Kickstarter projects must now disclose risks

Some people buy games, others choose to give their money to strangers in hopes that someday they'll be given a game in return.

Once it got into the news Kickstarter clearly became a target for scammers, so I guess taking the precautions to help minimize the amount of money pumped into scams was a good plan.

On the other hand I do see Kickstarter as a place for "half arsed" ideas (in amongst the good ones), so people should still feel free to flush their money down the toilet with them if they're too lazy to think about what they're doing.

As for not allowing renderings, that seems pretty stupid, if you can't tell the difference you shouldn't be funding projects. If you can't show what your product will be, then you're pretty much making it easier to scam people, since most scammers wont be able to make a decent rendering/design document.

This is a good thing. Kickstarter, like anything else, in essence, is not a bad thing. The problem is that over time, people will always take advantage of the system. I mean c'mon, you put up pictures and videos to ask for money, and you have no obligation to pay those people back? I say those people deserve some assurance for they money they're giving.

And even then, who is gonna stop the project team from lying about their risk? Anyone with sense knows that Ouya is quite a risky project. The development of the console is the easy part. Market penetration and 3rd party support is the hard part. There's no quantitative method to evaluate risk of that magnitude. The risk would be completely overshadowed by outright lies and over-confidence, and there's no proper way to penalize them for it. It's basically a loan (from us) or a donation (by us) with ZERO collateral.

I will make a teleporter.  I need 100 millions.  You can check this photoshopped picture to be convinced.  Thanks.

Thank you James "Angry Video Game Con Man" Rolfe.  Without you, these new regulation wouldn't exist.  :)

Who in their right mind would even waste their time with something like this when they know that there's requirements such as this you deadline is on the way and YOU KNOW you can't have it taken care of by then. SERIOUSLY People Have ya'll heard of the word LOAAANN?! Its very simple ugh You people make it so hard on yourselves for NO REASON!!

I would think it would be self-evident but good idea regardless

for those who don't know, there are 2 hours left to support the upcoming broken sword game

the only downside to this is, some projects just plain need a rendering or simulation of what it will(probably) do when its done. a better solution to that end would be to slap a big warning saying "simulation" or "rendering" on or next to the images/videos

Of course the games haven't been released yet. IT TAKES TIME TO MAKE GAMES.

You just can't say, "oh we got the money, here is the game" and shove 1 screen out the door.

God gamespot you are getting dumb and dumber by the minute.

eh in second thought, im in favor of this as a indie team going to use Kickstater for our project, we will list the risk,

want to know what the risk is? well we are a team of a REAL indie team, none of use NEVER worked in the gaming industry, some went to school for making video games and 3d art, some learn on there own. as a indie team we know hard work is put into making a game, we spend most of our time making games at home, in our bedrooms, at our living rooms, etc. we gave up a lot of our free time to work on the game. some even second guess if making a game is ever a good idea at all, but in the end we are still 7 people strong, push to make a games we once enjoyed, before the big greedy publishers, and developers just made games for the money in thus games became more of the same.

as a indie team the risk are that we are doing this in ANY free time we have, most of us are going to college full time, or are working full time, we will do our best to make the game we are currently working on. only reason we on kickstarter is because to release a game we can not use any student versions or trail versions of the software we are currently using, we need the money to buy the license for the software before we can release anything. I know $15,000 is a lot of money to raise but in the same time all the money will not go toward ANYONES pockets it will go straight for the team itself to buy and pay for things we need. So please help out a REAL indie team reach our goal so we can release our game (Under the Radar) to the world so all can enjoy, and if we fail at least you know we try and push to reach our goal, we put effort into making a game in a very deep indie level. so thank you to all who wants to support us.

Oh come on, if you don't know the risks of using Kickstarter you don't deserve to be in charge of your own money

Has any kickstarter project actually be finished and released?

I still think they need to take lessons from World of Mass Development, where the developers give daily status updates and the whole game design document is up for inspection, plus they won't take funds until work on the game is actually in progress.

Yep, with the apperance of Ouya, a console *snicker* thats most likely going to not meet the shipping deadline AND flop, people now know that in the event of a product failing, their money is most likely gone and they have nothing to show for it. 

Kickstarter is an investment, if the investment fails cause the company/creator failed, don't expect your money back, just like with regular business investments.

How can you do this Kickstarter? If project founders are no longer allowed to deceive, how am I going to be easily manipulated and want to flush money down the toilet?

I can't believe so many people are actually funding these scams.

THank god for this, the place was being choked with iOS rip-offs, ridiculous things like "commerical space suit" project with nothing but sketches, crap like the gaming "controller suit" and lots lots lots more. And if they could do something about all the gorram photographers trying to get free round the trips out of it too that would be great.

I'm a little concerned about the timing of this change... Does Kickstarter know something about Ouya that we don't? It sounds like they're preemptively covering their liability.

Good, it's nice to know that Kickstarter are sorting out the trash from the real players!

Here is a prediction : in the near future, tons of people will be whining and crying about the money they lost funding Kickstarter projects that achieved nothing and failed.

It is a shame that so many people lack common sense.....

Kickstarters were getting me worried. Starting to seem scammy.

This is good and to ensure the intergrity of Kickstarter projects.

I've only backed 2 games. One of them was Wastelands, which hopefully will be completed by the end of the year. Kickstarter is just he middleman. They aren't a bank. Whatever funds that are given to these developers are an investment for a product. People need to realize this and not see it as a done deal. If a project does fail, the developers and company will be hurt the most, as gamers will no longer what to invest or purchase any of their future games. All those people who invested in the Ouya were crazy. Even if the product does get completed and shipped, it may still fail a couple months later. In the end you'll have a mini game console with just a couple of old games to play. I can't believe it took in $8.5 million.

I never got into Kickstarter since I dont have the money to back any project to begin with. But I do believe this will help people back the projects are more likely to become reality. After all, something that I learned when I was in my engineering classes in school (Project Lead the Way), I learned that in order for most projects to get the proper funding and support they need from investors, the designers and engineers need to lay down specific risk and challengest and how exactly they plan on overcoming them.