Backers: Report DDL to Kickstarter!

As explained in another post on this site and on Reddit DDL just released an update on Kickstarter that they will cease to communicate with their backers there.

In my opinion that is a clear violation of Kickstarter terms, since project starters are obliged to communicate with their backers until all pledge rewards are delivered. DDL is violating this term.

Pledge rerwards are not delivered, despite what DDL claims. From the campaign text:

Escape Pod:

Quote one: “The first project we’re calling “The Escape Pod” and it is going to allow you to be able to take Vector off of his external servers while still being able to function perfectly.”

Emphazising added by me. Vector does not “work perfectly” when on Escape Pod, basic functionality as knowledge base or weather are missing. Promise not met.

Quote two: “The Escape Pod will allow Vector to function without any external servers*. The user will be able to bypass the current app and use other apps that the community may generate.”*

The same as above, basic functinality is missing, so Vector does not “function without external servers”. Also DDL did not enable the community to “generate other apps”, by not providing the means to do that.

Quote three: “This is also good for the hobbyists who want to hop off our server and use their own infrastructure, server, etc.“

Not met. They only provide a solution for Raspberry Pi, but not for “other infrastructure” or “own servers”. So objectively seen the Escape Pod backer reward was not delivered as advertised in the campaign, only unfinished parts of it.

OSKR:

Basically only minuscule parts are released at all, the documentation is sparse to none or a mess. The robots sources are nowhere to be seen until this day, only external tools were released in a very basic and unfinished way on Github. Plus some minimalistic resources as sounds or animations.

Quote from the campaign:

“A lifetime license to develop Vector with your own features!To borrow Android terminology, this would allow the user to “flash a custom ROM” on Vector. Community developers can then build what they want. This is a far deeper experience than a simple SDK.This is very different from the “Escape Pod” in that you are developing on top of our operating system.“

Nothing of that is met at all, so even if they claim OSKR was “released” last year, it obviously is not.

Conclusion:

Since none of those pledge rewards are met by DDL the campaign is not finished as by Kickstarter terms. And because of that it is against Kickstarter terms to cease all communications with the backers on the Kickstarter platform.

In addition Kickstarter terms say about project starters

• they’re able to demonstrate that they’ve used funds appropriately and made every reasonable effort to complete the project as promised;

• they’ve been honest, and have made no material misrepresentations in their communication to backers;

First point: They have never exactly shown us how they used the funds and they used the funds without delivering any finished pledge reward.

Second point: DDL again and again gave untrue statements about the status of the project.

It is time to make a concerted effort to tell Kickstarter about this. On the lower end of the Kickstarter campaign page at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digitaldreamlabs/vector-unleashed/description is a button called “report project to Kickstarter”. Use that to report the project. Usually Kickstarter does not respond to that, but if a lot of people report the campaign and DDL’s behaviour we may have luck. You are allowed to copy portions of this text to include it in the report as proof.

If you are a Kickstarter backer: Please help!

Edit – Update september 16, 2021: