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Topic: Kickstarter - The Thread. (Read 414038 times)
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23626
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So, the "Coolest Cooler", which we mocked way back in this thread (I noted that it failed to include the one thing that would make it a better cooler, a paramagnetic cooling system), went on to be the biggest Kickstarter campaign ever ($13.3M), and has not delivered a single cooler to backers, although it is listed on Amazon at $500. The founder provided this graphic to explain why he can not fulfill Backer Rewards: And he has helpfully noted that the red area of the 'Gap' is 'Not To Scale', but he is currently seeking investors to help him provide those backer rewards (having spent $4.5M on development and overhead). --Dave Needs another $15 million before he can make anymore coolers: http://www.oregonlive.com/window-shop/index.ssf/2016/03/coolest_cooler_15_million.html
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MahrinSkel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10858
When she crossed over, she was just a ship. But when she came back... she was bullshit!
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Sounds like he got in way over his head, wound up with a product that costs more than the Kickstarter pledges will cover, and is hoping to find a way out of the box without permanently going down as the "Biggest Kickstarter Failure".
I'd have more sympathy if the cooler wasn't such a Frankenstein's monster of a mess, that he seems to have literally designed on a napkin without consulting an actual engineer. On the other hand, the backers gave him money for it anyway, so I'm not all that sympathetic to them, either.
--Dave
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--Signature Unclear
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Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075
Error 404: Title not found.
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He tried, and that's all the Kickstarter requires. Which is why it's the stupidest way of doing business ever. I just love the graphic of the fees. $1.385M going to just KS and the credit card companies.
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CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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It was more when they were using amazon payments, I think that was 16-20% off the top before Stripe was implemented.
But yeah...KS is awesome if you do your goddamned homework. I've taken a couple long shots and was lucky to back out of one. There are really only two I have hanging out, but they're slowly getting it done (sooo slowly); and one company I know is going to collapse when their KS scheme implodes some day. But it's all about being smart and informed.
I don't feel too bad when people get robbed by stupid ideas. 'Murca 2016.
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jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888
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I've only had one KS disappointment .. vinyl gaming maps where I kicked in extra to make it happen ... and even then did not get exactly what I ordered. 10 other KS all delivered on time and complete (or darn near).
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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Goldenmean
Terracotta Army
Posts: 844
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I appear to have backed 453 kickstarter projects, and of those, only... 1 thus far I think has just flat up and not delivered anything, and that was a 5$ pledge for a digital game that I was pretty sure was never going to get made anyway, but hey, he seemed enthusiastic, and it was five bucks.
Certainly plenty of late stuff, and stuff that wasn't entirely what I was hoping for in there, but I get that ordering non-kickstarter products as well.
The vast majority of the projects I back are board games though, which are 1) Usually pretty much complete except for the production even before they're listed on kickstarter 2) Are a very known issue production wise 3) Are very small team things. If I was backing more things that required R&D, had unknown production costs, or were large team projects, I'd expect more of my pledges to just have vanished into the ether.
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Viin
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6159
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Umm I think there are support groups for this kind of thing. Let me know if you need a referral
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- Viin
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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Hah, I thought my 65 was bad
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Goldenmean
Terracotta Army
Posts: 844
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Got to love working in tech, not paying an extravagant amount of rent and being wildly irresponsible. Huzzah! That's tapered off a bit since having a daughter, and noticeably more considering I'm currently enjoying a severance package before job hunting again.
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jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888
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I feel recently that KSS are generally giving you less for more. 2 years ago I'd find great stuff for half what I'd consider paying. Now I find a lot of stuff where the costs are as high, if not higher, than what I'd pay for a similar item outside KS. Are others finding the same trends?
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021
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I've backed two projects on KS, one being Hex which I sold for around the value I paid, the other being a board game expansion with a good track record that I've found no other way of being shipped to Aus.
If kickstarter ceased to exist I likely wouldn't notice.
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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I backed Hex but haven't really felt like playing it for a long time. It has a long way to go to deliver what it said but so far it turned out pretty alright IMO.
The only Kickstarter I threw money at, knowing I'd likely never get anything good was Unsung Story which is looking like it's likely not come out or end up being crap.
My brother and I threw money at another one that is like a year and a half in and slowly delivering its product. I think we'll end up getting ours but I'm thinking this is one where the company will likely end up folding right after the end because of time/cost overrun.
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"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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I feel recently that KSS are generally giving you less for more. 2 years ago I'd find great stuff for half what I'd consider paying. Now I find a lot of stuff where the costs are as high, if not higher, than what I'd pay for a similar item outside KS. Are others finding the same trends?
I'm thinking this is one where the company will likely end up folding right after the end because of time/cost overrun.
This. Too many people over-promised and were giving stuff away or not properly scaling their rewards. I got a ridiculous deal with Kingdom Death: Monster, but that was only possible because Poots had a strong boutique business to support the cost over-runs (and even then people complained about having to pay shipping after the fact). He dumped in at least three quarters of a million of his own just to get through fulfillment. Most KS-based projects would've folded.
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Margalis
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12335
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I feel recently that KSS are generally giving you less for more.
KS is now often just used as an alternate sales channel, and they aren't going to sell you something for significantly less they get through another channel.
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vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.
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jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888
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Big companies - fine. Startups - I'm taking a risk by funding a KS for an unproven company. I need more value to compensate me. I'm not seeing it anymore. Accordingly, I'm not buying in often anymore.
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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Goldenmean
Terracotta Army
Posts: 844
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Can't deliver a card game, expected to deliver that many minis?
Enh. That's on par with the first game, which got delivered (mostly) fine (one of the figures was a little flimsy and showed up with broken arms. To the best of my knowledge they replaced all those if you asked). Also, digital stuff is waaaaaay harder than physical games, especially considering they weren't a digital game company before starting Hex, and technically still aren't considering they spun that off as a separate company. With that said, there's absolutely no reason to kickstart this. Above and beyond the base game being entirely forgettable, it'll be cheaper from online retailers if you actually want it, and they managed to piss off their kickstarter backers on the last one by actually releasing kickstarter editions about a month later than retail editions. Not to mention the retailer editions actually had exclusives the kickstarter didn't. It's pretty much the poster child of not needing to be a kickstarter project, and not offering anything for it.
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BobtheSomething
Terracotta Army
Posts: 453
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I feel recently that KSS are generally giving you less for more. 2 years ago I'd find great stuff for half what I'd consider paying. Now I find a lot of stuff where the costs are as high, if not higher, than what I'd pay for a similar item outside KS. Are others finding the same trends?
Yes. Sedition Wars was the first Kickstarter I pledged in, and the deal was too good to be true. Over the next two years, there were a succession of CMON-style campaigns with $100-$150 sweet spots, low buy ins for additional items, free shipping in the US, and an abundance of quantity. Reaper's Bones campaign was the apogee of that style of campaign. Since then, the companies seemed to realize they were over-promising and started to walk back their backers' expectations. Bones 3 was nowhere near the can't-miss deal that the first one was. Other than CMON's periodic board games, I can't think of any recent Kickstarter campaigns that were as generous with piles of decent quality product.
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lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021
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That is some horrible art and mini design. Yikes. CZE is a bad company.
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Thrawn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3089
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« Last Edit: April 22, 2016, 10:42:14 AM by Thrawn »
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"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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I kinda cringe anymore when kickstarters hit like a zillion percent over their goals. You know it's not gonna turn out well.
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"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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Ginaz
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3534
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Teleku
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10510
https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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Fixed.
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42631
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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What kind of dipshit thinks you can make a functioning MMOG with $900k?
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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What kind of dipshit thinks you can make a functioning MMOG with $900k?
The kind who will pocket a big chunk of that and "try real hard".
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Yegolev
Moderator
Posts: 24440
2/10 WOULD NOT INGEST
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Cloud computing.
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Why am I homeless? Why do all you motherfuckers need homes is the real question. They called it The Prayer, its answer was law Mommy come back 'cause the water's all gone
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Thrawn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3089
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"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
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Father mike
Terracotta Army
Posts: 533
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I would like to thank Vladimir Putin for ensuring that every member of the NPR news staff has had to say "Pussy Riot" on the air multiple times.
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jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888
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For those mini folks: A Tarrasque that seems pretty amazing. Seems to be bigger than the Reaper one by a good bit - and comes prepainted. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dungeoncrawler/dungeon-crawlertm-the-behemoth-2016/This was not well publicized, but it is picking up steam in these final hours as people publicize it for the team running it (which is well established and usually does a better job of publicizing these things). This project will only be funded if at least $40,000 CAD is pledged by Fri, Jun 17 2016 6:00 PM PDT. - Just crossed the halfway mark with 33 hours to go, but I think this one will fund.
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« Last Edit: June 16, 2016, 08:28:10 AM by jgsugden »
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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It looks about the same size as Khanjira, same soft detail as Bones and $15 more unpainted ($30 more painted, but honestly, that's a terrible paint job even someone slow like me could do in a half hour tops, two colors and a black wash).
Also, I just don't care for the company, plenty of cancelled projects and the quality looks bad on their products. At least Reaper's is retail, not a gamble.
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jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888
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If the project does not fund / is canceled, no skin off our nose. Nothing happens. Plus there are a lot of people supporting the company's work on the ENworld Boards. I have yet to buy anything from them, but I trust a lot of the people there vouching for them.
As for the comparison with Khanjira:
* If you want prepainted there is no pre-painted Khanjira. That is a lot of work to paint a mini that will be used rarely, but for important moments in games... 2 paint job options is also nice. * Behemoth looks bigger to me. * Behemoth isn't standing on anything. From a raw sculpt perspective, I much prefer the Behemoth sculpt and body position to Khanjira..
People can have their own preferences, but I hope it does fully fund like I expect it will.
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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Sure, you can have your own preference. I was just showing a scale shot, if you put one of those human minis on Khanjira's head, it would be roughly the same size. You said it was larger by a good bit, I disagree.
If you don't give a shit about quality, just use a plastic toy dinosaur for $5 or whatever. $80 is a whole lot of scratch for that.
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jgsugden
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3888
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Sure, you can have your own preference. I was just showing a scale shot, if you put one of those human minis on Khanjira's head, it would be roughly the same size. You said it was larger by a good bit, I disagree.
If you don't give a shit about quality, just use a plastic toy dinosaur for $5 or whatever. $80 is a whole lot of scratch for that.
We disagree. Regardless, $80 Canadian, but only $62ish US painted, less than $50 unpainted..
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« Last Edit: June 16, 2016, 03:00:17 PM by jgsugden »
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2020 will be the year I gave up all hope.
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BobtheSomething
Terracotta Army
Posts: 453
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I bought one of their giant skeletons from the last campaign, and it was Reaper quality, decently sculpted and well cast.
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OUAriakas
Terracotta Army
Posts: 141
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Hello everyone! I am a contributor in the Hex forum and have been for few years now. My friend and I just relaunched a Kickstarter for a deck building card game we created. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolnerdgames/duel-of-the-magi-0?ref=category_newestWe have play tested it for a combined 500+ hours and the testers have compared the drafting to Seasons/MtG, the deck building to Dominion, and the dueling to Commander in MtG. They combine for a very unique experience and give the game a ton of replayability. Let me know if you have any questions!
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