[ghaff]

This is a great point. Leaving aside the practical issues of getting money from people who don't have it, this really raises some red flags about the Kickstarter model. Unless it's just a way of raising capital up-front for a fairly ho-hum project that basically just requires time and energy (and, even then, stuff can still happen). But Kickstarting projects of the sort that routinely fail a decent percentage of the time, like video games, looks a lot less attractive if the received funds look something more like a loan than an equity investment.

[ryusage]

True, but if project creators don't promise completion as part of the pledge reward, then they don't assume so much risk.