Now I've spent far too much money on Kickstarter and unfortunately a lot of those games are all arriving quite close together, tough I know eh? However, I've tried being good recently and not backed as much. One thing that I was drawn to though is the Magholder!
This is a "Multi-Functional Modular Card/Token Holding Box" available in both plastic and metal and very reasonably priced. Seeing this as a great help for all my games I immediately pounced on this as a first day backer along with over a thousand other backers, maybe even some of you out there? However, it all went downhill fast from there....
To begin with one or two questions were asked about the product and the company, the replies were very odd. This set off a few alarm bells and some of the backers dug a little deeper and it soon became clear that this was just well....
There are currently over 2000 comments listed, if you have some time and need your flabber gasting then have a read through, it's hilarious and horrifying at the same time and please be aware that almost everything is a lie ....
Which brings me back to the reason for this post....
This campaign has been running for a few weeks now, yes it's still running!!!! Hundreds of backers have reported this post directly to kickstarter, listing numerous infractions of KS's own terms and yet they have done nothing about it. Actually, that's not true, in a perverse twist, KS has now started deleting the posts of some backers who have been trying to warn people of the fraudulent nature of this campaign and before you think there may be some doubt, "Magholder" have actually admitted everything!!!
Despite all there claims of how important their community is and how much they will try to protect it, at the moment they seem to be only interested in keeping the few dollars that will be left by the time this campaign finishes. At it's peak it hit $90k, it's down to $70k but sadly it's not going down fast enough to save some backers' money as not enough people are paying any attention to the comments section.
So far all the games I have backed on Kickstarter have delivered, I've been lucky, this experience has reinforced the notion that above all else, if you are backing on KS you are not a backer or investor at all, you are simply a means to an end for KS to make money and as such you must, at all times, make an informed decision before parting with any money and at least read the comments!!!!!!!
Yes, it's up to the backer to be alert and not trust "creators" blindly. Kickstarter rarely intervenes (I remember they did when CMON asked them to, in the case of someone who had copied their rulebook for his game). Sometimes backers are curiously supportive of a project, even when it's obviously a scam (see Ghost Star).