There are risks involved in a Kickstarter. I'm sure these are spelled out in the terms and conditions in funding a Kickstarter. While fraud should be protected, a good-hearted attempt that fails should be covered by that contract, in my opinion.
The truth is that no one's ever collected from this and there have been a lot of funded, failed Kickstarter projects that never refunded anything. Until this one.
A lot of people say Kickstarter shouldn't be like this, that no one should expect refunds. But that wasn't the way the site worked until a couple of years ago when the TOS changed.
I'm wondering myself, having payed into a project which keeps promising "almost there" and nearly a year late shows little more than a video of a lame prototype unlike what most backers expect. Trying to stay optimistic, but resigned to it falling thru - and there being no money remaining to refund.
Now, for most people, getting their 20 bucks back is not worth the trouble and costs of a lawsuit. Which is exactly why the suit in this case was carried out at a higher level, taking advantage of the fact that the guy running the project as well as some backers lived in the same jurisdiction.
Refunded from what? If you have the money to "refund" people why would you ask for their money in the first place?
Under "Projects: Fundraising and Commerce": "Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill."
I'm not convinced. The section you referenced pertains to the backing rewards only. They are, and always seem to have been, very hands-off about the delivery of the project.
e.g., "$50 tier, get a copy of the game"
Unless none of the reward tiers involve the project itself, and are all things like t-shirts and stickers...
The project purpose is to make a game. That's separate from the reward tier "get a copy of the game". So if the project fails, the backers who bought a copy of said game need to get a refund.
Do projects really setup their own contracts with their funders?
Whether it holds up in court is a different question, but this lawsuit at least gave a precedent.
People are starting to get their cards now, but I think that has more to do with this lawsuit and the media coverage Nash has gotten for this.
But I wholeheartedly agree that if a backer makes a good faith attempt to fulfill promises, then not shipping is not a punishable offense.
That way only people who ran their LLC recklessly (i.e. not following the LLC rules) can be held personally liable. The 'good-hearted' will simply get a bankrupt LLC on their name.
Not spelt out well is this project is considered to be a scam though.
http://icollectplayingcards.com/back-to-the-asylum-playing-c...