The Site Rules are pretty specific about PreOrders..basically, they are a no-no.

Kickstarter is just that:  pony up money, in advance, for something that may never actually happen AND you have little to no chance of getting it back should the campain fail.  

There has been a lot of game, video, book, etc. Kickstarter campaigns in the recent past whoring their "products" on NA.  Isn't this something that is in violation of the site rules and should be stopped??

"Should you need to do a preorder to raise funds, please do it elsewhere." Kickstarter=elsewhere, so the rules are being followed as written.

What happens when someone other than the kickstarter producer posts a link? Does that get erased as advertising, or discussed because it is relevant news?

 

Yeah if it's off-site you can link to it. Just don't process your trannies here.

Wait, money goes to the creator if funding isn't successful? I thought they can only do that with the "flexible funding" option. Meaning if the goal was 5k, and they make 3k, then the 3k would be pulled from the pledger's accounts.

If someone were to put up a "Hey I need your PP to make games plz giv" right on the forum, then that money is taken in advance. From my knowledge, KS doesn't take it in advance.

If the campaign succeeds (money is taken), but the product is never made, the buyer could have a hard time getting anything back. That burden of mediation after failure is why the NA rule was written. Campaign on KS means the NA mods don't have that work load.

I don't think there's much of a problem really. Then again I'm biased since I'll be running a Kickstarter myself when I have little content left to do in my book.

I think the rules are being stressed, but not broken. Best thing about rules on a forum is they can be modified to suit whatever best fits the people running the show and the overall community.

Kickstarter is absolutely necessary these days for smaller projects. Minimum print orders are a batch   get it, I said batxh. like a group of items but it sounds like.....nevermind.

Anyway I'm cool with Kickstarter. People generallybknkw there's an inherit risk and virtually little to no guarantee. And the People running a Kickstarter understand that total fraud would destroy their reputation, land them some fines, and possibly lead to a legal fight and even major charges of major money is involved.

Fair point. But, I'm sure it is just a classic case of "not on NA, not our problem." Granted, we do in a sense police eBay user, in a sense. Touchy topic to be sure.

I'll abide by whatever Dain thinks, but the fact that every third post on the NA homepage is a freaking Kickstarter ad is in contradiction with the spirit of the NA rules...IMO. By allowing them to be posted there, we ARE endorsing every single one and "telling" people to send money to each cause.

Not cool, again, IMO.

Isn't the homepage controlled by mods/admins only, and forum rules wouldn't apply? And at least one of those KS ads is posted by Dain? If there was no promotion of items/events on the homepage then it would be pretty blank   Nobody reads it anyways!

Some good points.

There have been examples of people linking those shady facebook raffles, and we shut those down. The difference there is those are usually illegal.

I agree that news banners and homepage listings go beyond the "not on NA, not our problem" thinking. That's not just someone making a thread about it, it LOOKS much more like an NA endorsement, whether or not that's actually the case (it's really not).

I'd definitely like to hear some more opinions on it.

That is a good point. I was thinking only of threads.

Highlighting something on the front page seems like it's just sharing what's new in the community. Not really an endorsement, just letting you know.

Banners do seem like an endorsement. I could be lead to think, "Well if NA trusts this thing enough, I guess I can."

I dunno. Threads about KS and preorders, totally cool in my book. Banners and home page, no strong opinion. I lean towards being very open with home page and not so much with news banner.

At least with threads, they point to what is going on in the gaming community. If the creator does not post about it, then someone else will, and who better to hear about it from (and ask questions directly to) than the creator. If we only limited ourselves to talking about past projects, then we'd be skipping over what is actually going on in the community, not to mention many people would be missing info on things that they would have liked to have supported. There would be no way to openly talk about and discuss a project, its funding, its goals, questionable practices, whatever. If taken to the extreme, where pre-order projects were not even allowed to be mentioned until officially released, then it would also have to be expanded to talking about pre-orders from Nintendo, Atlus, Sony, wherever.

I've always read the rules as stating that pre-orders cannot be taken on NA. Anything off-site is allowed, unless it gets scammy. I have seen more than a few projects where someone will pop in to the forums merely to self-promote, but there are plenty of other projects by community members that are possible due to pre-orders. Anything from the AVS to Lizard has been great to back, in my experience, even if they are super late.

Not sure on the front page and banners. Mostly ok with them, but then again I'm going to investigate and judge them independently of what the blurb says.

Since B.A. asked I'll chime in with my thoughts on the matter. I pretty much agree with Mr. Bep there. While I personally find kickstarters to be a rather lazy effort in general (this is my own opinion, there is nothing wrong with them so let's not misinterpret my words), I do enjoy seeing that so many members seem to enjoy them and support them. Not every facet of this hobby is for everyone, and that's perfectly fine. I had my time on the front page before for a cookout I held and I'm sure not everyone thought that was the greatest thing ever, but isn't the front page meant to keep people posted on what's happening in the scene? If kickstarters are what more and more people are seemingly into then I don't see any harm in it.

However, I do agree with OP to some degree as well. At the end of the day I think that people should use their noggins and understand that just because NintendoAge may share something like that it doesn't mean that it is necessarily endorsed or supported by the site. It's an update of sorts on what's happening today. Besides, as bunnyboy pointed out, if there isn't any news the page would be blank. I much prefer to see relatively consistent updates to the main page as opposed to seeing the same thing for weeks on end.

OH, and I'll add that Beau is pretty much dead on with his last statement. Good show.

Hmmm... good points here lads. I feel as mentioned before that the rule was set because mods had to deal with countless people not following though with their preorders here. 

Possible nomination for the quoted out of context thread  


All seriousness about the topic. If you want to back a kickstart i feel it is at the buyers discretion. Use the same judgement if you were buying something on ebay, NA  or from shady Louie on the corner

I'm not a fan of Kickstarter. However, if that site is going to act as the payment processor / event organizer, then it's one thing NA doesn't have to worry about. So that's the big difference between a Kickstarter backed preorder and a NA thread preorder... who is the responsible party if shit hits the fan.

Having said that, I do think a NA disclaimer should be added to the FAQ at least. Something clearly stating that NA is not directly affiliated with any Kickstarters and buyers should back them at their own discretion and own risk. Some of them generate a lot of discussion or buzz in the community and it is only fair that they can be discussed on NA.

Not sure why these all don't get stuck in the thread with the promotions/YT videos etc. Just make a sticky for them there. I don't think 'collector's corner' is the right place for them either. My 2 cents.

You cats all make good points. It's nice to see a serious discussion such as this actually be... Serious. I can't argue with anything that's been said in here thus far, so let's continue to make a solid decision here.

I think the thing to sort out is whether the issue is with pre-orders or self-promotion. Michael brought up both (pre-orders and whoring), and the two often go hand in hand, but unless we're being clear on what the issue is, it is difficult to discuss what could or should be done with them. It is important too, I think, to keep in mind how a one person KS campaign is different than discussing the NES Classic pre-order. I'd wager that qualitatively there is little difference, except maybe for the fact that someone else is doing the promoting of it, and/or it is coming from a big company (which does not guarantee delivery either).

Self-promotion is no different than someone linking their eBay listings, talking about their fundraisers, etc.  And it's video game related so it wouldn't classify as spam.  That's a non-issue IMO.

Agreed. Even more than that, any sales thread, or topic that could be skewed as relating to what someone is up to with a project could be seen that way.

If we just look at pre-orders then, crowd-funded ones are no different than the next game from the Big N. You're left with either allowing discussion/awareness of them all, or prohibiting any talk of any of them until after the fact. Barring discussion of them limits us to only talking about the past, not to mention the mods would have to go through threads and delete out all mention of anything that was currently in a state of pre-order (or possibly even things that will get to a state of pre-order, like the NX). Books off of Amazon, games from major companies, the lowliest game-related KS project, etc. And yeah, that is going to sound ridiculous, but that's where we end up if it is pushed to the extreme and universally applied.

That's a good idea to add a disclaimer to the FAQ. Discussion about the kickstarters on here is only natural, but it is up to the backers to do their own due diligence before turning over their hard-earned money.

As far as the front page goes, I feel that it does appear that NA is endorsing whatever is posted there. I realize that the front page needs news on it, but as far as these KS topics go, if they are already generating enough discussion and interest, members will find them in the Latest Posts fairly quickly.
  I agree with this as well. Too many topics end up in Collector's Corner that shouldn't be there, and we try to organize accordingly. Promotions is the perfect place for KS threads.

Is this a self-promoting issue, or a pre-order issue though? It seems to be a self-promotion issue in this case. Way too much stuff does end up in CC, likely because it is one of the busier sections of the forum and people want maximum visibility for their project, but where else would it really go, and more importantly, why? We're probably all tired of seeing this or that thread bumped twenty times a day, but the same can be said about any topic that we're not personally interested in. Why (and how) would we single out KS campaigns? NA has helped many projects get off the ground, KS or otherwise, and it doesn't seem possible or fair to lump everything into one category based on this. The whole of the Brewery would basically have to be moved to Promotions if that was the case.

Unless it is truly a pre-order issue, in which case I am still curious how KS campaigns could be singled out while every other pre-order would be allowed to be discussed elsewhere.

The pre-order rules are in place due to the high level of risk. 

If you pre-order from Amazon, Best Buy, Gamestop, etc, there is a reasonable assurance that if the product doesn't get delivered that you will get a refund.  Not the case with kickstarter, or random guy on NA asking for pre-order money.