Eh. Hype and snake oil are as old as human civilization. I don’t blame software developers from using every trick they have to get funded. I also don’t. Blame Kickstarter all that much. They’ll usually shut down outright fraudsters and make the occasional change when something becomes egregious. But I regard their service as a net human good when I take into account artists and tinkers finding their way to an audience or community.
I guess I’m mostly sanguine about this whole thing in a caveat emptor way. I can caution people to be careful. I can give advice for avoiding hucksters. I can educate people on the economic realities of game design, even the near desperation and over promising starving-artist developers will use to get a project funded. But not much past that. I mean, I know what Bitcoin is (beanie babies with math that has a useful purpose for a very small subgroup) and I can’t stop people from being idiots about it.
It’s just prudence and caution. It’s about governing yourself and arming yourself against emotional decision making, or at least recognizing when you’re engaged in hype. These are virtues worth learning, but I can’t force them on people.
