Maybe, but consider two scenarios. In scenario 1, I use Kickstarter, get 10,000 backers, and release a shitty game, and predictably they blanket the internet with hate in every nook and cranny. The hate is just as much about me as it is the game, since my face and reputation are plastered all over the Kickstarter, and I was actively engaged with these 10,000 people during the entire process. They are personally invested not just financially but emotionally in the product over a span of months or even years.
In scenario 2, I self-fund or get a few angels, build a shitty game and release it with little hype or promises beforehand. It garners a few bad reviews from early adopters and gets 1-star ratings on all the gaming sites, but really it ends up just staying off the radar since it never builds an audience in the first place. This is typically what happens when a company releases a bad product, it just dies without much noise at all and is quickly forgotten about. Also, the negative feedback is largely about the game and not about me. If anything, the hate is directed towards my company but not me personally.
In other words, sure, releasing bad work is always bad. But in the case of Kickstarter, I feel you are exposed to a larger surface area of potential damage to your personal reputation. Kickstarter is a much more intimate and personal thing, and you are basically "putting yourself out there." The only real upside to using it is that it makes it incredibly easy to open a possible channel for funding, but it has crazy asymmetric risk in return compared to the traditional route IMHO.
edit: I guess one thing in Kickstarter's favor is if you actually get your 10,000 audiences and you deliver, you have some solid momentum coming out of the gate. The more I think about it the more it has the flavor of financial leverage: you magnify your outcome in either direction but have reduced flexibility (in the case of Kickstarter, due to the audience's expectations, in the case of financial leverage, due to the fact you are borrowing money on margin and can't make any big moves from there.)
In scenario 2, I self-fund or get a few angels, build a shitty game and release it with little hype or promises beforehand. It garners a few bad reviews from early adopters and gets 1-star ratings on all the gaming sites, but really it ends up just staying off the radar since it never builds an audience in the first place. This is typically what happens when a company releases a bad product, it just dies without much noise at all and is quickly forgotten about. Also, the negative feedback is largely about the game and not about me. If anything, the hate is directed towards my company but not me personally.
In other words, sure, releasing bad work is always bad. But in the case of Kickstarter, I feel you are exposed to a larger surface area of potential damage to your personal reputation. Kickstarter is a much more intimate and personal thing, and you are basically "putting yourself out there." The only real upside to using it is that it makes it incredibly easy to open a possible channel for funding, but it has crazy asymmetric risk in return compared to the traditional route IMHO.
edit: I guess one thing in Kickstarter's favor is if you actually get your 10,000 audiences and you deliver, you have some solid momentum coming out of the gate. The more I think about it the more it has the flavor of financial leverage: you magnify your outcome in either direction but have reduced flexibility (in the case of Kickstarter, due to the audience's expectations, in the case of financial leverage, due to the fact you are borrowing money on margin and can't make any big moves from there.)