Why are people still treating crowdfunding sites like shops?
When you give money to someone on patreon or kickstarter or gofundme or whatever the fuck, you are making a no strings attached donation with no guarantee of anything in return. The owner has zero obligation to fulfil any of their future rewards.
Like that's literally the point of the platforms, to support creators who don't have any finished products to sell. It's not a pre-order. If you're expecting something guaranteed in return you need to wait until the product is finished and just buy it.
Except this guy had a Tier that was literally a Pre-order. It's the one I mentioned and it was clearly more expensive than the other ones. You were guaranteed a digital copy of the finished game and your name in the credits.
Also, it's a question of morals. If you're developing a game and asking for financial support, it's entirely reasonable to expect a finished product at some point. A lot of developers being scumbags and leaving the project as soon as they've earned enough doesn't make it right. Yeah sure, it can happen, but doesn't mean it should. We're just enabling bad practices with that kind of mentality. I'm not buying it.
Except this guy had a Tier that was literally a Pre-order
He can write whatever he wants on the page, doesn't change that that's not how patreon works. It's not a shop. Nothing is guaranteed.
If you're developing a game and asking for financial support, it's entirely reasonable to expect a finished product at some point.
It's also entirely reasonable to expect no product too. You're investing, not buying. That means assuming the risk that there will be no product ever.
Most business ventures fail. You need to get out of the mentality that these sites are for customers. You're not buying anything, you're donating to these people.
If you don't like that risk then don't give them money. And I say that sincerely.
I mean sure - people need to be aware about the risks. That doesn‘t mean you can‘t complaint if a dev fails to deliver though. Especially if it‘s obvious they just lost the Motivation b/c they already collected a lot of money.
Wilful ignorance is donating money on a donation site, ignoring the terms and conditions that explicitly say that the money you give is a donation, that you're not buying anything and that nothing may be delivered and then complaining when nothing is delivered.
That‘s not what kickstarter does by the way. Kickstarter requires creators to complete their projects or issue refunds to backers, classifying these promises as a legally binding contract between the creator and the backer.
They don’t enforce this themsleves but you can still take legal actions against obvious scam projects.
While it's true supporting someone on patreon grants no guarantees for a product to be delivered, if the tier advertises something will be delivered and then it ends up not, that might be considered breach of contract. But that would be a civil case, so you'd have to sue the person and prove it to actually be the case. IANAL so I don't know if such a case has any real chance of succeeding, or if it would be worth the cost.
Again, IANAL, but I don't think that would prevent a lawsuit. Sure, proving the delivered game doesn't meet the specifications of what was promised is probably a lot harder than just proving nothing was delivered, but if a dev releases something either unplayable or missing major gameplay features that were promised, that doesn't prevent a breach of contract claim.
It still depends on what was promised and what was delivered. And, of course, whether any case would be financially viable.
While this is all true, business ventures failing for legitimate reasons is not the same as gathering huge amounts of cash from people and then just deciding not to bother doing anything as you already got the bag.
Is that question rhetorical?
If not its for the same reason people pre order from actual triple A game studios who often also turn out unfinished buggy slop that needs years worth of patches to make viable.
Or hell actuall investors in venture capitalist companies.
Because they like whats promised and if it turns out to be crap thats still a risk people take.
For most of these, losing 2, 5 or 10 bucks a month sucks if you get nothing out of it after years but no one is losing shirts over it.
If many people didn't think gambling without guarantees is worth it then casinos or betting shops would never have worked as a business
Everyone wants to believe that includes me that that we want and will get a finished product, sadly like you said this isn't an investment that we can get any guarantee since the creator isn't legally bound to do it.
52
u/AlectoPictus 5h ago
Why are people still treating crowdfunding sites like shops?
When you give money to someone on patreon or kickstarter or gofundme or whatever the fuck, you are making a no strings attached donation with no guarantee of anything in return. The owner has zero obligation to fulfil any of their future rewards.
Like that's literally the point of the platforms, to support creators who don't have any finished products to sell. It's not a pre-order. If you're expecting something guaranteed in return you need to wait until the product is finished and just buy it.