Kickstarter backs this perception.
"In just 24 hours, 20,000 people bought an Ouya console — a product they had never heard of before yesterday." - Yancey Strickler - Cofounder/Head of Communications at Kickstarter [0]
"Kickstarter is Not a Store" - http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store
As I recall, the main Kickstarter hoopla going on at that time was Lifx [0]. Also, September 2012 was the original delivery date for Pebble [1].
0: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/09/18/kickstarter...
1: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper...
I think the subsequent changes (i.e. no renderings) made make the platform substantially better. But they still need to get away from that "presale" perception that the general public has.
The first few projects I backed were friends or just because I thought they were cool ideas that would be awesome in real life. Getting something in return was really, in its purest form, a 'perk'.