When Mob Rules Games launched a Kickstarter campaign for Haunts: The Manse Macabre the game back in June 2012, the project was met with a positive response, garnering more than $3,500 above the initial funding goal. This sweet success quickly took a turn for the worst, as the project funder recently announced that the game overestimated its delivery and is now left with no developers and programmers to turn the game into a reality.
Haunts: The Manse Macabre was supposed to be a turn-based horror game where players can choose to take the role of haunted house explorers or those living in it. Mob Rules Games turned to Kickstarter at what the team claimed was the last stage of production, only to realize the game needed much more development before it would ever be ready for worldwide play.
“The game as it stands has all the systems in place, but there are a lot of bugs,” Rick Dakan, Mob Rules founder, writes in a Kickstarter update. “I am still determined to get the game out, but I no longer have any way of knowing when and how that will happen.”
The Haunts story serves as one of the ways successfully-funded Kickstarters can go wrong, especially for projects that require extensive Web development. With product designs, you can attempt to calculate the cost of parts and production, and in turn ask for an appropriate amount of funding when you initially start the project. With programming, you cannot anticipate bug encounters, development timeline, or losing half your team. Though Dakan pledges that his fight for Haunts is not over, he is personally offering to refund backers out-of-pocket if they were to lose faith in the project, no questions asked.
The project hiccups come in light of Kickstarter’s recent policy change that ensured backers realized “Kickstarter is not a store,” and all projects will endure some risks and challenges that the creator must highlight. Dakan promises to keep backers in the loop with more updates as the struggle to make Haunts a reality continues. But the story is a deserved a cautionary tales for backers and project starters alike that when you involve thousands of strangers on your ventures, you best be sure you can deliver.
He should release the source code so some more talented people with more free time can work on it.
I was thinking that same thing.
You should have mentioned that they raised $28 grand! That’s a lot of money. We have to assume that people are gaming Kickstarter by launching fake products that raise a ton of money and then fail to launch. I am sure that Kickstarter does a fabulous job of hiding these failures and gaming practices.
What safeguards do they have in place to prevent people from launching fake projects in the hopes of raising money just to line their own pockets?
Just a quick scan of the Kickstarter site revealed this:
“Am I eligible to start a Kickstarter project?
US creators must be permanent US residents at least 18 years of age with a social security number (or EIN), a US bank account, US address, US state-issued ID (driver’s license), and major US credit or debit card.”
I’m guessing that they hold you accountable pretty well.
That doesn’t mean anything to me. Where is the copy that says “if you do not use the funds to create something which is provable, then you will need to refund X percentage of it back to people” or something that simply says, you have created 1-2 businesses on here that never came to fruition, so you will not be able to create more on here.
They need more safeguards to protect investors.
I found this in their ToS:
◾Kickstarter does not offer refunds. A Project Creator is not required to grant a Backer’s request for a refund unless the Project Creator is unable or unwilling to fulfill the reward.
◾Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.
◾Project Creators may cancel or refund a Backer’s pledge at any time and for any reason, and if they do so, are not required to fulfill the reward.
That’s the only thing I could find that even remotely held the creator responsible for anything. I don’t think the creator receives the money until a certain point (maybe even the end), and I also don’t think the people pledging are charged until the end either.
I’m not a rep, I just appreciate what this site is doing for all the indie communities. I think failure is sometimes to be expected.
Well, I like the idea of the creator getting the money only once the pledge has been met. I wonder in this case if he got the money and then said “whoops so and so quit and we can’t make the game”.
I do like this though:
“Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill. “
I looked into this Haunts thing over the weekend, and while it seems very unlikely that this project was created specifically to rip people off, it does highlight how easy it would be to create a Kickstarter scam similar to this.
Granted, Kickstarter does have safeguards in place to prevent rampant scamming, but as far as I’m able to tell there’s very little to stop someone from ripping people off with a big, well-funded one time project, then simply disappearing to another country (other than the difficulty of attracting enough backers to make this scheme lucrative).
Well, what actually drew you to that conclusion?
Interviewers with the creator, the amount of pre-production material the group had already assembled, the relatively low-overhead plan they had for making this game for a mere $25,000. They might have been scammers, but that seems like a whole lot of effort for such a meager pay day.
And what’s in place to stop someone from mugging you? Nothing. You can go after them AFTER they’ve mugged you, and maybe the cops will find them, and maybe you’ll get your stuff back. But a good percentage of thieves never get caught. So, I don’t really understand your huge worry here.
If a guy walked up to you and said “Hey, man, I’d really like your wallet, but I’m not gonna take it from you. I intend to use the money from your wallet, if you so choose to give it to me, to find a cure for cancer. There’s no guarantee of the outcome, though, and it’s totally your choice,” what more control do you want? It’s a coin toss, just like pretty much ANYTHING else in life.
Is there a guarantee that the movie you go see will be good? No. A guarantee that food you buy will taste wonderful? No. You live, and you learn. This whole “Someone should really make sure nothing negative ever happens in the world, ever” mindset isn’t doing anyone any good.
I think that, what with the authentication credentials Kickstarter collects from these people, it’d be PRETTY tricky to pull off a big scam like that and evade the already-present law enforcement forces at work. Also, it would be a pretty huge endeavor.
Go look at all the games being pitched on there. Any of the big ones pretty much have a 17-page, extremely well-written design plan, not to mention constant updates (starting WELL before the funding window closes and they actually get their money) involving lots more well-thought-out text, artwork, and even extensive video interviews and blogs. So, if someone goes through ALL that trouble for a whole month, then wants to try to evade law enforcement when they suddenly vanish with 2.8 million dollars, then I say they should go for it. And if they DON’T go through all that effort, then it’ll be pretty easy to spot the vast difference in effort, and people should intelligently not take the risk on that one.
Let’s be realistic here, instead of aribitrarily jumping to panic-inducing exaggerations. “Since nothing can provide a 100% guarantee it WON’T occur, then THERE’S LITERALLY NOTHING even making it REMOTELY difficult to pull off such a scam! This is basically free money for thieves! FOR SOOTH!”
Perhaps I’m more cynical than you, but that doesn’t really change the fact that the Kickstarter system itself lacks a number of important safeguards to prevent scamming.
I’m not saying huge scams are necessarily going to occur, but it’s unrealistic to look at Kickstarter’s organization and history and think it’s utterly protected from thieves.
On the other hand, as you said, most pitches on there are quite complex and it takes an awful lot of work to make your project look legitimate by comparison. As I said before, odds are solid that most scammers wouldn’t go to that much trouble for what is a relatively meager prize. That should be seen as comforting, but at the same time it should not be the key deterrent the site relies on to ward off crooks.
You know……..a dollar coming out of my pocket is no big deal really……………..but when you have millions of other people doing the same thing……………..NOW, THAT’S A BIG DEAL !