Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making regarding character development. Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. There are several forms of role-playing games; the original form, sometimes called the tabletop role-playing game, is conducted through discussion, whereas in live action role-playing, players physically perform their characters' actions. In both of these forms, an arranger called a game master decides on the rules and setting to be used, while acting as the referee. Several varieties of RPG exist in electronic media, such as multiplayer text-based Multi-User Dungeons and their graphics-based successors, massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Role-playing games include single-player role-playing video games in which players control a character, or team of characters, who undertake quests, may include player capabilities that advance using statistical mechanics.
These electronic games sometimes share settings and rules with tabletop RPGs, but emphasize character advancement more than collaborative storytelling. This type of game is well-established, so some RPG-related game forms, such as trading/collectible card games and wargames, may not be included under the definition; some amount of role-playing activity may be present in such games. The term role-playing game is sometimes used to describe games involving roleplay simulation and exercises used in teaching and academic research. Both authors and major publishers of tabletop role-playing games consider them to be a form of interactive and collaborative storytelling. Events and narrative structure give a sense of a narrative experience, the game need not have a strongly-defined storyline. Interactivity is the crucial difference between traditional fiction. Whereas a viewer of a television show is a passive observer, a player in a role-playing game makes choices that affect the story; such role-playing games extend an older tradition of storytelling games where a small party of friends collaborate to create a story.
While simple forms of role-playing exist in traditional children's games of make believe, role-playing games add a level of sophistication and persistence to this basic idea with additions such as game facilitators and rules of interaction. Participants in a role-playing game will generate an ongoing plot. A consistent system of rules and a more or less realistic campaign setting in games aids suspension of disbelief; the level of realism in games ranges from just enough internal consistency to set up a believable story or credible challenge up to full-blown simulations of real-world processes. Role-playing games are played in a wide variety of formats ranging from discussing character interaction in tabletop form to physically acting out characters in LARP to playing characters in digital media. There is a great variety of systems of rules and game settings. Games that emphasize plot and character interaction over game mechanics and combat sometimes prefer the name storytelling game; these types of games tend to minimize or altogether eliminate the use of dice or other randomizing elements.
Some games are played with characters created before the game by the GM, rather than those created by the players. This type of game is played at gaming conventions, or in standalone games that do not form part of a campaign. Tabletop and pen-and-paper RPGs are conducted through discussion in a small social gathering; the GM describes its inhabitants. The other players describe the intended actions of their characters, the GM describes the outcomes; some outcomes are determined by the game system, some are chosen by the GM. This is the format; the first commercially available RPG, Dungeons & Dragons, was inspired by fantasy literature and the wargaming hobby and was published in 1974. The popularity of D&D led to the birth of the tabletop role-playing game industry, which publishes games with many different themes and styles of play; the popularity of tabletop games has decreased since the modern releases of online MMO RPGs. This format is referred to as a role-playing game. To distinguish this form of RPG from other formats, the retronyms tabletop role-playing game or pen and paper role-playing game are sometimes used, though neither a table nor pen and paper are necessary.
A LARP is played more like improvisational theatre. Participants act out their characters' actions instead of describing them, the real environment is used to represent the imaginary setting of the game world. Players are costumed as their characters and use appropriate props, the venue may be decorated to resemble the fictional setting; some live action role-playing games use rock-paper-scissors or comparison of attributes to resolve conflicts symbolically, while other LARPs use physical combat with simulated arms such as airsoft guns or foam weapons. LARPs vary in size from a handful of players to several thousand, in duration from a couple of hours to several days; because the number of players in a LARP is larger than in a tabletop role-playing game, the players may be interacting in separate physical spaces, there is less of an emphasis on maintaining a narrative or directly entertai
Fantasy Hero
Fantasy Hero is a role-playing game book that supports the Fantasy genre using the Hero System rules. Since the release of the 5th edition of the Hero System, Steven S. Long of Hero Games has published a new version of the Fantasy Hero book, as well as several supplementary publications to support Fantasy Hero-based campaigns; the Hero system book is required to make full use of this work in a game. The book contains information, useful to both the Game Master and the Players. A new edition of Fantasy Hero has been released, updating the genre book to the new Hero System 6th Edition; the 5th edition book is a extensive work, with 416 pages of text bound in a stiff-paper cover. Each 21.5 × 27.5 cm-sized page is printed in double-column text with occasional side-bar information. The interior is moderately illustrated with non-color drawings, while the jacket has a full-color painting; the book received the Gold Medal ENnie Award in 2004 for Best Non-D20 Supplement. A substantial portion of the book consists of information about fantasy gaming, non-game-system-specific.
This content can be used by game masters who want to create their own campaign setting, or to modify an existing publication to suit their interests. The remainder of the work delves into specifics of the Hero system in a fantasy campaign; however the flexible nature of the system is utilized throughout the book, allowing the Game Master to attune the rules to fit their setting. The seven chapters in this work cover the following topics: an overview of the fantasy genre. Fantasy characters in the Hero system are built using the point-based method; that is to say, each of the character's statistics are determined by spending "character points" based on the costs listed in the Hero system rules manual. The listed character races are the conventional types found in many fantasy settings for role-playing games, thus it includes the usual dwarves, elves and halflings found in Dungeons & Dragons, as well as giants, orcs, so forth. The race-specific modifiers are provided in the form of "packages" which can be adjusted by the player, based on the allowances by the GM.
The character skills are described as they relate to fantasy settings, with recommendations for the GM. In particular there is a listing of the various professional and knowledge-based skills relevant to these settings. Skills that are specific to more advanced societies are listed as such. Similar commentaries are given for the prerequisites and the powers available to the characters; the book includes a lengthy list of equipment available for the character, although such a listing will need to be modified based on the type of setting. True to the nature of the genre, there is extensive information provided both on tactical combat and on the use of magic; the system allows flexibility in implementing the type of magic system that the GM wants to make available in their setting. The magic discussion is replete with examples, something, necessary for newcomers to this system. There is a "mass combat system" for use when the characters are operating as part of a much larger force. Spells in Fantasy Hero are an application of the Hero powers system, with appropriate limitations applied to simulate the conventional restrictions of magical spells.
The spells require incantations, gestures, a skill roll, in many cases some type of focus. This last is an object of some type that can be taken or destroyed, thereby hindering the spell caster; however any kind of magic system can be described within the context of the HERO System's open design to suit the needs, vision, or fictional inspiration of a particular campaign or setting. This extreme flexibility of design is both a feature, of interest to GM's and players that want to model specific forms of magic in their setting, but can be overwhelming to GM's and players that just want to play a game with some established boundaries and not have to worry about such things themselves; the earlier edition of the Fantasy Hero book included a series of theme oriented "colleges", a specific mechanical basis for spellcasting. This was a specific implementation of the abstract concept of "magic", but as it was the published example available, it in effect became the de facto standard; this runs counter to the "universal" precepts of the HERO System, the 5th edition supplement excises it entirely.
Instead, 68 pages of Fantasy HERO for 5th edition are dedicated to Magic Systems and concepts, dealing in the broad concept of magic, exploring topics that should be considered when making a custom magic system. Ways of modeling some concepts and tropes found in genre fiction and film are covered as well; the flexibility and expressiveness of the HERO System's buy-a-mechanic effects-driven character design model is highlighted in this fashion. In addition to the high concepts, twelve distinct example magic systems across the gamut of power levels and styles are presented in summary, with two to three columns each on average. Two related products, the Fantasy Hero Grimoire and Fantasy Hero Grimoire II, are compilations of spells intended for use in the Fantasy Hero genre suited to be used with the default magic system of the Turakian Age, one of the four published HERO System Fantasy settings; the spells are subdivided into colleges or s
GURPS
The Generic Universal RolePlaying System, or GURPS, is a tabletop role-playing game system designed to allow for play in any game setting. It was created by Steve Jackson Games and first published in 1986 at a time when most such systems were story- or genre-specific. Players control their in-game characters verbally and the success of their actions are determined by the skill of their character, the difficulty of the action, the rolling of dice. Characters earn points during play. Gaming sessions are story-told and run by "Game Masters". GURPS won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Rules of 1988, in 2000 it was inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame. Many of its expansions have won awards. Prior to GURPS, roleplaying games of the 1970s and early 1980s were developed for certain gaming environments, they were incompatible with one another. For example, TSR published its Dungeons & Dragons game for a fantasy environment. Another game from the same company, Star Frontiers, was developed for science fiction–based role-playing.
TSR produced other games for other environments, such as Gamma World, Top Secret and Boot Hill. Each of these games was set with its own self-contained rules system, the rules for playing each game differed from one game to the next. Attempts were made in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons to allow cross-genre games using Gamma World and Boot Hill rules. Though it was preceded by Basic Role-Playing and the Hero System, GURPS was the most commercially successful generic role-playing game system to allow players to role-play in any environment they please while still using the same set of core rules; this flexibility of environment is aided by the use of technology levels that allow a campaign to be set from the Stone Age to the Digital Age or beyond. Role-playing games of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Dungeons & Dragons used random numbers generated by dice rolls to assign statistics to player characters. GURPS, following the lead of the Hero System first used by the Champions role-playing game, assigned players a specified number of points with which to build their characters.
These points were spent to get attributes and advantages, such as the ability to cast magic spells. Additional points can be obtained by accepting lower-than-average attributes and other limitations. GURPS' emphasis on its generic aspect has proven to be a successful marketing tactic, as many game series have source engines which can be retrofitted to many styles, its approach to versatility includes using real world measurements wherever possible. GURPS benefits from the many dozens of worldbooks describing settings or additional rules in all genres including science fiction and historical. Many popular game designers began their professional careers as GURPS writers, including C. J. Carella, Robin Laws, S. John Ross, Fudge creator Steffan O'Sullivan; the immediate mechanical antecedent of GURPS was The Fantasy Trip, an early role-playing game written by Steve Jackson for the company Metagaming Concepts. Several of the core concepts of GURPS first appeared in TFT, including the inclusion of Strength and Intelligence as the core abilities scores of each character.
A Basic GURPS set was published in 1986 and 1987 and included two booklets, one for developing characters and one for Adventuring. In 1990 GURPS intersected part of the hacker subculture when the company's Austin, offices were raided by the Secret Service; the target was the author of GURPS Cyberpunk in relation to E911 Emergency Response system documents stolen from Bell South. The incident was a direct contributor to the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. A common misconception holds that this raid was part of Operation Sundevil and carried out by the FBI. Operation: Sundevil was in action at the same time, but it was separate. See Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service. A free PDF version of the GURPS rules was released as GURPS Lite; this limited ruleset was included with various books such as GURPS Discworld and Transhuman Space. Steve Jackson Games released GURPS Fourth Edition at the first day of Gen Con on August 19, 2004, it promised to streamline most areas of play and character creation.
The changes include modification of the attribute point adjustments, an edited and rationalized skill list, clarification of the differences between abilities from experience and from inborn talent, more detailed language rules, revised technology levels. Designed by Sean Punch, the Fourth Edition is sold as two full-color hardcover books as well as in the PDF format. A character in GURPS is built with character points. For a beginning character in an average power game, the 4th edition suggests 100–150 points to modify attribute stats, select advantages and disadvantages, purchase levels in skills. Normal NPCs are built on 25–50 points. Full-fledged heroes have 150–250 points, while superheroes are built with 400–800 points; the highest point value recorded for a canon character in a GURPS sourcebook is 10,452 for the Harvester in GURPS Monsters. In principle, a Game Master can balance the power of foes to the abilities of the player characters by comparing their relative point values. Characters in GURPS have four basic attributes: Streng
Hero System Bestiary
Hero System Bestiary is a compilation of creatures for use with Hero System role-playing game rules. It was published in 2002 for the 5th edition Hero System release; the cover is thick paper and illustrated in color, while the interior is 239 pages in length and illustrated in black and white. An earlier edition of the Hero Bestiary was published in 1992 for the prior edition of Hero; this work is divided into an appendix. The first chapter gives an overview of creatures in a role-playing game, along with descriptions of the game system statistics and how creatures are created using the Hero System point build method; each of the skills common to animals is described in terms of how it is applied to the various life forms. The application of powers and their limitations is detailed for creatures such as animals, the various disadvantages are explained in terms of how they are best applied. New with this release is a section in chapter one on Creature Templates; these are sets of powers with appropriate advantages and limitations that can be applied to modify a creature.
Thus there are templates for size modification, elemental forms, venomous creatures, disease carriers, so forth. These templates multiply the variety of creatures available to the game master; the first chapter has a section on how creatures fight and behave in combat, as well as providing custom hit location tables for common creature forms that differ from a humanoid shape. The chapter closes with some comments on animal populations, as well as the commercial value of various animal parts; the remaining three chapters consist of creature statistics and descriptions for fantastic beasts and beasts of science fiction and the movies. Each creature description is about a page in length, contains a complete listing of the characteristics, powers and disadvantages, including the point cost for each; this is followed by brief descriptions of the creature's ecology and motivation, powers and combat tactics, their appearance, the uses of the creature in a role-playing game campaign. The creatures listed include a number that are as intelligent as man, can possess their own intricate cultures.
All of the creatures are illustrated in white. The book closes with an appendix; the latter includes various sample template-modified creatures, an extensive list of hit location tables, area of effect maps for various powers, a creature summary table. At the end is an index. Altogether the book includes complete statictics for the following creatures: Fantastic Beasts — guardian ape, giant vampire bat, chimera, giant crab, deadly ooze, various demons and devils, elementals, giant frog, golems, griffin, hippocampus, homunculus, giant insects, kraken, giant lizard, manticore, pegasus, rakshasa, giant rat, salamander, sea serpent, siren, fantastic snakes, tree man, unicorn, giant wolf, giant worm. Mundane Beasts — barracuda, bears, birds of prey, other birds, buffalo, domestic cat, great cats, giant clam, deer, dogs, eel, gorilla, horses, small mammals, scorpion, snakes, animal swarms, swordfish and wolves. Beasts of Science Fiction and the Movies — amorphous horror, animal-men, giant ape, engine of destruction, giant carnivorous plants, giant dinosaur, giant space amoeba, living brain, mon'da hunting lizard, psychovore and androids, swamp creature, xenovore creatures.
Steven S. Long, Hero System Bestiary, 2002, DOJ, Inc
YouTube
YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. Three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim—created the service in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion. YouTube allows users to upload, rate, add to playlists, comment on videos, subscribe to other users, it offers a wide variety of corporate media videos. Available content includes video clips, TV show clips, music videos and documentary films, audio recordings, movie trailers, live streams, other content such as video blogging, short original videos, educational videos. Most of the content on YouTube is uploaded by individuals, but media corporations including CBS, the BBC, Hulu offer some of their material via YouTube as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can only watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos and add comments to videos. Videos deemed inappropriate are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old.
YouTube and its creators earn advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. The vast majority of its videos are free to view, but there are exceptions, including subscription-based premium channels, film rentals, as well as YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, subscription services offering premium and ad-free music streaming, ad-free access to all content, including exclusive content commissioned from notable personalities; as of February 2017, there were more than 400 hours of content uploaded to YouTube each minute, one billion hours of content being watched on YouTube every day. As of August 2018, the website is ranked as the second-most popular site in the world, according to Alexa Internet. YouTube has faced criticism over aspects of its operations, including its handling of copyrighted content contained within uploaded videos, its recommendation algorithms perpetuating videos that promote conspiracy theories and falsehoods, hosting videos ostensibly targeting children but containing violent and/or sexually suggestive content involving popular characters, videos of minors attracting pedophilic activities in their comment sections, fluctuating policies on the types of content, eligible to be monetized with advertising.
YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. According to a story, repeated in the media and Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos, shot at a dinner party at Chen's apartment in San Francisco. Karim did not attend the party and denied that it had occurred, but Chen commented that the idea that YouTube was founded after a dinner party "was very strengthened by marketing ideas around creating a story, digestible". Karim said the inspiration for YouTube first came from Janet Jackson's role in the 2004 Super Bowl incident, when her breast was exposed during her performance, from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Karim could not find video clips of either event online, which led to the idea of a video sharing site.
Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service, had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. Difficulty in finding enough dating videos led to a change of plans, with the site's founders deciding to accept uploads of any type of video. YouTube began as a venture capital-funded technology startup from an $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital and an $8 million investment from Artis Capital Management between November 2005 and April 2006. YouTube's early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California; the domain name www.youtube.com was activated on February 14, 2005, the website was developed over the subsequent months. The first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo; the video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, can still be viewed on the site. YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005; the first video to reach one million views was a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho in November 2005.
Following a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in November, the site launched on December 15, 2005, by which time the site was receiving 8 million views a day. The site grew and, in July 2006, the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. According to data published by market research company comScore, YouTube is the dominant provider of online video in the United States, with a market share of around 43% and more than 14 billion views of videos in May 2010. In May 2011, 48 hours of new videos were uploaded to the site every minute, which increased to 60 hours every minute in January 2012, 100 hours every minute in May 2013, 300 hours every minute in November 2014, 400 hours every minute in February 2017; as of January 2012, the site had 800 million unique users a month. It is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. According to third-party web analytics providers and SimilarWeb, YouTube is the second-most visited website in the world, as of December 2016.
Jumping
Jumping or leaping is a form of locomotion or movement in which an organism or non-living mechanical system propels itself through the air along a ballistic trajectory. Jumping can be distinguished from running and other gaits where the entire body is temporarily airborne, by the long duration of the aerial phase and high angle of initial launch; some animals, such as the kangaroo, employ jumping as their primary form of locomotion, while others, such as frogs, use it only as a means to escape predators. Jumping is a key feature of various activities and sports, including the long jump, high jump and show jumping. All jumping involves the application of force against a substrate, which in turn generates a reactive force that propels the jumper away from the substrate. Any solid or liquid capable of producing an opposing force can serve as a substrate, including ground or water. Examples of the latter include dolphins performing traveling jumps, Indian skitter frogs executing standing jumps from water.
Jumping organisms are subject to significant aerodynamic forces and, as a result, their jumps are governed by the basic physical laws of ballistic trajectories. While a bird may jump into the air to initiate flight, no movement it performs once airborne is considered jumping, as the initial jump conditions no longer dictate its flight path. Following the moment of launch, a jumper will traverse a parabolic path; the launch angle and initial launch velocity determine the travel distance and height of the jump. The maximum possible horizontal travel distance occurs at a launch angle of 45 degrees, but any launch angle between 35 and 55 degrees will result in ninety percent of the maximum possible distance. Muscles do physical work, adding kinetic energy to the jumper's body over the course of a jump's propulsive phase; this results in a kinetic energy at launch, proportional to the square of the jumper's speed. The more work the muscles do, the greater the launch velocity and thus the greater the acceleration and the shorter the time interval of the jump's propulsive phase.
Mechanical power and the distance over which that power is applied are the key determinants of jump distance and height. As a result, many jumping animals have long legs and muscles that are optimized for maximal power according to the force-velocity relationship of muscles; the maximum power output of muscles is limited, however. To circumvent this limitation, many jumping species pre-stretch elastic elements, such as tendons or apodemes, to store work as strain energy; such elastic elements can release energy at a much higher rate than equivalent muscle mass, thus increasing launch energy to levels beyond what muscle alone is capable of. A jumper may be either moving when initiating a jump. In a jump from stationary, all of the work required to accelerate the body through launch is done in a single movement. In a moving jump or running jump, the jumper introduces additional vertical velocity at launch while conserving as much horizontal momentum as possible. Unlike stationary jumps, in which the jumper's kinetic energy at launch is due to the jump movement, moving jumps have a higher energy that results from the inclusion of the horizontal velocity preceding the jump.
Jumpers are able to jump greater distances when starting from a run. Animals use a wide variety of anatomical adaptations for jumping; these adaptations are concerned with the launch, as any post-launch method of extending range or controlling the jump must use aerodynamic forces, thus is considered gliding or parachuting. Aquatic species display any particular specializations for jumping; those that are good jumpers are adapted for speed, execute moving jumps by swimming to the surface at a high velocity. A few aquatic species that can jump while on land, such as mud skippers, do so via a flick of the tail. In terrestrial animals, the primary propulsive structure is the legs, though a few species use their tails. Typical characteristics of jumping species include long legs, large leg muscles, additional limb elements. Long legs increase the time and distance over which a jumping animal can push against the substrate, thus allowing more power and faster, farther jumps. Large leg muscles can generate greater force.
In addition to elongated leg elements, many jumping animals have modified foot and ankle bones that are elongated and possess additional joints adding more segments to the limb and more length. Frogs are an excellent example of all three trends: frog legs can be nearly twice the body length, leg muscles may account for up to twenty percent of body weight, they have not only lengthened the foot and thigh, but extended the ankle bones into another limb joint and extended the hip bones and gained mobility at the sacrum for a second'extra joint'; as a result, frogs are the undisputed champion jumpers of vertebrates, leaping over fifty body lengths, a distance of more than eight feet. Grasshoppers use elastic energy storage to increase jumping distance. Although power output is a principal determinant of jump distance, physiological constraints limit muscle power to 375 Watts per kilogram of muscle. To overcome this limitation, grasshoppers anchor their legs via an internal "catch mechanism" while their muscles stretch an elastic apodeme.
When the catch is released, the apodeme releases its energy
Kickstarter
Kickstarter is an American public-benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity and merchandising. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". Kickstarter has received more than $4 billion in pledges from 15.5 million backers to fund 257,000 creative projects, such as films, stage shows, journalism, video games and food-related projects. People who back Kickstarter projects are offered tangible rewards or experiences in exchange for their pledges; this model traces its roots to subscription model of arts patronage, where artists would go directly to their audiences to fund their work. Kickstarter launched on April 28, 2009, by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, Charles Adler; the New York Times called Kickstarter "the people's NEA". Time named it one of the "Best Inventions of 2010" and "Best Websites of 2011". Kickstarter raised $10 million funding from backers including NYC-based venture firm Union Square Ventures and angel investors such as Jack Dorsey, Zach Klein and Caterina Fake.
The company is based in Brooklyn. Andy Baio served as the site's CTO until November 2010. Lance Ivy has been Lead Developer since the website launched. On February 14, 2013, Kickstarter released; the app was aimed at users who create and back projects and was the first time Kickstarter had an official mobile presence. On October 31, 2012, Kickstarter opened projects based in the United Kingdom, followed by projects based in Canada on September 9, 2013, Australia and New Zealand on November 13, 2013, the Netherlands on April 28, 2014, Ireland and Sweden on September 15, 2014, Germany on April 28, 2015, France and Spain on May 19, 2015, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland on June 16, 2015, Singapore and Hong Kong on August 30, 2016, Mexico on November 15, 2016 and Japan on September 12, 2017. In July 2017, Strickler announced his resignation. Kickstarter is one of a number of crowdfunding platforms for gathering money from the public, which circumvents traditional avenues of investment. Project creators choose a minimum funding goal.
If the goal is not met by the deadline, no funds are collected. The kickstarter platform is open to backers from anywhere in the world and to creators from many countries, including the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, France, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Mexico. Kickstarter applies a 5% fee on the total amount of the funds raised, their payments processor applies an additional 3–5% fee. Unlike many forums for fundraising or investment, Kickstarter claims no ownership over the projects and the work they produce; the web pages of projects launched on the site are permanently archived and accessible to the public. After funding is completed and uploaded media cannot be edited or removed from the site. There is no guarantee that people who post projects on Kickstarter will deliver on their projects, use the money to implement their projects, or that the completed projects will meet backers' expectations. Kickstarter advises backers to use their own judgment on supporting a project.
They warn project leaders that they could be liable for legal damages from backers for failure to deliver on promises. Projects might fail after a successful fundraising campaign when creators underestimate the total costs required or technical difficulties to be overcome. Asked what made Kickstarter different from other crowdfunding platforms, co-founder Perry Chen said: "I wonder if people know what the definition of crowdfunding is. Or, if there’s an agreed upon definition of what it is. We haven’t supported the use of the term because it can provoke more confusion. In our case, we focus on a middle ground between commerce. People are offering cool stuff and experiences in exchange for the support of their ideas. People are creating these mini-economies around their project ideas. So, you aren’t coming to the site to get something for nothing. We focus on creative projects—music, technology, design and publishing—and within the category of crowdfunding of the arts, we are ten times the size of all of the others combined."
On June 21, 2012, Kickstarter began publishing statistics on its projects. As of February 13, 2015, there were 207,135 launched projects, with a success rate of 40%; the total amount pledged was $1,523,718,656. The business grew in its early years. In 2010 Kickstarter had $27,638,318 pledged; the corresponding figures for 2011 were 11,836 funded projects and $99,344,381 pledged. On February 9, 2012, Kickstarter hit a number of milestones. A dock made for the iPhone designed by Casey Hopkins became the first Kickstarter project to exceed one million dollars in pledges. A few hours a new adventure game project started by computer game developers, Double Fine Productions, reached the same figure, having been launched less than 24 hours earlier, finished with over $3 million pledged; this was the first time Kickstarter raised over a million dollars in pledges in a single day. On August 30, 2014, the "Coolest Cooler", an icebox created by Ryan Grepper, became the most funded Kickstarter project in history, with US$13.28 million in funding, breaking the record held by the Pebble smart watch.
In July 2012, Wharton professor Ethan Mollick and Jeanne Pi conducted research
