In previous posts I have written a little bit about why I love the crowdfunding of projects. For those of you who don't want to read another blog post; I like that people don't need to go through traditional channels to make a project happen. There is a downside to this though. What if the project gets funded, but then fails. Worse yet, what if the project gets funded then drops of the face of the earth with all that money.
I would like to deal with the scam side of this first as there is already a solution on one side of this as of a couple days ago. Kickstarter has changed its terms of service to make sure that projects have to give updates to explain whats going on, and also state that people who don't finish a project may be legally responsible (if the backers choose to sue) for the loss of backers cash and they will have to return any of the money they have left. I like this in theory, but it also adds more stress to people to succeed, which is a double edged sword. It may make people work harder to make sure they produce what they said they would, but only if they work well with the added pressure. Ultimately I think this will reduce the amount of scammers, which is the biggest problem, so one step at a time I guess.
The other side of this is what happens when a project isn't finished but they have spent the money in development. Unfortunately, I can point to recent events as my inspiration on this topic. Double Fine's game Spacebase DF-9 is getting canceled. This sucks, but for reasons other than just being a game that will never be finished. The game went out on greenlight, a part of Valve's Steam store in which games that are in beta or alpha can sell themselves on the market as "early access" games in order to get more funding. In return the purchaser gets to play the game, give suggestions (which a surprising amount of companies listen to) and have the game already when it is finished. But when a company like Double Fine, which has an impressive pedigree and track record, fails to complete a project, it brings to light the ugly side of game development.
Games sometimes get scrapped. if this was not an early access game, it would have just been announced and then we would never hear about it again. It happens all the time in the gaming industry. Early release just makes the alpha side of projects more visible. Projects fall apart for any number of reasons, anywhere from funding falling through to an excess of ambition. Unfortunately Greenlight doesn't guarantee that you will get a finished project, just an early build, so if the game never gets finished you don't get anything else. Tim Schafer, the founder of Double Fine Productions, said that they would release the full source code for the game so that people who wanted to continue to add to it could, which is more than most companies would do. But, this doesn't address the issue of what happens to the people who initially back the game. Backing an unfinished project, no matter if it is a video game or a start-up company, is a gamble. You are giving money to someone to show that you believe that what they are doing is something worth supporting. IF you get something out of it that's a bonus.
"I paid for a game, so I want my game" is a popular sentiment on the Steam forums right now, and it is an understandable position, even though I think it's wrong. By investing in a greenlight game or crowdfund project you are taking a risk, as in any investment situation. You are not buying a product. The horrific, systematic failure to understand that has lead to no end of entitled bullshit. You are placing money on a bet that the project will finish, if you are right you get a copy of the game, if you are wrong you get nothing. At least in this case they are still going to be turning the project loose on the fan community, which honestly is more than we ought to expect.
If you buy a game on early access, or really any project on any crowdfunding site, make sure you are OK with losing the money you put up, or that you are OK with the project as it is presented at the time of supporting, as in the case of greenlight games. Expecting anything more is a misstep on the part of the supporter.
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