His passion is at best irrelevant and at worst an indictment of his suitability as a candidate for investment.
Personally, I would have much more confidence in a totally dispassionate individual, who raised funds for a project because they saw it as a rational use of their time and other people's money, not because they had a deep emotional investment in a particular idea. I would certainly expect a dispassionate individual to make far more accurate predictions of the necessary budget and timescale of a project, and the likelihood of it failing.
Peake has no clear track record of delivering large software projects and interviews suggest that he has no clear constraints on project scope. To a developer, those are glaring warnings that a project is at risk of being vaporware, but I wouldn't expect anyone outside of the software industry to recognise that. I think Kickstarter need to think long and hard about whether they're doing everything they can to educate "backers" of the serious risks involved in certain classes of project. The lonely-hearts section in my local newspaper gives advice on how to avoid dangerous situations; The motoring section gives advice on how to spot a stolen or misrepresented vehicle. I don't see any equivalent on Kickstarter on how to spot high-risk projects.
If you read the linked comments, people seem to believe that he got bored and dropped the project: I thereby believe that his passion is actually the specific thing in question, dead center to the discussion.
> ...and at worst an indictment of his suitability as a candidate for investment.
FWIW, I chose to not invest anything in CodeHero at the time in 2007, and when I saw the Kickstarter go by (I believe I noticed it on my Facebook feed) I again made the decision to not invest in his project.
> ...[discussion of whether or not you would invest in Alex Peake to build a project]...
Actually, I believe that that is off-topic: you would not invest in him, nor would I have invested in him, nor did I invest in him; you are preaching to the choir on not investing in him ;P. (I can, however, understand why many people would: more on that later.)
However, if you were to have invested in him (as the people complaining about him obviously did), I will contend that it is then unfair to request a refund from him if he fails: you simply shouldn't have invested in the first place if you didn't understand that risk.
To put it differently: when you buy tons of shares in a stock of a company because they say "we've decided to build the next mobile operating system and have purchased one of the leaders in this space" (HP), and then just months later they realize that the hardware didn't work, the operating system was too far out to compete with the two major players, that the deals they had were with the wrong carrier, and thereby they make the painful decision to scrap the entire division, sell off the remaining hardware at a loss, and open-source the software seemingly only to not lose face with the wider development community, you might call for the CEO's job, but I don't see how you can demand a refund: that was just a stupid investment you should not have made in the first place... some might call it a "life lesson" ;P.
Of course, sometimes it crosses a line; that line is largely related to what he does with the money: if he hires too many people, gets a bad deal on an office, and misses his window, that sucks, but he tried.
If, in contrast, he spends it on a trip to Vegas and a new car, and never had any intention of building the product, that is something entirely different, and you would be right in calling it a scam.
In this case, though, I don't see any evidence of that being the case, so I am putting forward the only thing anyone here can offer: a character reference as to what likely happened on Alex Peake's side of this. (edit: After writing this, I noticed Alex Peake actually responded himself elsewhere on the thread, so that's much more useful.)
I thereby contend, with my more-informed-than-a-random-person's (but possibly not as informed as one would really want ;P) opinion, is that he may have used the funds inefficiently on a project that was barely achievable in the first place (and it isn't even yet clear that this is true), but I can't imagine his intent was a scam.
In fact, I have a difficult time imagining Alex Peake doing much else, for the rest of his life, other than working on Code Hero (or, furthest out, things that support his addiction to working on Code Hero). He has a really addictive vision, he actually makes progress occasionally, and he really does seem to understand how to interact and deal with young kids.
Even so, I wouldn't invest money in this project (hell, were I building this project myself, I wouldn't even go about it the same way: I'd start with machines, not source code, as that's what has worked best for me when I teach classes on computers to non-computer people), but I can easily understand why someone else would... they should just have low expectations of the result; if nothing else: "it's just a Kickstarter".
> I think Kickstarter need to think long and hard about whether they're doing everything they can to educate "backers" of the serious risks involved in certain classes of project.
Yes, they should; the fact that people do not realize this, however, is, in the end, their fault. I really do agree, however, that Kickstarter is going to eventually run into serious liability problems by attempting to paint a rosy picture that looks a lot like "pre-order a product" rather than "kick a quarter to your favorite street-performer".
It was somewhat nice that they backed away from this a little in recent months (including making it clear in September with some rule changes that "Kickstarter Is Not a Store", such as requiring creators to talk about "Risks and Challenges"), but they are walking a fine line, and seem to be doing it somewhat sloppily.
Its fair to request a refund if you invested through a vehicle with terms that require either fulfillment of the offered reward or a refund.
The terms of service at Kickstarter require a refund if the project creator is unable or unwilling to provide the offered rewards, not only if he didn't really try.
I maintain that if Kickstarter is "pay money now for gifts later" then they are not in compliance with either Visa's terms of service (no delayed renumeration for payments, a policy explicitly there to avoid "I have money ten months ago, and am now angry"), as well as laws regarding collecting sales tax (which are quite clearly written in a way that keeps you from just claiming "oh yeah, this thing where people give me money and I give them products? trust me: that's not a purchase... don't tax me, bro").
That's quite possibly true, but doesn't affect the fact that there ToS has a pay money now for stuff later model, and that people who have paid money have a legitimate expectation to get their stuff or a refund.
Personally, I would have much more confidence in a totally dispassionate individual, who raised funds for a project because they saw it as a rational use of their time and other people's money, not because they had a deep emotional investment in a particular idea. I would certainly expect a dispassionate individual to make far more accurate predictions of the necessary budget and timescale of a project, and the likelihood of it failing.
Peake has no clear track record of delivering large software projects and interviews suggest that he has no clear constraints on project scope. To a developer, those are glaring warnings that a project is at risk of being vaporware, but I wouldn't expect anyone outside of the software industry to recognise that. I think Kickstarter need to think long and hard about whether they're doing everything they can to educate "backers" of the serious risks involved in certain classes of project. The lonely-hearts section in my local newspaper gives advice on how to avoid dangerous situations; The motoring section gives advice on how to spot a stolen or misrepresented vehicle. I don't see any equivalent on Kickstarter on how to spot high-risk projects.