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Good on you for being honest all along and for open sourcing the results and offering refund. I wish people (both people seeking funding and backers) would tak

by ebbv 10y ago

Good on you for being honest all along and for open sourcing the results and offering refund. I wish people (both people seeking funding and backers) would take more realistic and honest approaches towards crowdfunding.

gavanwoolery 10y ago
Yep. I think crowdfunding started off well during the boom, but then people abused it and it got too crowded, causing people to lose faith on both ends.
onion2k 10y ago
Odd as it may sound, I don't believe more realism would be a good thing in crowdfunding. We need more projects like Gavan's game - things that are ludicrously ambitious that still produce a fantastic outcome even if they fall before the originator of the project is satisfied. Crowdfunding as a mechanism to pre-order something you know for certain is achievable is good, and very useful, but crowdfunding moonshot projects has it's place too. We should help people do crazy hard things because, occasionally, the outcome is awesome. Voxel Quest is one of those times.
- daveguy 10y ago
  There are plenty of ludicrously ambitious projects. It takes someone like Gavan running and communicating about the project for it to be a success even if it doesn't make it to the finish line. The outcome of a lot of over ambitious projects is that there is virtually no communication after funding and then they come up with some bs story about how they spent all the money before they could get anything to show for it. Crowdfunding would be 10x what it is today if all of the "failed" projects had failed with regular communication, significant progress throughout, and a handoff of material (code or kit type release). Unfortunately this is the exception rather than the rule.
  - onion2k 10y ago
    The lack of communication from some projects has little to do with how ambitious they are. Simple projects can be terrible at keeping backers in the loop. I absolutely agree that it's a problem, and maybe something that actually represents an opportunity. An app that pushed project founders to communicate regularly would be useful...

by ebbv 10y ago

gavanwoolery 10y ago

Yep. I think crowdfunding started off well during the boom, but then people abused it and it got too crowded, causing people to lose faith on both ends.

onion2k 10y ago

Odd as it may sound, I don't believe more realism would be a good thing in crowdfunding. We need more projects like Gavan's game - things that are ludicrously ambitious that still produce a fantastic outcome even if they fall before the originator of the project is satisfied. Crowdfunding as a mechanism to pre-order something you know for certain is achievable is good, and very useful, but crowdfunding moonshot projects has it's place too. We should help people do crazy hard things because, occasionally, the outcome is awesome. Voxel Quest is one of those times.

daveguy 10y ago
There are plenty of ludicrously ambitious projects. It takes someone like Gavan running and communicating about the project for it to be a success even if it doesn't make it to the finish line. The outcome of a lot of over ambitious projects is that there is virtually no communication after funding and then they come up with some bs story about how they spent all the money before they could get anything to show for it. Crowdfunding would be 10x what it is today if all of the "failed" projects had failed with regular communication, significant progress throughout, and a handoff of material (code or kit type release). Unfortunately this is the exception rather than the rule.
- onion2k 10y ago
  The lack of communication from some projects has little to do with how ambitious they are. Simple projects can be terrible at keeping backers in the loop. I absolutely agree that it's a problem, and maybe something that actually represents an opportunity. An app that pushed project founders to communicate regularly would be useful...