Kickstarter updates terms: 'The creator must complete the project' - Polidicks

[url]http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/226071/Kickstarter_updates_terms_The_creator_must_complete_the_project.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GamasutraNews+%28Gamasutra+News%29[/url] [quote]Right as a a high-profile campaign goes down in flames, Kickstarter has made some drastic changes to its terms of use which now stipulate that "the creator must complete the project and fulfill each reward." That doesn't mean projects won't fail anymore, of course. In a section headed "how projects work," Kickstarter now says that if a project does fail, its creator has "failed to live up to the basic obligations of this agreement" and those which do not meet its new terms of service, as detailed below, "may be subject to legal action by backers." The new terms say that a creator "has only remedied the situation and met their obligations to backers if": - they post an update that explains what work has been done, how funds were used, and what prevents them from finishing the project as planned; - they work diligently and in good faith to bring the project to the best possible conclusion in a timeframe that’s communicated to backers; - they’re able to demonstrate that they’ve used funds appropriately and made every reasonable effort to complete the project as promised; - they’ve been honest, and have made [B]no material misrepresentations[/B] in their communication to backers; and - [B]they offer to return any remaining funds to backers who have not received their reward (in proportion to the amounts pledged)[/B], or else explain how those funds will be used to complete the project in some alternate form. Earlier this year, the Washington State attorney general filed suit against a Kickstarter campaign creator that failed to deliver the goods. Again, you can see the updated terms on Kickstarter's site right here.[/quote]

I wonder what this means for things like Double Fine's Kickstarter-funded projects, where the game worked, but the game had to be split in half?

No more half-assed unfinished potato salads for us

A.Fucking Finally. B.It'll be interesting to see who gets bit in the ass for this or are all projects before this rule was instated grandfathered in?

I've always said that if a creator can't complete a project, they should release the source code. I understand that is difficult to do when they're using middleware that is licensed but why not release the assets that you've created and the lines of code that you've written that aren't tied to some third party license?

YES! YES! For too long have people been taken the money and fucking running away with it or extending it completely to incomprehensible time limits. Fuck them. Finally.

Perfect.

[QUOTE=Ziron;46026524]I wonder what this means for things like Double Fine's Kickstarter-funded projects, where the game worked, but the game had to be split in half?[/QUOTE] Or even Anita's project which promised to have the series done in 2012. Hell a lot of the DVD backer promises are 2 years outta date.

[QUOTE=Swilly;46026530]A.Fucking Finally. B.It'll be interesting to see who gets bit in the ass for this or are all projects before this rule was instated grandfathered in?[/QUOTE] [quote]The updated terms go into effect for all projects launched on or after October 19, 2014.[/quote] [url]https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/an-update-to-our-terms-of-use[/url]

I still think there should be some kind of "middle-man" who gives out the money raised by the Kickstarter bit by bit instead of them getting it all in one wallop. Unless, that's what already happens anyway. You get all that money at once and your not exactly going to be motivated to work your ass off, now are you?

[QUOTE=Highwind017;46026638]I still think there should be some kind of "middle-man" who gives out the money raised by the Kickstarter bit by bit instead of them getting it all in one wallop. Unless, that's what already happens anyway. You get all that money at once and your not exactly going to be motivated to work your ass off, now are you?[/QUOTE] this is a very bad idea. paypal has actually seized money from campaigns and done just that before. it doesn't work out.

to play devil's advocate isn't the whole point of kickstarter that you're not buying a product you're investing in a possibility... i guess the problem is that when the money goes to developing software (IE games) then its very difficult to judge how well it will even be spent

While this is great news, I'm upset because it took them this long to make this happen :v:

[QUOTE=DaMastez;46026584][url]https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/an-update-to-our-terms-of-use[/url][/QUOTE] SO yeah, older projects have been grandfathered in.

[QUOTE=Sableye;46026680]to play devil's advocate isn't the whole point of kickstarter that you're not buying a product you're investing in a possibility... i guess the problem is that when the money goes to developing software (IE games) then its very difficult to judge how well it will even be spent[/QUOTE] If the developers do their best but things just don't work out, that's fine. This is more for those that just don't even try to live up to their promises, or bungle things up almost intentionally to run with the money.

Good. This needed to happen.

It sucks that a lot of scummy people already ran away with the money and are now pretty much untouchable, but honestly putting blind trust on anything is a recipe for disaster. At least there won't be a repeat(s)

[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;46026514]- they offer to return any remaining funds to backers who have not received their reward (in proportion to the amounts pledged), or else explain how those funds will be used to complete the project in some alternate form.[/QUOTE] Does this actually do anything? I don't follow kickstarter that much, but I'd assume that scammers would eat up all the funds before declaring zero-funds and that legit people would either use all the money to make a less-shitty half-product or refund it anyways

[QUOTE=TheHydra;46026656]this is a very bad idea. paypal has actually seized money from campaigns and done just that before. it doesn't work out.[/QUOTE] Paypal seizes money from everybody. It's blatant theft and nobody does anything about it because they can't afford the lawsuit that would ensue.

I guess now there wont be excuses like "The Sun told me to stop working on the project"

Though it's a step forward, it still seem like subjective and vague terms to me, for example how are you going to prove a project creator has been "honest" about what's been done and how the money has been used? The terms above don't actually stop a creator from making unreasonable promises and when the money is about to run out just come out and say "Sorry we didn't expect this project to require ten times what we were asking, thanks for paying my rent for the past year though, here's 5$ out of your 100$ pledge back!" or otherwise just release whatever they managed to produce with their budget and call it finished.

ripip kickstarter helloooooooooo patreon

[QUOTE=thrawn2787;46027627]ripip kickstarter helloooooooooo patreon[/QUOTE] It seems like whenever someone actually creates a service and then inevitably updates it to better protect consumers, people get angry.

[QUOTE=Sableye;46026680]to play devil's advocate isn't the whole point of kickstarter that you're not buying a product you're investing in a possibility... i guess the problem is that when the money goes to developing software (IE games) then its very difficult to judge how well it will even be spent[/QUOTE] Kickstarter was always supposed to be about donating to an idea, not investing or pre-ordering, but it looks like enough people got pissed that it didn't function as a fancy pre-order system that they've actually changed the agreement. As if finishing a game or developing a new tech product wasn't difficult enough, now if a team fails or gets stuck in development hell they can be taken to court or forced to refund money they've already spent. Who, besides established, known players, as opposed to the amateurs Kickstarter was supposed to be for, is going to take that risk now? Well done Kickstarter, you have pandered to idiots and single-handedly destroyed the concept on which your service is based.

Aw damn, now I'll never be able to scam people outta their lunch money in exchange for false promises of an MLP dating sim.

[QUOTE=catbarf;46027707]Kickstarter was always supposed to be about donating to an idea, not investing or pre-ordering, but it looks like enough people got pissed that it didn't function as a fancy pre-order system that they've actually changed the agreement. As if finishing a game or developing a new tech product wasn't difficult enough, now if a team fails or gets stuck in development hell they can be taken to court or forced to refund money they've already spent. Who, besides established, known players, as opposed to the amateurs Kickstarter was supposed to be for, is going to take that risk now? Well done Kickstarter, you have pandered to idiots and single-handedly destroyed the concept on which your service is based.[/QUOTE] [quote] - they offer to return any [B][U]remaining funds[/U][/B] to backers who have not received their reward (in proportion to the amounts pledged)[/quote]

Looks like I need to get my scam on thee pronto

[QUOTE=hypno-toad;46026527]No more half-assed unfinished potato salads for us[/QUOTE] More like even more unfinished shit, except now people'll be trying to pass it off as finished.

It'll be just like that one game that abruptly ends halfway through with a slab of text because they "didn't get enough funds" to actually finish the game so they just released an unfinished product and slapped a "final release" sticker on it. [editline]found[/editline] Found it, it's Dark Matter [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTPS_GGhMqk[/media] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRSrTJKbRYA]Takedown: Red Sabre[/url] also comes to mind. Hell, even Notch pulled the same shit with Minecraft a while ago.

This changes nothing for games because they can just decide that their alpha game is suddenly ready for 1.0 and hey look it's "finished"! Particularly with sandbox games as they're hard to measure as "finished". Hell they can just claim the game as it stands is a "modding base". Don't even have to release modding tools or scripts, they can just open source it and call it a day. I don't think it's [I]too[/I] far of a stretch to say that developers may try to pull something like that. Though I can't think of a single example in recent history of somebody doing something like that, so who knows? Maybe people won't abuse the meaning of "release" and actually release finished games. Not like everybody in the industry has been abusing the term for several years already.