Reply To: BattleTech: Mercenaries – CGL does a shipping booboo? Internet rages!

[limburger 21708xp 3]

if projects go flawlessly … then yes … it is a “pre order system”.

However … not everything goes perfect. That doesn’t mean malice was the intent.
I’ve said it before, but we kind of get to see how the sausage is made … and isn’t always pretty.

I think that’s the biggest issue that crowdfunding in general has, but at the same time … how big a warning do folk need that these things aren’t going to be executed perfectly ?.

How many times do we need to read (or ignore) the text that says : “… is not a store”?
We do have our own brains and gut instincts to help us with that, don’t we ?
We’re not babies that need their hand held when spending silly money on things we like.

Banning crowdfunding is not going to remove the need that these companies do have.
There is no way for crowdfunding to judge how ‘worthy’ a project is of being allowed onto that platform.

And as with any commercial venture … there is a perverse reward for such platforms to allow things that shouldn’t be on there as they get money from every successfully funded project. There is no way to judge ‘completion’ as scammers will find loop holes in any system, while potentially harmless mistakes could get smaller companies into bigger trouble.

Theranos happened … despite all the ‘protection’ that regular investors have.
Crowdfunding can never ever get the same legal protection, because the cost of legal action tends to outweigh any investment we have in such things. We would need a legal system that can work for a 50 Euro pledge … and I don’t see that happening.
You want ‘protection’ … it is best to wait for retail. And even that won’t help you in court unless you can find sufficient evidence of malpractice if you want to take a company to court.

Anyways … enough negativity.

I’d say let’s focus on getting our goodies.
Who gets theirs first ? And who gets all of it painted ?
Will we see loads of battle reports ?