Kickstarter Says They're Not A Store; Sets New Rules And Regulations

So apparently there have been some misconceptions about the function of Kickstarter in some circles of crowd-funding. The middle-man company has come forward to address some new rule changes for projects as well as put some stricter guidelines in place so that projects will “under-promise and over-deliver”. Sounds fair.

Gameindustry.biz spotted the new rule-set for the crowd-funding website on the official Kickstarter blog, where at the very top it's noted in nice bold letters “Kickstarter is not a store”.

Well that clears that misconception right up.

Anyone thinking that Kickstarter delivered finished products may have spent a little too much time with the wasteland families from The Hills Have Eyes.

The rest of the blog details other changes such as “Risks and Challenges” where project creators must address hurdles or obstacles they have to overcome to get the product/device/instrument/idea out there. This makes sense given that for some projects it may not be entirely clear how easy/hard it is for the project creator to actually get whatever it is they're creating finished.

The most striking change is in the hardware and product design guidelines (games fit into this category), where they state...

Product simulations are prohibited. Projects cannot simulate events to demonstrate what a product might do in the future.

Products can only be shown performing actions that they’re able to perform in their current state of development.

Product renderings are prohibited. Product images must be photos of the prototype as it currently exists.

I think that's fairly reasonable. Talking about what's possible or showing what's working makes sense, but the first thing that came to mind was Ouya and the Oculus Rift, both of which were sold on their ideas thanks a lot in part to the marketing of rendered images and concept art. Smooth work by the PR.

In some ways, the new rules just kind of force people to play by the same rules no matter what size or type of project it is. I think this will definitely help weed out corporate scammers and capitalist pilfers.

You can learn more about the new rules for Kickstarter over at the Official Website.