Also, the incident is more than 7 years ago. When kickstarter was new, we were aware that exactly this thing would happen, and of course it happened. So people should finally come to terms with the fucking 10$ they sent to some moron. There is no point to be vengeful because the law sort of forgives a small debt that is long ago. Provided they were broke at some point, after some years there is nothing left to take from them. That's probably also their line of defense, they took their game off Steam and also posted a half assed confession on kickstarter that they were morons. That way they will succesfully play the broke developers. And no one will be able extort a great deal of money from them if the damage is only 10$. It is like a shopkeeper who sold you a rotten chicken sandwich nearly a decade ago.
I guess I slightly disagree with this. It's of course utterly pointless to want to
recover the $10 from some broke scammers. And seeking revenge over something like this is stupid; a waste of time and emotional energy. This surely falls into the category of vengeance that should be left to the Lord or karma or the inevitability of fraudsters eventually getting caught. So far, agreed.
But I disagree that the harm they did can be measured in an individual's lost $10 or even the aggregate $60k or whatever it was they stole. They also stole people's hopes and excitement for the game and faith in small developers seeking modest crowdfunding. The enthusiastic generosity of the gaming community, and its instinctive support of the little guy, is a beautiful thing (I don't want to pretend there isn't also a pettiness and vindictiveness in parts of the same community, of course), and scammers like these diminish and, over time, destroy it. It's like (to use an analogy I over-employ) when post-fall Romans would strip marble off monuments to cook into quicklime for making their hovels, or when someone breaks into a home to steal the silverware. It is a
massively negative sum transaction. The value the taker gets is not that great, and in the process, he is destroying something irreplaceable (in the first instance, a monument; in the second, a sense of security in one's home or perhaps a sentimental love of a family heirloom). So too here. These guys got a few tens of thousands of dollars; hopeful supporters lost a few tens of thousands of dollars. So far, zero sum. But those investors
also lost many intangible things, and there were other follow-on losses (other developers who couldn't raise money as easily, other games that didn't get made as a result, other gamers who didn't get to play those games as a result, etc.).
I don't mean to sound naive. Every place money or property changes hands, there will be grifters and thieves, and Kickstarter probably made it particularly easy. Maybe people should've known what was coming. But still; shame on the grifters and thieves.
s keep rolling in!
