VLOG: Anatomy Of A Kickstarter With Hawk Wargames’ Dave
December 9, 2016 by warzan
We're talking with Dave from Hawk Wargames about the way in which a Kickstarter project comes together and the trials and tribulations of running a fundraiser.
As well as looking at the actual running of it we'll also be discussing what it's like after the fact too when companies look towards delivering on their projects.
Follow along with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on the comments.
Get commenting below!
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well I’m happy for hawk that the game came to live and that the kickstarter is such a success, but I would be a liar if I wouldn’t say I’m very very upset that the BoW bootcamp starts and I don’t even have my pledge yet nor do I have any word when it might be shipped to me. Christmas is coming and I have better things to do, the family is about to arrive and I need to prepare a lot so I don’t have time anyway. Glad our pledges made all this possible!
I wish everyone a ton of fun Bootcamps are awesome! enjoy guys!
Did you watch the video?
honestly, not yet, but I’m watching it now. I have to apologise my first comment is more sarcastic than it was meant to be. For me its amazing what Hawk accomplished with DZC, and Dave’s passion and attention for detail are impressive so its great to see the whole kickstarter was such a success for them.
But the gamer in me is twitching what is not really important in the end, I don’t have much time right now anyway and it will be in my hands sooner or later. So no hard feelings here. 😉
Fair play to Dave for talking about the KS.
I think releasing to retail before pledges were out was the right decision, the game needs retail to thrive. It was a brave decision as Hawk knew that this would cause a lot of grief but they have to look to the future.
I feel for the backers who haven’t got their pledges yet but it’s the nature of the KS beast. I’m yet to back one that hit its target and been on a couple that are 18 months overdue.
Hawk will certainly have learned some valuable lessons and I expect their next kickstarter to benefit from this experience.
Whenever I get upset about a kickstarter I’ve backed I just thank god I’m not one of the poor souls on the AvP or Dust KS.
When Reaper did their first Bones Kickstarter, they had similar space issues. They ended up renting storage trailers and extra warehouse space just to be able to receive the shipments from the factory. Logistics were just a nightmare.
You’d think someone would have learned from that… no?
Good video. I learned a lot about the things I had missed in my assessments
Jesus Christ Hawk Dave. You seem pretty shattered mate. Hardly surprising. I’m pretty damned glad I backed this. Looks like a solid game. My pledge is gonna be used to corrupt my club to Dropfleet! Frankly, you guys did a hell of a job with this Kickstarter and being late by a month or two or three ain’t huge. I know of KSs that are years out with friends expecting nothing from their money. I ain’t there. I’m super happy with what I got (missing a Leonidas but I already emailed about that) and he’ll, I actually wish I’d spent a bit more for the sectors and the launch assets and so on!
Til:dr
You’ve had a bitch of a time but nevertheless, you and your Hawk Team have done a hell of a job. Be proud of that and learn from this trial. More power to ya!
Thanking backers for bringing the game to life, there is the problem. As a backer i helped fund the game and to date i have nothing not a single bloody dice to show for it. Hope all goes well for the bootcamp and hopefully maybe even one day i can enjoy dropfleet as well.
I just got all my stuff so maybe it’s easier for me to say this, but I have supported far too many Kickstarters. Looking back through the stats, 4-6 months late is pretty much the norm. Some have been as much as 12-18 months late and I have even had two that have folded and absconded with my pledge. Only the smaller product campaigns managed to ship roughly on time.
So to me Hawk has done an admirable, if not even a good, job on their first Kickstarter. The product they produced is fantastic and it was shipped well. More than I can say for other Kickstarters. I’m sure they will do things differently if they do another one but I think any small company struggles mightily with a successful Kickstarter and the shear scale of success overwhelms them.
As for product going to market before pledges, well this is a long standing debate, You either agree with it or not. For me Hawk is a business. I do not think shipping product from a packer warehouse caused significant delays on the Kickstarter pledges but only Hawk knows. I don’t see how a few weeks makes any real difference but I know others think strongly otherwise.
Dave keep up the good work.
Hell, my order of Double Six Dice ( which is just 12 sided dice with 1-6 pips printed twice on the dice) was over a year late.
I was never concerned about the delays until retailers started receiving and selling out of stock not once but twice and here I just recieved my shipping notificaturn a few days ago.
Thank you for putting this out. It answers several questions. I just wish you had put this info out earlier. It might have saved a lot of the anger issues form happening. Communication, or lack there of, has been many peoples main point of anger.
Going to retail was a smart business decision. I don’t think anyone can logically argue that. People calling for the delay of the boot camp, which I have been accused of but have never said, I don’t think realize how much work you guys really put into and what kind of good it will do for the game and the community.
Because of the communication problems, and not knowing what is really happening. Seeing people post that they received e-mail answers within hours or a day, and then experiencing not receiving a reply for weeks and see others posting the same. Not knowing that you have only one guy working part time to answer. I personally felt disrespected as a backer. I loved the concept, the art, the models. That’s why I put my money in.
Having more info, I feel a bit better. Emotions being what they are though, it will probably be a while before I can get excited about this again when my stuff does finally get to me.
I do hope everyone has a good time this weekend. Knowing what BoW has done in the past, I am sure everyone there will have a blast.
Thanks again Dave..
Interested to get some of the nuts and bolts behind why KS’ take so long to fulfill. If I could wave a magic wand and change one thing about KS, it would be the expectation that backers get the product first. Not just amongst backers, but amongst the project creators as well. Whilst a situation like AvP has experienced is obviously not desirable, and you don’t want long delays between retail and fulfilment, there are benefits to making sure retail receive the product when its ready. It benefits the company, obviously, who can start generating revenue, but that in turn benefits the company’s customers, which includes the backers, as the company needs that revenue to continue to provide product. It also benefits the backers, who can take their pledge to a club or store, generate some interest, and the product is there to buy. The last thing you want is to get a couple of people interested, who then can’t buy any product and by the time it hits retail they’ve moved onto something else.
thanks for this video Dave, you’ve done a great job through all this.
Thx for the info….
im a lt pledge and havent recieved anything yet. I have emaild.
Im gonna sit back and relax an njoy the vlog of the bootkamp:)
I kind of suspected they were using their ‘standard’ webshop method of shipping for a lot of the pledges. That part definitely felt like something that didn’t scale for the amount of stuff that had to be shipped within a relatively short amount of time.
I definitely appreciate the info.
“We didn’t know how to calculate pallet space for 180 pallets”
“We didn’t know how to pre-print international labels”
“Retailer fulfillment was done magically with no time and no effort”
“We will avoid mentioning how crappy we packed everything and no boxes”
“Non backers at retail stores are more important than backers. They are our lifeblood, not you loyal backers””
Anything else?
Yep you got the gist of it. My jaw dropped when they got to the retail before KS part…
Hi Dave,
What has kept you guys going? Except for will power and a clear goal?
Cheers,
Michel
I think I can answer that 🙂
These guys just have deep love of the world and games they have created around it.
They are not big corporate players, but rather guys who love making toy soldiers 🙂 (or amazing hulking battleships of doom!) 😉
You keep pushing when you love something 🙂
That is all well and good but fact is I am still waiting for stuff that had been out for over a month.
Compared to a lot of KSs, this is nothing. You WILL get your stufff. I have friends who’ve backed a Kickstarters and have NOTHING to show for it!
Delays were not the problem of this KS mate. The problem was the product hit retail long before the majority of backers had it, and it’s still not done. Also we were lied to and/or kept in the dark on the real status of things for several months.
What retail ?
Haven’t seen anything Dropfleet related in any shops I’ve been to.
Heck, if it hadn’t been for this Kickstarter I wouldn’t know where to order this stuff, except from Hawk themselves …
Wayland have got plenty in stock so it seems like it is at retail. Poor communication is a KS cardinal sin, but as should be clear from comment on this thread I think hitting retail before all pledges are fulfilled is not a bad thing.
Contrary to other comments, it’s frustrating as hell to me that I still haven’t gotten a thing yet. It’s not the time, I backed the first run of Kingdom Death: Monsters, so I’m well aware and familiar with hiccups in production of games.
What would have made me happy would have been a simple, “hey, we’ve had some snags, but would you prefer if we shipped the core game and got the add-ons and stretch goals out when we can?” Because right now I can’t help but feel that if I would have played it safe, not risked it on the Kickstarter, and just waited, I’d have a painted fleets and would be learning the game right now.
I get that you need to maintain retail sales, and that the Kickstarter isn’t going to pay the bills, but it’s cost you guys a customer. I very much doubt I’ll get any expansions, and I don’t really expect much customer support with how this has been handled so far.
On the plus side, I’m sure there will already be several FAQs and rule amendments out by the time I do get my stuff, so that’ll save some time learning things.
From the video the delay originally happened because of all the extra work that went into the rule book – the main component of the starter set.
That held the process up to the point it clashed with retail release.
All the additional delay is down to the very tedious process of managing international shipping.
Packing it seems was not much of an issue, so holding back addons etc would have made no difference.
That is my understanding of the conversation. 🙂
So there’s really no reason that they couldn’t have sent a starter to backers if they wanted when they shipped retail orders. 😉
It still stings a bit to get “thanks for making this happen, but we need to make money before we send off your product that you already gave us money for.” Especially when most backers at the same level as you do have product.
Yes the “All the additional delay is down to the very tedious process of managing international shipping.” reason (which has been the main source of delay – would very much have been in play.
Plus you could well bankrupt a small business making them pay shipping (which has increased by 30% since June) multiple times.
Seriously if there had been a way that the guys could have solved this fast that they could have thought of or done at the time, I have no doubt they would have. 🙂
As I mentioned though, the fact that I’m sitting here seeing people post pictures of painted little ships they bought at the local shop, while I wait, is a slap in the face. I don’t care if it comes across as selfish (and I admit it is a little,) it still reeks of kicking the original supporters to the curb in the name of profits. Set backs are set backs, but the way it’s been handled has been mediocre at best. Hell, at this point at least answer my email if you want to seem like you care.
Considering my backer level is just the starter set plus whatever stretch goals, and those are already being shipped to retailers, whatever excuses there are are wearing thin.
It’s not as much in the name of profit – you are misunderstanding that profit is along way off, the decision was made to try and give the game (that you helped create) it’s best chance at success on the long term. (Which I would imagine you would want to see)
And again, it didn’t matter what was in your pledge, the delay had nothing to do with the contents, but rather issues with the process unfortunately 🙁
I do hope it has some long term staying power, it’ll make it easier to sell the stuff if I ever get it.
I understand that it wasn’t done “for the profits,” but it sure feels that way when you don’t get replies to emails, and everyone else has their toys and you dont. Again, the simple fact that I could have played it safe, not risked a thing, and been playing this game a month ago sucks.
It does suck 🙁 for you (and other backers) and for hawk too.
Unfortunately it’s not uncommon on kickstarter… but those seem to be the risks in being one of the special few who help fund the creation of new games…
Anyway, a word of thanks from me personally to you and the others, I’m quite enamoured with what you all have created and hope it has a long future of story and game updates to see what happens in the world.
And I really hope when you do finally get your stuff that perhaps you might consider diving into it and seeing if you can find the enjoyment in there somewhere… 🙂
I really would love to “dive right in” to a spaceship mini game, but I’m in it for the long haul, and with the broken promises and unanswered emails, I can’t in good confidence expect the support for the game.
I’m not in your shoes @fred83 as I have recently received my pledge but I think you’d be doing yourself a favour if you separated a couple of things.
The first is the nature of Kickstarters. You really shouldn’t back one and expect everything to go as planned. You _ought_ to be able to expect good communications, but experience tells us that you can’t even expect this from a large number of them. If you’re not prepared for delays, poor communications and for product hitting shelves before you’ve got it then you shouldn’t back.
Perhaps you’ve not participated in others before, perhaps you got caught up in the hype, I don’t know. What’s done is done, and I do appreciate that you’re upset. It’s natural. But it’s also not going to change anything, and knowing that people in your position were going to be upset didn’t mean Hawk could have done anything differently given what they knew at the time.
The second thing is regarding whether you should stick with the game once you do receive it and the level of support you can expect from Hawk. The decisions Hawk have made about going to retail, supporting the Bootcamp, etc… All point towards continued support for the game for the long haul. Some of the delays (such as with the book) are down to them being committed to making a real quality product.
My experience of being a player of Dropzone Commander – matched by _everyone_ else I’ve known or met through the DZC community, on Facebook, going to tournaments, etc. – is that Hawk do everything they can to support not just the game but the community. You are in safe hands.
So _try_ to separate these two things. Once you receive the game, assemble the ships, give it a go, and try to forgive and forget. If you do I am confident that you won’t regret it.
This wasn’t my first rodeo by a long shot. For example, I backed Kingdom Death: Monsters back in 2013. If you want an example of a game that ended up being backed way more than expected, and had every imaginable hiccup come up in production (they shafted by one plastics company, and the second messed the molds up so bad they had to rebuild them from scratch, plus print issues with the rulebook, and a dock worker strike holding up the containers for months… it goes on.) I didn’t receive my copy of the game until earlier this year.
However, no one received the game until this year. They also had good communication for that entire span of time, and constantly reassured that the backers were priority, since the game wouldn’t have existed without the successful campaign. We knew about the molds, we knew about the strike, all within hours of it happening.
Not only do retail customers, that had no risk, have the game, but a majority of backers already have the game. I have yet to get a simple reply as to what the status of my stuff is. One of the most recent updates said “everything should be out except 140 Commadore level packages.” I am not a Commadore level backer. So as far as I know, my order got tossed in the circular file.
“All the additional delay is down to the very tedious process of managing international shipping.”
Not sure I buy that excuse.
Nov 15th, they claim to be nearly done, “entering the final days”.
Nov 26th, they have 310 pledges left (160 commodore + 150 late/other)
Dec 6th, they have 285 pledges left to ship.
Dec 9th, they have “140 + late backers”, where there are between 1 and 145 late backers.
Between Nov 26th and Dec 6th, that’s 25 pledges shipped in 7 business days. 3.5 pledges/day. So tedious it takes 2+ hours/day per package?
People aren’t so angry about the slow pace. They’re angry that:
1. Multiple waves went to retail, and each time Hawk promised they would have everything shipped before the wave went to retail.
2. Lack of communication, and when they do communicate there are huge inconsistencies, so it ends up looking like they are lying.
If it hadn’t gone to retail, or hadn’t repeatedly made such a promise regarding going to retail, and were more forthcoming about things in the interim, I don’t think they’d have nearly the amount of vitriol coming their way as they currently do.
Exactly. I backed this in the first 48 hours, at a very modest “Commander” level (ie, just the starter set that is already in shops,) and now they’re “getting ready to ship late backer” packages. :-/
C’mon man. It’s fairly obvious this is hard work!
Hawk could have managed expectations much earlier – Mythic Games/Monolith are the best example I can think of in that regard. Constant, open communication is so much better even when you have to say NO to something – as long as you make the reasons clear. It might have reduced the email tide to a trickle.
Dave – I can proofread for you. I’ll see your 50,000 words of narrative and raise you 40-fold and I have managed that in about 4 years in my spare time 🙂
Remember Mythic Games have the benefit of hindsight on their side with a hard-fought kickstarter already under their belt. 🙂
One could argue that Hawk & co could have learned from the post mortems posted by Mantic and others though.
Then again … sometimes the only way to really learn your lessons is to fall and trip yourself.
Because no matter how many times someone tells you that you the stove is hot you won’t grok that until you’ve been burned yourself.
Unless you’ve been through it before or hire a consultant who can guide you through it, I don’t think there’s any preparing you for it. On the Mythic Battles KS the question was often asked as to why it was going to take one year to fulfill if so much work had already been done, and the answer is because it takes a lot longer than you’d think unless you’d been through it already like Monolith has. And until you go through it you can’t identify where the bottlenecks in your business are. One of the Conan bottlenecks was 3D printing, for example, which took three months to do and which they didn’t plan anything like that much time for because they just didn’t have that prior experience of it.
I can say though, this is the first time Hawk have dealt with this.
This level of interest.
This level of engagement! And FAR beyond their expectations!
Thank you Dave for taking time out to talk about this. I am looking forward to receiving my pledge, this video has put some of my concerns to ease
Very interesting video. Top marks for addressing the KS problems at the top of the boot camp.
I am a backer still waiting on my pledge; and in New Zealand. Has Dave got any photos of the warehouse at the beginning of the packing process. Have a great weekend all .
Thanks for the clarification Dave. It confirmed some of my suspicions, and added more to my understanding of the complications that Hawk faced.
Will be watching the Boot Camp with interest.
As an aside – my pledge arrived over a week ago, but have not had time to unpack & check it – though it seems to be in good shape.
Thanks Dave and Warren for this video. I am a Commodore pledger from Australia do I don’t have my pledge yet. While it is frustrating I go into every KS assuming this may happen. Most importantly I have played the game with one of my mates who was in a smaller pledge … and I bloody loved it. It is a beautiful book, a sweet set of rule mechanics and the miniatures are everything I could have hoped for from Hawk. I am glad you are putting it out to retail and going ahead with the boot camp as it means more players for a game I know will quickly be a favourite for me ….. have fun this weekend. My dream one day is to come to a BOW boot camp so I will enjoy this weekend and dream of plastic ships ….
We’d love to have you over – actually there are a number of amazing members from down there we want to meet, we should get you all on a long cruise over to us 😉 just don’t eat the anzac bikkies on the way over 😉
You could always fly down here warzan… no, wait, take a cruise. The 14 odd hour flight will make you twitch.
I agree pturner, I now assume that will happen with every KS I back. Especially when we live in Australia, it takes so long for pretty much every product to get to us – there are so many steps to get product from A to B, every single step which can get delayed (including the simple possibility of a traffic jam meaning a truck arrives so that it misses the send out time for a transport company).
God forbid something gets lost along the way – containers can and do fall off of container ships, after all.
I’m now currently waiting for the shops down here to get the starter set in.
Mate I will bring you a bucket of ANZAC biscuits if I ever make a boot camp! Of course with your flying issues I asssume an Aussie BOW road trip is out of the question? Imagine a whole country full of ANZAC biscuits….
While I understand the frustration of the people who’ve yet to receive their pledges, and I’d likely feel angrier if my stuff hadn’t shown up, I think a lot of people view Kickstarter as pre-ordering with bonuses, when it’s really small-scale venture capitalism. You’re not guaranteed a return on your investment, and you’re not guaranteed your stuff arrive before a commercial product ships.
That’s harsh, but it’s the truth of the matter. The perception of kickstarter, especially in the gaming community is at odds with the reality, and there’s a huge dose of caveat emptor that should be front and centre, but sadly gets ignored
Venture capatalism implies a return on investment.
Not in the slightest. Venture Capitalism is literally gambling that the product you back will be a success. It’s why in Ireland at least, ads for any investment company or product is legally required to state that the value of your investment may go down as well as up.
And the campaign was “successful,” yet here I am…
The campaign was the fundraising part of venture capitalism, not the delivery part. And you are going to get your return.
Venture Capitalists with a 1 in 10 success ratio are considered to be very successful. They throw lots of money into “dry holes” looking for eventual statistical success that might help them make a profit.
I’m sitting here in southern Maine waiting for my Commodore level pledge and I’m watching all of the Boot Camp fun enviously. But it’s the usual Boot Camp envy because I don’t have any money and I have to study for final exams.
That may be true, but the way the vast majority of kickstarters are presented is also at odds with that angle.
There’s always this push to buy into a higher tier for the ‘extra stuff’ you get.
There’s tons of add-ons to ‘buy’ especially in the gaming kickstarters.
In essence it is a store by all definitions, except the legal one.
It’s a technicality that annoys me to be honest, because as much as I understand the reality it does not match the impressions I get.
If Kickstarter was to be honest about the intent then it wouldn’t have allowed this kind of promotion.
Of course … that would also result in less kickstarters getting funded, because only those of us with money to burn would want to invest without a physical reward.
There is a fundamental difference, and that is the product wouldn’t exist or would not exist in the same form without the funding raised on KS. A store is selling you product which exists. It is, like I say, a fundamental difference. and is exactly what KS exists for.
I know my boss has chatted the Hawk. Wish I’d been there! One of my personal goals is to work in one of the universes I hold so dear!
Thanks for the insight. Still, I am torn between exitement and disappointment. I hope you learned the lesson that with KS communication is key. I would be much more forgiving, if I had known stuff.
But right now, I am where I am, so let’s see how I feel once the big shiny parcel arrives.
Best of luck for the Boot Camp. I wish I could have come.
From my profesional perspective I can say that every single small buisnes make the same mistake when their start growing – lack of logistics manager / consultant / advisor and their getting stuck under the pile of logistics issues. Fortunately in most such situations such companies makes this mistake once. This is not self advertising at all but if Hawk might have something intersting to offer I might be interested in lstening. 😀 Have a nice bootcamp.
Firstly a confessional. I am to a degree a “lapsed” gamer, who in no small part was sucked back into,the hobby by DzC. Some of the more established systems out there seemed over priced, over hyped and over reliant on its existing player base to lap up every new release. Hawk to me seemed to have thought through their product to care for the average gamer.
In built terrain packs, “widgets” to ease transport, time lavished on seemingly unseen parts of the models, all smacked of quality and compassion for their customers.
For a small company, customer care was always a priority and was something that seemed to set them apart from comoetitors. The positive feedback regarding mispacked or faulty product, should be the envy of many in the industry.
Now as a “backer” of DFC that still hasn’t received their pledge, my dreams of introducing people to the Hawk universe, complete with shiny “exclusives” hasn’t quite panned out.
I’m disappointed but, to be fair it’s not dulled my enthusiasm for the game or the company.
I work in the medical profession, where a lack of honesty about mistakes, and how they can be prevented in the future can cost lives.
Standing up,and admiring errors, so others can learn from them, in my eyes, can only be applauded. I can’t imagine how hard it is to sit on video and perform a “post Mortum” of every decision your company has made can be.
For everyone spewing hate here over their delivery, stop and ask yourselves the following.
Do you think this game could have come to fruition without the capital raised by KS?
Do you think other game developmers might benefit from KS?
Do you think Hawk had problems on purpose or were they unforeseen?
Will Daves interview above help the wider gaming community in the planning and implementation of any further KS projects?
Personally I think the Hawk team should be applauded for their creative genius, enthusiasm and most importantly their honesty. If I was at the boot camp I’d be buying them all a well deserved pint and thanking them for their hard work through some difficult times. Without them our hobby would be a much poorer place.
I doubt other kickstarters will learn their lessons based on this.
Why ?
Because learning from the mistakes others make is difficult.
Some lessons are best learned by making the mistake yourself.
I’ll start by saying that I’m not a backer so have no doubt that some will deem my comment void. However, I think it’s great that Dave had the balls to make this vid, many others would not have bothered. I backed The Others by CMON and had to wait while plenty of other folk got games at least a month ahead of me and dealt with it. Could have been worse, could have been no bloody game at all with no way of seeing your money again (cough DUST cough).
I will be buying into Dropfleet knowing that it will be supported by Hawk over the long term, rather than being a cash grab with no long term playability. Happy hunting to all at the boot camp and I’ve no doubt that this is a game with legs…or at least mass drivers. 😉
Thanks for the video. My spaceships have arrived recently and they look great. Even though there is a couple items missing I am gonna wait patiently for them to sort it all out.
Okay, nice video, but Dave, why did you not pack my pledge instead of doing this video? If you had, maybe I’d be been playing Dropfleet this weekend instead of watching some guys play on the internet.
That’d have to be some mighty fast shipping as Dave filmed this video today.
Having spoken to Dave at one of the launch events, I believe he’s been making the best decisions he can given his understanding of the state of affairs at the time. I understand that things can go wrong, and to me the most important thing is that Hawk try to then make things right, even if that does take longer than expected.
If anything, I’m more annoyed by a knock on issue rather than the kickstarter itself: We were told all year that we could buy the limited edition dropships at Warfare Reading, spent money to go, and found and empty desk where Hawk should be. Not a problem I thought to myself, as I understand the problems Hawk were having trying to get the kickstarter completed – making it right in this case should just be a case of letting me buy the dropships direct from them. Instead I received a reply to my email which could be summed up as “Sucks to be you. You should have bought them online back in the summer (back when we were telling you you could buy them at Warfare)”.
Great video. It shows how hard it is to deal with expansion of your business outside of the core work you do. This would make a good case study for a business school. It takes a big man to admit they made mistakes and Hawk Games just did that. They even went on to explain the issues faced and the lessons they learned in the process. For disclosure I didn’t back this project but this is one of the few I have seen that went into the detail they just did as to what their process was and how it all works.
As a small business owner I know many people will not know the issues involved as they don’t see the behind the scenes and the decisions that go into the long term of the business. This is the difference of being the risk taker with all the responsibility and those that accepted the security.
A tough decision to talk about the kickstarter problems and address the issues before the boot camp. i met Dave in person at Salute in 2015 and had him give me a personal tour around the large model of his. what came across was his passion and dedication to the project and i for one came away with a sense that this was his baby and he would bust his balls to make it work whatever the challenge. when you meet him and get talking he is the genuine chap you see speaking and i was pleased as punch he took the time to share it with me.
i missed the kickstarter much to my displeasure funds were low and i had vets bills to pay on a limited income. As an ex serviceman i have seen many types of chap over the years and Dave at first meeting does instill trust and i would give him the time and understanding had i been able to back the project to fulfill it.
I dont think he will see anyone miss out as his attention to detail is amazing you only need a meeting with him once to sense that. its only a personal opinion but its nice to see other backers with money invested giving him a chance with comments here. Lets face it if roles were reversed i think we would all have problems taking on such a task in such a turbulent climate of late.
Dave, what i got in my box was brilliant, but understand where your coming from totally. Cant wait till i get the rest. Understand now why all of it didn’t come in one go.
UCM are all painted, and being played with as well as the Scourge Fleet. Have to say now, I didn’t pain them so they look BRILL. But (Tell a story and swing the lamp shade) my friend sold me his Scourge Dropzone stuff, and then when we played Drop Fleet for the first time (yes unpainted) he said he would paint all of my UCM and Scourge Fleets for this Dropzone back.
So what im saying to you is, the game you’ve put together we’ve played and is bringing lads back into the Drop Zone Commander games, knowing there is more to the game now that Drop Fleet is here.
All the best, and a big THANK YOU shout out, to all them who have helped and are doing there hardest making things right.
Loved the game.
While it is a very nice, and brave, thing to go out live and take your lumps, I’m afraid I cannot “let go the anger” just yet. (I’m not a jedi yet…)
I love the Hawk wargames guys, you make a great game and I am looking forward to Dropfleet in a big way. The problem is, I shouldn’t be looking forward to it. I should have it. And that’s not just the self absorbed, whiny gamer talking here (although I admit to reveling in being the whiny gamer 🙂
The problem is that perception equals reality. All the more for a small company. And unfortunately, my perception is this;
– It was tremendously difficult to pack/ship the backer pledges, yet the delivery to retail was magically done by elves overnight?
– Kickstarters hardly ever ship with retail packaging. Every one I have received (over 20) have always had retail packaging?
– Sending multiple waves to retail before fulfilling the original orders is mind boggling in the extreme. The decision to go retail had to be a gut buster, I get that. But going to retail did delay the KS fulfillment, and in a big way. There is no way to say otherwise honestly. I cannot believe that the retail orders, with full packaging, took no time out of the process, even if the shipping to retail was several orders of magnitude easier.
I do not direct any hate, spite or invective at the Hawk guys, I’m SURE they did their best. But the bad communications and the questionable decisions made along the way make me feel as if they did not care that I sent them $250 to help bring this to life. Once they had my money, I became an afterthought. I became less important than the retailers who will keep the revenue stream going. I feel as if they told me they really didn’t care about my level of interest, as long as the progress chugged on.
All that being said, if I could go buy Dave and all the Hawk staffers (And his Dad!) a beer, I would in a heartbeat. I can’t imagine the hell those guys have been through over all this. I just hope you learn from this and get bigger and better for it.
(Ok, LMAO now. Doorbell just rang… big package from Hawk Wargames. Unless they decided to send me a warm blanket, I think my DropFleet is here…)
So, thanks Warren, Dave and the video crew. Nice to know the details, but again, “I’m not angry, just terribly disappointed” 🙂
Bill Castello.
U.S. Whiner, Grognard, Commodore pledger and podcaster…
Kickstartered miniatures game in late delivery to backers shocker
I like to say thank you for sitting down and telling us how things went. I know I For one was more worried about my Kickstarter than angry about it. I thought I might have fallen through the cracks or I forgot to submit my pledge. I was bummed that I saw the game in retail before I had received it yet, but you made excellent points for doing it. I wish that you told us more up front about it. Now I might of missed the announcement. I hope to see my stuff really soon.
It was a rough wait, but I am very glad I backed.
This was a good video for Dave to do. All in all, this KS has gone quite well. To go from the KS launch to shipping product such as this in 12 months is pretty good. As many know, there are quite a few KS out there that take much longer, and yet others that just never seem to ship anything. It’s amazing they could go from what estimates they had to what they have ended up with. Major expansion of product and with that, the thousands of individual orders to process. Good job really! Thanks!
Amazing series loving it more and more.
Not Series but all these linked videos over the past month or so
It’s a massive shame for many of the KS backers and I hope that everyone gets their pledge soon.
The backers at are instrumental to the success of the game but so is retails sales and I hope everyone gets sorted before Christmas.
This is good to see. I like companies that are this transparent.
Hi
Not a backer of this system but of many others, Dave feels responsible as he is the creator and Director, to quote a cliche we had in the Military “no plan survives Initial contact with the enemy”. I think some need to understand what the aim of a crowd funding project is, to get a new product through full development and manufacturing and into retail, it’s not about where is my box of stuff.
Hawk fit the profile a small company of dedicated and enthusiastic people, just not scaled to deal easily with the product volumes that the ks produced, not a fault just hindsight. To produce, process, pack and ship the volumes Dave is talking about in a year is bloody amazing.
All while trying to keep an existing small business running, with an existing customer pool. Big respect.
I think Warren is right, take Dave for some beers and let him see his creation being enjoyed by the boot campers
I appreciate the video, thank you!
Thanks Warren and Dave for the video.
I respect the hardwork of your team packing stuff. I know that growth is a challenge for any small company (and a danger).
Please answer this: What is your estimation of the number of backesr that were not properly exported?
That’s extremely important for the any one with nothing right now.
Like many, I currently hope that:
* I’m one of 140 last pledges and mine is not just lost,
* The parcel arrives undamaged
I did not sleep much this night because of that. And as much as love Beastofwar and was excited by DFC (helped with several hundreds of pounds and traveled to UK to meet them at Salute 2016), I should probably just ignore the boot camp for the sake my sanity.
Have fun with the bootcamp anyway.
I didn’t get my pledge until November,and it was frustrating,but at the same time I understood that hawk is a very small company and that I would get my pledge eventually.A friend of mine backed too and I remember saying to him that I would rather have delays and the game be as good is it can be,rather than having a game with loads of errors and having to buy a 1.1 rulebook 3 months later.The delays would have been unacceptable from a massive company but I am fully behind hawk..To break it down
First ever kickstarter
A whole game system released at once
4000+ pledges to pack and ship while running a company and supporting Dropzone commander with 8 staff..
I will quite happily back Hawk in their next kickstarter if they do one.
I recieved my pledge recently well after retail and did find that frustrating, but I understand why things have ended up as they are. Ultimately everyone should now have their stuff this month and we can all move on. Hopefully those still waiting will give the game a chance and in time the current disappointment will fade as we can all get on with enjoying the game. Shipping aside I feel it is in the end a successful project.
Ultimately it is up to Hawk to learn from their mistakes and grow from it all. Thanks for coming on camera and facing up to some of that Dave.
As a kickstarter backer that just got my pledge (yes, not last, but definitely on the tail end), I can personally vouch for Dave that he really does care about the integrity of his company and providing the very best service that he can. He’s done right by me twice in the past, so I know they’re doing the best they can. But yeah, I agree that most of the anger is from the promises that kickstarter backers would get their stuff first. Especially since so many of us were buying things out of stores while we waited. It really shows that there’s a really invested, energetic and committed community. Just becareful with that, cause it also means that we’ll be incredibly jaded if we feel wronged. But yeah, I also understand you need the retail support, otherwise the game would die before it started.
For me, I’m just going to ignore the delays and go forward enjoying dropfleet now that I’ve got it. I’d like to see some more scenarios that encourage more straight up fights to be mixed in with the capturing zones, as the only other real space ship games have kinda of died off (other than Star Wars Armada), so I’d like to see Dropfleet fill that niche a bit as well.
Also, you got a pretty awesome dad, Dave. Get your family something nice for Christmas. =D
I think logistics is a Very LARGE Monster that few people have any clue about. As a Truck Driver in America my jaw hit the floor @180 pallets, I move 26-52 in my 53 foot long 8.5 foot wide 10 foot trailers for a living, So yeah a LOT of product, covering the floor space of a larger than average home. So as a Comm. lvl backer I say relax, we are getting our goods and in a semi (semi trucker humor) good time frame……..
Hats off to dave for coming on to BOW and breaking down every stage and every problem that happend after the KS finished , I know plenty of people that are still waiting for things of KS and they have had no word from designers or any thing so again hats of to hawk and Dave for apologies and telling people were they stand with the backers pledges .
Graet video Guys, one question to Dave and the Hawk Guys: how are the Add Ons doing such as Maps and Posters, Ground Assets and Scourge Space station parts?
They’ve done a better job than most kick starters I’ve been a part of but I appreciate the explanation anyways.
over reactions for what the issues actually are.
anybody this angry over a kickstarter is angry about life.
Over reactions? No. But you had to be part of the kickstarter to appreciate the problems. A lot of commentators in this thread were not, and so had obviously no idea of what happened. Delays were not the issue.
if you back a kickstarter to see a game come to life then surly you would understand and support the reasoning behind going to retail. you would certainly want the game you helped create to be successful. outside of this its the usual kickstarter issues. everybody on this site has backed multiple kickstarters and are fully aware of the problems that inevitably arise. I understand what i’m getting into when I back a kickstarter so I don’t take issue with the ups and downs of a project.
no offence and I understand it upsets some people, but its a kickstarter its not a real life problem. I just think folks need to step back and get a little perspective sometimes
just my opinion, it lets me spend less of my life unhappy so it works for me.
Having worked in the warehouse of a Fortune 500 company, I can tell you that if 180 pallets showed up at our doors we would have been overwhelmed too. Given that a standard shipping pallet is 48″ x 40″. The sheer amount of floor-space required to hold such a large amount of stuff prior to it being shelved is 2400 square feet. That’s bigger than my house!
The square footage to allow efficient access to necessary pallets at need would be even larger.
Could all of that have been anticipated or foreseen? Perhaps. If you get overfunded by 400% or 500% then you could conceivably expand your plans and prepare for the extra workload. But if you, say, get overfunded by 1573% then you are flying completely by the seat of your pants.
So, here is my open challenge to everyone who knows exactly how this could’ve been done better. This clearly shows a business opportunity for you. You know how to do this smoothly and without trouble, then run a Kickstarter. Become a fulfillment consultant. Open your new gaming company that can get the product out on time and take over the market. If you can do better, then do so.
tl;dr – I’m a Commodore level backer waiting on my pledge. I think that Hawk is holding up admirably under some extraordinary circumstances. If you are whining, then I’m openly challenging to do better.
Funnily enough most of the stuff that went wrong are what I guessed had happened apart from tne shipping bit. Trouble is everyone forgets how small most gaming companies are . A lot of Ill feeling I think was spurred up on the kickstarter forum by the whitenights who ridiculed people who were genuinely upset . My major worry was not so much That l wasn’t going to get my stuff but how much effect Hawk. I want future products and background. So if you have still time Warren by them apint from me .
That was a really insightful video about the shipping process. I work for a small manufacturer and I’ve seen how things can grind to a halt just by the store room shelves being full.
The international shipping was an eye opener too. As a UK backer I received by pledge very early. It wont be fun if in a couple of years time UK backers receive EU kickstarters at the international speeds and UK projects ship to everyone outside the UK with that much paperwork to do for every shipment.
This was a great insight into what goes south on KS. Thanks Dave.
Dave
I’m not angry nor disappointed for not getting my commodore pledge yet (my wife’s commodore pledge arrived, missing the radar map as far as I can tell). As long as I get it…
You did one hell of a job and I know you’ll deliver.
Regards to you and all the crew!
My main criticism is, does Hawk not know or have no way of gauging how popular and well-received their products and IP are? They should have known based on sales of Dropzone what to expect for Dropfleet. I think we knew here at least a month in advance that the Kickstarter was happening, so they should have had some expectation of the level of support they’d receive. To say they didn’t expect Dropfleet to be so popular seems like false modesty, but then again I’m not British 😛
Also, the Commodore pledge wasn’t added until halfway through the campaign. One should expect backers who want one of everything. The excuse that the campaign was meant to fund just the starter set was invalid the moment they allowed addons.
Also, Kickstarter exclusives are stupid.
I am still waiting but I am cool.
My aim was to support Hawk to make this game happening.
So relax and let’s watch the bootcamp !
I think Hawk learned a valuable lesson in the differences between shipping for distributors and shipping thousands of individual orders. While I wish they had prepared and handled it completely differently I realize hindsight is always 20-20. I will be watching to see how Hawk moves forward and improves it’s shipping process going forward.
I would also like to mention that they should look into ways of crediting the Kickstarter backers, whether that is a store discount or something else. While I understand the need to move product out of the warehouse Hawk should have been forthcoming and honest from the beginning instead of making multiple promises it couldn’t keep.
they didnt learned from Prodos mistakes 😀 good show to watch.
Reactions as I listen to this:
First of all I’m so sick of BoW getting info ahead of the KS. Twisting the dagger.
There’s no explanation that justifies ignoring all communication other than updates, with no one ever replying to a single post on the KS… ever.
If they had 8 people working… that’s almost 5000 man hours to ship 4000 orders… seriously? You’d have to have never done any warehouse work to think that’s even in the stratosphere of believable. I’ve seen much more complex work done by volunteers and we expect at least 8 orders filled per hour per person.
Still no apology… excuses… I’ll keep watching
I hope playing service to bored casual buyers at Christmas retail who will buy some and then move on is worth burning the launch experience for way more than the few hundred commodores that would have played this forever, but are now simply done with Hawk.
I still don’t here an actual apology, just excuses. Yes, I may have the plastic I paid for. But I paid for front row seats opening night because I was an excited fan, and then watched some bored latecomers get my tickets and I was told that I could catch most of the same show, with some missing parts, from the balcony 2 months later (but that I was still I a “priority”). Technically I still get to see the show, but man it is not what I paid for. If a band did that, fans would lash out and ditch them. Yet Hawk sounds so smug and self justified and they did the exact same thing… and knew that it was going to happen but didn’t tell us until we showed up at the theater. For crying out loud, I was going to demo the game on launch day at the local gaming club and instead the launch league in the other store will finish their campaign in a week and I still don’t ever have a ship… and you all seem just fine with that
Hawk, I’m supposed to be assured that you couldn’t do the math for how big a pallet it? I’m supposed to think that its okay? I mean seriously!! And you knew how big the pallets were (if you somehow couldn’t math ahead) in JUNE when they showed up!! But you didn’t figure out that things were going slow for 3 months? You couldn’t figure out that you can ship stuff WITHOUT THE RULES and sent “beta” PDF rules out immediately… and then send printed later? That’s beyond you Hawk?! What on earth? You couldn’t pack pledges without the books. Why not? Most of the books have been damaged, so it can’t be to protect the book and you didn’t give us retail boxes so waiting on those couldn’t have been the reason. Why couldn’t they have been on top?! Why couldn’t you have shipped us the same starter you sent retail at the same time? You had 9 MONTHS to get our shipping labels done and ready. You had 9 months to just call a shipper and run through this with them.
Still no apology… but nice excuses… I’ll watch more
You realize all that stuff you think the retail guys didn’t want to reschedule around was stuff we didn’t get to do? And maybe England is a lot different than the US… but no one would care at all if a FLGS changed a game calendar and said “in 2 months we’ll do DFC instead of now”
And why on earth didn’t you think to look into international shipping during that 9 month gap between the KS close and November… I’ve had shipping labels created and emails sent to me and then waited weeks for the actual “its in the mail” notification. And I know why you didn’t catch this… because you were busy taking care of retail, wave 2 and wave 3 than us. Why didn’t you ever take the 10seconds it would take to tell us this stuff on the KS? All that flight stand stuff… could have been done 9 months prior.
Holidays?! Sure, but why are you telling us… sad excuses again (I’m completely fine with holidays btw). Ah “being positive”. The mantra. Don’t acknowledge fault, avoid answering tough questions. And he wasn’t even going to thank the backers, the much more professional host did that.
So many people have emailed you months ago and got nothing from you. You are ignoring emails. You just are.
Beasts: I’ve gained so much more respect for you guys. Very polished, helping a clearly out of his depth game company owner. Your often just wrong 40k videos where you misread rules and/or didn’t know them turned me off years ago, but you’ve redeemed yourself.
Hawk: I’m so raw right now at the mistreatment here that this game will only keep my interest if WHEN I get it, Andy has rocked it (and it sounds like he has). But serious trust has been lost and your business acumen is in serious question.
And no Dave, you clearly do not understand KS backers, at all. You ignored us for months at your peril and you could have actually talked to us directly on the KS page any time you wanted. But choose not to. I hope you appreciate the damage you’ve done to our communities and how many people would have been long term fans of this game but have simply moved on. This did not happen to you, you did this.