From the campaign:

We’ve come to Kickstarter to put the game in your hands and make it the best it can be. We know how important feedback is and Jotun’s alpha and beta backers transformed the game into something special. We need you to tell us what we can do better. It's about polish, feedback and using Kickstarter funds to make Sundered the best it can be.

Here is a sampling of things we want to improve with your help:

Overall balancing and pacing
Special nodes for the Skill Tree
Different ideas for Perks
What exactly defines the core gameplay experience and how we can improve it

This also explains why anyone backing at the $15 or higher tier will get an automatic invite to Sundered's Beta. Yes, we want your feedback, but we also need the money for development time to implement that feedback. The July release date reflects this extended timeline.

One could argue of course that all this could be accomplished with a public beta as well. But I feel one probably gets better feedback from those who are more invested in the game. Not just financially, but by showing their interest by backing.

I'm providing feedback and content for three games I've backed at the moment, and will likely do the same with this game too.

Marketing?

It's an inexpensive way of getting an interest free cash advance while also generating hype about the game.

Yes and no. At the end of the day, it's more about how you manage you business. When I say "realistic" I don't mean a realistic number for developing the game, I mean a realistic number to get from Kickstarter. Someone managing their business well, doesn't rely on Kickstarter funding to finish their goals, or to stay in business. I'd say that Thunder Lotus displays that perfectly. You can pretty much bet that this game is coming out regardless of the outcome of the campaign.

Looks nice! Guessing there's a fair chance it will come to GOG.

And the start of the trailer threw me for a moment - I thought the robot was a Geth. :D

LEGRAND LEGACY - Tale of the Fatebounds

Projected has relaunched on KS with more modest funding goals. Early Birds are still available as of this writing.

NOT ANYMORE! :D Quite (cautiously) happy about this btw :)

Anyways, I decided to back Pixel Princess Blitz since I found it here. Really love the art work.
This looks very beautiful.

Me, too! You guys will definitely get funded this time, no problem! Congratulations on a very successful few days! Can't wait to see where the next 26 days take us! ^_^

Legrand Legacy is your game? :-P

Yes, well.. my husband is working on this. I just help him with the Kickstarter and Twitter and that kind of stuff :)
Wow, just realized we do still have a long way to go hahaha.. Yeah, quite exciting, but seriously... KS is not for the faint of heart.. :D

Oh nice! :) I just backed it this morning since it was looking interesting. :)

I'm optimistic about this run, especially as the goal is below what was pledged last time. There are usually two big spike periods on KS, at the start and the end. I've seen projects raise huge amounts in the final 48 hours, which is exciting but nerve-wracking for the project creators. :)

Given how much you have raised already, about 70%, it should be fairly trivial to meet the base goal by the end of the campaign. In fact I would think about announcing the initial monetary stretch goal or two about now.

As you have passed the 30% Rule it is safe to say the Kickstarter project will succeed and we can congratulate you on this. Of course the rule is empirical and there is a time factor involved (I believe the 30% threshold should be reached somewhere in the first third of the timeline).

P.S. Still won't back the project as nothing has changed since the last attempt.

Well, I just found this campaign:

Banner Saga 3

And this time they offer a GOG version from the get go.

(I didn't know they were going back to kickstarter for the third part, although it's not that surprising as they weren't too happy with the second part sales).

But still no Linux. I really enjoyed Banner Saga 1, but they've dropped Linux support for 2 & 3.