[drakaal]

Kickstarter takes a lot of money for basically delivering hype. I think KS really should have rules/terms that prevent you from canceling after certain things happen.

Press like covering KickStarter. It is a validation that the product is "obtainable" as opposed to a pie in the sky press release from a company that something might come out someday. KS takes a big cut for what they deliver, but they do deliver it, so they should protect that model more fiercely than they do.

That said... If I were shipping a physical thing I would just use Amazon and do Pre-orders instead. Doing a KickStarter can preclude you from many retail stores, and Home Shopping. If your product is awesome you'd likely be better to be in those places instead. If your product kind of sucks, making a splash on KS can get you easy money early. I can think of several products that this has happened with (a talking bear, a video game console...)

But what it all boils down to is you have to decide if hype is what you need, or distribution. If you have a solid product you don't need hype.

[bigs204]

you can be sure KS team is discussing a policy change after this incident.