The danger of Kickstarter projects, especially in the videogame arena, is that sometimes they will end up being complete frauds, such as the infamous Yogventures and Mineorama scams. Even major sites have started Kickstarters that went absolutely nowhere, such as Ain’t It Cool Harry Knowles’ Kickstarter.
Mansion Lord appears to be an out-and-out swindle, as there were plenty of warning signs that the game was fake. There was no real contact info (though one could contact “Golgom Games” through normal in-Kickstarter messaging), no developer registration, and most telling of all, no names behind the studio.
Despite this, the game not only made its Kickstarter goal, but got Steam Greenlit, too.
The “golgomgames.com” site was registered to a Michael Wong in Texas and California, but the domain was soon gone after the game had gotten its funding.
As for Kickstarter? Their reply to angry backers was essentially “caveat emptor”, and there is no impetus for Kickstarter or Amazon to take action since they got their take of the action.
The moral of the story? Do your due diligence before backing a Kickstarter project. There is no real recourse for backers right now, save hoping the perpetrators got caught.
