tomes
Supporter
Hello madness
Posts: 1,438
Currently Running: Dungeon World, hippie games, Fallout Shelter RPG hack
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Post by tomes on Oct 30, 2017 12:10:35 GMT -8
My favorite post of the day:
(and with that, feel free to turn this into a thread of ire and anger)
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drayle88
Apprentice Douchebag
Posts: 57
Preferred Game Systems: AlcheMonster D20
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Post by drayle88 on Oct 30, 2017 12:47:57 GMT -8
As someone who has ran a successful kickstarter, but still refunded people because I couldn't deliver what, in my opinion, was a good enough product, I appreciate this post.
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Post by chronovore on Oct 31, 2017 19:06:39 GMT -8
I disagree. KS is a place where people roll out their business model and say, "I can deliver these things are these tiers of financial support" and the public needs to be able to believe them. It is a contract between the offerer and the clients supplying them with money to complete the offer. Having a KS crash-and-burn will naturally diminish client faith in all of KS. Having someone pay money and not get what they paid for is naturally going to cause anger. That's it. End of story. Ideally, there should be some form of vetting beyond "3 projects kickstarted, 15 backed." There should be an at-a-glance in the creator's profile with "3 started / 2 successful / 15 in-progress." Sure, it's up to clients to review the KS thoroughly before committing their money to it. Absolutely. They should be wary of people who say, "We love videogames, and though we've never made one ourselves, we're going to make an endless dungeon which allows networked play and has no monthly maintenance fee. We just need $150K!" I give plenty of leeway to people who are struggling with meeting their goals, and I have a lot of patience for people who say "Life got in the way, and I'll deliver but it's going to take more time." But people who bail on their commitments with finality and abandon their responsibilities are WITHOUT QUESTION damaging the movement as a whole. Also, I'm hoping Stu Venable drops in with his own version of a KS truthbomb, but I suspect it will not be as nice.
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Post by OFTHEHILLPEOPLE on Nov 1, 2017 5:19:09 GMT -8
If KS was simply a place to raise money we should have done away with the tiered backer levels with specific rewards that are promised to those levels. In promoting that model KS has become a fund raising platform and a promise of product not unlike an online store.
Believe me, I wish KS has more success and could find a happy medium that would make everyone happier when a project fails but as it stands the only way to safeguard your KS pledging is to do your homework on the company doing the fundraising and hope for the best. That doesn't always work out either, I know I've been burnt by well established companies that have done multiple well funded kickstarters. So, as with gambling, don't pledge money you aren't comfortable losing.
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Post by chronovore on Nov 1, 2017 7:37:56 GMT -8
From the quote in the initial post: This is true. And once the fundraising has been successful, those funds are supposed to guarantee that the project is made manifest. Not "possible," but rather the kickstarter, er, starter has guaranteed that this is what they need to pull it off.
Anything less than complete transparency isn't acceptable if things go wrong. If things go well and ship on time, SEXCELLENT. But if things are going to be late, have fewer features than promised, or even be canceled, the starter better tell their backers EXACTLY why their money has been taken but the results are going to vary from what was promised.
God, I've really got a burr in my butt about this. I'm nowhere near Stu's devotion to traditional "pay for your own development and then see if it sells" model. I like KS a bunch. I've backed many things. But the KS which have faceplanted and people acting unprofessional about it have chapped my tater tots.
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Post by Stu Venable on Nov 1, 2017 8:02:29 GMT -8
Tomes is just trolling me.
Okay, I'll bite.
When you organize a kickstarter (at least this is what it said when I was going partially through the process), there's a big wall of text that you have to agree to to proceed. It states you are entering in a contract with backers to provide goods/services for their money.
You aren't an investor. Investors get stock.
You aren't donating, as there is an explicit quid-pro-quo.
You're customers.
I want to collect the names of people like that and send them my Kickstarter for a working FTL drive. At least I fucking tried.
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SirGuido
Supporter
Drizztmas Santa
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Posts: 2,127
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, Traveller, Fate Accelerated, Masks
Currently Playing: Nothing.
Currently Running: Nothing.
Favorite Species of Monkey: Anything in a Cage.
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Post by SirGuido on Nov 1, 2017 9:40:30 GMT -8
I'm a strange example of Kickstarter people. In my history I have only ever backed 5 projects. Of those 5 projects I knew the creators of three of them personally. The other two were projects that were completely finished and ready to go to production. There were very few risks involved in the projects I was involved in, and that was on purpose. I knew that Muntjack, Mikey Mason, nor Erik Bauer were going to screw me because we're friends. On the same side I knew that Game Salute wouldn't screw me because they are a decent company and I played the game already, its a complete game. Thats probably my biggest caveat with Kickstarter. I want a completed product. I don't want to pay someone to to do R&D or write something or develop something. Even when I backed the spinner rings on Kickstarter they had a finished product. You could see it in the videos, you could go see them at a con and touch the product. They just needed funding to make them on a much larger scale. Which they got, and they did what they promised. Did they and Game Salute face issues? Definitely. Mostly production issues. Both of them did their production in China. With proofs taking forever to ship back and forth and then be wrong and waiting again to get a corrected proof, then actual shutdowns of companies by the government and things like that. These things are unforeseen and completely forgivable. Both companies were incredibly transparent in their dealings and let everyone know exactly what was going on as soon as they hit a roadblock.
I can see where sometimes these unexpected roadblocks could lead to a failure of a project. Thats the inherent risk in all of the projects. There is also mishandling of the funds, mishandling of the business, etc that could lead to failure. Another inherent risk of this model. Everyone backing a project should know this going in, and limit the risks however they see fit. In my case, as I mentioned before its either that I know the project manager or that the project itself is completed and just needs production.
I just recently started a Kickstarter of my own to make wooden dice. I've made wooden dice, I've made aluminum dice, I know whats involved. My R&D is done. I just need the tools so that I can make them on a larger scale. So I asked for $500 to buy some tools to make them for folks. As of this moment I've almost doubled that. But I'm ok because I purposely built in tiers so that I wouldn't get overwhelmed and be unable to fulfill the orders. Only 30 possible orders per tier, 60 dice total. Then the delivery date moves out 2 months. Then another two months at the final tier. If I were to make all the dice with hand tools, and not with power tools I could make about 10 dice in a weekend. So with power tools, I expect I can do at least 20. But I'm sure there will be mistakes made as I get used to the power tools, which is why I gave myself time for that. Also, the blanks I am buying to make the dice will each make about 4-5 dice. This gives me room for error as well. If a die is mis-cut, or in some way wrecked during the manufacturing process, I have backups. I've done everything I can think of to alleviate any issues that might come along, but I'm sure there are things that will happen that I don't anticipate so I gave myself time to deal with those things. Its all built into the project. If, by some miracle, nothing does happen then people get their dice early. If, by some tragedy, things do happen beyond what I accounted for I will be as up front and honest about the failings as possible and do my utmost to rectify them and provide the product. If it gets real bad, I can see myself providing extra dice at no cost to the customer to compensate for the delay.
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Post by Kainguru on Nov 1, 2017 13:27:05 GMT -8
My experience, of KS, has been mostly positive. 6 projects backed: one delivered in full, three waiting on shipping with 2 being delayed (as expected, the original estimations were optimistic, and both of them were also delayed to improve the production value of the final product), 1 in legal limbo (due to shenanigans by other parties) and 1 total Ken Whitman (because it was Ken Whitman, had I known his track record going in I'd never have backed it - so that's a lack of due diligence on my behalf) Aaron
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Post by ayslyn on Nov 1, 2017 17:42:52 GMT -8
Ooooo.... You got Whitman’d.
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Post by akavidar on Nov 1, 2017 18:12:44 GMT -8
I got Whitman'd twice, the bastard.
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Post by Stu Venable on Nov 1, 2017 20:33:36 GMT -8
Did you see his dice bubble thingy? He was going to buy them in bulk from China and call them a new invention. His kickstarter got suspended.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2017 22:11:49 GMT -8
I’m fairly unsympathetic when it comes to a company not upholding their contractual obligations. It’s their job to anticipate issues and market accordingly. Don’t promise something ambitious when you know its like as not to miss a deadline. Make a promise, keep a promise. Transperancy is good, but not good enough.
In short, excuses are like asses. Everyone has one and they all stink.
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tomes
Supporter
Hello madness
Posts: 1,438
Currently Running: Dungeon World, hippie games, Fallout Shelter RPG hack
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Post by tomes on Nov 2, 2017 0:08:27 GMT -8
I got Whitman'd once. Dice pencils.
Oh good lord. I just checked and it looks like I've backed 191 projects so far.
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Post by Kainguru on Nov 2, 2017 1:54:27 GMT -8
My Whitman’d was the Traveller TV Series. I remember those dice pencils - thing was we used to do that to our pencils in Highschool (so we could roll up PC’s during lessons) the problem is, with all that being thrown around, it breaks the graphite in the pencil so you’re screwed next time you try to sharpen it. Aaron
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Post by akavidar on Nov 2, 2017 3:57:03 GMT -8
I backed the Traveller pilot, and the tv pilot for Castles and Crusades.
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