Penny Arcade:Explanation
generally websites need advertisers to pay for the content to be created. Using a kickstarter pays for the content to be created without advertisers. They aren't paying for advertisers, they are paying to not need advertisers. The project for Penny Arcade is "a couple years of penny arcade". Its not a "fund my life" project. Its an allow me to continue to make my popular webcomic without having icky ads and or getting a part time 9-5. This sort of thing is called micro-patronage.
The Magazine: Its not unethical to add you're money in. Adding money to get money means that you only net less money. If the project goal was 16,000 and they really didn't have 20,000 by the deadline then adding 4000 would still net the project 16,000. So, you say the project should only be 16,000 if that's all it will earn? No.
one should expect to profit off projects. You can't do any project unless you make some sort of profit. Why? Because to do a project you need time. To have time you can't have too many obligations like a drone job. To not have a drone job you need money, because you must pay rent or mortgage(unless you're wealthy, in which case why kickstart? or also lowball your project)
When I kickstart any project, my rent would be factored into it. I would really like to make a 7000 dollar movie like Robert Rodriguez...but in reality it wouldn't be 7000. He was married at age 23 and his wife was taking care of the living expenses. The 7000 he did get was from participating in pharmaceutical studies. In a way...that was his kickstarter. I don't know what his rent was, but lets assume it was 700 a month. It took about 6 months to film and edit and sale his movie. So, really his movie cost about 11,600. Which is about how much bellflower cost to make.