Yesterday Washington filed what is believed to be the first ever consumer lawsuit being brought against a company that has involved crowdfunding – specifically a case involving the Kickstarter campaign for a game which has failed to materialise in any donator rewards for the people who crowdfunded the project.
The lawsuit is being brought against Altius Management who, the suit alleges, has not made good on promises made to donators when getting them to fund the project in question: a set of limited edition playing cards called 'Asylum Playing Cards'. The target of $15,000 was set and subsquently beaten when the Kickstarter came to a close in October 2012, the finishing total being $25,146 which is over $10,000 more than was asked for. The money is said to have been collected by Altius but over a year and a half later no backers have seen rewards and the last update to the campaign's page having been made in mid-July. Some of the backers live in Washington though which has allowed the state to bring the lawsuit in question.
Although in a press release Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson stated that Washington will not stand for crowdfunder theft, he also reminded people that they needed “to be aware that crowdfunding is not without risk”.
Kickstarter have supported the action being taken, stating that they are 'frustrated' when projects like this where the campaign's host seems to take the money and run happen; but also they hope that this won't influence backers and people who want to run campaigns on their site as they have played a part in the funding of many games, books and all sorts of media in the past and hope to continue this.