![Great NEW Commander For Warcrow? Hegemony Mounted Hetman Review | Corvus Belli [7 Days Early Access]](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2025/12/unboxing-corvus-belli-warcrow-hegemony-mounted-hetman-coverimage-225-127.jpg)
Weekender XLBS: Give A Friend Free Backstage & Ninja Division Fallout
February 17, 2019 by brennon
For some website features, you will need a FREE account and for some others, you will need to join the Cult of Games.
Or if you have already joined the Cult of Games Log in now
What difference will having a FREE account make?
Setting up a Free account with OnTableTop unlocks a load of additional features and content (see below). You can then get involved with our Tabletop Gaming community, we are very helpful and keen to hear what you have to say. So Join Us Now!
Free Account Includes
- Creating your own project blogs.
- Rating and reviewing games using our innovative system.
- Commenting and ability to upvote.
- Posting in the forums.
- Unlocking of Achivments and collectin hobby xp
- Ability to add places like clubs and stores to our gaming database.
- Follow games, recommend games, use wishlist and mark what games you own.
- You will be able to add friends to your account.
What's the Cult of Games?
Once you have made a free account you can support the community by joing the Cult of Games. Joining the Cult allows you to use even more parts of the site and access to extra content. Check out some of the extra features below.
Cult of Games Membership Includes
- Reduced ads, for a better browsing experience (feature can be turned on or off in your profile).
- Access to The Cult of Games XLBS Sunday Show.
- Extra hobby videos about painting, terrain building etc.
- Exclusive interviews with the best game designers etc.
- Behind the scenes studio VLogs.
- Access to our live stream archives.
- Early access to our event tickets.
- Access to the CoG Greenroom.
- Access to the CoG Chamber of Commerce.
- Access the CoG Bazarr Trading Forum.
- Create and Edit Records for Games, Companies and Professionals.
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
![Warcradle Studios Reveal TINY New 10mm Festive Marker! [Updated]](https://images.beastsofwar.com/2025/11/christmas-kyle-main-600-338.jpg)
1st again? Did lightning really strike twice?
lol nice one mate
happy sunday
……….*shakes head* ….. *deep sigh * ………you really can’t help some people …. 😉 😛
Edible bug challenge accepted. Australia is full of the things. Hell this place is so overrun with bugs you end up eating them even when you don’t mean to! HM Customs better not stop this package. Witchetty grub on way Justin! We even have edible ants and spiders, well people have been know to eat them.
@dignity we are so on lol
Witchetty grubs are ok to eat
i can’t compete with australia, but i think we have some disgusting things here in texas, time to hit the trails hunting for justin’s dinner..
damn if i only skipped doing dishes..
Just kidding. Here’s to a fun, carefree thread today. 😀
Thank god you didn’t go for the marathon man version of that meme!
Happy Sunday!
The ‘Pass on a Pass’ sounds like a great project. Just wish I could have gotten some of my friends to keep logging in here so I could sign up for the ‘Pass’ to pass on to them. I guess that is their loss.
I really enjoy hearing about everyone’s personal hobbies.
Kickstarter………..what can I say. Every time I back one it seems like they never hit their promised deleivery time. I’ve found myself only supporting games that capture the theme or spirit of a game I’ve always wanted or have the first version of and want more of it because it’s a proven winner. Which leaves me not backing anything on a whim. I don’t like taking risks on something that could just be taking me for a ride.
Hobby on Dudes!
Play the classic game via TTS
Tabletop Simulator
https://store.steampowered.com/app/286160/?snr=1_5_9__205
Raid on St Nazaire [Solitaire Wargame]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1161482296&searchtext=wargames
There is someone doing this in the project threads
Thar would be me 🙂
Hopefully will get through a few more turns today.
Yep link here guys https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1346865/
🙂
And I’ve got round to doing turn 2 🙂
Happy Sunday!!!
Happy Sunday .. looking forward to this it has been a busy day so far
I’m one of the backers of the Relic Knights Kickstarter.
I agree there is a risk with kickstarters. There are genuine reasons why kickstarters can fail. The problem is in my experience, most people that fail to deliver on a Kickstarter campaign simply walk away with no explanation to backers about what went wrong.
There’s two points that speaks to the dishonesty with which Ninja Division have conducted themselves. The first is that it has become clear that the Company was in financial strife well before they ran the Relic Knights kickstarter. They ran it as a revenue generating exercise with no realistic prospect of delivering. They have acted like con-men running some type of pyramid scheme trying to keep their company afloat and themselves getting salary/wages.
They used the kickstarter mechanism because there is little to no legal risk and no accountability mechanism. Kickstarter only cares about the income it generates. It could easily prevent companies or individuals from taking advantage of backers by preventing additional kickstarters from being run until delivery has occurred or a proper report has been provided to backers setting out the reasons why a particular kickstarter campaign failed.
The second point is that after the kickstarter Ninja Division allowed backers to purchase existing products in addition to paying for your pledge and shipping. All up I gave Ninja Division US$1500 and have received absolutely nothing. They have not even provided backers the existing products we purchased.
If the actions of the individuals behind Ninja Division are not illegal they are most certainly unethical. They are dishonest and they are cowards.
I’m so sorry to hear this mate 🙁
There’s an interesting distinction legally that could and should be made between funds raised in the KS for rewards and for products and services subsequently bought and paid for in the post-project PM. In the first you’re gifting funds for which you may or may not receive ‘rewards’, in the PM you should be able to treat this as a more standard transaction for which there may be more redress (despite what they may suggest in any terms and conditions). Particularly if you use a credit card for the PM purchase!
Anyone had any success with Credit Card companies or realise PayPal for funds spent in the PM that didn’t realise any goods or products?
Although having just checked BackerKit’s Terms of Service they consider their service as an extension on the crowdfunding at backer’s risk. US regulation still makes crowdfunding subject to the prohibitions on fraud and false advertising that apply to all commercial transactions. (Crowdinvesting and crowdlending are different models and regulated by specific laws).
even KSer own terms of service state that the product or a refund should be given, but saying that and enforcing that are two very different things.
(I’ve backed Railraiders, Starfinder miniatures and Relic Knights; only RR did deliver)
I think part of the problem for failing kickstarters is that we’re last in line to get any info at all.
As a result there simply be no one left who can contact backers.
There is no practical way for Kickstarter themselves to manage this when you look at the amount of kickstarters that are active at any given moment. And other than increasing the reliability of the platform there is no reason for them to do so.
I do have to say that the ration of completed vs failed is pretty good when I look at the projects I’ve backed. As such I wonder if the cost of ‘perfect’ protection has a return of investment at all.
Do we really need Kickstarter to do things that a potential backer can (and should) do so themselves ?
While it can be tricky to check if a kickstarter has been completed it is not impossible.
In theory all Kickstarter would have to do is show the percentage of backers who have ticked the ‘got it’ box. Problem with that approach is that there is a margin for error, but it is the only source of info we’ve got that doesn’t rely on the creators themselves.
In addition … a lot of kickstarters tend to be very quiet at various times simply because there isn’t anything to report. This makes checking the status of projects difficult.
I genuinely think a ‘tick to say I got my promised goodies’ button would be enough to actually let people know if a company is worth looking at as a prospect.
the box is there … there simply isn’t any use for it for backers.
I don’t know if the creators of a project have access to that data, but given that practically everyone uses a 3rd party site as a pledgemanager there must be a reason.
The Law enumerates crimes and supersedes any Terms of Service document. Thus if fraud has occured ( of course, a crime), then KS’ Terms of Service cannot prevent you from seeking Justice.
Unfortunately, there is also prosecutorial discretion to pursue charges or not based on the strength of the case. But it sounds to me like a lot of people are in the same boat as you, and the Justice system does like to set examples if Kickstarter Fraud is a new avenue of wrongdoing.
Happy Sunday!
Kickstarters… Kickstarters… Who got me into this whole Kickstarter habit?
BoW! That’s ####ing who! And it all started with Myth, 6 years and over 100 backed projects ago.
The first Myth KS went well apart from a few delays (to be expected) and some issues with poorly written rules. But then a sorry tale of overlapping KS projects, poor communications from MegaCon (as they became called – who says Americans don’t get irony?). It soon became obvious that they hadn’t managed cash flow and project spend properly so appeared to be borrowing funds from the next campaign to complete a previous one. They also got lax on quality control of manufacturing and the end drew nigh… Still awaiting on some Journeyman rewards.
But that’s one of only a handful that have disappointed or failed completely. My other bugbear with some projects is the gap between waves so when you’re into the game you can’t help but feel something is missing (often variability and some replayability) but when the extra characters etc finally arrive in the last wave everyone’s moved on from that game (SFG… I’m talking DS here!)
So eventually I lose trust in certain companies and individuals and avoid future projects from them… and warn others away by telling them the facts from previous projects, but them’s the risks! The vast majority of positive experiences more than make up for the poor ones. I really need to move out some of the clutter…must learn how to use eBay!
As for monitoring progress post KS towards delivery there’s a wide variation in effective communication: From little comms before a package arrives at the front door to regular updates. Some examples:
>>> Poor comms:
Mercs/MegaCon… during the timeline discussed above there was a habit of them releasing an update for an existing (often over-running with problems) project hours before they started yet another KS or launched the PM.
Poots/KD:M… sorry to say, but the only communications we tend to get for KD:M 1.5 is on regular holidays (Halloween, St Valentines etc.) but these tend to be “here’s the instore items on sale this holiday” with very little progress reporting on the project. Yes, some waves are over-running (as expected) but by how much we have very little idea.
>>> Others causing concern: several who could but won’t be named for going ‘a bit quiet’ while the project has severely over-run. It’s in this vacuum of lack of real information that rumours and dis-information can begin and propagate – often leading to dis-gruntled project creators who let it happen in the first place.
Another habit I’m fed up with is with creators who then say “but you need to follow our fb/twitter/instagram/etc for latest updates.” You were happy to communicate with us through KS when the project was raising funds – that should still be your main channel to backers post-project!
>>>Good Comms:
Mythic Games: What’s up Wednesday updates for each of their ongoing projects. Some may see it as over-kill but they tend to be very responsive to questions from backers etc.
Daily Magic Games: check out their simple but effective progress tracker they keep up to date at the top of their project pages, for example: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dailymagicgames/valeria-card-kingdoms-shadowvale
>>>Others deserving of a mention for good comms habits: Battle Systems (Core Space etc – yep it’s a bit late but we know what’s been happening); Shem Phillips/Garphill (North Sea Saga etc) – regular updates and sense of confidence that goes with that. Wow – two very small companies I’d trust my money with everytime.
Good comms doesn’t take long – 15-30 mins a week to provide a simple “We’re still here, working away… bit a lot to show at this point but here’s an update to your expectations” goe a long way; lets backers know you’re thinking of them as stakeholders who have concerns and show’s them you’ve not done a bunk!
“Join us in the back room” – “Join us in our windowless van”
@avernos ‘s ‘pay it forward’ idea sounds cool; will have to have a rummage around to see if there’s anything in my collection that I want to offload. 🙂
Re: boners – there’s a famous Batman comic from the thirties or fourties where the word boner is repeated a rediculous number of times where it’s meant the sense of blunders/bloopers/etc.
http://www.superdickery.com/batmans-boner/
Pressure pots and vacuum chambers – you do know you’re the Beasts of War and not the Mythbusters right @warzan ? ?
If you want to make the game really explody, how about packing the ship mini with actual fireworks to set off when it blows? ?
As for alarm raising, surely going in fast should raise the alarm quicker as it’s suspicious? Might be adding too much complexity, but how about having there be a ‘goldilocks’ speed somewhere in the middle; maybe something like the Germans having to make tests to raise the alarm and going faster means less tests, but each fail raises the alarm level by a larger amount while going slower means more tests but only small increases? Ie going fast means there’s less time for them to take note and start raising alarms, but is highly suspicious so makes them more alert while going slow means they think it’s a regular ship coming into port but gives them more chance to notice things are off and see through the disguise.
“There’ll be some sort of cat in there somewhere” – anyone else getting the image of someone bringing their pet in and the pussy jumping onto the table and rampaging across it like some sort of furry kaiju? ?
Lloyd’s lighting rig – anyone else envisioning it coming down on the back of his neck guillotine style when he bends forwards over the desk to paint? ?
Kickstarters – like the sound of you doing a review of kickstarters to keep us all up to date with how they’re going. Got to agree that transparency is crucial for Kickstarters; there’s one that I backed a few years ago that has yet to deliver and the thing that’s frustrating some of us backers is not so much the lack of fulfilment (although that is frustrating), but rather the lack of communication from the company, with months going by without any updates or posts (in fact the last time they even logged in was before Christmas). We’ve asked multiple times for better communication, but to no avail, even though we’ve said we don’t even need full updates; we’d be satisfied with something once a week or once a fortnight saying ‘X pledges manufactured this week/fortnight, Y pledges packed, Z pledges shipped’ or a note to say that production is still stalled or has resumed. We’d still be ticked off at it being years behind schedule, but at least we’d be kept in the loop about what’s going on. Further there have be some whispers that the company are considering starting another Kickstarter and some of us are wondering if they’ve run out of money and said Kickstarter is a cash grab to try and raise funds to pay for this one. This experience has soured me to Kickstarter slightly (I’ve put off even thinking of backing others while I’ve been waiting and it feels like that’s been a waste and I could’ve gone and backed others if I hadn’t backed this one) and it’s put me off wanting to deal with this company again; at this stage I wouldn’t consider buying something else off them, even at retail, and if they do eventually ship I’m in two minds whether to pay the shipping fees (considering how much I’ve sunk in and how long I’ve waited I want to get something out of it, but on the other hand I’ve lost faith in them and don’t know if I can trust them to actually ship it and not just pocket the money ?) ; at the very least I’ll be earning people away from this company if asked about them (I’ve refrained from naming them to avoid sounding like I’m bad mouthing them for the sake of bad mouthing them, but will name them here if @warzan asks me directly).
When it comes to running multiple kickstarters, I think it depends on the company in question, and that’s where the ideas you guys have put forth would come in really handy; eg someone like Mantic running multiples before previous ones have delivered wouldn’t bother me or raise red flags because they’re such a big name and have a proven track record, whereas a company like the one I’ve griped about above would give me cause for concern.
OTT eating challenge – you do know you’ve doomed @dignity and yourself to eat the testicles, penises and other offputting body parts of every edible animal right Warren? ?
when he mentioned it I immediately thought about the Boner comic, but I didn’t want to derail the conversation, as you may have noticed we can be easily derailed on occasion 😉
Good point, bringing it up in the show would have been a right boner.
?
Whoever draws Justin, please consider naked fanatics, naked hoplites, naked Celts.
GERRY I WILL FINISH PAINTING THAT GIANT SPACE MARINE ONE DAY!
don’t worry mate I’ve still not started the Greeks XD
@warzan half ground scale is actually what every 28mm Wargame uses so it should work great for your game.
The Campbeltown exploding wasn’t a guarantee. In the book “Churchill’s Secret Warriors” they cover the raid and the Commando’s had doubts about the reliability of the fuses after the massive impact and the German’s had been on the ship for hours before it was meant to explode and when it didn’t almost all the commando’s lost hope, they imagined the German’s had found the explosives. When it did explode the commando’s got a massive moral boost.
Maybe have a set turn that the Campbeltown is meant to explode and roll a dice of some kind every turn (a D20 perhaps?). If you don’t roll an explosion all the commando’s lose some effectiveness that goes away when the ship explodes. Maybe also have a critical failure that represents the German’s finding the explosives and preventing it. That way the Campbeltown can still have an impact after it “docks”.
That bit about the German mocking the British Officer and the Ship exploding did happen exactly like that. It’s one of the few moments in history that hasn’t been embellished.
Great to see you getting your Grognard on 🙂
Immature fun fact the magnetic bombs the Commando’s used were made from Childrens Sucking Lollies and Condoms.
That Document goes into WATU in WWII and Lindybeige has a great video about it here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVet82IUAqQ
Kriegspiel was the First Official Wargame adopted by a Government and it’s also the worlds first recreational wargame. It was adopted by a recreational wargame club at Oxford in 1873. The Prussian King was given Kriegspiel in the mid 1810’s by it’s creator and apparently he and his inner court quite enjoyed to play wargames. @avernos was right after the Prussian’s stomped the French in the Franco-Prussian War the world took notice of this whole wargaming thing.
I’m with Justin on the Flagging vs Feedback issue. So many people will just ignore that confirmation email from kickstarter and companies will be forced to chase people down just to have their items ticked off which just wastes time. Rather than Kickstarter prohibiting creating new projects maybe just a massive warning on any future projects and the company itself.
As someone who’s been on the periphery of a business failing I have an enormous amount of sympathy for business owners but zero for reckless spenders. My family owns an industrial shed (my Grandfather owned and developed multiple News Agencies before he retired so I grew up in a business world) and we had a tenant that was injured, then his wife who worked with him and helped run the business was injured and the company tanked. Not his fault, he immediately informed everyone involved months before bad things happened because he saw what was going to happen and he dealt with his issues. It looks like these Ninja guys owed people money and still went around recklessly spending money trying to chase that pot of gold (buying that license is disgusting when you owe people money) to pay for everything and I have zero respect or sympathy for people being incredibly reckless and it going bad, pay the people you owe and if you can’t don’t wait until the last minute to tell them and above all never ever lie to anyone you owe something to.
Insurance for Kickstarters would be a great idea and maybe even an option for the backers to get insurance. Backer insurance would probably be the way to go just like we have buyer pays shipping insurance today.
Oh boy can I get you guys some creepy crawlies. I’ll just have to look into how I can send it to the UK.
Mybe your right and we could have the Campbelltown possibly not explode.
From a gaming perspective though I cant think of any way to ‘influence’ the result through choice or skill. And for me there is not a lot of fun in random effects completely out of control of the player. (Aka the end of talisman etc)
This is why I’m thinking it will blow by default, but maybe we adjust when it blows and give the player some influence over who is on board when she does? So perhaps safe evacuation of crew, vs some kind of tempting axis soldiers on board. (Either way it’s a gruesome aspect of the game and while spectacular its one of the less savoury parts of the game for me, and why I want to give it a bit of thought on how it’s played out in a fashion that suits the more comic book vibe I’m after)
@warzan you could guarantee it explodes but not when. e.g. 3 tokens in a bag, pulled in turns 5, 6 and 7. So it will definitely explode but there’s also an element of ‘we don’t know how long we have to hold out’.
Yep that could work for sure!
@angelicdespot that’s a much better idea.
Justin the Alpha Strike should be my new The Two Towers mud character warrior 😀
Just a couple of quick footnotes to the Gareth Sarka / Far West RPG debacle.
One of the reasons folk are so done with Gareth is that he has claimed to be weeks/days away from completion on multiple occasions, only to go radio silent for months before bouncing back up with another round of woe tales.
As far as I know Gareth hasn’t attempted to run another crowd funded project since Far West, but he has undertaken paid work in the sphere, notably as a contributor to Modiphius Entertainment’s Star Trek RPG, which generated a modicum of controversy as he appears to have initially attempted to obfuscate his involvement, having his name left off the credits of some, if not all, of the products.
I guess we shouldn’t begrudge anyone a livelihood, hopefully he’ll use some of the money to fulfill his obligations.
Oh and the guy he threatened to punch is a retired NYC cop if I recall correctly, so I can see that going real well for him…
Thanks for the expanded background on this @cutter mate not easy for anyone involved I’m sure 🙁
Oh boy, you guys may have just underestimated the twisted sense of humor that the internet has. That said this is the backstage and we don’t won’t to hurt you guys but like an older brother tricking his younger siblings into trying stuff for the sheer laughs….we have an responsibility to get a reaction.
The miniature swap/gift discussion seems like a nice idea as well. Hopefully the free subscription give-away leads to a whole host of new “normies” joining us past the 6 months.
LOL
I’ve got some very tasty then 30secs later painful mango hot sauce, I’m betting we could get Justin to do a reasonable red skull impersonation…
Did you just say touching your cock makes you happy ?
Thanks W… today is the first time painting since early Dec with my poor health, so today listening to you have been a healing day indeed…need to post you guys something in the week..!!!
hope you’re feeling better mate!
make sure whatever you send is minging lol 😉
Typing as someone that was trying to get a FLGS established, that had crowdfunding as a competitor, to hear that FLGS “were sacrificed”…..
No words, Warren, no words.
I hope you haven’t taken that as some form of insult – as it really wasn’t meant to be at all – it was more a statement of the responsibility the industry/community have in their dealings.
There were repercussions of kickstarter and everyone in the industry was aware of them, they were no big secret, and a by product was to some degree the sacrifice of the FLGS.
I mean this in a number of ways too.
1) Obviously money took a direct route to projects and bypassed the traditional distribution model.
2) The speed of new product introduction skyrocketed leaving FLGS in a position where its impossible to keep up.
3) Very large sums are invested into large projects leaving a bit of a famine between projects to be spent in FLGS
So again I hope you weren’t offended it was a statement of ‘We all know the ramifications of this, collectively as an industry/community the choice was made – lets consider was it worth it…
I’m still in calming down mode, watching some other outlet’s content.
I’m trying to live by a saying I picked up recently:
“Don’t react, respond”
I’ll PM you.
As I’ve written before, I reckon that the industry has missed an opportunity to have a mutually beneficial model that benefits the FLGS by using them within the fulfilment/distribution chain. This would potentially reduce shipping costs, give the FLGS a small fee but also a contact with a new customer that they could support hobby, expansion and gameplay wise encouraging growth of communities that will support those games wanting to release into retail models.
Agreed, it was attempted by Battlefront but then the whole dust fiasco put them right off the model all together. (Which is a pity as they may well have made traction on that model with their connections)
On the subject of failed kickstarters I found the view on companies running into difficulty very interesting. I think some sort of flag would be nice for people who aren’t savvy enough to do a bit of research.
I was an AVP backer and I have a bleaker view of Prodos kickstarter. I can absolutely take @warzan ‘s point that things can snowball, but my issues with prodos were never about the delays or difficulties they were facing & I would have had a lot of sympathy for them… if they told us about it. The problem I had with them is that they outright lied to their backers repeatedly about the status of the project and couldn’t and wouldn’t explain what the delay’s were about. Archon are run by some of the same people and frankly they’ve left such a sour taste from AvP for me that I won’t even back projects that are using Archon or Prodos for manufacturing if I know about that up front.
Kickstarter is great for giving the little guy a chance. If a kickstarter fails, well that’s fine, it’s the risk we take in backing them. If you run into trouble and tell me about it then we’re good, you tried, you hit some problems, it happens. But don’t f**king lie to me and tell me it’s all rosy. And when you’re caught out, don’t continue to do it.
Sorry… AvP hits a nerve with me.
Well within your rights to have that nerve hit mate – the whole fiasco is a model of what not to do these days.
Certainly one of those situations where companies could have just owned up ahead of it all going to hell. Also, not biting off more than they could chew.
I agree with the team, platforms that allow crowdfunding should keep a record of the projects and how they did and what they did and make this public information. They should also do some homework towards the companies that want to do a project.
I don’t see them doing this for several reasons as long as they get their cut of the pie.
@dignity I would be one of the DnD other ones 😀 @avernos thanks for remembering me 😀
lol let me know if he tells you the 72 shot 26 save centurion story during the next play through lol 😉
he takes so much looking after
Really nice to hear you talk about Ks…. says the man who backed Robotech and the Evil dead boardgame…..
Until I saw the t-shirts I really thought you were saying “Snag an Army” with an Irish accent ?
lol
Happy Sunday folks
Justin you seem very stressed today 😀
Re. Kickstarter Watch, looking forward to see it make a return. Luckily I have 99% very positive experiences so far out of 31 backed projects (though I am backing Confrontation, so we’ll see about that ratio) and it would also be nice to give some kudos to those creators via the OTT platform.
P.S.: Weird food challenges, really? I thought you were above such YouTube trash.
Never underestimate the depths we (ok I) will sink to to get a rise out of @dignity 😉
I’m not as phallophobic as @dignity but I still don’t really want to see a rise out of him…
LOL
lmao
What I would like to know and it’s probably nothing to do with this weeks show is why Subbuteo has been added to the company/games section?. An interesting addition in my book
I used to really love it but was really crap at it when I was a kid. I remember a game where I lost 26-0. My mate had 27 shots and I only made one save
Maybe an article or something referencing it is in the works?
It might be part of the Snag a Normie initiative; in other vids the guys have mentioned using sports games as a way of snagging sports fans who might be put off by fantasy/sci-fi games, so naturally Sebbuteo has been brought up.
Alternatively, ‘subbuteo’ is just Latin for ‘hobby’, so technically everything can be tagged as subbuteo. ?
or maybe someone is about to start a project of their pet bird 😉
I think Kickstarter will have no choice but to become more responsible as the platform grows. I have some experience with this being for many years one of the senior team at JUST EAT, as we grew and ended up representing tens of thousands of restaurants the pressure was on us to ensure the quality, pricing, allergy advice was up to scratch, even though there was no regulatory responsibility (this is down to trading standards) but to the public we were the platform and if we hosted/represented a restaurant they want to know we had done our due diligence.
I see this the same as projects hosted on Kickstarter, they are the platform and take a decent cut of the money made so they should take more responsibility (within reason) to ensure who they host is a reputable, responsible, in good standing financially etc.
Perhaps introduce something like NPS (Net Promoter Score) or something similar to give people more insight into the company.
There is of course always a risk and everyone has to be ok with that but I think the more information you can put in front of a potential customer and demonstrate that as the platform you have done your own quality checks it should mean you are at least make a more informed decision.
hear hear!
@laughingboy – interesting perspective and good point.
If KS have any sense they ought to be able to see the way things are headed. If you look at the increasing pressure on social medial platforms to get rid of fraudulent or criminal content and/or offer protection to vulnerable users, KS ought to realise that with the amount of money we’re talking about and the relative maturity of the platform that they ought to be doing more.
Agreed, at this stage of the game, they are not underfunded to begin trying to tackle this issue.
The subject of Kickstarter non arrivals after being successfully funded really gets my goat. The company, if they are genuine, will have obviously done play testing, contacted manufacturers of the proposed components, and got costings and delivery timeline info.
IF they have done this right and they stick to their own schedule once monies are collected, there should be no reason for delays to the backers against the delivery date mentioned in the Kickstarter pledge level they went for.
I appreciate some things may affect it but some of the delays, and in my opinion, excuses, are simply taking the piss out of people who gave them their hard earned money, the best, or should I say worst example being (in my opinion) Prodos and the original AvP Kickstarter campaign.
How they have the cheek to ask people to order more stuff from their website to get bits from the Kickstarter which they’ve already had the money for, for years, is again taking the proverbial.
Ninja Division are no better, and the guy in the picture on the article certainly doesn’t look like he’s gone without much during this ‘difficult time’.
I agree also that Kickstarter themselves don’t give a shit about people who have lost money backing things on their platform, and it seems as long as Kickstarter get their cut, the rest of us can go and do one if anything goes wrong.
This has to change, and Warren’s idea of some sort of insurance scheme could be made workable.
Also, companies who change the scope of the project AFTER recieving funds should be made to give full refunds including the Kickstarter portion back to people if the backer doesn’t like the new direction of the project. The Edge by Awaken Realms, was like this in so much I watched the video promos and backed it, but once funds were collected they said they were completely changing the game rules and this led to massive delays, so I cancelled but only got my pledge minus the Kickstarter fee back which I think is a total crock.
However, one of my biggest gripes is with other backers who say “it is a Kickstarter, there’s no guarantee you / we will get anything, it’s not pre order, it’s a gamble”
My answer to that is “Bollocks”, if someone puts up a project and it’s fully funded you should deliver it on time at worst, or simply not bother to put it up in the first place, as I am not prepared to just hand over hard earned money to some arsewipe who then can’t be bothered to complete the project and simply keeps the cash. To those that think this is acceptable, I say it’s THEFT, and anyone who does it should be prosecuted and if deemed fit, given a jail sentence.
We wouldn’t accept being ripped off like this when buying other things in life, so WHAT makes it acceptable just because it’s a game, and we are spending money as a gamer
If I ever get stiffed by a UK company / person you better be prepared for ‘office / home’ visits until I get what I paid for, or ALL my money back.
More naming and shaming needs to happen like the ones Jerry pointed out, so the serial scammers and thieves have nowhere to go.
Hey I totally get the feeling behind this but, read the terms and conditions of Kickstarter. You aren’t guaranteed anything. You can call it theft but it isn’t. You handed over your money knowing full well the project might go tits-up because of mismanagement or overly optimistic estimates. It happens, and you can’t get blood from a stone so demanding refunds when the money is already spent won’t get you anywhere, particularly if it’s a first time creator whose plans were bigger than their abilities.
This is why it’s important to do your research before backing a project and frankly if you can’t accept the risk that it might not arrive, then the best thing to do is just not back kickstarters.
Avien.. I refer you to my earlier response to this answer..
Kickstarter puts that clause in for one simple reason, and that’s if anything does happen they are totally absolved from any responsibility, and I again refer you to my earlier point of “we’ve got our cut, too bad if you lost your 85%”
It’s people accepting this outcome which continues to allow it to happen, i.e. a scammer can think ” other than some bad reviews and name calling, I get to keep all the money, keep making feeble shitty excuses and eventually people will get tired of hassling me, and will move on to the next failure by someone else”
What a shit attitude from them, and anyone willing to accept that it will just keep happening, because it’s a Kickstarter
We’ll have to agree to disagree. You know what you’re signing up for, you either accept that or you don’t…
That’s entirely true, I and all backers know what they’re signing up for…. BUT…. Creators ‘sign up’ to deliver a project when backers give them money as outlined in their fluff of what you will receive at any given pledge level you back.
If I give the creator my money, I’m honouring my side of what I signed up for, if they decide to take that money instead of cancelling their project, is it unreasonable of me to expect them to honour their side, personally I don’t think so.
In my mind if you say to me “give me money and I’ll give you X item” then I’d expect you to honour that contract or return my money in full.
As I said, Kickstarter is how it is BECAUSE Kickstarter themselves absolved themselves from comeback by choosing to do so, instead of helping hold those that don’t fulfil their project to account.
Yes, we’ll agree to disagree on this. I hope you aren’t the victim of one someday, like one previous poster who was in for $1500 to Ninja Division
And if it isn’t theft, it’s fraud.
I suppose I’m more talking about Kickstarter in general rather than this particular example of Ninja division, whose activities were definitely underhanded. I’m talking more about the projects which are legitimately attempted and due to bad planning or costing under-estimates just fail. I’m not talking about the likes of AVP and Ninja Division.
I’m not without sympathy to backers who are losing out, I’m just saying that while it sucks, people can’t pretend they didn’t know going in that it was a possibility. There’s a difference in my mind between a project which struggles and the creators are honest with backers and keep them updated with what’s going wrong and why compared to those that go dark all of a sudden and pretend like everything is fine, lying to backers about what’s going on and trying to use other kickstarters to finish the previous one they havent delivered yet.
I was an AvP backer and I fully sympathise with people in this position with an undelivered product. But it wasn’t Kickstarter’s problem, the blame lay solely at Prodos’ feet. Kickstarter is a conduit, not a manager. I do think Kickstarter could do more to regulate the creators like this, but they would have to be very careful or they cross the line into some sort of gaurantor, and that isn’t their role.
For the genuine creators who just go bust, there isn’t much holding to account to be done, the money is spent, and you can’t get blood from a stone as the saying goes.
I think it behooves people to deal with Kickstarter for what it is, and not what you would like it to be. If you’re not willing to lose the money, don’t risk it.
Yeah it would be nice if there was an insurance policy, or some fallback, but the point is nobody tries to pull the wool over your eyes going in, you are specifically told there is a risk of failure. You know the risks.
@phoenixman – ‘so I cancelled but only got my pledge minus the Kickstarter fee back which I think is a total crock.’
There’s definitely something amiss here; we’ve run several KSs, and have had to refund people from time to time (for example, one guy died, so we refunded the money to his widow) and when a project creator hits ‘Refund’ on the KS pledge, the Backer gets refunded the full amount, including the KS fees. So someone’s being a bit dodgy with your refund, I reckon…
If the money has been collected, my understanding is Kickstarter get their cut so that money doesn’t go to the creator, and the creator can only give you back what they got initially, which in this case was 85%
I have backed your Kickstarters and never worry about them
But when you hit the Refund button, the 85% gets taken from the project creator’s account, and Kickstarter and the credit card company also hand back their cut… at least, that’s what’s happened with us, when we’ve done it. I wonder if they just refunded via bank transfer, rather than using the automatic KS option?
It’s definitely dodgy if you don’t get your full pledge back! I’d be annoyed too.
Well Awaken Realms only gave me 85% and sited Kickstarter took the rest and they couldn’t give that back
That does seem wrong! I’d not be happy about that…
Over the years I’ve backed most of the ninja division/soda pop kickstarters. I love the worlds that they created but now i’m just… ugh… I guess i’m bitter. Back in, I think it was 2012 when they did the Relic knights 1.0 kickstarter, when they were tied up with CMON it was a bit of a mess. I kept the faith and the stuff arrived eventually and the main take away from it all for me and my mates was that CMON had botched it and that soda pop were the victims. Soda pop seemed like the plucky underdog. Now i’m beginning to think we should have seen the warning signs, but I kept plugging away and i’m in the hole for about £350-400, not as bad as some people but still… Ninja Division talked the talk and I foolishly believed them. Even if another company buys them out I think the damage has been done and those worlds are now dead which pisses me off because I loved them…. so any way TL:DR I’m bitter and ninja divison suck!
About Chester, I’m quite sure English word chester, and the suffixes -chester, -caster come from Latin word “castrum” meaning military camp. So it is safe bet that any place in England with name that contains those was somehow connected with Roman military.
You’re correct.
The Casters and Chesters were all Roman Forts or Camps.
Nice quiet morning here in NC, ready to crank up an XLBS. Might just be able to find someone here to give those free pass too!
@warzan The Chinese food being traditionally Northern Ireland food is spot on, I noticed that from my first visit back in the 90s when I was dating my future wife Veronica in Coleraine! Always found that a bit odd, but I have to say your Chinese food is better than anywhere else I’ve had it in the world!
It really is mate lol
I’m a bit of an addict now – can’t you tell lol
Two more thoughts:
In my 28 years in the Army Wargaming has always been a big part of our training program in the U.S. Army. I’ve even used it for professional development of fellow officers.
I’ve got just thing for you guys to try. Justin will love it. I’ll get to work on getting it sorted.
I don’t think it’s reasonable or beneficial to restrict the number of Kickstarters a company can have on the go at once. As with Steve Jackson Games (none of which I’ve backed, by the way), a properly managed company can work on multiple things at a time and by managing work and cashflow can create a pipline of products which keeps them in business and customers happy.
Perhaps a requirement that creators show how many outstanding projects they’ve got would help, but ultimately, if creaters just make multiple accounts to manage different projects then there’s no additional protection for the consumer. At the very least creators should be encouraged to be more transparent so that potential backers can make better decisions.
It might not be a bad idea to require all Kickstarter creators / backers to have insurance. If it made some projects unaffordable then you have to ask whether something so marginally profitable deserved the opportunity anyway, and it could provide some protection for everyone.
On a similar note, I’m not sure having a ‘fulfilled’ flag would be effective. I’m sure lots of backers are like me, and don’t read most updates. Some projects fulfil over a very long period of time, too. Take Kingdom Death, where backers went in being told that delivery would begin in 2018 and wouldn’t end until 2022 (or whatever). If everything runs on schedule and the first three waves are fulfilled entirely, is it really reasonable to consider the project unfufilled until right to the end?
What you could do is each time a wave is finished you email backers to ask them to say whether they consider a project complete and then instead of requiring a % of ‘yesses’, you simply display the % of yesses among those who opened the email / answered the question. That way, you might only get a 5% response, but if everyone’s happy, all is well. If a creator hasn’t fulfilled what they’ve promised, then even if relatively few answer the survey, warning flags will be raised.
One more idea… It might be helpful if creators could describe what kind of company they are to backers with the aim of setting expectations.
e.g. ‘I’m a one man band, running my first kickstarter, hoping for a small amount of money to complete a fairly simple project’. Or ‘we’re a small company that use Kickstarter to raise funds once or twice a year to fund new games and expansions. We have a track record of delivering Kickstarters but are reliant upon overseas manufacturing which sometimes causes delays’.
There would be an incentive for creators to be honest (because if they weren’t, backers would call them out on it). It would allow backers to better ‘risk assess’ their investments and also a standard by which to judge the creator should any problems arise.
Happy Sunday all
Ok just to Clarify regarding the DnD campaign @dignity mentioned. It was not quite a hard reset as such it was a magical relocation back to an earlier point in time.
It is not my first time DMing it’s just my first time with 5th edition DnD and my first time in about 30 years, so yeah a little bit out of practice.
you will have to make room for me some of these nights for a oneshot 🙂
Well, I am certainly looking forward to more, I have only RPG’d twice and that being under the tutelage/GMing of Gerry and Rob and both times it has been a blast so I hope there will be many more.
@warzan certainly can do, you can show Mick how a barbarian should be played..??
I could play @buggeroff‘s right hand man 😉
@warzan well as @buggeroff ‘s character has spent sometime as a Spider in the adventure he has had plenty of right hands to choose from ???
lol
pity he wasn’t a daddy long legs I would play the ‘seventh’ and keep @dignity on his toes 😉
Well I am sure I could arrange for some Daddy long legs action just to keep @dignity happy ?
That thieving dwarf is in for a slappin!!!
Lol eeewwwwww, feel durty
Oi!!!! you’re the one that turned me into A SPIDER!! for 3 weeks 😉
The only gaming Kickstarter I backed that failed to deliver was the dark age Outpost. At the time I thought it would be great for Warhammer fantasy.
It seems it all went wrong because they found a cheap factory in Argentina but their quotes weren’t binding. Prices increased and the language barrier made things worse. I believe it ended with the molds produced but there was no money left to do the casting.
The guy running the Kickstarter kept us informed throughout. I could see it all going south but I could also see he was trying his best. I hope he learned from the experience.
I also forgot to mention Kickstarter does have a little tick box for you to click when you have received a Kickstarter that you backed. It wouldn’t take much to make the data visible. It is in their best interest to stop things like this happening too much because sooner or later it will damage the platforms reputation and the revenue will fall.
I think the issue with any idea for kickstarter solutions is the legal situation.
Once kickstarter itself starts regulating accounts based on the success or perofrmance outcomes of kickstarters, there is a danger, especially in the US, of kickstarter themselves becoming legally liable for those outcomes.
In other words, if they place themselves in between the backer and the company in any way other than a financial conduit, which is how they describe themselves, then they may become responsible for the performance of kickstarters.
It is my understanding that this is what they avoid at all costs both in actions and terms and conditions.
@warzan what’s the title of the commando book you mentioned?
also have you considered the additional objective of the commandos that couldn’t extract by boat and would have gone on the run across europe. similar to the idea that spurred on the great escapees in trying to get 250 men to breakout. it’s not necessary to make a home run but the alarm and the resources that are diverted from the war effort to search for escape and evaders is in itself a victory.
that’s a compelling idea mate 🙂
will have a think about that
Try this book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Operation-Chariot-Nazaire-Forces-Operations/dp/1844151166/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1550423672&sr=8-5&keywords=st+nazaire+raid
If you’re interested in the raid I’d highly recommend this book. It mostly covers Commando’s in General, how they were set up, how their weapons were invented, their early operations that sort of thing but Saint Nazaire is covered in pretty good detail.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1681443929/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=b4bbef4e-170e-463d-8538-7eff3394b224&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1848668554&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=8JBE89TJCYF07YSSHVNZ&pf_rd_r=8JBE89TJCYF07YSSHVNZ&pf_rd_p=b4bbef4e-170e-463d-8538-7eff3394b224
hmm Kickstarter got to love or hate haven’t you.. so far to date I have had 1 gone got to pot ill name as I dont care the Pazio mmo, I have to say I backed the project at a level where I got a lot of physical stuff so the items probably covered the money I spent. The game well lets stop talking. I think you have to except stuff have problems but there are people that take the piss.
Going forward I think all the crowd funding companies should take some owner ship they get there cut.
They do this a number of way maybe all payments go through
1. Paypal (as I can see paypal getting involved in nondelivered, these could stop/cancel there account stop them opening new one many)?
2. the crowd funding company holding the money and the company have to ask for at each stage?
3. a scoring system ebay use one?
There must a legal avenue as well to chase these people as they haven’t completed a contract?
Or we all just stop using them until they will sort their selves out because they will income?
Plus the big boys out there why dont you stop using these companies and put them on there own sites as pre-orders with bonus / stretch goals like crowd finders?
As said I have quite lucky on the ones I have done.
I consider myself lucky to have not had a bad kickstarter experience yet.
Warren is right in saying that the easiest option is for kickstarter to start a feedback system for project providers in the same way that the eBay system has been refined over time to limit fraud and pseudocriminal activity on it’s platform.
Until we as backers ‘lose faith’ and stay away though, I am sure this will not be triggered. Legislation is unlikely to come to our aid. The ball is in our court.
Like Ben my, perhaps curmudgeonly, view is that kickstarter and a swathe of discounted online retailers are a poor substitute for a network of independent gaming stores, but the masses have spoken, so here we are.
I personally feel that fewer, better supported games with a longer shelf life would satisfy my needs as a gamer just as much as the current situation without the ever present FOMO that now haunts us as gamers.
Great show and topics today. Really enjoyed it.
I loved seeing Gerry losing it during the telling of Lloyd’s toilet story.
As for Kickstarters, I consider myself an old hand being a backer since 2012.
I have had many ups and downs during the years and I have to say it can be a gamble at the best of times.
I was a backer of the AVP, Dust, Demigods Rising & Myth Campaigns. Thankfully I have now received everything I Pledged for on those.
I also backed Games and Gears Battle boards who ended up refunding my pledge. As they could not deliver the promised items.
However I was unfortunate enough to back Novus Card Game (Ran out of funds to complete), Evil Dead Board Game (Ran out of funds to complete) & Fairytale Games: The Miniatures Campaign (Ran out of funds to complete). With the exception of the Novus creator all failed to even let the backers know what had transpired.
The longest outstanding project I am yet to receive is Teramyyd: Earthsphere (funded in 2013!) To give them the creators their due they are still posting irregular updates and may still deliver one day.
I am defiantly much more picky on which projects to back now days and have almost gotten a sixth sense to which projects are potential for pouring cash down the toilet.
There is no easy answer to fixing the problem of Funded Kickstarters that fail to deliver. That said I agree that limiting a creator to one active project at a time may at least help to limit the damage that is caused.
Kickstarter needs to be held a little more accountable. I do understand that they are not the actual creators of projects, but they should not be aloud to simply say tough luck (paraphrasing) to backers and wash their hands of this situation.
As of this moment I have 12 outstanding Kickstarter projects yet to deliver, I currently see no problems, but time will tell.
Finally I wish to give a quick shout out to CMON and Petersengames who have both been great help in fixing past issues with my pledges.
I also know the “other” story and for a moment thought he was going to get into that… thankfully for all concerned this was not the case 😀
(apologies if my thoughts below seem a tad out of whack – spent today driving to London & back for an hour-long session in the MRI machine so am still a bit out of it…)
Funnily enough (if no one else has mentioned it) Ninja Division’s Way of the Fighter DID offer a base version that had
standees instead of miniatures with options for a deluxe version with minis….
I am quite glad I steered clear of ND’s last few campaigns (I think I gave them maybe a fiver total on their last few) but I appreciate folks feeling pissed off at actions the company have taken that are just massively shady.
Accountability in crowdfunding is an interesting topic. I fully agree that Kickstarter should be taking a lead as the main game in town, but given how lax they have been on prior failed campaigns (their response is typically “work it out with the creator”) I don’t see them doing anything until the law starts to get involved, and even then I would be very surprised. And it’s a shame as yes, some campaigns do fail, but not for lack of creators trying, and some companies have leveraged the platform as their main funding & distribution model which is working for them, so when instances of creators taking advantage arise -and ND are certainly not the first in the gaming/miniatures category guilty of that – it makes folks more skeptical and less likely to back projects from creators who have a good product and a reasonable expectation of what they can do with the funding they are asking for. Of course, there is always the danger of stretch goal bloat…..
Note for @warzan ref Kickstarters vs FLGS’ – where I am we’ve only had a GW/Warhammer store in one of my local towns for the longest time, and nothing in the others. Otherwise it was display stands in toyshops (which are dieing themselves) until this weekend when new store opened. Kickstarter offered a certain convenience, but I appreciate I have spent funds there that I could have spent with an independent via their website (and there is an impressive number of them now with very good sites that are a joy to use).
Question ref St Nazaire – dig the idea of using Reichbusters mechanics to depict the infiltration up the estuary then the “going loud” when **** hits the fan, but once Campbelltown has hit the seagate and the commandos are off-loaded are you planning to represent the action of the ML boats in the estuary vs the German naval assets on hand (at least one destroyer I believe) and the coastal batteries? Could provide an extra layer of strategy as they try to survive to pick up an troops who make it back to the jetty after completing their objectives, beyond just charging into the town…
Kickstarters can be wonderful things … until they are not.
The first big game project I backed was Demigods Rising (remember that?), mostly based off the promotion right here at Beasts of War. When these guys got into trouble I also backed their add-on project, hoping it might solve their issues. I did get the added miniatures, but am still “waiting” for the board game originally funded. Yet I don’t hold grudges in this case as the project creators kept us informed periodically. It just appears to bit off way more than they could chew project-wise and were not capable of managing their project efficiently.
I also went for the latest Ninja Division projects, because the games and minis looked good and the future seemed bright during the promotion. I didn’t look too deeply into the company history. ND however left me with a sour taste. I don’t mind waiting for a Kickstarter project to fulfill. I can wait years if necessary. It’s not like this pile of miniatures is getting smaller anytime soon. But I’m offended when people are not honest about their progress.
In my opinion the main problem is not lack of fulfillment, but lack of communication. Even if things go bad, tell us. Many of us will understand.
I’m not sure how much responsibility could be laid with Kickstarter to start policing the project creators. But some more clear feedback system and/or showing the project history of a company would be a good start.
I still have many KS fulfillments that went great, even though most had delays. But for now I’m a bit more cautious about supporting anything. And at the very least put way less money into a project.
Stop picking on Justin, I mean it. IF YOU DONT I will…I will.. I will frighten a normie away.
On Kickstarter, I’ve said many times before it has been the greatest bane to FLGS since GW introduced trade restrictions, and I was glad to hear Warren say it. Caveat Emptor as the saying goes. I too backed the Dark Ages KS and was disappointed but not shocked that it failed. I’m sure it’s been a very painful learning experience for that guy.
On toilet stories, I really shouldn’t tell anyone this as the other person in this story became a member of parliament, but….. I went to a party with a mate who attempted to impress a young lady with how much he could drink. He soon got very drunk and went to the toilet. He felt like he had to poo so sat down. The smell made him want to vomit. Being drunk he begun to wonder if he could vomit between the edge of the toilet seat and his genitals without getting up. He then grossly overestimated his ability and his balance and ploughed headlong into the floor knocking himself out. We eventually forced open the door to find him and the room painted in diarrhea, vomit and blood from the Harry Potter like scar he’d inflicted on himself. Good times
ohh the things we do for love lol 😉
Happy Sunday! I think your scenario honoring the USS Buchanan’s attack on the docks of St. Nazarene is awesome! When its completed I would love to come across to see it. I think we should start a Kickstarter to fine a cure for Justin’s phallic phobia. Also, thank you for your reply to my comment from yesterday, I appreciate the understanding. Happy gaming to all.
youd be most welcome here anytime! 🙂
The best crowdfunder i invested in was run by Rathcore and it was for their miniature holders and grips. Rathcore had a few things going for them that not every crowdfunder can have going for them, such as the fact that they had run a crowdfunder before and that they were a small company with a website. That said there were some more generally applicable signs that they were a reasonably safe and worthy bet. I recall messaging them early on to ask them a few questions, including one asking if the wood they were using was FSC or if they could otherwise somehow assure me that it had come from well managed forests. They replied in good time, which is a good sign in and of itself, they answered all my questions, and though they couldn’t tell me if the wood was FSC or not they did tell me that the wood was from central Europe where they have ‘very good sustainable forestry’. This was a good sign for a few reasons. Firstly, their answers ( as you can see from the answer about the wood ) were straight up, no nonsense responses to my actual questions with no obfuscation, waffle or omission. Secondly the answers indicated to me that they knew their product and had pre-emptively made decisions such that they could get back to me in quick time with answers that, whilst they might not have been what i wanted to read, were reasonably ( by which i mean within reason, not ‘a little bit’ ) definitive, and to some extent actually verifiable, at least in theory. Thirdly, these answers indicated that they did care about things other than simply getting the money, which is why i’ve given the example of the wood. I backed a few weeks later and as it happened i messenged them again about their backkit. They answered that question, again in good time, but for extra brownie points they also let me know that they had found out that the wood they were using was FSC without any prompting from me and with the crowdfunder having funded and doing very well, which means that they had gone away and done some research, perhaps only for my sake, perhaps for their backers in general, or perhaps for their own ethical reasons, with no direct benefit to them and that crowdfunder. However, what really gave me some good assurance was the way in which they split up the crowdfunder’s pledge levels such that when someone backed they backed for a product and a delivery date. Every pledge level was limited in number and when it ran out a new pledge level with the same product but a later delivery date had already been made available. Whilst i ( and they ) were fully aware that even the most well planned and scheduled crowdfunders can find themselves delayed, this kind of organisation indicated that they had at least done their best to make sure that they could deliver what they were promising, no less, and ( crucially, as many a crowdfunder has learned the hard way ) no more. As i recall they actually did deliver on schedule, or very close to it.
p.s. @avernos
“Rik Wakeman”
PMSL
?
try ghq for figures
That was a roller coaster episode. Firstly, had this been on YouTube, given the poo stories, I could well understand why the video would get banned by the bots. 🙂
And for the ‘eat something rank’, next time I’m in Norway, I’ll pick up some Lutefisk and some Gamalost. If the sniffer dogs and customs at the airport let me back in again, I’ll send it over.
Kickstarter. I feel very sorry for those who have parted with their money and received nothing – I hope that they do receive something at some point. To play devils advocate on a couple of points, firstly, Kickstarter is a forum for getting unfunded projects off of the ground – it’s a ‘Dragon’s Den’ for ideas. As such, it does carry a lot of risk and I believe that a lot of backers have forgotten this and view the platform as a ‘pre-order’ system. It’s not and backers should carry out more due diligence than they do. They have to accept the risk that they are taking on.
While running one Kickstarter at time helps reduce the risk for the backer, as Lloyd pointed out, many companies have a ‘production line’ with staff at each point. Running just one project would leave some of those staff without work – hardly cost effective. So I can guess that Ninja Division got into a position that to fund staff wages, they needed to run projects. One went awry and had a knock on effect that spiraled out of control. It’s not right for the consumer and backer but I can see how it may have happened. The alternative would have been to lay off staff and probably still not deliver on a number of projects – in fact, there’s a chance that laying off the staff could have increased the risk of not delivering.
But I’m guessing at the above. Certainly some way of community policing would help reduce the risk and the more that raise this point, the more likely it is that Kickstarter will introduce something to protect their own reputation.
first i must say, this was a very fun XLBS, justin we love you so much, and we’ll send you the most disturbing insects to feast on. well, i was never a fan of ninja division or their games, just to put that out there. i have few friends whom always tried to get me into their stuff, i did once went half and half with a friend on relic knights a game i didn’t like and still can’t get into, i have the models which i gave to my five year old to play with to keep her from getting into my cherished other models and games. but this chaos in the kickstarter world saddens me, as i felt for a while now that things will sour because of the giant pandora box this whole process has opened up, i just fear for our community and hobby to lose those innocent reasons why flock to this hobby and delve into those universes. i hope things like that will be made an example of to prevent such behavior from happening again. with Beasts of war being a prominent voice in our community, i hope we use this platform to guard us from negative practices and bad business in the future. like you guys said kickstarter do not have much of an incentive to regulate what will potentially be a big bite for them, it’s up to us to crush any potentially harmful ventures and individuals by exposing them all over the community, the good news is that this is a particular industry with a very defined community, which makes it easy to lose reputation if you bring harm to thousands of genuine fellow gamers and hobbyists. i hope we keep this hobby safe and clean from bad rolls.
Kickstarter – one point I haven’t seen mentioned at a skim is that Kickstarter is registered as a Benefit Corporation.
“Benefit Corporations are for-profit companies that are obligated to consider the impact of their decisions on society, not only shareholders.”
and
“A benefit corporation’s directors and officers operate the business with the same authority and behavior as in a traditional corporation, but are required to consider the impact of their decisions not only on shareholders but also on employees, customers, the community, and local and global environment.”
If they make that claim, how we’ll do their collect the money and run actions fit with their stated mission?
on the XLBS next week beavers an Bonners presented by Justin & Warzan.
it may be worth doing three tables one the approach, two the dock mission, three the getaway, @warzan
Wasteland 3..prime example I backed this eons ago that last update was april of last year.
Tired of that kind of project. Another example would be Dark Future..both video games and both really poor at communication.
You do have to allow for some patience for these things to come out,but seriously keep us in the loop.
crowdfunding is like horse betting I think and like the horses I pick it never wins so I will just get the parts I like when/if they gets to the shops
lol guys.
I just backed Mountain Games https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/146835627/mountain-gremlin-games-board-games-cafe/description
I really have little ability to accept their invitation but it is a worthy cause, let KS advance bricks and mortar.
Haven’t understood the 6 month pass. Does the person I want to nominate access to have to already have a free account?
Kickstarter
I know that ‘buyer beware’ has always been the motto when spending your cash, but it really feels as though the model of some companies being marketers and ‘facilitators’ and then being unhelpful and unaccountable is growing.
It does feel like Kickstarter could do more, but as you said on the show unless the bad image of unfulfilled campaigns impacts on profits massively they will manage the PR around the occasional bad example and keep counting the money.
Perhaps it will take someone like the ‘Which’ consumer protection people to make the kind of database of successful campaign completion you were suggesting to protect against scammers or the badly / naively managed project owners of the past.
There using Kickstarters to pay off kickstarters, it’s absolutely uncoothed.
Great show with some good and bad ideas. Good idea the pay it forward queue sounds a good idea but one thing to think about is shipping something internationally could be pricey.
I don’t agree with justin too often but when he is right he is right, fuck spiders.
The kickstarter thing is interesting, I agree with Warren that the aspect that us lost is that you are running a business. Some people just cant do it. Flat out some of the best ideas die because they lack the skill to run the business. I have backed a few out right failures but so far only a couple have been frauds. One thing that kept me in one of the frauds was that kickstarter had promoted it because of the success of the first product, I feel by kickstarter making it a staff pic or promoted it makes them culpable. The other thing I don’t know if i will do again (I did eventually get everything) is back a project by a company that is in partnership with others. That one collapsed due to the partnership falling apart. Bad partners make for bad products. The other thing is about the asian market and how it messes with schedules and profits. Many times schedules run a bit late and then run into the lunar New year and that creates huge delays. There can also be issues with changes to the contracts and this can hurt the producer. I don’t expect them to hit their dates for fulfillment but i do expect them to be honest about their process
Today’s topic on Kickstarters hits close to home.
As background I’ve backed or crowdfunded 35 projects with 25 delivered and 10 still pending delivery. Two pending projects stand out the most:
The first is the Myth KS Journeyman. They did delivery the core KS (missing most stretch goals) and recently some of the updated cards and modules, but even after selling the IP to Ulisses the radio silence is building again. Keep in mind the delivery date was June 2016 (so I was surprised to see a box of product to arrive this past October). In the end this wasn’t a total failure, but the communication and background drama makes me believe I won’t be seeing most of the stretch goals.
The second I pulled two other people to back Relic Knights 2nd Ed (many apologies beers already purchased on this one). Honestly, Warzan is spot on with this one. I was duped and pulled two others into what might be a train wreck. I’m hoping they pull a Myth here, but they are struggling on just the core box.
Kickstarter does need to step up. Not to fanboy Warzan, but an insurance policy should be a requirement if the KS goes over a specific dollar amount (say 100K) or is asking backers to pledge ~$100 or more to back the project. Safety nets of getting half your cash back would be go a long way and maybe even pull more backers into some projects.
A rating system would be nice on Kickstarter to help direct backers. A few areas that could be rated:
1. KS delivered (or percent of success): Success and failure would weed out the good from the bad companies.
2. How delayed is the product: This would at least level set the backers on when to expect the product
3. Communication Level: There should be milestones put in place where the company agrees to standard updates.
4. Over-all product customer Satisfaction: This is slippery slope as I’ve some people give negative feedback because UPS lost their package.
My lesson’s learned. Never spend more than you a willing to lose. Expect product delivery delays. Don’t be scared to take a chance, for the most part my backed Kickstarters have been successful.
@warzan how about a 1.4million dollar kickstarter failure sound to you involving Paladium books and ninja division as well. If memory serves they even were selling or going to sell copies of the game at a gencon before even beginning the fulfillment to the kickstarter backers. Here is one of manystory links about it.
https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/2/17071612/robotech-rpg-tactics-kickstarter-disaster-palladium-books
And here is a link to the kickstarter comments page…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rrpgt/robotech-rpg-tacticstm/comments
It’s a great read.
Ye gods, man, don’t spread that one around – I wouldn’t force my worst enemy to have to read the (completely justified) nerd-rage on show there.
I backed that one. Still dirty on it. It was the worst KS I have ever done, and I’m past 30 of them.
@warzan — A small point of contention regarding FLGS. You make an assumption that everyone has a FLGS close enough to them that treats them well and has what they want and is welcoming. I myself does not. I need to travel an hour or more. Close to 50miles away. We are making a decision based on getting the games we want. While I do go to the FLGS to play games and will purchase items at this particular FLGS, they are limited, expensive and not always very friendly but that is where my Guildball League happens to exist. FLGS are just a point of sale. Unless they add additional value as you have done at BoW with the visitor center, why do I owe anything to a FLGS? If FLGS helped fund new games, may things would be different. I do not believe that KS kills FLGS, FLGS would like to see KS dead so they are the only monopoly in town.
In regards to the insurance, how do you calculate the risk to provide the premium and WHO is going to pay out the money when there is a loss? There is NO insurance market to provide what you are asking. So many times car insurance is brought up as an example for so many arguments more than just KS, the issue again, there is no market. Car insurance is a FORCED market made by government. There is no country where you have a right to drive a car. In all cases, driving is a government privilege granted to you and can be taken away from you for any reason.
One more item regarding KS, it is beholden to the companies that create projects on the platform and NOT the consumers who pledge. This is why they have zero interest in helping when there is a problem.
The gaming industry like all industry (unless it is a forced government mandate) runs on money. There is an enormous of up front cost to develop games and if you are new or small you do not have access to those funds. There is no bank that will take the risk to give you the funds for an idea that does not yet exist and will take to year to deliver and of which you have NO idea that the market will be like. In the USA at least, the restaurant industry is a good example, 17% will fail in the first year. It is hard to get funding if you have not been in the business before (my wife owns a catering business that is no successful but it was 100% self funded until it was running and showed revenue for 5yrs before any bank would even think of giving her a loan). KS provides a platform where the backers as bankers assume 100% of the risk because nobody else would give these types of game projects a chance. Unless you are Asmodee or GW with deep pockets who is willing to take a chance at your game, few if anyone is going to give you a chance. Even if you go the publisher route, the terms are not good from my understanding and you are not making a living on the royalties. Another good example is DriveThruRPG.com. There are A LOT of self published works on that platform. Which book publisher is going to take a chance on a writer who not established? Would anyone have picked up D100 Dungeon on concept alone? A concept that started on BGG as a free set of files for “an idea”.
So, square for me @warzan, who would fund all these games if not for KS? Would it be better if there was no funding vehicle and Gloomhaven never existed? Take a look at Façade Games or Adreama Games, Inc., the former which was featured in a Wall Street Journal Story, they are literally family run husband and wife game shops that started by someone quitting their day jobs in IT to give it a go. Without KS, they cannot exist. There is a reason that GW is not KS nor will they ever be — they are established and can self fund. Could the next potential GW exist without KS? Put another way, given BoW is swimming money like Scrooge McDuck (a joke, to make a point) and given all the wonderful ideas you see coming across your desks, which one are you willing to say, “hey dude, don’t KS, we will give you our coin to make that game” and is the margin you believe you will make enough for you and them to make money when all is said and done with including the warehousing and customer service and promotion etc.?
Does KS suck? Yes, but I bet the failures while true, are relatively small otherwise people would not keep going back to KS to fund more games. Yes, there are some high visibility failures, but there are also many success stories like KDM and Gloomhaven. KS will not change nor will it ever because there is no alternative platform. There will be no alternative platform that will have the prestige or visibility of KS because KS not owns a mind share. Nobody will provide insurance as you stated because there is no way to cover the liability unless everyone pledging pays an insurance premium for ALL games all the time. Meaning there must be enough good to pay for the bad. KS in of itself is not what is evil, the evil is the scammers that exist. I believe your idea of a rating system for KS would the best way to handle this, however, a rating system on BoW would need to cover all the game related games weekly and there would need to be enough visibility such that a majority of backers would know to go to rate the pledges. The issue with all rating systems is how do you filter out the people who are giving a bad rating just because they did not like game or are butt hurt about some comment or OMG! that mini they showed too much skin! There must be a way to make sure someone is an actual backer and not someone just wanting to downvote or upvote for no reason. KS will NEVER allow you to link to their systems because it is bad PR to highlight the bad pledges. Pesky humans are part of the issue and I have no solution for changing behavior.
let me do my best to square this where I can 🙂
FLGS I’m talking generally here (not about each individual and their circumstances) I’m saying as an industry and community as a whole we know that buying direct was going to sacrifice the FLGS (and again I’m talking about the general flgs as a concept not any specific ones) – the difficulty here is if I start caveating I will spend most of the show doing it so I kind of have to take my chances that the point gets across 🙂
And your right a out the positive funding effect of KS and my point is not that KS is bad but rather we need a system to minimise the risk for backers, so if you think you are big and successful enough to run multiple projects, well you should have some type of insurance policy to cover the risk of it. If your small then running one at a time is probably the best option for you anyway 🙂
Didn’t Justin get the hat memo….?
lol
“Snack a normie” *munch* *munch* *munch*
@warzan may be a bit more careful for his wishes… I just mailed the Saga guys… I’ve got internet and I’m not afraid to use it!!!11
I hope you used your best french @sundancer 😉
Actually I tried not to be rude and just asked in English 😉
Oh… also… I couldn’t resist: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL7x-bssjned7FJgh_6LLoA
@warzan I’ve stopped using Kickstarter after watching two friends back a project over two years ago and are still waiting for over half their pledge. I also think if a company takes money for a project that they need to deliver. The problem is many of these companies that operate on KS are new and inexperienced in business, without the real knowledge to deliver. Most are working with companies in China, and I suspect without real knowledge of how the Chinese market works, and generally without a Chinese translator in house. This will become problematic on a project.
The other issue is that many companies are using it as a pre-order system, and then using the next project to full fill the previous project if it goes over budget.
I use to back projects on KS but most I backed didn’t full fill on time apart from smaller companies such as Empress Miniatures who were excellent and full filled their project on time.
The problem is that KS projects are now starting to give the industry a bad name.
I stand by my words from last time… @dignity not killing @warzan and @lloyd right there and then… Kudos man… Many kudos.
This is for you
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNqRS1gSJFMNPVwye1gyI_g
The KS situation is a complicated state of affairs, if I was to try and boil it down to one final aspect it would be “do we want the service it provides and at what cost?”
I think most people that have backed more than one kickstarter should by the law of averages been satisfied at least once on what they have received. The model that KS operates is all about risk, it is the raison d’etra of crowdfunding, and when investing everybody should bear that in mind; does the site make that clear, I’m not so sure it does? This is, I believe, the source of the frustration for a lot of investors (for that is what we are). There will be times when for non-nefarious reasons a project will fail, it will be wholly bad luck but the money will be lost. We in the Dragons Den will be the ones to bear the brunt. Will we be annoyed? Yes. Should we be angry? Probably still yes. Should we rant and rave at the person/company responsible? That is your right (within reason) and human nature. But do we have to shoulder some of the responsibility as an investor? Again the answer is yes, it was the downside that we implicitly accepted when we pledged.
So would insurance work? Successful projects fall broadly into two categories (again gross over-simplification) the small start-up trying to get enough to make it worth their while or get the ball moving (KD:M in the early days) or the larger company without the “readies” to be able to tick over GW style and self fund and using KS to tick over (Mantic for example). Which one can afford to lose a greater cut of raised funds in insurance premiums? The obvious answer is Mantic (in my example) but I am reasonably certain that their margins are tight and it would cause an immediate visual impact on what they would be capable of delivering on each drive should they lose more to non-project committed funds. Who would pay? KS already take their 10%, I’m sure that they wouldn’t put their hands up and lose revenue, they don’t need to after all. So it would be the investors paying an extra 15 % say (10 for KS and 5 for insurance) before they even invest in the material being delivered by the project.
So what? KS is based on risk as I said. If we force insurance on it then the model as we see it will disappear and the big guns will remain making lesser quality products. But with less risk. I’m pretty certain that the crowdfunding model would change drastically at that point. I think the answer lies in education and warnings. I believe there is scope for a tracker system monitoring who fails regularly and who has proven trustworthy on delivery. But I also think that the crowdfunding platforms should be making greater efforts to warn on the dangers. This should be backed up by legislation (like the gambling companies were forced to do with regards to placing warnings on their adverts) with the result being that when you logon to the site you accept the risks involved in crowdfunding and when you make your pledge you again have to accept that your money is at risk.
At the end of the day we either want to see some great games made using this funding process or we stifle the creativity and generate more rich insurers.
@warzan glad watched all of you hobby on St.Naziare before I got carried away on how you modelled the Motor Launchs , for your plan you really only need top down plans of Fairmile B’s the ML’s and C’s MGB’s (think Heroic and Ross do the former in 1/300th ) I even was going to suggest you use Warlord’s Fairmile D’s particularly as you could easily say it was cinematic as they were used in the movie ‘The Gift Horse’ which changed the ships names but was S.Naziare.
I’d wondered how you planned to do it, but you came up with a ‘Cunning plan’ and effectively scuppered above.
Brillent idea by the way.
Are you planning do some 3d on your map idea?
Suggestion for the Naval pre bit, have you thought of almost role playing the approach sort like U-boot with one of you
playing Campbleton and the others the ML groups leaders.
a variation of Reichbuster noise cards could be used at critical points.
Those are some great ideas @bobcockayne 🙂
I like the idea of some additional layers to the pre game 🙂
@warzan This youtube vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXusKM5uX0s
Is a great narrative of the Camble town raid. @oriskany might get a kick out of it too.
Thanks for this @davebpg this is one of may favorite shows mate, and what led me to my interest in the whole story in the first place 🙂
Excellent Viewing! 🙂
Yup one of the best things he’s done, the 1st on the Para’s at Arnhem is good as well.
I was thinking of this when I originally posted, you could almost use some of the film clips for the run as build up for the game.
I don’t think this is a problem that Kickstarter can solve nor do I think they would (or should) try. They’re in a very strong position in a very competive market and any action to try and regulate their platform would likely see them give up a share of that market. Without wanting to get into the politics behind it, look at the stink over on Patreon when they banned an account. People started leaving in droves, several very high profile accounts closed and many unrelated channels reported significant drops in income. That particular market was not competive at all, Patreon had a virtual monopoly and yet somehow people found, I think, at least 2 other alternative funding platforms – places I had never even heard of. Kickstarter won’t want to be the next Patreon, not least because I reckon everyone here could name two or three alternatives in their sleep. If you want to see kickstarters regulated then actually what you really need is crowd funding in general to be regulated and that requires government oversight.
However I do think we’re also missing a vital component of this discussion – us. We have a responsibility to back responsibly too. It’s very easy to get sucked into the fever surrounding kickstarters with the promises of untold rewards for such a massive discount over the retail price. But how many of us actually do our homework before backing so we can make an informed decision? I can’t speak for everyone else but I have a list of companies now that I have a high level of trust in – that trust has been built up over a period of time by backing their projects , assessing how they operate during the project and of course judging the quality of their outputs. When a new company comes along I check them out before backing to see whether they’re a new company, how much are they asking, what are they proposing etc etc. From this I decide how much, if anything, I am prepared to risk. I would say that this has paid dividends for me because since 2013 I have backed 49 projects and so far, only two of them have failed in so far as I suspect I have lost my investment (there’s been a couple of other close calls and several with significant delays). One of those projects is the ND Starfinder, however I knew they were a risky prospect and my investment in that project is very small ($45 including shipping). Without wanting to sound like I am blaming the victims, when it comes to mismanaged projects (as opposed to outright scammers) I think companies are encouraged to bite off more than they chew by our behaviours as backers and as a result companies overstretch themselves. I think we have to look at least partly to ourselves and look at whether we, as backers, have played any part in driving some of the behaviours that are leading companies to ruin and honestly I think we have (and yes, mia culpa)
Was watching this again this morning as I’ve been ill recently so didn’t watch it all in one go and didnt really absorb most of it and as I’ve been banned from going to work until I get better and I had nothing better to do
I’ve never backed a KS so have no opinion on any of that . I did note Warren mentioning Iron Maiden and Women in Uniform. I hadn’t realised they had done a cover of the old Skyhooks song.
Thats abut it from me for XLBS this week
lol
Hope you get well soon mate
Thanks
I have my NHS approved Leper bell, I should be fine
Okay, people are pinging me in both public and private on St. Nazaire, so here goes … 😀 😀 😀
First off, it sounds like this project is coming along great. 😀 In regards to @angelicdespot ‘s idea that the charges will explode, just no one knows when … Yes, of course @elessar2590 is totally correct in that HMS Campbeltown’s charges went off very late, and in fact the commandos were beginning to despair that they would go off at all … they actually went off well after the fighting ended (after they were mostly captured), and so would have gone off “after the game ended” from a tabletop perspective.
I don’t know if I would have the explosion be automatic, because it wasn’t automatic historically. The charges were set so far forward in the ship that the crash may be disabled the actual fuses, which is ALMOST what actually happened.
When I was working on the project back in 2017, the issue I kept running up against was how to keep the outcome of the game from turning into one or two random die rolls. Does the Campbeltown hit, and does the bomb explode? Yes = nothing the Germans do really matter, the raid is considered a British success. No = nothing the British do really matter, the raid is considered a failure.
This is why I was actually a little interested to hear @warzan might be developing this as a cooperative game, with the Germans run by some kind of AI mechanic. You may be on the right track there, my friend. 😀
But this still leaves us with the problem of an all-or-nothing outcome, largely determined by whether that ship hits the dock and whether the bomb goes off, things that should be OUTSIDE the players’ control.
For what my opinion or advice as a historian and game designer may still be worth:
Let history by your guide.
The point of the mission was disabling the Normandie dock so KMS Tirpitz could not operate in the North Atlantic. Great. But that’s a lot more than just those gates, the Normandie dock is only part of a large infrastructure system. The water pump house, the admin centers, the defensive installations, the winching stations, etc. etc. etc. JUST blowing up the gates would be largely meaningless if these other facilities were left intact, as German repairs could have been relatively easy to carry out.
Historically, they knew this, which is why there were commandos on the raid at all. Otherwise why not just crash the destroyer into the dock, blow it up, and call it a day? Why even have commandos to hit all those other targets?
So maybe give the British 50 points for Campbeltown HITTING the dock gates, 50 more IF the bomb goes off. Then 10 for each of the two winch houses, 10 for maybe four flak towers, 10 for the police station, 10 for maybe three bunkers, 10 for the primary pump house, 10 for the backup pumphouse, then 10 for maybe two bridges that could lead to an escape for some of the commandos?
Then require that the British score at least 120 points.
This way the Campbeltown could FAIL to hit the dock, fail to explode, and the British COULD still win IF they get nearly a clean sweep of everything else. Or the Campbeltown could hit and not explode, giving the British 50 points, representing that those docks are still heavily damaged (the Germans would have to cut the Campbeltown apart, tow it clear, and then fix those docks, an engineering project that would have taken months if not years). Or the Campbeltown could miss the dock but still explode (again, 50 points for partial award), the sheer blast causing partial damage to the gates and the surrounding infrastructure.
Also note that a Campbeltown hit and detonation alone DOES NOT give the British victory.
The point is, the game IS NO LONGER SCRIPTED, the outcome no longer ON THE RAILS and the British (or even the Germans) have MULTIPLE ways to win or lose. This is where player agency comes from, crucial to any game to avoid becoming boring or pointless.
Interesting alternate narratives can also be produced by this model. Okay, say the Cambelltown missed and didn’t blow up, but most of the other objectives were cleared. The points thus indicate a British success, even if that Nomandie dock is untouched. How? Maybe those four flak towers down mean that the RAF can now come in and bomb the dock. Maybe those bridges cleared mean enough commandos escaped to hook up with the French Resistance and the dock is eventually blown up that way. Maybe enough harbour defences are knocked down to where British cruisers or even a battleship like HMS Warspite (20-mile range on those guns) can now shell the dock.
Who knows? Postulating alternate outcomes to historical situations is literally the point of historical wargaming.
I was going to take a swing at this via Valor and Victory (I’m borderline obsessive compulsive about FINISHING projects I start, even back in 2017), but with jamjarst’s project and this one ongoing, I’m going to back off. Other Sitrep-based projects for V&V are demanding my time (Lebanon 1982), and I don’t want to “crowd the space” or take away from anyone’s fun.
So that’s my input, again, on St. Nazaire. I’ll be following the multiple projects on this subject with hopeful and positive interest!
Just catching up on the comments now. I hadn’t really put a lot of thought into this one; it just seemed that if you had already decided to make the explosion automatic that there was an easy way to add something unknown.
Still, @oriskany your varied victory conditions sound amazing! And also like they would like to more replayability. I imagine this won’t be a game you want to play every week for a year, but if you put a lot of effort into creating it, you’re going to want to play it a few times, so it would be good if each time you play it, it can have a different outcome.
Thanks very much for the reply, @angelicdespot . 😀
A couple years ago I ran through every scenario printed in Avalon Hill’s The Arab Israeli Wars a few times, recording all the scores and all the victory conditions and all the results. Took a while. 😀 But accumulating all that data in an Excel sheet allowed me to test all the results against different points models, adjusting the scenarios for certain “rules levels” in the game (Basic, Standard, Advanced) and …
You know what, that’s all tedious stuff. The point is it really made me a fan of point-based victory conditions. By adjusting how many points either side get for accomplishing even the smallest goals, I found I could not only balance the scenarios (my original intent, I love TAIW but the scenarios were not terribly balanced) but also change the mission of either side and thus what their objectives were. The idea was, as you say, to give both sides multiple ways to win. Which, I agree, might also lead to enhanced replayability.
Not 100% sure how that would work in a cooperative game with only one side getting points, so to speak. Only because I haven’t tried it personally.
I would suggest taking away from the British score for losses (-1 for each commando fireteam knocked out, -5 for each motor launch, etc). But of course St. Nazaire was nearly a total loss for the British from a material perspective. Almost all those boats were sunk, almost all those commandos wound up killed or prisoners of war, i.e., “casualties.” So that might not be a fair penalty to assess against them, leaving us with the points-objective-target score model suggested above.
Thanks again for the reply and kind words! 😀
@warzan you are one of the biggest reasons I love Beasts of War. I am still listening to this (I am at the 1:45:00 mark), but damn dude…. you are a solid person, I totally get where you come from. Thank you for staying who you are through the years, through all the crap you have had to put up with from GW and others, yet you kept your faith and your great attitude. Thanks to all the BoW gang for generally being good eggs 😉
Been a member since 2010 and a backstager since 2012 and hoping to see you guys be this solid for another 10-20 years 😉
@lloyd if you are considering York drop me a message – Jorvik I don’t feel is that great, but as well as vikings there is also the national rail museum…
Companies over reaching is I believe still one of the main reasons they fail. I think that kickstarter allows these companies does mask the problem for longer, but also it means that when companies do fail it is hurting people sooner as the public have punted cash up front. It also allows more people to be affected as the buy in is that much earlier in the process.
Blimey I’ve never seen or f***ing heard @dignity so stressed. I totally agree with him about spiders though, far too many legs.
KickStarter is the poor mans Venture Capital
Sometimes you back an Apple
Sometimes you back an Solyndra
Its all just risk/reward.
I’ve backed a lot of kickstarters and I’ve had a few go belly up, but not many, in terms of money in vs value out I’m way ahead. But ninja division definitely has me feeling pretty infuriated. Both at the principals and myself, I’m pretty stringent in performing due diligence but I have a huge soft spot for super dungeon explore. I fell out of the hobby ages back not really because I wanted to and SDE is what got me back in. Between that and receiving my rail raiders pledge I went against my better judgement. C’est la vie I suppose, I really feel bad for the artists involved whose work is very likely up in smoke and I think these things not seeing the light of day is really unfortunate. Still I agree with Warren that the head honchos are unlikely to have a place in this industry much longer, I mean let’s face one of them did an interview with Dawn(I think?) last year and pretty much lied right to her with a big old grin that things were getting back on track and by the way check out this GW license we have now. I get that you need to put forward a positive face often in business but it’s a pretty galling watch in retrospect. It’s one thing to be able to pull that off behind a keyboard but face to face is a whole other level of dishonest.
Now for some positivity, and why I stay with KS, are the many cool things I don’t think I’d have been able to get my hands on otherwise and those items that may never have been able to exist any other way. Oathsworn with burrows and badgers/heroines in sensible shoes is one of the most standup companies I’ve dealt with plus their stuff is just fun (also heavy, being metal and all). Scale75 I wouldn’t have run across otherwise. Mantic and Reaper as well as the “tiny epic *” games are other standouts amongst many more I can’t recall as I nod off. Plus you can find some fun geeky stuff outside of games: pins, plush, comics, tools and on and on. Here’s hoping the whole bunch doesn’t get spoiled, that’d be pretty disappointing too.
I’m an Idahoan who had a couple hundred dollars sunk into super dungeon legends. No one has received on this kickstarter. the delivered the previous sde kickstarter.
I appreciate you bringing up this hard topic since I know that John Cadice has been in the studio. Its amazing how they blew through money. A year after the game was supposed to deliver, they hired a game developer from wyrd. They completely overhauled the rules a year later! They then had no money to produce a fart, but apparently had enough money to pay GW for a game no one wanted.
Ninja’s (former) office was down the street from where I grew up and no one wanted them to succeed more than me. But like you @warzan, Ive been utterly disappointed.
yeah ‘dissapointed’ really sums it up.
waste of talent
waste of goodwill
🙁
Just had an interesting thought about insurance. If Kickstarter mandated insurance (assuming that there was an underwriter prepared to underwrite the risk, which is unlikely) this would be a cost passed on to the backers. If we say arbitrarily that all pledges increase something like 10% in Cost, would you be more out of pocket paying insurance than accepting the occasional failure of a project?
@onlyonepinman if the insurance scheme (whoever underwrote it) worked properly, most people would be out of pocket for more than they are now (because most people don’t lose money on Kickstarters), but anyone who ended up backing a failed kickstarter would be a lot less out of pocket than if they’d not had insurance.
If the market mechanisms worked properly everyone would pay a relatively small amount – assuming that is that most Kickstarters deliver. If the insurance premiums were high it would either be a sign that the market was not functioning properly or that a higher proportion of Kickstarters fail than most of us understand to be the case.
Nobody would underwrite it, it was hypothetical. Someone like me, who has backed 49 Kickstarters, only 2 of which have failed, would be significantly out of pocket
It’s not likely that anyone would want to underwrite it, though not impossible. Kickstarter could choose to do it themselves, and insure themselves against unexectedly large losses. That would be easier for a conventional underwriter to understand and to price.
I agree it’s not likely that either of these things will happen, but I it could happen.
I don’t know that the cost would have to be anything like 10% of the cost. It could be that it only applied to projects that accepted funding above say $50, an amount that anyone ‘could afford to lose’. (I know that no one should be investing anything in KS that they can’t ‘afford to lose’, but I think most people would feel less annoyed about having to write off the cost of a failed KS for a book than for an entire army of miniatures.)
Anyway, the cost would depend upon the proportion of kickstarters that fail and the amount of money lost. Any insurance scheme would have to pass on a cost to backers. The way any insurance scheme works is that most people would be more out of pocket than they’d have been had they not taken out insurance. But that’s the point. Everyone pays a bit into a pot so that when failures happen, no one needs be devastated by the losses.
I don’t think anyone would expect that an insurance scheme for KS (whoever were to hypothetically underwrite it) would not involve some kind of cost being passed on to backers. Whether it’s likely to happen or not (I think not) is another question.
I have a hard time forgiving prodos, I recently attempted to recontact them as they were advertising in my facebook feed, and in the messenger app, so after a couple of responses and me explaining the situation it seems that they’ve gone back to ignoring me, I’ve yet to receive anything from this Kickstarter, and sadly this was the first thing I ever backed. I shall go and read the article on ninja division, I was a backer on the forgotten king a Kickstarter that did fulfill, back before they became soda pop/ninja division hybrid I think? It would be interesting though if you could do a video that explained the whole situation, because I was a little lost off when you first started the discussion, the statements you read seemed like they needed a fair bit of prior knowledge, maybe you could do an OTT exposé?
EDIT: – may be a false alarm 🙂 Just received a KS email that the project is involved in an IP dispute, so is being hidden until resolved. From all accounts it was a bit of a scam from the start, though.
Something I’ve just seen on Kickstarter for the first time – a funded project, not delivered, being hidden from public view at the creator’s request. Aug 2017, Beton Games came back to KS with a retry of a previous failed campaign – A Dog’s Life. I believe they ran a campaign simultaneously on Indiegogo. Low buy-in, simple game I was going to get for the kids. Delays, delays, reports that designers and artists were never paid, etc.
I’ve basically given up on this one, but a notice popped up when I logged into KS this morning to say it would be hidden from public view at the creator’s request. If this is (or always has been) an option for creators, it would make it easy to cover up past failures. How can you track past performance if KS allows them to hide issues?
It’s an unfortunate turn of events with Ninja Division. I backed Way of the Fighter for the Super Dungeon cross overs, and late pledged on Legends for a friend. They seemed to be going okay for a bit with regular updates, most of them fluff for the Explorer’s Guide, a book in the SD Legends box.
On a side note, Ninja Division broke radio silence yesterday with a hefty update on all of their open projects.
Liking the idea of……..Pass It Forward, i have signed up as i do need to thin out my collection a bit (only a bit mind). I take it it
s not just minis we can pass on, are books allowed.Hobby Time, for me is very sparse. If i
m luck i can get to do a squad of marines, or a vehicle or a character.......Depending on whats required for my force. Last September i did 15 Drop Force Imperator minis for kill team, made not painted and thats as far as i got with them. Im hoping to get them painted this year and get a few games in.Kick starters: To date i have backed 18 and only had one taken a nose dive, can
t remember why it failed, but im sure itll come to me when im heading to bed in the morning (on nights this week). I remember what it was and at the time i was not happy, but if i had let it sway me i would not of backed anymore and would of missed out on some wonderful games and books and one card game. So of the eighteen i have backed, the first failed…..i have received Eleven and of the other Six there due over the rest of this year. The last being Reich Busters, which i cant wait to get my hands on in November. So all in all, not letting the first one get to me its been happy times every since. The one thing i think we all have to remember is this and not just with KS, when we part with our hard earned we are all taking a risk. So no matter what your buying, your taking it on faith that`s what your getting and life has a nasty habit of slapping you in the face followed by the old middle digit extended.I know it is intended as a bit of fun, but the teasing of Justin has, in my opinion, gone a bit too far in recent weeks.
Since the “3D movement trays” episode it feels more like bullying and generally makes me feel uncomfortable.
It doesn’t feel it is neccesary and personally I think detracts, it makes for some quite uncomfortable viewing.
Otherwise an enjoyable episode and the debate on kick starter was very interesting.
I think there have been a number of big fails recently and think kick starter has lost its shine.
I personally have backed a few, but have been put off in recent years.
The lack of communication is the biggest turn off, I have two I am awaiting on, both are very late, this I do not mind. What I mind is the absolute lack of engagement from the companies in question. One of which has not even logged in to the kick starter platform since early December and the other one that releases an update saying how they are going to improve communication and then don’t post an update for 2 months.
I expect Kickstarter to be late, but the radio silence gives me no confidence. I’d prefer they were upfront and state the project has failed, I can put it down to betting on the wrong horse and get on with my life.
Kickstarter is very divisive in terms of what is portrayed by the creator and what the receivers feel entitled to.
Personally it all comes down to communications, but I agree that KS should be able to publish statistics, as in my KS account page it lists and I can update what projects I have received.
I have had one failed KS after funding, this was a guy trying to produce some lovely resin terrain, but he “said” that he caught his hand in a lawnmower, he posted up photos, and did keep in touch about surgery and unfortunately how the delays in the recovery meant to throwing away the resin he had bought and having to redo moulds, and at the end stating he had not got enough mobility back to satisfactorily finish his dream. NOW, I had no issue with this, shit happens, but he was forced off KS due to peoples vehement feedback and abuse, so even if he wanted to give updates he was forced away due to the community reaction. I have no reason to believe the injury was made up and he just took my money. This was one of those things that happens – now on the plus side, he was a one guy operation, was very clear about what the KS was funding to do and kept up communications, but again I would like to say I did not receive the KS, so if he reappears I get notified and check him out, or have some idea if the person is trustworthy (like ebay ratings).
Another KS that is failing is for some terrain, but again the two guy team have been posting updates on factory issues, machine issues, health issues. It is delayed a few years, but they have my respect still as they communicate and show that they are trying to deliver. If in the end they cancel the KS and state that they cannot fund the rest themselves due to all the delays and issues, then I will feel bad I have not got my product, but I will not be soured against them, as they are two guys, first time project, and I do not think it is feasible to expect someone wanting to do a passion project to be able to forsee the known unknowns!
A KS that has disappointed me is 4grounds fabled realms, and has actually soured me a bit towards the company (being rectified I hope by a recent email). I think these guys have failed on communications, I was a late backer so cannot see KS updates, so I am relying on other communications, which have only been getting updated once every 6 months or so. This could be fine normally, yet Ben and Cad show up on BoW and show off new projects, claim all backers have received a Dwarf and Goblins, when there a loads of us that have had neither and also no response on the FB page or to private emails. This quite rightly makes me think they do not care, they KS got my money and walked away. Now I know that the 4ground guys are good guys, so it must be a lack of staff, a lack of time to give back to a KS when they turn heads to new things, BUT! it is that interaction with the community that keeps faith or not. So even these guys I think have failed to use KS properly – now in recent days we have had emails asking for details on missing bits from the KS, so they are aware and sorting it out – but it should not have come to this.
As for Ninja – I was going to back Relic Knights 2.0, but again I was able to check news articles and googles them and because of such a poor record was easy to find bad press about them, so I steered clear. But like you pointed out, I had to do all that myself, whereas KS should provide that public information on KS delivery. The ND tale is bad as they clearly were trying to fund themselves with KS to deliver the older KS. They might have had unforeseen issues in costs for a KS and that caused the company issues, BUT they should then have cancelled, filed for bankruptcy as we would not have been issues a refund as they have no money.
The main issue for me is that KS has grown so much, and bigger companies coming on board do push away smaller folk. BUT it also means that even a smaller person led KS needs a more polished KS page, people are expecting rules, renders, stuff already completed before the KS even starts and I think this is where it splits into two:
1) KS to fund the production of a game – this should be really a preorder and the receiver really feels that you are paying for a ready product and just paying to ensure the company would go ahead and press the publish button – these are still at risk from issues in production, but the risk is perceived as less – I would say that when these type fail, that is when you see the huge backlash, as you feel it was a preorder that was ready to go. This is what is shameful.
2) KS is to develop a product – this is more forgiving in my eyes, as you are helping fund an idea, and as a backer should be accepting that ideas can fail for a lot more reasons, so you still are angry BUT as long as the communication is there from the creator then for me personally, I can forgive KS failures on this type.
I would prefer to use a FLGS, but really all the games that I have backed would be too big for retail to stock them and make money, so there is a space for KS alongside FLGS.
Mark.
I have 2 Kickstarters I’m still waiting to deliver. Both of them computer games. The oldest is Star Citizen. When I backed it, my PC would be able to run it. Now, 4 and a half years after it’s original release date, my PC has no chance to run it. Sure, they give us regular updates but I would have liked to have gotten what I backed instead of this feature creep nonsense they’re advertising. Crazy thing is, people are still giving them money! Unacceptable in my eyes.
One I backed that took longer than hoped was Dropfleet Commander. But we got a decent enough amount of communication from Dave and even videos about all that was going on, here as he talked with you guys. I feel fer the guy, I really do. In the end though, I got everything I pledged for, for the most part and still think the game was worth the wait. Was glad that TTCombat was able to step in and help. Gives Dave a chance to make his games again, instead of running a Company.
I was intrigued by this topic on the Backstage. After hearing you guys debate the situations of the pros, cons, and experiences, what about your contribution to some of the bigger companies that have been using Kickstarter as a way to make games that you feature often. I got disenchanted with Mantic because of the amount of Kickstarters they get into and the lack of support to local FLGS. So I can’t motivate players into playing or the FLGS to carry their products. Mythic I have adored but they are into three heavy projects and haven’t delivered since selling off Mythic Battle. Will these be some questions that you guys will be asking when these companies are featuring their games with you guys in the future?
There already is an “I received my stuff” button – but as Gerry says I think Kickstarter just don’t care
The kickstarter discussion was a genuine eyeopener for me. I have backed about 30 so far and have about 10 or so still waiting delivery – the oldest almost 2 years old. I have yet to have one get to the point that I consider it failed. I consider my experience to be a very positive one. However this conversation has put me on notice to be more careful and exercise some due diligence. It is obvious in hindsight that I WAS treating KS like a store, and WASN’T really thinking about the risks, and I will in future.
The beauty of KS is that it gets games made that otherwise have little or no hope of being delivered for retail at least at the scale they launch at (such as Conan, Kingdom Death, Joan of Arc), as well as (when well run) allowing backer input and the building of a enthusiastic community around the game. I don’t really buy into the idea of it being a replacement for the FLGS, although I accept it might be taking some money that people might have used to buy retail, a much bigger absorber of wallet is a resurgent Games Workshop. Personally I am buying games on KS and spending money that I would NOT have otherwise spent at all, as the miniature games I choose to buy are simply not available retail (apart from Song of Ice and Fire and Walking Dead). Some of the Board games though I think you may have a point. Although I think the online phenomenon is killing retail across the board (it was Amazon in the library with the lead pipe).
Belated Happy Sunday all, fantastic show as ever.
I think on the Kickstarter thing it is really about whether or not you feel they acted with integrity. I 100% agree with @warzan that it is ok for delivery to fail, in a lot of cases, people tried their best but they failed. I also think the insurance system would be pretty good. It could also be like the Wedding Photography industry or travel industry where there is a certified insurance group, where you can as a Kickstarter you can put some certificate on like “KS Insurance Protected – Your product or your money back guaranteed”. It could even be optional, and it just becomes a consumer marketing thing, you judge the risk as a consumer, do you choose to go with the one that is insured or the one that isn’t?
I do think to be able to see the history of delivery for someone is important as well to help people make those choices as a consumer.
I am very sad that Relic Knights is no more. I never got to play it, and in the end I didn’t back the 2nd Edition KS at the time, because I was focussing my hobby cash elsewhere, and in the end that probably saved me. It is a shame though as I think its a great game from the videos I’ve seen here and elsewhere.