Here I start to question your credibility and mainly your maturity. Maybe it was a mistake to start this discussion on this forum...
It's really not nice to take things out of context. My point in that statement, if you read the entire sentence, was two fold. One, if someone is giving money for a game, then to have that money get turned around and given to charity is probably not what they expected. Second, if you get 10 people to contribute to your game they might have 10 different favorite charities. So they might be passionate about A charity just not YOUR charity. So I ask that if you are going to quote something, you quote it in entirety. We may disagree, but I have a feeling you have seen that I made some valid points. I hope that they help you in the future. Your desire to turn the money around to a charity while noble, seems like backpedaling at this point, after you realized that there was an error in your thinking. If I want to give to charity, I will choose the charity. If I want to contribute to a project I will choose the project. I don't want a bait and switch though. I stand by the thought that each side takes a risk in a venture. And you are not taking the risk by agreeing to refund the money if your goal is not reached.
I've seen a lot of crowd funding websites and projects and thought about funding some, but there are a few things that bug me about crowd funded projects. Firstly, some of them seem to ask for a lot of money without really breaking down where it will go. I've seen some ask for thousands of pounds just to run a website, which seems rather ridiculous to me. Secondly, and this relates specifically for games, if I'm being asked to put down $25 for a $0.99 app, then I expect to be given a download code for the game as part of the package, but many don't seem to include this. Personally speaking, I don't think I actually will ever take part in crowd funding, for similar reasons to New England Gamer. I would also prefer to spend time, rather than money, to help a project. Whenever I am accosted by charity workers in the street, I always tell them that I would be willing to give my time helping them out, either with promotion or volunteering, because I have debts that need my own money. Yet I always end up with some angry-sounding person on the phone guilt-tripping me into giving them money. Same with crowd funding - I know money is important, but I would sooner help out in non-monetary ways. Besides, no matter how much I like certain projects, and there are many I DO like, I would sooner give that $5 or $25 to an actual charity. I spent about $200 on a product not too long ago because the proceeds were going to charity, so that's the kind of project I can get behind.
I wouldn't donate either mainly because of the reasons mentioned and the app store being a really hard place to compete. When I see games with the quality of KOF-i not even breaking into the top charts it became obvious just how easy it is for an app to get lost in the clutter. Also if this was successful I could quickly see a world were you are asked to fund the game then buy it and then harassed by IAPs. I'm not saying you would do it but many companys would. Best of luck though.
Not an indie game. You have no idea if your investment will result in anything worthwhile. The fundimental flaw here is the notion that anyone would pay for a game twice. You ask people to fund your game, then you have to sell it 100% free and there becomes no real point to any of it.
I wouldn't donate for the reasons already mentioned, plus my current low income. Not to mention the fact I "donate" a good chunk of my low income to indie developers already, with the one requirement being the game is already on the App Store so I can pass judgement on it. I'm happy to support developers as a consumer, but supporting them before release is more like a business proposition and I'm not a businessman.
Thanks for your answers! @New England Gamer: Spoiler Again, not wanting to selfpromote, just to show you, how important your (and others') input is for me, I let you know, that my project was suddenly released on Appbackr too (I changed my signature link). I made the project there initially, but we had issues with access to iTunes Connect data, so I thought, I can't use their service and went to IndieGoGo. Now they resolved the issue and they released my project on Appbackr, where the project manager gets the money only, if the goal is met and backers get their fundings back + 54% interest when the game is released. The two projects were released almost simultaneously and I already contacted IndieGoGo to work out a solution, so it doesn't seem, I want to try to "scam" people on two sites. Anyway, I am still interested in opinions.
