[T-hawk]

Kickstarter reviews applications to determine a realistic floor for the funding goal, to prevent or at least greatly reduce that gaming. They wouldn't let you launch a campaign to start a new SpaceX with $10,000, for example. Otherwise everyone would circumvent the system with a campaign for $1 and then stretch goals, as you say.

Source: an online acquaintance who ran a Kickstarter campaign for a video game, and had to revise his initial funding goal upwards by several multiples at Kickstarter's insistence.

[incision]

Those are extreme examples. A $10k SpaceX is obvious, virtual panhandling with a $1 goal is just as obvious.

I think "gaming" a system implies a reasonably intelligent exploitation.

Something like creating a Kickstarter "for" a sequel to a well-regarded game and setting the actual delivery of that sequel as a top-end stretch goal. The immediate funding goal could only deliver an expansion to the original game. The intermediate goals might be something like a new engine for the not necessarily delivered sequel. Such a project could collect its goal several times over before being asked to deliver what it purports to.

This has been done. It's essentially advertising one thing (the Kickstarter title) and delivering something else in the fine print (the goal structure).

A simple rule restricting the Kickstarter title and promotional blurb to be representative of the immediate funding goal only would go a long way toward addressing this. Restricting the dollar ratio of the initial goal to the top end stretch goal would probably help as well.

I'm sure the review process addresses some things, but how effective can it really be? The breadth of projects types and sizes is too wide and too many will fail (won't provide any return on the cost of a review).