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Last week, the Kickstarter campaign for Street Masters: Aftershock received a pledge of $209. For the creator, the independent game studio Blacklist Games, that represented another step toward bringing their board game expansion to life. For Kickstarter as a whole, it represented a thrilling milestone: $4 billion pledged to creative ideas on our platform.
Over 154,000 projects have been funded on Kickstarter with the support of over 15 million backers, more than 5 million of whom have supported more than one project. That’s 15 million people who have helped over 123,000 creators make hip-hop anthologies, DIY microscopes, animated documentaries, intersectional feminist zines, kinetic artworks, card games featuring combustible cats, and so much more.
But $4 billion is such a massive, abstract figure. What is $4 billion, really?
Well:
- It’s more than the GDP of Fiji, and just a little less than that of the Isle of Man
- It’s equivalent to the value of roughly 3,000 shredded Banksy paintings
- Or the cost of building 100 Eiffel Towers (in today’s dollars)
- It’s 138 million vials of water from the Amazon River, bottled by creator Hans Fex
- Or 114 million copies of Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls—one for every person in the Philippines and Sweden combined
- Or 133 million OK Tarot decks signed by creator Adam J. Kurtz—enough to turn every person in Mexico into a seasoned cartomancer
That $4 billion has enabled thousands of projects from independent creators working in every conceivable discipline. It means a history-making public art campaign can spark civic engagement across the U.S. It means a team of unknown filmmakers in France can share their passion project with the world. It means a historic concert series can continue to elevate independent musicians. It means that over 123,000 people have been able to bring new, exciting, ambitious work into the world with the help of their communities.
And it’s why we want to take a moment to thank all of the creators and backers who have brought us to this milestone. Kickstarter exists for you, and we are honored to be a part of your process. We can’t wait to see what you’ll accomplish next.
Roy Morejon
Superbacker
on
Congrats to the entire team @Kickstarter for the success!
Dempsey Rice on
Thanks for the animated documentary shout out Kickstarter!
All our love, The Animated Mind of Oliver Sacks
deborah alper on
Congratulations Kickstarter!
Murat Duru on
Yet there are 2 huge projects that have not delivered to their backers and Kickstarter is washing their hands of it instead of helping the backers. I will not be backing any project on Kickstarter anymore unless Kickstarter implements new policies which also protect the backers. At the very least the shipping charges should be refunded to backers who do not receive what they backed.
Anyone reading this, do a quick search online for these two:
Ossic X
Yarra 3DX
Edwin
Superbacker
on
Congratulations to you all for reaching this memorable milestone!
Agreed with Murat Duru. Kickstarter may have accomplished this extraordinary result, it does come at a serious cost, endangering the future of Kickstarter. Said projects are good examples of it.
The flipside of the succes is that there's a tendency of companies using our beloved crowdfunding platform as a platform for proof of concept and opportunity to show their new products, using it as a stepping stone to get exposure for possible takeovers, all while withholding essential information, deceiving/misleading the backers who are backing projects in good faith.
Same goes for backers abusing their account to gain personal profit by pledging $1 and persuade new creators to use third party 'clubs' to promote the Kickstarter campaigns and earning money over the backs of others who pledge for a reward hence taking the risk.
Apparently project creators can take our money, get away with it without having to account for it, not updating or fulfilling rewards. Kickstarter not (willing to) being able to interfere or prevent this kind of excessive abuse of our community will not be without consequences. A lot of hard core backers currently considering to stop supporting Kickstarter. This is a shame as we're here to support the start-ups created by sincere entrepreneurs.
Don't overestimate your succes and don't underestimate the backers forming the spine of this platform. Please Kickstarter, take your responsibility to prevent this platform to become a Wild West of golddiggers!!