It's not sad - it's shrewd. There are a number of projects on KS where the reward tiers don't actually contain any of the items being created by the project, especially when some projects don't actually create items, per se. Some create events, and offering tickets to the event will attract local backers but have little appeal for anyone living more than 50-100 miles away, so they have to offer something different to get those investors interested. Some create items that are terribly expensive, so they have to give something else away that functions as an adequate reward for lower-level investors.
This project is a mix - some tiers contain the object being made, but many don't.
I guess I would consider it sad because that's not the true purpose of the project. Shrewd if they purposely are using cards as the method to fund a book project as try to play the cards off as a side reward tier.
What always made me curious were the tiers that had trips as a reward. I assume that the air fare as living arrangements aren't usually included in the reward. So as you sad, it's only an incentive to those that are local. I guess they're banking on local backers to be interested.
The "true purpose" of any project is to see its goal reach fruition, often though not always with the end result being an ongoing business concern. People operate under the impression that KS is a glorified Amazon for pre-purchases of goods to be sold - nothing could be further from the truth.
The only reason that KS isn't yet offering microshares of stock instead of "rewards" are SEC regulations - but it plans to do so in the near future, pending some regulation changes. If I went to Wall Street and bought shares in Apple, am I supposed to be disappointed that they didn't come with some free iTunes downloads or a MacBook? They (KS) don't allow charities for the same reason that charities don't issue stock and aren't publicly traded. If those SEC regs didn't exist in the first place, you would have been purchasing microshares in AetherCards, not Vortex decks made by them.
Some "travel rewards" are limited to including everything but the airfare, some are simply access to an event leaving you to fend for yourself for travel and accommodations, and some are actually all-inclusive. Alex's project for the Vortex deck had a top tier of $5,000 - it included first-class airfare to Las Vegas, luxury hotel accommodations for 2-5 days (investor's choice), dinner at a world-class restaurant and a Vegas show of your choice with Alex and a one-on-one meeting with him to discuss the playing card industry, his next deck project, investment opportunities along those lines, etc - plus 13 decks, a framed uncut, a framed art piece and a commemorative certificate. The only other requirement beyond the cash was that you had to be a US resident of at least 18 years old. It's a common-enough practice to include "pie-in-the-sky" investment rewards, travel-related and otherwise, for people on the high end, though they're rarely selected.
