KickstarterForum.org

A major kickstarter that went silent 2 years ago suddenly started giving out refunds after litigation against another dead KS. The full timeline and much more interesting story is below. As many people who have backed Kickstarters know, there are projects that have really done well for themselves and then there are the black holes of Kickstarter where hundreds of thousands of dollars disappear with the occasional story of litigation cropping up.

Last year, Subutai Corporation delivered the CLANG prototype and the other donor rewards as promised. The prototype was technically innovative, but it wasn't very fun to play. This is for various reasons. Some of these were beyond our control. Others are my responsibility in that I probably focused too much on historical accuracy and not enough on making it sufficiently fun to attract additional investment.....

I have delayed talking publicly about these projects for a long time because I kept thinking that at least one of them would reach a point where I could describe it in something other than generalities. I apologize for that delay. But now a year has passed since the last update and I've decided that it's cleaner and simpler to cut the cord, and announce the termination of CLANG. Future announcements can then happen in their own good time, giving any new projects a fresh start.

By combing through comment threads and emails we have identified around two dozen CLANG backers who have asked for refunds. Those have already been processed; those people have their money back (about $700 altogether). We think that is within the normal scope of a Kickstarter project and we don't think it sets any precedents that would give other organizations misgivings about using Kickstarter to fund their projects in the future.

Other backers may now opt in to a list called REVERB from which future announcements will be made about upcoming projects.