Why 84% of Kickstarter's top projects shipped late

Re:Why 84% of Kickstarter's top projects shipped late by MrFoof on Tuesday December 18, 2012 @12:26PM (#4938491)

> It took off, raising vastly more money than they anticipated -- and obliterating the original production plans and timeline

I wonder if Kickstarter allowed projects to set a maximum number of backers (or a funding cap), if projects would take advantage of it.

Honestly, such a move wouldn't help Kickstarter (fewer fees to collect), so I'd have my doubts that such an option would be offered. Even if it were, I wonder how many teams are aware enough of their limits to take advantage of such an option.

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Re:Why 84% of Kickstarter's top projects shipped late by binarycrusader on Tuesday December 18, 2012 @01:31PM (#4938781)

  "I wonder if Kickstarter allowed projects to set a maximum number of backers (or a funding cap), if projects would take advantage of it"

They do; kickstarter project teams can set a cap on each individual tier they offer. However, most projects foolishly have chosen to not place caps on anything except the most "exclusive" tiers -- those that usually offer a chance to name something in a game, or a custom character representing them, a flight to some faraway place to meet the developers, etc. for thousands of dollars.

If the tier involves a tangible product, then there should always be a cap. And most of the software projects I've seen should at least triple their estimated project completion time if they haven't started yet or aren't at least "50%" complete.

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Re:Why 84% of Kickstarter's top projects shipped late by adriano_f on Tuesday December 18, 2012 @12:40PM (#4938555)

I agree.

I think picking the "top 50" projects is just asking for trouble. Those are victims of their success, and have to scale from 0 to mass production on a tight schedule.

Going from zero to a few hundred early adopters is much more feasible.

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