Well, changes are afoot at Kickstarter — and they are good changes, [not what I wanted](http://brooksreview.net/2012/09/ks-conundrum/), but a decent compromise. Kickstarter is now forcing project creators to assess the risk and challenges facing their products. Additionally hardware campaigns have additional rules:

1. No simulations, meaning you can’t show what the product *could* do, only what it can do as it currently exists.
2. No renderings, only photos of actual prototypes.
3. No multiple quantity rewards.

The first is great. The last is something I had never thought of before, and the psychological impact of such a reward level is misleading, good on Kickstarter for changing that.

It’s the second change, the “no renderings” that I find most curious. With that I would guess that two things happen:

1. Project creators are forced to make prototypes, thus sinking in cash before the campaign and discovering if their idea is feasible.
2. It’s a lot harder to get people to back projects.

Both go hand in hand. There will be many people that can’t fully prototype without funding, I would guess these projects rarely succeed now. Secondly, it’s also my guess that the projects that do get a good prototype are faster to ship.

All in all, these are great changes — I look forward to backing Kickstarter projects again to see what these changes mean in real world testing.

*(Lastly, don’t these all these read like this: “Don’t be Nokia, just be Apple.”)*