Kickstarter Project Takes $123,000 And Cancels Product: 'My Hope Now Is To Eventually Refund Everyone'
To date, the site has successfully funded 45,692 projects, some of which have raised more than $1 million each.
But just because a project is successful, it doesn't mean the creator will actually deliver on it.
Last year, Erik Chevalier set out to create a new board game called "The Doom that Came to Atlantic City." So he created a project on Kickstarter to raise $35,000. The team ended up surpassing its goal by a longshot, raising $122,874 in total by June of last year.
But just yesterday, Chevalier wrote an update on the Kickstarter project page titled "Terminus."
We first saw the news on Valleywag.
"The short version: The project is over, the game is canceled," Chevalier wrote. "After much deliberation I've had to make this decision. I've informed Keith and Lee and neither at all happy with this situation. Every possible mistake was made, some due to my inexperience in board game publishing, others due to ego conflicts, legal issues and technical complications. No matter the cause though these could all have been avoided by someone more experienced and I apparently was not that person."
So just where exactly did the $122,874 go?
Well, Chevalier writes, it went to forming the company, paying for the miniature game pieces, getting software licenses, hiring artists, and ... moving to Portland.
Chevalier says he didn't set out to con anyone, and promises to fully refund everyone at some point.
The estimated delivery date for the game was November 2012, so we're not surprised that some of the backers are incredibly frustrated.
"As many others have commented, I didn't back this under the impression that the project was to form a company and then publish a game," Kickstarter user RevBob writes. "I was led to believe that the company already existed, the game was ready, and they just needed to raise funds to print the initial run. I certainly didn't expect to be paying someone's moving expenses!"
Other backers are discussing filing fraud complaints against him in the state of Oregon.
Unfortunately for Kickstarter backers, the company does not claim responsibility for failed projects. It only ensures that projects meet their community guidelines, which loosely states that projects must fit into one of their categories.
"On Kickstarter, backers (you!) ultimately decide the validity and worthiness of a project by whether they decide to fund it," according to Kickstarter's terms of use.
Just today, Chevalier posted an update to clarify his last one. He contacted the Oregon Department of Justice to see if what he had done was fraud. They didn't make any promises, but suggested that Chevalier did not commit any fraud.