Two recent things come to mind, Ouya and the Tesla museum. Both offered items with purchase, but the Ouya items included the Ouya itself. That presents a problem that I didn't realize until now, which is that a store has to do a lot of things relating to paying taxes, etc., when being a store was not the intent of kickstarter, so... I get it. They are not a store.
However, with the Tesla thing and related projects, I think that this gets into a really grey area- and from past experience with helping with a large site that took donations- you have to subtract the items that have value from the donation, so they have to do this if anything is given away, or at least the recipient does if they are a charity/non-profit. Was the Tesla thing a non-profit?
And not allowing 3D renderings of hardware is a bad idea. For example, if you have a valid design for something and need the money to have it fabricated, then the sponsor should be able to see the design. Not being able to do so is lame. Sometimes the design is the hard part. That is a valuable asset. It should be rewarded with money to see it through. Why place someone with no design and someone with a design on equal footing. They aren't. It's not just about fairness, it is about being able to invest in something with a future. No design- no future. Good design- possible future.
The kickstarter rules only limit the content on the kickstarter website. I don't see anything that precludes them from showing design concepts on a different website.
So if you want to impress people with your project on the kickstarter website, you'll have to stick to actual content.
However, with the Tesla thing and related projects, I think that this gets into a really grey area- and from past experience with helping with a large site that took donations- you have to subtract the items that have value from the donation, so they have to do this if anything is given away, or at least the recipient does if they are a charity/non-profit. Was the Tesla thing a non-profit?
And not allowing 3D renderings of hardware is a bad idea. For example, if you have a valid design for something and need the money to have it fabricated, then the sponsor should be able to see the design. Not being able to do so is lame. Sometimes the design is the hard part. That is a valuable asset. It should be rewarded with money to see it through. Why place someone with no design and someone with a design on equal footing. They aren't. It's not just about fairness, it is about being able to invest in something with a future. No design- no future. Good design- possible future.