You make a lot of really good points, and I concede that I can agree with most of them. There is cost of production to keep in mind as well.

Ha ha, yeah I suppose. Don't forget the bumper sticker.

Well, sounds like Kotkin took his business model from NPR.

The lack of recourse has little to do with the terms and everything to do with the impracticalities of suing a company that couldn't pay.

The lack of recourse has little to do with any terms you agreed to. The lack of recourse stems from the fact that any judgment would be impossible to collect on because the company is likely broke, a class action suit isn't worth it for that reason (in addition to being too small to be worth the time), and an attorney…

I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice.

There was something I read along time ago about player made restrictions and crying with others don't follow them. Like in fighting games, giving second or corner cheese or no throwing.

Investors do not always own stakes in a company they support. That would have to be part of the initial agreement signed by both parties, and in this case it isn't; the only thing you're promised as a return is what you get at your "backer level."

It's part of the risk one takes in putting up money for a kickstarter project.
Unfair? You bet.
The project was poorly managed and hindsight is 20/20. Other PMs will learn from this failure and hopefully future kickstarters will take notice on how not to do things. Charge it to the game.

This is an interesting scenario. If someone could email the company and say along the lines "hey I'm near your offices on vacation this week, is it possible I drop by an after having verified in a backer, can just physically pick up the product?"

Oh my god, I never thought of that but the consequences could be enormous. It's easy to imagine a house getting cased, they see somebody holding a very realistic looking firearm, and just go in shooting. The SWAT teams are hardly known for their restraint to begin with, but this is just... That would be horrible.

Did you even read the article?

These are all downfalls of poor project management, not mitigating factors or valid excuses. "This 300% cost balloon is due to scope creep...we wanted to include a set of encyclopedias with the deal."

Yep, you're already way ahead of these jokers.

You want a list of all the N64 games that got shitcanned 3 months in due to reassignment of staff or obvious inability to even recoup costs by a completely dark release of an unfinished pile?

Ha! I just wrote that, shoulda scrolled down to just add more stars.

Backers on Kickstarter upset that company overestimated their abilities and resources and over-promised on a new tech device.

Lesson: "Kickstarter is a donation site, not a retail store. Do not click 'submit' if you are expecting to see your money again. And if you receive a product in the mail someday, it is a 'thank you' gift, not a purchase."

I have funded exactly FOUR Kickstarters. And I nominally expect something more than an email as…

God, what pieces of garbage. That being said, it's nice, because now I know to never, ever, under any circumstances, buy anything from Kotkin, or any other companies with which he is intimately connected.

just wait until the police shoot someone using one of these controllers.