What's an Indie Game?

[Nuvendil]

Lawlight said:

Nuvendil said:

Actually, the launching of a crowdfunding campaign is an act that constitutes a legally binding contract in most cases, in accordance with the Terms of Use of the platform.  Kickstarter is a good example.

Also, from a legal perspective, if a project entices people to send money to them for a project that they have no intentions of putting the money towards, that's textbook fraud, an illegal act.  

That is absolutely not true. Kickstarter even says that for refunds the pledger has to deal with the project owner.

It's only recently that people have started suing failed kickstarters and they're bring held accountable. But plenty of people took the money and left.

Example of failed crowdfunding projects:

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/biggest-kickstarter-and-indiegogo-scams/

It's not a binding act with KS, it is between Creators and Backers, as explained in Kickstarter's terms of service.  Kickstarter is not a party to the agreement but a backer or backers can hold a creator accountable in a court of law if they fraudulently enticed backers to support them.  Obviously the offended party in an agreement has to initiate the process, the law - either penal or civil - is not administered by all seeing gods.

Which is no different than if a company lies to secure an investment from a venture capitalist.  It's illegal, but the process of bringing the offending parties to justice still has to be initiated by an offended member or an observer.

So no, you are incorrect, the project creators are liable and are bound by law to fulfill their obligations to the satisfaction of the backers.