Kickstarter CEO and co-founder Yancey Strickler has announced that updates have been made to the site’s terms of service to address projects that fail to deliver the promised end product and rewards.
“For the overwhelming majority of projects, it’s pretty simple: creators finish the work they planned, backers are happy, and nobody sweats the details,” Strickler wrote, in part. “But there are exceptions. Sometimes problems come up, projects don’t go according to plan, and people wind up in the dark about what’s supposed to happen next. So we’re spelling it out — what’s expected from backers, what’s expected from creators, and what needs to happen if a project runs into trouble.”
The updated policy states that project managers that encounter complications are expected to perform several actions including posting an update to detail what has been done, how exactly funds were used, explain the specific complications, complete transparency on how all the funds were used on the project and return any leftover funds to to backers that did not receive their rewards.
This update to Kickstarter’s terms of use follow several high profile game projects that ran into complications after being fully funded and were cancelled, including Yogventures by the Yogscast as well as Neal Stephenson’s swordfighting game Clang.
(via IGN)