Xenonauts dev’s Paypal account “locked down and closed” for 180 days

Xenonauts, the indie strategy game inspired by the original X-Com, has recently hit serious funding difficulties. In a post on the Xenonauts blog Goldhawk Interactive explained that they had been forced to stop offering pre-orders after Paypal froze their account. The situation is similar to Indie Stone’s problems with Project Zomboid’s funding.

Paypal, it seems, object to people selling products that don’t actually exist yet. On the basis that they would be liable if the product was never delivered. It’s an understandable concern, but one not really compatible with the currently popular model of funding indie games through early pre-orders...

There has been other indie games as well, Minecraft being one that went through this same exact issue. Whats your take? Do you think there's a good chance for a new type of company to start-up to handle business ventures, such as pre-ordering games?

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As an artist for Goldhawk, The game itself won't hurt quality wise. There's not much in that sense to worry about

hooray!


Source

The problem is that such payments are made towards the purchase of a product. If that product is not delivered, the payments should be refunded, and Paypal is understandably concerned about liability. If such payments were understood to be investments, which one can expect but not guarantee a return on, then Paypal might be less hesitant. However, it is important to note that Paypal is intended to be used to pay for a product or service, and that they would not be the proper service to use investment transactions.

Long story short, Paypal's just doing good business, however lame it may be, and Goldhawk should just find another way to take pre-orders. The game will surely come out and be a great success, so there's nothing to worry about!