The 'real' way of doing business?

The 'most common' way of doing business is to get investors to fund your business venture, and hope that you are able to pay them back when your product sells. Leaving leaving you, and your small number of investors VERY vulnerable to loosing a LOT of money.

The crowd funding way of doing business is to accept customer pre-orders as the loan for your business, leaving only your customers vulnerable to loose a fraction of the total investment, if you don't deliver what you promised.

I do not understand people who are so angry about crowd funding and pre-orders as a way to do business. I don't know anything about the specific company your talking about (jersey Jack) but if it smells fishy and he is asking for more and more without delivering a product, don't invest in him. It's that easy. Complain about the business, not the business model.

8,000 is a lot of money for a product you know nothing about other than a name and a theme of. If Jersey Jack did not do a good job of posting video of the machine's prototype, showing how it works, what all of the features are, and showing testimonials/honest surveys of people who have played it, I would never invest in him myself. But, apparently a lot of people have.

And its a good thing they have, as once they buy them, JJP will make money and become a more stable business for it. which will open the doors for more machines to be made, and give people who did not pre-order the chance to buy tables that are over-flow.

8k is not an 'insane' price to pay for a brand new pinball machine. It is a risky price to pay for a company's first effort. some people are willing to take that risk, you seem to be more upset that its a limited edition and your not willing to risk it.