Surely almost everybody paying to get "designer access" already believes one of two things:

1. They have no useful skills to offer except a few ideas, so it's not like they're being insulted. This is just a cool opportunity for them, like a paid internship.
2. They have some awesome ideas that the industry has ignored, because the old designers have no idea what they're doing.

Either way, I don't see much conflict between what Garriott said and the motivation of the people taking up that particular pledge level.

And on the whole, that specific pledge level is just one among many. It's more important for him to drive traffic, even if a few people drop off that particular pledge level. Given that uptake for both the level before it and the level above it are higher, it suggests people are generally not all that bothered about this specific offering (and sensibly so).

Sadly I don't disagree with you that all of this will increase traffic to the kickstarter, I just don't see it as being a masterpiece of deliberate marketing by him but rather a positive byproduct of some poorly thought out statements.

Only he will ever know the truth. :)

Thing is, there is a subtle difference between believing or knowing something, and saying it in public.

When have a date, and you tell your girl "You know, I normally don't date fat chicks", you will get a rather predictable reaction. It does not matter at all whether she's maybe really obese (or whether you only have a perverted sense of humor). The perceived message is the same, and the reaction will be the same. And no, you won't be able to explain that you meant something different, no matter how hard you try :-)

Any such thing remotely close to "Everybody sucks, except me and 3 other people on the planet" conveys a similar message, no matter how much you follow up explaining that you meant to say something completely different and that you were unfairly quoted out of context.

You just can't say such a thing without getting a negative reaction, even if it is the truth (or if you think it's the truth).

I don't believe in crowd funding, so I didn't/wouldn't pledge anyway (plus, I didn't buy the whole "buy being a developer" thing), but sure enough if I had put my money into that, I would revoke it because of that statement, as it is mutually exclusive with the "we value your input" claim, which makes the entire project come over as somewhat hypocritical (in my opinion, yours may of course differ).

But yes, you're right that it will likely only increase traffic ("the only bad publicity is no publicity").

And even assuming a considerable number of people drops off now, it wouldn't make a real difference. It is not impossible (and not really illegal) to pledge for your own project. So if you have a 1M goal and you drop short at 800k two hours before close date, the math is easy: put in another 200k to get 1M (minus the 5% provision) out. Net gain 750k.

But that is somewhat mischaracterising what he said. He never said he doesn't value input, but that people in the industry who call themselves designers are generally not very good, in his opinion. That's a much more specific claim, and one that doesn't apply to anybody who will be pledging at that level.