State of the industry: Kickstarter

Indie developers seem to be turning away from self and 3rd party publication in what can only be described as a new, more independent, phase of the gaming industry.

Personally, I'm all for independence when it comes to running a company. I'm also 100% behind the idea that people should spend (or waste) their money on what every toy, gadget, or terrible investment they deem important. But it's also important to look at the consequences and ripple effects of initiatives like Kickstarter 

There are some truly good (or at least well intention'd) projects currently raising funds through Kickstarter. But like everything else in the world, the beggers, scammers and just people who generally don't know what they're doing come pouring through the flood gates.

As I said, Kickstarter can be used for good, but sometimes people can take the acquisition of monetary gains a little too far...

It saddens me because I really had hope that Kickstarter would be sort of a sacred tool that is used sparingly and only for projects with competent developers and leaders. Mark one down for my naivety. Apparently every little project, whether or not it's an awful 'GamrGurrl' calendar or a pathetic little flash game that wouldn't even be fit for Newgrounds, seems to be worthy of the attention of thousands of people clamoring over themselves to throw money into the bottomless furnace that Kickstarter is quickly becoming.

For a very long time, I've been hoping for an alternative to publishers that would allow independent game developers to get the funds that require (again, require) rather than having to turn to a big publisher, who they will then have to pay royalties to, such as companies like Steam, for distribution. Imagine my surprise when yet again the internet has taken something remotely good and driven it into the ground.

The fact of the matter is if this trend doesn't stop, Kickstarter will be the new dollar menu of the video game industry. Everyone will be making promises birthed out of delusions of grandeur. Ellwood Bartlett, for instance, is pleading for over 1 million dollars, which is fine... If you weren't for 2 problems.

1: Mr. Bartlett has already admitted he has no knowledge of current programming tools such as C++, but insists that he is a wiz with stamp-cards (well, thank god, for a moment I was under the impression he had no idea what he was doing!)
2: He only has a backing of about 21,000$, most likely because he makes promises such as "you can do anything!" or "there will be hookerbots!".

These are cases of ambitious indie developers trying to take too big of a bit and create their dream games without even getting down and dirty, getting a 2 years worth supply of ramen noodles, opening Gamemaker, C++ and doing some cold, hard, coding. These are people who don't want to build from the ground up because a few beggers got lucky with Kickstarter.

Indie devs need to pull back on the reigns and realize that if people continue to e-beg off of Kickstarter, than a website that was once good for small developers to get their projects started will become nothing more than the next Get Rich Quick scheme.