.
If, for example, Star Citizen didn't make it and the digital "rewards" weren't able to be delivered but they had already gone through millions upon millions of dollars and couldn't pay back the consumers, as is the Kickstarter agreement - they get punished.
The complaint charges Erik Chevalier with misusing the $122,874 in pledges he received for a board game called The Doom That Came to Atlantic City, which features characters from the works of H.P. Lovecraft on a Monopoly-style board. Chevalier agreed to a settle with the FTC that includes a fine of $111,793.71. Kickstarter’s Terms of Use states that a funded project must either deliver the promised rewards to its backers or refund their money, but the website does not rigorously enforce the policy. Although Kickstarter claims that its projects have an excellent record of delivering on their promises, a lack of transparency could scare potential backers away from the website.
That's exactly how I see it. Unless and until something catastrophic happens we won't get any sort of legislation to protect us.
It's just like gun control, etc. Something crazy happens and then politicians go buckwild.
Erm...protecting you from what? Opening your wallet and throwing money away?
How about acknowledging responsibility for your very own doing?
No, protecting me from lies, deceit, and fraud. When I open my wallet and give money based on promises and a deadline if it isn't fulfilled people should be punished.
You are protected from lies, committing fraud is against the law.
Committing fraud in such a manner is highly public. You leave a trail from start to finish. ON top of that there's a good shot
at winning a class action lawsuit in the case of negligence.
There
are many forms of "protection" in place, we see links to them in action
here quite often. What you want you will never get though, as what you
want is guarantees on investments, or donations, what ever you want to
call it. That's essentially impossible in this industry, sometimes games
just don't work, they're not fun, the design was problematic, etc, etc,
etc...A number of things can stop a game or feature's development in
it's tracks. That's simply the reality of the gaming industry. OR any
creative industry.
The only thing such legislation would do is
tie a proverbial noose around the entire process ,essentially killing
it IMO.. To who's benefit? Certainly not legitimate projects. As it ties their hands as well.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
No, protecting me from lies, deceit, and fraud. When I open my wallet and give money based on promises and a deadline if it isn't fulfilled people should be punished.
You need to read linked articles before you post them(2 links to same case...?). The article(s) do not relate to repercussions for failing to deliver the product, missmanaged money or w/e, they are related to rewards that are only KS's binding element.
No one is lying or decieving you. The terms of the deal are clear - you give us money and we will do "our best" to make a game, no guarantees involved.
If you want guarantees, spend your money on finished products instead of donating some else's business.
If, for example, Star Citizen didn't make it and the digital "rewards" weren't able to be delivered but they had already gone through millions upon millions of dollars and couldn't pay back the consumers, as is the Kickstarter agreement - they get punished.
That's almost impossible to happen. They could just rush out the promised stuff and a buggy game after laying off most of their employees..
Meanwhile as this is all going on No Mans Sky will slowly jog on to huge success,despite being graphically inferior. Squadron 44 will be a nice little Wing Commander 3 remake though. WC 3 is when real sets were made for the filming of cut scenes as you played Mark Hamill. As for the Star Citizen online game, enjoy the hackers if there''s no server side systems in place to tackle it.
There will of course be cutbacks, hardly any game ever delivered all that was promised.
There is the chance of total failure. After all, this is not a bank that gets backed by the general public. But its quite unlikely, given the extreme amount of funding available.
I' m really critical about how SC is evolving and I believe it won't realistically get released in the form they promised.
However, at the same time, I don't want that to happen. I do want to see it released in its final form. The project has become so massive that it failing would cause some widespread damage, especially to crowdfunding of course. While the latter can be a good alternative for smaller, realistic projects like the Divinities, Pillars or Eternity and Wasteland like titles.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
It is impossible for Star citizen to fail at this point, there are too many people that want that game and are willing to throw money at it.
Unless you mean it launches and it's not the best game ever made? in which case, that's going to happen. It can't live upto the hype.
Sometimes things launch and are total failures, can't operate properly, are unplayable, and missing huge amounts of features.
Remember Vanguard: Saga of Heroes? People were getting fired in the parking lot and a game was released that crashed on 99.9% of peoples computers - it was unplayable, beyond schedule, and under developed.
I hope Star Citizen releases, for the Player's sake. I just don't agree with Kickstarters / Crowdfunding in general, especially for Online games, and I won't participate in them for funding of new Online games. I will wait for release.
If SC fails it will hurt many People and the genre itself I fear. I do not want to see that happen.
Failure of SC Scenario 1 - What happened to all the monies?
Financial mismanagement, embezzlement, fraud, theft, etc. causes the collapse of the company before the game is released. The government takes over all the properties. A greedy publisher might arrive and make a deal and buy the project at a fraction of its worth (worth would still be a fraction of the total budget) or the government salvage whatever they can to pay back the people, whom still would be receiving a fraction of what they have pledged towards the project. I doubt if anyone would be happy received ie. 20% (even if) of their donation after several years. This would damage the backers both financially and emotionally.
This wouldn't cause crowdfunding in general much harm directly. But no video game related project will be able to received such funds ever again. MMO future campaigns will suffer a lot more than others.
The hypothetical fiasco might force authorities to pass bills and make various regulations to prevent any similar events in the future. Which in its core is not a bad thing. But usually when these things happen during a fiasco they happen to take drastic measures. Launching a crowdfunding campaign will be become harder than receiving a bank loan. Bankers are pro this motion and their influence will be indeed a force. Depending on how many countries will roll with US decisions (Canada, Australia & UK for sure) this might kill crowdfunding in these countries. Life will go on rest of the world but with a huge dent in the market. I don't know why this whole scenario reminds me of Online Gambling fiasco which happened few years ago.
Failure of SC Scenario 2 - Review in progress.. no light at the end of this tunnel
Doesn't matter if they are forced to release their unfinished product earlier than they wanted to because of the legal issues or bad publicity or, their dream, their final product isn't just good. That can happen. To be honest if you look at the history of this industry over the past ten years that is the most probability statistically. Sure they have a big name behind their project and they have a triple A budget. But I'm sure you can count many other MMOs with great devs behind them, tremendous budget and a much stronger IP that have already failed hard.
Success of SC - ...Astral
They get passed all this drama and accusations with their head held high and a deliver a game which receives the appraisal of both players and critics. Well, 1 million backers will be happy. That's a good start. It proves that a triple A project can be done without the help of any publisher by crowdfunding alone. That will have a major effect on MMO industry. There will be more good projects with better funding in the future. But this would also attract so many wolves. So many others that will look at crowdfunding with a whole new take and they will find ways and means to work the system. If not SC, there will be a fiasco one day anyways you can't avoid that forever, maybe even bigger. That happens everyday to companies taking monies from loan sharks, banks, investors, etc. They have risked their house, their marriage, their free, etc. and they still steal. So you can't really believe that no one will be ever tempted to just take $100,000,000 and run. I'm sure even CR has thought about that, maybe they even have an inside joke. Another con is CR will get away with whatever funny business he has done. And of course he has done some. He's not the savior!
I personally prefer if the third scenario happens. It has a certain nicer ring to it. Maybe there are stuff that I haven't thought about. But I too believe like someone else mentioned that there are laws that already protects us against deceit. I myself don't like bad stuff happen to good people so I have a drama to watch, just like I don't pray for an Earthquake or a fire upon whoever said that for my the sake of my own entertainment.
I don't have a crowdfunding campaign, I don't intend to launch one, I don't "need" it to exists. But I think it's a good thing. Take your time and browse campaigns unrelated to video games. Cancer patients are getting funded, books getting published, students getting scholarships, old nice buildings are being preserved, humanitarian causes happening and a lot more over these campaigns. Yeah there are bad apples, like in every other thing in the world. There are even asshole bees! But it's a good thing and it's doing good, way more than it's doing bad. So why it shouldn't do good for gaming too? Even for MMO industry which currently is in a state of suffer.
Right now developers have several choices; going to a publisher, taking a loan or sell their own house. Why shouldn't they have a fourth choice? It is still up to you who gets your money. Well, I'm pro choice maybe because I'm a liberal and not a conservative.
This has become a long post but I just want to add my final thought. Yes, crowdfunding should change and should improve. Nothing is perfect and everything is evolving. My opinion is there shouldn't be ongoing stretch goals to the release time. There should be a campaign for 30 days, 90 days or whatever. If the campaign passes the original amount they can add stretch goals. But they shouldn't just move this to their own site and keep on accepting pledges and keep adding stretch goals. I love these guys but 'hiring a video guy' is a not appropriate stretch goal when people are donating your salaries, and so many others. Donations should halt after the original campaign ends, and then when they reached alpha state they be able to launch more stretch goals for another 30 days. Imagine if we had that rule for the project we're discussing now.. I believe we had so much less drama and so much more gaming to do right now.
Pardon any grammar/spell errors, I wrote this while I was dealing with so many other stuff
Gaming Rocks next gen. community for last gen. gamers launching soon.
You post and the title don't really line up well here. I don't think you worded your question properly. Unless you are directing the question sarcastically at some list of "haters"
Otherwise, how on earth would this ever be a good thing?
You are protected from lies, committing fraud is against the law.
Committing fraud in such a manner is highly public. You leave a trail from start to finish. ON top of that there's a good shot
at winning a class action lawsuit in the case of negligence.
There
are many forms of "protection" in place, we see links to them in action
here quite often. What you want you will never get though, as what you
want is guarantees on investments, or donations, what ever you want to
call it. That's essentially impossible in this industry, sometimes games
just don't work, they're not fun, the design was problematic, etc, etc,
etc...A number of things can stop a game or feature's development in
it's tracks. That's simply the reality of the gaming industry. OR any
creative industry.
The only thing such legislation would do is
tie a proverbial noose around the entire process ,essentially killing
it IMO.. To who's benefit? Certainly not legitimate projects. As it ties their hands as well.
There's never a way to gain any guarantee a project won't fail, but something as simple as disclosing salary of the CEO, all his family members and relatives, and everyone who gets paid more than 200 000 $/year could go a long way towards making sure the money goes to right address.
Or maybe a rule that projects larger than 1 000 000$ would need to set some money aside to be used for independent audit that gets done in case the company fails to deliver some of the rewards promised, or if large enough proportion of the backers ask for it.
Power corrupts. There needs to be some checks in place to make sure that a person who's both CEO and owner uses the money responsibility until he has fulfilled promises to backers. After the promises are fulfilled the rest is his own profit from the venture to use in any way he decides.
Let me be clear, I think that many of us in the gaming industry are gullible. We are often times blinded by the need to have the escapism we once had in whatever title brought us to love MMORPGs. Whether it be Ultima, EQ, whatever.
These promises that people like CR are making are having hard working men and women part with their money simply for the hope that it will satisfy their desire to have the same escapism they once had.
Crowdfunding is a means to exploit people in this industry and I just don't like it. There needs to be more control and protection. Even the stock market has more protection and laws governing it.
The reality is, anyone with a video or spreadsheet can make a Kickstarter and promise the world. People will happily give up their money for it.
Some things I feel should be in place for crowdfunding legality would be providing reasonable proof that you can create the product you claim to create. Have it broken down into charts showing where funding will be used, projections of how long it will take, and some sort of evidence that you can bring this product to market.
"Just take my word for it" and getting paid seems wrong.
You are protected from lies, committing fraud is against the law.
Committing fraud in such a manner is highly public. You leave a trail from start to finish. ON top of that there's a good shot
at winning a class action lawsuit in the case of negligence.
There
are many forms of "protection" in place, we see links to them in action
here quite often. What you want you will never get though, as what you
want is guarantees on investments, or donations, what ever you want to
call it. That's essentially impossible in this industry, sometimes games
just don't work, they're not fun, the design was problematic, etc, etc,
etc...A number of things can stop a game or feature's development in
it's tracks. That's simply the reality of the gaming industry. OR any
creative industry.
The only thing such legislation would do is
tie a proverbial noose around the entire process ,essentially killing
it IMO.. To who's benefit? Certainly not legitimate projects. As it ties their hands as well.
There's never a way to gain any guarantee a project won't fail, but something as simple as disclosing salary of the CEO, all his family members and relatives, and everyone who gets paid more than 200 000 $/year could go a long way towards making sure the money goes to right address.
Or maybe a rule that projects larger than 1 000 000$ would need to set some money aside to be used for independent audit that gets done in case the company fails to deliver some of the rewards promised, or if large enough proportion of the backers ask for it.
Power corrupts. There needs to be some checks in place to make sure that a person who's both CEO and owner uses the money responsibility until he has fulfilled promises to backers. After the promises are fulfilled the rest is his own profit from the venture to use in any way he decides.
Where is the line drawn there in terms of financial privacy? There's also the cases of private enterprise where it's a one man operation, essentially all money pays their salary as it's what they raise in donations to be able to work on the project at hand. Isn't that in the end what kickstarter/crowdfunded money covers in the case of many projects? Salary/Salaries?
I see where the concern lies, yet these are the same risks any investment group faces. I guess one could argue all companies using crowdfunding should be forced into full disclosure... Yet that's a matter of how the courts view it in the end, companies have a right to be privately held across the board in the United States as an example. I'm not sure how that would boil over in said judicial system.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
You are protected from lies, committing fraud is against the law.
Committing fraud in such a manner is highly public. You leave a trail from start to finish. ON top of that there's a good shot
at winning a class action lawsuit in the case of negligence.
There
are many forms of "protection" in place, we see links to them in action
here quite often. What you want you will never get though, as what you
want is guarantees on investments, or donations, what ever you want to
call it. That's essentially impossible in this industry, sometimes games
just don't work, they're not fun, the design was problematic, etc, etc,
etc...A number of things can stop a game or feature's development in
it's tracks. That's simply the reality of the gaming industry. OR any
creative industry.
The only thing such legislation would do is
tie a proverbial noose around the entire process ,essentially killing
it IMO.. To who's benefit? Certainly not legitimate projects. As it ties their hands as well.
There's never a way to gain any guarantee a project won't fail, but something as simple as disclosing salary of the CEO, all his family members and relatives, and everyone who gets paid more than 200 000 $/year could go a long way towards making sure the money goes to right address.
Or maybe a rule that projects larger than 1 000 000$ would need to set some money aside to be used for independent audit that gets done in case the company fails to deliver some of the rewards promised, or if large enough proportion of the backers ask for it.
Power corrupts. There needs to be some checks in place to make sure that a person who's both CEO and owner uses the money responsibility until he has fulfilled promises to backers. After the promises are fulfilled the rest is his own profit from the venture to use in any way he decides.
Where is the line drawn there in terms of financial privacy? There's also the cases of private enterprise where it's a one man operation, essentially all money pays their salary as it's what they raise in donations to be able to work on the project at hand. Isn't that in the end what kickstarter/crowdfunded money covers in the case of many projects? Salary/Salaries?
I see where the concern lies, yet these are the same risks any investment group faces. I guess one could argue all companies using crowdfunding should be forced into full disclosure... Yet that's a matter of how the courts view it in the end, companies have a right to be privately held across the board in the United States as an example. I'm not sure how that would boil over in said judicial system.
There are very, very strict laws governing investments.
These laws have been in place since 1933 and are referred to as The Securities Act of 1933.
It requires independent accountants to review the investment. Elaborate information about the management of the company. It is also subject to audits under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. This allows the "Public Company Accounting Oversight Board," to come in and audit the company, individuals, and demand financial disclosures at any time.
If Kickstarter was governed by these same rules it would be much more difficult to create a kickstarter and substantial proof and evidence would have to be offered in accordance with said law. You couldn't just make a video with you playing with a joystick and get paid.
Most importantly:
Often referred to as the "truth in securities" law, the Securities Act of 1933 has two basic objectives:
require that investors receive financial and other significant information concerning securities being offered for public sale; and
prohibit deceit, misrepresentations, and other fraud in the sale of securities.
If it fails? LOL I mean don't get me wrong, I love for this game to be a huge success because I would love to play a game that was what they advertised. It is painfully obvious by now that they can't do what they said they would. All this game is going to be is a very expensive space sim with some story campaign added to it. The actual open world MMO part of the game that everyone was hyped about is pretty much RIP at this point. I don't call getting a bunch of suckers to spend 100mil on pictures of ships a success, but if you do then I guess this game is a success. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if it is wrong.
How many people went to jail over the 38 Studios fiasco, none I think.
As long as CR shows he made a legitimate attempt to deliver the game it won't matter if 10% of the KS funding went to him and his family as part of their salaries. How much are EA execs paid?
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
To frame my response, in reply to the subject: I consider non-delivery of a product as 'failure'. If a delivered product isn't to my personal tastes, I don't necessarily consider that a failure.
That out of the way, I don't think SC is going to fail and, if you are looking for a project to crucify in front of the masses, I don't think SC is the best candidate. (In my opinion) There is no end of material that has been produced to show that a reasonable effort has been/is being made to complete the project. Additionally, changes in scope seem to be widely communicated with the community and refunds seem to be available when people don't support a scope change.
I would think that, since you believe 'crowdfunding is a means to exploit people', you would have no trouble finding an actual project that took money with no intent to deliver or intent to 'bait and switch'. That would make a much stronger case if you are looking to push a legislative agenda. Sure, SC is high profile because of the money they took in through KS (and the vast amounts they've taken in after KS), but that doesn't mean they are your best case against crowd funding.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong, no one forgets" -from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
How many people went to jail over the 38 Studios fiasco, none I think.
As long as CR shows he made a legitimate attempt to deliver the game it won't matter if 10% of the KS funding went to him and his family as part of their salaries. How much are EA execs paid?
I don't think it will be like that in this case. This is a bit backwards. Think about it, we're paying him before the game is made not after.
Most games made by EA are sold as completed products and marketed with features they can prove already exist in the game. They aren't getting millions of dollars from people and then starting development. Massive difference.
Comments
No one is lying or decieving you. The terms of the deal are clear - you give us money and we will do "our best" to make a game, no guarantees involved.
If you want guarantees, spend your money on finished products instead of donating some else's business.
Actually who am I kidding, gamers are their worst enemies.
Just like in this FTC suit:
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/techtank/posts/2015/06/30-ftc-complaint-kickstarter
The complaint charges Erik Chevalier with misusing the $122,874 in pledges he received for a board game called The Doom That Came to Atlantic City, which features characters from the works of H.P. Lovecraft on a Monopoly-style board. Chevalier agreed to a settle with the FTC that includes a fine of $111,793.71. Kickstarter’s Terms of Use states that a funded project must either deliver the promised rewards to its backers or refund their money, but the website does not rigorously enforce the policy. Although Kickstarter claims that its projects have an excellent record of delivering on their promises, a lack of transparency could scare potential backers away from the website.
You are protected from lies, committing fraud is against the law. Committing fraud in such a manner is highly public. You leave a trail from start to finish. ON top of that there's a good shot at winning a class action lawsuit in the case of negligence.
There are many forms of "protection" in place, we see links to them in action here quite often. What you want you will never get though, as what you want is guarantees on investments, or donations, what ever you want to call it. That's essentially impossible in this industry, sometimes games just don't work, they're not fun, the design was problematic, etc, etc, etc...A number of things can stop a game or feature's development in it's tracks. That's simply the reality of the gaming industry. OR any creative industry.
The only thing such legislation would do is tie a proverbial noose around the entire process ,essentially killing it IMO.. To who's benefit? Certainly not legitimate projects. As it ties their hands as well.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
If it fails, it should smarten up alot of gamers to not throw money at the nearest shiney thing.
There is the chance of total failure. After all, this is not a bank that gets backed by the general public. But its quite unlikely, given the extreme amount of funding available.
However, at the same time, I don't want that to happen. I do want to see it released in its final form. The project has become so massive that it failing would cause some widespread damage, especially to crowdfunding of course. While the latter can be a good alternative for smaller, realistic projects like the Divinities, Pillars or Eternity and Wasteland like titles.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Unless you mean it launches and it's not the best game ever made? in which case, that's going to happen. It can't live upto the hype.
Remember Vanguard: Saga of Heroes? People were getting fired in the parking lot and a game was released that crashed on 99.9% of peoples computers - it was unplayable, beyond schedule, and under developed.
If SC fails it will hurt many People and the genre itself I fear. I do not want to see that happen.
Financial mismanagement, embezzlement, fraud, theft, etc. causes the collapse of the company before the game is released. The government takes over all the properties. A greedy publisher might arrive and make a deal and buy the project at a fraction of its worth (worth would still be a fraction of the total budget) or the government salvage whatever they can to pay back the people, whom still would be receiving a fraction of what they have pledged towards the project. I doubt if anyone would be happy received ie. 20% (even if) of their donation after several years. This would damage the backers both financially and emotionally.
This wouldn't cause crowdfunding in general much harm directly. But no video game related project will be able to received such funds ever again. MMO future campaigns will suffer a lot more than others.
The hypothetical fiasco might force authorities to pass bills and make various regulations to prevent any similar events in the future. Which in its core is not a bad thing. But usually when these things happen during a fiasco they happen to take drastic measures. Launching a crowdfunding campaign will be become harder than receiving a bank loan. Bankers are pro this motion and their influence will be indeed a force. Depending on how many countries will roll with US decisions (Canada, Australia & UK for sure) this might kill crowdfunding in these countries. Life will go on rest of the world but with a huge dent in the market. I don't know why this whole scenario reminds me of Online Gambling fiasco which happened few years ago.
Failure of SC Scenario 2 - Review in progress.. no light at the end of this tunnel
Doesn't matter if they are forced to release their unfinished product earlier than they wanted to because of the legal issues or bad publicity or, their dream, their final product isn't just good. That can happen. To be honest if you look at the history of this industry over the past ten years that is the most probability statistically.
Sure they have a big name behind their project and they have a triple A budget. But I'm sure you can count many other MMOs with great devs behind them, tremendous budget and a much stronger IP that have already failed hard.
Success of SC - ...Astral
They get passed all this drama and accusations with their head held high and a deliver a game which receives the appraisal of both players and critics.
Well, 1 million backers will be happy. That's a good start.
It proves that a triple A project can be done without the help of any publisher by crowdfunding alone. That will have a major effect on MMO industry. There will be more good projects with better funding in the future. But this would also attract so many wolves. So many others that will look at crowdfunding with a whole new take and they will find ways and means to work the system. If not SC, there will be a fiasco one day anyways you can't avoid that forever, maybe even bigger. That happens everyday to companies taking monies from loan sharks, banks, investors, etc. They have risked their house, their marriage, their free, etc. and they still steal. So you can't really believe that no one will be ever tempted to just take $100,000,000 and run. I'm sure even CR has thought about that, maybe they even have an inside joke.
Another con is CR will get away with whatever funny business he has done. And of course he has done some. He's not the savior!
I personally prefer if the third scenario happens. It has a certain nicer ring to it. Maybe there are stuff that I haven't thought about. But I too believe like someone else mentioned that there are laws that already protects us against deceit. I myself don't like bad stuff happen to good people so I have a drama to watch, just like I don't pray for an Earthquake or a fire upon whoever said that for my the sake of my own entertainment.
I don't have a crowdfunding campaign, I don't intend to launch one, I don't "need" it to exists. But I think it's a good thing. Take your time and browse campaigns unrelated to video games. Cancer patients are getting funded, books getting published, students getting scholarships, old nice buildings are being preserved, humanitarian causes happening and a lot more over these campaigns. Yeah there are bad apples, like in every other thing in the world. There are even asshole bees! But it's a good thing and it's doing good, way more than it's doing bad. So why it shouldn't do good for gaming too? Even for MMO industry which currently is in a state of suffer.
Right now developers have several choices; going to a publisher, taking a loan or sell their own house. Why shouldn't they have a fourth choice? It is still up to you who gets your money. Well, I'm pro choice maybe because I'm a liberal and not a conservative.
This has become a long post but I just want to add my final thought. Yes, crowdfunding should change and should improve. Nothing is perfect and everything is evolving. My opinion is there shouldn't be ongoing stretch goals to the release time.
There should be a campaign for 30 days, 90 days or whatever. If the campaign passes the original amount they can add stretch goals. But they shouldn't just move this to their own site and keep on accepting pledges and keep adding stretch goals. I love these guys but 'hiring a video guy' is a not appropriate stretch goal when people are donating your salaries, and so many others. Donations should halt after the original campaign ends, and then when they reached alpha state they be able to launch more stretch goals for another 30 days.
Imagine if we had that rule for the project we're discussing now.. I believe we had so much less drama and so much more gaming to do right now.
Pardon any grammar/spell errors, I wrote this while I was dealing with so many other stuff
Otherwise, how on earth would this ever be a good thing?
Or maybe a rule that projects larger than 1 000 000$ would need to set some money aside to be used for independent audit that gets done in case the company fails to deliver some of the rewards promised, or if large enough proportion of the backers ask for it.
Power corrupts. There needs to be some checks in place to make sure that a person who's both CEO and owner uses the money responsibility until he has fulfilled promises to backers. After the promises are fulfilled the rest is his own profit from the venture to use in any way he decides.
These promises that people like CR are making are having hard working men and women part with their money simply for the hope that it will satisfy their desire to have the same escapism they once had.
Crowdfunding is a means to exploit people in this industry and I just don't like it. There needs to be more control and protection. Even the stock market has more protection and laws governing it.
The reality is, anyone with a video or spreadsheet can make a Kickstarter and promise the world. People will happily give up their money for it.
Some things I feel should be in place for crowdfunding legality would be providing reasonable proof that you can create the product you claim to create. Have it broken down into charts showing where funding will be used, projections of how long it will take, and some sort of evidence that you can bring this product to market.
"Just take my word for it" and getting paid seems wrong.
I see where the concern lies, yet these are the same risks any investment group faces. I guess one could argue all companies using crowdfunding should be forced into full disclosure... Yet that's a matter of how the courts view it in the end, companies have a right to be privately held across the board in the United States as an example. I'm not sure how that would boil over in said judicial system.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
These laws have been in place since 1933 and are referred to as The Securities Act of 1933.
It requires independent accountants to review the investment. Elaborate information about the management of the company. It is also subject to audits under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. This allows the "Public Company Accounting Oversight Board," to come in and audit the company, individuals, and demand financial disclosures at any time.
If Kickstarter was governed by these same rules it would be much more difficult to create a kickstarter and substantial proof and evidence would have to be offered in accordance with said law. You couldn't just make a video with you playing with a joystick and get paid.
Most importantly:
Often referred to as the "truth in securities" law, the Securities Act of 1933 has two basic objectives:
require that investors receive financial and other significant information concerning securities being offered for public sale; and
prohibit deceit, misrepresentations, and other fraud in the sale of securities.
As long as CR shows he made a legitimate attempt to deliver the game it won't matter if 10% of the KS funding went to him and his family as part of their salaries. How much are EA execs paid?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
That out of the way, I don't think SC is going to fail and, if you are looking for a project to crucify in front of the masses, I don't think SC is the best candidate. (In my opinion) There is no end of material that has been produced to show that a reasonable effort has been/is being made to complete the project. Additionally, changes in scope seem to be widely communicated with the community and refunds seem to be available when people don't support a scope change.
I would think that, since you believe 'crowdfunding is a means to exploit people', you would have no trouble finding an actual project that took money with no intent to deliver or intent to 'bait and switch'. That would make a much stronger case if you are looking to push a legislative agenda. Sure, SC is high profile because of the money they took in through KS (and the vast amounts they've taken in after KS), but that doesn't mean they are your best case against crowd funding.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
Most games made by EA are sold as completed products and marketed with features they can prove already exist in the game. They aren't getting millions of dollars from people and then starting development. Massive difference.