Game publishers abusing Kickstarter

Kickstarter is one of the largest crowd funding websites, a place where enterpreneurs can raise cash to fund projects. Popular project funded via Kickstarter include the Pebble E-Paper Watch, the Ouya video game console and the Oculus Rift virtual reality head-mounted display, and a bunch of video games. Some projects never take off, but the most popular Kickstarters receive millions of dollars in funding.

Unfortunately, not everyone has the best intentions and Destructoid heard from Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart that game publishers are abusing Kickstarter to get games for free:

"We were actually contacted by some publishers over the last few months that wanted to use us to do a Kickstarter," he revealed on his team's own KS page. "I said to them 'So, you want us to do a Kickstarter for, using our name, we then get the Kickstarter money to make the game, you then publish the game, but we then don't get to keep the brand we make and we only get a portion of the profits.'

"They said, 'Yes'."

On a related note, Kickstarter announced on its blog that it's implementing new rules to give people a better understanding of what Kickstarter is all about. Kickstarter project will be required to provide a list of risks and challenges the project faces, and all projects will need to answer to the question, "What are the risks and challenges this project faces, and what qualifies you to overcome them?”. On top of that, hardware and product design kickstarter projects will have to present products as they are, and will no longer be allowed to show project simulations or renderings so as not to overpromise.

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. Today we're introducing a number of changes to reinforce that Kickstarter isn’t a store — it’s a new way for creators and audiences to work together to make things.