FWIW, the preferred practice in international fora is to use a space for digit grouping instead of either a comma or a period. So $1 000 000.23 or $1 000 000,23 are both clearly legible to people regardless of where they're from without causing any headaches.

Actually, it is although not in a traditional stock sense. You're investing money into something and you expect to gain something. If you are interested in shares of certain company you don't care if created dolls will have green or red clothes, you want $. In the case of KS project, you don't care if the project makes a tons of money, you expect a product described on the main page. A loss or gain is defined by the quality of product, not amount of profit.

And, by the way, it isn't a donation because you (can) receive something in exchange.

You are right in the colloquial sense, but legally, that's a different matter entirely. It isn't legally an investment because there are specific rules in place and one generally ends up with an equity share in the concern rather than a reward.

It's more similar to donating to the local Public Broadcast Station where you get some swag in exchange for helping them to produce or license the material for broadcast.

Sorry. You are even more wrong (or "wronger") now.

You offer no validation for your argument indicating that you are not wrong. If you cannot provide evidence for validation that you are not wrong, then it is merely based on your own personal opinion that you are, in fact, correct. If you can provide any form of validation to your argument, please provide it, so that I can refute.

Until such time as evidence is brought forward that you are, in fact, correct, I must assume that you are actually incorrect in this matter.
Shhhh... :)

Yeah, I'm aware of lack of obligations. I see it more like a crossover of investment and patronage. I guess your example of PBS is the best description.

You forgot that this is a tale from fancy Apple-land. That would be an insult to the poor, fancy IPad.

Well, if you charge $200 a roll for it and give it a proprietary connector, I'm sure that somebody will buy it.

To all the people whining about KS, saying they don't see the point and such, let me just point out that before KS got popular I've only known a few indie devs to make turn-based RPGs, at the rate of about 1.5 a year or so.
Now there are quite a few in development, including 6 I've personally backed.

To put it simply, and speaking strictly of the gaming part, KS is a way for fans of niche genres that are ignored by publishers and most indie devs to fund new projects they want.

I'm very happy to have been able to back Wasteland 2 or Project Eternity, as well as a number of other game projects, simply because I love RPGs, especially turn-based ones.
Hopefully, I'll get a few good games in return, but even if I don't, it's no big deal, since I didn't spend money I couldn't afford to lose.


Frankly, to all the people who can't see the point of KIckstarter, if you're not passionate enough about anything that you'd be willing to donate money in order to have a chance to see that thing be made, then I kind of feel sorry for you.

This is so well said, I just had to quote the entire post. +1

Oh god no. You mean the model where they lie to lenders about fraud they uncover and don't bother to ask about modifying the loan until way after the fact?

I lent $25 a few years back and it took forever to get it back because Kiva was being defrauded by the contact in the country. The loan was being paid by the woman who borrowed it as promised, but somebody at the agency was apparently embezzling the funds.

I didn't find out about that until way after Kiva discovered the fraud and had already opted to modify the terms of the loan.

I did eventually get the money back, but it pissed me off to no end that Kiva wasn't giving any of that information to the lenders. And worse, was continuing to use them after the fraud was discovered to set up new loans.

Clearly, the burden of proof that I am wrong falls upon you. The evidence that I am correct is the very lack of evidence that I am not correct.

And ET3D: I know. :p You couldn't guess by my highly circular logic?

You're both wrong as of now. Lern2think noobz.

Concerning the initial argument:
There's nothing inherently bad in replying with "no, you're wrong".

A logical argument is not a contest, it's all about what use you extract from it.
If one of two arguers used to be wrong and has been convinced, both sides win. Being less wrong is better.
If the arguers do not agree and the end goal was to actually convince the other party, both sides lose - one for remaining wrong, and the other for wasting time.

Now, assuming good faith on the part of both sides (assuming no one's trolling or expressing an opinion he does not actually hold), "you're wrong" may be a bad way to express disagreement, given a particular social context. On a forum, it may be construed as laziness: "To my best knowledge, OUYA is created by qualified personnel, but I do not care about this topic to dig up some links to convince you or the rest of the audience; in case you or anyone else is interested enough, do your own homework". It also casts aspersions on the poster's "best knowledge": if he does not care to dig up links now, it may very well be he did not research thoroughly when he formed that "best knowledge" in the first place.

On the other hand, if that was exactly the goal - to inform people about the existence of a different opinion using as little resources as possible - then posting "you're wrong" is indeed the most efficient, the right way to do it.

As for OUYA itself:
Overfunded technology projects are risky, because the creator might not know how to manage volumes. If you're making a videogame for $300k and get $3M, you just make a somewhat better game and distribute more free nonscarce copies. If you ask for 1M for a console and get $9M, you need to deliver nine times more scarce consoles.

(Even given all that, I considered OUYA a worthy initiative and backed out when they asked more for a limited edition. Because the math does not work out. They asked for 1M for development, production, and distribution. They got ~9M, which is, according to their own evaluation, enough money for nine identical console projects. Therefore, the 40% price increase for a different color was an asshole move.)

Yeah I tend to do that when I'm actually writing things down with a pen/pencil to avoid confusion, myself. Especially, if I'm writing quickly my commas and periods tend to sometimes look similar sad to say.

Kickstarter is like a big donation lottery. Things will get wrong sometimes. Maybe some day a competitor will come up with an even better idea, for example a certain fraction of profits that flows back or some kind of insurance or whatever... Until then every backer has to decide for himself how trustworthy the project management is. I only invest in low risk projects but I am cautious by nature. :) However it always helped me making the right decisions.

You don't understand how investment works, do you?