
This is an advert I saw on the side of a Eurogamer page a few minutes ago. It's from a company called Roli, who make interesting midi instruments. If you click on it, it takes you to a Kickstarter page for the item being advertised at 40% off. The discount, it transpires, is because they haven't actually produced it yet.
When did it become normal for companies to use Kickstarter? Are we to believe that traditional R&D budgets no longer exist? I can sort of understand why indie game producers or brand new startups use it, but this is an established company begging for investment from the general public. They're then advertising it like a pre-order, which is a really problematic use for crowdfunding services, because that's absolutely not what they're supposed to be used for. There's no guarantee that Kickstarter projects will ever see the light of day, and if they don't, there's no guarantee that
investors (they're not customers) will get any money back.