Exactly. I think it's ridiculous, but it mitigates risk for them I guess, so they love it.
There have been many discussions on this, both for and against, with regard to well-established (and well-funded) companies utilizing Kickstarter and other similar crowd-funding sites. It came up alot after the Veronica Mars movie was funded for $8 million. Warner Brothers owns Veronica Mars, but they weren't going to make the movie until the creator and others involved challenged them to do it if a Kickstarter could raise the $2 million needed to shoot. And rabid fans of the television show made sure it got that on day one. I suspect Warner was a bit shocked by that (as was nearly everyone else).
So, the positives are that fans supported something they wanted but had previously been unable to get, and because of that, they got it. The negative side take is basically this; "Really Warner Brothers? You're having fans pay for production?" And Kickstarter "rewards" aren't allowed to be percentages of profits, as a standard investor would get. So, I think this is still bold new territory that is being tread upon.
I'm mostly on the positive side in these instances. I feel Kickstarter and other crowd-funding should typically be used for people like me, who might have good ideas that they want to bring to life and that could gather support, but don't have the financial resources to bring them together to produce on their own. I love the idea that crowdfunding brings resources to independent creators and entrepreneurs. It's exciting.
Even so, if the method occassionally serves as some kind of pre-order for larger companies to, as Dave points out, mitigate risk, I don't necessarily see the harm. Especially if it doesn't damage the ability for folks like myself to utilize the same methods.