Hollow soul 3 Posted October 2, 2025 Share Posted October 2, 2025 It reads like it's free if you follow on some of the promotional material. If it's a backers reward, it's not a free gift for following. Does this qualify as false advertising? It's at least really scummy, this is a new low for Klei. 6 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain_Rage Posted October 2, 2025 Share Posted October 2, 2025 Yeah, the initial description definitely sounded as if subscribing to the news of the Kickstarter campaign would result in obtaining a skin in Don't Starve Together. 6 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1838027 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollow soul 3 Posted October 2, 2025 Author Share Posted October 2, 2025 It's rare to see such a blatant bait and switch. Usually Truth in advertising laws in the US act as a deturant. Klei might want to send those out to the people that followed to avoid the headache for their new collaboration. @JoeW, I know you guys aren't the ones who made this promise, but it's pretty clear you guys are working closely together. You guys are able to solve this problem for them 3 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1838032 Share on other sites More sharing options...
loopuleasa Posted October 7, 2025 Share Posted October 7, 2025 On 10/2/2025 at 4:54 PM, Hollow soul 3 said: It reads like it's free if you follow on some of the promotional material. If it's a backers reward, it's not a free gift for following. Does this qualify as false advertising? It's at least really scummy, this is a new low for Klei. You get these two if you were following and backing once the project releases I think the value here is +20$ Right now you can't tell if you are eligible, only when the campaign fully releases you will see these items be 0$ for you 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1839022 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollow soul 3 Posted November 3, 2025 Author Share Posted November 3, 2025 The government is still shut down, so it's taking a while to report. In the reddit ama, they admitted that the advertisement for free reward caused confusion. 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1841837 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaymime Posted November 3, 2025 Share Posted November 3, 2025 On 10/2/2025 at 3:19 PM, Hollow soul 3 said: It's rare to see such a blatant bait and switch. Usually Truth in advertising laws in the US act as a deturant. Klei might want to send those out to the people that followed to avoid the headache for their new collaboration. @JoeW, I know you guys aren't the ones who made this promise, but it's pretty clear you guys are working closely together. You guys are able to solve this problem for them klei is canadian? Â Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1841849 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radicaljoe Posted November 3, 2025 Share Posted November 3, 2025 On 10/2/2025 at 10:19 AM, Hollow soul 3 said: It's rare to see such a blatant bait and switch. Usually Truth in advertising laws in the US act as a deturant. Klei might want to send those out to the people that followed to avoid the headache for their new collaboration. @JoeW, I know you guys aren't the ones who made this promise, but it's pretty clear you guys are working closely together. You guys are able to solve this problem for them I think the company, Glass Cannon Unplugged, is Polish? Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1841850 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollow soul 3 Posted November 5, 2025 Author Share Posted November 5, 2025 On 11/3/2025 at 3:19 PM, gaymime said: klei is canadian? Â Â On 11/3/2025 at 3:25 PM, Radicaljoe said: I think the company, Glass Cannon Unplugged, is Polish? Sure, but Kickstarter is a US based website. It's being sold and advertised to Americans. It has to follow the US trade laws to trade in US. 2 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842035 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollow soul 3 Posted November 5, 2025 Author Share Posted November 5, 2025 .Not to be that guy, but they didn't write the add in Polish Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842045 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gaymime Posted November 5, 2025 Share Posted November 5, 2025 5 hours ago, Hollow soul 3 said: Â Sure, but Kickstarter is a US based website. It's being sold and advertised to Americans. It has to follow the US trade laws to trade in US. oh that sucks, i thought it was being sold in multiple countries. well good thing i didnt back it! Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842064 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheggf Posted November 5, 2025 Share Posted November 5, 2025 20 minutes ago, gaymime said: oh that sucks, i thought it was being sold in multiple countries. well good thing i didnt back it! It can ship to most countries, but one of the countries is the United States, so it has to follow US law since it's selling to the US. I assume the same is also true for every other country that it's selling to. Theoretically you can't just ignore laws because you're selling to multiple different countries, but whether you actually get in trouble for the violations is a different matter. There's so much garbage on online stores that's way worse than false advertising and it doesn't get punished. 2 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842067 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollow soul 3 Posted November 7, 2025 Author Share Posted November 7, 2025 (edited) On 11/5/2025 at 2:17 PM, Cheggf said: It can ship to most countries, but one of the countries is the United States, so it has to follow US law since it's selling to the US. I assume the same is also true for every other country that it's selling to. Theoretically you can't just ignore laws because you're selling to multiple different countries, but whether you actually get in trouble for the violations is a different matter. There's so much garbage on online stores that's way worse than false advertising and it doesn't get punished.  yeah, it's underreported. Most of the time, it's not worth the hassle. It's a really bad president in this case. For Kickstarter, the first few hours after launch are huge. The campaign brought in a people with the promise of a free gift. They then changed the terms. There was never a free gift, there was an early backing reward. Its hard to imagine it could be a mistake. "Follow now to get a free gift" There is no room for interpretation. This was not a mistake. "Follow" is an action you can take on Kickstarter that is distinct from backing. It allows you to track a campaign. Free gift means you don't have to pay money to receive the gift. The responsibility to correct this mistake is not on the consumer, the solution isn't to charge the consumer money for a free gift. This is exactly what a scam can look like. Way smaller stuff gets enforced. If you see a sticker or advertisement for a product at a certain price, and you are informed that there has been an error, the company has to honor the advertisement to the penny. If they refuse, or try to throw away the sign, record and report it. Its taken very seriously. Charging money for a free gift is significantly worse. Especially when considering that the free gift is a digital item with no real cost. The truth in advertising laws were made to protect customers specifically from deceptive marketing practices like this. The title of these laws really says it all. "Truth in advertising." I've reached out to all parties involved to try to give them an opportunity to correct it. I've said it before, but I think it's incredibly stupid to see money collected from fans to improve the product go to fines over a free product. I can't imagine why glass cannon isn't taking this seriously. It's one of the primary duties of the federal trade commission. Edited November 7, 2025 by Hollow soul 3 2 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842203 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Siren11 Posted November 7, 2025 Share Posted November 7, 2025 25 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:  Especially when considering that the free gift is a digital item with no real cost. Just for the sake of correcting info, the follower gift is not a skin. It’s a mini expansion that happened to include a skin. GCU should have been more clear, but I think they might have assumed people knew what the gift was and would realize it wouldn’t really have a purpose without the game itself. I guess you could ask GCU to send you the follower gift, but idk what you would do with it. Do people just want Klei to give them the skin or something? Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842204 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollow soul 3 Posted November 7, 2025 Author Share Posted November 7, 2025 (edited) 14 minutes ago, Siren11 said: Just for the sake of correcting info, the follower gift is not a skin. It’s a mini expansion that happened to include a skin. I guess you could ask GCU to send you the follower gift, but idk what you would do with it. Do people just want Klei to give them the skin or something? I didn't follow. I'm not interested in the reward myself. They didn't provide information on the gift before from what I could find. Quote GCU should have been more clear, but I think they might have assumed people knew what the gift was and would realize it wouldn’t really have a purpose without the game itself. This is the sentiment I take issue with. GCU was pretty clear. "Follow now to get a free gift". Are you confused from that sentence? Is this a confusing concept? Is it confusing because it's hard to interpret or difficult to understand? Is the language used too vague? It's confusing because there was no free gift, because they lied. On an advertisement to bring attention to a product. This is not confusing, this is false advertising. This was to bring attention to the campaign before it launched. The action required to collect the free reward was not even accessible to the customer at the time. Follow now and back then for free gift? I mean nothing about this is confusing. Edited November 7, 2025 by Hollow soul 3 1 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842206 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheggf Posted November 7, 2025 Share Posted November 7, 2025 Why are people trying to act like they weren't advertising it as a free skin? The posts are all still up. This one reads, "The amazing team at Klei have prepared a special treat in the form of unique digital curios that you will be able to redeem and use in Don’t Starve Together! So today we unlock this smashing new Pick/Axe skin in GCU colors" which seems pretty clear to me. 1 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842213 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Siren11 Posted November 7, 2025 Share Posted November 7, 2025 7 hours ago, Cheggf said: Why are people trying to act like they weren't advertising it as a free skin? The posts are all still up. This one reads, "The amazing team at Klei have prepared a special treat in the form of unique digital curios that you will be able to redeem and use in Don’t Starve Together! So today we unlock this smashing new Pick/Axe skin in GCU colors" which seems pretty clear to me. I think it makes more sense in the context of all the unlock posts, most of which are advertising the actual content of the expansion. This one just happened to be for the skin. But you’re right that it’s confusing out of context and they should have made it more clear that you had to back to get the follower gift (they did say that multiple times, it was just harder than it should’ve been to find that info). That’s the part that’s admittedly a little iffy. I just wanted to make it clear that the skin isn’t the follower gift, it’s just part of it. I think they probably shouldn’t have included skins at all and just focused on the game. It seems to have caused more confusion and upset than it’s worth. Nobody actually wants a mini expansion they can’t use, right? It’s just about wanting Klei to give them the skin? 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842244 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ridepod Posted November 7, 2025 Share Posted November 7, 2025 This is the most low stakes unimportant thing to care this much about. All the board game skins are codes that physically come with the product and the pickaxes no different (but I did think otherwise originally)Â Board game skins are gonna be in limbo for several years still. And its just a pickaxe skin. Not like following the project was some Sisyphean amount of effort. 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842272 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollow soul 3 Posted November 8, 2025 Author Share Posted November 8, 2025 17 hours ago, Ridepod said: Not like following the project was some Sisyphean amount of effort. Does this matter? It's what the company said you had to do to receive a free gift. They required you to pay money to back the campaign to get the free gift for following the campaign. 17 hours ago, Ridepod said: This is the most low stakes unimportant thing to care this much about. All the board game skins are codes that physically come with the product and the pickaxes no different (but I did think otherwise originally) Board game skins are gonna be in limbo for several years still. And its just a pickaxe skin. Sounds like an easy error for a company to fix. This is false advertising, over a product that doesn't cost money. They have an obligation to fix it, and they haven't. It's not that complected. We report it, even for the small stuff, because it sets a trash standard. If you can just get away with false advertising, it insensitivities companies to engage in false advertising. Even when the stakes are low, it's important to have 0 tolerance for false advertising. Protect your rights as a consumer. When a company tells you you get a free gift for following, you better get a free gift for following. Getting attention to a product through the promise of a free gift, and then forcing people to make a purchases to receive it is disgusting. Just give the people what you promise. It was low stakes until the company refused to correct their mistakes. They were made aware that this is false advertising. They claimed it caused confusion, but it's confusing because they lied. They have an obligation to provide what was promised, and they have no intention of fulfilling that promise. If they won't do the right thing on their own, we report it to the ftc so that they can force them to comply with the original terms. 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842340 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ridepod Posted November 8, 2025 Share Posted November 8, 2025 2 hours ago, Hollow soul 3 said: forcing people to make a purchases 2 hours ago, Hollow soul 3 said:  report it to the ftc  Lol. Dude its a skin 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842347 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollow soul 3 Posted November 8, 2025 Author Share Posted November 8, 2025 (edited) 4 hours ago, Ridepod said: Lol. Dude its a skin I KNOW RIGHT? It's a skin, it costs them nothing to correct this. This is free for them to fix, what's the hold up? It's ridiculous that it has to go to the ftc to fix this. I completely agree. It's not just a skin though. It's the concept of charging money for a free gift. How many people turned their follow into a backing under the pressure of not getting their free gift? 0 is the only acceptable answer. Edited November 8, 2025 by Hollow soul 3 2 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842371 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pe Dabliu Posted November 8, 2025 Share Posted November 8, 2025 I don't see how someome could have seen that announcement and thought "of course I'll get a free skin for following the project and doing nothing else after. The free part could never mean that it has anything to do with the product I'm following." This whole thread is proof of why we need the "warning: contains eggs" in the egg carton. Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842382 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheggf Posted November 8, 2025 Share Posted November 8, 2025 (edited) On 11/7/2025 at 2:30 PM, Ridepod said: This is the most low stakes unimportant thing to care this much about. And yet here you are caring about it. You wrote an entire paragraph and two comments about it. 28 minutes ago, Pe Dabliu said: I don't see how someome could have seen that announcement and thought "of course I'll get a free skin for following the project and doing nothing else after. The free part could never mean that it has anything to do with the product I'm following." This whole thread is proof of why we need the "warning: contains eggs" in the egg carton. People who were born after 2015 are so used to everything costing money and nothing being free that the idea of getting a pickaxe skin for free is so foreign to them that they disingenuously act like it's comparable to not knowing that eggs contain eggs. Klei would never give you a free skin for something as low effort as clicking follow, or opening the game during a holiday, or watching a Twitch stream. Edited November 8, 2025 by Cheggf 1 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842384 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popian Posted November 9, 2025 Share Posted November 9, 2025 8 hours ago, Hollow soul 3 said: Does this matter? Sometimes? I think the principle is that if a mistake is too costly we do our best to return things to how they were before the incident. Forgive and warn, hopefully lesson learned. Except in this case it "wasn't a mistake" and lesson not learned? 2 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842392 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollow soul 3 Posted November 9, 2025 Author Share Posted November 9, 2025 (edited) 7 hours ago, Popian said: Sometimes? I think the principle is that if a mistake is too costly we do our best to return things to how they were before the incident. Forgive and warn, hopefully lesson learned. Except in this case it "wasn't a mistake" and lesson not learned? Digital goods aren't costly. How much do you think it costs for them to distribute codes for digital content? It's negligible. Beyond that, it's just incorrect. If a product is marked or advertised at a price, a company is required to honor that price. That's why changing sales tags is considered theft, because companies are legally required to honor it. Don't take my word for it, it takes seconds to google search How often do you think a company just comes out and says "We're scanning you with deceptive advertising."? That's why it's 0 tolerance. The burden is on the advertiser to correct the advertisement by honoring it for the people that followed before they made amendments to the initial advertisement. It's a mistake if they fix it by giving what they promised. Its false advertising if they do not.  Edited November 9, 2025 by Hollow soul 3 3 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842408 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tigris Nano Posted November 9, 2025 Share Posted November 9, 2025 (edited) 15 hours ago, Pe Dabliu said: I don't see how someome could have seen that announcement and thought "of course I'll get a free skin for following the project and doing nothing else after. The free part could never mean that it has anything to do with the product I'm following." People expected free skin for following because thats what was literally typed on that announcement. No extra text about backing campaign etc (unless of course there was some text you can see with UV light only). People expected GCU and Klei to be virtuous/honest and I do not see anything wrong with that. Plus we already have free skins/spools thing going on for a while. Free drops, free points links, free things for simple actions like binding accounts from different platforms (like twitch). None of that requires you to buy some klei points decoder for 20 usd. Free skins for simple actions. Thats probably another reason people expected to get a free skin for just follow. Edited November 9, 2025 by Tigris Nano 3 Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/168276-is-the-free-reward-for-following-the-bg-kickstarter-free/#findComment-1842425 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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