"Think about how comfortable you are taking money from people, knowing you may never give them anything in return. What would it be like if that money came from your family?"- Cubeheart Games' Steve Swink encourages developers at GDC 2014 to think of their Kickstarter backers as family in order to better navigate the ethics of accepting crowdfunding. SCALE creator Steve Swink gave a fantastic talk during the Independent Games Summit at GDC 2014 about the challenges of navigating the ethical quandaries that developers often face while trying to run successful crowdfunding campaigns. Swink speaks from experience. The 2013 Kickstarter campaign for his game SCALE began on October 18 and was successfully funded November 16, days before the deadline. During his talk, Swink looks back on the campaign and attempts to explain how and why SCALE was funded, the hellish journey he went through to make it happen, and the complex ethical questions he himself encountered while trying to fund his game via Kickstarter. We've taken the liberty of embedding the free video of "SCALE and the Ethics of Kickstarter" above, but you can also watch it here on the GDC Vault.
Video: The complex ethics of funding a game via Kickstarter
SCALE creator Steve Swink gave a great talk during the GDC 2014 Independent Games Summit about overcoming the ethical quandaries that developers often face while crowdfunding their games.