Though I completely understand where kickstarter is coming from with their decision, I have a bit of a gripe with their choice to prevent projects from showing renderings and requiring actual photos.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time I checked the purpose of kickstarter was to help people get their ideas off the ground. Some types of products, especially hardware, can cost a lot of money to produce at a prototype stage. Not everyone has the cash lying around to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to build a functional prototype. So normally what that person would do is put together some renderings and a video and go to kickstarter to raise the funds to expand into prototypes and production. Now what are they to do?
Ultimately I think this decision by kickstarter gives a tremendous advantage to design shops with the budgets to build prototypes, while leaving the little guy behind.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time I checked the purpose of kickstarter was to help people get their ideas off the ground. Some types of products, especially hardware, can cost a lot of money to produce at a prototype stage. Not everyone has the cash lying around to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to build a functional prototype. So normally what that person would do is put together some renderings and a video and go to kickstarter to raise the funds to expand into prototypes and production. Now what are they to do?
Ultimately I think this decision by kickstarter gives a tremendous advantage to design shops with the budgets to build prototypes, while leaving the little guy behind.