It’s the biggest fear of anyone who spends $10 or $50 to help fund a new game.
You see a cool-looking game on Kickstarter or some other website where creative people can ask fans to help pay for their projects. You think it sounds awesome. You give them your money, maybe in exchange for some cool swag, or a copy of the game when it’s released. The Kickstarter is funded. Everyone’s happy.
And you never hear from them again.
In August of 2010, Brooklyn-based game designer Max Drzewinski raised over $10,000 for a side-scrolling action-adventure game called Perdition (whose art is pictured above). With this money, Drzewinski and his team promised they’d create a prototype of the game and pitch it to publishers in hopes of getting their game picked up and distributed on services like Xbox Live. They promised that backers would receive concept art, t-shirts, and other Perdition-themed goodies in exchange for their donations.
Two and a half years later, Perdition has disappeared.