«Kickstarter is not a store»

[toblix]

Kickstarter is making some pretty extreme policy changes in an effort to return to its roots, i.e. more supporting exciting projects, and less buying a 200 unit shop stands. It's not retroactive, but I guess there will be uproar, discussions and edge cases even a lot of projects currently in the pipeline.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Seems like a good policy change to me, although I think the "no artist impressions of what something might look like" is a bit extreme. I can certainly understand why they've done it, though, and it may well be for the best in the long run. Hurrah for KS!

[gregbrown]

Good. Kickstarter has been edging dangerously close to becoming indie QVC, with QVC expectations. There are some Kickstarter projects that inevitably aren't going to succeed, and greater transparency throughout is the only way to ensure that people aren't surprised.

Felix Salmon, as always, is great on the subject. (That LED Wi-Fi lightbulb project is going to disappoint so hard.)

[brkl]

Note that apart from the Risks and Challenges bit those don't affect games.

[Thrik]

Disallowing renderings is a funny one. On the one hand it makes sense because it's a little unfair to expect people to back something based on renderings that could potentially look much better than the final product, so expectations are kept in check. On the flip side, showing 'vertical slices' and representations of a final product is common fare in all entertainment industries and I'm guessing hardware design industries too.

I guess with time those using Kickstarter will learn to put more effort into prototypes and such rather than relying on fancy renders to get people interested, but of course that means more upfront costs they may not be able to afford. Will be interesting to see how it pans out!

[RoutineMachine]

The no renderings rule will be good for the 3d printer kickstarter projects

[I_smell]

God, who makes their website grey text on a white background! I'm like an inch from the screen tryina read this!

Yeah this is good for those Kickstarter dudes. I remember Robert Khu (company director at Penny Arcade) did a PAX Panel where he said he was friends with those guys, and it really bugged him that people were using it as a store.

And as we know from Idle Thumbs, MAKING REWARDS is a strange time and money sink.

Personally though, I totally WAS using it as a store. I backed the Double Fine one just to watch the documentary (which is aesome) and the Idle Thumbs one just to get like 3 months of new casts.

I supported the goals of the projects, but I put money in to get the rewards.

[Nappi]

  On 9/22/2012 at 1:04 AM, gregbrown said:

Felix Salmon, as always, is great on the subject. (That LED Wi-Fi lightbulb project is going to disappoint so hard.)

Hahaha.. that is utterly ridiculous.

First of all, LED lamps are currently not the best replacement for incandescent lamps in most cases (if only for they price), compact fluorescence lamps are. And you can easily find ones with color temperatures around 2700-3000K.

the weirdest part, however, is their plan to buy thousands of LED lamps (not LEDs)… and what? Hope that the aluminium heatsinks have room for the additional electronics? I'm fairly sure that, at least, the Philips LED lamps they seem to be using as examples won't offer that. Furthermore, the performance of LEDs is heavily affected by temperature and that extra 2-3 watts (for WiFI) is certainly not going to help, as the heatsinks of those things are already quite hot.

I think they will also have very difficult time in finding any RGB LED replacement lamps that meet their (vague) luminous efficacy goals, as vast majority of the LED lamps meant for general lighting (not just fooling around) are based on blue LEDs and phosphorous coating. While some of those lamps have additional red LEDs to boost the color rendering index and to lower the color temperature, that won't give you much control over the color of the light. The 2-3 watt requirement for WIFI in the "master" bulb is also quite steep when you compare it to the power consumption of 800 lumen energy saving lamps.

Finally, 25 years of lifetime…

Also, home automation.

Um, anway.. I think the policy change is definitely a step in the right direction.

Sorry for derailing the discussion for a bit.

[MrHoatzin]

That sure is an elaborate opinion on light bulbs. And I read it. The whole thing. Studiously, even. I feel like I need to reward myself for that.

Aaaaand—ah, what the hell—you deserve it! Wear it proudly.

All of these Kickstarter rules are probably for the best. At the same time, I hope that they enforce the spirit of the rules rather than the literal word. It is interesting how everything in capitalism seems to gravitate toward peddling tchotchkes. Even Kickstarter when it functions correctly (as in, in the spirit of its founding vision) is all about producing a whole gamut of increasingly more precious tokens of support for whatever the main goal of a campaign is—this aspect of it is what everyone has had the most trouble getting right. It is interesting to reflect on. Seems like a good rule of thumb is that lower tiers shouldn't get tangible things.

[Nappi]

Haha.. yeah. It's just that the subject is very close to what I have studied and worked on up until recently. There are good LED lamps out there, just lost in a sea of cheap ripoffs and false promises. I needed a place to vent out.

Carry on.

[subbes]

I'm guessing in the darkened wastes of Finland everyone is at least a minor expert on lightbulbs and other light-emitting objects.

[I_smell]

By the way, the fact that Kickstarter raises a million dollars plus for something completely ridiculous every other day is still absolutely fucking mind-boggling.

I used Kickstarter around the time Cthulu Saves The World managed to raise $7000 and I said "Wow this is amazing! I can't believe that works!", and at this point it's just astronomically difficult to imagine.

[brkl]

Bright regular bulbs are illegal now so you either have to get by without light or make an actual choice on what kind to use

  On 9/22/2012 at 6:16 PM, subbes said:

I'm guessing in the darkened wastes of Finland everyone is at least a minor expert on lightbulbs and other light-emitting objects.

We mostly use reindeer noses.

[BigJKO]

Hmm, I backed the light bulb and while you guys've managed to make me a bit skeptical of them, I'm still gonna go ahead and pledge it..

Kickstarter's new policy is great, though!

[brkl]

Don't do it, you'll lose our respect for you

[BigJKO]

That almost sounded poetic. Sooner or later these spambotses will be spewing beautiful/vile haikus all over the place!

[BigJKO]

Here we are, a year later and I'm supposedly receiving my two lightbulbs at the end of this month. Now we'll see if I have been scammed.

I'll say, Philips coming out with a similar product dimmed my excitement a bit.. Although from what I've seen of LIFX's app it's a lot better than Phillips'. I'm excited to see how well this actually works in practice.

I'm curious, Nappi, if you've followed their blog at all? Maybe they've addressed some of your issues with it?