From what Brad's said, if I had to guess---this is what's happening. Right now, due to the big cuts at a lot of studios, there is a lot of talent out there with MMO experience that are unemployed (Going off what someone surrounding this said). Also--most likely because the pressure from the phone/browser market and the increasing number of surveys pointing to the buckets of money being made form those markets, with the simultaneous downtrend of money being made from "traditional" MMO's, traditional MMO's are becoming harder to pitch, especially a risky MMO like Brad wants to make. (Note: Traditional. There are several market reports that show "MMO's" are growing, but they count League of Legends and World of Tanks as MMOs--that's the direction the market is going.)
Anyway, there is a unique opportunity to get some fantastic talent, but without some assets in place, due to the above market problems, pitching it is probably impossible. So most likely his goal is to get the 800k in, hire a few people for well under what their normal pay grade would be thanks to market shitting on them, in return he'll promise them a share if things go well and sell them with "what have you got to lose? And haven't you always wanted to try to make this?" (I have no idea if Brad has the pull to do this, just a guess as his intent, not the reality.) Then he will begin designing assets with the express intent of wooing a publisher or returning to Kick-Starter with a far more polished product and a design team that can impress a broader array of backers.
In essence, he's probably going to use this money to bring in talent for the team, rather than win over a publisher.
Thenhe is going to use the teams
productsome time next year to go win over a publisher. Just my guess. If I were doing a risky start up, and I have talent in the field I thought would make the venture worthwhile, who could be acquired far cheaper than normal due to market conditions and my pull (Again, not sure if he has it, just saying he seems to think so) but no way to access capital, it's probably how I would play it. (Brad's intent is vague on the page, I surmise it's because of how risky this is. But he has dropped clues, like all the out of work developers ect.)
I'm not commenting on whether that's ethical or not. I'm also not saying that it's what's actually happening--Brad could be looking for
VG2: More Hookers, More Blowor he could have a team of MMO saints who will work for free--I don't know. I'm just saying what I'd do if I were running a start up and had a name to exploit/connections in an industry. Again, not defending or attacking here, just my .02$ from someone who has helped get a couple risky ventures off the ground that could not secure normal lending capital. (But we didn't use Kick Starters, we used the old method of asking family
)