> Kickstarter backers who have not received their rewards will receive a full refund within 4-8 weeks as a chargeback to their credit cards. No further action is needed.

No, I know that I'll be getting a refund, I just wonder why the kickstarter money wasn't enough to fulfill the kickstarter rewards.

Kickstarter probably mostly covers production of the rewards, not the product development.

It's business 101 that the retail price should cover all production costs, including R&D, otherwise you are in shortfall from day 0.

Retail price over the full sales run. Kickstarter was just the preorder phase of it and thus likely doesn't cover the full R&D, especially not if the estimates were off in some way.