So this is a high profile crash and burn. Some folks are talking fraud. Do you think this will affect Kickstarting?
Interesting. I guess the problem is, was this a Fraud, or was this "bad management"
Technically, the folks in KS sponsored money to make a game. it raised four times more money than the goal.
The Guy, seems to have used the money to incorporate, move himself, pay rent, and maybe pay for producing the product.
I have no doubt the guy did lousy management.
But none of those uses for money are illegal in and of themselves. Businesses do pay money to incorporate. busineses do pay rent. Businesses do pay to move employees.
If part of what it takes to produce something is to work full time on it, that heavily implies that a chunk of the KS money is paying for the worker's rent, food, etc.
When the Roll20 KS started, the whole reason was so the devs could focus all their time on the project. I run a software development department. I know EXACTLY what that means and what it costs. It means the people working on the project need to be paid $$$ so they can pay their rent and thus be able to continue to show up to work.
Again, I'm not siding with the guy, I'm just seeing that the situation can be legally ambiguous and things that "you didn't think you were paying for" are part of the cost of business.
Somebody producing a product SHOULD be represented by an LLC or something and NOT their own person. Somebody putting "full time work" into a project SHOULD be paid as a full time employee.
I think there needs to be classification of KS project sizes. Small scale implying this is being built after hours and in my living room. Large scale implying there's staffing and a facility to be paid for. Expectations on how the money is spent are not clearly defined.
I know there's a sense of running lean and mean with these KS projects, but clearly some of them are bigger operations.