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MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled)

kickstarter.com

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Re: MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled)

#31

Post by shock-value »

brackin wrote: post #8

The only scams like these which will work on Kickstarter is campaigns that aren't especially interesting or may not appeal to a huge audience. Once a campaign gets to 100k, there is press involved and people researching. If you get $5k in pledges, no one would look deep enough to check if you're legit. Kickstarter is quite tough in terms of getting on the site and through the month process. I think it shows, always d…

I think the problem though is that projects can end up "scammy" even if they aren't outright scams. If a project makes very ambitious promises, and upon getting the funds, the developers don't put forth much effort and deliver a bug-ridden, lackluster product, it might not technically be a scam. But it will sure feel like one to contributors, and I think Kickstarter is going to increasingly run into this problem in the future.

Re: MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled)

#32

Post by FrankBooth »

toast76 wrote: post #15
colinwinter wrote: post #12

Bostinno also recently reported another project that simply failed to deliver: http://bostinno.com/2012/04/25/kickstarters-dark-side/ Could this create a market for 'verified' kickstarter projects? Kickstarter as an organization states they dont verify, but as they grow the need will also grow. I'm thinking this could be an optional feature that everyone would be aware of (IE: grayed out badge when not invoked). For…

Personally, I think it's up to the individual (or in this case, collective) investor to perform due diligence before handing over your cash. I've only chipped into 3 kickstarter projects, but in each instance I'd done the appropriate due diligence before signing up. As the saying goes, a fool and their money are soon parted!

Making a Kickstarter pledge is no more investing than ordering a pizza.

Re: MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled)

#33

Post by lotu »

jonny_eh wrote: post #30
rickmb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find the "walk away" part is not that simple, considering the fact that it would constitute a crime . The kind of crime law enforcement is quite familiar with and that leaves plenty of traceable evidence because it involves financial transactions. I'm sure there will someday be someone clever enough to get away with it, but most people are likely to get caught very quickly.

While I agree it would be a crime, how hard would it be to enforce? Can't the perps just claim some lame excuse for why they didn't execute on their stated plan?

A lame excuse isn't going to hold up in court. Imagine you raised $100K to make some cool gizmo but instead buy your self a sports car, the fact that you never had any intent to even try to make the product is going to be really obvious. If you actually spent enough of the money raised on the project to convive a judge that you weren't running a scam, then you not going to have enough left over to really be considered a scam.

Re: MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled)

#34

Post by lotu »

shock-value wrote: post #31
brackin wrote: post #8

The only scams like these which will work on Kickstarter is campaigns that aren't especially interesting or may not appeal to a huge audience. Once a campaign gets to 100k, there is press involved and people researching. If you get $5k in pledges, no one would look deep enough to check if you're legit. Kickstarter is quite tough in terms of getting on the site and through the month process. I think it shows, always d…

I think the problem though is that projects can end up "scammy" even if they aren't outright scams. If a project makes very ambitious promises, and upon getting the funds, the developers don't put forth much effort and deliver a bug-ridden, lackluster product, it might not technically be a scam. But it will sure feel like one to contributors, and I think Kickstarter is going to increasingly run into this problem in t…

I don't know about that. One of the big selling points of the Double Fine, and Shadowrun campaigns was that it was a established team with a reputation for making good games. Also, say you do raise $100K and produce a lousy product, your not going to find funding for you next project. You can actually see this already as some projects are now on their second or third campaign.

Re: MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled)

#35

Post by lifeisstillgood »

lotu wrote: post #33
jonny_eh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree it would be a crime, how hard would it be to enforce? Can't the perps just claim some lame excuse for why they didn't execute on their stated plan?

A lame excuse isn't going to hold up in court. Imagine you raised $100K to make some cool gizmo but instead buy your self a sports car, the fact that you never had any intent to even try to make the product is going to be really obvious. If you actually spent enough of the money raised on the project to convive a judge that you weren't running a scam, then you not going to have enough left over to really be considere…

That rather depends on who you pay and how convincing their invoices look.

20 folks on here could create a convincing Eco system of sub contractors and out sourcers - spend 20k on equipment and rest on salaries, you can spend most of yourdays on the yc startup subsidised by the game income

or is that sounding like actual work?

Re: MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled)

#36

Post by masklinn »

alexobenauer wrote: post #3
GabeN wrote: post #2

Project has already been taken down by creator, and all of the companies information is being deleted from the internet, yet they still managed to get nearly $5,000 in the few hours it was up, which is quite worrying. Points of evidence - God character art is from http://pgwebdesign.net/blog/35-mythological-art-masterpieces... - Backgrounds are from http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=211755 and http://psd.…

The don't actually get that $5,000. It's worrying that that amount was pledged, but Kickstarter / Amazon Payments doesn't charge until after a project is complete, and in the case of an unfinished, canceled project, never.

> and in the case of an unfinished [...] never.

That is incorrect. The money is transferred once funding period has ended if funding goals have been reached.

From that point on, the project authorship has the money (minus Amazon's and Kickstarter's shares) and may never get it done still.

Source: funded half a dozen of KS so far, I know when money leaves me. It would also completely unmake the point of kickstarter: it's about providing funds for the project to be done, not guaranteeing sales so people can go get institutional investors showing they have 3 million sales in already (especially since most KS are a few thousand, the current million+ craze is not the median project)

Re: MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled)

#37

Post by hristov »

masklinn wrote: post #36
alexobenauer wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The don't actually get that $5,000. It's worrying that that amount was pledged, but Kickstarter / Amazon Payments doesn't charge until after a project is complete, and in the case of an unfinished, canceled project, never.

> and in the case of an unfinished [...] never. That is incorrect. The money is transferred once funding period has ended if funding goals have been reached. From that point on, the project authorship has the money (minus Amazon's and Kickstarter's shares) and may never get it done still. Source: funded half a dozen of KS so far, I know when money leaves me. It would also completely unmake the point of kickstarter: i…

You are correct, but nevertheless, they did not get the $5000. The funding goal was $80 000 and they got nowhere near that. So that was a scam that did not work.

Re: MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled)

#38

Post by almost »

ajross wrote: post #19
dullcrisp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half of that $5000 is from a single pledge. Is it possible that they pledged $2500 to themselves to make it look like their project is getting more attention than it actually is? Or does someone out there just really really want this game?

Mostly likely that's exactly what it is. I know if I were to run a scam like this, the first thing I'd do is a bunch of fake pledges to drive eyeballs. I think the total overhead is about 10% (split between Amazon and Kickstarter), and of course you only end up paying it if the scam is a success.

You wouldn't actually need to pay the money. You'd just need to make sure it got pre-authorized. Then once you got another legitimate pledges you could withdraw your fake ones (or leave them up but without any money in the accounts, I believe it's fairly common for KS not to be able to collect al the pledges at the end)

Re: MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men (Canceled)

#40

Post by RBerenguel »

dullcrisp wrote: post #14
GabeN wrote: post #2

Project has already been taken down by creator, and all of the companies information is being deleted from the internet, yet they still managed to get nearly $5,000 in the few hours it was up, which is quite worrying. Points of evidence - God character art is from http://pgwebdesign.net/blog/35-mythological-art-masterpieces... - Backgrounds are from http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=211755 and http://psd.…

Half of that $5000 is from a single pledge. Is it possible that they pledged $2500 to themselves to make it look like their project is getting more attention than it actually is? Or does someone out there just really really want this game?

Known as "salting" (found out in Cialdini's Influence)
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