Code Monkey Save World: How Crowdfunding Is Supposed To Work

I was one of the first (perhaps the first, per a tweet from Greg Pak) backers of Code Monkey Save World and, throughout the Kickstarter campaign, covered its evolution quite a bit. The premise seemed like a lot of fun, and everyone involved–writer Greg Pak, artist Tak Miyazawa and musician Jonathan Coulton, whose work was being adapted in a strange and unprecedented way–was someone whose work I enjoyed and admired.And the investment I made–especially on a reporter’s salary–was probably more than I should have, but as soon as I saw the Kickstarter video (see below) and concept art, I fell in love with this project a little bit.Of course, the problem with doing that is that there’s always the chance of a steep price to be paid for nothing at all. I’ve never seen any credible, objective numbers as to how many Kickstarter campaigns don’t actually generate the product they set out to, or make one that’s materially less awesome than people hope, but the number isn’t zero, and that’s too bad.It’s also nowhere near as big as a lot of people would have you believe. As someone who’s supported a number of Kickstarter campaigns, my anecdotal evidence is all that I have to fall back on–but of the thirty or so I’ve supported, I believe there was one campaign that never sent me the items I paid for. That’s about as good a batting average, if not better, than I get when I order from third-party sellers on Amazon and low enough that the percentage falls into the “people are fallible” range.