This Kickstarter will rate fairly high on personal 'chances of success' scale, even without having seen the offer yet. Why? Because they meet several of the criteria I've seen in other KS's that have ended well for me:
- They aren't doing anything new. This is work they already do, just using KS so they don't have to float as much cash during production.
- The team is already built or has already worked together. The designers, writers, managers, production companies, etc. are not coming together for the first time.
- They have previous experience pricing the sort of product/service they are Kickstarting. The chances that they have no idea what making widget X costs to make in volume are very low.
- The 'company' isn't a one-man show.
There are a few other criteria I look for that I won't be able to evaluate until it comes out. Those would generally be:
- Are there too many, or too ambitious stretch goals? These have killed the viability of a few things I've backed, cool as they were.
- Are they getting so much response/money that production plans will have to change to deliver to all backers before the sun burns out.
- How far along in development is the product when the KS starts? Using KS to provide capital to fund full-scale production is less risky, and less likely to blow past all deadlines than a product that is nothing more than concept art and design documents.
- Can the organization handle the customer service load from a KS? There is a real danger in KS-land of loosing so much time to customer service, that you can't execute on the core product.
I think the proposed project will tick at least a couple of those boxes as well, so I feel like this should be on the safer end of Kickstarters I've backed. My biggest worries are overdoing it on stretch goals, and getting slammed with customer service demands, but even with those issues, I'd still probably back.
Finally, I agree that you should never expect KS's to meet their initial timelines. I've had some that got close, but I can't recall one I participated in that actually finished the full delivery to backers in the time frame that was originally proposed. It is pretty much expected with crowdfunding. Kickstarter is still very much gambling, and I try to remind myself of that every time I spend money crowdfunding.