Looks like the restitution only covers people in the state of Washington, and there were 31 of them, and I'm assuming the restitution amount of $668 is the total combined amount those 31 people contributed.

But for the swindlers, so to speak, the civil fine to the state is $1,000 per customer. So if there had been 1,000 backers in Washington, the civil fine to the state would have been $1 million. I hope this provides incentive to Kickstarters not to promise things that they aren't sure they will be able to deliver.

Sure, and I do understand why people would like to see some legal action in such cases, but as mabrookes pointed out, the ruling sounds much broader. Judging by the article it sounds like kickstarter backers can just hold a developer responsible for shipping the goods which might lead to have small developers take the risk of ruining themselves over a failed project.

I think the law, the crowdfunding websites and the backers themselves need to recognize the difference between collecting donations for confirmed stuff, which is what Broken Age and Pillars of Eternity and others were and those that are collecting money on a ''is it possible?'' basis.
I'm sure there are people who would invest in open ended campaigns where returns may not be guaranteed. I really feel this kind of thing is needed because giving money and getting something is different from paying money as a grant to see something developed. Further; we can't have such un-concise wishful thinking kickstarters bunched in with legit ones.
Take Anita's work as an example. For getting a research grant, she started the kickstarter with the conclusion in mind. This meant that this project which was very different from money for product ones were bunched in with legit ones when in reality instead of saying ''I'll conduct research on sexism in games'', she just said ''I'll prove games are sexist''. Basically it got undue money for being next to legit ones and people who donated for a more balanced study didn't get it.
KS should recognize and label such open ended projects away from the real legitimate ones and the law should recognize a lower level of liability for those who don't deliver using this. Accordingly, there should be tighter verification for these type of projects to make sure the people conducting them aren't some con artist flukes. It also advances KS as a platform for research grant appeals.

Isn't it a problem with the concept of kickstarter though? Business is the process of turning an idea into a product, and whilst that may mean taking sponsorship and loans that is the business risk, the consumer is not involved until the product is released, then its their risk to purchase or not. Having consumers, with consumer mentallity at an earlier phase is just asking for this kind of problems. Personally I wont get involved In kickstarter or green light or preorder etc. Except following an investor route. The problem is that people seem to think games are all made by their friends and need to be supported, its a business to make money, nothing more.

Do you need ice for that rage boner? For all the whining about how Anita totally scammed everyone, MRAs still have to prop up al least one "victim".

I don't think this will cripple Kickstarter because the people behind the projects don't have to deliver something of high quality... If a project is too ambitious and they can't deliver their great vision to people, then they can always just release a product of low quality They just have to deliver a finished product and they are off the hook, I believe.. So there is still no risk for most people who use Kickstarter to fund their projects. There is only a risk for scam artists. So this could possibly lead to more people becoming Kickstarter backers for projects. Because people will have more trust in Kickstarter projects.

Nope. I think you'll have better use for it considering you didn't read my post and just jumped the trigger the second you saw the word ''Anita''.
If you had read my post you would've realized that I said there needs to be legal differentiation and differentiation on the KS website to organize open ended projects like researches and closed ended ones like funding for games separately. In the current system, both will be intermixing and frankly donation to back a confirmed product and donation for an open ended study are different and should not be treated similarly.
I also said there should be a lower level of legal liability for such projects like Anita's because of the iffy nature of the work. The only thing I said that would've cast her in a bad light is that she may have gotten money by being with the more legit projects; which might happen because she was asking for research funds but still providing the conclusion and I proposed that KS should divide projects in a way that she won't have to do that. Is that so fucking wrong or is anything upsetting to you automatically a product of a ''rage-boner''?

You also seem to be looking for you phantom enemy MRAs. But you didn't find them but still added them in. I'd say you have a rage boner against them.

So were they really scammers or the attorney general is seeking electors for his political ambitions?

Hmmm.... Perhaps the tiers of donations and rewards is broken. If the end goal of a project is say 'to build/restore a house' that shouldn't require everyone who donated also get a t-shirt. Yes tiers do push the donations higher, but crowd funding of old wouldn't have had anything that was super cheaply mass produced.

I've always donated with no expectation to get anything back. Yes i'd love to get something back, and a couple kickstarters has resulted in a product i've enjoyed. I donated for The Enchanted Cave 2, and sadly the only request i had (it coming to GoG) hasn't happened, or maybe it's in the backlog; Still, i loved the first game and he had proven himself to be able to make an addictive game already so i threw him $10 something and hoped him the best. The requested amount was fairly low as i recall. I played the game and beat it after it came out, and it was everything i expected it to be. Of course i had a ton of suggestions, which he said he'd take into consideration when making another game because many of them would take far too much work to implement.

Holy shit, I sincerely hope you don't speak German! Ms. Sarkeesian will kill you if you did this intentionally!

I didn't do anything. A bard of greek origin did something back in 1976.

Facts and reality dont really have anything to do with what she thinks, does or says - I would make a run for it now while you still have the chance!!!

I take on all comers. We'll travel to Mexico, drink wine, listen to Costa Cordalis and have a great time. ;-)

What did I just watch?