Are there any crowdfunding guidelines how to back games?

I am not sure there is such a guide, but at the same time I've never actually looked for one.

I think accountability is important.
For example, does the person link to their social media pages? And how active are they in general? Less than once every month or less is probably a big red flag. Do they do smaller projects and update often before this project? (Eg art, videos, examples of the game, sketches, bug fixes.. have they mentioned this kickstarter in other places?) Have they worked on something large like this before?

Other questions you may ask yourself:
Do the rewards seem too good to be true? (Eg 5 copies of a game if you pledge $2..) Fishy...
Is the game studio/people behind the projects a generally responsible one? Eg do they often take on commissioned projects and flake? Take months to finish? Disappear for weeks on end? More red flags.

However!
if they have worked on other things before, be in contact with many other notable people, are friends you know, often update or talk about their projects, or often have new results things to show for their efforts. Then that's prolly a good sign.

It's good to support indie artists and studios, not everyone does that.
Taking a leap of faith in someone unknown can be scary, but
Sometimes, you'll be pleasantly surprised. :')

It's like any investment, there's always a risk. Except that unlike any investment you won't get a x100 return if things go very very great for the devs or whatever project you're supporting. Kickstarter is basically a donation site with goodies.
I agree with Southrobin's advice, although I think it there's something he forgot: those people are on Kickstarter and the likes because they didn't find proper investors, so criteria such as "they have worked on other things before, be in contact with many other notable people" might be hard to fill (and also defeats a bit the purpose of Kickstarter IMO, which is to give unknown people a chance to get started on their first big project)

To be fair, if you gave money for Ant Simulator you probably deserve what happened.

Anyway it's always a risk because lots of people will fake accountability and crowdfunding is mostly used for nobodies who want to create something, so you're basically donating money to projects who might or might not never see the light of the day. Aside from googling the authors to check what they have done in the past (people who pledged for Star Citizen should have really seen that coming) there's not much you can do other than pledging only projects that seem reasonable for their budget (those who are promising you incredible and never seen before inventions are kinda suspicious).
But as the guy above me said: think of backing more like a donation with goodies rather than an investment.

Most campaigns don't waste the money, but sometimes they do run out of money because they typically ask for less than is realistically needed. I backed a lot of campaigns, and most of them delivered, even if sometimes several years later than promised.

Anyway, I think we're past the days when a lot of high profile projects were on Kickstarter. If you back one of them (such as the Myst 25th Anniversary Collection currently running) then there's a good chance they'd get the project done. That said, there's no guarantee that the game will end up like you thought it would, or even as promised. There are often changes done, which is natural in a creative project, and certainly one that's also technology limited.

I think that the best way to minimise frustration is:

• Expect the game to be late.
• Accept that the end result may differ from what you imagined or even to an extent from what was promised.
• Accept that there's a chance that the project will die without producing results.
• Projects from well known devs are safer (unless those devs are known for not delivering products :).
• Projects which include a demo are safer.
• Don't donate for higher tiers unless you have a lot of money to spare.

Also remember that in the end, you'll be able to buy the game for cheaper outside of Kickstarter. You're backing not because it's a good deal, but because you want to help the devs release the game.

Look back historically what those developers have done and how well they have succeeded in managing release times and such.
If there is anyone like Tim involved just wait for it... Same goes with most no name devs on big projects. Very specific and limited scope with existing prototype is good indicator of potential for success.

Only give money that you won't miss and prepare for them to burn their studio down. Even amongst the big names, there is just no guarantee that the game will be finished, or will look / play as you would like it to be, accepting this is the most important.

Backed my first project today, the game looks promising! I'll keep searching for new ones
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grapeocean/black-geyser-couriers-of-darkness

A lot of people treat Kickstarter like a store, which it's not. That sort of thinking is that can lead to frustration and disappointment.

Treat Kickstarter funding like a donation, with the possibility of getting something in return, and you won't be disappointed.

Personally, I don't think developers should get crowdfunded unless they have a trusted and legitimate history as a game developer.
I understand that money is sometimes required before making a game, but honestly, if you can't even release at least a couple of games without proper funding to at least prove you are worthy of people's trust and money, you shouldn't be asking for their money in the first place.

If I were to develop a game, I'd do it in my free time and when I'm almost ready to release it, and if this wasn't my first game released, and it was a decent project, only then, I'd consider using crowdfunding as a boost to help releasing the game. Otherwise I don't think I'd feel comfortable in taking people's money.

Of course, this is from a non-developer's perspective - Plus, I don't really know how that crowdfunding stuff works. But still, I feel like aspiring developers rely too much on crowdfunding and lack the responsibility necessary to deliver the promised product. If you can't produce something decent with the crowdfunding campaign being a success, you're a pretty big fucking failure of a developer. Either you can't actually make a game, or you haven't figured out your budget right, or you're a scammer. In any case, the fact is that these kind of developers should not be using crowdfunding platforms.

The problem is, who's going to stop them? It's often very hard to tell if a developer is legit or not. It's also extremely easy to hype up something you haven't made yet. Anyone can say "if I made a game it would like this and that", and others would agree it sounds amazing - but ideas, concepts, they are nothing but that - ideas and concepts. On the other hand, some developers actually deliver on what they promised. It's a very frustrating situation all around when crowdfunding campaigns go to shit; fund-raisers get a slap in the face by losing their money and their promised game, and other actually legit developers get a punch in the stomach from users now being wary of scammers, and being unlikely to fund them.

I think that in the end, it's a bit like getting scammed. The responsibility of one's wallet often lies within oneself's hands.
All you can really do is be cautious and suspicious of every crowdfunding campaigns, do your research, and hope that the developer delivers.

I've only backed one game in my life, a roguelike when I was all about turn based RPGs. The game is called Ananias and for a very modest amount, the lone game developer put me in the game, under my real life name., as a randomly appearing high level badguy. He even let me write the description for that character.

I totally stumbled on to it and got lucky that I backed a game made by an honest and hard-working developer who was true to his word. Anything bigger budget and I'd have to ask myself why the dev couldn't get traditional funding. If I had serious money or if I donated to a AAA game, I'm not interested. I love that crowdfunding is out there for small time devs (this dev again was just one guy) but if it's a big scale project asking for big contributions and I had the money I'd go looking to see if that company sells stock and not settling for a free copy of the game.

The game is playable on it's website....
http://ananiasgame.com/
It's for sale on Steam...
https://store.steampowered.com/app/372080/Ananias_Roguelike/
and it's also on the App Store...
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ananias-fellowship/id992325394?mt=8
and the Google Play Store in a paid version...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.slashwareint.ananias
and a free version
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.slashland.ananias

I get no money from this. I'm just a bit of a loser and people playing a game with an NPC named after me makes me happy.

while i don't have guide or rating but i can give word,we are investor on stuff that may or may not succeed or fall down burning and they can be rightly pissed if they money is use differently or crash down failing and) there is a lot of fail kickstarter game like mighty no.9,the stomping land,red ash (god know what happen to that one and the anime is good at least) and a lot more but there is a lot of awesome games from kickstarter and from my own eye like ash of gods,Legrand legacy,the banner saga,darkest dungeon and so many more (i would include kingdom come deliverance but they did a kickstarter for that to prove investor that they game will loved by many people and so far they were right)

Honestly it come down to us faith in them including a lot of research and learn more about them honestly,sometime it will fail but there time it will rise,so trust your judgement,learn about what it is and so much more on it so you can believe that the choices you make is right