Another small but possibly signifant point to consider is how much money Palladium took in from Retail sales over the last four years. afterall, as you worked out Morgan, they spent an inordinate amount of kickstarter funds on the extra wave one product.
This of course was the gamble to repay and then take profit, but considering they state the money ran out after wave one, where did thiese retail monies go to. They never paid for the product or its import so every set sold was pure $99 profit to them. They were selling wave one items at conventions, presumably they were paid by some wholesalers and FLGS's so it would be interesting to find out the numbers.
Of course these monies were never declared in the pie chart.
I would love to know who the project manager who received $47k was as well, as I am not sure this was a legitimate use of KS funds - noone was added to the payroll at PB so was this just a bit of pocket money for Kevin?
wilycoyote wrote: Another small but possibly signifant point to consider is how much money Palladium took in from Retail sales over the last four years. afterall, as you worked out Morgan, they spent an inordinate amount of kickstarter funds on the extra wave one product.
This of course was the gamble to repay and then take profit, but considering they state the money ran out after wave one, where did thiese retail monies go to. They never paid for the product or its import so every set sold was pure $99 profit to them. They were selling wave one items at conventions, presumably they were paid by some wholesalers and FLGS's so it would be interesting to find out the numbers.
Of course these monies were never declared in the pie chart.
I would love to know who the project manager who received $47k was as well, as I am not sure this was a legitimate use of KS funds - noone was added to the payroll at PB so was this just a bit of pocket money for Kevin?
That's still just an assumption, granted one based on fairly basic math, and a rudimentary understanding of costs involved.
We don't know for a fact that they spent Kickstarter funds on Wave 1 Retail manufacture, or Wave 1 Retail importation, or Wave 1 Retail advertising. All of which would be a misappropriation of funds, and could lead to Kevin being in big trouble from a legal perspective.
But if money was NOT spent on Wave 1 Retail, then the numbers given need a whole lot more clarification. As I said in an earlier post, the manufacturing costs indicate a per box cost to PB of ~$100. And we know that's just not realistic, based on examples from other Kickstarters. It only makes sense if Wave 1 Retail was included in that cost. Same with importation. $70K for 9 containers is on the high, but within the realms of realism. $70K for 3-4 containers would be outlandish.
Which is why, if Kevin didn't do anything wrong, he should have no problem opening the books. He is on record as saying that he's got all that information. And it'd get some people off his back if he can legitimately explain why there's no money left for refunds, and could circumvent any potential class/FTC/Michigan AG actions. The main reason not to, would be that there is either funds left and the numbers on expenses are inflated, or he misappropriated the funds. That's why sales from retail product aren't on the balance sheets we've seen. Cause that'd be tantamount to an admission of guilt of misappropriation.
By the by, if anyone would be interested in purchasing my outstanding credit (over $400 US) worth, I'd be open to sorting something out. Obviously not full price, but since some people are taking advantage of this opportunity, I figured it'd be worth making the offer here on Dakka as well.
A chance to pick up a pile of swag, and for any US based folks, one that's likely far more affordable in terms of shipping than I'd ever get. My friends and I lack any interest in more wave one, and resale will likely be an uphill battle as the firesale rages.
I figure it ought to be about as simple as a quick paypal and including PB on the message chain, with a phone call to spur some action if need be, but I can understand some reluctance.
I am very troubled by the Facebook group for the "litigation".
It appears the more vocal naysayers have completely angered a few key people.
Unfortunately, large groups tend to need to be lead (preferably with a known method and objective), looking for consensus is rather problematic.
My negativity can see this rather implode.
I hope I am wrong.
If you don't mind me asking, what's going on with that group? From the last post here, there was a letter sent to Palladium albeit before the Crisis of Robotreachery (just like fetch and wave 2, it will happen... eventually!) and I figured the announcement would galvanize them further.
It might get clawed back together, but I'm not doing the legwork on me todd any more.
There's a definite brexiteer mentality with some (lawsuit! lawsuit naow!) with little actual checking of the situation or how such a thing can be arranged, let alone paid for. Worse yet, these people seem to want to sabotage the building of pressure through the AG and FTC, which by all appearances is the most valid route forward.
Posted by Nicole Bunge on March 15, 2018 @ 1:02 am CT
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Japanime Games has partnered with Strange Machine Games, Escape Velocity Games and Harmony Gold to release three board games based on the iconic Robotech property.
Japanime will have worldwide distribution rights of the three games: Robotech: Ace Pilot, Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1, and Robotech: Brace for Impact. Each game utilizes different game dynamics and all three are planned for summer release.
Strange Machine Games will produce two games. Robotech: Ace Pilot is a dice game where players vie for the title of Ace Pilot. Players must evaluate the enemy Zentraedi threat each turn, and deploy the best SDF-1 crew members to deal with it, collecting kills as they progress. Upgrades are available along the way, as well as ways to sabotage rival pilots. The game is for 2 – 4 players, ages 8 and up, and plays in 25 minutes. Release is planned for June.
Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1 is a cooperative game where players take the role of one of the characters of the Super Dimension Fortress One and defend the ship against attacks, unexpected disasters, and treachery. Players must manage their resources as they battle enemies, repair damages, and attempt to make it home in one piece. The game is for 1 – 5 players, ages 12 and up, and plays in 120 minutes.
Robotech: Brace for Impact is a real-time overlord style game from Strange Machine Games and Escape Velocity Game. One player takes the role of the Zentraedi, while other players work together to fend off the alien assaults. Players have a hand of cards representing problems which need to be tackled, but they must enlist at least one other crew member to complete them. The timer ticks down between assaults, and players must fix their ship and return fire as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the Zentraedi player will be attacking the fleet with tactics cards from their hand. If players can survive 10 minutes and the final assault they win. The game is for 2 – 10 players, ages 10 and up, and plays in 10 minutes. Release is planned for summer.
Japanime Games was showing off prototypes of two games at the GAMA Trade Show, click the gallery below to view images from the show.
That was a pretty fast turn around since IIRC Palladium basically argued their licence extended to all games.
PS Japanime? Your company is called Japanime? Is this 1986?
n815e wrote: Rick aggravated at least one person on the committee and got himself sent to the time out corner.
As in that Rick? The one that used to post here? I'm as shocked as John. He was a paragon of reasonableness and restraint here. In any case, he insinuated here and on kickstarter comments that he got his money back a long time ago. Why was he even allowed in given that?
The same. To say he's not very good at holding himself in check is a bit of an understatement. Even if he has a point worth looking at in more detail, it's wrapped up in some much bluster it's often easy to miss it. Easier still now I have him blocked on FB.
In 20 years, I expect there to be a documentary on Netflix about a guy digging up 10,000 copies of the game out of the arizona desert.. like the ET atari game.
winterdyne wrote: The same. To say he's not very good at holding himself in check is a bit of an understatement. Even if he has a point worth looking at in more detail, it's wrapped up in some much bluster it's often easy to miss it. Easier still now I have him blocked on FB.
One of his biggest challenges has always been that even when he's in the right, he's so abrasive and obnoxious that you still want to argue with him on principle.
Necros wrote: In 20 years, I expect there to be a documentary on Netflix about a guy digging up 10,000 copies of the game out of the arizona desert.. like the ET atari game.
Make it a Michigan landfill and we're in business.
"Robotech, now a cultural phenomenon, though one that took nearly half a century to be fully embraced by the public at large. With the blockbuster release of the Live Action Movie in 2023, and the box office record setting trilogy that swept up the world's imagination, one might wonder, where did this incredible IP languish for so many years?
Necros wrote: In 20 years, I expect there to be a documentary on Netflix about a guy digging up 10,000 copies of the game out of the arizona desert.. like the ET atari game.
That would require Palladium to be honest and actually destroy copies. My guess is that whatever is left after internet clearance bulk retailers will be sold for pennies on the dollar to relatives/fan friends or Kevin himself as a private individual and stored nearby (possibly even still at Palladium for free because Kevin is soooo generous) to drip drab out for sale slowly for years alongside old star wars and X-Men toys. Just my guess... I don't see them actually destroying large quantities of product that represents the fruit of Palladium's efforts/hubris.
Considering that recent transactions tend to be auditted closely when a company declares Chapter 11, selling stock off at pennies to private individuals associated with the company would be a very, very silly thing to do as it's an example of fraudulent trading that could be used to pierce the corporate veil.
I expect to see a chapter 11 filing from PB in the very near future- if not the end of the month, perhaps some time in April.
Eilif wrote: "Legitimate expenses" means almsot nothing when dealing with these kind of small operations.
Payroll is a legitimate expense and when you're paying yourself...
Agreed.
Due to the excellent job being done it was felt that the commander in chief should have a 30% pay increase that was long overdue for doing such a fantastic job.
Spoiler:
An upgrade to the company car would be in order as well.
Maybe a company boat to take clients out to talk business and fish.
A company teamwork retreat in the Caribbean is long overdue.
Some benefits for messages administered to staff to assist in handling their stressful jobs has become a necessity.
So many legitimate needs that must be met, it is a wonder there was enough money to get Wave 1 out.
Yep,
Kind of the way Big NCAA Colleges say "We don't make money on our football team. We just pay our coaches a couple million a year, and have installed a spa in our training center, and just hired 10 more assistant coaches, and... There's no way we could afford to pay our players, or sustain their scholarships if they get injured, or...."
Necros wrote: In 20 years, I expect there to be a documentary on Netflix about a guy digging up 10,000 copies of the game out of the arizona desert.. like the ET atari game.
That would require Palladium to be honest and actually destroy copies. My guess is that whatever is left after internet clearance bulk retailers will be sold for pennies to relatives/fan friends or Kevin himself as a private individual and stored nearby (possibly even still at Palladium for free because Kevin is soooo generous) to drip drab out for sale slowly for years alongside old star wars and X-Men toys. Just my guess... I don't see them actually destroying large quantities of product that represents the fruit of Palladium's efforts/hubris.
Yeah, unless Harmony presses for proof of destruction, my guess is that anything that is left will get sold out the back in-cash to someone who will be hawking them for years at conventions.
That was a pretty fast turn around since IIRC Palladium basically argued their licence extended to all games.
PS Japanime? Your company is called Japanime? Is this 1986?
Palladium's license has already been over for an entire year already, they were given a grace period by HG to wrap things up but meanwhile PB has been lying to people claiming that they were still hard at work and wave 2 was still "in progress" despite knowing full well that it wasn't happening and their license was over. Not that anybody needed more reason to add onto the giant pile of why they are shady as feth.
They admitted to losing it in late February, and people assumed that it might have been figured out in December when Scott went quiet, but I haven't see evidence that it lapsed 12+ months ago.
Yeah, December makes the most sense for a "point of no return" on the license, though someone pointed out that the first we heard of some new boardgames was Sept - so there may have been some quiet rumblings with the IP license as far back as then.
I very much doubt HG would let PB sit on garnering money from a terminated contract for over 6 months though - that transition time is likely a point where money's slow as you transition between licensing companies. At some point you have to rip the bandage off or the terminated company is just bankrolling on "stolen" IP. And we know how BOTH PB and HG are tight-fisted about protecting "their" IP...
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n815e wrote: I think it was around the new year two years ago that they said they renewed it.
Aren't most licensing contracts for 2 - 5 years? Yearly would seem like a drain on resources on both sides...
Kid_Kyoto wrote: That was a pretty fast turn around since IIRC Palladium basically argued their licence extended to all games.
My recollection is that PB only had the RPG rights to Robotech, which is why we got the clunky title "Robotech RPG Tactics" (I'll let those playing at home insert the TM and R symbols).
Kid_Kyoto wrote: That was a pretty fast turn around since IIRC Palladium basically argued their licence extended to all games.
My recollection is that PB only had the RPG rights to Robotech, which is why we got the clunky title "Robotech RPG Tactics" (I'll let those playing at home insert the TM and R symbols).
And we don't know if the license was exclusive.
I claim no special knowledge but my memory is someone was pitching the mini game directly to HG but Palladium claiming their licence included games. Could be wrong though.
When I first approached HG about making minis they said that I'd have to go through PB as it would likely be under their license which was up for renewal on a repeating two year basis. (This was early 2012) then later when I heard back from them they'd locked in the agreement and it now specifically included game pieces & game accessories as part of the Rpg umbrella. They had to be very specifically addressed as such to avoid conflict with the other license holders for model kits hence why they were not referred to as miniatures game in the PB materials and always as rpg "game".
The past license renewals are mentioned In the older PB updates and batches of robotech books were reprinted shortly after each renewal. If the license was on a two year terms then it would have been on it's second renewal in early-mid 2016. I don't know if they picked up another renewal or not but I don't recall it being announced in the murmurs like they previously had. If they did renew for 2016-2018 then it possibly got revoked half way through it's duration but I'm not sure how easily a mid term contract can be broken?
This part is speculation, but If I'm remembering things correctly didn't they started marketing the robotech board game mid 2017? I don't think They wouldn't have been able to do that if somebody else (like PB) had the license active?
Swabby wrote: December makes sense to me because they started dropping RRT from their weekly update, but that is only circumstantial at best.
Didn't Kevin say at some point that they had to have a 2017 release? I can't find it in an update so now checking the weekly spam. Previously we all thought it was the usual hyperbole, but in light of the current information, it could indicate when they knew.
edit: found it. nov 23 2016 weekly update.
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™ – 2017 release
For us, 2017 is a must release deadline for Wave Two. We are still waiting on a few new quotes before we can offer anything concrete. Working on a few new Robotech® books, too. Brand new stuff that would create new factions and fun, as well as plotting organized play. More when details are hammered out.
That update kinda sounds like we have a deadline to meet or things get pulled from us. Being that it's dated from 2016 it'd indicate that they knew the gig was up for pretty much all of 2017 but maybe I'm reading too much into that? Surely Kevin wouldn't try to mislead his faithful...
Swabby wrote: December makes sense to me because they started dropping RRT from their weekly update, but that is only circumstantial at best.
Didn't Kevin say at some point that they had to have a 2017 release? I can't find it in an update so now checking the weekly spam. Previously we all thought it was the usual hyperbole, but in light of the current information, it could indicate when they knew.
edit: found it. nov 23 2016 weekly update.
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™ – 2017 release
For us, 2017 is a must release deadline for Wave Two. We are still waiting on a few new quotes before we can offer anything concrete. Working on a few new Robotech® books, too. Brand new stuff that would create new factions and fun, as well as plotting organized play. More when details are hammered out.
At the time I speculated that it was because HG was pressuring them to release the game or lose the license.
All this does is make the tight timeline they have set for their trade in deal look even worse. I have zero sympathy for whatever insanity is going on in that warehouse right now.
So finally got a response from PB concerning my counter-offer. Looks to be a bog-standard form though. Anyways with regards to me requesting the prototypes instead of wave 2 or wave 1, here is their response:
Unfortunately, no we cannot release these. Robotech® is a licensed property. Palladium does not own the rights to exploit the characters, images and I.P.s of Robotech® in any way.
Not sure how this applies to the prototypes and if they can't sell those, how are they selling the RRT stuff? I guess Wayne or someone will 'gift' these to Kevin in recognition of all the hard work he's put in driving this project into the ground. I'm guessing they expect to sell these for a bit from Kev's ebay store later.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: So uh, it's March 17, shouldn't the liquidation sale have been announced? maybe?
Nope. Not when you take the deadline into account.
They want to make sure they can sucker in every backer they can in the exchange, and lock them down, before they start the fire sale, and have to deal with people screaming that they are having to exchange at a similar if not higher price than the backers are getting.
EDIT : That's not to say there won't be screaming when that inevitably happens, and that's arguably justifiable. But forethought isn't something Kevin is known for, obviously.
Well sent my information to facebook group for the lawsuit.We shell see what come of it. I really like see a full disclosure of the Robotech Tactics RpgKS and where did all money go. The only way will know is when they force it out Kev. The funny thing when the fire sale starts do you sell everything they have? I know when they did 50 % sale back in Dec 2017 , they only had about 100 sale from it.
DEZOAT wrote: Well sent my information to facebook group for the lawsuit.We shell see what come of it. I really like see a full disclosure of the Robotech Tactics RpgKS and where did all money go. The only way will know is when they force it out Kev. The funny thing when the fire sale starts do you sell everything they have? I know when they did 50 % sale back in Dec 2017 , they only had about 100 sale from it.
That's the thing. If there was no misappropriation, and all the money was expended on legitimate sources, and there's no money remaining, that'd arguably be a surefire way to head off any litigation, and would get any potential Michigan AG/FTC challenge.
That they refuse to do so (despite Kevin saying they had documentary evidence proving no misuse) isn't concrete proof, but it makes my bs detector go off the fething rails.
As I've said before, the numbers for production and importation costs don't make sense for the volume of backer rewards, but do make sense for the volume of backer rewards AND the retail contingent. I see this as a misappropriation, as it's gambling with backer funds on an auxillary product with no guarantee of return to fundraise for the completion of Wave 2, but I could see how they could argue against that in a courtroom. However, and this is only speculation, but it's not a hard reach for these donkey caves, if the money from the sales of the retail product went into general revenue, rather than back onto the Kickstarter ledger, that's fraud, plain and simple.
Also, as a side note, after the Wave split was announced, I recall someone from PB saying that Wave 2 shipping would be done at PB's expense (I unfortunately cannot find the source in the mound of bs that is PB's utterances). So as that's essentially what this exchange is, why aren't PB covering that cost? It doesn't matter that the Kickstarter is out of funds. It was never supposed to come from that funding anyway.
Which brings up a financial question, if anyone is familiar with banking practices. Is it within the rules of chargebacks that they can be used for expenses that the company has said they would waive? Would backers be able to make a chargeback on the shipping costs that PB said they would cover (if the documentation is found), or would paying said shipping costs be agreeing to a new set of terms? I know people are having trouble getting chargebacks on a failure to deliver the product, because of the timeframe, but this is a much more recent charge. This would allow international backers to not be as dicked as they currently are.
As to the final point DEZOAT said, I'd definitely be interested to see just how anemic sales of the cores were, when like they said, 100 sales at 50% off was considered a big thing, and they've opened up the sale to the general public, because they feel they can "cover" the backer exchanges regardless of public volume.
The other thing about the money... if Palladium paid full retail ($100) for each box to be made for each backer.. it would only come up to 500k.. about a third of the money..
Not saying there was other things evolved or some backers bought more or less.. but it seems that something is off with the math with all the money gone before
the end of wave one.
Edit.. bad math... i guess Kevin math.. but still you see the point of how much money is spent on the cost of each box at the manufacturing level
winterdyne wrote: Another fun fact; wave 1 rewards sufficient to fulfil rewards were calculated at a shipping volume of 4 containers fairly early on.
9 containers of wave 1 product were shipped from china.
Where'd the cash come to pay for the extra 5?
I covered that a couple pages back.
PB claim they spent ~$220K on importation and backer shipping. PB have stated Wave 1 backer shipping cost ~$150K. Therefore ~$70K was spent on importation from China.
If that $70K was for all 9 containers, that's a fairly high, but in the bounds of realistic importation cost of just under ~$8K per container. If that $70K was for the 4 backer containers, that's just under $18K per container, which is an absurd amount, and PB got royally hosed, and I'd want to see documentation to that before accepting it.
It also means at that rate, PB would have had to spend almost $90K of their own money just on importation of their own retail product. Which... yeah.
That's why I do not accept the numbers PB have provided as legitimate. They're fishier than a giant space tuna.
Genoside07 wrote: The other thing about the money... if Palladium paid full retail ($100) for each box to be made for each backer.. it would only come up to 500k.. about a third of the money.. Not saying there was other things evolved or some backers bought more or less.. but it seems that something is off with the math with all the money gone before the end of wave one.
Yeah, that too. The numbers make a kind of sense if it accounts for the 17,500 core boxes ordered, but not if it only accounts for the 7K for backer rewards (that's the more likely number).
So PB appears to have used backer money to pay for their retail, but haven't accounted for that in their revenue totals. So either they have sold literally nothing, or that money didn't get put back into the Kickstarter.
PB claim that $1,583,451.03 was raised on this project. That includes the $1,442,312 raised on the initial pledge, the ~$120K they claim they raised in the Backerkit (they said it was a little more than the Kickstarter fees, which were according to the piechart, $110K and change), and the $60K they ponied up initially. Which totals $1.62M. So they've already taken $40K out of circulation. That's why I have MASSIVE issues with their costings.
Which brings up yet another fishy number. The pie chart lists 2% for Pledge Manager fees. Which equates to over $30K. I'm sorry, but I have to call bs on that. Even taking into account overheads, the pledge manager taking 25% of the money raised stinks.
Morgan, About the pledge manager fees, yeah, those are probably the only likely honest numbers here.
Backerkit has currently 3 different plans, the "essentials" plan is 2% of the campaign funds + 5% of the backerkit funds with 199$ setup fees, the "professional" plan is 3% of the campaign funds with 199$ setup fees, for the third you have to contact them.
Koltoroc wrote: Morgan, About the pledge manager fees, yeah, those are probably the only likely honest numbers here.
Backerkit has currently 3 different plans, the "essentials" plan is 2% of the campaign funds + 5% of the backerkit funds with 199$ setup fees, the "professional" plan is 3% of the campaign funds with 199$ setup fees, for the third you have to contact them.
I have no idea what the fees were back then, but considering what they are now, 2% is totally possible.
Other than that, yeah, none of the numbers add up to anything resembling sensible.
That just seems ridiculous! Having a fixed fee based on the complexity of service, and a portion of the money raised in the backerkit (as they have to do the processing) is reasonable. But 2% of the Kickstarter take as well? That's just obscene.
If PB's backers had added those funds during the campaign instead of the Pledge Manager, it'd mean PB would have lost money on the Pledge Manager.
I guess that's one of the reasons I'm not rich. Exploitation rackets are not my thing. That if both PB and DreamPod9 used the same pledge manager, PB would have paid $29,000, and DP9 $3,200, for the same service, plus a percentage of sales fees it has to process. At least with Kickstarter, Kickstarter has to host all the failures. But Backerkit by it's very nature, only has to deal with successive Kickstarters. I just don't get it.
Koltoroc wrote: Morgan, About the pledge manager fees, yeah, those are probably the only likely honest numbers here.
Backerkit has currently 3 different plans, the "essentials" plan is 2% of the campaign funds + 5% of the backerkit funds with 199$ setup fees, the "professional" plan is 3% of the campaign funds with 199$ setup fees, for the third you have to contact them.
I have no idea what the fees were back then, but considering what they are now, 2% is totally possible.
Other than that, yeah, none of the numbers add up to anything resembling sensible.
That just seems ridiculous! Having a fixed fee based on the complexity of service, and a portion of the money raised in the backerkit (as they have to do the processing) is reasonable. But 2% of the Kickstarter take as well? That's just obscene.
If PB's backers had added those funds during the campaign instead of the Pledge Manager, it'd mean PB would have lost money on the Pledge Manager.
I guess that's one of the reasons I'm not rich. Exploitation rackets are not my thing. That if both PB and DreamPod9 used the same pledge manager, PB would have paid $29,000, and DP9 $3,200, for the same service, plus a percentage of sales fees it has to process. At least with Kickstarter, Kickstarter has to host all the failures. But Backerkit by it's very nature, only has to deal with successive Kickstarters. I just don't get it.
Likely someone sat down to figure out the costs associated with running the infrastructure and making sure it works and realized it would be in excess of what they would have to pay here, especially as most KS projects are not run by companies with the spare capital to employ an IT department and "entry-level" IT folks are around 40k/year in costs. You could make an argument you wouldn't need them for an entire year, but you also don't want "entry-level" people doing it so the lower-time and higher-skill/experience curves will likely even out to around the same overall cost.
That need for greater expertise is down to the fact pledge managers are *critical* to fulfillment of a project. If the interface is clunky or unclear that's a lot of support hours consumed helping people tell you why they gave you money (and most projects at a large scale are not creator-only, so those support people answering questions will need to be paid). Improper management can also cause enormous problems, as I suspect Hawk Wargames and Mantic both were bitten by database errors at different points where a fraction of pledges disappeared from view. This obviously has disastrous follow-ons in terms of ordering and fulfillment to discover you have X dozens of orders that weren't part of the plan nor stock order, to say nothing of the justified anger of backers that they did their part and now are waiting even longer.
So yeah, the sticker price can look a bit shocking, but compared to the cost and risks of doing it yourself and botching things it doesn't sound particularly egregious for the likely effort involved. If it was, there'd be other companies doing the same thing for less; competition and all that.
I await PB claiming that the excess stock was in case they overlooked their entire backer population on fullfillment, with a few for packages getting lost...just in case. It seems like the type of ham-fisted excuse they'd attempt to employ anyway.
"In theory, by making and releasing the Wave One products to the retail market, we could sell enough of them to produce Wave Two rewards. Even if Palladium saw little or no initial profit from it, we figured we would make up for it with later sales as the game line grew and found its place in the market. Not ideal, but it seemed like our best choice at the time.
But after the initial release of Wave One products, for a variety of reasons, including the high piece count to make each miniature and the delay of Wave Two which would have improved the gaming experience, sales stalled. And with sales stagnating, our ability to produce Wave Two stalled with it."
They were absolutely banking on selling all that wave one stock to produce wave 2 and have admitted as such openly now.
This said, the two-step strategy is actually fairly sensible.
Executed properly, the kickstarter funds or recoups the majority of costs of tooling of BOTH waves and very minimal production of a first wave - enough for rewards, plus retail stock for the sale phase.
The first retail phase of orders fund production of second wave (backers and retail). Without the tooling lump sum hit this requires a smaller 'chunk' of cash and provides a tighter timescale for delivery. At this point, the kickstarter is effectively complete, but most likely operating a small to medium loss (partial production budget).
Optimally, second wave 'rewards' should be produced in the first delivery phase, and the second wave production is entirely retail stock.
The second retail phase is where the project should hit profit, recouping the production budget and starting to raise capital for another round of tooling to grow the product line.
One of the messups here is that tooling wasn't completed for everything in that first production promise for some reason, meaning that the retail phase had to produce a significant chunk of cash.
And honestly, I'm sure it's not an uncommon practice.
I love what Dwarven Forge does every year, they make incredible terrain bits that I use whenever I can find an excuse to do so. Do I assume that when they get their order in, they get a quote for (hypothetically) 100,000 floor tiles, and then pay for the 20,000 they need for backers with KS money, and the 80,000 with their own, for every single of the dozens or hundreds of tile types they produce each campaign?
Probably not, but aside from a quarter or two of backsliding in one or two of their campaigns so far, they also deliver an incredible product, usually about on time or even a little early. There's no demand to crack their books and get an accounting of every last penny, because they've earned trust that they'll do right by the backers, and usually in a shorter time frame than most Million+ campaigns manage to pull off.
That's not to justify the practice, simply to note that I wouldn't be surprised if it was fairly common for many of the big and regular names. It's even a running gag that some companies may or may not (or are proven to) run Campaign C to pay for B which was in part used to finish funding A. It's a dangerous game and can snowball out of control, but the clusterfeths are the ones that draw attention. The ones like Reaper and Dwarven Forge and CMON and whatnot that seem to basically run hot for the campaign and then 6-18 (or whatever) months later deliver don't get that kind of scrutiny because it isn't necessary.
To swing back around, that they did feth up so hard is what demands the extra attention. If they'd been up front with us over all these years, it might not command quite so much bandwidth from the community, but they didn't, and they've entirely brought this upon themselves.
Automatically Appended Next Post: What I continue to find hilarious is that they asked for 100k to produce essentially the Core Box and a few expansions, got ~1.5m to do that plus so much more, and then failed to do much more (if any more) than the original goal. (I'm aware of differences, this is just a napkin math'd ballpark, things like Rick's LE figure were in from Day One and are MIA, so clearly it's not a perfect 1:1 contrast)
It also makes me wonder how this might have gone if they'd walked before they ran. Like, just gone with the Core contents and a handful of expansions, then come back a year or two later (ideally after completing that) for the extra stuff. It might well still have been a mess, and full of complaints about doubled mold costs and increasing shipping rates, and yes obviously we wouldn't have committed nearly as much money, but that in a way would've worked to their favour as well; less ire due to less 'skin in the game', that kind of thing.
It's an impossible to prove hypothetical, it might've even led to a swifter and more obvious implosion, but I've always pondered if they weren't a victim of their own success in many ways, and while I still feel they're culpable and have misled (if not defrauded on several levels) thousands of backers, in a way it's darkly funny that doing so well might have a massive impact on their business (if not its ability to stay in business).
I mean, when was the last time PB had a success this big, if ever?
Doesn't excuse them from anything here, and it certainly won't shield them from anything in a legal sense, but...anything in the 80's or 90's ever break this big for them?
Did they ever have a year with sales of $1.4M in it?
Morgan you asked about Palladium and Ninja Division eating the extra shipping costs of wave 2 , it was in update 128, quote
"Splitting the Kickstarter shipments into two waves will cost us more money, but Palladium Books and Ninja Division are willing to eat those extra costs to get this great product into your hands. We are committed to Robotech® and you.".
Er,,,seems to beg a lie about being on the fumes of the kickstarter funds and being broke themselves?
Reading over these early updates makes interesting reading especially with hindsight. Prior to the update (the split) kevin was bemoaning delays but was stating ALL tooling was done - did he mean for the soon to be proposed wave 1 rather than everything? Even with the split there is never any mention of any issues , remember wave 2 was supposed to follow six months after wave 1.
So many times in these updates we get told all tooling has been done and they are only waiting to green light it, the tone jars very heavily with what they are saying now about being spent up.
I wonder if it was the postage cost that tripped Kevin up in his master plan, I mean he was not expecting the $150k plus it cost and I just wonder if that money was the money to get wave 2 rolliing, having gambled at least that probably more on the extra retail run using the kickstarter funding?
I am hoping that given Palladium do not own the Kickstarter page that they cannot get it deleted as there is an awful lot of damning evidence against Kevin and Palladium there, which I believe they would love to erase fro hisory, leaving them free to throw everyone else under the bus.
I imagine they tell themselves "oh, we tried, ohhhh how we tried, but it all ended up a mess, and we put every penny into it!" ignoring that if they HAD somehow managed to produce wave two but had zero left over for shipping, they'd be in basically the same spot (perhaps praying for CSI to actually order some pallets to accrue money to ship everyone else's stuff?).
Like, this has gone so sideways for so long, it's amazing to look back over the copious statements of reassurance and 'things heating up' and "201_ is the year of Robotech!" to see that they'd been brazenly and flagrantly lying their asses off.
Anyone who tries that is a braver man/woman than I.
Seems like a gamble with a high chance of failure for quite some time as the market is flooded with excess product, and later on when the game is fully rotted away (we all know it's already mostly dead, barring a few rare muscle spasms), it's just a lost game with minimal interest and competition for models/figures across a variety of other products that don't require nearly as much effort to build (if any at all).
Does anyone else feel like stuffing them around by putting in an order, then maybe changing the order once or twice, getting a shipping quote and then never paying?
Honestly, I think that kind of thing is immature and a waste of your time.
It also potentially hurts fellow gamers who are actually interested in getting some of this stuff and they don't deserve that.
Does anyone else feel like stuffing them around by putting in an order, then maybe changing the order once or twice, getting a shipping quote and then never paying?
Palladium can'tr even process the straightforward orders. I imagine each one is being triple checked by Kevvy, Wayno, and Scooter in case a backer tries to cheat Palladium and claim more credit than they are being graciously offered.
As to selling the product... Man, it's probably going to be at least ten years before enough of it ends up in various landfills and people get nostalgic for the models again and might be willing to pay real money for them and the market isn't awash with the stuff.
I'm curious if anyone has an eye on PB's warehousing door, to see if any large containers of product are shipping out.
What I'm wondering is if PB is required to destroy unsold stock, is that also true of stock held by other retailers? Does the product go into moratorium, and then be required to be removed from retailers shelves? I doubt that. PB may have to destroy anything remaining on their premises (outside of product samples for internal record keeping), but anything 'out in the wild' can look forward to a safe, long life on the secondary market.
I would expect Palladium to have some mechanisms in place where bulk orders have been safely secured (and paid for) from gaming and clearance retailers, and can be safely legally claimed to be 'in transit' and out of PB's hands, even though they may be sitting on PB property. That certainly has to be the case, otherwise anyone who is waiting for their items to ship from the PB online store or the Kickstarter exchange debacle would expect their paid but unshipped orders to be destroyed.
I communicated to PB that an exchange was unacceptable to me, and politely demanded a refund. For the moment, I'm torn and tempted to order a couple of the remaining GHQ RRT minis. My contempt for the publisher is at war with my love for the subject matter and my appreciation of GHQ's workmanship. A Japanese robot rendered in actual heavy metal is a rare & beautiful thing these days, as any Old School mecha fan will tell you...
I can tell you now, I have not been so badly into "analysis paralysis" with my little situation.
I give a rundown to PB of what was owed and what I would want as well as an address update within the first couple days of the "deal" posting.
Then they make a few updates for the terms of said "deal".
I then send a message telling them that I am not sending credit card information over messaging AND with the terms changes I tell them never-mind I want my refund in money not trade as per the agreement.
Shortly after they tell me the "order" is picked and packed and awaiting payment.
The lawsuit facebook group is a wee bit volatile.
PB is well, PB and anything can happen if I send some $34 in shipping to get a wave 1 bonus pack and VT box.
All that is decided today, or is that in the next few days if my unpaid shipping order is wanted for retail?
What would you gentlemen do?
I agree that for those that want their stuff, keeping this in limbo is not fair.
I might have been tempted into the exchange if there was product available that I wanted and didn't already have in quantity. I missed the GHQ Quaedlunn-Rau model, unfortunately, and would like more of the metal pieces. And had the exchange values been more honest and fair, I might have cashed in. But then it also would have stunk less like a cheap bait-n-switch.
I'm more than willing to give an ambitious creator a break if they genuinely bumble a project because their ability exceeded their vision. I'm not willing to when it has been obvious they've been wizzing on my head for years and just telling me it's only raining.
I've done significant analysis, no more paralysis. (I like that phrase.
If you want a return on your dollar, consider the offered stuff worthwhile and can stomach the shipping, then the deal is likely your best return, unless PB's assets are worth significantly more than they appear.
If you're more in it for the principle, don't take the deal.
The FB group is under much better control now. We did have a bit of a wobble at the head so to speak, but we've made significant progress on a number of fronts, and are waiting to hear back from various parties. Main task running at the moment is still acquisition of data and more bodies to combine things up.
@Tal - I think it depends on the dollar value, and what you think you might get out of litigation (after fees and expenses). Either way, you're probably looking at pennies on the dollar.
The only way you get a full refund is if there is a finding of bad faith, which causes PB to pay damages in excess of legal fees on top of monies owed. That's not very likely.
The key question is whether you'd rather choose to see PB suffer through a trial and eat a little crow, or whether you're willing to throw good money after bad to get more Wave 1 product. If you already have enough Wave 1 product to last a lifetime, then more of "too much" is still "too much". Similarly, if you treat the Wave 2 credit as a sunk cost, would you have bought the Wave 1 product for the shipping fees.
Potentially punishing PB might prevent them from cheating others down the line, and there may be some satisfaction in that. Eventually.
Last day and I am still deciding. I could see myself returning to this project one day, because it's an IP I love (that's why I signed up to begin with). I don't think anyone else will pick this risky license up and other people are doing great things with their own designs to fill out the missing stuff.
It's not about getting perceived value in return, but more about ensuring that I can get the few additional boxes of models that I planned on getting before I stopped working on this.
It would also be nice to "let it go".
It's a struggle, though, because I also want to see PB held accountable.
I believe they have not only violated the agreement but have scammed us or committed fraud by taking money given for the project and using it to stock their warehouse, then subsequently lying to us about it for 3 years.
I don't expect a return of the money, they are barely staying open. I want to make sure that they face consequences for their actions, I don't want to see them get away with it.
Regardless of whether you take the deal, if you aren't then at least email PB and tell them that you want your refund per the Ts&Cs in place at the time you pledged. Send that demand note, with a 7-day window for payment, and invoice them on PayPal. That way, you have written, third party evidence that you've declining their initial settlement offer and want them to conform to the contract they agreed to when they took your money. This will give you the option to take legal action and/or take them to collections down the line.
They don't owe me so much by their bizarre calculations. My pledge level and a couple of Backerkit add-ons would have provided me with most of the styles of model I wanted from the line. (I was primarily in it as a Macross model collector, rather than an active gamer.) Not getting the full assortment of model types I supported is my main loss and my primarily valuation for the project. A refund at a more realistic exchange value would have been more fair to me, because I could have then bought the couple more PB metals I might have wanted, then gone to Shapeways for masters of the models PB fumbled finishing.
Their valuation is based on their own financial woes, rather than an honest accounting of the value of the products.
It really is principal of accountability. I want it proven through legal discovery that Kevin "I AM PALLADIUM" Siembieda is NOT sitting on $750K worth of kickstarter money that he has held back as Palladium money to 'keep the lights on' for another ten years. Or even if he's sitting on $10K he's earmarked for gRifts- The Crisis of Bakerchery printing. I want to make sure Kevin doesn't dust his hands off April 1st and go, "oh well, that was fun, what's our next book, Wayne? Let's call Kevin Long and Bill Coffin and tell them we have enough funds that should bury any axe they have to grind!"
AcroRay wrote: I'm curious if anyone has an eye on PB's warehousing door, to see if any large containers of product are shipping out.
Highly unlikely unless someone has a PI sleeping in their car nearby or an awfully conveniently located apartment and a telescope/webcam with some pretty awesome zoom. Palladium's address is public knowledge, and through the magic of Google Maps, you can get a street level view of the area, and it's a warehouse park.
I'd be not surprised at all to see the flamethrower that hits Palladium and does enough MDC damage to make them collapse coming from Harmony Gold over Kevin playing fast and loose with the destruction of the inventory after April 1st. Kevin thinks he the smarter of the bunch and probably forgets that most of Harmony Gold's income for the past 15 years comes from litigation.
Nah. I don't think HG has any ill-will toward Palladium, and won't brutalize them legally or financially. HG has always gotten its pound of flesh, and their parting with PB is likely amicable. If anything, they'll probably buy up a bunch of the overstock themselves to sell. While the product may not be able to be produced, I think they'll be happy that it's still out there for people to buy, thus giving it some brand presence.
HG's cash cow has only a couple years of life left. Look on eBay... one of their brand managers is already dumping his Robotech internal archive materials for a quick buck, because he's not going to be needing them. ("Robotech Style Guide")
n815e wrote: Last day and I am still deciding. I could see myself returning to this project one day, because it's an IP I love (that's why I signed up to begin with). I don't think anyone else will pick this risky license up and other people are doing great things with their own designs to fill out the missing stuff.
It's not about getting perceived value in return, but more about ensuring that I can get the few additional boxes of models that I planned on getting before I stopped working on this.
It would also be nice to "let it go".
It's a struggle, though, because I also want to see PB held accountable.
I believe they have not only violated the agreement but have scammed us or committed fraud by taking money given for the project and using it to stock their warehouse, then subsequently lying to us about it for 3 years.
I don't expect a return of the money, they are barely staying open. I want to make sure that they face consequences for their actions, I don't want to see them get away with it.
So I am conflicted.
Keep in mind that in another 4 years or so HG will be losing their licensing of Robotech, which will open up a huge influx of Macross and Robotech stuff, merchandise, video games, and a number of Macross series that were not released here. Macross Frontier is easily my favorite Macross series. The future is looking good for those of us that are Macross/Robotech fans.
AcroRay wrote: They don't owe me so much by their bizarre calculations. My pledge level and a couple of Backerkit add-ons would have provided me with most of the styles of model I wanted from the line. (I was primarily in it as a Macross model collector, rather than an active gamer.) Not getting the full assortment of model types I supported is my main loss and my primarily valuation for the project. A refund at a more realistic exchange value would have been more fair to me, because I could have then bought the couple more PB metals I might have wanted, then gone to Shapeways for masters of the models PB fumbled finishing.
Their valuation is based on their own financial woes, rather than an honest accounting of the value of the products.
You don't need to accept their valuation. You can invoice them at a fair valuation based on what they owe you
Yea, I'm a fence rider, but have also covered all my bases.
I have their offer, which is actually quite a bit higher than that I know I am owed. I'm guessing due to so much missing from Wave 1 stuff.
I also have all my stuff ready to go for AG/FTC/Etc,
The Ebay thing was more along the lines of thinking out loud. The market is crazy and you never know what Ebay will do. Like I said, the last 3 months have seen RRT stuff sell from 50% of retail to Full retail. It also has a much wider reach than anything I've seen RRT on.
JohnHwangDD wrote: @Tal - I think it depends on the dollar value, and what you think you might get out of litigation (after fees and expenses). Either way, you're probably looking at pennies on the dollar.
The only way you get a full refund is if there is a finding of bad faith, which causes PB to pay damages in excess of legal fees on top of monies owed. That's not very likely.
The key question is whether you'd rather choose to see PB suffer through a trial and eat a little crow, or whether you're willing to throw good money after bad to get more Wave 1 product. If you already have enough Wave 1 product to last a lifetime, then more of "too much" is still "too much". Similarly, if you treat the Wave 2 credit as a sunk cost, would you have bought the Wave 1 product for the shipping fees.
Potentially punishing PB might prevent them from cheating others down the line, and there may be some satisfaction in that. Eventually.
Refunds are required in non-delivery. No discussion needed, it's in the contract.
As for bad faith, that's actually fairly easy to prove as well, given that good faith is defined broadly thus:
"In contract law, the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing is a general presumption that the parties to a contract will deal with each other honestly, fairly, and in good faith, so as to not destroy the right of the other party or parties to receive the benefits of the contract."
We have a very definite lack of honesty, and fairness - one cannot claim things are off for tooling, when the funding is not available to pay for that tooling. It's equivalent to a car mechanic telling you 'yeah, I'll fit that new carburettor you already paid for' without mentioning that he needs a loan to pay for it.
@winterdyne - I agree that PB has been acting in bad faith. The real question is whether the judge or jury would also agree, and if so, how much they would penalize PB for their bad behavior. When it goes to a 3rd party, all bets are off.
When you compare the sheer number of misleading updates against the time they have admitted they were out of money, take into account the misrepresentation at the start of the campaign, the contradictions in several updates, and the attempt at bait and switch at the end, I think the chance is reasonable, given that all of that is documented.
winterdyne wrote: When you compare the sheer number of misleading updates against the time they have admitted they were out of money, take into account the misrepresentation at the start of the campaign, the contradictions in several updates, and the attempt at bait and switch at the end, I think the chance is reasonable, given that all of that is documented.
Based on what we've seen I think Palladium has been acting in bad faith. The problem is that Palladium's notoriously tight-lipped, and it's possible that they have been trying to get Wave 2 done, but none of the quotes they claimed to be trying to get were within their financial means. The question now is do you accept the offer while you can (which might of lapsed by the time of this posting) or do you risk losing everything with a civil and/or criminal case?
I'd almost agree with you if it weren't for the HORRENDOUS over ordering of wave 1. From the 4 containers needed up to 9? You don't pay to package and ship that much stuff without a deliberate decision making process.
The evidence points to an early abandoning of any attempt to cover the required tooling costs, which as we discussed earlier on breaks the two-wave project plan. Doubling down on this with such a huge order of stock, of what is a mediocre product and instead launching it as badly as possible, is... well, baffling.
I still don't think it a *bad* product. Yeah, the piece breakdown's awful and it's a lot of work, but they're not actually terrible models. Half the problem is they were never, ever shown for what they could be.
They were shown abysmally at Adepticon and GenCon - done by a decent painter (or even not at all!) they'd have gathered more steam I think. It all came across as very amateur hour, and not in a that's-cute-let's-support-them way.
And no painted models on the box? Again - not showing a 'meh' product for what it can be is only ever going to hurt sales.
@winterdyne - That's all true, and any impartial judge or jury *should* find PB acted in bad faith. But you never know until you go to trial. There's always some risk of a bad decision, a bad ruling.
winterdyne wrote: When you compare the sheer number of misleading updates against the time they have admitted they were out of money, take into account the misrepresentation at the start of the campaign, the contradictions in several updates, and the attempt at bait and switch at the end, I think the chance is reasonable, given that all of that is documented.
Based on what we've seen I think Palladium has been acting in bad faith. The problem is that Palladium's notoriously tight-lipped, and it's possible that they have been trying to get Wave 2 done, but none of the quotes they claimed to be trying to get were within their financial means. The question now is do you accept the offer while you can (which might of lapsed by the time of this posting) or do you risk losing everything with a civil and/or criminal case?
Bah, their chance of getting a Wave 2 quote they could pay for is right about the same a homeless man had of asking how much a lamborghini costs because he'd like to try and get a loan for one. It was a stall tactic, pure and simple. Asking for quotes, when you know you can't get the money to pay for them is less than a worthless gesture.
I don't believe this is what happened, but it's not impossible that the apparent over ordering of wave 1 was a genuine attempt to get wave 2 to happen
it goes a bit like this
they dither and fiddle, delay and dump the production factory originally intended for the project when Ninja division was actively involved,
wave 1 happens but it's cost a lot more than they planned, so much that they know they can't afford to make wave 2, after all that's a whole lot more design and tooling and salary for all of Palladiums multitudes of highly paid design staff
there's still a bunch of cash left but just not enough when they've done the sums, but, the price they pay for wave 1 stuff gets cheaper the more they order
so they blow a lot of the remaining cash on extra product (leaving just enough for those salaries for the next year or two, probably technically allowable) which they genuinely think they can sell and thus fund all the work needed for wave 2
but of course it doesn't work, however they have tried to complete the KS, and if they've then carried on technically trying to sell more wave 1 stock to progress the project they may be able to carry on successfully claiming they were trying
now depending on the actual numbers involved i'd say that the above might just be technically good enough to get them off the hook
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: I don't believe this is what happened, but it's not impossible that the apparent over ordering of wave 1 was a genuine attempt to get wave 2 to happen
it goes a bit like this
they dither and fiddle, delay and dump the production factory originally intended for the project when Ninja division was actively involved,
wave 1 happens but it's cost a lot more than they planned, so much that they know they can't afford to make wave 2, after all that's a whole lot more design and tooling and salary for all of Palladiums multitudes of highly paid design staff
there's still a bunch of cash left but just not enough when they've done the sums, but, the price they pay for wave 1 stuff gets cheaper the more they order
so they blow a lot of the remaining cash on extra product (leaving just enough for those salaries for the next year or two, probably technically allowable) which they genuinely think they can sell and thus fund all the work needed for wave 2
but of course it doesn't work, however they have tried to complete the KS, and if they've then carried on technically trying to sell more wave 1 stock to progress the project they may be able to carry on successfully claiming they were trying
now depending on the actual numbers involved i'd say that the above might just be technically good enough to get them off the hook
I don't see how. Kickstarter money was spent on non-Kickstarter stuff. That they hoped to accrue funds from it is irrelevant.
If they'd spent $300K on lottery tickets, that'd be no different. It'd be misappropriation.
And doesn't get around the threefold issue.
1) Funds from sales of retail product have NOT been accounted for. The revenue streams to get to the $1.58M claim are fully accounted for. PB appear to have put all Wave 1 sales back into revenue. If so, that's fraud.
2) The only evidence we have that there is no money remaining, is the word of an inveterate liar, and a piechart that has, as I and others have pointed out, huge glaring holes after even the most cursory look.
3) Palladium itself still has funds, and PB are ON RECORD as saying that if the Kickstarter fails, they would refund backers, as obligated by Kickstarter Terms of Use. There was no caveat.
As long as Palladium is solvent as a company, they're not off the hook. Like Wiley said elsewhere, this is far from over.
In the contract, I've found nothing that states explicity precludes raised funds from being used for whatever PB want.
That funds should only have been used for the purpose they were requested can probably be argued that by implication or initial representation.
That refunds are a contractual obligation is not arguable against at all though.
Onto insolvency - I think anything short of complete liquidation can and quite probably will still leave them on the hook, especially considering the amount involved. The US Trustee is unlikely to overlook it if they run through small business Chapter 11 for example.
We're not talking about a few hundred dollars. We're talking about a few thousand times that, from a few thousand almost identical claims.
As far as I can tell, those can, even in Chapter 11, be subsumed into a singular class to make them manageable. All of a sudden you're looking at a few hundred thousand dollars in partial refund, if you can get it argued down to that.
Well, I sent my note off to PB saying as stated in my prior email that I did not want the refund-in-trade deal and they should free the product for others.
As stated earlier, I am into this more for the principle of the thing... I suspect I may regret this later BUT moving things forward to discovery and hampering PB's ability to do as they please with customer orders/money is needed.
So now a measure of closure has eluded my grasp for now. Also as stated, there was a bit of "wobble" with the Facebook group but they seem to have things moving now.
I find it rather funny we are in the "out for quotes" state of things.
We are trying to get the complexity count way down and to get what we backers want.
If we start saying we are 98% done and things are heating up... well...
So, now PB is figured to be about done.
All that is left is filling their "orders".
Then end of month issue a bunch of take-downs with the KS page as priority I am sure.
The product in their warehouse being destroyed would be really interesting.
A bunch of burn barrels in the back lot??
I REALLY have to remember to make sure I get all the cards and build instructions from Drive-Thru RPG.
I think I have most of it but definitely not all.
Though I am sure Mike could say why I am bothering with all that garbage when his really good stuff is available.
One thing of interest I have to ask of those here: when is a logical closure of this thread? I am sure the MODs are beginning to give it some thought and it IS their judgement call but, when?
End of this month being the official IP death of the game and Kickstarter?
The ongoing saga of litigation (maybe as a new thread)?
It is like an old hangout or bar closing... sad but very necessary for those concerned.
I'm actually on the committee for the legal action group.
Things are heating up, but they're far from done.
One firm of lawyers who approached us are currently looking over a document I put together detailing the parties involved (HG, ND, PB, Kickstarter, Backerkit, Backers), an abbreviated timeling of the project, relevant points from the contract, illustrated breaches of that contract, and a very initial analysis of PB's assets, in particular Rifts and the PEG / Savage Worlds kickstarter (which presumably would have netted in the regions of $50k in royalties for PB, plus ongoing royalties in sales).
We obviously need to reach out to others - I've spoken with a few but it's difficult when I'm not in the US. More proactive comittee members are needed, for sure.
If all else fails, we're also gathering a significant number of backers' details, including MIAG and FTC complaint references to combine up. It's easy to ignore or brush off a number of complaints of a couple of hundred dollars. Less easy to ignore fewer complaints but each of tens of thousands. Less easy still once we gather sufficient data and combined complaints to start throwing in complaints of over $100k. It's getting there, but it's very much a numbers game.
At the end, I didn't accept their offer. I think it's more important to make a stand that such behaviour is not acceptable to me as a KS backer.
Yeah I'm out some change that way, but the irresponsible way PG had handled the situations really require some sort of... explanation, resolution and if necessary, reckoning. Taking a material deal (and at the rates they are offering) would have just reinforced bad behaviour, in my view.
Shameless copy/paste from a post I just put up in the Kickstarter comments to spread the word a bit:
If you have not accepted PB's attempt at accord & satisfaction (their 'exchange' deal) we encourage you to get involved with our efforts to pursue legal action. This is very much a numbers game- the more of us there are, the better!
You will need to provide a screenshot of your backerkit page (windows + print screen on windows machines, image saved in pictures/screenshots).
Whether or not you use Facebook, you can also register with us by emailing us at:
rrtbackersinfo@gmail.com Please use the subject line 'RRT BACKER DATA'
And include your name, address, pledge level spend, backerkit spend, and any AG / FTC complaint references you have.
This information will not be passed on to any third party without your permission.
General enquiries can be sent to rrtbackersinfo@gmail.com with the subject line 'BACKER ENQUIRY'.
We'll be putting up another website to help with communications in the near future.
I noticed that their website is showing blowout prices of... msrp (except for the main box).
I find it rather funny we are in the "out for quotes" state of things.
We are trying to get the complexity count way down and to get what we backers want.
If we start saying we are 98% done and things are heating up... well..
You'd think that PB would have updated the prices with markdowns at midnight to clear out as much stock as they could before the end of the month.
Then again, if it was going to be expensive for them to destroy any remaining stock, you'd think they would've given more favorable exchange terms to backers. Oh wait, from Kev's reply to complaints submitted to the BBB, backers already got more than what they paid for in MSRP so he's bending over backwards offering the exchange and any given away in the exchange is one less sold which is less money in his pocket.
Or maybe it's more advantageous as a tax write off. Say he's got 5000 core boxes left. He claims each is worth $100 so that's $500k right there plus any expansions. I could see him claiming a quarter of a million loss on taxes given he likely marked up his losses during the crisis of treachery as well. Especially if there's no actual enforcement of the product being destroyed. Even if he keeps a small fraction and trickles it out from his ebay store, it'll be enough to last him awhile before he runs out of stock, if ever.
They are probably still not sure how much stock they have to address the requests, based on the number of people that are complaining that they requested exchanges and didn't get a response.
I'm sure that nothing will get done in April, as they have to recover from actually doing some work, for once.
Yup. 65% off Core, 60% off Expansions and Components, 70% off on books.
The day after the last opportunity for suckers... I mean backers, to "pay" significantly more.
If they'd been this generous with backers, instead of milking them for everything, and then profiteering off backers* by firesaling to the public, maybe they wouldn't have QUITE so many people pissed at them.
* Because until I see evidence that backer money wasn't spent on Retail Wave 1, OR evidence that all revenue from the sale of Retail Wave 1 is (and was) put back into the project, then this is PB selling backer owed product, for their own profit.
Morgan Vening wrote: 65% off Core, 60% off Expansions and Components, 70% off on books.
This is the *true* value of what PB delivered, and can be subtracted from what the Backers paid to determine what PB still owes them for refunds per the Ts & Cs when they originally took Backer money.
Do you think PB will lower the price even more ? Should i still wait to buy something ?
Postage costs are almost 70$ for France.
I would like to buy some stuff at least to complete my own collection.
Can you remind me how much time is left before they can't sell RRT anymore ?
If at least that money could be used to refund the backers.
Right now I think they're priced at or just over cost.
I think yes, the price will drop again. Probably mid next week.
Stuff can be sold until the 31st of March.
I don't think PB will willingly refund backers at all. If they were, they would have made arrangements to do so immediately that it became apparent that Wave 2 could not be made (ie very, very early on). People would have accepted a payment plan over several years at that point.
Now, it is extremely likely they won't, or they won't trust PB to stick to any arrangement (which is fair enough given the length of time we've been fed what can at best be described as misrepresentative communications).
PB have taken what could have been a disgruntled and disappointed backer base and turned a significant portion of it into a very angry mob.
princecorg wrote: Do you think PB will lower the price even more ? Should i still wait to buy something ?
Postage costs are almost 70$ for France.
I would like to buy some stuff at least to complete my own collection.
Can you not find what you want on ebay, or from an online seller or something? You'll be giving money to people who deserve it far more than PB that way.
I've done some research on Amazon and Ebay.
The main problem is that RRT items seem overpriced (for example RRT core box over 120$ without shipping taxes)
I think i will wait and see.
I don't really want to give PB money that they don't deserve, maybe the secondary market will become more affordable in a few weeks.
Perharps it is time to go for Heavy Gear Blitz. Some advices ?
It occurred to me earlier today that PB is incredibly stupid. Since PB wanted the backers to pay shipping, there's really nothing stopping PB from applying the current discount to the backer exchange program, which would have encourage more to take up the offer and also buy some goodwill.
This indicates poor think-through (duh) and the focus to solve PB's problem and not a customer-centric approach. Nothing we should be surprised by given the track record, but yeah.
Perharps it is time to go for Heavy Gear Blitz. Some advices ?
Yes. Do something else.
BUT if you do that, PM me. I have entirely too much Heavy Gear stuff and I want to get rid of some . As to the actual game, I don't much care about the current ruleset, and the plastic minis vary from decent (Caprice) to absolutely horrendous (South), but the metals are lovely and the older rulesets have much to like.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lynx7725 wrote: It occurred to me earlier today that PB is incredibly stupid. Since PB wanted the backers to pay shipping, there's really nothing stopping PB from applying the current discount to the backer exchange program, which would have encourage more to take up the offer and also buy some goodwill.
This indicates poor think-through (duh) and the focus to solve PB's problem and not a customer-centric approach. Nothing we should be surprised by given the track record, but yeah.
No, see... if they did that they'd have less stuff to firesale for actual money, and as they expect people will be taking it from their hands at that discount, they need to have as much as possible while at the same time deleting as much debt as possible. It makes perfect sense, if you are PB and think everything from an outside source is fake news.
Lynx7725 wrote: It occurred to me earlier today that PB is incredibly stupid. Since PB wanted the backers to pay shipping, there's really nothing stopping PB from applying the current discount to the backer exchange program, which would have encourage more to take up the offer and also buy some goodwill.
This indicates poor think-through (duh) and the focus to solve PB's problem and not a customer-centric approach. Nothing we should be surprised by given the track record, but yeah.
Kevin cares not from where the money flows, so long as he gets his cut.
The decent thing to do would be to take the funds from the fire sale and use them for backer refunds, but we all know that PB is too morally deficient to do something like that. Ah well, he’ll have a fun time defending his actions in court - if we ever get that far.
Perharps it is time to go for Heavy Gear Blitz. Some advices ?
Yes. Do something else.
In a nutshell, that's the best advice.
If you're interested in HG, you probably want the metals because you liked the look of the older South (& North) stuff, not the new-fangled Mary Sue factions or the brand new plastics. Those are spendy. Also, the rules are not good for something being sold today, being mired in the 80s. Really, I'd save my money for something else.
I would have figured the backer liability to be a greater issue (so should have dropped prices slightly to get more takers) but he has more experience than I with litigation.
I agree that it was just another ploy to show he was "trying" to make good to the backers while he tries to rake in more money with the exchange.
Certainly knows their priorities: get the money, do whatever looks good to keep anyone with clout from thumping them (AG, FTC).
I think they have been banking on backers never getting organized enough to get a class action going, it certainly appears to have a few challenges.
I can picture any "discovery" efforts would be like a nuclear event for Kevin, I strongly suspect he is a writer of fiction in all things.
I don’t know if he has more experience with litigation and so calculated the response or if he has more experience making the worst possible choices when it comes to dealing with customers.
Wait... how are they putting stuff on sale on their website if they haven't processed all the requests for Wave 1 exchanges yet? What happens if they sell out of the stuff that people already requested in the exchange?
Albino Squirrel wrote: Wait... how are they putting stuff on sale on their website if they haven't processed all the requests for Wave 1 exchanges yet? What happens if they sell out of the stuff that people already requested in the exchange?
Albino Squirrel wrote: Wait... how are they putting stuff on sale on their website if they haven't processed all the requests for Wave 1 exchanges yet? What happens if they sell out of the stuff that people already requested in the exchange?
AHAHAHAHHAHA......
You already *KNOW* what happens....
Don't pretend....
Have mercy.
This is the response of a "normal" human being looking at this in a reasonable way.
PB and Kevin as demonstrated are all about getting money.
Whatever method gets us to hand over some cash we cannot readily get back they are all about.
Next, it becomes rather... vague to them on what and when they are to send something back in "exchange" (Are we sure the money was not a donation or GIFT? it was a GIFT!).
So we send money to pay for shipping, but THERE IS NO PRODUCT TO SHIP!
So it is a simple matter of your shipping money is "void" since there is nothing to ship and you cannot get the money back because NO REFUNDS.
Their schedule is INCREDIBLY busy and they can barely keep track of it all, so it is understandable if your requests are missed or sent back a fair bit in the que since they are doing very important things.
They honestly will clear this confusion up as soon as they can, somewhere around the time of the heat death of the universe.
Gee-whiz, people are so uptight, they must be HATERZ and so should be ignored/banned/ridiculed because a truly favored "fan-friend" would be happy to hand over money with the only expectation that Kevin will give them what they deserve.
When is the Xmas summer surprise sale happening again?
I have kept a copy of this very dark form of thought in my head all my life, picture being raised by people like this.
It is all about them.
The sooner you realize this, the sooner you understand.
Please feel free in NOT giving benefit of the doubt and take the boots to them in all things.
Save consideration for those who deserve it.
I figure anyone this deep in the thread should be pretty aware of the ongoing situation, or at least have caught up by this time.
I actually think that PB are responding to people, the people that they owe larger amounts to first.
If they can get them on board, that will cut out/off the people more likely (due to what they have shown in pledge/PM) to spend larger amounts of money in the recovery of their pledges.
People they owe... $50 to are less threatening than people they owe $500 to.
For instance (yes anecdotally) myself... They owe me a rather large sum, i have been near criminal in the emails, responses, messages, Facebook posts, and PM's. Jeff Ruiz went as far as contacting my employer about some of it.
They responded to my KS exchange message within an hour.
This is the way PB operates. CYA first and foremost, worry about the details later.
TalonZahn, they owe me over $500 and I messaged them right after they put tbe update up. They have yet to respond to my message or answer my questions in calls.
Swabby wrote: TalonZahn, they owe me over $500 and I messaged them right after they put tbe update up. They have yet to respond to my message or answer my questions in calls.
Kickstarter aren't obliged to do anything - they set up a contract between backers and project creators but take no part in enforcing it. Your questions are answered really quite clearly in ther Terms of Use, so there's very little point going down that rabbit hole.
It's down to backers to organise and set up either a suit to put a court order on to pay the debt (pointless) or force a filing for Chapter 7 or 11 to liquidate assets of the company (and potentially its owners) and have the US Trustee oversee the paying of debts.
This has been done by AG's in the past, and can be done with regular attorneys too. Both take huge cuts in fines, fees, expenses etc. and this is why a concerted, group effort by backers to get organised is essential.
Was just reading over their latest update. I hope these crooks get a hefty helping of justice in short order. Bankruptcy at the least, blackballed from the industry hopefully and jailtime at worst.
I was making sure PB freed up my initial request for exchange till they changed a bunch of things.
Oddly enough, they responded back as requested, saying they will free up the "Battle Cry Wave 1 Extras Bag" they were holding.
I felt oddly touched they bothered, now I know what they mean by feelings of Stockholm syndrome.
Well I was on the Robotech site and I look at their store to see what selling. Robotech Rpg books are almost sold out. WOW! The Gen Pit , New Gen, Marine Ex, and bundle set as well. The PB store only have the Southern Cross book. Well it look like they are getting rid of their books now. I wonder how many of the Core RRT set are going to left? Oh well later.
They haven't sold as much as you may think. In the last update they stated they pulled some of their store stock in case the Backers ask for that product "in kind".
I'm sure they didn't bother to pull Southern Cross because no one buys that part of the series. It's always been the least interesting of the three generations.
Overall, doesn't matter much. Whatever isn't sold by apparently April 20th has to be destroyed (from what I've gathered). Traded out, burned or made into dunce hats for the PB crew, they wont be able to legally sell it soon.
There's most definitely action happening on the legal front. Perhaps that needs moving to a new thread though with an updated state of play at the front.... there's a lot of dead discussion in this one now.
Yeah, but didn't Toys R Us have hundreds of millions dollars of dept for years.. So even if we win something they can drag their feet until Kevin wants to retire; Then file bankruptcy.
I just know it soured me on Robotech and everything Palladium. Even seeing something like this I have no interest, my wallet is permanently closed until after the licence expire.
Just to clear up an unrelated misconception, Toys R Us was saddled with billions in debt by Bain Capital.
Online marketplaces certainly haven't helped matters, but they didn't die of natural causes, they were murdered.
That said, starting the thread over in this new era seems sensible. Focus on this brand new clusterfeth, progress by backers to recover something/anything from the debacle, what can be openly discussed about legal action, etc.
At least, that's my take on it. While it's funny to me to have yet another gigantic thread for this gakshow, it probably doesn't help people get into the matter or caught up to have something the length of a couple of novels to dig into in order to do it.
I would suggest Robotech RPG Tactics in general thread.
Still some really good painting and models out there.
I would like to still have a place outside of Facebook.
Plus despite some negativity, this has been a favorite forum just for good people to communicate with (most of the time )
There's a series of Videos by Daniel Ibbertson, a British youtuber, about kickstarter scams. He does mostly video games, but has covered Both board games and rpg's.
I've done some research on Amazon and Ebay.
The main problem is that RRT items seem overpriced (for example RRT core box over 120$ without shipping taxes)
I think i will wait and see.
I don't really want to give PB money that they don't deserve, maybe the secondary market will become more affordable in a few weeks.
Perharps it is time to go for Heavy Gear Blitz. Some advices ?
Bizarre; it was at 50% off or thereabouts for ages (years I guess). Now that they are going to try to dump it I would expect the prices to drop, not rise.
That’s the way it usually goes, a price dip as the market is flooded with folks dumping a product at End of Life, then a gradual climb in price as copies get more scarce,
I also vote for a new thread, this one has gotten somewhat unwieldy. New thread needs an introduction by Forar, though
Between backers dumping product for years, and now another tidal wave of it going out (with some people admitting it's just for resale), I think it'll be years before this even has the potential to become particularly lucrative, if ever.
Especially because the death of the game in an ongoing capacity (rather than merely being clinically dead but on the thinnest thread of life support as it has been) will more directly put it in contrast/competition with the hundreds (thousands?) of other model kits and built toys. If someone wants to play RRT with those exact minis, there's some value perhaps, but if they just want a VT or Destroid kit, there are a variety of options in a variety of sizes/scales, many of which will have plenty of advantages of their own and lack the weaknesses of these fiddly little bastards.
I can't imagine sitting on a closet full of RRT cores in the hopes that they go up substantially on Ebay, but at the same time, getting *something* rather than nothing, and then selling it for a song is still more than nothing. Putting cores up for $20 plus shipping is a fraction of the 'value' we're allocated, but getting $100 back is still $100 more than that backer had.
Yes, yes, this presumes there are even buyers at that low price, whatever, I'm talking long term, down the road. Mike's page is still kicking and has people talking about buying during the fire sale, obviously there is SOME kind of demand out there, even if it's a trickle compared to what PB wanted it to be.
As a contrast, I would imagine most Palladium Books, err, Books, have fewer copies out there than there will be in core boxes floating around, and many of those can be bought for a song on the secondary market. I practically had to give a couple dozen away when I sold off a bunch of those I still had laying around (still have like 1-2 dozen or so, mostly those with sentimental value, either as presents or tied to characters I enjoyed for years, even if they haven't been dusted off and played in over a decade).
Robotech is likely far more popular/culturally relevant than Rifts, but the supply/demand is going to get tough when contrasted against 'all Robotech merchandise available everywhere'.
Stormonu wrote: I also vote for a new thread, this one has gotten somewhat unwieldy. New thread needs an introduction by Forar, though
Your avatar at the very least gets the vote alone: it seems to be a summary of how backers feel.
Your eloquent and scarily reasonable summaries (and the absence of profanity! ) of the history of RRT closes the deal.
Almost sounds like "We narrowly avoided having our name dragged through the mud with RRT - we're steering clear of the KS platform so we don't get dragged down with PB"
I don't recall what happened with SDE, but there are a number of RRT backers that hold ND equally responsible for this Kickstarter's failure (I am not one). I'm also not familiar with any of ND's recent kickstarters. Has their been any toxicity drifting over to them from Tactics, like there was for Academy or gRifts?
Autarch wrote: I don't recall what happened with SDE, but there are a number of RRT backers that hold ND equally responsible for this Kickstarter's failure (I am not one). I'm also not familiar with any of ND's recent kickstarters. Has their been any toxicity drifting over to them from Tactics, like there was for Academy or gRifts?
As Albertorius points out, ND's major ill-will is their most recent SDE campaign where I do not believe they have delivered anything to backers and just posted an update tantamount to "nothing has been produced yet, we have to go with another factory" for a project that's already a year late. Their Forgotten King campaign for SDE ran as close to clockwork as most KS campaigns get so I'm not sure what screw-ups befell them here, but clearly they were many and significant. I was a bit overextended on funds at the time of the campaign so I didn't back it as I had the previous one, but I don't recall it being an issue on Forgotten King when the whole Robotech association was much stronger.
There might be some renewed anger with the official closure of RTT, but it probably pales to the anger they've engendered on their own.
Also, I add my (non-counting) vote to Forar doing the opening introduction for any new thread. Adds almost a bit of Shakespearean flair to the proceedings as though we're all in fair Verona...
Also, I add my (non-counting) vote to Forar doing the opening introduction for any new thread. Adds almost a bit of Shakespearean flair to the proceedings as though we're all in fair Verona...
Been to Verona (for Epic Training and such), not a bad place to be if it isn’t Winter.
And remember folks, if you DON’Tvote, we’ll count that as you agreeing Forar should write the introduction.
Just a reminder to download what you can from Drive-thru RPG for the various instructions and cards for RRT.
I am assuming they will all be deleted by the end of the month.
I still had a few things left to load.
I do admit it is a fair bit of material.
At the very least load the "enhanced" build instructions that at numbers the sprues.
With the game being officially dead, I can customize / tweak / house-rule as I see fit.
I am tempted to play with the rules and try to stay a bit within them (at least with the card stats).
I have been a fan of "Net Epic Armageddon" and like to see that amount of fan support of an unsupported game.
Maybe without Palladium Book's involvement, people may be willing to look at it again.
I have a few new stylish Battletech models to field as well so it is a positive move forward.
I don't think you will see a concentrated effort to look at doing anything with RRT as it is. There are already better mech based games out there that Robotech/Macross can be played under (Looking at you Mekton)
This game was always niche, with its official death it is now super niche. I do not think we will see any major movement or community growth either, the fanboys who have largely been claiming to support the game have spent years isolating skeptical voices and are no hurry to make amends.
To top it off the only way to complete the model collection for the game is to wade into murky legal waters of IP piracy with 3d printing if you cannot make you own sculpts.
Divided community for a dead game that never actually found traction kind of limits this to small groups doing their own thing in my opinion.
Albertorius wrote: I think JHDD has most of the relevant info regarding ND and SDE, IIRC he backed the latest one.
It's all compiled in a thread on BGG.
_____
SeanDrake wrote: When they mention toxicity they may actually be on about JHDD
Surprisingly, no. I put in for my refund about 3 months ago, and got it right before they launched StarFinder, and then they force-refunded me a while back, so I can't comment. They also force-refunded all of the $1 commentators on StarFinder right before they opened the Pledge Manager...
While I have no doubt that the number of outstanding product is excessive, there's a tendency to hyperbole or just overestimate, because people aren't really good at counting large numbers.
10,000/144 = ~70 pallets. And while I don't doubt there weren't massive sales, you have to expect several pallets got sold through various distributors and through their own retail stuffs. Not enough to make a significant dent, but enough to change numbers downwards.
Maybe the original poster was including the expansion packs? But the original claim seems excessive.
Though again, I do not doubt that there are dozens of pallets of this crap still sitting there.
Latest update is out. Apparently they're having trouble getting through all of the emails they've been receiving with 5000+ messages in their mailbox. Yet there were only 5500ish backers.
Also LoL-worthy. On the PB forums, we've got someone who must be a true believer as they've posted how Robotech was underfunded and should have been a $2.5 million project given its scope. Same person also commented on how tabletop war games have been less relevant than robotech over the last 20 years. I wonder if it is Kevin or one of his lackeys posting under a fake name.
Swabby wrote: I'm kind of amazed that these guys can't even fire sale right. Zero excitement generated, static price. All those boxes are going down with the ship.
Doesn't help that they appear to have locked off their FB page too. Last week's PBWU wasn't advertised at all. Their last leading post was March 16th. Maybe they were concerned about comments? But I'm pretty sure you can lock a post if you're the administrator?
So the only people who saw it were the people that subscribed to it. Definitely not the best way to advertise. And given they've got, what, just over 48 hours until they are legally unable to sell RRT product, yeah, it was mishandled if they really wanted to get the information out there. It's especially funny given the "hidden PBWU" explicitly states "Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Sale – 60% to 65% off – Spread the word". Something they chose not to do.
Glad to see they're not letting the lapse of the license get in the way of their gross incompetence.
Gotta figure that Scott's tenure has to be coming to a close, what with the failure of RRT and the apparent abandonment of "social media", as well as books continuing to slide in their release dates. With the two Animal Compendiums due Dec and Jan respectively, having no release date (well... it does say Winter, but given we're already 1-4 weeks into Spring, depending on when you count), he's doing a bang up job at the three things he was actually hired for. Scott, that beeping you hear? That's Kevin backing up the bus so he can throw you under it.
Figure Scott will get the blame for not being able to negotiate the "loan" needed, nor the license renewal, that caused the current situation. Hope you got paid in advance, Scott.
cannonfodr wrote: Latest update is out. Apparently they're having trouble getting through all of the emails they've been receiving with 5000+ messages in their mailbox. Yet there were only 5500ish backers.
Also LoL-worthy. On the PB forums, we've got someone who must be a true believer as they've posted how Robotech was underfunded and should have been a $2.5 million project given its scope. Same person also commented on how tabletop war games have been less relevant than robotech over the last 20 years. I wonder if it is Kevin or one of his lackeys posting under a fake name.
5,000 e-mails, 4,900 of them which are requests for refunds.
I almost wish I was going to Gencon so I'd have an excuse to file a small claims case and swing by while I was up there. Should be a slam dunk to win a refund that way. The trick would be getting the court appearance to coincide. Bonus points if it was just before Gencon to rob PB of funds to attend Gencon.
It would be interesting to know just how many backers, took them up on refund offer and post 31st March just how many core boxes were left on the shelves.
Can you see Kevin actually destroying merchandise that might have even some small value?
wilycoyote wrote: It would be interesting to know just how many backers, took them up on refund offer and post 31st March just how many core boxes were left on the shelves.
Can you see Kevin actually destroying merchandise that might have even some small value?
People already called it a long time ago - PB will "sell" the remaining stock to Kev or one of his cronies who'll then ebay it over time. It's just going to be another underhanded ploy on top of all the others they've pulled.
I wonder how closely HG will be scrutinizing PB's handling of the stock destruction (or when it will *actually* occur). HG and Tatsunoko did just go a round over royalties, I could see HG forcing PB to show its books regarding RRT/Robotech stock/profits and be watching for a "I sold all these boxes for $1 each to a fan-friend".
Automatically Appended Next Post: Remember, even with this fire sale, PB likely has to pay royalties on whatever they make. If PB pulls a stunt of selling it to a fan friend who then sells it for Kevin on E-bay, were HG to learn about it they would probably attempt to collect on those E-bay sales as being subject to royalty collections.
The Unofficial Facebook group run by Mike and Peter will likely be switching to Robotech miniature gaming in general and not just tactics once this month ends.
The name may stay essentially the same but it will look to discuss different games in which the minis can be used etc. Hopefully so any who wish too can still at least get some enjoyment from their stuff going forward.
I know I already moved on quite a while ago from RRT itself by looking to do everything in Alpha Strike in this regard (looking at other options like Mekton Zeta, Team Yankee, SilCore etc all of which can use the same scale as well) but just posting here so people can still support Robotech "gaming" if they wish too.
Here is my Alpha Strike stuff for all of wave one as a sample.
Also for anyone worried about the free stuff on DriveThruRPG.net that Palladium had put up for RRT, don't.
It is and will continue to be archived on the Robotech wiki along with all the stuff Mike had done and links for resources like printable buildings etc.
From the Facebook Robotech group, repost of lawsuit group (with HG's Tommy Yune?)
So I finally heard back from HG with an official response and I wanted to share this with everyone. It's just clarification and a few things that may be new to some to keep an eye on in the future.
--------------
> Recently (according to Palladum Books) Harmony Gold USA informed
> Palladum Books that their license for Robotech RPG and Table Top Games
> would not be renewed.
>
>
> 1. Is this accurate information?
> 2. If so is this directly related to how poorly they handled the
> Robotech RPG Tactics game and the bad publicity it generated?
Yes. You might've read Palladium's recent post explaining why they couldn't fulfill Wave 2 of the Kickstarter. On top of what they mentioned, Harmony Gold gave them a free extension on their license to let them find a solution. We also introduced potential business partners to Palladium hoping someone would be able to help them out, but after several years it became apparent it wasn't going to happen. We decided it would be best to end the license for the sake of our fans and backers instead of dragging it out.
> 3. Will Harmony Gold USA be finding a new developer and publisher for
> any further games.
We've got a couple new gaming licenses already (Solar Flare and Strange Machine) and we're talking to a few more that we can't announce yet but hopefully soon.
> I am a backer of the failed project and though I am disheartened by
> Palladum Books quite a bit, I still love Robotech as I grew up with it.
> I was also a backer of Robotech Academy which unfortunately did not meet
> it's funding goal and I strongly suspect this is in part due to the
> delays Palladum Books was already experiencing with Robotech RPG Tactics.
This was a huge disappointment for us too. Palladium has a long history with Harmony Gold and Robotech, but like you said the Kickstarter problems may have hurt Robotech Academy's Kickstarter and the fandom in general, so we have to do what's right and find new licenses that can serve our fans better.
> I hope you are able to provide some information especially on the
> direction things will be taking in the future.
Keep an eye out for announcements, on top of Strange Machines and Solar Flare we're working on some more gaming licenses that we'll hopefully be able to talk about by summer. Thanks for continuing to be a fan, it really means a lot to us and we wanna do right by you guys.
PB's last license would have been up for renewal in 2016, if HG extended their license to cover 2017 then they had well over a year to inform backers that the license was expiring and to prepare for exchanging wave two items. In classic Palladium bumbles everything fashion they waited until the very last moth before announcing things were at an end and then were surprised by the firestorm and giant mess of dealing with 5,000+ emails? Sorry but I have no sympathy for the rut they dug themselves into and continued to deepen at every opportunity.
stanman wrote: PB's last license would have been up for renewal in 2016, if HG extended their license to cover 2017 then they had well over a year to inform backers that the license was expiring and to prepare for exchanging wave two items. In classic Palladium bumbles everything fashion they waited until the very last moth before announcing things were at an end and then were surprised by the firestorm and giant mess of dealing with 5,000+ emails? Sorry but I have no sympathy for the rut they dug themselves into and continued to deepen at every opportunity.
Note, it's 5000+ emails, but no mention of how many backers. Given some backers are reported to have had 5+ emails to get stuff sorted, that could mean well under 20% takeup. We know that there's not 5000 individual takeups, given the volume of vitriol, and international backers being completely hosed by the exchange.
Oh, there's a new RRT Kickstarter Update. Basically saying the same stuff as the last half dozen, but that they're extending their own shipping time (ie, orders not processed yet still have a chance of being fulfilled next week).
There's some funny/ironic lines in there though. My favorites are...
"We have an ample supply of the Robotech® RPG Main Box Games and expansion packs." - Yeah, that's strange that they're so massively overstocked. Wonder where they got the money for that.
"All of us here at Palladium Books love Robotech® and had high hopes for the game line. We have been crestfallen by the situation with RRT. We tried so hard to keep the game alive." - Facts not in evidence. I'd like to see proof of what PB did to 'keep the game alive'. Because I think that, just like nearly anything that comes out of a PB employee's mouth, is utter bull.
FINAL DAY to purchase additional RRT/Robotech® Product at a steep discount on the Palladium Books website
If you are looking for additional Robotech® product (on sale at discount prices), this is your very LAST WEEKEND to make a purchase.
Kind of funny how they struggle to be consistent on whether today (Saturday) is the "final day" while also saying this is the "LAST WEEKEND". Their other communications have had some inconsistencies like that, I wonder if it will cost them some sales if they really pull everything tonight (with people thinking they could order tomorrow).
FINAL DAY to purchase additional RRT/Robotech® Product at a steep discount on the Palladium Books website If you are looking for additional Robotech® product (on sale at discount prices), this is your very LAST WEEKEND to make a purchase.
Kind of funny how they struggle to be consistent on whether today (Saturday) is the "final day" while also saying this is the "LAST WEEKEND". Their other communications have had some inconsistencies like that, I wonder if it will cost them some sales if they really pull everything tonight (with people thinking they could order tomorrow).
I'm sure they'll just backdate everything to Saturday, squeeze every cent out of their customer base, and hope that noone investigates too closely. After all, that's been their modus operandi for 5 years.
I do like that they're still pushing "Spread the word", when the only two places they appear to be advertising are the Kickstarter backers (who don't seem very receptive publicly), and the PBWU, which is a subscription based newsletter of a captive audience. No posts on their FB page in two weeks. And it's not like they're claiming limited supplies, they admit they've got a metric buttload of this crap sitting in their warehouse.
I asked this earlier, but I don't recall anyone who had an answer, so I'll throw the question out again to see if anyone knows. (If someone answered back then and I forgot, then I apologize)
Did Palladium ever fulfill the art prints? It seems they would have been something very easy that could have been printed up and shipped out.
I'd actually like a couple of the prints, so I'm wondering if they even exist in the first place.
GabrielV wrote: I asked this earlier, but I don't recall anyone who had an answer, so I'll throw the question out again to see if anyone knows. (If someone answered back then and I forgot, then I apologize)
Did Palladium ever fulfill the art prints? It seems they would have been something very easy that could have been printed up and shipped out.
I'd actually like a couple of the prints, so I'm wondering if they even exist in the first place.
It's unclear. Like the three Bursting Point pledges, Palladium has not to my recollection mentioned if they'd been fulfilled, but noone has made a claim about NOT having had them fulfilled. And as they weren't Kickstarter Exclusive prints, you'ld figure Kevin would be trying to hawk them too.
So it's a nebulous Schrodinger's Pledge. It probably got done, but there's no apparent evidence of it happening.
With regard to the Kickstarter prints: I received both when I requested them specifically in one of the PB 'holiday surprise box' deals, along with the portfolio set that PB sells at conventions. So they were printed as advertised. However, I didn't include them in my pledge rewards, so I don't know if they were fulfilled to KS supporters.
The two were quite nice, actually, apart from having Kevin's foul scrawl on them, to remind me of his vital place in bringing the whole project to its destruction.
Merijeek wrote: Well, that's interesting. My Kickstarter account is currently "under review".
I don't recall posting anything particularly interesting lately.
Given how slow both PB and Kickstarter are to respond to pretty much anything, this could be from something you said several months ago.
While I still do Kickstart stuff on occasion, I've definitely soured on the platform as a whole, due to the lack of protection Kickstarter are willing to provide to backers, their defense of the indefensible (RRT is the obvious one, but there are others), and their willingness to hammer people with legitimate gripes, while letting Creators do whatever they want without comment.
I'm just glad they took down the "Projects We Love" badge they put on well after the project was in obvious trouble. That was a douchey thing to put up.
I still think the "projects we love" badge was probably applied retroactively by some automatic system when they set the thing up in the first place. Just threw it at every project that hit X backers, Y funding, or some combination of the two.
Which is kind of a dumb thing to apply automatically without any real effort or consideration, but, whelp, we can just add them to Twitter and Facebook and all the other social media platforms and services that take a low effort/half assed approach to things.
"Hey guys, we should add a little badge to show off projects that are raking in ALL the money!"
"What about the ones that already did?"
"Sure, them too!"
"What about the ones that did and then became gakshows?"
"Ehhh, we'll worry about that later."
(Voiceover: they did not consider it again until an epic clusterfeth landed on their doorstep.)
I think Kevin hopes he can just ship out all the starter boxes of RTT to the backers since they were the ones already paid for it. Sad thing
is 5000 emails isn't that much for a company of any size... Most of us will get hundreds of emails in a given day at their work. But because
we want to keep our job we tend to work through them instead of saying "stop emailing me.. I already have to many to handle"...
Still want a refund from them and sent a message via kick starter but never heard anything back; that's about a month ago.. but no real surprises.
Morgan can probably do a better analysis, as it's something he excels at, but let's take a stab at this with some napkin math.
Across 5,432 backers, counting up the various tiers and adding some reasonable number who might have upgraded in the pledge manager (say, from a Battle Cry to a Showdown or whatever), I recall estimating years ago that ~7,000 cores would be needed to fulfill for backers. This is entirely based on 'counting tiers, assuming a small number failed to pay up, and then *magic*'.
Based on the numbers seen in pictures of their warehouse, it seems they got 17,500 cores, which seems pretty on-point; 7k'ish for backers, 10k'ish for retail distribution and their own personal sales (web store and conventions).
We have no way of knowing how many went out to local brick & mortar stores, or web shops like CoolStuffInc, but based on the negativity around the project, the steep sales CSI was prone to over the years, and the huge piles of pallets we see in pics and hear about, I think it's fair to say they sold way less than expected.
Assuming ~7k cores needed for backers, that'd be about 222k in value owed by their own math (with that 31.76 figure). Plus whatever else was owed due to wave 2 purchases. Now, according to Wayne himself, they only took in about 10% in the PM, so let's call that another 150k. Given PB's penchant for overstating things in their favour, I doubt it was much more than this, that's probably rounding up a bit as it is. Even if we add this value *in full* to the RRV calculations, that's about 372k owed to backers (this is of course bullgak, but everything about this project is and I'm working with a lot of imperfect numbers here, try to stay with me).
Obviously a BUNCH of that was going to be converted into higher tiers, and spending another $100+ to go from a BC to a SD and getting an extra $32 worth of stuff back is going to mess with the math a lot, but to make my point I don't care, and aiming higher works better.
EVEN IF they calculated that they owed backers 372k worth of materials, and EVEN IF backers ALL took every penny of it in core boxes, that'd still come out to around 4,600 cores.
So, we may have found why they didn't give backers the same deal everyone else got. If they HAD somehow managed to sell (or at least put to retail and wipe their hands of) more than a couple thousand boxes over the last few years, they might not actually have the 9k+ it would take to fulfill them all if ALL backers participated and ALL wanted ALL cores.
These are a LOT of 'if' statements.
And of course, I'm not blind that they are clearly valuing 'new money' well over what they sent to us. And it ignores the expansion boxes, which they probably have a ton of as well, and some backers seem to be taking them up on, from what I've read. So, it's a balancing act; trying to put out stuff to backers to shut them up, and still have stuff on hand to draw in 'real money' from non-haters, while not running so short on either as to accidentally start yet another clusterfeth to add to the clusterfeth pile they've been building for years.
I'm NOT saying that this was done out of generosity or any noble action on their behalf. More a matter of 'we don't want to risk running out of this stuff, but we do want to get as close to 'paying off' as many backers as possible, and pick up as much fresh money as possible, while avoiding having someones garage filled with this gak for the next decade or two'.
Late edit: one could also multiply the number of backers per tier by their price and then subtract that from the initial total to get a ballpark on how much was allocated for wave 2 stuff (since I doubt people were buying destroid kits by the thousands in the PM, when that math often lined up to just get a whole extra BC instead), but that's getting a bit more involved than I really wanted to be while working out this bit of quick and dirty assessment. The exact numbers weren't important, the ballpark of 'they probably didn't want to go too steep and risk starting another unnecessary fire/loss of potential fire sales' might have simply made 'let's just give them KS prices and call it a day' seem like the better call.
So the long and the short of it is to get backers to trade for the minimum they can and still leave room to sell some product and hope they do not need to sell the remainder to some fan-friend to trickle out on ebay.
I am concerned with when the license "actually" expires, all sales methods seem to be still up: PB website and Drivethru.
What I am wondering is NOW they have managed to get a HUGE commitment to the exchange they make the decision: NOW put out refunds (angering many that made the exchange) or they simply go with the idea "you had your chance" and sweep anything still owed under the carpet as a game of chicken with litigation. I am surprised they did not expunge all they could to remove all current information on Robotech and PB. Every day the KS for RRT is open gives more chances for backers to organize who may be late to cluing in on the closure of the KS.
I am also curious if they will have any Robotech at Anime North (May 25th): I bet they could not help themselves if they have extra stock.
Ah well, good times.
As to use of the miniatures: it still looks pretty when done right.
There is some hope for me, my youngest son was watching Robotech on Netflix and seemed to enjoy it.
He enjoys Khyron more than is healthy, not sure how to customize his Glaug to befit "the backstabber".
He just got through Breetai going into space and beating up Veritechs in hand-to-hand so he is considered an official "Boss" character so I now have to get that model done.
I now have to make a blue VT since Max is the favored hero (too bad his hair is blue, my kid's is green), waiting to hear his opinion on Miriya.
He is confused why Rick has trouble choosing: "Lisa" is obviously the better woman for coming up with "the Daedalus maneuver", he figures she is a keeper for that alone (what are they doing? Ah, that... is... AWESOME!).
"Minmay is dumb." was the other observation (for not recognizing Rick could die in a battle and for mistaking a medal as jewelry).
I do admit it has been very funny watching this again and hearing his observations.
Just saw "Ready Player One" on the weekend and now he is asking to see more of "Gundam" after seeing one in action.
I do not like to indulge too much in nostalgia, but I feel negligent not exposing my kids to what was a ton of fun prior to their births.
Your kid is definitely on the ball. Max is my favourite character, and Lisa is absolutely the better relationship.
I may actually be at Anime North for the first time this year, so perhaps I'll get to check out their booth. I'll be working for a friend's booth (selling cookies and chocolate and candied bacon with the best of them), so I definitely won't be there to make a scene, but scoping them out for shenanigans wouldn't be a problem.
Robotech products are now gone from their webstore. They still show up as master categories, but any particular item comes up as 'not available'.
Palladium Books ROBOTECH legacy is dead. Only disposal of the corpses remains.
According to some information from reliable sources, Harmony Gold did indeed cancel PB's license due to the disaster PB created with RRT. HG also gave PB a rather lengthy extension on their license in order to allow PB to untangle the RRT mess and 'do right' by Robotech fans.
So the mile markers of Kev's failures revealed in this debacle continue to multiply.
Merijeek wrote: You want to multiply it a little further, give them a call in a couple days and ask them if you can buy half a dozen core boxes.
This sounds very conspiratorial, but I suspect there are well defined methods for special fan friends to buy "out of stock" items at the Palladium Store.
Forar wrote: Your kid is definitely on the ball. Max is my favourite character, and Lisa is absolutely the better relationship.
I may actually be at Anime North for the first time this year, so perhaps I'll get to check out their booth. I'll be working for a friend's booth (selling cookies and chocolate and candied bacon with the best of them), so I definitely won't be there to make a scene, but scoping them out for shenanigans wouldn't be a problem.
The kids love the show so I am pretty much guaranteed to go.
Ditto on not making a scene since this means a lot to my little men.
My youngest would be at your booth just for anything that is bacon.
The PB booth would be a truly sad state of affairs.
Last time I was there someone asked what they did and "who" they were.
I felt like telling him to run and that it was too late for me.
Well, we are creeping closer and closer to not having to hear a single missive from PB and feel we need to pay it any attention at all.
That will be a happy day.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hmmm...
Still see the books listed on Drivethru.
Will be interesting to see how long sales could still drag on through there. Probably as long as they show some communication prior of shutting it down given. Funny seeing the 2018 open house listed for $55, I could see an NHL quarterfinals game for less (and have more fun).
I can confirm they did a rather fast and dirty takedown at PB.
Breaking a bunch of links.
Will just need some record tidying up and it will be like nothing happened.
Will be interesting to see how the KS page will be handled.
Since their license has officially expired now, I expect they'll drop into radio silence again, since they have nothing to promote, and likely figure they have nothing to gain by being 'helpful' to their Kickstarter customers any longer.
Still no response to my refusal of substitute product and demand of a refund, which I messaged to them 30 days ago today.
I suppose a registered letter is my next avenue.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The hilarious 'resource' page showing "just a few of the many sculpts sent to China for engineering and tooling. We include this gallery as a reminder of the good things yet to come in Wave Two" is still there. Get your memorial screensnips while you can...
Yeah, felt a slight panic attack of stuff being sold off and most re-sale stuff remaining high in price. Then I remembered I had bought this stuff here and there at hugely reduced prices just talking to people and getting a deal. I think I have more than I will ever need, even cannibalizing the odd stuff for printed items.
I know this is an absolutely a dead game in most all respects.
I guess I just want to see this as the game it should have been and demo it as a complete package. Get some pictures and have fond memories and forget the bad.
My kids enjoy what I have so-far and want to see the fancier units that wave 1 lacks (working on it, I want to see them too).
I think I have the YF-4 and the "Jotun" remaining.
As a vendor on Drivethru, it does take some manual configuration to take down the PDFs, about 5-15 minute worth (longest time to figure the interface out for the 1st remove from sale/delete from inventory). With all that “work” involved, expect to see the PDFs drop off one per week...
I will say one of the benefits of this whole KS was that I sat down and rewatched the entire series while I was assembling my minis - I’d forgotten how many episodes of the Macross series took place AFTER the Zents had been vanquished.
Watching it again with my youngest.
I swear you could play a drinking game of "spot the Monster".
I forgot just how insane Max is in the show, just really nice and low-key (insane skills and says "What? doesn't everyone take out entire squads of pods singlehandedly??),... no wonder Miriya was driven nuts by him at first.
Good lesson that it is enough to want to constantly improve at something, not just the goal to beat others (which is a byproduct of that practice).
Good show, much better than Yugi-Oh, Beyblade or Pokemon where all the characters are shouting at each other and "do battle!!!!", in my opinion anyway.
Its amazing how wistful and nostalgic we can get together as a group - with fond memories and a true love of Robotech. We obviously have a love of the franchise, and if given the proper tools, could really enjoy ourselves and support each other.
Makes it all that more infuriating when PB bumbles into the scene and falls flat on it’s face. It’s kinda like the uncle no one likes who shows up to the family reunion and manages to annoy everyone before falling asleep drunk on the couch.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: All this talk really makes me want to rewatch Robotech, and then hit Hobby Link Japan for some bandai goodness.
You're in luck. Super Ostrich just came up for pre-orders.
I don't know what that is. Is it something I want to google?
Automatically Appended Next Post: The novels expanded the lore past the series, right? Can someone spoil for me how the novel series ends? That will help me decide whether or not to read the Sentinels stuff and beyond.
The novels expanded the lore past the series, right? Can someone spoil for me how the novel series ends? That will help me decide whether or not to read the Sentinels stuff and beyond.
My recollection (it has been decades since I read it) is that End of the Circle ends with:
Rem and Minmei in some pocket dimension. Minmei is pregnant with Rem's child who will be Zor.
The SDF-4 is being readied to travel to the Andromeda galaxy to see if the story of Protoculture played out there too. Rick and Lisa are going.
The Regis transcended to another plane or something.
Haydon IV was a giant transformer or something.
Scott and Marlene/Ariel eventually got together. Shadow Chronicles did this a lot better.
I think all the main characters and good guy secondary characters survive to the end.
The SDF-1's fold drives were recovered and used to get the SDF-3 home.
And blah, blah, blah, blah. That describes most of it.
I wouldn't recommend anyone read The Sentinels or End of the Circle, or any of the Jack McKinney books really. They're pretty dismally bad, and among some of the worst written stuff I've ever struggled through. They're barely above Star Wars fiction, and even that point is arguable.
Forar wrote: I unironically love the Jack McKinney novels, pistols at dawn, sir!
Then carry on unironically enjoying them, as long as I don't have to be involved!
I remember picking up some McKinney book published years later. I think it was Zentraedi Uprising or something like that. I read half of it on a flight to Houston and half of it on a flight back. I forget which leg of the trip I was on, but I got to a section of the story were it started going into General Leonard's sexual kinks. I seem to recall the book describing how he would cross-dress and have a Quadrono in leathers beat him with a whip.
It was at that moment that I knew I was reading high quality material. Truly the best way to expand the Robotech mythos!
The novels expanded the lore past the series, right? Can someone spoil for me how the novel series ends? That will help me decide whether or not to read the Sentinels stuff and beyond.
My recollection (it has been decades since I read it) is that End of the Circle ends with:
Rem and Minmei in some pocket dimension. Minmei is pregnant with Rem's child who will be Zor.
The SDF-4 is being readied to travel to the Andromeda galaxy to see if the story of Protoculture played out there too. Rick and Lisa are going.
The Regis transcended to another plane or something.
Haydon IV was a giant transformer or something.
Scott and Marlene/Ariel eventually got together. Shadow Chronicles did this a lot better.
I think all the main characters and good guy secondary characters survive to the end.
The SDF-1's fold drives were recovered and used to get the SDF-3 home.
And blah, blah, blah, blah. That describes most of it.
I wouldn't recommend anyone read The Sentinels or End of the Circle, or any of the Jack McKinney books really. They're pretty dismally bad, and among some of the worst written stuff I've ever struggled through. They're barely above Star Wars fiction, and even that point is arguable.
IIRC Breetai dies taking down the Regent, but not before becoming a father with a female Zentradi.
Agree it was not great, and IIRC it's no longer canon anyway.
Check out Macross some time, there are some subtle changes that really add a lot.
IE in Robotech the world is in the middle of the Global Civil War, an alien ship crashes and we unify to deal with it.
In Macross the alien ship crashes and a global war starts over who gets it.
Puts a new spin on a lot of the stuff that happens later with the Earth government.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Forar wrote: I unironically love the Jack McKinney novels, pistols at dawn, sir!
Dittos!
Granted I was in Junior High when I read most but still...
I think they continued until I was in college with Sentinels and End of the Circle.
Thinking about Macross/Robotech I actually remembered a line from them. Lisa Hayes is facing the Earth Government folks and realizes that more than half of them are in uniform and thinks "Is this what we're fighting for? Military rule?" adds a level of depth to a bunch of random background characters.
The novels expanded the lore past the series, right? Can someone spoil for me how the novel series ends? That will help me decide whether or not to read the Sentinels stuff and beyond.
My recollection (it has been decades since I read it) is that End of the Circle ends with:
Rem and Minmei in some pocket dimension. Minmei is pregnant with Rem's child who will be Zor.
The SDF-4 is being readied to travel to the Andromeda galaxy to see if the story of Protoculture played out there too. Rick and Lisa are going.
The Regis transcended to another plane or something.
Haydon IV was a giant transformer or something.
Scott and Marlene/Ariel eventually got together. Shadow Chronicles did this a lot better.
I think all the main characters and good guy secondary characters survive to the end.
The SDF-1's fold drives were recovered and used to get the SDF-3 home.
And blah, blah, blah, blah. That describes most of it.
I wouldn't recommend anyone read The Sentinels or End of the Circle, or any of the Jack McKinney books really. They're pretty dismally bad, and among some of the worst written stuff I've ever struggled through. They're barely above Star Wars fiction, and even that point is arguable.
Thanks for the summary! I don't recognize some of those names, but others give me some closure. Does the time travel imply that protoculture or robotechnology were not invented but excreted from a causal loop like Terminator processors? Is Shadow Chronicles a cartoon?
And for the record, I enjoy reading the McKinney novels, although I usually only get through one or two hundred pages before my mecha itch is scratched. And Star Wars novels vary a lot in quality.
Wow, I just stumbled across the e-mail response from Kevin to my AG request back in 2015 (the response was Sept 28, 2015 A 12:45 PM) to be exact. Looking back, it's so condensating and full of crap. I'd thought I had deleted it, but I apparently kept the response that was mailed directly to me.
My initial letter:
Spoiler:
Stormonu wrote:
Dear Sirs
I am writing to you in the hope that you take action against Palladium Books.
Palladium Books, Inc.
39074 Webb Court
Westland, MI 48185 (Wayne County)
Phone: 734-721-2900
Palladium Books successfully completed their Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter on May 20, 2013. This kickstarter was aimed to produce a tabletop wargame with miniature figures based on a popular sci-fi cartoon series from the 80's known as "Robotech". The kickstarter raised $1,442,312 among 5,342 international backers. Additional funding was collected via the Kickstarter's "backerkit", which allowed backers to add additional copies or add-on purchases to their "rewards". There is, unfortunately, no public information on the amount of additional funds collected with the "backerkit".
At the time of completion, the original estimated shipping date was December of 2013. As of Dec 31, neither on their weekly update or the kickstarter site was ANY mention made that the shipping would be delayed. On January 30, 2014 - a month after the initial, original shipping date was missed - Palladium Books announced in both a weekly update and on the Kickstarter site that the items would be split into two waves, with a shipping date of May/June 2014. In the April 10, 2014 weekly update, Robotech Wave One was announced with an expected delivery date of Spring 2014. In their April 25, 2014 weekly update, Robotech Wave One was revised with an expected delivery date of Summer 2014. Robotech Wave One went "into manufacturing" on June 12, 2014 according to their weekly update, with an estimated delivery date still Summer 2014. As of the Palladium website weekly update on June 26, the estimated delivery date was September, 2014. On July 17, 2014 as noted in the weekly update, the first of at least 11 containers was loaded to depart China, with an estimated arrival date of August 8, 2014. The weekly update was also changed to reflect a Fall 2014 estimated release date. US shipping for Wave One was declared in the weekly update to began on August 28, 2014. However, due to a number of transport issues, the majority of shipping did not actually begin until October 2, 2014 (announced in the weekly update and on the Kickstarter website). Europe was shipped their Wave One products by sea on or around Jan 21, 2015 as noted in a Kickstarter website update. Australia was shipped their Wave One products by sea around Feb 8, 2015 as again noted in a Kickstarter website update. "Rest of the World" was shipped their Wave One products (by sea?) on May 13, 2015 (again, via Kickstarter Website update).
Since the shipping of Wave One items began, backers have been asking for information on the status of the Wave Two items. This information has been frustatingly sparse, with the last tangible update occuring on Feb 28, 2015. This update consisted of "incomplete" 3D renders of two of the twenty-eight miniature figures for Wave two. Finally, in a two-part Kickstarter update on June 6, 2015 we were given a tenative release date for Wave Two of "The end of 2015". Since that time, all information about Robotech Tactics has been for items NOT a part of the "rewards" and items purchased in the original Kickstarter, with continual promises of a forthcoming Wave Two update.
Kevin Siembieda has posted detail information in reflection about the Kickstarter from its inception to the delivery of Wave One in a two-part update on the Kickstarter site on June 6, 2015.
While the ever-shifting release dates are signs of bad customer service and not criminal actions, Palladium books has increasingly shown dwindling ability to produce products based on its primary business - roleplaying books. Based on the information available to me and other backers at this time, we do not believe that Palladium Books has the resources - or willpower - to complete Robotech RPG Tactics Wave Two. In his June 6, 2015 update Kevin mentions serveral costs. The initial outlay for the Kickstarter was $40,000. International shipping is mentioned to have cost $150,000 (no mention of domestic shipping). There is a mention in the same update that "make(ing) the game and expansion packs" would be "between $550,000 and $900,000". Based on these rough numbers, it is my beleif that the funds for Wave One have been depleted and Palladium lacks the remaining funds - or ability to secure funding to cover the cost of Wave Two.
Further, based on their inability to produce other products from their own line, it is my belief the company is incapable of admitting they cannot produce Wave Two.
As an example of the latter, I direct you to their projected book release schedule that was listed in their January 11, 2015 weekly update. The update listed the following books for release in 2015:
Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Advanced Rule Book
Splicers® Sourcebooks – several
Beyond the Supernatural™ – Tomes Grotesque™ Volume One
Beyond the Supernatural™ – Beyond Arcanum™
Palladium Fantasy® Land of the Damned 3: The Citadel (probably 2016)
Palladium Fantasy® Land of the South Winds
Heroes Unlimited™ sourcebooks
Dead Reign® sourcebooks
Rifts® Secrets of the Atlanteans™
Rifts® Heroes of Humanity™
Rifts® The Disavowed™
Rifts® Antarctica
Rifts® Sovietski
Rifts® New Navy™
Rifts® Delta Blues™
Rifts® Dark Woods™
Rifts® Voodoo
Of the books listed, I can only find that Palladium Fantasy RPG: Bizantium and the Northern Islands has been released so far. The only other book that they have released this year that I can discern is the Robotech Expeditionary Force (formerly UEEF Marines) book, which was released this month. This latter book was originally slated for release on April 10, 2014 with numerous dates shifts - many of which had emphasised promised hard release dates.
We urge you to act in the interests of the 5,342 backers to force the hand of Palladium to either produce information to its backers on the current state of all Wave Two items and the feasibility of producing Robotech RPG Tactics with a general statement of the company having the finacial resources to produce said wave or reasonable proof of intent to secure funds to pay for said Wave Two. We urge you, that should Palladium refuse to provide such information to pursue forcing the company to refund the monetary value of the unproduced items to the backers.
Kevin's Response to the AG
Spoiler:
Kevin Siembieda wrote:
We strongly disagree with the assertions put forward by Mr. Klauk in this complaint.
Mr. Klauk participated in backing a Kickstarter crowdfunding project. This entitles him to certain pre-determined rewards when the project is finished. We have kept all of our Kickstarter backers informed as to the progress of this project, which has suffered a number of delays from our original expectations. That said, there was never an exact release date (that's not how Kickstarter works; you back a project, not purchase a product), and we have never stopped working to achieve the goals of said Kickstarter-funded project.
As Mr. Klauk should know, Kickstarter projects often deliver promised rewards well after their initial estimated dates. Under the terms of Kickstarter, as long as we are actively making this product (which we are; Wave One items have already been delivered, and Wave Two is under active development), and communicating with the backers to let them know where things stand (we have posted 14 Updates in the last six months, in addition to our own weekly e-mailings which often include Kickstarter updates), we are in FULL COMPLIANCE with the Kickstarter rules.
Kickstarter is a platform where Project Creators run campaigns to fund creative projects by offering rewards to raise money from Backers.
The Estimated Deliver Date listed on each reward is not a promise to fulfill by that date, but is merely an estimate of when the Project Creator hopes to fulfill by.
It's not uncommon for things to take longer than expected. Sometimes the execution of the project proves more difficult than the creator had anticipated. If a creator is making a good faith effort to complete their project and is transparent about it, backers shoud do their best to be patient and understanding while demanding continued accountability from the creator.
Kickstarter is not a store, and their fund-raising campaigns are not sales or merchanisms for taking pre-orders. There are always risks, and often unexpected delays and problems. Mr. Klauk pledged money to a project whose intention was to create a new product line. In exchange for that support, he is to recieve rewards as outlined during the Kickstarter campaign. He recieved Wave One of those rewards last year, and we are actively working towards the production of Wave Two.
Kickstarter does not offer refunds. A Project Creator is not required to grant a Backer's request for a refund unless the Project Creator is unable or unwilling to fulfill the reward.
Since his $250.00 total pledge, the rewards that Mr. Klauk has received thus far have a total retail value of $354.60. In terms of the sheer number of game pieces, he has received 69 so far (in addition to one copy of the full game rules, dice, and other accessories, everything he needs to play the game), and has only 40 additional game pieces remaining to be delivered in Wave Two.
In the 27 months since the funding period of this Kickstarter campaign ended, we have posted 89 Updates, an average of more than three per month. There have been 14 Updates in the last six months alone, at least one of them showing multiple pictures and breaking down exactly what the status of several game pieces was at the time. And both of these numbers are just those Updates posted on Kickstarter's website itself; they do not include our own weekly e-mailings which often contain Kickstarter campaign updates.
But Mr. Klauk already knows all of this, particularly because he and a small numbers of others, at the encouraging of another backer, have coordinated to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau as well as State Attorneys General, and continue to do so as they share our responses among themselves.
You have also received a complaint from another one of this small group of backers, Mr. Richard M. Steinberg (not including the AG case #). I apologize for referring to the other complaint here, but the fact that the text of the two complaints is largely identical makes it clear that this is a coordinated effort between the two individuals, and I believe the context of the other complaint is necessary to fairly consider both complaints.
From Mr. Steinberg's public comments in his efforts to encourage his fellow backers to file complaints against us with various agencies, he appears to care nothing about the completion and delivery of Wave Two products at all. In fact, his publicly stated intention is to destroy our business or damage it as much as possible.
On July 10, Mr. Steinberg posted the following comment:
...I'm not pissed off because of my brother messing with me, I'm pissed off that Kevin has proven him right, and right now your conversation is only make me more determined to make sure PB is destroyed as a company and Kevin no longer is allowed to do this to anyone ever again, so thank you for impressing upon me my desire to destroy PB..
On August 8, Mr. Steinberg posted:
...file with the BB (heck I just did) but doubt PB gives a rats ass what the BBB thinks and will ignore any complaints, especially since PB is not accredited thru them, but hey enough complaints and the BBB will give them an 'F" instead of the "A" they have.
It is our hope that both of these complaints will be seen for what they are, and treated appropriately. Mr. Steinberg is repeatedly making false and exaggerated claims (which are also used, word for word, in the complaint by Mr. Klauk) in an effort to damage us and get some sort of revenge for being late in delivering the rewards for this Kickstarter campaign. I'm sure you will agree that we cannot reveal confidential financial information to a person with such malicious intent toward our company, as they both insist we do.
We sympathize with the frustration expressed by some of our backers over how long it is taking to deliver the rest of the rewards; we're frustrated too. But there have been a number of unforeseen difficulties with engineering and production on this project, as we have explained to our backers a number of occasions.
Please note that Palladium Books has been in business for 34 years and plans to be around for many years to come. This is not a fly-by-night operation and we most certainly care about our backers, or fans and this exciting new game line.
We are working to fulfill our Kickstarter campaign and deliver all remaining rewards to our backers. By Kickstarter's Terms of Service, which Mr. Klauk agreed to when he created his Kickstarter account and backed our Kickstarter campaign, we are not obligated to grant him or anyone else a refund.
Couple of things...
- I love how rewards was constantly re-iterated in italics. I'd be willing to bet that the items order off of the pledge manager don't follow the same rules; those clearly seem like pre-orders as you are selecting specific items.
- Enjoy how I should be dismissed because asking for a refund and asking others how they went about doing it is a conspiracy to destroy PB - Straight up lies about Wave Two being in production (as we know they WERE out of funds) to the AG as this was written up after Wave One had been out for about a year.
- Last sentence is a TL;DR: "You'll get refunds over our cold, dead bodies" - which they STILL seem think they don't NEED to do refunds.
- I love how rewards was constantly re-iterated in italics. I'd be willing to bet that the items order off of the pledge manager don't follow the same rules; those clearly seem like pre-orders as you are selecting specific items. - Enjoy how I should be dismissed because asking for a refund and asking others how they went about doing it is a conspiracy to destroy PB - Straight up lies about Wave Two being in production (as we know they WERE out of funds) to the AG as this was written up after Wave One had been out for about a year. - Last sentence is a TL;DR: "You'll get refunds over our cold, dead bodies" - which they STILL seem think they don't NEED to do refunds.
What a Snake Oil salesmen KS is.
From within the message from Kevin...
Kickstarter is not a store, and their fund-raising campaigns are not sales or merchanisms for taking pre-orders. There are always risks, and often unexpected delays and problems. Mr. Klauk pledged money to a project whose intention was to create a new product line. In exchange for that support, he is to recieve rewards as outlined during the Kickstarter campaign. He recieved Wave One of those rewards last year, and we are actively working towards the production of Wave Two.
Kickstarter does not offer refunds. A Project Creator is not required to grant a Backer's request for a refund unless the Project Creator is unable or unwilling to fulfill the reward.
So... he told the AG that Palladium isn't required to grant a Backer's refund request unless PB are unable or unwilling to fulfill the reward.
How is this NOT a slam dunk for the Michigan AG's office now? He told them the exact circumstances in which case they're required to do so, and those circumstances have exactly been met. I mean, he could say he was lying when he was talking to the average plebs like me, but I'd find it entertaining to see him use that excuse to the AG.
I mean, granted, he already lied by saying they were ACTIVELY working on Wave 2, when according to the first of the current batch of Updates, at that point they knew they were out of money. Unless he's lying to backers about that too (possibly misappropriating money over the last 3 years, rather than admitting failure and using that money for refunds). Cause the man is an inveterate liar and huckster and scumbag. He might not have set out to defraud backers, but that doesn't change that he appears to have done so regardless.
Looks like with the latest RRT Update, they're pushing the deadline for backers to the end of the week. I assume they got permission to do so (and if not, I hope HG doink them hard), but it does show how desperate they are to lower their lawsuit liability.
It's mostly the normal spank, but I do find it funny that nearly all the metal exclusives are gone (Breetai left), and some trivial crap (both army specific token packs and the UEDF decals), but NONE of the boxed sets are even close to being limited.
So even with the "massive uptake" they've had in the exchange program, and the clearance level sale they had, they've still got so much excess stock, that nothing is in danger of running out.
Morgan Vening wrote: Looks like with the latest RRT Update, they're pushing the deadline for backers to the end of the week. I assume they got permission to do so (and if not, I hope HG doink them hard), but it does show how desperate they are to lower their lawsuit liability.
It's mostly the normal spank, but I do find it funny that nearly all the metal exclusives are gone (Breetai left), and some trivial crap (both army specific token packs and the UEDF decals), but NONE of the boxed sets are even close to being limited.
So even with the "massive uptake" they've had in the exchange program, and the clearance level sale they had, they've still got so much excess stock, that nothing is in danger of running out.
I suspect there is even a small income in shipping.
Every dollar counts.
I think they are drawing this out as well to see if a lawsuit is a go.
If it looks like it will not happen THEN they will not care about the exchange much.
I really hope that found letter from Kevin to do with the AG is included in the lawsuit.
I am rather upset how Kevin treats people.
It was pretty clear in the quote that as a customer there was a want to spare others from PB's bad behavior.
Using the word "destroy" or not, some measure of public concern was expressed.
Their communications to our community / their customers can bring out the worst in people.
Nothing like being belittled to get the anger flowing.
Kevin is always happy to point out how "unreasonable" people are behaving when he is the one that got them all fired up.
Words kill don't you know, except his.
I am sure since we all have communicated in some traceable ways, all kinds of stuff they will be happy to dredge up.
I have kept my letters as well, his full commitment to make good on refunds if wave 2 could not be made are there in black and white.
I guess he figured he could string us along indefinitely to make that kind of commitment.
It really matters little what I have to say after that.
Talizvar wrote: So the long and the short of it is to get backers to trade for the minimum they can and still leave room to sell some product and hope they do not need to sell the remainder to some fan-friend to trickle out on ebay.
I am concerned with when the license "actually" expires, all sales methods seem to be still up: PB website and Drivethru.
What I am wondering is NOW they have managed to get a HUGE commitment to the exchange they make the decision: NOW put out refunds (angering many that made the exchange) or they simply go with the idea "you had your chance" and sweep anything still owed under the carpet as a game of chicken with litigation. I am surprised they did not expunge all they could to remove all current information on Robotech and PB. Every day the KS for RRT is open gives more chances for backers to organize who may be late to cluing in on the closure of the KS.
I am also curious if they will have any Robotech at Anime North (May 25th): I bet they could not help themselves if they have extra stock.
Ah well, good times.
As to use of the miniatures: it still looks pretty when done right.
There is some hope for me, my youngest son was watching Robotech on Netflix and seemed to enjoy it.
He enjoys Khyron more than is healthy, not sure how to customize his Glaug to befit "the backstabber".
He just got through Breetai going into space and beating up Veritechs in hand-to-hand so he is considered an official "Boss" character so I now have to get that model done.
I now have to make a blue VT since Max is the favored hero (too bad his hair is blue, my kid's is green), waiting to hear his opinion on Miriya.
He is confused why Rick has trouble choosing: "Lisa" is obviously the better woman for coming up with "the Daedalus maneuver", he figures she is a keeper for that alone (what are they doing? Ah, that... is... AWESOME!).
"Minmay is dumb." was the other observation (for not recognizing Rick could die in a battle and for mistaking a medal as jewelry).
I do admit it has been very funny watching this again and hearing his observations.
Just saw "Ready Player One" on the weekend and now he is asking to see more of "Gundam" after seeing one in action.
I do not like to indulge too much in nostalgia, but I feel negligent not exposing my kids to what was a ton of fun prior to their births.
Stuff like this is why I love reading this thread. I love robotech. I grew up with it as a kid and it's got a special place in my heart. I also like Macross, Superdimensional Calvary Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA as stand alone shows themselves. I mean transforming motorcycles.... whats not to love!!
When you are young you don't understand all the crap that goes on behind the scenes to bring something like this to life. As a Adult, I despise Harmony Gold for the flagrent abuse of the copyright laws and their 'liberal' interpretation of them. But the kid in me still loves Robotech and anything to do with it.
I love your kids perspective on the plot of Macross. Roy is awesome. Lisa is by far the better woman but Rick wasn't thinking with his big head. Minmay should of been shoved out a airlock at the first oppertunity... post haste.... Capt Glovel was the most epic space ship captain since Capt Avatar ( Starblazers ftw baby!). Max and Miria was a great sub plot and the trials they have to go through especially in the extended universe like the Malcontent uprisings.
I've tried to get my GF's Grandson into Robotech he's 9 and while he loves the fight scenes. Loves the SDF-1, the Zentradi ships and ofc the Veritech's but he can't get into the plot of the show... ( then again he likes logan and jake paul ... bangs head on the keyboard) maybe when he is a little older he will understand it a bit better and be into it.
FabricatorGeneralMike wrote: I love your kids perspective on the plot of Macross. Roy is awesome. Lisa is by far the better woman but Rick wasn't thinking with his big head.
If every character were perfectly rational, movies would be a lot shorter. Also, how do you explain to a kid when a man is letting the small head do all the thinking?
FabricatorGeneralMike wrote: I love your kids perspective on the plot of Macross. Roy is awesome. Lisa is by far the better woman but Rick wasn't thinking with his big head.
If every character were perfectly rational, movies would be a lot shorter. Also, how do you explain to a kid when a man is letting the small head do all the thinking?
Like with many things in life: the crazy people are fantastic entertainment but you typically do not want them as part of your life.
My son seems to understand that.
He seems to understand what makes Lisa outstanding is what she can do while Minmay is of interest for what she is which I suppose is enough for now (he is 12 so is getting there).
My eldest seems to be of more simple tastes "does it have guns?" seems to be enough.
Mixed feelings on the episodes coming up: how will Roy's death be received? (I think mine way back when was "Why did he not go to hospital? Is he an idiot?" a standard response for me when upset.) Stay tuned.
From my days of watching GI Joe, Roy’s death came as a shock. I saluted the animators for having the gumption to kill a main character - something I had never seen a cartoon do before up until then,
I notice that they changed Roy’s death in Do You Remember Love, and the lampshaded the hospital bit in Macross Frontier - I guess a lot of people asked that same question of why he didn’t go to the hospital.
Automatically Appended Next Post: *Sigh*
Well, as much as I hated to do it, I’m taking advantage of PB’s extension to cash out of this dumpster fire and get back something. At this point I don’t have faith that a lawsuit will ever manifest against these jokers, and even if it did, the backers wouldn’t see any compensation other than the satisfaction that PB goes bankrupt - which honestly, will happen with or without me.
I wouldn't feel too bad. I sold my credit for about half price to someone, and doing the math based on what they paid me, what they got, and the fire sale prices, they were still ahead of the game, if not quite as much as they might have been otherwise.
It's not an ideal outcome, but I'll take 1/2-1/3 of what I'm owed over nothing, and will be spreading that cash with my friends who backed with me all those years ago.
At least it's something, even if it just becomes a couple of movie tickets or a dent in my next Dwarven Forge KS contribution.
At the very least, crowdfunding seems to be dead for them directly, and semi-indirectly. Yes, obviously Savage Worlds still succeeded, but between the board game fiasco, and this (finally) admitted cratering, I imagine they'll remain toxic for the rest of their days, even if just on crowdfunding platforms.
Oh, they might lumber on, zombie of the industry that they are, supported by fan friends who buy a dozen grab bags a year whether they need them or not, but hopefully this debacle removes their ability to take advantage of thousands of people at once.
And if they try again, I imagine there'll be a nice big spike of backers in for a buck to speak their mind. Without being ghoulish, I don't think Kevin has enough years left before retirement to have enough of the stink from this clusterfeth wash away. Even a casual association with PB seems to be verging on radioactive these days.
Forar wrote: At the very least, crowdfunding seems to be dead for them directly, and semi-indirectly.
I don't think so. I think they could still easily crowdfund a print run of a new book. I also think they could probably successfully fund "limited editions" of some books. I just don't think there's enough widespread knowledge of exactly how bad this was to truly quash their ability to get crowdfunding money.
They're probably dead in the water for any larger projects. They're definitely not going to be able to get a toehold in miniatures again. But for their business of printing RPG books and decks of playing cards, I don't think there's any true impediment.
GabrielV wrote: But for their business of printing RPG books and decks of playing cards, I don't think there's any true impediment.
I guess that depends on how fast the Polygon posting of "absolute disaster" gets bumped off the first page of a google search.
I do admit, unless you are looking for it, nothing stands out for the first few pages.
Not sure they are so unimportant much is noted or they are just that good at ensuring overly bad press is dealt with.
Forar wrote: At the very least, crowdfunding seems to be dead for them directly, and semi-indirectly.
I don't think so. I think they could still easily crowdfund a print run of a new book. I also think they could probably successfully fund "limited editions" of some books. I just don't think there's enough widespread knowledge of exactly how bad this was to truly quash their ability to get crowdfunding money.
They're probably dead in the water for any larger projects. They're definitely not going to be able to get a toehold in miniatures again. But for their business of printing RPG books and decks of playing cards, I don't think there's any true impediment.
While it's possible, I don't think it will happen, and probably not for the obvious reasons.
One thing that Palladium has been cagey about, but has let slip some details on, are their sales numbers. They mention books being at the printers, and arriving, but avoid mentioning how many books to the print run, or what sales are. Now, that's absolutely their business, but it's not unprecedented for companies to mention it either.
A Kickstarter funded book would have numbers attached to it. These wouldn't be concrete (due to some people being turned off by the platform, etc), but it'd give a better insight into how strong/weak PB book sales are. Rather than snippets about how awesome selling 120 copies of a new release (and the first new book in ~6 months) at the biggest convention in the world, or being excited about the couple dozen card packs they sold. And that'd lead to questions about how PB have remained solvent, and leads back to harder questions.
For example, if Kevin's producing less than a thousand copies of a book that MSRP's for $25, and you assume art assets and printing costs account for $5 per, that's $20K of income, assuming all direct sales. PB put out two books a year. And has a half dozen or so permanent employees. And an office/warehouse space. Those numbers wouldn't add up. Which leads to questions.
Additionally it'd be embarrassing as hell if they did fail to get the numbers. Or if the book was significantly delayed.
So it's possible that PB COULD crowdsource a new book. But there's so many reasons it'd be clinically stupid to do so that.... OK, I can see PB crowdsourcing a new book.
GabrielV wrote: It looks like the Robotech RPG PDFs have been removed from DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.
For anyone who purchased them, are they still on your download history, or scrubbed from there as well?
Dunno about the RPG books, but the RTT pdfs are still in my library after being removed.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Morgan Vening wrote: So it's possible that PB COULD crowdsource a new book. But there's so many reasons it'd be clinically stupid to do so that.... OK, I can see PB crowdsourcing a new book.
Hahahahaha.
Sadly, I agree. Kevin will try for that sweet, sweet crowdsourced money again at some point.
GabrielV wrote: It looks like the Robotech RPG PDFs have been removed from DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.
For anyone who purchased them, are they still on your download history, or scrubbed from there as well?
Dunno about the RPG books, but the RTT pdfs are still in my library after being removed..
Makes sense, the product was purchased prior to license expiry so it represents my purchased product.
No harm no foul I guess.
Good to know in case I lose my copies off my drive or Jamz's Wiki is unavailable for some reason.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yep, after looking at Kickstarter as a crowdsourcing venue, I think it will be dead to me for anything a middling company tries to flog. If it is some garage thing, sure win-some / lose-some. I am tired of paying for someone's R&D and market research all in one go.
I think I got a bit out of line peeing on the Battletech release for HBS. It was pointed out Gog was offering the game for less and bundled an HBS game as well.
It got me thinking of all the various reasons one should not pre-order and... well... I guess I am done with it.
Caveat emptor applies to when you have the product in hand and are considering the purchase. I think I need to get back to something like that.
Forar wrote: At the very least, crowdfunding seems to be dead for them directly, and semi-indirectly.
I don't think so. I think they could still easily crowdfund a print run of a new book. I also think they could probably successfully fund "limited editions" of some books. I just don't think there's enough widespread knowledge of exactly how bad this was to truly quash their ability to get crowdfunding money.
They're probably dead in the water for any larger projects. They're definitely not going to be able to get a toehold in miniatures again. But for their business of printing RPG books and decks of playing cards, I don't think there's any true impediment.
Oh, they might internally 'crowdfund' another project, and if the legal battle looks ugly enough I could see another 'Crisis of Financial Insolvency' as they begged for people to buy overpriced pencils and art bits, but I mean projects on Kickstarter or Indiegogo or other large scale platforms.
Considering how delayed their other internally run campaigns, I'd expect some wariness then too, but for the dedicated fans reality and history are no obstacle.
So yeah, a couple of grand for a book print or something? Yes.
But the big names, the places where they *might* be able to attract 6 or 7+ figures? I really don't think so.
Crowdfunding (gRIFTS) books is easy, because they're selling things to FanFriends who are just happy to give Palladium Crooks money - from them, delivery is optional.
Crowdfunding anything else that doesn't cater directly to PB's FanFriends will be impossible.
A couple of comments around the tubes of people claiming that PB are in dire finacial starits mean we will probably see a plea for cash.
Not sure they have the fan base this time around.
Ultimately, I decided not to take the deal. I don’t expect to recoup anything, but if I can be a part of holding them accountable legally then that is good.
I see what others are doing with printed models and it is exciting and I think something can still be done to salvage this for me. But then I look at my diminished hobby time and the high cost of prints, even the nicest of which seem rough for their costs... I can’t convince myself to invest further.
Maybe one day, or maybe some other company will surprise us with a new line that will reinvigorate my enthusiasm to bring this to my painting table again.
It has been my largest disappointment in gaming, mostly because Kevin took a huge dump on something I love to make a quick buck off of us.
I'm in the same boat. I don't expect much, if anything back. I do expect PB to be held to account legally. There's a contract in play and it should be enforced.
winterdyne wrote: I'm in the same boat. I don't expect much, if anything back. I do expect PB to be held to account legally. There's a contract in play and it should be enforced.
Additionally, a precedent set.
It's more than just this campaign. If PB aren't held to account, why should any Creator?
It's why I'm a tiny bit surprised that Kickstarter themselves have sat on their asses as much as they have. Obviously, they don't want to deal with the legalistics themselves, and they DEFINITELY don't want to be held to account personally, but their attitude of "Do whatever, we don't care" with regards delinquent Creators has had me cut my Kickstarter backings significantly since the RRT thing went off the rails (and was about the same time Creative Gamescapes went into "silence" mode).
If the lawsuit does happen and fails, I'll probably drop out of Kickstarter for anything but sequels to previously successful campaigns (big fan of the Tiny Epics), as it's clear that there are zero protections available to backers, and I can see an escalation in campaigns with no intent to deliver. After all, it's free money.
winterdyne wrote: I'm in the same boat. I don't expect much, if anything back. I do expect PB to be held to account legally. There's a contract in play and it should be enforced.
Additionally, a precedent set.
It's more than just this campaign. If PB aren't held to account, why should any Creator?
It's why I'm a tiny bit surprised that Kickstarter themselves have sat on their asses as much as they have. Obviously, they don't want to deal with the legalistics themselves, and they DEFINITELY don't want to be held to account personally, but their attitude of "Do whatever, we don't care" with regards delinquent Creators has had me cut my Kickstarter backings significantly since the RRT thing went off the rails (and was about the same time Creative Gamescapes went into "silence" mode).
If the lawsuit does happen and fails, I'll probably drop out of Kickstarter for anything but sequels to previously successful campaigns (big fan of the Tiny Epics), as it's clear that there are zero protections available to backers, and I can see an escalation in campaigns with no intent to deliver. After all, it's free money.
I ' am same boat as rest you guys , boy this boat really loading here. I have 4 KS coming this month and the next so this one the only that fail which not really not bad other this one took most money then the others. I just wish we can put the fear of God into Kev on this that all.
Morgan Vening wrote: If the lawsuit does happen and fails, I'll probably drop out of Kickstarter for anything but sequels to previously successful campaigns (big fan of the Tiny Epics), as it's clear that there are zero protections available to backers, and I can see an escalation in campaigns with no intent to deliver. After all, it's free money.
That is why I think after Battletech is done I can shutdown and not look at Kickstarter again.
Pre-order of any kind has rarely worked out for me and has so many arguments against it.
It seems to prove time and time again that no-one has any incentive to improve and make something great if they already have your money.
It is an irritant as well when a Kickstarter is funded, then the creator sets up a pre-order for retail: so nice to double up on getting money up front.
So... the latest PBWU is up. EDIT: But again, they're still not posting them to the FB page. Last official post was three weeks ago.
Kevin tells customers there's no more RRT for sale. So at least that part is done. Of course, he can't help trying to deflect that it wasn't the game that was a failure, it was the "other factors" beyond his control. His creations can't fail. They can only BE failed.
"It has been painfully ironic, but since the liquidation sales, we have had a growing number of gamers contact us to tell us they are surprised by how much fun the RRT game is and how nice the miniatures are. Yes, we couldn’t agree more. That comment is usually followed by, “how can I get more?” "
Also, something that was actually brought up a couple weeks ago (thanks for the incessant copypasta, Kevin, I wouldn't have noticed otherwise), that since March 15th, after PB claimed "poor" regarding the Kickstarter, they've reprinted at least three books.
Because for these jackasses, it's business as usual. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised at all if some early liquidations of stock backers appear to have paid for was used to fund the reprinting of these books. I dunno. Seems convenient timing, at a time when they're pleading no money, is all.
JohnHwangDD wrote: All they can do is ban PB from ever using their platform again.
Actually the better question would be will Kickstarter actually do so? No. There is no reason, in their opinion, as long as they whatever percentage of fee the project generates.
Kickstarter is obviously unconcerned about any perceived damage to their brand that this, and a few other shoddy projects, have created. So why would they consider banning anyone from their platform.
Unless Kickstarter, or any other crowd-sourcing platform, is willing to go after the abusers with something other than a stern warning and an apology for being useless to a backer, they will not act.
Hard to say - if several people report the project to KS as potentially fraudulent, based on previous experience, and KS still goes forward despite the warnings of financial malfeasance, they could possibly be held jointly liable.
Morgan Vening wrote: It's why I'm a tiny bit surprised that Kickstarter themselves have sat on their asses as much as they have
I'm not. They had no control over the delivery. They did matchmaking.
All they can do is ban PB from ever using their platform again.
They couldn't do much, but they COULD have done more. It was one of my frequent refrains, that Kickstarter require PB give a revised date, provide actual proof to backers that things really were "being worked on", or be declared a failure according to Kickstarter's terms and conditions, and that refunds should be issued to any backer that requested one. Not enforced it (not their responsibility), but it would have opened up PB to a strong-position lawsuit much earlier, when more people gave a crap about the campaign. The apathy they generated over the last two years has been pretty palpable.
It's a small thing, but if it'd been done about mid-late 2016 (two years after Wave 1), when it was shown (or rather wasn't), that PB had no intention of displaying their "work", then we'd be 18 months into this post RRT phase already.
I never expected Kickstarter to take on PB. But when PB are making a mockery of Kickstarter's terms of service (We're totally working on it! Promise! <insert no detail>, I had HOPED Kickstarter would have realized that being tied to this lead balloon was something they wanted to avoid.
And regarding a ban, unless things have changed, Kickstarter aren't going to care if Carmen (with the rest of PB as backup dancers) redoes gRifts. Not sure I'd put much likelihood in it, due to the Facebook page having no new content in almost six months. Though if it does, I expect a similar amount of vitriol if it does launch.
Having been burned a few times now (one with unacceptable delays, and this clusterfeth, along with a few other small messes), I'm definitely trimming back what I'm willing to gamble. Like Morgan, followup campaigns to successful projects work, and projects that are small in scope and/or along the lines of a $1-5 'tip' for an idea I like but don't want to commit to are all fine by me.
Though I do keep eyeing that new Fireball Island. As I've mentioned a few times now, it's basically weaponized nostalgia, and I'm keeping tabs on it.
I'm soured on the idea of this platform. While there have been some projects I find interesting, this particular gak-fest has deterred me from committing to anything anymore. I went in on this because of Ninja Division's reputation blunting Siembiedas' incompetence. I really should have listened to my gut and walked away but its water through the damn at this point.
I will, however, not support any future endeavor Palladium Books contemplates going through Kickstarter again regardless of who they may or may not be paired with.
Forar wrote: Though I do keep eyeing that new Fireball Island. As I've mentioned a few times now, it's basically weaponized nostalgia, and I'm keeping tabs on it.
Hopefully they do a better job than HQ25... or Robotech.
A buddy nearly dove in deep for HQ25 for me for my birthday that year. Getting the boot from KS and moving to another platform kept him away, and glancing at the thread in another subforum on here, it's lucky that was the case in hindsight.
But this one seems to be trucking along just fine, and the team making it has been talking openly about doing it for ages.
Of course, there are no guarantees in life, and I'm only in for a buck currently, but they're traveling a bunch of states and a couple of stops here in Canada to show off the prototype they've built, so this isn't just some group with a twinkle in their eyes.
But I guess only time will tell. Even well managed projects can find themselves underwater. Though the marginal gains through the stretch goals is actually something I'm liking, and they responded quickly about their delivery target and that unlocks shouldn't influence that.
Of course, if it's 2 years late and a titanic mess, I suppose I'll have to learn my lesson eventually.
I've been following Fireball Island , and I think they've got a pretty good idea of what they want to make, and it looks like they should have the money to do it, both overall, and per game. Taking it to delivery is the hard part, especially for a first creator.
I wish them luck, and think it's too bad this isn't being produced by Hasbro.
I had sold all my wave 1 stuff, con promos, bag, etc years ago as I was upset about this fiasco. I finally caved and used the trade in program, ebay, and their sale to get a decent amount of product. I'm only missing the q-rau convention promo.
I'm finally happy. The game was decent and i finally I got something for my money/wave 2 (even though it's not what I expected or strongly desired). The game is dead, they will never get another dime from me, and I can still continue to play and add to that experience with the community created wave 2 minis (like what the community did for the marvel you minis game). I can finally breathe freely.
The dust tactics and robotech kickstarters were horrible but now over... as for hq25, I'm never expecting anything for my money. That's a total lost cause.
455_PWR wrote: like what the community did for the marvel you minis game
I think I heard about this, but remind me: are people keeping the Knight Models' Marvel game alive? Is there a website or forum where people are actually active with this? The thread I knew about on Dakka doesn't see much activity (plus it's now a Batman/DC game thread I guess).
I kind of wish I'd cashed in for some Glaugs. Oh well.
Does anyone have a pile of leftover bits they'd be willing to sell for not much more than shipping? The veritechs are a pain to assemble, but the leftover bits are so useful for modding other minis.
The best way to support Palladium books any more is to buy the Savage Worlds version of Rifts. Show them how much more competent other people are with their IP than they are.
AegisGrimm wrote: The best way to support Palladium books any more is to buy the Savage Worlds version of Rifts. Show them how much more competent other people are with their IP than they are.
Well, provided anyone wants to do that, of course.
Has anyone read the "Terms of Service" of Kickstarter?? Just wondering if it was given how long after the project ended they have to refund money.
If there is no time line given.. Kevin can go back to his "we are working on it" and do that for another five years if not.
Just curious what will happen now.. I figure less than 20% (< 1000 people) took the trade out offer..
I don't own my wave one stuff anymore and don't want more of it... maybe next they will offer anything from their store.. Or maybe give you credit towards
the Rifts tabletop game that hasn't had an update since late last year.
Going by Kevin's past with how non-votes were considered approval, I think he considers all obligations filled once they're done with the bait-and-switch -in-kind.
> Has anyone read the "Terms of Service" of Kickstarter??
I've heard rumors. Specifically, the ToS is there to protect KS from any action by you (not that you can't with a lawyer), and means nada without enforcement (again, with a lawyer).
AegisGrimm wrote: The best way to support Palladium books any more is to buy the Savage Worlds version of Rifts. Show them how much more competent other people are with their IP than they are.
Well, provided anyone wants to do that, of course.
Sorry, I was trying to be snarky. I meant the best way to support them is to give that money to other people who are running their IP better than the actual creators of it. With a successful and fulfilled Kickstarter, too, which must be kind of like salt in the wound.
AegisGrimm wrote: The best way to support Palladium books any more is to buy the Savage Worlds version of Rifts. Show them how much more competent other people are with their IP than they are.
Well, provided anyone wants to do that, of course.
Sorry, I was trying to be snarky. I meant the best way to support them is to give that money to other people who are running their IP better than the actual creators of it. With a successful and fulfilled Kickstarter, too, which must be kind of like salt in the wound.
This is PB we're talking about, you know. As long as the money keeps coming and they don't have to do any actual work, I think the will give about two feths among all of them.
Albertorius wrote: This is PB we're talking about, you know. As long as the money keeps coming and they don't have to do any actual work, I think the will give about two feths among all of them.
Not quite followers of the 40k "Khorne" , more like "Kasha cares not from whence the money flows, so long as it does."
They do seem to be masters of trying to figure out how to get the greatest return on the least effort possible, fan-friend efforts are considered "free".
AegisGrimm wrote: The best way to support Palladium books any more is to buy the Savage Worlds version of Rifts. Show them how much more competent other people are with their IP than they are.
Well, provided anyone wants to do that, of course.
Sorry, I was trying to be snarky. I meant the best way to support them is to give that money to other people who are running their IP better than the actual creators of it. With a successful and fulfilled Kickstarter, too, which must be kind of like salt in the wound.
Well, that’s not the best idea either- PB gets paid royalties or somesuch for the use of the Rifts license.
Better to go to the source of whatever they ripped Rifts off from in the first place - just cut the middle man out altogether.
1) people are complaining that they submitted their lists early and are only just hearing back
2) they are being told that what they requested is out of stock
3) yet anyone who gave them a call got instantaneous service
4) which completely contradicts their statement that lists were filled in the order that they came
5) out of stock items include common expansion boxes like Spartans which were still in stock to buy on their site from non-backers until 4/2
I updated the title, I figure we'll close this thread at last once people are getitng their exchange items. Feel free to start a new thread on legal actions against Palladium.
I noticed something hidden away in the depths of this weeks PBWU, apparantely Carmen is re emerging at a new job at Palladium
Any bets that this is to helm the niew Rifts Tactical RPG game, not of course related to his gRifts Boardgame in any way apart from the design?
Wonder where Palladium got the funds to start development for this one, oh of course, the retail sales of the RTT product they never actually paid for.
wilycoyote wrote: I noticed something hidden away in the depths of this weeks PBWU, apparantely Carmen is re emerging at a new job at Palladium
Any bets that this is to helm the niew Rifts Tactical RPG game, not of course related to his gRifts Boardgame in any way apart from the design?
Wonder where Palladium got the funds to start development for this one, oh of course, the retail sales of the RTT product they never actually paid for.
Not sure where this info is. The three references to Carmen have him tentative to show due to a new job, training and may not be able to show, and a Splicers reference.
I see that as him getting further from PB, than closer to, if he's not attending the POH. Cause let's face it, noone who works for Kevin has to go through any training (or have any qualifications besides nasal ridge/interglutal cleft compatability with Kevin). So him being potentially absent doesn't make sense.
As for gRifts, I think it's on indefinite hold. There hasn't been a new update on Rogue Herpes Studios in more than seven months. And unless PB do decide to voluntarily issue refunds (shyeaaaah), I can't see any project being worth the obvious backlash, even if they don't do a miniatures related one. I think at least for the next couple years, Kevin's going to stick to using the funds that appear to have been generated by sales of stuff that backers paid for, to do what he does. Spit out a book every 4-8 months, and keep the lights on.
While I absolutely don't think Kevin has the capacity for self-reflection to think he's done anything wrong, it would surprise me a little if he didn't see that stepping outside his comfort zone, especially with a six figure project, given the hostility of the haterz, would be a worthwhile endeavour. He definitely prefers to be a big fish in a small pond.
EDIT: Yeah, I accidently typoed Carmen's company name, but screw it, I find the typo more fitting.
I might have mentioned it before, but will again...
My bet is that PB wanted to exchange first with the heavy hitters in the Pledge Manager / Backer Kit.
The people they owed larger amounts of money probably got priority because if they can clear out the big fish, the little ones are less likely to go after them... maybe?
I doubt it. The people who added additional items or those who ordered off the web site I'm sure got priority. That's actual money rather than a gakload of stuff going out the door for the price of shipping.
Feth this company. Hope they and HG get what's coming to them - at the most inappropriate time for them.
Stormonu wrote: IThe people who added additional items or those who ordered off the web site I'm sure got priority.
I had some trouble finding a backer here with Unseen Riflemen/Warhammers. I can confirm that an order for the same placed on Saturday 4/1 was packed on Easter and given to USPS Monday.
Now that Harmony Gold has lost it's case against Hair Brain Schemes;
Maybe they should go after Palladium for damaging their licence.
They knew about the train wreak early on and I am sure it didn't help
that Kevin kept telling people five years later that he is "still working on it"
Nothing was pulled from production process after loosing the licence. So
clearly they had not done anything since wave one. If someone that had
product that based on my licence that still owed paying customers something.
I think I would not just sit by and allow them years to make it worse.
Plus the fact that about every other Robotech licence holder refuses or not
allowed to use Kickstarter.. Seems Robotech Tactics is the cause of that..
HG was aware of it, they tried to help out by giving a free extension on the license and connecting them with businesses.
Genoside07 wrote: Now that Harmony Gold has lost it's case against Hair Brain Schemes;
Maybe they should go after Palladium for damaging their licence.
They knew about the train wreak early on and I am sure it didn't help
that Kevin kept telling people five years later that he is "still working on it"
Nothing was pulled from production process after loosing the licence. So
clearly they had not done anything since wave one. If someone that had
product that based on my licence that still owed paying customers something.
I think I would not just sit by and allow them years to make it worse.
Plus the fact that about every other Robotech licence holder refuses or not
allowed to use Kickstarter.. Seems Robotech Tactics is the cause of that..
Stormonu wrote: IThe people who added additional items or those who ordered off the web site I'm sure got priority.
I had some trouble finding a backer here with Unseen Riflemen/Warhammers. I can confirm that an order for the same placed on Saturday 4/1 was packed on Easter and given to USPS Monday.
I've had no trouble selling mine on EBay for $30 a box.
I've actually not had trouble selling any of the KS stuff, even recently, on EBay for close to retail.
Genoside07 wrote: Now that Harmony Gold has lost it's case against Hair Brain Schemes;
Maybe they should go after Palladium for damaging their licence.
They knew about the train wreak early on and I am sure it didn't help
that Kevin kept telling people five years later that he is "still working on it"
Nothing was pulled from production process after loosing the licence. So
clearly they had not done anything since wave one. If someone that had
product that based on my licence that still owed paying customers something.
I think I would not just sit by and allow them years to make it worse.
Plus the fact that about every other Robotech licence holder refuses or not
allowed to use Kickstarter.. Seems Robotech Tactics is the cause of that..
Just give it some time - once the ship has sufficiently sunk and HG is hurting for monies, they’ll turn on PB in some fashion.
I’m wondering how close HG will pay attention to the “destruction” of unsellable stock of RRT. As litigatious as they are, I assume they’ll request a complete breakdown of the final state of remaining stock, but as much as they share PB’s work ethic as they are will they ever get to looking it over?
I sent in my request for trade on 4/5 or 4/6, got a reply the items were pulled on Friday, but haven’t seen a shipping cost request yet. Not sure if I’ll be due a “sorry, not in stock” e-mail, but I did ask for a box of Spartans...
I’m also shocked they’re running out of base stuff - there seems little motive to pull a “short on stock” marketing gimmick and I can’t fathom there’s been that many folks that took the offer; it’s have to be over 100% trade-out I would think.
So... the tentative schedule for the Open House is up, here.
They've got Peter Pidrak (The Last Cheerleader) hosting several RRT games for 4 hours each morning, and a tournament.
A six hour tournament. Either they're anticipating bugger all people showing up, they're doing very small battles, or they're content with the possibility of multiple undefeated players. Seems very much out with a whimper than with a bang.
Heck, given the environment in the public sphere, will Kevin even mention a winner?
Also of note to those who have followed this debacle, Business and Social Media Manager Scott Gibbons is apparently going to be on site on Sunday. Guess they need SOMEONE to help clean the toilets. Hopefully he's better at that job than he is at managing the business or social media.
So let's see what he's running. "Scott Gibbons Board Game Rifts Battlefield". I wonder if that's the Talisman clone I've heard mentioned over the years, a reskin of Carmen's game (again diluting the "It's not a PB thing!" argument), or something new? Cause working on something new like this, so soon after the RRT clusterfeth crashed and burned, is just mindboggling stupid. So my guess is it's something new. When it comes to a choice between lazy IP theft, business shell corporation muddlement, or starting a 5+ figure project on the heels of a collapsing 7 figure project that you've claimed you can't refund due to inability to do so and the optics would be bloody horrible, I'll take the latter.
Actually, it sort of makes sense that they would run out of Spartan boxes first. The Tomahawks/Defenders were included in the core set so shipping aside, the most cost-effective way to get Valkyries/Tomahawks/Defenders/Battlepods/Officer Pods were to get the core set. I'm surprised they still have artillery pods as I would have expected those would have also been in high demand.
As for the Rifts board game, it'd be very suspicious if they were suddenly able to fund its development in-house.
cannonfodr wrote: Actually, it sort of makes sense that they would run out of Spartan boxes first. The Tomahawks/Defenders were included in the core set so shipping aside, the most cost-effective way to get Valkyries/Tomahawks/Defenders/Battlepods/Officer Pods were to get the core set. I'm surprised they still have artillery pods as I would have expected those would have also been in high demand.
As for the Rifts board game, it'd be very suspicious if they were suddenly able to fund its development in-house.
Agreed on the Spa/Pha. The reason I'd argue that it sold out before Arty Pods, was because of crossover. Spartans in particular make a proxy for the original Battletech Archer. The Longbow (RRT Phalanx) has been around since Sorenson's Sabres, about three years after Battletech was initially published. It never gained the cultural nostalgia though, because it's neither as cool looking, nor did it have the "historical context". When the leaders of two of the more prominent (at least in the books) mercenary companies both drive Archers, and a Longbow is maybe mentioned in passing, it's not surprising. And with the Arty Pods being even LESS known, and also arguably sufficiently different in look to the BT equivalents, I'm not surprised.
Not saying that BT sales were the predominant driver, but I think the crossover explains the sales differential.
And yes, if PB do start actively developing a board game, I can see a lot of people being suspicious. And angry. And seething. Especially if it's self-funded. Though as said, it's quite possible that this is just the Talisman reskin. I believe it was mentioned when Carmen's game came to light (that it wasn't that). And I *THINK* it was Gibbons who was attached to the other. But my memory is fuzzy, and I'm too over it to go back through the volumes of gak PB have spewed over the last five years to find that one reference.
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