Kickstarter has changed the rules for publishing projects

On September 20, Kickstarter quietly updated the rules for publishing projects on the site. Or rather, they were updated in the usual way, just the community these days was immersed in the bubbling around the 3D printer Replicator 2 (as they wrote on Habré) and almost did not pay attention to the very serious, in my opinion, changes in the design rules for projects kickstarter.com that make this site noticeably more mature.



The main changes, as well as the answers to the most frequently asked questions, are published in their official blog entry under the heading “Kickstarter is not a store”. Serious updates that now have to be considered by all authors in the first place "iron" projects are as follows:

• It is necessary to describe the risks of the project - now the author in a special section should indicate the main risks of the project and methods or methods for their control, accounting and decisions.
• Simulations and photorealistic renderings are prohibited - authors can now publish only full-fledged photos of the prototypes of the future product. The same applies to the simulations of the device, its software, etc.
• Small wholesale “packs” in the plags are prohibited - the authors can not create plage, which consist of several identical units of product. In general, now there are no “pack”, “bulk” and “multiple awards”.

It is necessary to clarify that almost certainly Kickstarter took such measures because of the mass criticism recently inflicted on him by major Western publications. So Bloomberg has prepared a selection of stories in which projects that have gained popularity on Kickstarter actually turned out to be “zilch”. The Wall Street Journal has compiled a list of the best and worst Kickstarter projects . The New York Times and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who published a report , according to which 75% of “iron” projects at Kikstater, do not fit within the stated timeframe, add fuel to the fire.



All this criticism is quite justified and the alarm bells rang even in those times when painted cardboard boxes or pieces of soap began to appear in photo and video presentations at the site. Profitable to present your project is not as difficult as debugging and launching it into production. From here, lately, on Kickstarter, one can observe the universal dominance of 3D renders, especially in the “iron” projects section. Increasingly, these models do not overlap with reality either because of the cost of their production, or because of the planned circulation, or simply because of the figure that is specified in the Goal project.

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In general, it seems to me that everything goes on as usual and the updated policy of the site is expected, justified and potentially effective. Kickstarter is not profitable to exchange their reputation for the number of projects, and if they could afford to let out frank fakes 3 years ago, now this time is over and the authors will begin to publish what the real work was done and stop selling bare ideas without a clear understanding of how to bring them to life.