Kickstarter changed the rule - "Kickstarter Is Not a Store"

News & General Discussion
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Kickstarter Is Not a Store
by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler · September 20, 2012

"It’s hard to know how many people feel like they’re shopping at a store when they’re backing projects on Kickstarter, but we want to make sure that it’s no one. Today we’re introducing a number of changes to reinforce that Kickstarter isn’t a store — it’s a new way for creators and audiences to work together to make things. We’d like to walk you through these changes now.
Creators must talk about “Risks and Challenges”
Today we added a new section to the project page called “Risks and Challenges.” All project creators are now required to answer the following question when creating their project:
“What are the risks and challenges this project faces, and what qualifies you to overcome them?”
We added the “Risks and Challenges” section to reinforce that creators’ projects are in development. Before backing a project, people can judge both the creator’s ability to complete their project as promised and whether they feel the creator is being open and honest about the risks and challenges they face.
The new section will appear below the project description of projects that launch starting today.
New Hardware and Product Design Project Guidelines
The development of new products can be especially complex for creators and seductive to backers. Today we’re adding additional guidelines for Hardware and Product Design projects.
They are:
Product simulations are prohibited. Projects cannot simulate events to demonstrate what a product might do in the future. Products can only be shown performing actions that they’re able to perform in their current state of development.
Product renderings are prohibited. Product images must be photos of the prototype as it currently exists.
Products should be presented as they are. Over-promising leads to higher expectations for backers. The best rule of thumb: under-promise and over-deliver.
We’ve also added the following guideline for Hardware and Product Design projects:
Offering multiple quantities of a reward is prohibited. Hardware and Product Design projects can only offer rewards in single quantities or a sensible set (some items only make sense as a pair or as a kit of several items, for instance). The development of new products can be especially complex for creators and offering multiple quantities feels premature, and can imply that products are shrink-wrapped and ready to ship.
These guidelines are effective for all Hardware and Product Design projects that launch starting today.
We hope these updates reinforce that Kickstarter isn’t a traditional retail experience and underline the uniqueness of Kickstarter. Thanks for reading, and thanks as always for using Kickstarter."

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store

Right from the outset, I always perceived Kickstarter as a store. I find it hard to not perceive them as a store. The most successfully funded projects did exactly that - to promote their product and sell it to as many people as they can.

2

First i thought different about Kickstarter but after backing a few projects it more or less comes down to a typical shopping experience were you buy/preorder something. And you also support a ordinary product by buying it. Depending on what you’re buying in a shop, you also don’t know if you like it afterwards or not, if it can life up to your expectations, … dunno it’s clear what Kickstarter is and how it is used, depends on the project.

3

I just don’t understand it… you can’t show what the end product might look like? Then why would I fund you?

4

This makes it very hard for anyone making hardware who hasn’t basically advanced to the prototype stage .

I think kickstarter is a bit scared someone might promise that they can make a flying Ipod that can make you coffee for 100$ .

5

I think they always expected hardware products to already exist in a prototype form before moving forward. Part of the goal of the presentation was to prove this was not just an idea, but also a possibility that simply needs more money to be produced.

6

Can’t help but think KS is getting this all wrong and simply opening themselves up to be overtaken by a competitor sooner or later.

Trying to ‘enforce’ their ideas on what KS is about onto the people that use it just sounds like bad business, if anything they should be going in the opposite direction and embracing the view point that their ‘customers’ are coming to the site with. IN other words they should be growing and adapting to the market they have created, not trying to curtial it. Thats not to say they should switch to becoming ‘like a shop’, that would be just as bad, but they need to support all the reasons why people use KS.

As for the new stipulations, I can see the reasons, but again they just seem to be harming their market. If i’m going to back hardware product the bare minimum i’d want to see is a prototype, failing that some simulation or rendering, but they must be very clearly labelled as such. The ‘Risk failures’ is just stupid, as its so open to interpretation. I mean the creator could get knocked down by a bus, do they have to put that down? I can understand a ‘creator’ adding reasons as to why they think they would be successful, spouting off their previous knowledge, expertise etc, but not trying to think up all the ways a project might fail.

Again this has the same overall problem as I highlighted at the start, its enforcing a way of working with KS, closing doors and blocking off potential, where as it should be the other way around. KS should instead make a sub-section say for hardware that is ‘pre-prototype’ stage, clearly identifying that all projects within that section are at pre-prototype stage and as such have additional risk. They could even have a warning popup as you agree to become a backer, emphasising that there is a greater risk for that specific project.

7

Any halfway serious Project Manager should be able to put together a Risk Analysis in no time. This is all part of Project Management, and no, a sensible risk is not “getting hit by a bus”. Its more in line with things like:

Risks:

  1. OSX version may not work: We have no Macs, and we have never deployed to a Mac before.
  2. Requirements Gold Plating: Essentially tacking on needless extra features that were outside of the original project scope to existing requirements. This can shift the project timeline into the future.
  3. Time: My full time job may demand that I work 12 hour days. This puts the project at risk because I can’t work on it.

Etc… You can then qualify your risks with likelyhood of occurrence (for example, if you never plan to test on a Mac, then that risk has 100% chance of happening. At which point you should be firing yourself for knowing you have a problem and not fixing it). Then you can put together your Risk matrix and bam, risk analysis done.

Any project trying to get money that can’t put together a simple Risk Analysis section doesn’t deserve funding, period. If you can’t even make a good guess as to what problems you may experience, it shows clear lack of research, knowledge, planning, and almost a certain lack of ability to execute the project to completion.

8

I find it honorable that they rise up against the rampant consumerist mentality that is plaguing our society.
Kickstarter only became what its backers wanted it to be : inscribe oneself into a pick-this, pick-that experience, put-to-cart. Like a game. And inevitably project creators started that disproportionated “hey look at me !” spiral dance, turning the first weeks/monthes into a PR-only workload.
Except project funding is not a game. Working is not a game. And any serious project presentation is not supposed to be a marketing stunt.
But try to explain nowadays that everything is not a game.

9

… and how many KS projects are going to have a qualified project manager?

I agree my ‘hit by a bus’ was silly, but it was intended that way, what you may feel is a risk I may not, my expertise may have already assesed it and removed it from the project for that exact reason. So now it gets even sillier as if its no longer a risk, I might still add it to show my ‘expertise’. e.g. Not doing a Mac version as we suspect it wont work, but is that really going to help you get backers?

Mac port:
I would not be offering a ‘mac’ port if I suspected it might not work.
My point being that if I start a KS then most if not all risks would have already been assessed and dealt with.

Gold plating:
I’d say thats a judgement call, it may be needless feature to some, not to others, either way you account for that in your deadline.
However anything can push a deadline, especially in the ‘games’ genre, if I were to list everything that might push back a deadline it would quickly get ridiculous.

Another job:
Whilst very valid, who in their right mind would add this? I’d suspect a large percentage of KS projects (possibly less so in games and hardware these days) are people doing the project on the side. Meaning that suddenly large numbers of project have this pointless ‘risk’ added to them. The same risk that has always been there, but people didn’t think about. Now you’ve got it in big neon words instantly adding additional doubt.

What I suspect we’ll see is a few projects posting your typical/generalised ‘risk management’ listing like those you’ve suggested and everyone else will simply copy paste. Making it pretty meaningless.

Its not that I don’t appreciate risk management and risk analysis of a project, I do it every time I take on a client project. The difference there is I discuss these risks with the client and the brief is reworked to mitigate them. This is either a step that has already happened before you push to KS, or a step that simply cannot be achieved on KS. Therefore the whole process seems pointless.

I would far rather like to see an ‘expertise’ field added instead of a ‘risk’ one, where creators can post why they think the project would succeed based on their knowledge, expertise, previous experience etc. All stuff that should be able to be validated too.

10

Problem is that they have appeared to break their own goal.

They claim kickstarter is not a store - but you can only sell what you have already produced… sounds awfully lot like a store. I’ve never been interested in a kickstarter project because of what they had, but because of what they could have.

I have no problems with requiring risk assessment, or to show existing prototypes… but to take out the vision of what they could deliver:

Product simulations are prohibited.
Product renderings are prohibited.

And I simply don’t see the point.

hehehe - commented on their blog:

Kickstarter is no longer a store.
Under the new rules, instead of sponsoring in taking a great concept to completion I can only sponsor what already exists.
Yep, that’s real differentiation!

11

This is a sensible issue. Some people just want the money and run, some other ask for much more than they really need. In addition, a good chunk of projects will never be able to fulfill their promises. Nevertheless, people only buy if they want, so it’s fine to me.

12

You make the mistake of thinking the backers are the pledgers and not the VC / Angel Investor community.

Kickstarter is loosing credibility because very well funded projects have the gall to go on Kickstarter and ask for money from the general public: i.e more or less ‘pre-order’ a product.

I won’t argue that this isn’t smart advertising by these well funded projects but it is misleading to the general public that thought Kickstarter was something else.

While it’s anti-climatic to fundraise for a essential finished project this new risk section helps protects pledgers from funding a project that is only promises. Some of them, theatre productions for example, clearly are charity. Others: software / hardware: the customers clearly think they are buying something.

Given the Kickstater’s big backers are in large part the VC community I think they should produce a series of explanations and videos of a good pitch before a screening desk at say, Sequoia.

You’ll see the Kickstarter hasn’t enabled and demanded for the public the kind of screening that Sequoia would demand before seeing the ‘pitchers’ of a project in person.

13

Is this a problem though?

Fundamentally kickstarter is a different funding model - one that can work for existing and successful products/franchise’s not just new ones. If there is a perceived confusion over purpose, I’d rather kickstarter split off those projects onto a separate site rather than bashing or rejecting what is otherwise a possible successful business model.

14

(I edited the post you quoted to be less confusing)

I understand the “pre-order” point of view, but isn’t it obvious that any funding is some sort of pre-order ? In traditional funding, you don’t necessarly receive bonus “rewards” (even that word… ugh …) like with KS, but it is still a pre-order on something you want to support being made. Like I wrote in the edit, that reward/pre-ordering mentality was created both by :

  • backers who wanted to have more and more value for the money they invested (= “why should I back this project if I can have 2 more action figures with project B ?”)
  • project creators who just wanted to escalate to the best possible visibility (= “hey, I’m here ! Look, I can make cool movies about myself too !” + bigger and bigger backing rewards)

And this led to this consumerist spiral mess, which is now clearly a shop where it’s not about funding anymore, but about offering the more possible swagg “gadgets”. Ideas have become secondary. It’s not serious anymore, because of that.
I mean … no disrespect to the project in itself, but look at that : first Games project I clicked. There is more “BUY OUR PRODUCT”, “EXCLUSIVE OFFER” and other flashy backstreet shop signs than the presentation of the game in itself.

That’s why I always had quite strict opinions about how any project page should keep crystal clear, focusing only about the project, its evolution, with purely technical features rather than broad audience fishing.
And it’s exactly what Kickstarter is trying to do with this move, which I salute :slight_smile:

There should not be any “funding reward” in the first place other than a copy of the game. Either you back it or not, either you trust it or not, at different levels of investment. No more “pweaz fund us !” with cute kitty eyes.
“Have a character modeled like YOU in a special level of the game !” …
“Declare your love to that special one during one scene of our game !”…
“Have a NPC named like YOU, yes YOU Billy Whatever ! Don’t worry, we’ll make it fit into our lore !”
I mean … come on, are we still talking about a serious videogame project here ?

Holy cow, yes. This would get ugly very fast.

15

It’s not a problem for me: I don’t pre-purchase products to help fund buzz machines.

For Kickstarter it apparently is, because no matter if you or I feel it is a problem, enough of the general public feels that it is and enough of them have complained to Kickstarter that Kickstarter released the ‘Kickstarter is not a store statement’.

Funny they release this after the Nintendo-Unity partnership. There will be a lot of trouble if Ouya doesn’t deliver on their ‘pre-orders’.

16

I don’t disagree with you that it would be rare for a kickstarter team to have a project manager, I don’t expect that. However, that’s exactly the problem they’re trying to fix. You get too many 18 year old kids thinking “Hey I have this cool idea, here’s this video I made of me talking about it, give me your money!”

In a way, its really just taking advantage of backers who may not know better than to check to make sure the people involved can actually achieve the goal (shame on them for not doing their research and giving their money away) but still, KS just seems to be shifting that burden onto the people submitting the project, which is good. That’s how it works in the real world, and when you’re dealing with money, that’s exactly how it should work.

Regardless of having Project Management experience or not, Risk management and assessment is something that needs to be done for any major project. If your project is big enough to fund on kickstarter, you need to have thought of this already, which means that putting it on paper for others to read should not be a challenge at all. There are tons of resources online on how to do this and if you are unwilling to learn a valuable skill in order to provide a good KS submission, my faith in you being able to complete ANY project plummets to 0 immediately. KS is still an angel investor site, and this is all part of the idea pitch process.

It isn’t redundant because while you may know your own risks, nobody else does. Showing you have thought about the risks will tell people that you have seriously thought about the project, past the whole “I’m making a video so you can give me free money” phase.

17

If you (the general you, not the you you) can’t manage your project, did you pull the pledge goal out of your ass(again the general you)?

If you need help you can always ask others. Very simple example:

Risks:
This is our first game; we think we can tackle this within this amount of time, which is why we are asking for this amount of money. But there may be things in the development of the game that we have never faced, roadblocks that may delay us. We already are budgeting a margin of error, but should we find that we under budgeted, and we take much longer than expected, then there is a chance we won’t be able to complete the project. This is true for all game development projects, but especially true for anyone’s first project.
That’s very easy. And as I said at first: you better know how to manage a project if you are asking for X amount of dollars.

Potentially. The point is to force projects to remind users on every turn that there are risks, that things may never see the light of day and that their pledge IS a gamble.

I actually feel they did not go enough. They should have forced the video presentation to verbally also communicate these risks. I think way too many users watch the video and never read the full description.

Stretch goals. Since you know you won’t have an opportunity to barter, you plan ahead and you go for the worst case scenario project. The ideal project gets “locked” behind stretch goals, and should you feel you can do them anyways, and then you do them. I don’t think Kickstarter wants you to state every minor thing that can happen; they just want you to clearly communicate the possibility of show-stoppers. The alternative is them injecting a disclaimer in the front of every video and every project description, something I won’t be shocked to see added if this (offering the project maker to deliver the message themselves in a personalized way) does not achieve the results they are looking for.

18

Kickstarters was not like that when they started.
A lot less “pre-order” project. It was more a donation.

But pre-order works…

With the risk section, they only cover themself from scam. They transfert their responsabilities (they still select projects) to the backer…

Most product show what it will look like. But I was misleaded myself by a project. I backed Planetary Annihilation thinking that the video was the actual game, and that the the developpement was already pretty far. But when I calculate the time they use to do it, I realised that was probably just a cinematic made with low polygon…

So the “show only real product” is a good thing.
Kickstarter probably received many complains about backer waiting one or two years with nothing at the end.

Even if you are a legitimate project, you may be tempt to ly and promise the moon to backer (they all do it, why not me…). That’s a good thing kicstarter react, and set bounds to avoid abuse.

19

I backed that same project, but I realized very early on that it was nothing more than a proof of concept cinematic. While I can certainly understand how people might like that explicitly stated up front - so they don’t donate thinking it’s a completed project - without that vision I would have never donated and I doubt most others would have donated either.

20

Wait what?!?! that was not the actual game??? Mind = blown.