With all of the success that Kickstarter has brought to independent developers, it comes as no surprise that someone would eventually see it as an opportunity for a scam. The unfortunate thing is that it has happened so soon.
If you haven’t heard about the Mythic scam, check out this article, or this one, or this one.
We are all lucky that the diligent forum users over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Something Awful discovered the problem and reported it in a way that ultimately got the project taken down. By the very nature of Kickstarter, there seems to be no obligation to deliver on the project once the money is turned over. If this “project” would have completed its funding and then fallen off the face of the earth, I don’t know that there would have been any recourse.
Such an event would likely be disastrous for Kickstarter, and for the faith of fans in future projects. All of use that benefit from Kickstarter in the future (yes, I used “us.” Stay tuned), should thank our lucky stars that the Mythic project was stopped.