As some of you might know, when I'm not writing here I spend my days--and some of my nights--as an attorney, and I couldn't help but post this when it landed in my inbox yesterday. Apparently, Bob Ferguson, the Washington State Attorney General, has filed a lawsuit against the makers of the Kickstarter card game, Asylum, for failing to deliver a finished product to his 810 backers who had provided him with $25,000 in funding. 35 of those backers lived in Washington State. This unprecedented development certainly came as interesting news to me, as we pen enthusiasts are known to back a Kickstarter project or two, often with little to no assurance of whether or not we are paying for a project that will never deliver, or whether we will end up paying $50 for a "custom-designed" product that the backer purchased in China for $0.89. The question has been asked in more than one forum, what recourse do we have against obvious fraudsters, when there's no real economic incentive to sue when you're out of pocket less than $100? Apparently some state attorney generals are listening to consumer concerns, and it merits watching whether or not this becomes a trend.

Some other links and stories:

Gamer Rant, Kickstarter Lawsuit May Set Precedent on Future Successful Campaigns

Gizmodo, The Government is Finally Trying to Make Kickstarter Scammers Pay