I guess so.

Nothing strange about it. Frankly, KS has become a preorder service much more than a donation stand. You give money in exchange of a service or a good. As far as I know, French law sees it as a purchase too.

2 hours of Massive Chalice played, you can watch the VOD here:
http://www.twitch.tv/gogcom/v/5841102
Enjoy!

It's complicated, I guess. In theory, I think taxes could be used to provide a secure baseline for minimum human dignity and protection from violence and theft, and equalizing opportunity for people who otherwise would've had very little chance to do well in life because class mobility is pretty naturally low. I don't doubt that in real life, governments come way short of doing that and waste a lot of money. If I knew how to fix it, I would say how.

Anyway, it's somewhat off topic because if the real issue is whether taxes are good or not in the first place, then a discussion about whether Kickstarter counts as charity isn't really what you're looking for.

But woudnt too much tax kill the willingnes to invest or donate money?
Say i win 10 milions.
Then i can use some of these money to either invest and then get a return on my investement
or i can donate money to somone that are willing to start up something withouth expecting a return
the only thing i then woud expect is a thank you.
You cant really tax thank you and im seeing the rewards on kickstarter as a thank you if whatever i helped get going by my donation.

The people that donated to occulus rift got that going and got a rift as thank you
Occulus rift is now paying taxes and their workers are also paying taxes.
woud all this happen withouth those donations?

Donations are a fine thing and can make the world better. Kickstarter is rather complicated and really has to be thought of as a donation-purchase hybrid to be used with caution.

Taxes for, say, single-payer health care is something I can get behind. I don't think you should have to cross your fingers and hope for donations or walk around with a change bucket after work every day if you get diabetes or whatever else. I think that's a good use of tax dollars. (Education and preventative care is of course cheaper when it works, so that's also something I can support). And if governments spend wisely, the money stays in the economy - if I'm not spending my money on a chronic health condition to the point where I'm constantly on the border of poverty, then I can donate to cool causes or whatever.

There's room in the world for both donations and taxes IMO, but both can go wrong - charities screw things up just as much as governments, and Kickstarters can flop and waste money. I don't think taxes should buy big screen TVs or anything close to that, but I'm ok with the government, say, making really cheap housing and letting people work for their booze, TVs, fancy cars, and fine chocolates.

The Rift looks like it might be a very fine device. Sometimes governments pay for R&D through the university system, but that's also got its problems, and demonstrably, crowd funding sometimes picks up gaps where the government has a blind spot. I think there is plenty of room for both, and if governments could be wise in where they invest money, there would still be money left over for individuals to invest. I don't really take issue with the fact that Kickstarting a VR device isn't tax-deductible like a donation to MSF. MSF is an amazing organization, and if anything, other charities should lose their exemption status if they waste their funds too much.

Thank you Piranjade!

Well if we are off topic I think universally politicians are pretty much the same globally. They can even appear to understand the issues before election and after election go back to their normal mindset and forget all they promised.

The government of my state has it in their minds that everything should be sold off and outsourced. My experience of a lot of outsourcing in the past say IT, is that the initial contract looks like you save money, but generally every extra thing required, every support call etc costs a fortune and before you know it taxpayers have payed more for some company to make a profit, services have declined as the company doesn't really understand what the government department is trying to do etc etc.

My state now is trying to downsize the public works infrastructure group as they say they should not be competing with the private sector. They build infrastructure like roads, bridges, rail etc. In many cases they aren't competing but essentially government wants for profit companies to do the work instead. So unless those companies are ultra efficient I'm finding it hard to see how they can achieve better results or less cost and make a profit. There was actually no mention of the costings, just that they believed the private sector should do it all and government should just co-ordinate.

All I see is excuses to blame someone else if something goes wrong, Divert more public funds to private companies (who no doubt give donations to political parties). Politicians are happy because once they leave politics they can approach these companies and ask for a job. Nothing is explicitly said or put in writing while this all happens but it is the expected norm.

So for the politicians it looks great. Someone to blame if it fails, claim look at what we did when in government, job opportunities out of government and when all the cost overruns happen, the debt (after revenue producing assets were sold to fund it) it is the next government's problem. So the cycle repeats until there is nothing left of public assets to sell (after they have sold off parklands and native wildland reverses to developers that will be the last to slowly go) then I wonder what they will do but raise taxes and increase debt.

Sorry I'm depressing myself and everyone just writing about it.

Yea, lets stop, i got depressed myself
thank you and others for taking part of the discussion though.

Again, I think that most people aren't going to notice, but Double Fine sneakily put some GOG keys at disposition for all backers on their humble bundle account.

So if you are a massive chalice backer waiting for a GOG key, go get it !