Kickstarter will impoverish me.

I have to admit: I've fallen in love with Kickstarter.

I've in for 3 projects--two video games and one cool-ass gadget--and am concerned that I'm about to lose all my money on all the cool products and ideas that I'd love to get in on the ground floor with. If I had a few more hundred dollars, I'd also be in for a 3D printer, atheist shoes, a 6-legged robot kit, a cool tie, a sound laser... perhaps you can see a pattern in the projects that interest me.

Anyone else a fan of this site? Actively backed any projects?

This is my very first time hearing about it. I really didn't understand most of your post to be honest!

Well there were actually a couple links in there, but because links look so similar to regular text it probably wasn't obvious.

The two games:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...ment/grim-dawn
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...20/word-realms

The "cool-ass gadget":
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...home_spotlight

But I'm surprised that you haven't heard of the whole Kickstarter... thing.

Basically, the site is a place for people to post projects for which they post a target amount of start-up funds--usually $1k to a couple hundred k--and individuals can post small (or not so small) contributions to this goal. The projects have a limited window of time, usually a month, to raise at least this target amount of money. If they don't raise at least this much in pledged amounts, then the project is not funded, and none of the people who pledged money are charged for anything. However, there's no limit imposed upon how much they can raise. In fact, when it appears that they will exceed their goals, often enough the project developers post further extended goals beyond their initial goal and explain what more they can accomplish if they meet these higher goal amounts.

Pledge amounts are tiered, and each tier offers different rewards. For instance, if the project were for some neat new gizmo, a particular pledge tier might get you a t-shirt for the project, whereas a higher tier might get finished gizmo product once the initial production run is complete. Your pledge can be of any amount you choose, and you can choose any single tier reward level equal to or lower than your pledge. For instance, if a project had reward tiers at $5, $10, and $45, and you give $50, you can choose the reward for any ONE of these tiers.

The products on this site are so incredibly creative and interesting sometimes. Though the projects should result in self-sustaining commercial or at least non-profit ventures, often enough the projects might be those that are not of particular interest to venture capitalists because they don't seek to push profit to the bleeding edge or because they are simply too small. And frankly, often enough enough the project developers simply like this start-up model more than traditional means of obtaining start-up funds, and the advantages are obvious: you're not beholden to an investor who might demand compromising your vision, you get support directly from people who are interested in your project for its own sake rather than for whatever future profits they might receive, and when you deliver whatever rewards you promised at particular tier levels, your obligation to the Kickstart pledger is over.

And also, don't be mistaken: even though it sounds like charity, the pledge rewards are often first production runs of products, and these are often offered at discounted prices. If the project is for a game, you might pay the final price for a copy of the game but get goodies such as in-game cosmetic rewards or beta access. Yes, especially at low-tier pledge levels, you might get offered nothing more than the satisfaction of supporting an innovative project. But mostly the rewards are a great deal for what you pay.

So that's Kickstart in a nutshell or two. It's like an online mall for the up-coming and innovative.

there's a site for arts projects in australia called www.pozible.com which a friend just put me on to.

i have a few project ideas up my sleeve for which i might look into crowdsourced funding.

Atheist shoes? what do they not have souls or something?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oats

Atheist shoes? what do they not have souls or something?

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Rep'd so hard

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oats

Atheist shoes? what do they not have souls or something?

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Originally Posted by Rick Scarf

Rep'd so hard

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that's part of the joke to begin with.


so no rep 4 u.

I dumped $60 into http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...dowrun-returns

Also, atheist shoes eat babies.

The recent xkcd accurately portrays my thoughts on this matter.

I've currently only supported the Wasteland 2 development
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...and-2?ref=live

And I've since avoided the website before it eats all of my money.

The only kickstarter project I've ever supported is this one:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...lming-in-colom

One of my best friends is the founder and CEO of this non-profit, and he is working to tell stories that may otherwise not get told. I'm pretty impressed that he was able to start up a legit non-profit organization (501(c)(3) tax-exempt even). So this is my cheap plug for my friend to the 15 people on this site.

Oh tyea guy,

that kickstarter i tell ya.