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(v informative) Mashable Infographic: Only 25% of Kickstarter Tech, Design Projects Deliver on Time

Gamasutra: How to succeed on Kickstarter

Gamasutra: Every Kickstarter a Success

Kickstarter Stats You Can Use

eg

GamesBrief: KICKSTARTER: AFTER THE KICK BUT BEFORE THE START

Solid advice from Stoic (makers of The Banner Saga who made about 700k on their ks campaign).

Surprising good Soapbox on KICKSTARTING FOR MMORPGS - very balanced/discursive look at this for this genre:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/21/the-soapbox-the-trouble-with-kickstarter/

http://www.mavorsrants.com/2012/04/kickstarter-we-need-to-talk-about-it.html

Kickstarter

Kickstarter, we need to talk about it.

First off I think it's a great idea.  Let the customers decide what to fund.  It just makes sense.

That being said there are some serious downsides.  One of which is that customers generally don't have any idea what this stuff actually costs.  If you get someone who is unscrupulous they could game kickstarter without delivering product.  In fact I expect a lot of these projects to blow up, flame out or simply be disappointing garbage.

In most cases I think the originators of the projects have good intentions.   But if you haven't shipped a game before in a role that allows you financial insight into the project then you are simply going off half-cocked.   I expect a tower of burning corpses of the projects over the next 18 months or so.

Where does the responsibility of kickstarter to vet these projects begin and end? 

Hmm, a call for more rigorous upfront cost accounting?

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Your Kickstarter project got funded... Now what?

How Camouflaj saved République's Kickstarter

Bribery, spam, and harassment: the dark side of Kickstarter promotion

Get your popcorn ready...

RPS: When Kickstarter Fails: Jack Houston Has A Problem

There are a number of potential ways Kickstarter funding is going to go wrong. The most obvious is the first time a high-profile crowd-funded big-budget game comes out and is a big pile of crap. That’s going to hurt things. The other is if a game doesn’t come out at all, and the ensuing fuss that will follow. But one I hadn’t considered is people making pledges they cannot honour.

TheVerge: Why Kickstarter 'can't' and won't protect backers once a project is funded

Kickstarter fits into both the pre-purchase and rewards models. This means if pledging users offer money to a project, they are not legally owed a final product in return; rather, in accordance with Kickstarter's rules they are simply promised a separate reward for their pledge. Backers have not entered into an investment contract by donating toward a project, and because contributors are offered no financial return of any kind the legal implications of an investment contract are non-existent, says Bradford.

"Contributors on reward or pre-purchase sites are offered no financial return of any kind," he writes in the Columbia Business Law Review. "They are promised only a product or service — a consumption item. Therefore, no investment contract is being offered. And, because investors on reward or pre-purchase sites are not offered stock, notes, or anything else that falls within the definition of security, federal securities law does not apply."

The result is a crowdfunding model that offers backers no entitlement to products they've supported. Kickstarter officials contend that the company is simply a venue that provides the marketplace, and while the cost of a successful project is shared widely, users will not receive company protection for the risk of loss using the platform. Kickstarter is a buyer beware market, and as the backer's rights are limited to its Terms of Use, the system in its current form relies on the collective force of the community to keep its individuals safe.

Well theres better alternatives and i can show you one, World of Mass Development

WMD (World of Mass Development) is a new platform for games creation from the award-winning developer Slightly Mad Studios that allows:

1. Developers to submit ideas to an active gaming community, raise the funds needed to develop them, get continual feedback from community team members that can play work-in-progress builds, use the WMD Portal to promote their project, get help from other developers, and ultimately launch their game to an eagerly-awaiting audience
2. Players to browse available projects and join any they are interested in, download and play regular builds of the game, participate in discussion & polls, speak directly to the developers, and eventually earn money back for their contribution when the game is released

WMD is therefore a unique prospect for both developers looking to raise funds for their projects and gamers that want to get involved in exciting upcoming titles.

DEVELOPERS: JOIN US!

WMD community members join your project through the WMD Portal and the purchase of ‘Tool Packs’. This is all handled safely by us, without the need for you to set up any complicated banking systems. Tool Packs therefore both fund your project and give your new Team Members a voice with which to contribute to the development of the game. This exchange of ideas is then mediated through the use of dedicated forums that easily facilitate communication between yourselves and the community members onboard your project, and also allows reports & documents to be shared and feedback polls to be created (the higher the Tool Pack they own, the more their vote is weighted).

Revealing: Publishers trying to sneak onto Kickstarter:

Project Eternity Discussion: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60336-feargus-urquharts-qa-on-kickstarter-comment-thread/#entry1194849

@ Feargus

With the popularity of Project Eternity, Wasteland 2, Double-Fine, etc. Do you think Publishers might look at making games like these or are they too far gone? 
It seems the publishers aim at multi-platform games which includes the console market. These Kickstarter projects show there's a huge interest with PC gaming. Or is this market just too niche for the Publishers to look at, so they're not concerned at losing money with these games?

Obsidian Entertainment
@Steven We were actually contacted by some publishers over the last few months that wanted to use us to do a Kickstarter. 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".

Steven:
I meant to clarify, publishers don't mind losing money if devs go direct to Kickstarter, since they wouldn't have funded these games anyway. Which doesn't seem to make business sense if they could make money from thse games.

Obsidian Entertainment
@Steven As for games like this, I think they will consider it, however so many of them support traditional distribution and sales forces that it's hard for them to consider games that would only ship digitally. It then gets pushed to their digital divisions, who have very small budgets (less than $500K).

 

I'm confused on one issue.  Are the people giving money considered investors or is the money a gift with the promise that it will be spent on the product?

It would take a VERY special project and developer/producer for me to give money to. 

I've supported 4 projects now via kickstarter and one other that isn't via KS but is crowd sourcing. WIth the exception of Pathfinder Online Demo all of the others have been Game makers from the "old school" who are making games in the style that I grew up (1990s) playing. A style and depth I much prefer over current attempts.

So, yeah, I love it. Pathfinder Online being an exception because they are explicitly making a Sandbox MMO in the vein I like, I don't think I would support a company using KS to make an MMO these days. Most certainly not if they are attempting another themepark MMO.

I have no issue at all, however, supporting companies/people that have made games in the past that I have played and that are attempting to make similar type games now that current investors/publishers won't give them a shot for.

Programmers walk away from Kickstarter video game project; leave backers without a game

Money Troubles: What Happens When Kickstarters Fail?