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Eh. It's not called Kickpurchase, it's called Kickfund. (Okay, this one was actually on Indiegogo.) You want something guaranteed to ship perfectly? That's wha

Eh. It's not called Kickpurchase, it's called Kickfund. (Okay, this one was actually on Indiegogo.) You want something guaranteed to ship perfectly? That's what Amazon is for. The point of Kickstarter and its ilk is that it is a risk – that's why it usually comes with lower prices and the ability to have it first. When you buy on Kickstarter, you aren't preordering. You're crowdfunding something that doesn't exist yet. On the Diffusion of Innovation chart, you aren't an Early Adopter... you're an Innovator [1]. The creators put in time; you're putting in money. As long as there's no fraud, I think failures like this should be treated as an acceptable part of this new method of funding. (That being said, two caveats: first is that failures like this might be acceptable but they're still bad for Kickstarter+Indiegogo, and second is that I'd be a lot less rational and forgiving if I had lost money on this) [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/DiffusionOfInnovation.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/DiffusionOfIn...

2muchcoffeeman 11y ago
Kickstarter and Indiegogo should probably provide some basic guidance though. I still feel bad for the ZPM Espresso machine guys: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/zpm-espresso-and-the-rage-of-the-jilted-crowdfunder.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/zpm-espresso-and-... They had a working product. Had they stuck to their 50 prototype units they initially wanted to build, they may still be here.
VLM 11y ago
> When you buy on Kickstarter, you aren't preordering. Its a really big elephant being felt by blind men. So... no. One very specific example of a kickstarter that I participated in was a board gaming project by DVG which is roughly their thousandth product shipped and specifically was the 6th expansion to their warfighter game series. In that line of business they have extreme front end expenses for printing and shipping, and in exchange for what boils down to preordering, you get a modest, fair discount. Sure it as a product didn't exist other than in the minds of the producer and the artist team, but the odds of them failing were approximately zero assuming the economy doesn't implode or DVG himself get hit by a meteor. And there are risks, they have had massive shipping delays. However as you'd expect everything eventually showed up and looked as good as the last five expansions and the base set. No one in the traditional gaming community found this saga terribly interesting or unusual... Given the lack of surprise, its highly likely that in areas outside this and the area in the article, there are other fields of endeavour that are running a boring pre-order operation. Seriously, does anyone think anything can stop Jason Scott from directing tech documentaries? It takes forever, but aside from getting hit by a truck, its as sure as anything that "something" will be released sooner or later. I have some money in for the 6502 documentary and I'm just not worried. Interestingly Amazon offers preorders. I've already pre-ordered cstross's new Laundry Files book which won't be released until mid next year. Nobody talks about amazon pre-orders, but I've done it before with no problem and I've never even heard rumors of a logistical fail. Perhaps the lack of failure makes them too boring to discuss in public. What can you say about Amazon preorders other than they work, which isn't good clickbait, compared to "many or most kickstarter projects crash n burn" which gets the clicks.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  For an Amazon pre-order, you risk nothing. You aren't charged until/unless it ships and you get price-protection. Neither of those is true for the crowd-funding world.

2muchcoffeeman 11y ago

Kickstarter and Indiegogo should probably provide some basic guidance though. I still feel bad for the ZPM Espresso machine guys: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/zpm-espresso-and-the-rage-of-the-jilted-crowdfunder.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/zpm-espresso-and-... They had a working product. Had they stuck to their 50 prototype units they initially wanted to build, they may still be here.

VLM 11y ago

> When you buy on Kickstarter, you aren't preordering. Its a really big elephant being felt by blind men. So... no. One very specific example of a kickstarter that I participated in was a board gaming project by DVG which is roughly their thousandth product shipped and specifically was the 6th expansion to their warfighter game series. In that line of business they have extreme front end expenses for printing and shipping, and in exchange for what boils down to preordering, you get a modest, fair discount. Sure it as a product didn't exist other than in the minds of the producer and the artist team, but the odds of them failing were approximately zero assuming the economy doesn't implode or DVG himself get hit by a meteor. And there are risks, they have had massive shipping delays. However as you'd expect everything eventually showed up and looked as good as the last five expansions and the base set. No one in the traditional gaming community found this saga terribly interesting or unusual... Given the lack of surprise, its highly likely that in areas outside this and the area in the article, there are other fields of endeavour that are running a boring pre-order operation. Seriously, does anyone think anything can stop Jason Scott from directing tech documentaries? It takes forever, but aside from getting hit by a truck, its as sure as anything that "something" will be released sooner or later. I have some money in for the 6502 documentary and I'm just not worried. Interestingly Amazon offers preorders. I've already pre-ordered cstross's new Laundry Files book which won't be released until mid next year. Nobody talks about amazon pre-orders, but I've done it before with no problem and I've never even heard rumors of a logistical fail. Perhaps the lack of failure makes them too boring to discuss in public. What can you say about Amazon preorders other than they work, which isn't good clickbait, compared to "many or most kickstarter projects crash n burn" which gets the clicks.

sokoloff 11y ago
For an Amazon pre-order, you risk nothing. You aren't charged until/unless it ships and you get price-protection. Neither of those is true for the crowd-funding world.