Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Project Update #5, $1.51 Million and Counting
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I have received a tremendous response to the "Kicking it Forward" concept with all of it being extremely positive. As expected, there have also been a number of questions so I would like to clarify the concept as best I can.
One thing I have discovered over the years is that if you keep an idea simple then you have a better chance of people getting behind that idea. "Kicking it Forward" is about as simple as it gets.
Any developer that puts the "Kicking it Forward" badge on their Kickstarter project page is agreeing that they will put 5% of their finished product profits back into other Kickstarter projects. To be abundantly clear, this is only money that the developer earns as profit AFTER the project ships and AFTER they have paid their expenses. This is NOT a suggestion to invest money they received from people who invested into their project via Kickstarter.
Once a project in this program has become profitable, the developer is going to spend this 5% profit, which is their own money, on whatever Kickstarter projects they want to support. They can determine unilaterally who they want to give it to and when. Neither myself nor a committee is going to tell successful developers what projects to invest in. Ultimately, this is an honor system at the end of the day. No one is going to audit their books to make sure they complied. In many ways Kickstarter is an honor system too, so this is no different. Of course some unscrupulous developer may not follow through with their promise but I believe the development community sticks together.
My involvement will be to create the badge and set up a site that displays which projects agree to "Kicking it Forward" and which projects were supported through this program. Then, after that, it needs to take on its own life. After all, I need to make sure Wasteland 2 meets everyone's expectations.