The main takeaways could be seen as positive or pretty bad, depending on what you expect from Kickstarter’s model.
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It already feels deeply embedded within the games industry – and in fact the wider world – but crowdfunding is still a relatively new concept, so studies like the one conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School make for interesting reading. If Kickstarter wants to succeed, it should focus more on helping projects not only achieve their financial goals, but also to meet the deadlines associated with their unique projects and make a better effort to distribute rewards, even if the project fails.
Overall, 65% of projects were delivered more or less on time, meaning that around 25% do deliver, but late (this tallies well with my anecdotal experience with projects).
While many people may choose to back a specific campaign for said rewards, it appears as though some projects aren’t staying true to their promises.
If you ask frequent backers of crowdfunding projects, the issue is mostly with highly delayed and low quality fulfillments more than failure to deliver the products.
The findings reveal that 8 percent of pledged dollars went to projects that failed (which were identified as projects where backers did not receive a copy of a DVD, for example, after a project was funded, not whether the DVD was made), and 7 percent of backers failed to receive chosen rewards.
Mollick urged creators to plan for ways in which to work with backers should a project ultimately fail.
He surveyed 500,000 Kickstarter backers, asking them about project outcomes and how they felt about it. Of the projects surveyed, 9% were deemed a failure, so you’ve got a one-in-ten chance of backing a dud. The number of campaigns studied came to more than 30,000. There’s little difference in failure rate between categories: tech projects are just as likely to fail as crafts or film.
Mollick suggest that project creators should return any remaining funds that are left over if their project fails to those backers who have not received rewards.
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Unsurprisingly, Kickstarter also says the fulfillment failure rate found by the study is appropriate.
