Honestly, stop playing the fences, please. I'm tired of this Derek is this and that, but Chris Roberts responding is blah crap. Derek Smart, the Escapist article, and a lot of people on the Internet have strait up put a bullseye on Sandi and have dragged their kids into this.
That's a line that any reasonable person would say shouldn't be crossed.
I don't really follow the DS side of things at all but weren't there accusations of nepotism with people saying "No lol, they're not married, they don't have kids" and all the 'other' side did was post proof, simple to find proof from imdb or whatever. That seems fair enough.
If they had been more open, if Lesnick hadn't lied in the first place, a fair bit of this mess might have been avoided.
Erin Roberts was a great candidate for Executive Producer and Sandi Roberts (according to Chris Roberts) wrote the marketing plan -- a marketing plan that generated $90 million so far in funding. I kind of think that they deserved their roles. Don't you think?
Besides, Chris Roberts also stated that Sandi practically the only person working on the marketing part atm, anyway. I know, the nepotism crap becomes a bit more 'crazy' once you think about those things.
What an interesting, ongoing kettle of fish. I've been talking about the problems that SC was going to have from right about the time of the Kickstarter. (If you are feeling all stalker-ish, you can go check it out). My perspective was historical. Roberts has always been a poor to medicre project manager, given to feature creep, profligate spending, poor treatment of co-workers, surrounding himself with sychophants, bad management and decisions, vainglorious and unrealistic goals and ambition, etc. On the one hand, I believe he really wants to deliver the best space game ever. On the other hand, he continually undermines it, by -- well -- being Chris Roberts.
Marketing Chris Roberts has cable, project manager Chris Roberts doesn't....
You can take this as you will (internet and all), but I regularly talk to a bunch of folks who worked with Roberts at Origin, and they really have nothing good to say about him. Personally, only knew about him before SC, as the second most disliked guy at Origin, and the director of that terrible movie. As the Kickstarter kicked in, I talked to ten people who'd worked with him in the day. The responses were illuminatingly awful. Now I've only briefly talked to one veteran designer who was at CIG for awhile. His brief comment? 'Not a fun place to work'. And he's not anymore.
All the problems that are being attributed to CIG now are the same problems that co-workers mentioned from his Origin days. And that means to me, that Roberts hasn't learned a thing in all his game developing tenure. We are seeing the same failures that brought down Digital Anvil. And remember, Roberts hasn't developed a game in nearly 20 years. He's never successfully produced a game on his own, outside of the umbrella of support from Origin and EA. His mismangement of Freelancer was even greater than most know. It took Microsoft around three years and a ton of money to get that game out after they took over DA, and it was already a year and a half overdue. How did Roberts manage to blow all that money and development time??
A sad part of this problem are the supporters of Chris Roberts' who truly believe he's this genius game designer. As does Roberts himself, I'm sure. He's got this streak of meglomania that apparantly runs through his entire career. It's all about him! I think that's one reason why he and D Smart are so at odds: In many ways they are very similar.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Well that has been posted mutliple times in different threads on this forum can't remember which ones i have read so many about all this.
500k and yes year late to answer the core question you keep asking with nothing about DS
Well if that is true then that makes me feel even more sure that there might be a problem then.
A more complete answer is the original KS goal was 500k for a relatively small(and achievable) feature list. Not to long into the campaign the $ windfall incentivized them to decide to massively expand on the original feature set( wisely or un wisely other people can argue about) beyond the scope of the original goal and modified from what the original backers supported(again wise or unwise I won't get into).
And for the sake of completeness, their original Terms of Service stipulated that if the game was not released by December 2014, the backers could get a refund after November 2015.
They then changed the TOS in February 2015 to make the completion date at the end of 2016 and refunds available 18 months after that in June of 2018.
Details... details.
I'm not sure if you read his side of it. Did you read his response letter, though? I'm asking since there's things I'm not sure you're aware of where he clarifies things a bit better on the financial end
Honestly, stop playing the fences, please. I'm tired of this Derek is this and that, but Chris Roberts responding is blah crap. Derek Smart, the Escapist article, and a lot of people on the Internet have strait up put a bullseye on Sandi and have dragged their kids into this.
That's a line that any reasonable person would say shouldn't be crossed.
I don't really follow the DS side of things at all but weren't there accusations of nepotism with people saying "No lol, they're not married, they don't have kids" and all the 'other' side did was post proof, simple to find proof from imdb or whatever. That seems fair enough.
If they had been more open, if Lesnick hadn't lied in the first place, a fair bit of this mess might have been avoided.
Erin Roberts was a great candidate for Executive Producer and Sandi Roberts (according to Chris Roberts) wrote the marketing plan -- a marketing plan that generated $90 million so far in funding. I kind of think that they deserved their roles. Don't you think?
Besides, Chris Roberts also stated that Sandi practically the only person working on the marketing part atm, anyway. I know, the nepotism crap becomes a bit more 'crazy' once you think about those things.
It depends. If the anonymous sources are correct and all that money has been spent on ships to sell and pretty images to show at various cons; then the marketing plan has failed abysmally.
Well that has been posted mutliple times in different threads on this forum can't remember which ones i have read so many about all this.
500k and yes year late to answer the core question you keep asking with nothing about DS
Well if that is true then that makes me feel even more sure that there might be a problem then.
A more complete answer is the original KS goal was 500k for a relatively small(and achievable) feature list. Not to long into the campaign the $ windfall incentivized them to decide to massively expand on the original feature set( wisely or un wisely other people can argue about) beyond the scope of the original goal and modified from what the original backers supported(again wise or unwise I won't get into).
And for the sake of completeness, their original Terms of Service stipulated that if the game was not released by December 2014, the backers could get a refund after November 2015.
They then changed the TOS in February 2015 to make the completion date at the end of 2016 and refunds available 18 months after that in June of 2018.
Details... details.
Can you link to both versions of the tos? The old one and new one? I haven't looked at those.
A sad part of this problem are the supporters of Chris Roberts' who truly believe he's this genius game designer. As does Roberts himself, I'm sure. He's got this streak of meglomania that apparantly runs through his entire career. It's all about him! I think that's one reason why he and D Smart are so at odds: In many ways they are very similar.
I hesitate to accuse someone of megalomania I haven't met, my perception is this. An ideal game designer should be at least in part a dreamer. However caveat apply breaks, More often than not direction of some sort needs to be applied. There are persons who are the excepsions to this but it's an extremely rare skillset and personality makeup that can do both. That is as far as I'lll speculate.
Honestly, stop playing the fences, please. I'm tired of this Derek is this and that, but Chris Roberts responding is blah crap. Derek Smart, the Escapist article, and a lot of people on the Internet have strait up put a bullseye on Sandi and have dragged their kids into this.
That's a line that any reasonable person would say shouldn't be crossed.
I don't really follow the DS side of things at all but weren't there accusations of nepotism with people saying "No lol, they're not married, they don't have kids" and all the 'other' side did was post proof, simple to find proof from imdb or whatever. That seems fair enough.
If they had been more open, if Lesnick hadn't lied in the first place, a fair bit of this mess might have been avoided.
Erin Roberts was a great candidate for Executive Producer and Sandi Roberts (according to Chris Roberts) wrote the marketing plan -- a marketing plan that generated $90 million so far in funding. I kind of think that they deserved their roles. Don't you think?
Besides, Chris Roberts also stated that Sandi practically the only person working on the marketing part atm, anyway. I know, the nepotism crap becomes a bit more 'crazy' once you think about those things.
It depends. If the anonymous sources are correct and all that money has been spent on ships to sell and pretty images to show at various cons; then the marketing plan has failed abysmally.
I'm sorry, but I don't think you know what marketing is. You're saying that raising $90 million is bad marketing if the development side (unrelated to marketing) fails? This is a non-sequitur.
Well that has been posted mutliple times in different threads on this forum can't remember which ones i have read so many about all this.
500k and yes year late to answer the core question you keep asking with nothing about DS
Well if that is true then that makes me feel even more sure that there might be a problem then.
A more complete answer is the original KS goal was 500k for a relatively small(and achievable) feature list. Not to long into the campaign the $ windfall incentivized them to decide to massively expand on the original feature set( wisely or un wisely other people can argue about) beyond the scope of the original goal and modified from what the original backers supported(again wise or unwise I won't get into).
And for the sake of completeness, their original Terms of Service stipulated that if the game was not released by December 2014, the backers could get a refund after November 2015.
They then changed the TOS in February 2015 to make the completion date at the end of 2016 and refunds available 18 months after that in June of 2018.
Details... details.
I'm not sure if you read his side of it. Did you read his response letter, though? I'm asking since there's things I'm not sure you're aware of where he clarifies things a bit better on the financial end
ike i have mentioned before i wouldn't take his word as gospel which you obviously are even though you say you aren't. lol
And for the sake of completeness, their original Terms of Service stipulated that if the game was not released by December 2014, the backers could get a refund after November 2015.
They then changed the TOS in February 2015 to make the completion date at the end of 2016 and refunds available 18 months after that in June of 2018.
Details... details.
Can you link to both versions of the tos? The old one and new one? I haven't looked at those.
And for the sake of completeness, their original Terms of Service stipulated that if the game was not released by December 2014, the backers could get a refund after November 2015.
They then changed the TOS in February 2015 to make the completion date at the end of 2016 and refunds available 18 months after that in June of 2018.
Details... details.
Wow that's shady.
Yeah. I think so too.
In the podcasts I linked above, the author of the escapist piece, Lizzy Finnegan, says that it was precisely that detail that got her interested in doing a piece in the first place.
That original TOS, they also say, appears to be extremely difficult to find anywhere although some websites have copies of it.
Isn't this basically an issue of survival though? There are two ways to look at it, as a donator.. or as a business. ( excluding illegal activity of course. schemes, scams etc...)
If anything is ever going to ship, the last thing they can do is give up a bunch of money. We all know the excuse for this, " the project expanded" .. that's either true or false, by that I mean the only way for it not to be true is if this was a ploy all along, and they're just taking money... as much as they can.. A scam...
While, hey that's possible, it's not an unquestionable answer. I mean first and foremost, is that what an industry vet wants to leave as his lasting legacy? Sure maybe the money was just too good, but it's still a matter of public shame, for not just yourself but possibly your entire family.
Secondly the penalty for being caught is also a serious thing to take on. Is that who CR is, what he's willing to risk for money? That's a steep accusation to make on a person. all of the above is.
These are serious implications.
I mean, I get it, it's highly interesting, it's great for forum PVP. Yet people just say this stuff willy nilly, like these guys are criminal masterminds, without a care in the world.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
A sad part of this problem are the supporters of Chris Roberts' who truly believe he's this genius game designer. As does Roberts himself, I'm sure. He's got this streak of meglomania that apparantly runs through his entire career. It's all about him! I think that's one reason why he and D Smart are so at odds: In many ways they are very similar.
I hesitate to accuse someone of megalomania I haven't met, my perception is this. An ideal game designer should be at least in part a dreamer. However caveat apply breaks, More often than direction of some sort needs to be applied. There are persons who are the excepsions to this but it's an extremely rare skillset and personality makeup that can do both. That is as far as I'lll speculate.
Dreamers are necessary, but they need to be constrained by someone able to manage the process.
Once you remove all checks and balances and allow a dreamer/or creative force free reign you get the following: The Star Wars prequels or all of M Night Shyamalan's films post Unbreakable/ Signs (I thought Signs was crap but some people liked it). But these example are not even analogous with the SC situation, because in these situations there was at least accountability to investors, legal obligations and financial risk to contend with. SC had none of these as a crowd-funded game.
Finally, I would not even class Chris Roberts as a dreamer. He sounds like the petulant child demanding toys his parent's can't afford and stamping his feet when they tell him "no". I want a space simulator, and a vast universe to discover, and an FPS, and deep crafting that can be played as a game in its own right, and famous voice actors, and, and, and...
Isn't this basically an issue of survival though? There are two ways to look at it, as a donator.. or as a business. ( excluding illegal activity of course. schemes, scams etc...)
If anything is ever going to ship, the last thing they can do is give up a bunch of money. We all know the excuse for this,
The problem here is one borders awfully close to a Ponzi scheme using new investor $ to pay off old investors, or new $ to keep the scheme going particularly when the original funding goals and time frame have long since expired(by significant margins). It isn't a risk I would be willing to take, it's a very dangerous way to manage other peoples money..
Man I do not have enough popcorn for all this , they just need to get a show together hell start filming this whole thing cameras following Roberts and smart around like a reality show .
Here you are:
14 M$ Stretch Goal:
"Professional-quality feature-length “Behind the Scenes of Star Citizen” documentary film."
Isn't this basically an issue of survival though? There are two ways to look at it, as a donator.. or as a business. ( excluding illegal activity of course. schemes, scams etc...)
If anything is ever going to ship, the last thing they can do is give up a bunch of money. We all know the excuse for this,
The problem here is one borders awfully close to a Ponzi scheme using new investor $ to pay off old investors, or new $ to keep the scheme going particularly when the original funding goals and time frame have long since expired(by significant margins). It isn't a risk I would be willing to take, it's a very dangerous way to manage other peoples money..
I guess it really boils down to how this handled between game studios and real investors. Changes in plans or scraping of entire projects are common place. Meaning more than a few agreements get broken.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Can you link to both versions of the tos? The old one and new one? I haven't looked at those.
Here's an archived copy of the original 1.1 TOS from August 29th 2013. The relevant part is IV under the 3rd bullet "...the deposit shall not be refundable until and unlessRSI has failed to deliver the pledge items and/or the Game to you within 12 months after the estimated delivery date."
That delivery date at that time was estimated as Nov. 2014.
And here is version 1.2 dated February 1st 2015. The relevant part is now VII, 3rd bullet "...your Pledge shall not be refundable until and unless RSI has failed to deliver the relevant pledge items and/or the Game to you within eighteen (18) months after the estimated delivery date."
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
By the way, if a supposed journalist writes a fraudulent article, they should be run out of the business immediately. But instead, people are giving The Escapist and the writer a free pass, because...?
But Chris Roberts seem to be handling this graciously. There is little else you can do when you are the target of the anti-social attack campaign. It is tremendously frustrating to deal with one of these things, because any interaction with the troll dirties you and lends legitimacy to the attack, no matter how outrageous. You can't speak in your defense without legitimizing the litany of false charges, it's just the nature of how most people's minds work.
Nothing fraudulent with the Article. There are 7 confirmed sources that corroborate the story. SEVEN!
You are aware of the fact that when JUST ONE other person corroborates a story from a verified source the police can get a court order and search warrants. They have SEVEN.
Chris Roberts handling it graciously? You must be joking!
You mean him ranting about the journalist, slinging mud at her, calling her a feminist and insinuating she has an agenda? You mean him ranting about GamerGate? You mean him mentioning Derek Smart every other sentence when this has nothing to do with him?
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling." - Michael Bitton Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about." - SEANMCAD
Honestly, stop playing the fences, please. I'm tired of this Derek is this and that, but Chris Roberts responding is blah crap. Derek Smart, the Escapist article, and a lot of people on the Internet have strait up put a bullseye on Sandi and have dragged their kids into this.
That's a line that any reasonable person would say shouldn't be crossed.
I don't really follow the DS side of things at all but weren't there accusations of nepotism with people saying "No lol, they're not married, they don't have kids" and all the 'other' side did was post proof, simple to find proof from imdb or whatever. That seems fair enough.
If they had been more open, if Lesnick hadn't lied in the first place, a fair bit of this mess might have been avoided.
Erin Roberts was a great candidate for Executive Producer and Sandi Roberts (according to Chris Roberts) wrote the marketing plan -- a marketing plan that generated $90 million so far in funding. I kind of think that they deserved their roles. Don't you think?
Besides, Chris Roberts also stated that Sandi practically the only person working on the marketing part atm, anyway. I know, the nepotism crap becomes a bit more 'crazy' once you think about those things.
It depends. If the anonymous sources are correct and all that money has been spent on ships to sell and pretty images to show at various cons; then the marketing plan has failed abysmally.
I'm sorry, but I don't think you know what marketing is. You're saying that raising $90 million is bad marketing if the development side (unrelated to marketing) fails? This is a non-sequitur.
Actually marketing encompasses everything from the concept phase to deliver of the product to the end user.
And for the sake of completeness, their original Terms of Service stipulated that if the game was not released by December 2014, the backers could get a refund after November 2015.
They then changed the TOS in February 2015 to make the completion date at the end of 2016 and refunds available 18 months after that in June of 2018.
Details... details.
Wow that's shady.
Yeah. I think so too.
In the podcasts I linked above, the author of the escapist piece, Lizzy Finnegan, says that it was precisely that detail that got her interested in doing a piece in the first place.
That original TOS, they also say, appears to be extremely difficult to find anywhere although some websites have copies of it.
I've seen a couple of posters here claim that Chris Roberts asked the backers if they wanted him to keep with the original plan or try to make a bigger scoped game when the funding rose into the stratosphere, and the backers went with bigger better game. Now I have no idea if that's true in any way. However if that's the case would that not make the first TOS null and void? Can anyone please shed some light on this?
The ToS terms are binding unless you specifically agree to the changes. Agreement can be construed in a number of ways.
Isn't this basically an issue of survival though? There are two ways to look at it, as a donator.. or as a business. ( excluding illegal activity of course. schemes, scams etc...)
If anything is ever going to ship, the last thing they can do is give up a bunch of money. We all know the excuse for this,
The problem here is one borders awfully close to a Ponzi scheme using new investor $ to pay off old investors, or new $ to keep the scheme going particularly when the original funding goals and time frame have long since expired(by significant margins). It isn't a risk I would be willing to take, it's a very dangerous way to manage other peoples money..
I guess it really boils down to how this handled between game studios and real investors. Changes in plans or scraping of entire projects are common place. Meaning more than a few agreements get broken.
The difference is with traditional publishing the publisher takes on the risk/responsibility to insulate investors. With KS the responsibility falls on the developer. And until a product is delivered once the terms of the original agreement are met, technically it is still the backers $ held in trust by statute regardless of KS rules or product TOS.
I've seen a couple of posters here claim that Chris Roberts asked the backers if they wanted him to keep with the original plan or try to make a bigger scoped game when the funding rose into the stratosphere, and the backers went with bigger better game. Now I have no idea if that's true in any way. However if that's the case would that not make the first TOS null and void? Can anyone please shed some light on this?
IDK the details of what was asked and if users had to read (lol...as if many of us do) and accept the new TOS, but I assume that they did have to accept it.
By doing so, the original TOS becomes null and void.
I also don't know if anyone refused to accept the new TOS and is getting a refund next month.
A smaller detail though is why they changed the date the refund becomes available from 12 months after to 18 months. This, I also do not know the anser to.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
And for the sake of completeness, their original Terms of Service stipulated that if the game was not released by December 2014, the backers could get a refund after November 2015.
They then changed the TOS in February 2015 to make the completion date at the end of 2016 and refunds available 18 months after that in June of 2018.
Details... details.
Wow that's shady.
Yeah. I think so too.
In the podcasts I linked above, the author of the escapist piece, Lizzy Finnegan, says that it was precisely that detail that got her interested in doing a piece in the first place.
That original TOS, they also say, appears to be extremely difficult to find anywhere although some websites have copies of it.
I've seen a couple of posters here claim that Chris Roberts asked the backers if they wanted him to keep with the original plan or try to make a bigger scoped game when the funding rose into the stratosphere, and the backers went with bigger better game. Now I have no idea if that's true in any way. However if that's the case would that not make the first TOS null and void? Can anyone please shed some light on this?
The ToS terms are binding unless you specifically agree to the changes. Agreement can be construed in a number of ways.
Cig has already changed their TOS like 122 times or some crazy shit without asking anyone.
Comments
Erin Roberts was a great candidate for Executive Producer and Sandi Roberts (according to Chris Roberts) wrote the marketing plan -- a marketing plan that generated $90 million so far in funding. I kind of think that they deserved their roles. Don't you think?
Besides, Chris Roberts also stated that Sandi practically the only person working on the marketing part atm, anyway. I know, the nepotism crap becomes a bit more 'crazy' once you think about those things.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Can you link to both versions of the tos? The old one and new one? I haven't looked at those.
https://archive.is/https://robertsspaceindustries.com/tos
The Sept '13 and the Sept '14 versions have the content Iselin is referring to.
If anything is ever going to ship, the last thing they can do is give up a bunch of money. We all know the excuse for this, " the project expanded" .. that's either true or false, by that I mean the only way for it not to be true is if this was a ploy all along, and they're just taking money... as much as they can.. A scam...
While, hey that's possible, it's not an unquestionable answer. I mean first and foremost, is that what an industry vet wants to leave as his lasting legacy? Sure maybe the money was just too good, but it's still a matter of public shame, for not just yourself but possibly your entire family.
Secondly the penalty for being caught is also a serious thing to take on. Is that who CR is, what he's willing to risk for money? That's a steep accusation to make on a person. all of the above is.
These are serious implications.
I mean, I get it, it's highly interesting, it's great for forum PVP. Yet people just say this stuff willy nilly, like these guys are criminal masterminds, without a care in the world.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Once you remove all checks and balances and allow a dreamer/or creative force free reign you get the following: The Star Wars prequels or all of M Night Shyamalan's films post Unbreakable/ Signs (I thought Signs was crap but some people liked it). But these example are not even analogous with the SC situation, because in these situations there was at least accountability to investors, legal obligations and financial risk to contend with. SC had none of these as a crowd-funded game.
Finally, I would not even class Chris Roberts as a dreamer. He sounds like the petulant child demanding toys his parent's can't afford and stamping his feet when they tell him "no". I want a space simulator, and a vast universe to discover, and an FPS, and deep crafting that can be played as a game in its own right, and famous voice actors, and, and, and...
14 M$ Stretch Goal:
"Professional-quality feature-length “Behind the Scenes of Star Citizen” documentary film."
Have fun
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
That delivery date at that time was estimated as Nov. 2014.
https://web.archive.org/web/20130921105506/https://robertsspaceindustries.com/tos
And here is version 1.2 dated February 1st 2015. The relevant part is now VII, 3rd bullet "...your Pledge shall not be refundable until and unless RSI has failed to deliver the relevant pledge items and/or the Game to you within eighteen (18) months after the estimated delivery date."
The delivery date now is at the end of 2016.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150221120446/https://robertsspaceindustries.com/tos
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
You are aware of the fact that when JUST ONE other person corroborates a story from a verified source the police can get a court order and search warrants. They have SEVEN.
Chris Roberts handling it graciously? You must be joking!
You mean him ranting about the journalist, slinging mud at her, calling her a feminist and insinuating she has an agenda?
You mean him ranting about GamerGate?
You mean him mentioning Derek Smart every other sentence when this has nothing to do with him?
/smh
"It's pretty simple, really. If your only intention in posting about a particular game or topic is to be negative, then yes, you should probably move on. Voicing a negative opinion is fine, continually doing so on the same game is basically just trolling."
- Michael Bitton
Community Manager, MMORPG.com
"As an online discussion about Star Citizen grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Derek Smart approaches 1" - MrSnuffles's law
"I am jumping in here a bit without knowing exactly what you all or talking about."
- SEANMCAD
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Or we can start cranking it up...
The ToS terms are binding unless you specifically agree to the changes. Agreement can be construed in a number of ways.
The difference is with traditional publishing the publisher takes on the risk/responsibility to insulate investors. With KS the responsibility falls on the developer. And until a product is delivered once the terms of the original agreement are met, technically it is still the backers $ held in trust by statute regardless of KS rules or product TOS.
By doing so, the original TOS becomes null and void.
I also don't know if anyone refused to accept the new TOS and is getting a refund next month.
A smaller detail though is why they changed the date the refund becomes available from 12 months after to 18 months. This, I also do not know the anser to.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED