Kickstarter … Expectations

I found myself randomly browsing through old Kickstarter projects that I’ve supported over the years today, and I’m not sure if I was a little surprised or miffed at the results…

Since 2011, I’ve supported 13 projects total….

Now the last one literally just finished, so no harm there, but you can see that all of the others estimated delivery dates at the max of Christmastime last year, but they’re still not resolved – some by a month or more and some by over a year!

And granted, there are a few that probably should get exceptions:

• The LSL one for all I know might be done – I think the game is actually for sale on iTunes now, but I never got my copy because I was under the impression that I could get an iOS version for my pledge and I think they only ended up doing Steam. I don’t really know because I pledged back in 2012, so I honestly don’t even give a shit about the game anymore, plus rumor has it that Al Lowe cut ties with the developers and won’t be doing any more anyways, so that’s a bummer…
• And the 9 year-old’s RPG … I really just wish that I had backed out like so many other people because I think we all kind of got suckered. I wanted to give the lady the benefit of the doubt during the firestorm she was enduring, but as far as I can tell those who got anything are still only tinkering with a test version. At least it was only $10…

As for the rest, you can see that most of what I help to support are movies and books – all by indie creators – and so I get that they don’t have the resources of a big developer, but timeliness is still somewhat of an issue and you get to a point where frequent communications can only take you so far. And granted, some of these guys have been better about it than others – I guess it’s just something to think about when you’re bidding on a project, that it could literally be years before what you’re pledging sees the light of day.

For some, it can kind of make or break your perception – example, I gave Kris & Scott a lot of leeway on delivery of their DVD because I’d already seen most of the content on PATV anyways, but I know I was really pissed about the Theater Hopper book when it finally came in the mail – just because I had to harass the author multiple times and it took literally a year for me to get mine … plus it really rubbed me the wrong way when I discovered that he had ’em selling in his store before the rest were shipped out to backers… 🙁

It’s also interesting to see how even your interest wanes over time – looking back at that list, I’m still eager to see how Stripped turned out (which is almost done!) as well as the new Webcomics Handbook that serves as the follow-up to How to Make Webcomics. As for the rest … meh, maybe the Big Bird doc will be cool, but the space one has kinda lost me and the others I’ve already spoken my case on. In a way, it’s funny how Kickstarter can really be a double-edged sword – it’s a great tool to help fund a project if you’ve got the audience and the energy, but at the same time these things can also end up sometimes doing more harm than good if you aren’t careful.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ll certainly still be using Kickstarter whenever a worthwhile project comes across the ether … it’s just interesting to take a step back and look at the raw data from time to time, even though sometimes it’s a little shocking to see what you find! 😯