I welcome these changes. They might seem draconian at first, but I think it could do wonders to protect project supporters.<p>It could also serve to protect neophyte project originators who have no clue as to what it takes to get a hardware project from a rendering or a garage prototype to a real finished product.<p>There are a myriad of technologies available today to produce very high quality prototypes that look like the finished product. Forcing project originators to show an actual product rather than a rendering will simply force them to make the time and financial investment to get the project to a far deeper level of completion and really think it all thorough.<p>If someone will not take the time and spend the money to put together a prototype that is a real representation of what it is they are proposing I don't think they belong on Kickstarter.<p>I would imagine that it would still be OK to show renderings and animations so long as the actual physical product is shown as well. The reason I think this is important is that this can also show supporters important details that may not be evident or easy to demonstrate with actual products. For example, animations could show internal mechanism and how they work. 3D renderings could show ideas on variants or configurations for backers to discuss and provide feedback for.<p>I have a couple of projects that have been slated for Kickstarter for months. I've been too busy with work to really get to them. In both cases my approach has been to fully develop the items to the point that they are basically ready to manufacture. The Kickstarter push would simply serve to gage interest and pay for tooling and other NRE's that would make it possible to fabricate the items in reasonable quantities at a decent cost. Of course, I've been in product design and manufacturing for a long, long time so I tend to be very realistic about what it takes to get something done. I've seen projects go on Kickstarter that would not have a chance in hell to be completed at the requested funding level. Not a good thing.<p>Above all, what this indicates is that Kickstarter is watching and listening, which is excellent.
Hmm.<p>They needed to make some sort of move, but banning simulations and renderings (Really?) seems to be terrible overkill.<p>If anything, this move makes it much <i>more</i> a store. You can only put up products that exist. There's no funding of development.<p>Not sure this is a good solution on their part.<p>EDIT: Fully in support of the "Risks and Challenges" section. Makes it like an investment prospectus.
When Ouya raised over a million dollars within 24 hours a few weeks ago, they specifically wrote: "In just 24 hours, 20,000 people <i>bought</i> an Ouya console"[0]. They should be more careful with their choice of words in the future if they really want to reflect that "Kickstarter is not a store".<p>[0] <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/ouyas-big-day" rel="nofollow">http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/ouyas-big-day</a>
What a measured, interesting, and social response.<p>As programmers, we often try and fix things with code, but it's cool to see Kickstarter improve their product by thinking about what questions the creators should be asking. I also agree that hardware makers do themselves and other a disservice by showing space age renderings of their products.
I find it fascinating how Kickstarter is starting to adopt some of the same cautions that we see in an S1/Prospectus, "“What are the risks and challenges this project faces, and what qualifies you to overcome them?”"<p>As a long time burner, it was interesting to me how year after year, the playa adopted many (but not all) of the rules, regulations, restrictions of the outside world. We had a DMV (Department of Mutan Vehicles), Building Regulations (for buildings over a certain height), developed clinics, and ambulance services - etc...<p>It will be interesting to see, over time, how kickstarter adopts many of the SEC mandated governance over new enterprises going to the market for funding.<p>Reading through all the regulations though - it feels like 90% (100%?) are in response to this:
<a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/lifx-the-light-bulb-reinvented?ref=live" rel="nofollow">http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/lifx-the-light...</a><p>I'm sure a LOT of people watched that video, and thought that the LIFX lightbulb exists (or almost exists) in it's current incarnation. Also, there are a lot of people supporting for $500 in the belief that they'll get 10 lightbulbs - I wonder how many of those backers don't realize their is a better than even chance that this project will come to nothing, and they'll get nothing but good feelings for their money?
I think the move from product simulations/renderings to solely being able to show what the product can do <i>now</i> is a great change. I've been critical about some of the usages of Kickstarter in the past, but this addresses a big part of my concerns.<p>I do hope that it doesn't keep products that are in a rough state from being able to be successful, though if somethings really <i>that</i> complex that you need to raise a lot of money to have a marketable prototype, let alone bring it to market, I don't think Kickstarter donations are the way to fund it.
That's a start, but I still think that allowing hardware projects to offer arbitrary, open-ended numbers of end-product rewards is a mistake. Suddenly being expected to produce 100 times as many units as you planned is not, as people so often say "a good problem to have". It's just "a problem".<p>Yes, the general tendency is for marginal cost to decrease as production quantity increases, but that does not mean that it's a smooth curve. Instead, the line is jagged, littered with points where large investments need to be made. For an open-ended product, you get investors, hire extra people, buy equipment, etc. You'll end up taking a short-term loss that will be earned back in the long term. For a close-ended project like Kickstarter allows, you'll have the short-term loss, but no long-term profit.<p>And that's if you have experience and connections to pull off manufacturing and courting investors. If you're hawking a project on Kickstarter, it's pretty likely that you have neither.
I think "Product renderings are prohibited", and to a lesser extent "Product simulations are prohibited", run against the emphasized goal being "a new way for creators and audiences to work together to make things".<p>When something doesn't yet exist, you have to present speculative representations to communicate (or even rationally discuss!) the vision. That goes double for a wider audience, which may not be as accustomed to letting their imagination range over exotic possibilities.<p>Such mockups should be clearly labeled, and placed alongside current-best-prototype representations for comparison, and disclaimerized as with the new 'Risks and Challenges' requirement.<p>But before Kickstarter, more traditional investors and prepurchasers -- and indeed internal organization R&D and product-development processes -- would use and expect such representations for design communication. Why cripple the new model with this encumbrance?
This is a very honorable move from Kickstarter, forcing themselves to follow their mission vs immediate revenues.<p>This is how every company should operate. And this will definitely improve their long-term shape and revenues.
This was becoming a real issue for Kickstarter. Many of the recent high profile 'projects' were companies (particularly game developers/publishers and consumer products manufacturers) effectively taking pre-orders through Kickstarter and using those funds to develop the product. As the channel through which the orders were placed (and the party that that receives the money and takes a cut), I think a good legal argument could be made that Kickstarter <i>is</i> a store, and thus would have to comply with the UCC and other laws (including the various Deceptive Trade Practices acts across the country) applying to retail.
There's also an issue with the media talking about Kickstarter products like they already exist.<p>In the case of Lifx, article titles like "Australian re-invents the lightbulb" mislead the public and perpetuate the belief that people are purchasing actual products and not merely funding idea that may come into fruition.<p><a href="https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=lifx+light&oq=lifx+light&gs_l" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws...</a>
As others have said, it seems like KS is preferring projects which, already having functional prototypes, just need the capital to produce a commercially viable product in quantity. But, I think some projects need funding to even be able produce a prototype. To be able to show the mock-up is essential to describe the product potential backers.<p>I would like to see a separate (new) category for product&design projects at this stage. The projects would explicitly be looking for funding to create the prototype, with no promise to deliver a finished product. If a project is backed and delivers a working prototype, but now needs funding for the next step, they could return to Kickstarter for another round. Backers who want to fund product ideas could do so (likely with smaller pledges), and no one is tricked into a large backing thinking they will get a working product in the mail in three months.<p>Traditional startups get venture capital in rounds; why not crowd-sourced capital in rounds?
Personally, I would prefer a hybrid approach--projects cannot show <i>only</i> simulations/rendering. If a project presents these things, it must also present the current state of the ideas being rendered.<p>You're developing a spacefaring action game? By all means, show me that you want to have planets, stars, and space pirates--but if all you have right now is a spaceship object floating in an environment without a skybox, I want to see that, too.
I see this as a very welcome addition to the public stance of Kickstarter with regards to physical products (which it's been relatively quiet about). One of the reasons we chose Kickstarter as a platform to get our product off the ground was the fact that it would allow us flexibility and freedom to get our prototypes to full scale manufacturing, which were already relatively mature in their stage of production (tooling already complete, near final hardware etc).<p>Lots of things can go wrong at every stage after you have a final production sample. You still need to get the sample certified by a number of governing bodies, set up QC and shipping, and in the case of overseas manufacturing deal with the freight/customs and finally fulfillment of the product.<p>I'm happy that Kickstarter is taking more of stance on the subject, as we've had to in many cases provide "returns" to people or deal with "customer service" style requests, which we've done in good faith but it really misses the point of launching a product on Kickstarter.<p>I think this stance will really help back up projects when they need to make an adjustment, or have to deal with something unexpected. Also, it should improve the quality of projects moving forward by making people more skeptical and aware of the time/cost-instability of the manufacturing process. We were lucky to hit a pretty happy medium with regards to initial volume, and unlike some of the blockbuster projects when we have to change things we don't end up on TechCrunch for it, only the Guardian :)
Though I completely understand where kickstarter is coming from with their decision, I have a bit of a gripe with their choice to prevent projects from showing renderings and requiring actual photos.<p>Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time I checked the purpose of kickstarter was to help people get their ideas off the ground. Some types of products, especially hardware, can cost a lot of money to produce at a prototype stage. Not everyone has the cash lying around to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to build a functional prototype. So normally what that person would do is put together some renderings and a video and go to kickstarter to raise the funds to expand into prototypes and production. Now what are they to do?<p>Ultimately I think this decision by kickstarter gives a tremendous advantage to design shops with the budgets to build prototypes, while leaving the little guy behind.
Well, if people think it's a store, then it might be a store. Sign of a successful platform that it goes in directions that you have not expected. Though it is also a sign of failed communication.<p>The question is now whether you want to bring the project back onto the originally envisioned path, or figure out how to ride the waves of these unexpected changes?
Smart move. AirBnB waited until scandal broke out and then tried to put out the fire. We were/are dangerously close to a major scandal happening on Kickstarter.
Two recent things come to mind, Ouya and the Tesla museum. Both offered items with purchase, but the Ouya items included the Ouya itself. That presents a problem that I didn't realize until now, which is that a store has to do a lot of things relating to paying taxes, etc., when being a store was not the intent of kickstarter, so... I get it. They are not a store.<p>However, with the Tesla thing and related projects, I think that this gets into a really grey area- and from past experience with helping with a large site that took donations- you have to subtract the items that have value from the donation, so they have to do this if anything is given away, or at least the recipient does if they are a charity/non-profit. Was the Tesla thing a non-profit?<p>And not allowing 3D renderings of hardware is a bad idea. For example, if you have a valid design for something and need the money to have it fabricated, then the sponsor should be able to see the design. Not being able to do so is lame. Sometimes the design is the hard part. That is a valuable asset. It should be rewarded with money to see it through. Why place someone with no design and someone with a design on equal footing. They aren't. It's not just about fairness, it is about being able to invest in something with a future. No design- no future. Good design- possible future.
I still don't understand how Kickstarter is different from Pledgie, from which has been around for much longer. At first I thought that Kickstarter would hold the funds for the backers and return the funds if the project fails, but that appears not to be the case. How is Kickstarter anything more than a Donate button, a donation counter and a mailing list?
> Offering multiple quantities of a reward is prohibited.<p>The GoldieBlox are in violation of this bizarre rule.
<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4550707" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4550707</a><p>Why not just say "The developer must declare their planned production run, and not accept excess backers"?
Renderings seem useful in helping viewers visualize what the goal is. Maybe instead they should enforce that renders have to have an accompanying text disclaimer? Kind of like medicine commercials and their side effects.
I for one would be more interested in general success rate. I'm not talking return on investment, but more so on how many projects actually come to fruition and deliver at any level.<p>This is outside the fraudulent activity. It's more out of my sheer, selfish interest in rate of success.<p>I could see such data publication helping and hurting Kickstarter. It could be inspiring and generate even more interest (aka revenue), but also expose the lack of completion and high failure rate turning off investors.
I find it funny how the Oculus Rift's front image is a rendering, and not because they can't do it. But because they want you to see the final design that they have created.
For software products, it's pretty hard for them to tell the difference between a simulation/rendering and the real thing. If I show a finished UI, it will appear to be fully functional and polished, but there may not be any back-end at all. I often create a fake persistence layer to allow for faster development of the UI. How would they be able to tell the difference? And it's actually not violating the rules at all right?
I've been saying this for a while, and I'm glad they are working on clarification. Yes, this will lower some of the astronomical numbers that some projects are seeing- but I'm not sure if hitting 10mm is to anyone's benefit really.<p>It needs to be understood that there is risk associated with this, no guarantees, and that it isn't a straight up purchase transaction like going to the store or preordering an iPhone.
This is a good idea, kudos to them for making this move to help alleviate a lot confusion on behalf of funders.<p>I think what they need to do is have milestones for their project that can get vetted by Kickstarter. For each milestone they hit, more funds get released to them. This will allow funders to get out if they keep missing their milestones, and the project looks like it's going downhill.
In my opinion, Kickstarter is just a futures market for Goods/Services. When they come out and say, "What are the risks and challenges this project faces, and what qualifies you to overcome them?", it just sounds like Futures are dangerous, risky, and you might loose your money.<p>I don't think you can call them a traditional store, but you can definitely call them a Futures Store.
The rule against showing a render seems just a little rough. In some cases I think a render of a product is important and it seems like really crippling a hardware project if they can't show the design of the product. I get why, but that seems like the toughest of the restrictions to me.
This is a sensible list of new rules. This is a quintessential exercise in changing user expectations and behavior. This is great UX, especially in a platform-type environment in which the platform managers aren’t always able to curate the content created by the platform users.
I wonder why they disallowed selling vapor hardware but still allow equally vapor software? Of course I wouldn't be surprised if vapor software would bring significant portion of kickstarters income, so banning it would harm significantly their bottom line.
Not going to lie, I backed my first kickstarter project the other day with Boosted Boards. When I decided to back it my thought process was "Oh, get it in May, perfect timing for my brothers birthday"... now I understand, it might never come.
Really? No renders? So how are you supposed to communicate what you want to build?<p>Terrible move. Require renders and sims to be clearly labeled as such, but this? FFS.
The ban on mutliple rewards is interesting. While there have been no tears shed over ~$1000 going to finance the Makey Makey project, there's a mildly awkward silence every time we try to figure out what we're going to do with 30 of them. It's also true that cannibalizing a old keyboard would have delivered the same functionality...<p>ఠ_ఠ
No simulations or renderings to show the vision that's being pursued? Beyond stupid. It's insane.<p>I'd speculate that it's probably a requirement driven by lawyers worried about failed projects conferring some kind of liability onto Kickstarter itself.