With every orange dot being an update (though not necessarily a relevant one), it's easy to see how since last October there's been longer and longer gaps between communications. Unfortunately, it doesn't show how uninformative the 2015 updates have been...
Jefffar wrote: Thats great, but I was specifically referencing the mention that the calls are still outstanding. Your most recent update is more than 2 years old. Do we have confirmation that these are still not complete?
That's great? As I said, that's what I found with a little cursory google'ing. Unless someone wants to pay my hourly rate, I'm not putting hours into a fully cited endeavour.
If only there were some way someone, perhaps a moderator of their forums, could check into this? Certainly at least a few of the people making noise ON THE FORUMS could be contacted by someone on those forums.
Crazy thought, I know. I wonder if they have some sort of person who does some sort of work there, I think the term is moderator, who could look into that?
Or perhaps the person who claims that something is happening (on the Facebook group) could provide links to it so that someone, like myself,( who is not a moderator of that group), could find it easily and verify their claim.
Yes, it's called "argumentum ad nausem", and was quite successful back in the days before people knew how the Internet worked.
But, hey, there's no evidence that Simbieda would EVER lie about whether or not something had been done. So, you're clearly the one arguing from a point of strength here.
Jefffar wrote: Thats great, but I was specifically referencing the mention that the calls are still outstanding. Your most recent update is more than 2 years old. Do we have confirmation that these are still not complete?
That's great? As I said, that's what I found with a little cursory google'ing. Unless someone wants to pay my hourly rate, I'm not putting hours into a fully cited endeavour.
If only there were some way someone, perhaps a moderator of their forums, could check into this? Certainly at least a few of the people making noise ON THE FORUMS could be contacted by someone on those forums.
Crazy thought, I know. I wonder if they have some sort of person who does some sort of work there, I think the term is moderator, who could look into that?
Or perhaps the person who claims that something is happening (on the Facebook group) could provide links to it so that someone, like myself,( who is not a moderator of that group), could find it easily and verify their claim.
Actually no matter how annoying people seem to get by being asked to prove an assumption it does not invalidate the question. Just like people who say 97% of the scientists say Global Warming is a real thing caused by man.....then you investigate the poll and how that number came into being and you see how full of crap the poll is and how reality is much closer to 50/50.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Your best bet would be to go directly to PB's FOTM forums and get an answer from the most likely place you'll find to find fans that would pay to talk to Kevin S.
Actually no matter how annoying people seem to get by being asked to prove an assumption it does not invalidate the question. Just like people who say 97% of the scientists say Global Warming is a real thing caused by man.....then you investigate the poll and how that number came into being and you see how full of crap the poll is and how reality is much closer to 50/50.
you notice how nobody mentions that this isn't the first global warming of the planet and it has happened several times before man even showed up in the picture? Global warming is a natural occurance of this planet and will occur whether man was here or not, and lets not forget a massive Volcanic Eruption as has been seen by mankind several times, spews more hazardous chemicals and pollutants into the air then man does.
Mike1975 wrote: Just like people who say 97% of the scientists say Global Warming is a real thing caused by man.....then you investigate the poll and how that number came into being and you see how full of crap the poll is and how reality is much closer to 50/50.
... you really do pick some of the strangest analogies.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Don't you start bringing real science into this. Nor mention the Little Ice Age. Or Krakatoa. Nope. Global warming is 100% man-made. Yup.
John, can you maybe take the tinfoil hat consipiracies to the off topic forum? Unless global warming is secretly caused by the Robotech Masters or the SDF-1's reflex furnance overheating somewhere in the Pacific, I can't think of how it fits in this thread.
So, Forar, how many days until the 1,000 day anniversary of the successful funding of the KS? Are we planning some sort of celebration to mark this milestone? Instead of all the products supposedly starting manufacturing within 40 days of the KS funding, we'll be at 1,000 days with roughly half the products still not ready to make. That's a 2,500% delay! Surely that deserves recognition even by Palladium standards.
warboss wrote: So, Forar, how many days until the 1,000 day anniversary of the successful funding of the KS? Are we planning some sort of celebration to mark this milestone? Instead of all the products supposedly starting manufacturing within 40 days of the KS funding, we'll be at 1,000 days with roughly half the products still not ready to make. That's a 2,500% delay! Surely that deserves recognition even by Palladium standards.
Now that would be good to know! I might be able to have Nodal Wars ready for it depending on the date.
Perhaps they'll have a sort of millennial sale. Special RRT surprise packages? Another Note From Kevin telling us that we are not forgotten, good things are coming but we can't know what, they are working hard, he'll write that it is all up to us to make the game successful and we'll get more details in a week.
warboss wrote: So, Forar, how many days until the 1,000 day anniversary of the successful funding of the KS? Are we planning some sort of celebration to mark this milestone? Instead of all the products supposedly starting manufacturing within 40 days of the KS funding, we'll be at 1,000 days with roughly half the products still not ready to make. That's a 2,500% delay! Surely that deserves recognition even by Palladium standards.
warboss wrote: So, Forar, how many days until the 1,000 day anniversary of the successful funding of the KS? Are we planning some sort of celebration to mark this milestone? Instead of all the products supposedly starting manufacturing within 40 days of the KS funding, we'll be at 1,000 days with roughly half the products still not ready to make. That's a 2,500% delay! Surely that deserves recognition even by Palladium standards.
I wonder when their rights to the IP expire this time? Of all the assertions that have been leveled against them, that one I find most compelling.
If their right to even do the work is lost next year, then that's an awfully short clock to run out before 'oops, sorry, we CAN'T do it, legally'.
Not that it'd change the expectation for them to make good on things anyway (refund demands and other product or whatever), but hey, a way to turn some of those cores laying around the warehouse into something other than dust collectors!
According to Wikipedia, they had the license from 1986 to 1995, and reacquired the license in 2007. Though their own Website claims it was in 2008. Looks like their Shadow Chronicles book was released in Sept 2008, so obviously they had it before then.
Sooooo, if they got another decade long contract, and that thing runs out in 2017....
I wonder when their rights to the IP expire this time? Of all the assertions that have been leveled against them, that one I find most compelling.
If their right to even do the work is lost next year, then that's an awfully short clock to run out before 'oops, sorry, we CAN'T do it, legally'.
Not that it'd change the expectation for them to make good on things anyway (refund demands and other product or whatever), but hey, a way to turn some of those cores laying around the warehouse into something other than dust collectors!
According to Wikipedia, they had the license from 1986 to 1995, and reacquired the license in 2007. Though their own Website claims it was in 2008. Looks like their Shadow Chronicles book was released in Sept 2008, so obviously they had it before then.
Sooooo, if they got another decade long contract, and that thing runs out in 2017....
Wouldn't mean squat. As per a statement from PB that I quoted a couple days ago, March 18th, 2014, an expiry of license puts them right in the crapper.
Palladium Books on March 18, 2014
This isn't Jeff, this is Wayne. I was nearby while Jeff was on the phone with you, and he was calm and polite the entire call, whereas you were rude and resorted to name-calling. He simply did not say the things you claim.
We're sorry about the delay in delivering the rewards for this project, but it is coming, and soon. There is no question about whether we will deliver. If something were to happen that would cause us to be unable to deliver we would, of course, offer refunds as Kickstarter's terms dictate. But that is not the case here; not even close. We'll deliver as promised, as soon as we can. Wave One will deliver in June or July, as we've said before. Wave Two by the end of the year, hopefully well before. Screaming and calling names won't speed up the process.
The highlighted text being the relevant bit. If they legally can't make the product, I'd like to know how they can argue that that wouldn't count as "unable to deliver". It's the very definition of the phrase.
Ahhh, "The Zero Incident", the gift that keeps on giving.
And he was even gracious enough to note that it wasn't Jeff (who is no longer with the company, and thus can be easily distanced from), but Wayne, whom is a long time employee.
Mike1975 wrote: [Actually no matter how annoying people seem to get by being asked to prove an assumption it does not invalidate the question. Just like people who say 97% of the scientists say Global Warming is a real thing caused by man.....then you investigate the poll and how that number came into being and you see how full of crap the poll is and how reality is much closer to 50/50.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Your best bet would be to go directly to PB's FOTM forums and get an answer from the most likely place you'll find to find fans that would pay to talk to Kevin S.
That would be great advice for Cypher if he wants to provide the proof that I'm wrong.
I didn't say I doubted him, I just asked for proof.
Forar's proof was that they hadn't been completed by the time of a post made in 2013. As I hadn't recalled any further complaints about the calls not being done after that, I assumed they were done. Cypher said the complaints were much more recent than that but provided no proof other than it may be in the FB page.
If he, or anyone else can find proof of recent complaints about those calls, I'll retract my statement, it's that simple.
But I won't go to the effort of proving myself wrong for somebody else's benefit, that's up to them.
I could care less if Kevin has made those calls now. That a year and a half had passed since the KevinKS(TM) had occured and the calls hadn't been made is the real issue.
As is the fact it's been over 2 years since this KS ended "98% ready" and we don't have everything and we don't know the status of the second half is what is relevant to us.
Mike1975 wrote: [Actually no matter how annoying people seem to get by being asked to prove an assumption it does not invalidate the question. Just like people who say 97% of the scientists say Global Warming is a real thing caused by man.....then you investigate the poll and how that number came into being and you see how full of crap the poll is and how reality is much closer to 50/50.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Your best bet would be to go directly to PB's FOTM forums and get an answer from the most likely place you'll find to find fans that would pay to talk to Kevin S.
That would be great advice for Cypher if he wants to provide the proof that I'm wrong.
I didn't say I doubted him, I just asked for proof.
Forar's proof was that they hadn't been completed by the time of a post made in 2013. As I hadn't recalled any further complaints about the calls not being done after that, I assumed they were done. Cypher said the complaints were much more recent than that but provided no proof other than it may be in the FB page.
If he, or anyone else can find proof of recent complaints about those calls, I'll retract my statement, it's that simple.
But I won't go to the effort of proving myself wrong for somebody else's benefit, that's up to them.
In these cases I think both parties should either search out evidence or let it go since in essence it's all heresay.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stormonu wrote: I could care less if Kevin has made those calls now. That a year and a half had passed since the KevinKS(TM) had occured and the calls hadn't been made is the real issue.
As is the fact it's been over 2 years since this KS ended "98% ready" and we don't have everything and we don't know the status of the second half is what is relevant to us.
It's not a big loss for them except the $ they lost.....I spoke to him on the phone once and it was an "interesting" conversation.
The opening comment about it still happening remains unproven. Fine, fair enough, I think we're all in agreement there.
The fact it took at least 16 months to make 16 phone calls (could've been done at one a month even!) rather than a week or two (hell, a month or two to really spread them out and avoid impacting the business) is what is baffling. He even clarified that most people were only getting about 20 minutes; 6+ hours (longer calls for the guys at the top, presumably) is a lot of time in a single session, and sorting out scheduling when he's free and they are as well might take a bit of doing, but we're talking something that should have been cleared out in what, a month at most? There is no good reason other than "it got forgotten about or known and procrastinated over".
I don't care how busy he was/is; don't offer things for rewards you can't back up. It was a problem then, and it's a problem now.
The original point was that they made good on their other crowdfunded campaigns, and a challenge that it wasn't without shenanigans of their own. Moving past the unsupported allegation that the calls remained missing, there absolutely needs to be an asterisk there noting that yeah, the books were delayed (perhaps not massively compared to some on their roster, if going purely from the funding period to delivery, rather than the ancient 'who knows how much is actually done' period half a decade prior), and that some of the other rewards weren't exactly handled well either.
And even by that standard, 31+ months and counting on full delivery, with a target at the 37+ mark, and the potential to get up to well past that (3.5 years? 4? A nice half a decade?) isn't remotely acceptable. That's not "oh Kevin thinks it's a good idea, he'll mention it in a newsletter and string it along for 5 years", it's a *product line* they *took money for*. Some like to say that it's not a pre-order, and you're right, I can get my fething money back from a pre-order. This is worse, and thus I hold them to a higher standard, not a lesser one.
I don't care what he claims about being misled by Ninja Division in the Great History Of Everything. They have made models before. They have made countless products (books, dog tags, mousepads, pencils, etc). Getting a factory slot isn't the 12 labours of Hercules, transporting product across the ocean doesn't require discovering a new element. I'm sure it's a lot of work, I'm sure that even with wave one behind them it's still new(ish), but it's not rocket surgery, and every week and month and YEAR that goes by, the fewer acceptable excuses they have, triply so based on their ongoing (and sometimes seemingly unprompted) statements about how they haven't run off with the money, and they're not in trouble, and everything is going forward.
Eventually it strains credulity that anyone could put hundreds and thousands of hours into something with nothing to show of it, even if by accident.
They have put more effort into discussing mental illness in the last few weeks than they've put into discussing Wave 2 in the last year. They are not (officially, as a business) a mental health support group or service. They are (allegedly) making Robotech figures, and have been well paid significantly in advance on that. That's not okay.
"But Forar, people can do multiple things at once!" some might say. And that is true.
But they need to show their fething work for us to know that, and frankly even saying that isn't all that high a bar to clear. They found the fortitude to knock out 19 pages about assorted random gak half a year ago, they can find a couple hours to put out a page or two detailing what state everything is in.
And if that state is "a render, and maybe a sprue breakdown, kinda", they what the ever loving feth have they been doing for the last year and a half?
Because they sure as feth have not been working on wave two.
Alpharius wrote: I still think "Zero Incident" sounds pretty cool.
Hard to believe that it is almost 1000 days since the campaign ended though...
Didn't it take less time to rebuild the Spaceship that crashed on Macross Island and return to space with it than this kickstarter is taking to fulfill?
If the random sites I'm bringing up on Google are to be believed, the SDF-1 crashed in July 1999, and the launching ceremony was supposed to be in June 2009, so no, not quite.
Again, these are from random sites on the interwebz, if someone has the Perfect Collector's Edition with a time line in gold leaf or whatever, feel free to share it.
More substantially, according to WIkipedia, they seem to have gotten the license to Robotech back in or around September 2007.
Meaning that if licensing is actually a concern/consideration, they have ~19 months (give or take the specific dates involved) before that kicks in.
Which, given that 6-12 months is currently the generous estimate for completion, isn't exactly a lot of wiggle room.
Your missing the point. You want to prove one thing when PB has way more problems like completing this project. Your also ignoring the fact that Kevin refuses to adapt which is why PB is slowly dying. Just like Kevin you seem to be conveniently ignoring that Kevin still thinks the Internet and PDFs are still a fad or that the presentation of his books is woefully poor. So if you still want to argue something of little consequence then be my guest.
Merijeek wrote: But then, from what Kevin's puppet Wayne said, they'd offer refunds!
And when has anything they said one day, meant anything the next day?
When Kevin claimed he didn't actually say that backers would get their copies before retail. Turns out it's completely true, it was confirmed the very next day.
Kevin always includes a cassette recording audio transcript of everything he writes so the reader can listen to his voice as they read the letter. This was not done with the updates in which it was written that backers would receive their copies first, so technically, he never said it.
It's completely true and I'm certainly not going to trawl the internet for proof that I'm wrong.
It's strange. I got home today and found a box from a KickStarter that ended on June 3rd of 2015 (i.e. - just a hair under 2 years after RRT) that contained my entire small pledge almost exactly when the delivery was estimated for in December of 2015. While it's obviously January, as a technically international backer the first week of January is "close enough" considering holidays and so forth. This box contained 11 different kinds of hard plastic models, which all seem to be reasonably well-executed (leaving aside any aesthetics comparison as inherently subjective) and by sculpt count relatively equal with RRT Wave 1 if my math and reading skills haven't failed entirely. The company who produced this raised less than 5% of the amount PB had to work with, though in fairness they had only 15% of the packages to dispatch. They also had actually put in the groundwork years in advance of collecting money, which likely made the project actually 98% done when the campaign was posted.
Why bring this up? Because the company who did it is the same minds behind Dakka, and to be able to accomplish such a clearly unpossible feats as having a clearly defined timetable, updated progress and sticking to their plans they are clearly wizards and/or have some dark pact with an unholy entity. Thus, any opinion expressed by Dakka members can be safely discounted, as who would really consider listening to such a godless bunch?
It does provide an interesting contrast to the struggles here though. Perhaps a bit of apples-and-oranges as SAS doesn't have to deal with a licensor or any of that nonsense, but it is more evidence that producing a miniatures game is not rocket surgery nor even brain science. Is it work, and probably a metric ton of it? Sure, but it's *do-able* work if you set your mind to it. I suppose the most charitable thing that could be said is it DID take SAS four years to get the product to market, but somehow I can't find giving PB that long with taking money from people up-front to be acceptable. Maybe I'm just weird though and too much of a "customer" and not enough of a "fan-friend."
Tooling complexity on the ME minis is also significantly higher than RRT. In particular the Hunter, Scarecrow and both Angels have very nicely done sliding-core moulds to result in easy-to-assemble, detailed-on-multiple-face models.
Edit: And I had my hands on both pre-pro and ready to produce plastics well in advance for painting up for marketing work. The guys were proper organised, and generally a pleasure to work for.
Your also comparing a company that likely had someone with some "Project Management" skills. PB has none and never put someone in place to handle things. Jeff was hired but then expected to do much more than RRT and does not really count. Again, it comes down to PB treating RRT like a red-headed stepchild.
Your missing the point. You want to prove one thing when PB has way more problems like completing this project. Your also ignoring the fact that Kevin refuses to adapt which is why PB is slowly dying. Just like Kevin you seem to be conveniently ignoring that Kevin still thinks the Internet and PDFs are still a fad or that the presentation of his books is woefully poor. So if you still want to argue something of little consequence then be my guest.
Did I ever say there wasn't something wrong about this? Did I ever say that there doesn't need to be better communication? Did I ever say they don't need to get the productcompleted as quickly as possible?
You seem to be confusing a post clarifying the way Palladium has operated in my experience as a customer with a claim that this is perfect or the best way to work. You seem to think that I don't want the product I've paid for. You seem to think I don't want them to be able to produce product faster and more frequently.
Well you're wrong. I'm as frustrated as the rest of you by this situation. For me this is the same frustrations I've had with Palladium since the last century.
My goal was to provide insight into how Palladium has wound up this way. Some folks, like myself, have found the product enjoyable enough to tolerate this sort of thing, some have not. I can appreciate both points of view.
So, no. don't stop having issues with what Palladium's doing. It's your right as a customer to express your dissatisfaction with the situation. I just disagree with some of the things being said about this situation.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Merijeek 651554 836379. 4 null wrote:But you don't understand. Someone cast (almost certainly true) aspersions at the boss!
Well, I just spent a few minutes lodging a complaint with the FTC. https://www.ftc.gov/ For those wanting to do so, some appropriate dates to include / check for in your emails
Initial contact / kickstarter launch: 18 April 2013
Funding (date you paid out to Amazon) on or around 20 May 2013
ROW shipping completion of Wave 1 update: 14 May 2015
I suggest everyone who hasn't done so lodge a complaint - it's not a lot of effort and it's past time this project and PB was either forced to put up, or was shut down for breach of contract.
Mike1975 wrote: Your also comparing a company that likely had someone with some "Project Management" skills. PB has none and never put someone in place to handle things. Jeff was hired but then expected to do much more than RRT and does not really count. Again, it comes down to PB treating RRT like a red-headed stepchild.
Dakka are a bunch of dudes. Intelligent, skilled, creative, and dedicated dudes, but I'm willing to bet PB has been in business nearly as long as some of them have been alive. Interest and experience playing such games presumably didn't change the need for research and planning and all the other things that went into making that an apparently smooth endeavor.
Project managers are great. I love the PM's I work with, occasionally scary folks as they are, but it's more than just needing a PM, they'd need one and for Kevin not to feth with every thing he or she did.
The longer this bullgak goes on, the less likely a PM would've really saved this project. Hell, it might've been actively counterproductive; they'd have been paying someone to be another cog under the 'waiting on Kevin for answers' machine.
It may not be a perfect apples to apples comparison, but it does at some level showcase that minis production is *doable* in a reasonable timeframe, with quality results, on a smaller quantity level (which doesn't benefit from economy of scale), and emphasizes how unreasonable PB's current time line has been. Being wargamers doesn't make people experts at getting minis made, and PB allegedly had done their research. They keep hiding behind how hard and new this all is, and yet a group that I'm guessing doesn't have a warehouse and somewhere around a century in business experience between them managed to pull things off in a fraction of the time.
Adding someone else to report to Kevin would not triple their efficiency. Everything I've read about Kevin leads me to believe there's no way he'd give up a fraction of the micro-managing control that'd be necessary to do the job.
At this point, a PM might've just ended up another waste of money and as someone else to get thrown under the bus.
Unless we can point to someone on the SAS team that has a background in project management, I don't accept that as an explanation or deflection. There's no "to be fair, maybe this hypothetical thing happened..." to be found.
And if one of them does, provably, have that kind of career training and experience, I will cheerfully withdraw this counterpoint.
Mike1975 wrote: Your also comparing a company that likely had someone with some "Project Management" skills. PB has none and never put someone in place to handle things. Jeff was hired but then expected to do much more than RRT and does not really count. Again, it comes down to PB treating RRT like a red-headed stepchild.
Not to worry, Mike. The guy known for doing quick pencil sketches was promoted to take his place. I'm not sure how to describe the reasoning behind that without violating rule #1. What is the opposite of a meritocracy? Nepotistic dictatorship? While I don't personally know Chuck Walton, I do know that mad crazy project management skills were not a part of his publicly known speciality in the industry and the complete LACK of public progress in 2015 sure doesn't bolster a cache of hidden skills either. Palladium should have hired an outsider with the necessary experience and not just promoted a fan friend/freelancer/employee from working on something completely different to work on the biggest project in the company's history that is already a massive failure in terms of delivery, execution, and public relations.
Mike1975 wrote: Your also comparing a company that likely had someone with some "Project Management" skills. PB has none and never put someone in place to handle things. Jeff was hired but then expected to do much more than RRT and does not really count. Again, it comes down to PB treating RRT like a red-headed stepchild.
Indeed, or at least SAS got their "we have no idea what the hell we're doing" time squared away before "going public" as it were. There's a long list of company failures on this project, but the buck stops with the company who has their name on the project. PB has been around long enough that they can't apply for a pass on the freshman fouls that SAS would be allowed (and notably did not commit in any case). Heck, they can't even really lay claim to the sophomore screw-ups that Mantic could being a six-year old company that experienced insane growing pains; they've been in business for nearly 35. damn. years.
As Forar pointed out much more eloquently, adding expertise doesn't translate directly into results. PB's core problem is, unfortunately, Kevin himself. His management style and work methods are ill-suited to what needs doing, but he appears to lack the self-awareness/humility to step out of the way and let more competent people at the required tasks do what they need to do (and since that sounds like a slam on KS, nobody is competent at all things that a business would need to do; I am woefully incompetent at drawing up budget projections, which is why my job description doesn't require that). Based on evidence presented by previous contractors and employees with PB, I don't think he would know how to allow the person the authority they would need to get things done anyway. Sure, those reports are going to be negatively biased, but in totality it is hard to discount the over-arching theme of needless micro-management as disgruntled ex-employees dining on sour grapes.
At the risk of getting into Rickensian saber-rattling, a company that can't get their act together after three decades of operations is probably an ideal candidate to be culled from the marketplace, especially if they're taking money from consumers and then not honoring their obligations in a timely manner.
Krinsath wrote: It's strange. I got home today and found a box from a KickStarter that ended on June 3rd of 2015 (i.e. - just a hair under 2 years after RRT) that contained my entire small pledge almost exactly when the delivery was estimated for in December of 2015. While it's obviously January, as a technically international backer the first week of January is "close enough" considering holidays and so forth. This box contained 11 different kinds of hard plastic models, which all seem to be reasonably well-executed (leaving aside any aesthetics comparison as inherently subjective) and by sculpt count relatively equal with RRT Wave 1 if my math and reading skills haven't failed entirely. The company who produced this raised less than 5% of the amount PB had to work with, though in fairness they had only 15% of the packages to dispatch. They also had actually put in the groundwork years in advance of collecting money, which likely made the project actually 98% done when the campaign was posted.
[fan-friend] SEE? ANOTHER KICKSTARTER LATE! And yet YOU ATTACK THE BLESSED ONE BECAUSE HIS KICKSTARTER IS LATE!!!11!!! Another data point supporting our point![/fan-friend]
I wonder when their rights to the IP expire this time? Of all the assertions that have been leveled against them, that one I find most compelling.
If their right to even do the work is lost next year, then that's an awfully short clock to run out before 'oops, sorry, we CAN'T do it, legally'.
Not that it'd change the expectation for them to make good on things anyway (refund demands and other product or whatever), but hey, a way to turn some of those cores laying around the warehouse into something other than dust collectors!
According to Wikipedia, they had the license from 1986 to 1995, and reacquired the license in 2007. Though their own Website claims it was in 2008. Looks like their Shadow Chronicles book was released in Sept 2008, so obviously they had it before then.
Sooooo, if they got another decade long contract, and that thing runs out in 2017....
Wouldn't mean squat. As per a statement from PB that I quoted a couple days ago, March 18th, 2014, an expiry of license puts them right in the crapper.
Palladium Books on March 18, 2014
This isn't Jeff, this is Wayne. I was nearby while Jeff was on the phone with you, and he was calm and polite the entire call, whereas you were rude and resorted to name-calling. He simply did not say the things you claim.
We're sorry about the delay in delivering the rewards for this project, but it is coming, and soon. There is no question about whether we will deliver. If something were to happen that would cause us to be unable to deliver we would, of course, offer refunds as Kickstarter's terms dictate. But that is not the case here; not even close. We'll deliver as promised, as soon as we can. Wave One will deliver in June or July, as we've said before. Wave Two by the end of the year, hopefully well before. Screaming and calling names won't speed up the process.
The highlighted text being the relevant bit. If they legally can't make the product, I'd like to know how they can argue that that wouldn't count as "unable to deliver". It's the very definition of the phrase.
Partial delivery means they have been able to deliver, though. There's a box containing some fraction of what I ordered sitting in my apartment right now. As terrible as this project has been, that does still put it in a better situation than three of the other projects that I've backed.
And losing the license next year seems pretty conditional given how long they've had it and reasonable assumptions about what's required to renew it. I mean, presumably they have a year to come up with a plausible sounding plan that addresses any concerns Harmony Gold may have. Us discontented rabble aren't the ones that PB needs to convince about anything.
If the license was yanked, the odds of getting a useful partial refund is pretty much zero, though, because 5000 or so Kickstarter backers would probably have to stand in line behind creditors and people with real money.
Mike1975 wrote: Your also comparing a company that likely had someone with some "Project Management" skills. PB has none and never put someone in place to handle things. Jeff was hired but then expected to do much more than RRT and does not really count. Again, it comes down to PB treating RRT like a red-headed stepchild.
Indeed, or at least SAS got their "we have no idea what the hell we're doing" time squared away before "going public" as it were. There's a long list of company failures on this project, but the buck stops with the company who has their name on the project. PB has been around long enough that they can't apply for a pass on the freshman fouls that SAS would be allowed (and notably did not commit in any case). Heck, they can't even really lay claim to the sophomore screw-ups that Mantic could being a six-year old company that experienced insane growing pains; they've been in business for nearly 35. damn. years.
As Forar pointed out much more eloquently, adding expertise doesn't translate directly into results. PB's core problem is, unfortunately, Kevin himself. His management style and work methods are ill-suited to what needs doing, but he appears to lack the self-awareness/humility to step out of the way and let more competent people at the required tasks do what they need to do (and since that sounds like a slam on KS, nobody is competent at all things that a business would need to do; I am woefully incompetent at drawing up budget projections, which is why my job description doesn't require that). Based on evidence presented by previous contractors and employees with PB, I don't think he would know how to allow the person the authority they would need to get things done anyway. Sure, those reports are going to be negatively biased, but in totality it is hard to discount the over-arching theme of needless micro-management as disgruntled ex-employees dining on sour grapes.
At the risk of getting into Rickensian saber-rattling, a company that can't get their act together after three decades of operations is probably an ideal candidate to be culled from the marketplace, especially if they're taking money from consumers and then not honoring their obligations in a timely manner.
True BUT again, the idea that it was all because of Kevin, however likely is only an ASSUMPTION.....and until proven stays that way. The only way to disprove it would be for
A. An insider to talk
B. ND to open up
C. HG to open up
None are likely to happen. Kevin for the most part, while hands on with a lot of writing, seemed pretty out of the loop on most of the rest with RRT. That coming from the only person here who was on any conference calls with respect to RRT. I never, ever, got the impression that Kevin himself was very hands on with RRT. He was never in any of the calls and he, even much later into things, had no clue how the game was played.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It is just as likely a combo of PB, HG and ND and an overly complex and barely or more likely mismanaged system where there was no good direction as far as moving forward.
PB is much too willing to let others sit by and do the hard work while they hope to bring in money and glory. If you sit off to the side waiting long enough eventually you realize nothing is getting done.
Same with other projects.....PB was hoping others would do the Lions share of the lifting for the Conventionals and pretty much sitting back with a grin on their faces, and it backfired.
True BUT again, the idea that it was all because of Kevin, however likely is only an ASSUMPTION.....and until proven stays that way. The only way to disprove it would be for
A. An insider to talk
B. ND to open up
C. HG to open up
None are likely to happen.
Isn't your post right here an example of A? You've had experience working for and peeking behind the curtain of the Wonderful Wizard of Palladium.
Kevin for the most part, while hands on with a lot of writing, seemed pretty out of the loop on most of the rest with RRT. That coming from the only person here who was on any conference calls with respect to RRT. I never, ever, got the impression that Kevin himself was very hands on with RRT. He was never in any of the calls and he, even much later into things, had no clue how the game was played.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It is just as likely a combo of PB, HG and ND and an overly complex and barely or more likely mismanaged system where there was no good direction as far as moving forward.
So who would you say, in your experience, is the go to guy with regards to Robotech now? I know you said you previously communicated with the guy who suddenly and mysteriously left but who took over for him? Did you interact with Chuck Walton in whatever capacity he is acting beyond quick pencil sketcher? I remember reading industry blogs talking about Palladium cattle calls for writers. While the blog didn't admittedly mention palladium by name but it was the only company that employed the writer being talked about (Jason Marker). He said that when the great and mighty Kevin had an idea that he would mailing list it out for writers and pretty much who ever answered first got the job. At FFG, the jobs are supposedly handed out instead based on what the line director thinks each artist has proven he can do successfully. Promotion and production at palladium feels like it is based on immediate convience rather than actual long term planning and merit. All I know for sure is that IMO the "quality" of the earlier Robotech RPG books under Jason Marker (despite me disagreeing strongly with his focus on "real" military organization that conflicts with the actual anime) was a hell of a lot better both in art, production, organization, and coherency than the more recent offerings I got since he left.
PB is much too willing to let others sit by and do the hard work while they hope to bring in money and glory. If you sit off to the side waiting long enough eventually you realize nothing is getting done.
Same with other projects.....PB was hoping others would do the Lions share of the lifting for the Conventionals and pretty much sitting back with a grin on their faces, and it backfired.
The impression that I get from Palladium and other companies in decline is that, despite their words, they view fandom as a priveledge that they bestow unto customers instead of the opposite. If you read their Rifter contribution agreement, they and only they decide whether they'll pay you for your contribution regardless of whether they use it or not. That's ridiculous to me. Either pay everyone for publishing their work that you claim permanent ownership of or make it clear that you don't pay anyone . Don't leave it up to a whim. And don't change a line or two and then stuff your name onto it as first author so that you can offer less payment ala the Bill Coffin post.
Yes Mike, it is an assumption, but it's an assumption based on extant evidence of the operations of PB to date; that Kevin will be quiet for weeks on end providing no guidance nor feedback until it's "crunch-time" at which point he has to go in and "fix" all the things that the contractor(s) did wrong and play the messiah role. Nothing about the arc of RRT seems to be deviating from that fairly credibly-established arc, though I concede you do have more inside information than most and perhaps their path to the same old problems was different this time around. In my own guesswork, I think where PB got bitten in this circumstance is by how glacial the movement of plastics tooling/production is in comparison to print. You can play cavalry with a book and ride in to save the day at the 11th hour as KS is reportedly wont to do, but even people who know what they're doing with plastics injection can get snarled up by scheduling or engineering problems and it's not something that someone out of their depth is going to be able to BS their way through.
By way of further comparison we can look at JohnHwangDD's favorite "should have hired a project manager" project with KD:M. They too embarked on injected-plastic miniatures, which was actually a post-funding shift. You had scope creep from all hell on that project, and it's hard to say John is wrong in his need assessment from a pure timely completion perspective. You had a creator who was likely woefully inexperienced with the rigors of HIPS production at the start, and a manufacturer that wasn't well-versed in the more complex designs the project required at that time. They were/are also horribly delayed on fulfillment. However, the miniatures have been done with a really staggering amount of sculpts/parts completed since May of 2015; the hold-up on final project completion is now the printed materials/boxing (see also: John is probably right-ish on the PM to curtail the creep). Even allowing that KD:M funded four months before RRT, we're past the timetable taken by a comparable project in scope, backer count, experience and funding making good on the major manufacturing end of the equation. That PB does not produce any sort of evidence of product is, in my view, simply insane.
I mean really, there simply can't be nothing done for Wave 2 in the past six months+, right? And if they do honestly have no tangible progress for this long while playing with other people's money...yeah, they deserve any unpleasant things that happen to their company, IMO.
@Warboss....I would say maybe A since I never worked closely from within or near the PB office so I can only speak to impressions and people will believe what they want to regardless. I can understand the desire to throw it all on Kevin's plate. In the end he is at fault, but there is also making crap up to fit one's own perception of reality and that is wrong.
Right now I could not say who is in charge. Wayne never cared to focus on RRT and I'm not sure how Chuck is doing. I kinda cut the cords with the whole deal with the Blast rules and basically said if they want help they know where to find me and that it'll cost.
With this restart, I'm very dubious and doubt it is anything more than more wordsmithing.
Agreed on the fandom part. PB's arrogance is what is killing things and what has been killing things for many years.
@Krisanth....I'm glad you agree it is an assumption. It is based on perception and history, not evidence. We have no first hand evidence of what is happening within on this mess. We have supposition based on other projects. That's it. Anything short of that and it's basically someone lying to themselves to fit a picture.
Where PB likely got bitten is their lackadaisical approach to work and not knowing how to do hard work or work with others. They assume way too much of others and pretty much never know what they are getting into short of re-writing and repackaging older materials.
I truly believe myself that nearly nothing has been done on wave 2. If it was Kevin, per past performance, would tend to want to crow about it. I think that we are on hold. People can continue to guess the reasons why. Do I think they intend to do wave 2? Yes. That does not mean that they are at this moment capable of doing so or that they should be let off because of their incompetence.
On the other hand, making spurious assumptions as to intentions because we are upset should be below any of us. The one time I spoke to Kevin on the phone for over an hour he seemed energetic but a big cagey to me. I've spoke of that before. But in the end he seemed honestly wanting to do the right things even if possibly inept or incapable of doing so.
Mike1975 wrote: @Warboss....I would say maybe A since I never worked closely from within or near the PB office so I can only speak to impressions and people will believe what they want to regardless. I can understand the desire to throw it all on Kevin's plate. In the end he is at fault, but there is also making crap up to fit one's own perception of reality and that is wrong.
Right now I could not say who is in charge. Wayne never cared to focus on RRT and I'm not sure how Chuck is doing. I kinda cut the cords with the whole deal with the Blast rules and basically said if they want help they know where to find me and that it'll cost.
With this restart, I'm very dubious and doubt it is anything more than more wordsmithing.
Agreed on the fandom part. PB's arrogance is what is killing things and what has been killing things for many years.
Good point (in that you weren't on site to view the day to day interactions). I can only assume that you would have ultimately arrived at the same conclusion quicker with greater contact though... I thought that the reason for your work stoppage was with regards to the conventional vehicle rules and not the blast rules? Or am I misremembering a story about Carmen laying claim to the playtesters' ideas and work as his own?
I agree that there's far too much malice attributed to KS as some sort of intent to defraud; I don't believe PB's actions rise to the level of criminal barring much more evidence. I think we agree that this is more down to inexperience and general incompetence in miniature wargaming products. If one ignores that Kevin's company is (or at least was) sitting on a large sum of other people's money, everything I've read actually paints a tale of an at least somewhat-talented person struggling with his own blind spots and limitations. That's something I think we can all understand and relate to as being a common part of the human experience, and I'd have a hard time believing anyone who claimed they had not wrestled with the same at some point in their lives.
At the end of the day though, his company, of which he is the owner and thus accountable, DID take a very large sum of money from a great many people and unfortunately that's where my sympathy for him ends. As nice of a person as he no doubt is and as genuine as his desire to complete the project may in fact be, you don't get any points for trying in business. In the words of a well-known philosopher: you do or do not; there is no try.
Mike1975 wrote: @Warboss....I would say maybe A since I never worked closely from within or near the PB office so I can only speak to impressions and people will believe what they want to regardless. I can understand the desire to throw it all on Kevin's plate. In the end he is at fault, but there is also making crap up to fit one's own perception of reality and that is wrong.
Right now I could not say who is in charge. Wayne never cared to focus on RRT and I'm not sure how Chuck is doing. I kinda cut the cords with the whole deal with the Blast rules and basically said if they want help they know where to find me and that it'll cost.
With this restart, I'm very dubious and doubt it is anything more than more wordsmithing.
Agreed on the fandom part. PB's arrogance is what is killing things and what has been killing things for many years.
Good point (in that you weren't on site to view the day to day interactions). I can only assume that you would have ultimately arrived at the same conclusion quicker with greater contact though... I thought that the reason for your work stoppage was with regards to the conventional vehicle rules and not the blast rules? Or am I misremembering a story about Carmen laying claim to the playtesters' ideas and work as his own?
Carmen apologized and I would have gone on helping but with the Blast rules I threw in the towel. If it was not for me pushing even that would likely have never happened.
So what was wrong with the blast rules? Was it the timing/delay? The massive complexity that they added to the explanation? Changing what was actually playtested to something else on a whim from Palladium? I'm not sure which if any of those particular blast rules straw options was the one that broke your camel's back.
I mean, presumably they have a year to come up with a plausible sounding plan that addresses any concerns Harmony Gold may have. Us discontented rabble aren't the ones that PB needs to convince about anything.
Harmony Gold doesn't care as long as they get the check in the mail. If someone offered more money, that would be the only reason why they would pull the license from Palladium.
If the license was yanked, the odds of getting a useful partial refund is pretty much zero, though, because 5000 or so Kickstarter backers would probably have to stand in line behind creditors and people with real money.
I think you are confusing losing the license with losing the company.
Which brings us back to one of my favourite sayings, and one I know I've used here before;
'Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.'
Whether it's because Kevin is the chokepoint or because ND are actually dastardly villains or because Wayne and Jeff wasted hours setting up a bare knuckle boxing gym in the warehouse or whatever; they have obligations, they're not meeting them, and it has been nearly a year since they even showed some measure of progress.
I wholeheartedly agree that people should be annoyed with them for actual reasons, because the list of things they've fethed up and/or failed to do is long enough without the need to weave things from whole cloth.
As I've asked others before, how long does this charade go on? People (Mike, some on the PB Forums, a rare voice on the KS comments) keep asking for patience or recognition of extenuating circumstances, or noting how X, Y, or Z would've made things better, but that's all academic. They are the ones who need to finish this, full stop. Their name is on the box, period. ND has stated they handed over the models, and PB has admitted that they have them, gave them 'to China', and as per late August (the big update showcasing these renders they gave 'China' to work with and craft sprue breakdowns because of a file incompatibility and reasons), yet here we are.
Before we go another round of Rebuttal Theater, ask yourselves this; was this all justifiable in 2013? 2014? 2015? Is it really worth defending in 2016? Is it still going to be worth defending in 2017? How many *years*, significant portions of our life expectancy, are acceptable to go by?
I joke darkly once in a while with Morgan that actuarial tables are in play. With a fan base of a cartoon from the 80's, it becomes less of a funny joke each passing year. It was one thing for people to cry OMG LAWSUIT! in 2014, and much mockery was had (Hi Rick!), but two years later?
Much like the bullgak ending up on PB's lap (again, their name on the box, they hold the license, etc, etc), Kevin is the man in charge. If he's the one giving directives, the buck stops with him. If he's hands off, how the hell is he letting the biggest project their company has ever done flounder for 2.5 years? In the end, it's on him to act or appoint people to act. "He's just so busy writing and editing and getting colonoscopies" ran out of merit a long time ago.
I feel like this just comes down to splitting hairs and theoreticals. "Oh but if they had a PM this wouldn't have happened!" Yeah, and if I, Forar, had the license I think we would be further along by now, but that ship has sailed. "Oh, we don't KNOW Kevin is the hold up!" Sure, nor do we know that he isn't rolling around naked in a pile of money like an RPG enthusiastic Scrooge McDuck.
We know he's the man at the top. We've gotten the Great Insider Tale from Bill Coffin about his managerial approach, and at his age I frankly doubt that has changed much. We've seen his grandiose dreams and declarations come back to to haunt them time and again (if to a lesser degree because they don't usually take money up front).
As is often said, this is indeed a new place for them; actual responsibility to consumers whom expect a measure of accountability. They aren't a couple of guys in their 30's hand cranking out their first RPG book anymore. They like to proclaim themselves trendsetters and of importance to the gaming community, then they should fething act like it.
But hey, I'm sure tonight or tomorrow we'll get the usual late week PB Newsletter, with the super special Early January State Of The Union Address, where they tell us, no really, this year RRT will deliver, along with three dozen books they're totally working on. Any day now. Annnnnny daaaaaaaay.
If the license was yanked, the odds of getting a useful partial refund is pretty much zero, though, because 5000 or so Kickstarter backers would probably have to stand in line behind creditors and people with real money.
I think you are confusing losing the license with losing the company.
He's just skipping a few steps in the math and taking on a few (likely reasonable) assumptions.
If PB lost the license, they would be legally unable to produce Wave 2. Were that to occur, they are on the record as stating that they would offer refunds. He believes that they do not have the money required to do so (the aforementioned assumption), which would entail bankruptcy/liquidation. If they went against that publicly-available statement, they'd face lawsuits which would result in the same effect of exhausting monies. At that point, creditors go to the front of the line as would any legal judgements/fines. Ergo, if PB lost that license before fulfilling Wave 2 in some sort of legally-sufficient fashion, it would be the same as losing the company.
I think you have the overall right of it though that HG doesn't care so long as the check shows up on time and doesn't bounce. Only other circumstances I see them pulling it is 1) your theory on a company offering significantly more money (doubtful) or 2) the company who has the licensed right to make board games (which explains why it had to be an outgrowth of the RPG rather than it's own product) deciding they don't like RRT and threatening HG with breach of contract if they don't pull it. While we see similar kerfuffles with Star Wars and FFG, given that this mystery company has not released any games that I'm aware of and thus could be entirely theoretical, I rate the likelihood of that occurring well-below the appearance of Wave 2, and I'm not at all optimistic on Wave 2.
warboss wrote: So what was wrong with the blast rules? Was it the timing/delay? The massive complexity that they added to the explanation? Changing what was actually playtested to something else on a whim from Palladium? I'm not sure which if any of those particular blast rules straw options was the one that broke your camel's back.
It was the massive effort to get PB to pay attention as the team worked on these. PB would only glance and opine on any rules if at all and then arbitrarily changed a few things without even asking what the reasoning was for some of the changes. Got sick of it, and this was soon after the insanity of the Conventional Rules that I had given them months before and that were still likely sitting unopened in a computer email.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Forar wrote: Which brings us back to one of my favourite sayings, and one I know I've used here before;
'Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.'
Whether it's because Kevin is the chokepoint or because ND are actually dastardly villains or because Wayne and Jeff wasted hours setting up a bare knuckle boxing gym in the warehouse or whatever; they have obligations, they're not meeting them, and it has been nearly a year since they even showed some measure of progress.
I wholeheartedly agree that people should be annoyed with them for actual reasons, because the list of things they've fethed up and/or failed to do is long enough without the need to weave things from whole cloth.
As I've asked others before, how long does this charade go on? People (Mike, some on the PB Forums, a rare voice on the KS comments) keep asking for patience or recognition of extenuating circumstances, or noting how X, Y, or Z would've made things better, but that's all academic. They are the ones who need to finish this, full stop. Their name is on the box, period. ND has stated they handed over the models, and PB has admitted that they have them, gave them 'to China', and as per late August (the big update showcasing these renders they gave 'China' to work with and craft sprue breakdowns because of a file incompatibility and reasons), yet here we are.
Before we go another round of Rebuttal Theater, ask yourselves this; was this all justifiable in 2013? 2014? 2015? Is it really worth defending in 2016? Is it still going to be worth defending in 2017? How many *years*, significant portions of our life expectancy, are acceptable to go by?
I joke darkly once in a while with Morgan that actuarial tables are in play. With a fan base of a cartoon from the 80's, it becomes less of a funny joke each passing year. It was one thing for people to cry OMG LAWSUIT! in 2014, and much mockery was had (Hi Rick!), but two years later?
Much like the bullgak ending up on PB's lap (again, their name on the box, they hold the license, etc, etc), Kevin is the man in charge. If he's the one giving directives, the buck stops with him. If he's hands off, how the hell is he letting the biggest project their company has ever done flounder for 2.5 years? In the end, it's on him to act or appoint people to act. "He's just so busy writing and editing and getting colonoscopies" ran out of merit a long time ago.
I feel like this just comes down to splitting hairs and theoreticals. "Oh but if they had a PM this wouldn't have happened!" Yeah, and if I, Forar, had the license I think we would be further along by now, but that ship has sailed. "Oh, we don't KNOW Kevin is the hold up!" Sure, nor do we know that he isn't rolling around naked in a pile of money like an RPG enthusiastic Scrooge McDuck.
We know he's the man at the top. We've gotten the Great Insider Tale from Bill Coffin about his managerial approach, and at his age I frankly doubt that has changed much. We've seen his grandiose dreams and declarations come back to to haunt them time and again (if to a lesser degree because they don't usually take money up front).
As is often said, this is indeed a new place for them; actual responsibility to consumers whom expect a measure of accountability. They aren't a couple of guys in their 30's hand cranking out their first RPG book anymore. They like to proclaim themselves trendsetters and of importance to the gaming community, then they should fething act like it.
But hey, I'm sure tonight or tomorrow we'll get the usual late week PB Newsletter, with the super special Early January State Of The Union Address, where they tell us, no really, this year RRT will deliver, along with three dozen books they're totally working on. Any day now. Annnnnny daaaaaaaay.
*jazz hands*
I think it's all just a lot of childish whining. You either do something about it like Rick, let it go, or complain to the same people who have heard it all 100 times before accomplishing nothing. Real honest desire for change would mean contacting media or other agencies to try to get the word out to new and different sources.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I will do my best to create my own game where I can still use what I got and stuff from other games and basically cut PB's rules out of my concerns for good. Some rebalancing and voila. I can use RRT, Battletech, or anything else and that is the best way for me to move on. This way I will never again have the need to buy anything from PB. The best way to protest short of lawsuits is simply to not buy and make sure others do not buy either.
The refunds are required if possible, even if they didn't write that they would provide them.
It's only an assumption that they don't have the money to produce the models and therefore also to provide refunds.
It may be reasonable, but it's just as reasonable to assume that they are not producing for other reasons.
PB could also be in a position, if they didn't have the funds to produce, to prove to the satisfaction of courts that they did their best to produce and ran out of money for legitimate reasons.
Likely they have some of the $, just not enough to produce, ship to the US, and then reship to customers all of wave 2. If you can't do all 3 there is no reason to spend the $ until you can.
Automatically Appended Next Post: at least wave 2 can be packaged up in tighter boxes or simply into bags........
I will do my best to create my own game where I can still use what I got and stuff from other games and basically cut PB's rules out of my concerns for good.
The rules are the least concern for the backers, though.
It's getting the remainder of our models that we care about.
Which seems unlikely. So we can complain or do something about it. Personally I plan on never seeing them and will use what I can however I can. Then if they show up I will use them and move on. One thing though, I will probably not buy a single thing from PB ever again and the books can usually be found online in PDF somewhere.
n815e wrote: The refunds are required if possible, even if they didn't write that they would provide them.
It's only an assumption that they don't have the money to produce the models and therefore also to provide refunds.
It may be reasonable, but it's just as reasonable to assume that they are not producing for other reasons.
PB could also be in a position, if they didn't have the funds to produce, to prove to the satisfaction of courts that they did their best to produce and ran out of money for legitimate reasons.
True as Mike points out there's as of yet no pressing reason for PB to be spending the money on production if they know they need X amount of money and they currently have only Y amount available (well, aside from creating something to show the backers they ARE working on things, but they've shown a certain amount of disinterest in that). We can even throw the rhetorical bone that it's only the increase in shipping since the campaign closed that is imposing a shortfall; that shipping is more expensive is both true and a substantial factor with the number of backers on this project.
However, if they're in a position where they have to prove to a court that they have spent all the money from the project in good faith (which would be something of a stretch but we'll go with it for debate's sake), enough bad things would have had to have happened to their finances that I'm not sure they survive it anyway. Rick may have been hyperbolic on some points, but the cost of vindicating themselves, if indeed they can be vindicated, would likely come up to a substantial sum in and of itself.
Obviously I am of the opinion that they would not be able to fully vindicate themselves in those circumstances, but until more people with standing get annoyed enough with PB's antics we'll probably not know one way or another.
Mike1975 wrote: I think it's all just a lot of childish whining. You either do something about it like Rick, let it go, or complain to the same people who have heard it all 100 times before accomplishing nothing. Real honest desire for change would mean contacting media or other agencies to try to get the word out to new and different sources.
If you find my commentary so distasteful, feel free to put me on ignore. Given the general tone of this thread, I'm not sure why you'd even come here. Not that you aren't welcome, you're free to read and post as you like.
But much like Kevin, you don't get to determine what I think, feel, or how I choose to express myself.
Alpharius, on the other hand... *looks around nervously*
Anyway, skip the generalities and get specific. I have cited, specifically, with fething references, what I have issues with, and have even presented suggestions as to how they might address them, including writing them a lengthy email on the matter and talking to Chuck for ~40 minutes last month. Just because I'm not willing to ring up one of the law firms in my building doesn't mean I need to 'bend over and think of England' while those donkey caves sit on a grand or two of product they still owe me and my friends.
What, specifically, do you find misguided? That I find distasteful PB's lack of transparency? What is childish about wishing to hold a company accountable for their failings? The world is not purely black and white, and as a grown man with young children I sure as hell hope you can appreciate the vast spectrum in between those extremes.
I can be unhappy without launching a class action lawsuit. I can chat with Warboss and Morgan and Mr. Dachi and others without needing to have a torch in one hand and a pitchfork in the other as we take a roadtrip to PB's warehouse.
Frankly, trying to get a laugh out of some of these gents over a shared experience is vastly more entertainment than PB has provided directly, so nope, I can't see giving that up anytime soon.
It's funny but on Boardgamegeek and every so often here, you get good and frustrated yourself with them and the situation. Really let the claws out. But at other times, like now, anyone who isn't at your level of frustration is being unreasonable. It's 'childish', too extreme, but hey surely YOUR concerns and frustrations are worthwhile.
Mike wrote:The problem with the GHQ thing is that PB did not think it through and got greedy. Way before PB even thought about Conventionals I wrote up the rules for some players by their request. GHQ had quite a few orders for use with RRT and wound up getting pointed my way. I put them in contact with PB BUT PB decided they could make $ and priced things over GHQ. Why would I buy PB ones when I can get the same minis cheaper from the source? That question never seemed to cross their minds so their pre-sale was a failure and they never released the Conventional rules.
Oh so you're allowed to call them greedy and take issue with how they do business? I guess since you just went and spent dozens (hundreds?) of hours retro-engineering their game and then decided to make your own, you're the only one allowed to express anything but quiet patience for this campaign?
Mike wrote:It's also why I've rewritten a lot more, moved away from strictly RRT, and started making a Universe that you can readily make crossovers to so that my RRT minis can be used with Battletech or PlasmaBlast or Microworld, CAV, etc.
Ah yes, the ever famous "feth you, I'll make my own, so why the problem? Why don't all 5,000 of us just become game designers in order to get something worthwhile out of this mess?
And before anyone (not naming names) bothers with the "WHY SO SERIOUS, U MAD?" memes, yes, I am frustrated. I guess the apathy I had for the project has subsided, and it remains obnoxious how much transparent contempt they have for the backers. "We'll have more to show in the weeks to come!" Months go by without new info. "We'll deliver in the next 6 months!" Sure, if one ignores that they haven't remotely started jack or gak, because if molds were being milled or test sprues run they'd be shouting that from the rooftops.
I am annoyed at what they have done and have failed to do, and if you think that's 'childish', I guess we're just not going to see eye to eye.
Mike1975 wrote: Likely they have some of the $, just not enough to produce, ship to the US, and then reship to customers all of wave 2. If you can't do all 3 there is no reason to spend the $ until you can.
Automatically Appended Next Post: at least wave 2 can be packaged up in tighter boxes or simply into bags........
From my own selling of a starter kit, I'd say most of the weight in the package was actually the rulebook. At this point, if palladium were to come out and be honest FINALLY and say "we don't have enough money to ship", I might be willing to chip in $5-10 to help ship my rewards as long as they themselves covered the rest if it meant getting my stuff months to years faster. If they don't have enough to cover the actual production then IMO they need to gather up their own cash (selling IPs, licenses, bank loan, whatever...) or immediately refund customers. A three year interest free loan is already too long.
@Forar, the incessant retelling of the same gets boring. PB is bad has been regurgitated ad nauseum. Feel free, I just think it's a waste of time unless you have an audience that has not heard it before. It's like a politician talking to the base. Cheerleading at best.
As far a PB and GHQ. If you are going to sell a product to an audience and then present is as something cool and new you need to offer something new. Repackaging GHQ stuff and then marking the price up when the entire world sees it clearly is not a way to make money. It'd be like me buying something on Amazon and then expecting to sell it on Amazon for a few bucks more. How do you think that would fare? Not well I'd imagine. Although I do see people on ebay trying it.
You have a right to be frustrated. Other than venting, what has any of it gotten anybody? It's fine to be upset, but if I sit around telling the same buddies the same sob story about the ex again and again every time that we sit down to play a game, I would expect them to call me out on it. Does that mean I have any less reason to complain? No. Just that the rest are tired of hearing it.
Same thing with a 40K player always at the table at a game complaining about 40k prices. Some people will parrot him and go "right on!" others will just groan.
That is pretty much where we are at here. The roundtable with the same arguments going around.
If they could get it made and delivered to the warehouse (or even just end up in the distribution chain directly), surely they'd pull in enough to cover whatever it would cost to ship in North America (because obviously they'd start there again).
Unless they themselves have lost so much faith in the project that they don't think the FPA, MAC-II, Super VT's, and other hot items wouldn't attract enough attention to recoup even that much.
At which point it's done, they just haven't said it aloud yet.
Which would make those of us with concerns or complaints... correct.
And I don't need a lawsuit to be correct.
At the very least; make wave two, go to retail, accept the backers will, again, scream bloody murder, but hey sweet dollars!
JohnHwangDD wrote: Or, they can split Wave 2 in to 2A and 2B, show and deliver what they can.
Or maybe just tool & release the Monsters, which we know would sell in good numbers at retail. Just that one kit would make a lot of people happy.
The problem with that is shipping costs will go up even more splitting packages up. It already cost them something like $100k+ to split into 2 waves.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Forar wrote: It has to be more than just wave two shipping.
If they could get it made and delivered to the warehouse (or even just end up in the distribution chain directly), surely they'd pull in enough to cover whatever it would cost to ship in North America (because obviously they'd start there again).
Unless they themselves have lost so much faith in the project that they don't think the FPA, MAC-II, Super VT's, and other hot items wouldn't attract enough attention to recoup even that much.
At which point it's done, they just haven't said it aloud yet.
Which would make those of us with concerns or complaints... correct.
And I don't need a lawsuit to be correct.
At the very least; make wave two, go to retail, accept the backers will, again, scream bloody murder, but hey sweet dollars!
I fully expect them to try this. Once they have $ for wave 2 they can ship to the US and start selling and tell us that ours will be forthcoming. The retail sales are used to fuel some of the shipping to backers. If this happened I would not be one bit surprised. Since we got wave 1 early I can see this.
Or they could ship retail and wave 2 internationally first since they were last on wave 1 and leave US nationals waiting and hope some of us spend some extra coin on wave 2 before pledges arrive.
I wonder what the "relaunch" will entail........????
Mike1975 wrote: @Forar, the incessant retelling of the same gets boring. PB is bad has been regurgitated ad nauseum. Feel free, I just think it's a waste of time unless you have an audience that has not heard it before. It's like a politician talking to the base. Cheerleading at best.
As far a PB and GHQ. If you are going to sell a product to an audience and then present is as something cool and new you need to offer something new. Repackaging GHQ stuff and then marking the price up when the entire world sees it clearly is not a way to make money. It'd be like me buying something on Amazon and then expecting to sell it on Amazon for a few bucks more. How do you think that would fare? Not well I'd imagine. Although I do see people on ebay trying it.
You have a right to be frustrated. Other than venting, what has any of it gotten anybody? It's fine to be upset, but if I sit around telling the same buddies the same sob story about the ex again and again every time that we sit down to play a game, I would expect them to call me out on it. Does that mean I have any less reason to complain? No. Just that the rest are tired of hearing it.
Same thing with a 40K player always at the table at a game complaining about 40k prices. Some people will parrot him and go "right on!" others will just groan.
That is pretty much where we are at here. The roundtable with the same arguments going around.
Then why are you here?
And I mean that sincerely, not in a passive aggressive "and get the feth out of my tree fort" sort of way.
Also now I'd like a tree fort.
But seriously; this thread (across two incarnations) has ranged from unpleasant to toxic to "I only laugh because otherwise I'd cry" for literally years.
Why bother swinging through if there's nothing to see? You drop your own cards or rules once in a while, but there's a separate thread for that, and a whole Facebook group of folks working on... whatever you're working on. I wouldn't know.
If it's just swinging through to see the monkeys fling poop, why bother even putting up the token contradiction? You state you don't care about PB's end of things, have no expectations of wave 2, and see this as a childish temper tantrum.
So why bother? I'm legit curious.
I come here for the laughs and camaraderie found within. Not simply to find a self-reinforcing echo chamber, but more in the 'support group' sense of people who are sharing the same ongoing bullgak. If PB had something of note to share, I'd share it. I have, and would be happy to. Until they get off their asses and do some work, however, mockery of the silence is what we have. Updates were shared when they gave us updates, newsletters are shared (mostly to note how few feths they seem to give about RRT, granted), if they had something to say other than "we totes made a phone call!", we'd talk about that.
Believe me, at times I find it plenty tiring to watch a company apparently struggle to tie its shoelaces for an entire year. But until "we gave 'China' the picturemathingys and they are using scissors to cut the files or something" stops being all they've got, here's where we are.
As I noted, I find it fun enough to point and laugh from the peanut gallery. If you find the thread's topics distasteful, you should do something about it.
Which is what you just said we should do, so hey, good advice to be taken!
Edit: like, this isn't anything new; you've said as much about Fern's ongoing love affair with meme generator sites and the weekly newsletters. But that's on your page, where you have set expectations to be met. Here is a known quantity; unless they get around to doing *something*, it's going to be mockery, and probably juvenile mockery at that. We (or at least I) own that, so isn't it kind of crazy to expect our little community here to act any differently than we have for, what, over 2 years now?
Because I actually still care to see RRT and how it turns out, albeit that care is less and less as I work on Nodal Wars more and more.
I also come here for the comraderie and friends. Why would that be any different? Not everyone here is a resounding chamber. That does not mean I'm not going to chide someone who goes on about the same, as you would say, fething thing, for the hundredth time.
Automatically Appended Next Post: After all, I put $770 bucks into the mess
Mike1975 wrote: Because I actually still care to see RRT and how it turns out, albeit that care is less and less as I work on Nodal Wars more and more.
I also come here for the comraderie and friends. Why would that be any different? Not everyone here is a resounding chamber. That does not mean I'm not going to chide someone who goes on about the same, as you would say, fething thing, for the hundredth time.
Automatically Appended Next Post: After all, I put $770 bucks into the mess
I'm not trying to shoo you away as I enjoy your posts and think you contribute useful things but I'm not sure your expectations are realistic. Until Palladium gives us something new to complain about (and not giving us new promises to break soon after seems to be the only change they're capable of) or they fulfill their obligations (yeah... I'm not holding my breath for that), there simply isn't much of anything different to discuss actually about RRT in a RRT thread. You're coming up with your own house rule set and I've come up with my own (much smaller in scope) but those aren't really RRT but offshoot side projects and they'll never gain the traction that theoretically RRT was capable of in the past nor will they garner the same level of discussion.
For me, I think Forar puts in enough effort to make the various...commentaries interesting, humorous and entertaining.
But, as always, if you think a post breaks the rules of the site - just report it.
Otherwise, we find that oftentimes, complaining about complaining usually has the opposite effect then what the person complaining about complaining was after!
Remember, this thread is the current reigning champion for Most Shamefully Negative Thread on Dakka Dakka.
(Though the various AoS ones are giving it a serious run for its money!)
Sweet! When the "relaunch" of the game occurs to much fanfare this year with the release of one metal model and a second answered FAQ question, can we get a new thread to round out the trilogy???
Alright I have been perusing this as a lurker for quite some time....and I'd like to put two things to rest.
And before any "defender" of any kind says prove it, no, it is none of your damn business who exactly told me the following, suffice to say THEY would be in a position to know and were told the first item by Kevin "The Machine" almighty directly and while the second item is their perspective/opinion, considering how close they had worked and communicated with Kevin, I am completely willing to take it face value (and this person still works closely with Kevin)
1 - The money is gone. Period. Stop. No more KS money left.
2 - Kevin is indeed the crux of the problem for a variety of reason. One primary one is actually taking Wayne at his own lying word as to how things are going in regards to RRT items. Wayne has proven he is full of crap already and is the PRIMARY reason I walked away myself from both helping Mike and the others vet rules etc as well as heading up a major Fantasy Project for Palladium. I had to provide dates to prove how full of crap Wayne was in that regard. I was also told that this is not the first nor the 5th or 6th time (in other words it is common occurrence he repeatedly gets away with) that he says he "didn't get something" or something hegot wasn;t what he asked for. Perfect example were the conventional rules that he got THE FINAL VERSION OF July 21 2015 IN THE FORMAT HE DEMANDED and at the end of September claimed to only gotten a mess he hadn't had time to fix.....to which I said liar, screw you and released EXACTLY what Mike sent him after Mike, myself and a few others went over in full bull rush because Wayne was in a hurry to get it done before Gencon. Here we sit in January and still not a damn thing.
So all this "it's only an assumption" can bite me. They have no money and it is Kevin's fault we are where we are. Period. Full Stop. Do not proceed.
Joyboozer wrote:Surely this one wins, there's no RRT version of Talys, so we're at least 98% negative.
That is a very good point - so, the winner, and STILL Undisputed Heavy Weight Champion of the World...
Robotech RPG Tactics - "Restarting" the Kickstarter Discussion!
warboss wrote:Sweet! When the "relaunch" of the game occurs to much fanfare this year with the release of one metal model and a second answered FAQ question, can we get a new thread to round out the trilogy???
Mike1975 wrote: Because I actually still care to see RRT and how it turns out, albeit that care is less and less as I work on Nodal Wars more and more.
I also come here for the comraderie and friends. Why would that be any different? Not everyone here is a resounding chamber. That does not mean I'm not going to chide someone who goes on about the same, as you would say, fething thing, for the hundredth time.
Automatically Appended Next Post: After all, I put $770 bucks into the mess
I'm not trying to shoo you away as I enjoy your posts and think you contribute useful things but I'm not sure your expectations are realistic. Until Palladium gives us something new to complain about (and not giving us new promises to break soon after seems to be the only change they're capable of) or they fulfill their obligations (yeah... I'm not holding my breath for that), there simply isn't much of anything different to discuss actually about RRT in a RRT thread. You're coming up with your own house rule set and I've come up with my own (much smaller in scope) but those aren't really RRT but offshoot side projects and they'll never gain the traction that theoretically RRT was capable of in the past nor will they garner the same level of discussion.
I don't plan on any of it working with PB....I will either use my own rules set myself or see if someone wants to do the minis for it. It's become more of a hobby and a way to forget the RRT mess. Which reminds me I need to call someone this afternoon.
jaymz wrote: Alright I have been perusing this as a lurker for quite some time....and I'd like to put two things to rest.
And before any "defender" of any kind says prove it, no, it is none of your damn business who exactly told me the following, suffice to say THEY would be in a position to know and were told the first item by Kevin "The Machine" almighty directly and while the second item is their perspective/opinion, considering how close they had worked and communicated with Kevin, I am completely willing to take it face value (and this person still works closely with Kevin)
1 - The money is gone. Period. Stop. No more KS money left.
2 - Kevin is indeed the crux of the problem for a variety of reason. One primary one is actually taking Wayne at his own lying word as to how things are going in regards to RRT items. Wayne has proven he is full of crap already and is the PRIMARY reason I walked away myself from both helping Mike and the others vet rules etc as well as heading up a major Fantasy Project for Palladium. I had to provide dates to prove how full of crap Wayne was in that regard. I was also told that this is not the first nor the 5th or 6th time (in other words it is common occurrence he repeatedly gets away with) that he says he "didn't get something" or something hegot wasn;t what he asked for. Perfect example were the conventional rules that he got THE FINAL VERSION OF July 21 2015 IN THE FORMAT HE DEMANDED and at the end of September claimed to only gotten a mess he hadn't had time to fix.....to which I said liar, screw you and released EXACTLY what Mike sent him after Mike, myself and a few others went over in full bull rush because Wayne was in a hurry to get it done before Gencon. Here we sit in January and still not a damn thing.
So all this "it's only an assumption" can bite me. They have no money and it is Kevin's fault we are where we are. Period. Full Stop. Do not proceed.
/rant
Well, that first part would suck. I expected them to be low on funds compared to maybe what they planned initially on a paper napkin all those years ago but to be out completely is more than just inflation, increased shipping costs over the years, and supplier price increases. Also, welcome to dakka. Please don't bicker with Jorel though in case he follows!
This is not a huge company we are talking about here, 5 in-house staff and a handful of independent artists they dole out jobs to.
With the extremely low publication rate, I really wonder what they do to fill the day.
But yes, as Mike pointed out it is whining "to complain in a feeble or petulant way".
Any attempts made short of hitting them between the eyes with a lawsuit is feeble.
They do not respond to normal company market pressures so normal means of complaints or looking for compensation is not recognized by PB.
Some of it is somewhat productive darkening their kickstarter comments but means little if they do not intend of running another.
The BBB rating going down will mean little to potential customers in the scheme of things.
It also appears there are sufficient customers buying product that they are not scrambling to keep the lights on.
The difficulty is this is sitting in limbo, if there was any kind of closure I would be very happy.
Yes, whining over this bulgak is a waste of time but you figure it will go even worse if ignored.
Plus, allowing someone who knowingly is doing wrong to keep the money is offensive.
Okay! FTC complaint lodged! See if it is any better than BBB.
Joyboozer wrote:Surely this one wins, there's no RRT version of Talys, so we're at least 98% negative.
That is a very good point - so, the winner, and STILL Undisputed Heavy Weight Champion of the World...
Robotech RPG Tactics - "Restarting" the Kickstarter Discussion!
Yay! We're number 1 at something!
:-D
Edit; woah, Jaymz is here! Hi Jaymz!
Edit 2: Good luck with the FTC. Which did you file under? Internet shopping? They have started glancing at crowdfunding (by their own admission), but don't seem to have a clear "you think this Kickstarter is full of gak" listing in the complaints section.
Mike1975 wrote: I don't plan on any of it working with PB....I will either use my own rules set myself or see if someone wants to do the minis for it. It's become more of a hobby and a way to forget the RRT mess. Which reminds me I need to call someone this afternoon.
I have it on good authority that making a single phone call counts as tremendous effort towards accomplishing large million dollar projects. Be careful of maintaining your mental health and make sure to drink lots of water to keep hydrated. If you get tired, just take a break for a few years.
Yes, I put it under the "Internet shopping" it gets them in the right frame of mind before PB exclaims "Kickstarter is not a store!" or for that matter, the backer kit! Since the FTC's head manager has made some pretty clear statements on expectations for kickstarter rewards, enough complaints may get some lower level civil servant types moving looking to be noticed... you never know if you do not try.
Did your source reveal what they spent the money on? Were the costs seriously lowballed as Mike said? Have we been paying all of Palladium's operating costs for almost three years while on getting part of me effort for half that time and almost no progress for the other half? Did palladium sign some BS overcharged deals because they didn't do their due diligence? Was there another crisis of treachery? All of the above? I'm curious how the hundreds of thousands of dollars that should be there might have potentially disappeared.
warboss wrote: Did your source reveal what they spent the money on? Were the costs seriously lowballed as Mike said? Have we been paying all of Palladium's operating costs for almost three years while on getting part of me effort for half that time and almost no progress for the other half? Did palladium sign some BS overcharged deals because they didn't do their due diligence? Was there another crisis of treachery? All of the above? I'm curious how the hundreds of thousands of dollars that should be there might have potentially disappeared.
The only thing we can be certain of, is that it's not Simbieda's fault. 110% chance on that one.
(Note: Loving the wrong people (or the fans) just too gosh darn much does not count as being his fault)
warboss wrote: Did your source reveal what they spent the money on? Were the costs seriously lowballed as Mike said? Have we been paying all of Palladium's operating costs for almost three years while on getting part of me effort for half that time and almost no progress for the other half? Did palladium sign some BS overcharged deals because they didn't do their due diligence? Was there another crisis of treachery? All of the above? I'm curious how the hundreds of thousands of dollars that should be there might have potentially disappeared.
Yup. There's a lot of questions that deserve to be answered if they are indeed out of money. And if it's the operating costs thing (which I'd suspect is most likely), I'd like them to answer a relatively simple question.
How much time per week, were you spending on getting RRT done?
Not the extra crap, not the looking at other ideas stuff, not conventional forces (which never appeared), not Updates that didn't actually Update. How much time, per week, was spent on completing the project as was promised in the Kickstarter, as a combined total. Because I was tooling around with the math, and it's been 44 weeks since the Feb 28th Update. Meaning that if both Kevin and Wayne each spent one 2hr block a week of productive work (ie, 1/20th of a standard work week, or 1/30th of what they claim to work), that's almost 90 hours of work. Which means there should be SOMETHING to show. And if they're using it for operational costs, I'd be expecting much more than 2hrs of productive work per week. Not all, surely. But way more than that.
@warboss - as it was told to me - cost over runs on shipping and overstocking retail.
The lack of funds is why they pushed so hard for the sales of the non exclusive "exclusives" and conventional. It was to try and garner funds to do wave two.,
@Noir - no I am most certainly not Kevin. Kevin is not at fault for "trusting" anyone. Kevin is at fault for willfully and knowingly allowing someone incompetent to continue to do the job after he knows the person is incompetent at said job.
It is bad enough I embarrassed them over 5 years ago fort their willful incompetence, to drag this out without being honest to the people that gave 1.44 million dollars is ludicrous and for him to continuously state "well we are working on it but we can;t tell you anything for "reasons"" while other companies are very detailed in where they are is flatly disgusting.
jaymz wrote: @warboss - as it was told to me - cost over runs on shipping and overstocking retail.
The lack of funds is why they pushed so hard for the sales of the non exclusive "exclusives" and conventional. It was to try and garner funds to do wave two.,
@Noir - no I am most certainly not Kevin. Kevin is not at fault for "trusting" anyone. Kevin is at fault for willfully and knowingly allowing someone incompetent to continue to do the job after he knows the person is incompetent at said job.
It is bad enough I embarrassed them over 5 years ago fort their willful incompetence, to drag this out without being honest to the people that gave 1.44 million dollars is ludicrous and for him to continuously state "well we are working on it but we can;t tell you anything for "reasons"" while other companies are very detailed in where they are is flatly disgusting.
Ah, yes, thanks. I forgot about that option (overordering retail boxes with OUR money that was supposed to be earmarked for wave 2). As for 5 years ago, at the risk of incurring the wrath of "No repeat stories!" Mike, are you referring to Palladium saying it was too hard to make a facebook page for the company?
jaymz wrote: @warboss - as it was told to me - cost over runs on shipping and overstocking retail.
It is bad enough I embarrassed them over 5 years ago fort their willful incompetence, to drag this out without being honest to the people that gave 1.44 million dollars is ludicrous and for him to continuously state "well we are working on it but we can;t tell you anything for "reasons"" while other companies are very detailed in where they are is flatly disgusting.
Well, sure, but a bunch of morons believe that. There's even another, overlapping group of morons, who consider it a character flaw to not believe it.
At what point did you hear there was no money left and why hold it back until now?
Why did one of Kevin's confidants tell you this information?
Why keep this person's name a secret?
Why does this person not come forward with the information since he doesn't seem to think it should be kept secret as he told you?
n815e wrote: At what point did you hear there was no money left and why hold it back until now?
Why did one of Kevin's confidants tell you this information?
Why keep this person's name a secret?
Why does this person not come forward with the information since he doesn't seem to think it should be kept secret as he told you?
Better yet, why is this person still working at Palladium if he knows that money is gone? The moment the company gets called on it, he'd be out of a job. If this were true and I were him/her, I'd be looking for another job before the shoe/hammer drops.
Sining wrote: He could be looking for a job and still working at PB. As long as he still gets paid, I imagine it doesn't bother him that much
Well, if that person knew they would never be held accountable and were getting paid, why would they change anything?
For real; with adherence like that to PB's core values of getting money for doing little to nothing, this supposed employee would be on the fast-track for a promotion!
n815e wrote: At what point did you hear there was no money left and why hold it back until now?
Why did one of Kevin's confidants tell you this information?
Why keep this person's name a secret?
Why does this person not come forward with the information since he doesn't seem to think it should be kept secret as he told you?
1 - I knew about this last summer. This is not the first time I have revealed this information privately or publicly. In fact I have said this more than once on the KS comments section, as well as on Facebook. Hell I think I may have even said it on Palladium's own forums. First time was back in early October. Prior to that I waited because the person who told me honestly believed there would be forward progress after Gencon and asked me to hold off a bit....by September's end I was fed up with Wayne and all the crap and said screw it and didn't wait anymore about that or a few other things.
2 - Because we have a good relationship and he values my opinion and input. He also wants people to know the truth from the inside without putting his own head on the block as it were. It is long known Palladium does not like me much in the first place so being a target of their ire isn't that hard. Oddly enough this the same person that had me put in charge of heading up the Fantasy project I mentioned. Last I heard was the project is at a dead stead still since I walked away.
3 - Frankly, it is no one's business who exactly this person is.
4 - Two words. Plausible deniability. I can say this person is damn near at the end of their own rope with Kevin and Palladium
Believe me or don't believe me. That is up to you. In the end I don't just speak empty words, I act. Others here will attest I am not working on RRT stuff now...nor am I part of that Fantasy project and I resigned as a Megaversal Ambassador all because of the garbage and crap involved in dealing with this pisspoor excuse for a company.
Better yet, why is this person still working at Palladium if he knows that money is gone? The moment the company gets called on it, he'd be out of a job. If this were true and I were him/her, I'd be looking for another job before the shoe/hammer drops.
The clarify I said this person works closely with Kevin not for Kevin. Or rather is not an employee.
It's Kevin isn't it? It's finally happened, he's finally found a way to shoulder the blame and blame someone else, it wasn't me, it was evil Kevin I tells ya!
Which basically means that there is no real way to get our $ back since PB doesn't have it and it's either lawsuit and hope to get something or move on.....
Automatically Appended Next Post: Well a few could jump out their first and try a lawsuit, but the entire KS backer group is like SOL
Alpharius wrote: [..] Remember, this thread is the current reigning champion for Most Shamefully Negative Thread on Dakka Dakka.
(Though the various AoS ones are giving it a serious run for its money!)
FRAK ! - Heavy Gear (& DP9 et al) is never first in anything.
/rant [lol]
Talizvar wrote: This is not a huge company we are talking about here, 5 in-house staff and a handful of independent artists they dole out jobs to.
With the extremely low publication rate, I really wonder what they do to fill the day. [...]
It truly beggars belief that PB, KS, and associates continue to expect folks to believe at face value that they're ''working so hard'' all day, every day, on essentially nothing at all.
Better yet, why is this person still working at Palladium if he knows that money is gone? The moment the company gets called on it, he'd be out of a job. If this were true and I were him/her, I'd be looking for another job before the shoe/hammer drops.
The clarify I said this person works closely with Kevin not for Kevin. Or rather is not an employee.
Well since your friend is basically describing embezzlement of the backers funds- you might want to point him to the FBI or FTC as they can allow whistle blowers to keep some of the money as a reward...
Joyboozer wrote: It's Kevin isn't it? It's finally happened, he's finally found a way to shoulder the blame and blame someone else, it wasn't me, it was evil Kevin I tells ya!
Joyboozer wrote: It's Kevin isn't it? It's finally happened, he's finally found a way to shoulder the blame and blame someone else, it wasn't me, it was evil Kevin I tells ya!
Better yet, why is this person still working at Palladium if he knows that money is gone? The moment the company gets called on it, he'd be out of a job. If this were true and I were him/her, I'd be looking for another job before the shoe/hammer drops.
The clarify I said this person works closely with Kevin not for Kevin. Or rather is not an employee.
Well since your friend is basically describing embezzlement of the backers funds- you might want to point him to the FBI or FTC as they can allow whistle blowers to keep some of the money as a reward...
No gak?
Edit; Heh. Thats quite a funny censor operating here.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I also found Wayne totally rude, obnoxious and ungrateful. Why word something tactfully when you can just be abusive and insultive instead?
With the rifter you'll find most of the contributors are happy just to see their name in print and arent concerned if they never get paid. Which is what at least one person at palladium seems to count on..
Better yet, why is this person still working at Palladium if he knows that money is gone? The moment the company gets called on it, he'd be out of a job. If this were true and I were him/her, I'd be looking for another job before the shoe/hammer drops.
The clarify I said this person works closely with Kevin not for Kevin. Or rather is not an employee.
Well since your friend is basically describing embezzlement of the backers funds- you might want to point him to the FBI or FTC as they can allow whistle blowers to keep some of the money as a reward...
Except for two things
1 - shipping cost overrun is not embezzlement
2 - overproduction of retail is not embezzlement
The point of the Kickstarter was to both reward backers and get the game to market. Manufacturing retail stock along with backer rewards was inferred.
What is is incompetent mismanagement all around resulting in the using up of all funds collected.
Using backer money to produce retail product may have been inferred, but that doesn't make it correct or legal - whether that retail production run had been bought or is still sitting in their warehouse is a moot point.
I paid a certain amount on the promise that I would get certain items for that money. Of my $140 'investment' (But no, it's not an investment as KS projects are not protected by the relevant investor legislation. It's not a 'pre-order' either because it's not protected by that legislation. So it seems to me to be a slush fund. At least that is how this project seems to have gone.) I have received a single decal sheet - for a scale and subject of model I have yet to see anything of.
A return of that scale should be seen by the courts as fraud. The backer funds should have been used to secure production of the items listed as "Rewards" in the campaign, not on extra items to be sold standard retail. Once those obligations had been cleared, further production would have cost cents on the dollar as all the development costs would have been paid for by the backers.
All we have done with that money is ensure that a half-hearted effort has been made, and that PB have been able to keep the lights on for another couple of years. I, for one, wish I could go back in time and cancel my pledge for the pleasure of seeing them go down years ago.
I paid a certain amount on the promise that I would get certain items for that money.
And this is where you are incorrect
You paid a certain amount on the promise that you would get certain items for that money AND to for them to try and get the game to market. It was stated clearly in the campaign that yes backers got rewards (And dammit I want my Super VFs and Rau's) but you also agreed to a portion of that money going towards retail manufacture.
That is the endgame of all kickstarters when they run a campaign. Reward those who gave us money and get the game to market. The goal is to not just take your money and make a game for backers and only backers then have no money left to continue afterwards.
Did they misuse funds by over manufacturing retail. You bet. That is incompetence not illegal or embezzlement.
As others here an attest (Forar, Cyber, Morgan Vening) I'll be the first to call out PB on any number of things but I won't call them out for things they haven't done.
Therein lies our overall problem...they haven't really broken the law unless fraud can actually be proven in court.
So unless a group of backers pools their funds and takes them to court, we are screwed regardless.
That is the endgame of all kickstarters when they run a campaign. Reward those who gave us money and get the game to market. The goal is to not just take your money and make a game for backers and only backers then have no money left to continue afterwards.
Did they misuse funds by over manufacturing retail. You bet. That is incompetence not illegal or embezzlement.
As others here an attest (Forar, Cyber, Morgan Vening) I'll be the first to call out PB on any number of things but I won't call them out for things they haven't done.
Therein lies our overall problem...they haven't really broken the law unless fraud can actually be proven in court.
So unless a group of backers pools their funds and takes them to court, we are screwed regardless.
If their over-ordering of retail stock left them unable to fulfill backer rewards, then yes, they have acted illegally and potentially fraudulently. The kickstarter ToU (which forms the contract between backers and project creators) clearly states that project creators are required to fulfill all rewards promised for backers or refund backers. Not 'make a best effort at doing it', they absolutely HAVE to, according to the contract. The only reference to timescale for that is that a 'good faith attempt' (and that is a legal term, not a generalisation) must be made at fulfilling backers by the promised delivery date. I think we can safely say that two years late, with what amounts to a year of no forthcoming information at all does not constitute a good faith attempt at anything.
Thus, if they're doing bugger all because they can't afford to (likely in the extreme), then they have breached contract. Whether it amounts to criminal, deliberate fraud would be decided by a court examining the paperwork.
"Fraud" and "inability to complete due to incompetent use of funds" are not the same thing. Fraud is a knowing misuse of funds. THAT will be ridiculously difficult to prove in any court even if true as we do not have the information available to us to even take it to court and I guarantee their books likely hide anything that would prove it. However we do agree on the end result being the same. They are in breach of contract in getting rewards completed. THAT is the part that needs to be focused on. As they say, "ignorance (or in this case incompetence) is not protection from the law (in this case contract law)"
They need to come clean that they cannot finish and refund whatever is owed. Period. Full stop.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I think you guys are basically arguing the same point.
I mean, yes, whether or not literal Fraud has occurred or not does influence what agencies might be interested, but let's not get too wrapped up in being Internet Legal Experts. If someone thinks fraud has occurred, then they should present their concerns and evidence to the proper authorities. Other than riling people up (and boy, has this thread seen more activity than usual), there's not much that Jaymz or Morgan or I are going to do whether they are committing Fraud or not.
If the case is there and they were prosecuted, it could shake things up considerably, but none of us are judges (far as I know) and only a few are even lawyers.
What they are or aren't guilty of isn't up to us, so arguing the point isn't even academic. Sure, it might also affect ones chances for successfully pursuing our own refund/lawsuit/whatever, but it's not on us to prove them guilty. Jaymz has presented what he has heard, if we're willing to believe him (I'm inclined to), it sounds like they really are sticking their heads in the sand, as we've noticed for the past year.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be shocked at all if there was a mix of incompetence and/or misappropriation going on, but a court isn't going to leap to charge them on my say so.
We are sort of arguing the same point...and that being the end result of Palladium's actions.
To me it is a matter of what should be focused on to get results. Breach of contract is, in my opinion, what needs to be the focus. That is all.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Mind you until/unless a significant group of backers actually get together to proceed as a group in a lawsuit, nothing will be done or happen.
1.wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain:
So IF [and yes, that is an IF] PB are out of money to complete the remaining rewards, they are not saying so. They are obviously not saying that the backers will not see wave 2, probably to stop claims for refunds that they can't pay.
Therefore they are deceiving us on the status of the campaign so that they can benefit financially. Textbook definition of fraud.
Also, if they'd told the truth that all I would see in over 2 years for my $140 would be an expensive $5 decal sheet, I wouldn't have invested. They lied and benefitted financially, also fraud. (OK, the last point wouldn't hold up as at the time it presumably wasn't a deception. Just the fact that at the time, they grossly underestimated their progress and ability to get this thing to market.)
I also found Wayne totally rude, obnoxious and ungrateful. Why word something tactfully when you can just be abusive and insultive instead?
With the rifter you'll find most of the contributors are happy just to see their name in print and arent concerned if they never get paid. Which is what at least one person at palladium seems to count on..
That is also a fact. he will shoot his mouth off and then try to back pedal like no tomorrow when someone calls him on it or won't put up with it. It has happened a number of times on Facebook and with me it was one the reasons I finally had enough of him and Palladium.
As for the Rifter, technically they only have to pay if they use the material, and they are obligated to do play for material used. As for them keeping the material as their own, well if you sign that contract then that is on you and you have no right to bitch about it after the fact when your material does not get used. That is why i have never submitted anything to Palladium for anything (not because I don't want too but anything I do from now on will be put out as a net book etc). Sadly you are correct in that most of those that do in fact submit just to see their name published by the Great Almighty "Machine" Kevin Siembieda and do no care if they get paid.
1.wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain:
So IF [and yes, that is an IF] PB are out of money to complete the remaining rewards, they are not saying so. They are obviously not saying that the backers will not see wave 2, probably to stop claims for refunds that they can't pay.
Therefore they are deceiving us on the status of the campaign so that they can benefit financially. Textbook definition of fraud.
Also, if they'd told the truth that all I would see in over 2 years for my $140 would be an expensive $5 decal sheet, I wouldn't have invested. They lied and benefitted financially, also fraud. (OK, the last point wouldn't hold up as at the time it presumably wasn't a deception. Just the fact that at the time, they grossly underestimated their progress and ability to get this thing to market.)
Which is why I said above that all of the above would be ridiculously difficult to prove in court. You have to prove actual intent to deceive. You also have to prove they did indeed benefit financially by intention. (the large number of unsold core boxes tells me if anything they are not benefiting financially at all)That is why I say focus on breach of contract not fraud. If you can prove deception on their part to delay or avoid a lawsuit for breach of contract THEN you might be able to bring fraud to the table with a higher chance of success.
In the end this whole exercise is pointless unless a good number of people get together and take them to court. So far that does not seem to be the case or willingness of any significant number of people. Maybe if the AG or FTC get enough complaints they'll move forward but I doubt it.
The end result is Palladium is at fault and in breach by not delivering or being open with the process of what is going on at the very least. Put up or admit to the truth and refund everyone what is owed.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Merijeek wrote: Isn't a "machine" supposed to perform a function?
@Conrad - They also deceived in that they claimed ND was doing all the work, and that they were 98% ready to go to production.
So...yeah.
Sorry... I use "The Machine" and "Machine" for Kevin as a tongue in cheek since he wrote himself up as an NPC in a sourcebook a while back and called himself "The Machine" an Iron Man like character for Heroes Unlimited.
jaymz wrote: They need to come clean that they cannot finish and refund whatever is owed. Period. Full stop.
That is all I am claiming against them.
To constantly say "we are working on it" to back up their "no refunds" policy is what is the issue.
If they have no means on fulfilling, they are lying to the consumer and I think a case can be argued for being contrary to law.
What few details have been released about this "informant" however would make them easily identifiable to PB so the efforts made to keep anonymity is rather confusing.
It is nice to see an attempt at keeping us informed however it may be motivated: thanks!
jaymz wrote: They need to come clean that they cannot finish and refund whatever is owed. Period. Full stop.
That is all I am claiming against them.
To constantly say "we are working on it" to back up their "no refunds" policy is what is the issue.
If they have no means on fulfilling, they are lying to the consumer and I think a case can be argued for being contrary to law.
What few details have been released about this "informant" however would make them easily identifiable to PB so the efforts made to keep anonymity is rather confusing.
It is nice to see an attempt at keeping us informed however it may be motivated: thanks!
There are number of people that work closely with Kevin on a "volunteer" basis. I know and communicate with at least a few of them regularly. Thus why I said plausible deniability.
jaymz wrote: There are number of people that work closely with Kevin on a "volunteer" basis. I know and communicate with at least a few of them regularly. Thus why I said plausible deniability.
People willing to work on their spare time with that fellow does raise some concerns. Looking for, and expecting volunteers to support the business just blows my mind: handouts are a business model for them.
Then there are allegations that all kinds of contributing work goes in and they slap their name on it with little or no acknowledgment of where it actually came from.
I just do not understand if there is an army of masochists supporting PB or shouldn't the well run dry after enough people get burned?
So lately we are questioning also if PB could use the kickstarter money for retail stock?
I was pretty sure it is to cover development and production of the product to provide for the backers.
Then with the process in place, they are free to produce as they see fit... on their dime (or if any KS money remains!).
The silliness of this is obvious: say you kickstart for making 4 products, you make the first one and have a gazillion retail made and it does not sell = dead kickstarter.
This is a fine reason for never backing a kickstarter for physical product.
Well, if you hear anything further that it is interesting, keep us in mind.
The faint hope of getting the "better" robotech models in wave 2 is the only thing causing hesitation of slamming PB hard on all fronts.
If what is said is true, it is merely a matter of seeking getting our money back or voicing our dissatisfaction effectively enough to reduce their revenue.
If the AG or FTC decide to check them out, all the better.
While I'm not involved in minis production, it's my understanding that a big part of this kind of thing is seeing benefits from economy of scale; that is, you could get 100 units for X dollars, or you could get 10,000 units for, like, 5X dollars (purely hypothetical numbers to make an example).
Making the molds (in this case) is where a lot of the costs are accrued; the pellets melted down for materials are comparatively pennies, so punching out that first sprue is effectively Mold Costs (HUUUUGE) plus Materials/Labour/etc (not frigging much), so after you've punched out tens or hundreds of thousands of sprues, that mold's cost has been shared across all that product, with the materials themselves (plus associated costs).
At least, in a basic and lay person sense. As always, I'm really not interested in arguing the finer points of production minutia. Hopefully this is close enough in general.
So if they were told "it'll cost you 200,000 to get the first 5,000 boxes, and the next 5,000 would cost you 25,000", it'd not only be sensible it'd be expected to take them up on that. Even as a backer, that kind of improved rates (again, purely a hypothetical example) would make it a no-brainer to partake in.
Now, to be clear, no, NO, I am not saying that it is acceptable for them to have rung up such massive bills in excess stock that it justifies jeopardizing future production possibilities.
But I can't demonize the very act of taking advantage of the production process opportunities presented. I mean, that's why people do Plastic figures in the first place, isn't it? Sure, quality of results, preferred materials, whatever others are in there too, but making the molds for "$Macross" and then punching out a billion sprues for pocket change has been cited as an appealing factor by several companies that work in those materials.
So, yeah, if they dropped half a million on excess stock and have literally $0 left, fine, to the pitchforks and torches.
But part of bringing a product line to the public is more than just backers. Think of it this way; if this hadn't been a clusterfeth (IF, stay with me here people), wouldn't we have wanted them to have extras? For people to buy at stores, to have a wider public to play with. ~5,000 players across the globe isn't exactly a high density to start with, if they were going to deliver to us and then put in another order for a round of boxes at a much worse price and likely not as efficient shipping on top of that.
I'm not defending their business practices, but unless they somehow managed to pay a worse amount per unit (like, they got 10,000 boxes and the 'breakpoint' for savings was at 15,000 or something), this one I can't really follow people on without more information.
Again again, I'm happy to give them plenty of gak for things they have done or haven't done, as appropriate. Even accepting that they may have over-bought retail stock (which is more of an 'in hindsight' kind of problem), it takes more than excess pallets to make it flat out incompetence, at least in my eyes.
My thoughts are that the "bringing the product to the market" function of the kickstarter is fulfilled by giving them a ready to go product that they can then cast, assemble, and ship to their warehouse ON THEIR OWN DIME. They can piggy back that into the initial wave 1 delivery as long as the accounting for each portion (manufacture, assembly, and shipping) is separate and comes from separate funds. KS backer money shouldn't be used for that unless there is extra left over AFTER fulfilling every single reward. Spending the wave 2 funds on wave 1 retail stock on the risky expectation of selling it in time and recouping that money is the KS equivalent of a pyramid scheme IMO if that is what happened.
Sure. But it doesn't matter if they have $0 left or $200,000 left. If it's not enough to actually produce what they owe, it's the same outcome for the backers.
Merijeek wrote: Sure. But it doesn't matter if they have $0 left or $200,000 left. If it's not enough to actually produce what they owe, it's the same outcome for the backers.
I completely disagree. If they have $0 left because they bought extra retail copies NOT intended for backers with backer money, they can only refund $0..nothing. If they have $200,000 because they kept that money for wave 2 as they were supposed to, they have $200,000 they can refund backers; it's still a fraction of what we're deserved but it is better than nothing. Neither is a good situation for them to be in but one is definitely worse for us.
Oh, I agree Warboss. I'm just trying to point out that they could've totally done that and ended up in the same place.
If what Jaymz says is true and they legit/full out overspent *backer* funds on retail stock that's collecting dust, then release the hounds/Kraken/whatever and let's do this thing.
The icing on the cake would be if they didn't separate out KS funds from general finances and it was just a big pool that slowly trickled downwards. :-D
Wouldn't be the first time someone got a big pile of cash and then made that mistake.
The thing I always find a little grating is the 'oh they want to sell convention exclusives and whatnot to finance wave two' argument that some level, when from watching them do sale after sale and offer after offer, it seems to me (as an outsider, and a layman, and someone without access to their books) that if anything they're just treading water/drowning slowly. Not that this is an uncommon suggestion, but it's less a sense of 'omg they're bleeding out from a thousand cuts', but an ongoing feeling that it's far more than even charitable to think that they could rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars with $22 "Consclusives" and $42 grab bags.
Oh well, more general chatter and overwhelming negativity, guess we'll find out tonight/this weekend what the word is when The Big PB Newsletter Of 2016 we presumably drop some knowledge bombs. :-P
Merijeek wrote: Sure. But it doesn't matter if they have $0 left or $200,000 left. If it's not enough to actually produce what they owe, it's the same outcome for the backers.
I completely disagree. If they have $0 left because they bought extra retail copies NOT intended for backers with backer money, they can only refund $0..nothing. If they have $200,000 because they kept that money for wave 2 as they were supposed to, they have $200,000 they can refund backers; it's still a fraction of what we're deserved but it is better than nothing. Neither is a good situation for them to be in but one is definitely worse for us.
Nobody will get a penny of a refund. Period. They could have $1.43M in the bank, and I guaran-goddamn-tee you will never see a penny.
Simbieda will burn before that happens.
And they way they're liquidating everything they can (apart from brown-tonguers like Wayne) shows that they don't have money.
If they're out of money they get bankrupted. It's that simple. Whatever cash is raised by liquidation is used in debts owed, and this includes the refunds to backers.
If it is found by the accountants doing the liquidation that negligent practices were followed (such as paying for a huge amount of wave 1 stock rather than using the money to fund the fulfilling of extant contracts (all backer rewards) then the directors responsible for those decisions can feasibly be held personally liable. Which would be bad news indeed for Kevin, as it seems to me like that's where the buck stops.
The term to look up is 'compulsory dissolution'. It's a fun read.
People willing to work on their spare time with that fellow does raise some concerns.
Looking for, and expecting volunteers to support the business just blows my mind: handouts are a business model for them.
@Talivzar - I agree. It is a business model for them. Always has been.
My thoughts are that the "bringing the product to the market" function of the kickstarter is fulfilled by giving them a ready to go product that they can then cast, assemble, and ship to their warehouse ON THEIR OWN DIME.
@warboss - those maybe your thoughts but it isn't the reality. The point of the project is to get it to market/retail as well as to reward the people that helped fund it. For them to not have money to produce retail after the rewards defeats the point of getting it to market/retail. If your thoughts were the case and reality then Kickstarter would then be a store as you are not pledging money to project but for a specific product nothing more. None of pledged just for product that is the problem and it has been well established that kickstarts are not a "store"
Again I am all for holding Palladium's fee to the fire but the more we blast rhetoric as opposed to focusing on actual things (like breach of contract due to incompetent use of funds) the less likely anything can be taken care of.
@warboss - those maybe your thoughts but it isn't the reality. The point of the project is to get it to market/retail as well as to reward the people that helped fund it. For them to not have money to produce retail after the rewards defeats the point of getting it to market/retail. If your thoughts were the case and reality then Kickstarter would then be a store as you are not pledging money to project but for a specific product nothing more. None of pledged just for product that is the problem and it has been well established that kickstarts are not a "store"
Again I am all for holding Palladium's fee to the fire but the more we blast rhetoric as opposed to focusing on actual things (like breach of contract due to incompetent use of funds) the less likely anything can be taken care of.
I suspect we'll just have to agree to disagree because I don't think your opinion on this particular aspect of the mess is based in reality. In no way, shape, or form was the idea included in the the contract that I agreed to that kickstarter backers would be paying for the retail print run of the physical game products in addition to the cost of development and production of rewards at the expense of the latter.
It was expected that they would produce retail stock as part of the kickstarter. What was also expected is that they wouldn't produce so much retail stock that they couldn't fulfill the rewards. What was also expected is that they wouldn't bet the funds on being refilled through sales of retail. They gambled away the funds.
There would be no wave 2 if they hadn't made the "Gencon suicide pact" and felt compelled to have product in hand when they said they would even if they weren't able to fulfill their obligations to us. Two rounds of shipping is ludicrously expensive.
n815e wrote: It was expected that they would produce retail stock as part of the kickstarter. What was also expected is that they wouldn't produce so much retail stock that they couldn't fulfill the rewards. What was also expected is that they wouldn't bet the funds on being refilled through sales of retail. They gambled away the funds.
I wasn't clear in my last post but I did say previously that extra funds over and above what is needed to fulfill ALL backer rewards can be used however Palladium sees fit to advance and promote the game. Even if they had the idea of using KS funds as slush money to fund retail products, that idea should have been thrown out the window once they decided to do split wave development and shipping instead of recklessly gambling on a pyramid sales scheme as Jaymz is claiming.
There would be no wave 2 if they hadn't made the "Gencon suicide pact" and felt compelled to have product in hand when they said they would even if they weren't able to fulfill their obligations to us. Two rounds of shipping is ludicrously expensive.
I'm not sure what you mean above in relation to the gencon suicide pact as a result of the triple negatives in the sentence. I don't mean that as an insult but rather to request clarification instead of assuming.
Conrad Turner wrote: Also, if they'd told the truth that all I would see in over 2 years for my $140 would be an expensive $5 decal sheet, I wouldn't have invested. They lied and benefitted financially, also fraud.
Exactly. I put in $80, but no way I'd have done that if it was going to be $25 worth after 3 years with no end in sight.
Maybe to Kevin, $55 isn't a big deal. And if it isn't, then he should simply refund it. If it is a big deal, then he should deliver.
Swabby wrote: Is anyone else picturing Kevin reading Jaymz' post and spending endless hours trying to figure out who the traitor is?
I fully expect an internal war on teachery in the PB office now. And probably some missing collectible heist stories.
Nah. I suspect some of the details and clarifications are added later to muddy the waters. I appreciate the second hand info nonetheless and have only two "supects" in mind.
I'd argue that the moment Palladium was informed the money they raised was insufficient to supply all rewards owed they should have announced it and refunded all pledges. Not doing so was deliberate fraud.
n815e wrote: It was expected that they would produce retail stock as part of the kickstarter.
Not by me it wasn't! That was never outlined in the Kickstarter project page, and if it had been they would not have gotten a penny from me. I'm paying money to fund their production of product that's going to be sold to someone else before I get the rewards I was promised for my pledge? Feth no! As stated previously; producing the minis for backers using Kickstarter funds and then adding their own funds to produce product for retail.
I assumed they would produce retail stock; however, that stock needed to be paid for out of Palladium funds, not backer funds. Backer funds should have been held for Wave 2 fulfillment, not Wave 1 retail. To commingle the funds and use them for other purposes is again, fraud.
n815e wrote: It was expected that they would produce retail stock as part of the kickstarter. What was also expected is that they wouldn't produce so much retail stock that they couldn't fulfill the rewards. What was also expected is that they wouldn't bet the funds on being refilled through sales of retail. They gambled away the funds.
I wasn't clear in my last post but I did say previously that extra funds over and above what is needed to fulfill ALL backer rewards can be used however Palladium sees fit to advance and promote the game. Even if they had the idea of using KS funds as slush money to fund retail products, that idea should have been thrown out the window once they decided to do split wave development and shipping instead of recklessly gambling on a pyramid sales scheme as Jaymz is claiming..
The thing people might be missing, is noone is saying PB couldn't capitalize on economy of scale. People are just arguing about how it's used.
For example, let's say the cost to make a mold for a set of sprues costs $50K to make. And a print run of 1000 sets is $10K, and each additional 1000 is $5K. And backers are owed 5000 copies. The cost to do the first 5000 is $50K + $10K + 4*$5K, or $80K. Noone is arguing that PB can't spend $25K to literally double that order, and make use of the cheaper rate that they're able to get as a result of including that in the initial print run. That's the reason to do so. But some (I include myself there) believe it's not acceptable for PB to spend Kickstarter funds to do so. The advantage of doing it as a Kickstarter is to use the economy of scale, and the initial outlay of infrastructure, to make their own purchases significantly cheaper (ie, in the example above, a little over 1/4 of what they'd initially have had to pay). And, in the event of completing the project under budget, pocketing any surplus.
But to have spent Kickstarter money on commercial product, before the project was concluded? Yeah, that's at best sketchy. And at worst, because of what seems to have been the result, fraudulent.
There would be no wave 2 if they hadn't made the "Gencon suicide pact" and felt compelled to have product in hand when they said they would even if they weren't able to fulfill their obligations to us. Two rounds of shipping is ludicrously expensive.
I'm not sure what you mean above in relation to the gencon suicide pact as a result of the triple negatives in the sentence. I don't mean that as an insult but rather to request clarification instead of assuming.
The GenCon suicide pact is a term used to indicate their shift in policy. Initially, they were supposed to get Wave 1 months before GenCon, and ship it out to all backers before GenCon happened. Then, as the production dates delayed, and shipping became an issue, it became a big thing that they had to sell at GenCon. That caused all sorts of crap, so they put it to the controversial vote, that it was needed for "the sake of the game", that they backtrack on "backers first", something they had repeatedly assured wouldn't happen. Anyways, after the huge backtrack, they still ended up missing GenCon as the container got held up in Customs. Then, afterwards, it became clear that that was always the intent, as the first container was stocked only with retail product (so they couldn't have delivered to most backers anyway). All in all, it was a clusterfeth, I laughed quite heartily throughout.
What would be an acceptable closure to this ordeal if the money is indeed gone?
I can't think of anything that isn't going to chisel a little bit more off my trust in humanity block. This poor franchise (and related anime) have been so overly absused over the decades.
Swabby wrote: What would be an acceptable closure to this ordeal if the money is indeed gone?
For me, PERSONALLY, because I can only speak for myself, and to save SOME PEOPLE (they know who they are) from telling me/us how it'd be a Slap In The Face they wouldn't stand for, I could potentially see an exchange of product they do have. It would require them still being able to scrounge up shipping (not likely), and having enough boxes around to cover the hundreds of thousands of dollars in stuff they still need to send out.
It's not ideal, I'm not saying they should, I'm not saying everyone (or even many people) would want even more of this stuff.
However.
SOME people might see it as a way to buff up their collection (the Battle Cry only folks; getting an extra core box or two and/or some expansion kits might round out the numbers they lacked), SOME might see it as a way to hook up friends with the extra to build a community in the area even if they had to do it by brute force. SOME might see it as an option for resale to try to recoup *anything* from this debacle, even accepting that flooding the market in cores and kits would depress what minimal value they already seem to have, though frankly even getting $20 per core box might be more back than we're looking at now.
Again, AGAIN, I couch this in the hypothetical, something they could TRY to make good if they lacked other options. I'm aware that some here (and many backers in general) would raise hell and declare NO, NOT ACCEPTABLE, and it would probably unleash at least a few of the currently restrained litigation attack dogs. I am NOT saying this would be an all encompassing fix.
But we know they have a fethload of boxes laying around unsold, and they owe us a fethload of stuff (and man, even nonplussed as I am, I'd rather have Super VT's I don't intend to play with anytime soon than another core or ten of Battlepods and VT's), so that seems like a reasonable outcome. Not ideal, not desired, not even scratching the surface of the bullgak they've put the backer community through to date (and for months and years to come, I'm sure), but in Thinking Outside The Box, that seems like one of the more realistic options. To me. The only person I speak for.
I would only want what I had ordered extra in the backer kit refunded as credit.
Then order a few of those GHQ items.
Then I would be done with them and merrily move-on.
I would possibly hack-up some parts and mold a few things... but that is my business.
I'm not sure what you mean above in relation to the gencon suicide pact as a result of the triple negatives in the sentence. I don't mean that as an insult but rather to request clarification instead of assuming.
After the initial delays in their repeatedly moving release dates, they announced to the world that they would definitely have stock at Gencon.
It meant that no matter what, they were going to be beholden to something. They got so desperate to get anything for Gencon that they decided to split into two waves so that they would have something to sell. That split resulted in over double the needed shipping costs as they were going to have to ship in two waves.
n815e wrote:
It was expected that they would produce retail stock as part of the kickstarter.
Not by me it wasn't!
It's okay that you selectively snipped my quote so that you could respond to an argument I didn't actually write.
What would be an acceptable closure to this ordeal if the money is indeed gone?
For me there are many options.
They secure a source of funding that is beyond their own diminishing income stream to fulfill their obligation.
They issue refunds (to take up all their future profits if necessary to fulfill their obligation).
They go out of business.
Someone takes them to court and the court discovers that they spent all the money but did not do anything fishy (the only way I will consider forgiveness of debt).
I don't want any more RRT as to me it is incomplete without Wave 2. I don't want any of their other products because I am not a rpg-er and to me that is equivalent of them sending me their recycling and saying it pays off their debt to me.
Forar wrote: But we know they have a fethload of boxes laying around unsold, and they owe us a fethload of stuff (and man, even nonplussed as I am, I'd rather have Super VT's I don't intend to play with anytime soon than another core or ten of Battlepods and VT's), so that seems like a reasonable outcome. Not ideal, not desired, not even scratching the surface of the bullgak they've put the backer community through to date (and for months and years to come, I'm sure), but in Thinking Outside The Box, that seems like one of the more realistic options. To me. The only person I speak for.
So we're clear.
I believe I've suggest something similar here in that I myself would like to "cash out" of the project for an equal value amount in stock merchandise OF MY CHOICE at 2013 KS prices for kickstarted items. I would not accept pricing some things at current robotech prices in their favor when doling out value but counting the initial value at 2013 pricing (for instance a core box would be $80 value because that is what it cost in 2013, not the $100 they charge now). Unfortunately, the only thing I'd have wanted from them instead of my wave 2 rewards would have been the Robotech Battlefoam bag and they said they sold out month ago in a weekly newsletter. I wouldn't accept some grab bag where they throw in a bunch of gak I already own or that they have no chance in hell of selling like old rifters and art prints or that has been artificially inflated in price like a "collectors edition gold" version of something I wouldn't ever buy. I have zero faith in Palladium even making this token effort without screwing it up by trying to cram in one or more of the above into the "deal".
As jaymz sort of says, there's beliefs and then there's actual law. It might seem incredibly fishy to use backer funds on retail stock rather than PB's own funds, but it'd be hard to argue that it rises to the level of fraudulent or illegal given that you would have to produce where the contract says they could NOT do that. Absent such language existing, it could very easily be seen by a neutral, disinterested party that this was a "good-faith" error wherein PB honestly believed they would be able to sell the stock and replace the funds and the proceeds would fund the increased shipping costs which allowed quicker delivery to the backers.
It'd be doubly difficult to convince those third-parties of any wrong-doing if PB was able to point at other KickStarter projects that "floated" funds, which for all we know could be a very common practice. I believe it's been confirmed that Prodos did such a thing with one KickStarter's funds mainly going to finish another, and one of the points about the Dust/BF kerfuffle was the use of KS funds to pay a factoring bank for extant debts owed. Not apples-to-apples as the principals in those situations are overseas and governed by different laws/agencies, but it does introduce holes to the idea that KS funds are to be viewed as inviolate by the recipient.
What is much harder to view as being in a grey area is that the backers have not had their contract for delivery of rewards fulfilled. So yes, I concur that if the situation is as jaymz has laid out (which I'm inclined to believe as it aligns with my own interpretations of the situation, natch), then the strongest path forward is to pursue the quite clear breach of contract which may then uncover fraud versus trying for the more severe reach and losing on ambiguity and plausible deniability.
All of that presumes enough people get sufficiently agitated to do something though, and if PB has been able to putter about for nearly a year after already being as late as they were...well, that doesn't seem too likely at the moment. As time goes on that will probably change, but it's hard to say if there will ever be that critical-mass to get things rolling as some people just stop caring and move onto the next shiny as new people take up the torches of annoyance.
I've been sorta lurking for a few weeks myself, haven't been follow it too much though.
The last big thing they did was get permission from HG to get the GHQ stuff developed. Did they burn off the last of the funds on that perhaps? They had a lot more made then what was ordered but probably not the 19461+ queadluun-rau, 19461+ nousjaduel-gers, and 12974+ super VF-1 guardians they still owe the backers.
I started running off the numbers of game pieces that they still need to make based on the backer counts for each level. and there is no way I can see them being able to do it. They need to make 175492 game pieces just to fulfill the base rewards, who knows what was also ordered in the backerkit on top of that.
I need to calculate out how much extra money was raised beyond the base reward levels.
ok I did that.
so 5231 backers put up a total of $1,442,312.00 before additional backerkit funding. $905,610.00 covers the base pledged and $536,702.00 was pledged towards additional "purchase addons" and shipping costs. (edit: added shipping cost notation, Thanks Forar for the clarification) I feel really bad for those 3 busting point backers. I haven't looked at that number but that is really scary that half a million was spent on product that they are going to be forced to refund.
Stuart Johnson got a reply from the AG and PB said they sent him over $700.00+ of product compared to his pledge $520.00. I asked him to ask the AG to get the values of everything from PB. So using my game piece spreadsheet, I started working on a document to detail out what all the kickstarter reward levels included, price point for them in the kickstarter, price points if available at MSRP. so people who are filing can have a common base to show what they pre-ordered.
for the bonus figures in battle cry reward level, we have received 24 sprues, and are still due 27 more game pieces. not sure how many sprues that is for wave 2. So you are probably only looking at $30 from that. $80 for the core box, $60 for the bonus bag.
This kickstarter has failed because manufacturing was not lined up before hand with complete costs. stretch goals were not set to proper monetary levels to accommodate that massive amounts of increased product needed to make everything for everyone. I do believe that deceit was committed when they broke the game into 2 waves. I think they realized then that it was not possible to make everything. So they made wave 1 and wave 2, and hoped that wave 1 would sell to fund wave 2. Wave 1 contained all the game pieces the battletech players wanted as well.
Has anyone look into contacting Catalyst Games about suing PB. PB has statements that their gamed are not to be converted into other game system. However, it seems there was a major factor to produce this game in the same scale as battletech to sell it to battletech players for use as the "unseens" in battletech.
firesped wrote: I need to calculate out how much extra money was raised beyond the base reward levels.
ok I did that.
so 5231 backers put up a total of $1,442,312.00 before additional backerkit funding. $905,610.00 covers the base pledged and $536,702.00 was pledged towards additional "purchase addons."
*sigh*
I apologize up front, but I'm going to be that guy for a second, and would like to note that international backer contributions towards shipping were included in that "purchase add ons" number.
Not to correct, merely to clarify. If you've accounted for this, awesome, kudos, cheers, and whatnot.
But of the ~$1,400 my friends and I contributed for 8 Battle Cry boxes (double Reckless, that is) and another $200+ in add ons, $100 was spent on shipping.
Not that I expect us to be representative, nor that my single data point comes to anything conclusive, merely noting that some portion of that half million'ish was for International backer shipping, however many that may be. Back when you could find Backer listings, I snagged the one for RRT. Something like 20% were from 'places other than the US', plus another large chunk (20% or so?) did not identify where they were backing from, but I think it worked out to around 1/4 to 1/3 being international. Enough to skew the numbers, not enough to add up to truly catastrophic amounts.
PB seem to have caused the catastrophes all on their own.
winterdyne wrote: If they're out of money they get bankrupted. It's that simple. Whatever cash is raised by liquidation is used in debts owed, and this includes the refunds to backers.
If it is found by the accountants doing the liquidation that negligent practices were followed (such as paying for a huge amount of wave 1 stock rather than using the money to fund the fulfilling of extant contracts (all backer rewards) then the directors responsible for those decisions can feasibly be held personally liable. Which would be bad news indeed for Kevin, as it seems to me like that's where the buck stops.
The term to look up is 'compulsory dissolution'. It's a fun read.
...and how is that going to happen? The unstoppable Legal Ricknami?
I edited the post and added the factor of shipping to the extra half million. I just did a raw number crunch to find the extra money spent beyond what was used to cover reward levels and did not realize that shipping was part of that number. Thanks for the Input Forar
Looking for, and expecting volunteers to support the business just blows my mind: handouts are a business model for them. Then there are allegations that all kinds of contributing work goes in and they slap their name on it with little or no acknowledgment of where it actually came from. I just do not understand if there is an army of masochists supporting PB or shouldn't the well run dry after enough people get burned?
So lately we are questioning also if PB could use the kickstarter money for retail stock? I was pretty sure it is to cover development and production of the product to provide for the backers. Then with the process in place, they are free to produce as they see fit... on their dime (or if any KS money remains!). The silliness of this is obvious: say you kickstart for making 4 products, you make the first one and have a gazillion retail made and it does not sell = dead kickstarter. This is a fine reason for never backing a kickstarter for physical product.
Up Front also used volunteers for art and whatnot and did not deliver to backers.
I've seen creators go bankrupt because they created additional product for retail at the same time as KS rewards (presumably with KS funding *and* backer money for shipping). As said, it's a matter -- and temptation -- of economy of scale, combined with poor project management (pretty tempting to dip into the shipping funds when you misspent and are running out of KS funding). Some companies, like CMON, I can trust can create product at the same time for both KS backers and retail channels, some I can't. While I wouldn't go as far as say "never backing a kickstarter", it's a risk I think potential backers really need to consider. Myself, I think this is part of researching how well a creator fulfilled their previous crowdfunding projects (I regularly pass on First Created projects) and how satisfied their backers were.
...Chaosium was run by someone as crooked as Kevin (Charlie Crank) and ended up essentially going bankrupt as they blew through the budget for their first KS, then ended up having to use their 2nd KS to pay for their first.
It seems like the more 'established' (ie. old) a company is, the more likely they are to completely feth themselves, and their backers, with a KS.
winterdyne wrote: If they're out of money they get bankrupted. It's that simple. Whatever cash is raised by liquidation is used in debts owed, and this includes the refunds to backers.
If it is found by the accountants doing the liquidation that negligent practices were followed (such as paying for a huge amount of wave 1 stock rather than using the money to fund the fulfilling of extant contracts (all backer rewards) then the directors responsible for those decisions can feasibly be held personally liable. Which would be bad news indeed for Kevin, as it seems to me like that's where the buck stops.
The term to look up is 'compulsory dissolution'. It's a fun read.
...and how is that going to happen? The unstoppable Legal Ricknami?
Unlikely; more potential in the FTC taking action (here in the UK, the courts can force a dissolution if the company cannot pay debts from cash or asset liquidation the FTC seems to have a similar role to Trading Standards here in that they can start court proceedings against firms). If a sufficient number of complaints is reached. I'd think a good chunk of whatever gets liquidated would end up paying legal fees and/or fines before it got to backers though.
There are some people who have legitimate complaints regarding how Flying Frog Productions has handled the Shadows of Brimstone campaign (delivered the core boxes on time, wave 1.5 was supposed to be Q1 or Q2 2015, current target is in a few weeks, Wave 2 is hopefully going out this year but I wouldn't hold my breath).
While their updates are generally good (in terms of content and length), they're few and far in between. However, I love the project and am willing to continue to give them the benefit of the doubt. Unlike this campaign, they *have* actually finished more product, and I fully expect even more to show up in the coming months (yes, particularly in time for Gencon).
Dwarven Forge has run 3 massive (~2 million dollars plus) campaigns in the time that this one has; 2 delivered on time or early, the third is currently delivering test cases and should be starting up delivery in earnest shortly, again on time or early, depending on ones perspective.
Basically, being late can be acceptable. Poor communications can be acceptable. Even both can be endured with gritted teeth. But all that, plus a year of silence and no evidence of progress, and a product that has been fairly contentious (the higher praise it gets is generally just a minimization of 'oh it's not THAT bad...') is what really garners my ire (again, speaking for myself). If the product were better I might be a bit more frustrated, but it wouldn't take much in terms of ongoing communication (a sprue breakdown render here, a 3D printed prototype there, basically the same effort they showed in 2014).
It's not just one area of weakness, it's all of them in conjunction, that really frustrate me.
Automatically Appended Next Post: IT HAS LANDED!
Here are the aspects of the New Year State Of The Union Update that pertain to RRT:
"● 2016 Robotech® RPG Tactics. We renewed the Robotech® license and look forward to getting RRT Wave Two into your hands and onto store shelves. I’ll offer up more info and details in an update in the next few weeks. More Robotech® sourcebooks are in the pipeline, too."
... it was renewed? HG is... happy with the state of affairs? O.o
I wonder if the talk of renewing the license has to do with the talk of them trying to run out the timer on it as an excuse. Either way, the offer of more info in the upcoming weeks seems pointless considering we got the
"We’ll try to provide some more insight on this next week."
on the Dec 11th 2015 KS "update" with nothing to show for it.
Merijeek wrote: It seems like the more 'established' (ie. old) a company is, the more likely they are to completely feth themselves, and their backers, with a KS.
Good points about Chaosium and FFP.
Reminds me of zombie companies, although some definitions of a zombie company involve debt: Zombie companies only make enough to cover costs of operation and pay debt interest, but otherwise not enough to pay down the debt itself, or grow.
With the low costs of operations for game companies, I think this description from DougsGuides would apply to Chaosium, Palladium, and who knows what other companies: "Here's a situation that is more common than VCs and entrepreneurs would like to admit: a company on life support, making just enough money (usually with concessions from the employees) to stumble along. There's not enough money to grow the business, but the economics aren't quite dire enough to close the place down. These are 'zombie companies' - the walking dead." http://www.dougsguides.com/zombie
For these companies, KS is a cash infusion to prevent the places from closing down. But the mismanagement is still there, so the company doesn't change. It just lasts longer, relying upon crowdfunding money.
Of course HG renewed. Kevin McKeever and Tommy Yune have spent the last fifteenish years doing the absolute minimum amount of work to milk money out of the property.
,,, at the end of the day, think about it as though you are a manager trying to deliver a big project. For scope management you split the deliverables into two waves. Basic brain work would say you must retain enough funds to deliver wave 2, even if wave 1 is priority and there are economies of scale to do a bit of retail production. While there can be some problems with shipping costs etc. that are an unknown at that point, the process and cost to produce the steel molds should be known already, and an monetary estimate and planning can be done.
If PB really did screw themselves by overspending on retail production, it's fiscally irresponsible of them, and demonstrates bad planning and management. Nothing that PB doesn't already have a track record of, but now they have an "economy of scale" to demonstrate their levels of incompetency with a larger amount of cash.
Personally I do expect them to do some retail production, if nothing else because production for backers alone may not justify a production run at the manufacturer. But if they overspent on retail production at the expense of funds that should have been ear-marked for Wave 2, that's unacceptable.
As for the license renewal, yes, I think it was a factor in the hand wringing delays (and to be fair it should be, there's no reason for a licensee to spend money if they couldn't sell end product due to expiry), but again, it's not like these things don't have a time stamp on it. Sounds more of typical PB "let's talk about this over the spread of 6 months but not decide on anything", resulting in everyone just waiting for the confirmation before doing anything.
Overall, it looks like PB is terrible at strategic business planning and negotiation, and is just stumbling from paycheck to paycheck. Enough of back histories to depend on to get by, but nothing of legacy to get big, and poor organization capabilities to adapt to changing economic realities.
If you assume PB has a mindless enthusiasm for their product and automatically assume the best outcome (wild sales #'s) then it actually fits the mold.......
Mike1975 wrote: If you assume PB has a mindless enthusiasm for their product and automatically assume the best outcome (wild sales #'s) then it actually fits the mold.......
Pretty much yeah. I do like the creativity that some of the PB products have, but really, their business track record is much, much less than stellar.
Part of the problem is that Kevin can't get over stuff even when he says "it's water under the bridge". So because of that mentality and the inability to adapt to an ever changing market it ends up hurting his business and the consumer.
Cypher-xv wrote: Part of the problem is that Kevin can't get over stuff even when he says "it's water under the bridge". So because of that mentality and the inability to adapt to an ever changing market it ends up hurting his business and the consumer.
firesped wrote: so 5231 backers put up a total of $1,442,312.00 before additional backerkit funding. $905,610.00 covers the base pledged and $536,702.00 was pledged towards additional "purchase addons" and shipping costs.
Stuart Johnson got a reply from the AG and PB said they sent him over $700.00+ of product compared to his pledge $520.00.
Let us remember that, regardless of current PB's states of cost per mini (and I dare you to try and sell those at that price point), it is irrelevant, because what PB is contractually bound to send the pledgers for their base pledges is what they stated they would in the KS.
And they haven't even fulfilled that. So anything they might say on that regard about "value" of sent stuff is a smokescreen at best.
A best gauge for it would probably to define the approximate percentage of stuff received compared with the promised base pledge for those first $905,610.00
jaymz wrote: There are number of people that work closely with Kevin on a "volunteer" basis. I know and communicate with at least a few of them regularly. Thus why I said plausible deniability.
People willing to work on their spare time with that fellow does raise some concerns. Looking for, and expecting volunteers to support the business just blows my mind: handouts are a business model for them.
Then there are allegations that all kinds of contributing work goes in and they slap their name on it with little or no acknowledgment of where it actually came from.
I just do not understand if there is an army of masochists supporting PB or shouldn't the well run dry after enough people get burned?
Yes, its almost the business model for charities isnt it?
And yes with no younger and newer blood discovering PB theres only us old farts left. Any decent talent winds up moving on to other companies who actually pay them decently (or pay them at all, or dont cheat them like happened with dead reign).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Swabby wrote: Is anyone else picturing Kevin reading Jaymz' post and spending endless hours trying to figure out who the traitor is?
I fully expect an internal war on teachery in the PB office now. And probably some missing collectible heist stories.
Pfft. Use to be a monthly event for Kevin, might be weekly by now. Everyone's out to bring him down. What happened with his now ex wife and later Steve probably cemented this thinking in his mind.
I have to honestly wonder what people think they are doing when contributing to a kickstarter.
Do any of you, that think the whole point of the kickstarter is to only reward those who pledged money, realize that if the project only manages to break even after rewarding the backers, even though they may now have the tools to manufacture more, they would still be effectively at square one again since they no longer have any funds to produce anything?
Think about it. Most of these projects are not companies that have other revenue streams (at least a good many of them).
If I didn't have the funds to produce the game, then you give me money to produce the game, but you only want YOU to get the game, leaving me with no money to produce further after YOU got the game, then what is the point of bothering at all as I am still left with no funding to actually produce the game.
No, it is quite obvious that backing a project entails paying for BOTH rewarding the backers and at least some amount of retail production to make the project self sustaining.
Now Palladium fethed up by WAY over producing retail. In other words as I said before incompetent misuse of funds. That misuse of funds is why they are where they are. It is not fraud. What it WILL be if they do not produce wave two is breach of contract. Now if fraud can be demonstrated in trying to figure out the breach of contract so be it but as of right now, there is no fraud that I am aware of and everything I have been told points to incompetence. Gross incompetence, to be sure, but incompetence just the same.
jaymz wrote: I have to honestly wonder what people think they are doing when contributing to a kickstarter.
Do any of you, that think the whole point of the kickstarter is to only rewards those who pledged money, realize that if the project only manages to break even after rewarding the backers, even though they may not have the tools to manufacture more, they would still be effectively at square one again since they no longer have any funds to produce anything?
Think about it. Most of these projects are not companies that have other revenue streams (at least a good many of them).
If I didn't have the funds to produce the game, then you give me money to produce the game, but you only want YOU to get the game, leaving em with no money to produce further after YOU got the game, then what is the point of bothering at all as I am still left with no funding to actually produce the game.
No, it is quite obvious that backing a project entails paying for BOTH rewarding the backers and at least some amount of retail production to make the project self sustaining.
Now Palladium fethed up by WAY over producing retail. In other words as I said before incompetent misuse of funds. That misuse of funds is why they are where they are. It is not fraud. What it WILL be if they do not produce wave two is breach of contract. Now if fraud can be demonstrated in trying to figure out the breach of contract so be it but as of right now, there is no fraud that I am aware of and everything I have been told points to incompetence. Gross incompetence, to be sure, but incompetence just the same.
The purpose of a kickstarter is to raise the money to DEVELOP a product, and produce and deliver rewards (not necessarily the product) in exchange for that money. Contractually that is all that's there.
That the rewards tend to be (in the case of many products) advance orders of the product itself is beside the point, and a choice of the Project Creator.
That the funding level for a project is usually set high enough to produce an initial run of stock to sell (over and above fulfilling the rewards of backers as required) is again beside the point, and a choice of the Project Creator.
Regardless of the specifics of the rewards offered and how they are produced, and regardless of the funding requested, a Project Creator is contractually obliged to produce those rewards or refund backers for rewards they cannot fulfill.
Within the 2013 ToU (I've not actually had cause to analyse the terms for more recent projects) there is no caveat emptor clause whatsoever - rewards absolutely MUST be fulfilled or refunded.
So if you didn't ask for enough money to develop, produce and/or get delivery of your retail stock as well as the backer rewards you've basically misfired the project.
If you ran out of money before fulfilling your contractual obligations, you're in very deep gak and absolutely need to find the money to do so. If you can't (and here I surmise PB can't) then it won't be forever before someone drags your arse to court and has you or your company bankrupted.
jaymz wrote: I have to honestly wonder what people think they are doing when contributing to a kickstarter.
Do any of you, that think the whole point of the kickstarter is to only rewards those who pledged money, realize that if the project only manages to break even after rewarding the backers, even though they may not have the tools to manufacture more, they would still be effectively at square one again since they no longer have any funds to produce anything?
Think about it. Most of these projects are not companies that have other revenue streams (at least a good many of them).
If I didn't have the funds to produce the game, then you give me money to produce the game, but you only want YOU to get the game, leaving em with no money to produce further after YOU got the game, then what is the point of bothering at all as I am still left with no funding to actually produce the game.
No, it is quite obvious that backing a project entails paying for BOTH rewarding the backers and at least some amount of retail production to make the project self sustaining.
Now Palladium fethed up by WAY over producing retail. In other words as I said before incompetent misuse of funds. That misuse of funds is why they are where they are. It is not fraud. What it WILL be if they do not produce wave two is breach of contract. Now if fraud can be demonstrated in trying to figure out the breach of contract so be it but as of right now, there is no fraud that I am aware of and everything I have been told points to incompetence. Gross incompetence, to be sure, but incompetence just the same.
The purpose of a kickstarter is to raise the money to DEVELOP a product, and produce and deliver rewards (not necessarily the product) in exchange for that money. Contractually that is all that's there.
That the rewards tend to be (in the case of many products) advance orders of the product itself is beside the point, and a choice of the Project Creator.
That the funding level for a project is usually set high enough to produce an initial run of stock to sell (over and above fulfilling the rewards of backers as required) is again beside the point, and a choice of the Project Creator.
Regardless of the specifics of the rewards offered and how they are produced, and regardless of the funding requested, a Project Creator is contractually obliged to produce those rewards or refund backers for rewards they cannot fulfill.
Within the 2013 ToU (I've not actually had cause to analyse the terms for more recent projects) there is no caveat emptor clause whatsoever - rewards absolutely MUST be fulfilled or refunded.
So if you didn't ask for enough money to develop, produce and/or get delivery of your retail stock as well as the backer rewards you've basically misfired the project.
If you ran out of money before fulfilling your contractual obligations, you're in very deep gak and absolutely need to find the money to do so. If you can't (and here I surmise PB can't) then it won't be forever before someone drags your arse to court and has you or your company bankrupted.
And I do not dispute any of what you said. My point was that there is zero point in doing a project in the first place if after rewarding those that helped fund it, you cannot continue to produce the game.
This may be an issue with how Kickstarter has set up it's ToU. I do not know but I can tell you from a business perspective, let alone a logical one, to do a project that cannot sustain itself after "paying back investors" (for lack of a better term), is asinine and doomed to failure. No one should be surprised, ever, that a retail run is produced using the same funds that were used to make backer rewards.
What it does point to though, in this case, is that whoever had the final say, at the time of the initial campaign, over did it with unlockable rewards for backers. The whole situation goes back to, you guessed it, incompetence not fraud. (and by extension, breach of contract)
No, I think the reward structure was fine. The bulk of the design work had been done well before the Kickstarter launched, so costs to bring to production *should* also have been understood and understood at that point. If there was *ANY* doubt whatsoever about getting production rolling, then the Kickstarter should have been cancelled prior to being funded.
I concur, the whole thing is incompetent - but you can only be incompetent to that sort of level knowingly. To then purport to be 98% done, and/or provide pie-in-the-sky ship dates (Q2 2014!, No, wait 2015... No wait..) is not just incompetent it's fraudulent.
I did a bunch of the painting work for Maelstrom's Edge - and given that the SAS guys are pure amateurs, and were learning and spending as they went (fronting most of the development cost before they ever started their Kickstarter), the difference in the handling of the two projects is night and day. Similar in scope (get plastic models produced in China, high detail, multiple facing details in design to overcome), print books, boxes, package, ship. There's no excuse, really.
jaymz wrote: I have to honestly wonder what people think they are doing when contributing to a kickstarter.
Do any of you, that think the whole point of the kickstarter is to only reward those who pledged money, realize that if the project only manages to break even after rewarding the backers, even though they may now have the tools to manufacture more, they would still be effectively at square one again since they no longer have any funds to produce anything?
Think about it. Most of these projects are not companies that have other revenue streams (at least a good many of them).
I didn't back "most of these projects"... I backed THIS project. THIS project took my money to develop the project and bring it to market. Bringing it to market does NOT mean that I paid in part for every single retail box sitting in their warehouse. To think that it does is as much of a stretch as Kevin Siembieda apparently thinking that making a phone call once a week makes the project progress substantially enough to not warrant refunds after a projected 3 year delay. Bringing that project to market means that my funding (obviously along with everyone elses) paid for the development of that project, producing the necessary rewards, and a small initial retail offering out of LEFT OVER funds. That left over part is key because it becomes extra difficult to judge that when you split completion suddenly AFTER your supposed intial delivery date.
Palladium would NOT "still be effectively at square one again since they no longer have any funds to produce anything" as you strangely and naively claim. The kickstarter allowed them to develop and market the product at no cost to them instead using their backers' money. The designs, contracts, and know how to make backer rewards paid for by backer funds don't suddenly disappear like an IMF tape into smoke once rewards go out. The marketing including the initial KS campaign itself as well as subsequent updates to backers and traditional ads allows them to use their 30 year history in the industry to presell to both gamers, retailers, and distributors ahead of production which pays for both THOSE purchased retail copies as well as provides them extra profit to make additional retail copies to sell on the market, just like backer copies theoretically do if costs are determined correctly. This separation of funds becomes even more important when they decide to only ship half the products after a year's delay since costs of production and development will only go up (and likely in ways that they can't predict). Instead of putting half the project's completion at risk by spending the money in a pyramind scheme fashion, they should have made a smaller initial wave 1 print run consisting of only what they could afford from the portion of pledges plus preorders plus extras from whatever they can afford with the their own money which would naturally include extras from the profit margin of rewards and preorders. Unfortunately they got, according to your story, extra greedy and spent everything gambling at the expense of the KS backers and in violation of their contract with them since, again according to your theory, they can no longer afford to make half the rewards.
Palladium might have had a smaller profit margin INITIALLY if they had instead responsibly acted as stated above (again, assuming your theory is correct) but at least it would have ensured to the best of their ability the full completion of the project providing better long term reception and sales for the line. Instead, they were betting with OUR money, not their own, on a massive initial retail sales that apparently didn't happen. It is IMO likely some combination of saturation of a niche market with the KS and a general souring of the reception of the game after a year of broken promises didn't provide that. If they wanted to gamble, they should have used their own money instead.
@winterdyne - Oh the backer reward levels were fine I agree. It is all the Unlocked rewards that are causing the issues. You will notice those were by and large all Wave Two items.
I also agree that there has to be some level of "knowledge" of misleading information on their part but without the ability to get full disclosure there is absolutely zero way to prove it.
@warboss - did i say every single retail box? no i did not that's where the "over stocked" comes from so don;t get your underoos in a frickin knot.
I did not say PALLADIUM would be at square one. Stop twisting words for your so called outrage. I said in most cases the people creating these projects do not have other streams of revenue. Palladium does so yes they should foot part of the bill to take it to market....mind you a company that has all this experience and history shouldn't be allowed to use Kickstarter in the first place. They should be required to go the traditional route for product creation and launch, like securing bank loans, but that's an argument for another day.
I'll point out
"The kickstarter allowed them to develop and market the product at no cost to them instead using their backers' money. "
by default includes "taking to market" not just marketing the product. If you cannot manufacture the product for the market then you cannot TAKE it to market. Also whatever development that was done prior to the KS Campaign, if there was in fact any done, was paid by somebody so to say this whole thing was at no cost is a bit disingenuous on your part.
Furthermore I have repeatedly said they screwed up so trying to make it seem like I am trying to give them a pass is on you not me.
I'll say it again clearly for you.
They. Incompetently. Misused. Funds. To. Overstock. Retail.
Now they cannot finish. Again that is breach of contract. Not fraud.
End result is we are screwed because of it and they should be held accountable for that. Unless you, me, winterdyne, and everyone else here decides to act together and actually DO something about it not a damn thing will happen.
I am looking at my options via FTC/AG/BBB etc being Canadian and not merely going to file a complaint online to just get a canned response back. I am going to do so down the avenue that makes the most sense. Fraud isn't it.
What are you doing?
We at least agree on one thing overall. They should have done this on their own dime not any one else's. Obviously they didn;t think it was viable to do with their own money. THAT is more telling than anything else really.
They misrepresented how much work was complete (and continue to do so), they misrepresented release dates, and they misrepresented who was actually doing the work.
But that's not fraud? These things happened before they ever overproduced for retail.
Now, I'm just a simple unfrozen cave man who doesn't understand new and fancy things like your sliding core molds and facebookery, but it seems to me that these things would qualify it as fraud.
I did not say PALLADIUM would be at square one. Stop twisting words for your so called outrage.
So... in the thread specifically about the Palladium Robotech KS, the singular kickstarter you're talking about exclusively to backers of the Palladium Kickstarter below in which you specifically say "they would still be effectively at square one again since they no longer have any funds to produce anything" doesn't refer to the Palladium Kickstarter? But instead to some random crowdfunded knitting project? Or maybe an indie video game? So which kickstarter are you referring to in the Robotech thread when you say "the kickstarter" multiple times below?
jaymz wrote: Do any of you, that think the whole point of the kickstarter is to only reward those who pledged money, realize that if the project only manages to break even after rewarding the backers, even though they may now have the tools to manufacture more, they would still be effectively at square one again since they no longer have any funds to produce anything?
@Merijeek - the problem is proving it. As I already said. Take a road that can be traveled (breach of contract) rather than one that is likely to end at a chasm you can't cross. (Fraud)
Taking the road you can travel (Breach) MAY lead to a bridge to get across that chasm.
I am looking at my options via FTC/AG/BBB etc being Canadian and not merely going to file a complaint online to just get a canned response back. I am going to do so down the avenue that makes the most sense. Fraud isn't it.
What are you doing?
We at least agree on one thing overall. They should have done this on their own dime not any one else's. Obviously they didn;t think it was viable to do with their own money. THAT is more telling than anything else really.
I'm looking at the same options as you are with likely the same results. Look, we agree on most things your wrote and if anything your contribution here on dakka will likely move up my own timetable. I've previously said that I was giving Palladium to the end of the current sorting hat delivery date/Gencon before I filed with the above authorities. I'm reconsidering that now and honestly the 1,000th anniversary of funding with no delivery in sight coinciding with Valentine's Day seems a poetic day to start. It would be fitting to recipricate the love Palladium has shown to backers by filing with those authorities on the day the production of half the rewards is 2,500% late. I haven't decided for sure but am considering it.
I did not say PALLADIUM would be at square one. Stop twisting words for your so called outrage.
So... in the thread specifically about the Palladium Robotech KS, the singular kickstarter you're talking about exclusively to backers of the Palladium Kickstarter below in which you specifically say "they would still be effectively at square one again since they no longer have any funds to produce anything" doesn't refer to the Palladium Kickstarter? But instead to some random crowdfunded knitting project? Or maybe an indie video game? You're too used to the Palladium forums if you think that sort of revisionist posting at best will pass the sniff test. So which kickstarter are you referring to in the Robotech thread when you say "the kickstarter" multiple times below?
jaymz wrote: Do any of you, that think the whole point of the kickstarter is to only reward those who pledged money, realize that if the project only manages to break even after rewarding the backers, even though they may now have the tools to manufacture more, they would still be effectively at square one again since they no longer have any funds to produce anything?
Picking and choosing quotes does not change the tone of the entire post regardless of what you think warboss. The overall post was speaking in generic terms. As evidenced by the rest of it that you specifically left out of what you quoted. But hey whatever makes you feel like you are right man.
I am looking at my options via FTC/AG/BBB etc being Canadian and not merely going to file a complaint online to just get a canned response back. I am going to do so down the avenue that makes the most sense. Fraud isn't it.
What are you doing?
We at least agree on one thing overall. They should have done this on their own dime not any one else's. Obviously they didn;t think it was viable to do with their own money. THAT is more telling than anything else really.
I'm looking at the same options as you are with likely the same results. Look, we agree on most things your wrote and if anything your contribution here on dakka will likely move up my own timetable. I've previously said that I was giving Palladium to the end of the current sorting hat delivery date/Gencon before I filed with the above authorities. I'm reconsidering that now and honestly the 1,000th anniversary of funding with no delivery in sight coinciding with Valentine's Day seems a poetic day to start. It would be fitting to recipricate the love Palladium has shown to backers by filing with those authorities on the day the production of half the rewards is 2,500% late. I haven't decided for sure but am considering it.
Well at least we are on the same page about one thing. Palladium needs to be made accountable
As far as I'm aware, Kickstarters are allowed to make a profit. Smart KS's build in contingency funds for use on a variety of things, be it emergency repairs to their facilities in order to continue working, or to cover a shortfall or three (oh noes, shipping has gone up again!).
Campaigns are not expected to account for every single penny in advance. Doing so would be insane and doom just about every campaign ever. We all know that life happens, that X now costs double because the price of oil has gone up, and Y now costs triple because 'feth you' that's why, etc.
Which brings me back to my point on context and proportionality. If they spent 10% extra to double the number of boxes coming in, I would've been annoyed if they hadn't taken advantage of that. If they spent 190% of the amount to get 200% of the boxes and THAT is what has led (in a large part) to them being out of cash, that's another story. There's a gradiation present between "fraud and embezzlement and call Judge Judy!' and 'sensible business practices'.
Arguing whether or not they could use KS funds for retail seems like a moot point, and I'm pretty sure everyone does it, whether it's legally or just ethically against the Kickstarter's TOU. Does anyone really think that Reaper or CMON or my beloved Dwarven Forge very specifically pays JUST for backer boxes out of KS funds and then very carefully goes to their own accounts for retail/online distribution?
That said, any campaign that JUST produced backer rewards with zero excess is still ahead of the game. While shipping and factory slots and labour and materials and whatnot aren't free, having the artwork paid off, the molds cut, etc, trims that cost significantly. Any company that can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars getting all that infrastructure in place but can't cover off even a short additional run for their stuff (ideally alongside the backer production) probably should take a good long look at their business model. As noted above with contingencies and potential profits and whatnot, they're not expected to run on a razor's edge, and doing so would crush even more campaigns than we already see flounder and fail.
Of course, profits and contingency money should be freed up AFTER everything else has been covered, and the more reasonable issue/view that perhaps they had even a thin line and then the mold costs (doubled), the shipping (roughly doubled?), thousands in wasted advertising (if not counter productive advertising, as it showcased their ongoing inability to set a target and hit it), possibly wasted factory slot (allegedly procured in early 2013), they might well have chewed through those margins and then some. In which case, yes, I could see hoping to turn $X into $2X by bulk producing wave one and looking to recoup it in strong sales (short sightedly ignoring what happens if sales fall flat... ooops...).
Basically I'm not disagreeing or agreeing with anyone here, just trying to interject a little nuance. I think we're all adult enough here to know by now that hard black and white stances without ANY room for the realities of life are just angry talking points.
And I say this as someone who continues to harangue PB as a hobby at this point.
If Jaymz's source can produce documentation showing that Wave 1, in its entirety, cost them a million dollars, and then they blew every last penny on excess stock, sure, get the Seal Team Six of Lawyers onboard and let's light some fethers up.
But for good or ill, among the myriad of factors present in Kickstarter as a platform, I'd need more info/context to really call foul (above and beyond those I'm contractually obligated to participate in, that is).
from what I have observed of PBs actions is that they are trying to raise money anyway they can. I do think they want to finish this project. Given the latest PB update, I think they are looking into licensing out their IP to raise the money. So someone else might be putting out a Rifts Miniature wargame.
BoC is the way to go. I was going to give them until their current projected deadline or if they change the date again.
the Robotech License renewal, if true, is just to put a stop to that issue imo. Given HG though, it is probably true.
PB really need to come clean if they want to try and rebuild trust. I don't think their is any possible way to re-launch the game though.
@forar - Oh I agree they are ahead of the game, I even pointed out that they have the molds etc...but if they have no funds to produce those things, or no way to get funding to produce those things, those molds etc are useless.
I think they vastly underestimated the costs to make this with all the bonus stuff they added. I also think that HG got 15% of the kickstarter money for the royalties.
firesped wrote: from what I have observed of PBs actions is that they are trying to raise money anyway they can. I do think they want to finish this project. Given the latest PB update, I think they are looking into licensing out their IP to raise the money. So someone else might be putting out a Rifts Miniature wargame.
BoC is the way to go. I was going to give them until their current projected deadline or if they change the date again.
the Robotech License renewal, if true, is just to put a stop to that issue imo. Given HG though, it is probably true.
PB really need to come clean if they want to try and rebuild trust. I don't think their is any possible way to re-launch the game though.
I don't think any bake sale or lemonade stand equivalent (i.e. the nonconexclusives and grab bags) is going to help them enough to produce wave 2. There are trying to license out their IP but they've been trying to do so for over a decade in fits and spurts with largely nothing to show for it than a failed game on a failed platform; it's nothing new for them even if the impetus to accomplish it is more pressing now. That's where honesty and integrity come in as you said. Whatever financial situation they're in now with regards to the remainder of KS funds they likely knew they'd be in once they paid the final shipping costs for wave one in the summer of 2014. If Jaymz's theory is correct then they should have come clean at the latest when the initial "rush" of retail sales failed to hit their shores. If they're truly out of money, trying to run out the clock and further bleeded away the fans they have left certainly won't help.
jaymz wrote: Do any of you realize that if the project only manages to break even after rewarding the backers, even though they may now have the tools to manufacture more, they would still be effectively at square one again since they no longer have any funds to produce anything?
Only, you know, with a product already developed. Which is supposed to be the whole point of a KS, as per the site's blurb, their declaration of intentions and... well, eveything, ever.
As far as I know and as far as I can get from the horse's mouth, the point of KS is not to earn money, but to get help developing something.
Perhaps Jeffar would care to explain all the thread closures and bans given as a result of spreading "lies" about Palladium not having the funds to complete wave 2?
Joyboozer wrote: Perhaps Jeffar would care to explain all the thread closures and bans given as a result of spreading "lies" about Palladium not having the funds to complete wave 2?
Kevin hasn't admitted to it. And it is therefore not true.
Joyboozer wrote: Kevin's offerings aren't damaging and unsubstantiated?
I would say the kickstarter claims for the past eleven months have been both damaging (to palladium) and unsubstantiated (with no proof of any progress).
Joyboozer wrote: Kevin's offerings aren't damaging and unsubstantiated?
I would say the kickstarter claims for the past eleven months have been both damaging (to palladium) and unsubstantiated (with no proof of any progress).
That is a very unfortunate statement, that is both damaging and really, really, really substantiated. By years of posts, now.
Joyboozer wrote: Jeffar, my apologies if my comments towards you have been harsh, I am just taking the piss and not being serious.
You probably just made the list.
And I am being serious. NMI keeps one of all 'troublemakers' as well as a rating for how much of a problem you are.
Aside from that Ive found your comments quite funny.
Also funny is when you check the tactics section of PB's forums and see whole days have disappeared in between comments. Or maybe its just one of those rifts thingees.
Okay, so lets discuss what we DO know of the expenditures of the KS funds.
1) There were 17,502 core boxes created (Source: shipping container image from Update 155 (8/28/2014) showing "Carton 655 of 5834 - 3 sets of 55100 Main Box"
2) 6,681 core boxes among 4,804 backers were earmarked for Backers (adding all of the core boxes up on the KS main page, and then a distinct count of backers getting at least one core box for the second count). This therefore, does not include any added in on the backerkit.
3) International shipping was $150,000 (source: KS update from June 7 "Part One", subtitle "Kickstarter")
4) Kevin projected that the cost the game and expansion packs" would be "between $550,000 and $900,000" (source: KS update from June 7 "Part One", subtitle "Kickstarter")
Any other figures I missed?
So, cheapest I've seen the box set go for off PB's site is about $55. Assuming they're still selling it at a profit, this likely means their cost is about - I'm guessing - $40 per box. That would mean $700,080 in core boxes alone, not counting add-on boxes or bonus bag contents. With international shipping added, that alone is $850,080. If it cost just $10 to ship backer boxes domestically (which I think would be undercosting, but as example), that would be about $40,840 in itself (4,804 backers set to receive one or more core boxes), so my guesstimate is about now around $890,920 - and I still haven't been adding in the add-on boxes or bonus bags that went out.
It's very much looking like Wave 1 easily took out the first half of the KS funds all by itself, if not more with the talk of cost overruns. Unfortunately, there's also no telling what peripheral costs PB has been incurring that they've had to use the KS funds for in these past two to three years.
As someone who saw his thread removed, I found it funny that the mods only stepped in when I asked why PB, did not want to make an immediate and robust dreply to Jaymz remarks about spending all of the KS funds.
Seems that you can touch a nerve on their web forums and things do get read, but instead of explaining and defusing situations , they find it easier to gag their detractors.
I believe that Jaymz's comments have the real ring of truth about them and PB are trying their best to do their impression of the three wise monkeys, with eyes shut, fingers firmly in their ears and no way they are going to talk to us - perhaps they think we will just write the money off and go away
wilycoyote wrote: Seems that you can touch a nerve on their web forums and things do get read, but instead of explaining and defusing situations , they find it easier to gag their detractors.
This isn't the first time I've caused such a stir on the interwebs or on their own forums for Palladium....
It's very much looking like Wave 1 easily took out the first half of the KS funds all by itself, if not more with the talk of cost overruns. Unfortunately, there's also no telling what peripheral costs PB has been incurring that they've had to use the KS funds for in these past two to three years.
Bigger Gen Con booth. Advertising for a wave that didn't arrive in time. Pre-booking factory time (proudly and loudly, to demonstrate how totes serious they were). Twice. Having to pay "China" (do you know how much it takes to pay over a BILLION people?!?!) to rework ND's totally crap designs.
So, a couple things to add to your "why they're so in the red" board.
Stormonu wrote: Okay, so lets discuss what we DO know of the expenditures of the KS funds.
1) There were 17,502 core boxes created (Source: shipping container image from Update 155 (8/28/2014) showing "Carton 655 of 5834 - 3 sets of 55100 Main Box"
2) 6,681 core boxes among 4,804 backers were earmarked for Backers (adding all of the core boxes up on the KS main page, and then a distinct count of backers getting at least one core box for the second count). This therefore, does not include any added in on the backerkit.
3) International shipping was $150,000 (source: KS update from June 7 "Part One", subtitle "Kickstarter")
4) Kevin projected that the cost the game and expansion packs" would be "between $550,000 and $900,000" (source: KS update from June 7 "Part One", subtitle "Kickstarter")
Any other figures I missed?
So, cheapest I've seen the box set go for off PB's site is about $55. Assuming they're still selling it at a profit, this likely means their cost is about - I'm guessing - $40 per box. That would mean $700,080 in core boxes alone, not counting add-on boxes or bonus bag contents. With international shipping added, that alone is $850,080. If it cost just $10 to ship backer boxes domestically (which I think would be undercosting, but as example), that would be about $40,840 in itself (4,804 backers set to receive one or more core boxes), so my guesstimate is about now around $890,920 - and I still haven't been adding in the add-on boxes or bonus bags that went out.
It's very much looking like Wave 1 easily took out the first half of the KS funds all by itself, if not more with the talk of cost overruns. Unfortunately, there's also no telling what peripheral costs PB has been incurring that they've had to use the KS funds for in these past two to three years.
Some VERY interesting numbers there - thank you for finding them and posting them here!
I can't remember, was Disposable Guy (the one who got fired and, presumably, was accused of stealing artwork of Kevin's mom's fridge) an expense incurred just to "handle" this project?
I would like some clarity on the methodology of point 2 with the numbers. If it's just (Number per pledge level*Number of backers at level), then it really seems like that's the *minimum* number for backers; we know some people went bonkers and ordered 8 core boxes for use in some unholy Canuckistani tribal ritual (I assume). That would likely only register as 4 boxes if you're basing it solely on the KS page. While such people are undoubtedly bizarre outliers in both the campaign and society in general (), in aggregate people adding a core box here and a core box there in BackerKit could add up to a substantial number as well across 5,342 people.
Also unaccounted for is how many stores/distributors put in orders ahead of production. Hypothetically, if PB had 8k for backers and orders for 8k more sight-unseen from traditional distribution, then the order numbers are actually somewhat reasonable. This also could explain PB's rush to get those orders filled by a date certain, as THOSE contracts probably would have had specific deadlines wherein they could be cancelled and PB would lose the sales and (at that point) be stuck with the stock. Still attributable as PB incompetence, but a milder form of how the money disappeared. Do note that I don't think that's what happened, but that's my own personal bias; there's nothing in there that's impossible. As proof that it could have worked if not for those meddling kids, Mantic's Dungeon Saga had 5,963 backers and they reportedly had sold 15,000 copies within two months of starting KS fulfillment.
Obviously, none of those details are something we're ever likely to know with certainty outside of a court case, but for discussion's sake I think it's important to not make things look worse than they probably are.
And don't forget the cost of "professional painting" which I'm sure is already completed for Wave One and is just waiting on Wave Two so that people can get their super-expensive-orders.
Krinsath wrote: I would like some clarity on the methodology of point 2 with the numbers. If it's just (Number per pledge level*Number of backers at level), then it really seems like that's the *minimum* number for backers; we know some people went bonkers and ordered 8 core boxes for use in some unholy Canuckistani tribal ritual (I assume). That would likely only register as 4 boxes if you're basing it solely on the KS page. While such people are undoubtedly bizarre outliers in both the campaign and society in general (), in aggregate people adding a core box here and a core box there in BackerKit could add up to a substantial number as well across 5,342 people.
Hah.
ia ia Robothulhu Tech'fagn.
There are indeed a lot of factors to consider, including Kickstarter's take (8% or so for projects of this size, I think?), but also the Pledge Manager amount they brought in (roughly 10% according to a comment by Wayne, or 140-150k or so?).
Talked with my FLGS owner today. PB has around 9 products listed for his order guide that are supposed to be available by Quarter 2 of this year. Not one of them is RRT. Guess who is still lying about releases......any takers? Now he does admit that it is possible for things to show up soon, but from his experience anything not up for his orders now will not make it until after quarter 3, if at all.
To give them WAY more credit than they deserve, it wouldn't be a bad idea to aim to have Wave 2 in the warehouse around the end of Q2, ship to backers where possible (in the US to start, of course), take a bunch on the road to Gencon in July, then get back to shipping to backers, oops how did CSI get a bunch of stuff, oh well retail distribution remains a mysterious thing, surely they'll follow our reasonable requests that they just sit on that product for a month or six while we finish up backer stuff, Black Friday is the real hotness anyway...
Not that I'm disagreeing of course. Short Solicit Pre-orders do indeed need to go out significantly in advance of product launch (at least is my understanding from back when we went through this all in mid 2013 for what was supposed to be the first retail release.
Given the time lines from wave 1, with some wiggle room it's not literally impossible for them to still make Q2'ish in some capacity.
But as the days and weeks tick by, obviously it becomes vastly less probable.
I wouldn't have a problem with them doing retail first, provided backers are not relegated to oh when we get to them. Of course with the provision that Palladium DONT fething LIE ABOUT IT.
Merijeek wrote: I can't remember, was Disposable Guy (the one who got fired and, presumably, was accused of stealing artwork of Kevin's mom's fridge) an expense incurred just to "handle" this project?
Merijeek wrote: I can't remember, was Disposable Guy (the one who got fired and, presumably, was accused of stealing artwork of Kevin's mom's fridge) an expense incurred just to "handle" this project?
Er, what? That's another one I missed.
Jeff Burke was hired full-time by Palladium to oversee the Robotech project around June of 2013 (i.e. - shortly after the project ended). He was reportedly let go around May of 2015 according to our older thread on Dakka (Page 333, almost to the end of the thread). About the same time or shortly thereafter Kevin was rambling about "priceless" concept art and sketches for various things that had been lifted by persons unknown with what is generally felt to be grossly over-inflated values for what they probably were. People often conflate the two events as being related, which they may be but I do not recall any evidence to that effect being presented. There was also a yelp review of PB that IIRC posted personal information and was very negative towards PB and their "rude employees" which could just as easily be Wayne based on the (not-entirely-credible) information from the KS comments.
An equally reasonable supposition would be the art was taken by a volunteer fan-friend there to help pack and ship RRT and Jeff was let go due to the way RRT was not moving and PB was stuck with huge amounts of stock and no money.
I wonder what would happen if we could get this guy or a writer for one of the other geek culture media sites to do a feature on the project. Getting the story of this train-wreck out to a larger audience may shame Palladium into doing or saying something substantial.
CaulynDarr wrote: I wonder what would happen if we could get this guy or a writer for one of the other geek culture media sites to do a feature on the project. Getting the story of this train-wreck out to a larger audience may shame Palladium into doing or saying something substantial.
I think they run on the premise of "There is no such thing as bad publicity."
I figure as long as we leave warnings on the kickstarter, BBB and say RPGGeek those are targeted areas to keep people from getting burned by them.
Awareness brought to the public eye would be doing them a service: going from unknown to known... only thing worse than bad press is to be not talked about at all.
My thoughts anyway.
Now getting to be known by the AG and FTC is a good thing as well.
<edit> Plus it would give Kevin opportunity to get some more face time saying that all these people getting excited are just some over-entitled geeks that don't understand that great things take a great deal of time to produce.
Merijeek wrote: I can't remember, was Disposable Guy (the one who got fired and, presumably, was accused of stealing artwork of Kevin's mom's fridge) an expense incurred just to "handle" this project?
Er, what? That's another one I missed.
Jeff Burke was hired full-time by Palladium to oversee the Robotech project around June of 2013 (i.e. - shortly after the project ended). He was reportedly let go around May of 2015 according to our older thread on Dakka (Page 333, almost to the end of the thread). About the same time or shortly thereafter Kevin was rambling about "priceless" concept art and sketches for various things that had been lifted by persons unknown with what is generally felt to be grossly over-inflated values for what they probably were. People often conflate the two events as being related, which they may be but I do not recall any evidence to that effect being presented. There was also a yelp review of PB that IIRC posted personal information and was very negative towards PB and their "rude employees" which could just as easily be Wayne based on the (not-entirely-credible) information from the KS comments.
An equally reasonable supposition would be the art was taken by a volunteer fan-friend there to help pack and ship RRT and Jeff was let go due to the way RRT was not moving and PB was stuck with huge amounts of stock and no money.
There was also a thing online (Yelp, again?) about a security company being brought in to do alarms or cameras because of a 'thieving employee'. bs or not, who knows? Again, around the same time that Jeff Burke "left".
Krinsath wrote: There was also a thing online (Yelp, again?) about a security company being brought in to do alarms or cameras because of a 'thieving employee'. bs or not, who knows? Again, around the same time that Jeff Burke "left".
Oddly enough, one of the few complaints I read with the BBB was a security company complaining about not being paid for services rendered but that would be "conjecture" since I cannot find that now (they no longer show complaint details)... which bugs me. Does anyone know if BBB "locks-down" the complaint details if it gets past a certain number?
Just noticed on the BBB that PB has a "No Rating" due to "The business is in the process of responding to previously closed complaints."
Great workaround for PB if you do not like the F rating and rather silly for the BBB if they want the incentive for closure.
Merijeek wrote: I hope the BBB has a time limit. If not, Poor Kev will be "working on" that response for years.
Well of course it takes a while...he's already been working 18 hours days for the past few years so it's not like he has a lot of capacity left over from that to be writing responses to complaints.
Do you think those geese are going to watch themselves? Do you? DO YOU?!
No, no they're not. That's very important work because they must be monitored at all times since, as we all know, geese are jerks. You might be okay with the idea of geese running around rampant, but that's just not the level of service that people have come to expect from PB. They love you all too much to let the geese be un-watched.
Krinsath... you know better than that! Dice bags and mugs don't just magically design themselves; Poppa Kevin does that for the fans you know. He's also knee deep in grab bags right now and needs to explore the dark corners and crevaces of the warehouse to find unsellable items to fluff up the value of the final grab bags. And don't forget that someone has to print the previous week's update for Kevin so he can cut out the parts with scissors that will be reused for the next week and glue them onto the posterboard for the upcoming week. The next day he has to type out (after checking the ribbon of course)/cut/glue the new text onto the board so Wayne can do his timey wimey computer magic and get it up on the internets by Friday. Kevin's got that down to a science and it takes him less than half the time it would a lesser creator/artist on the old Gutenberg press. There just simply aren't enough hours in the day or even week for them to devote the same level of detail for paltry things like Robotech KS updates or more than one phone call for the project.
No, no they're not. That's very important work because they must be monitored at all times since, as we all know, geese are jerks. You might be okay with the idea of geese running around rampant, but that's just not the level of service that people have come to expect from PB. They love you all too much to let the geese be un-watched.
Something about Palladium attracted the flock of birds that just run around loudly and annoyingly squawking while simultaneously crapping over everything. Kindred spirits?
warboss wrote: Something about Palladium attracted the flock of birds that just run around loudly and annoyingly squawking while simultaneously crapping over everything. Kindred spirits?
Don't forget the beat the heck out of anyone who gets too close and make a lot of noise when they feel threatened. Plus are very territorial and will defend their IP... er... "area" viciously. Wow, that fits rather well.
Well, pointing at things Palladium is owing or did not do as promised is pretty much a no-no on their forums.
What goes on in their minds I wonder?
Reminds me of "Meet the Pyro" for team fortress:
Where you can do the worst things and it seems ok.
Everything still ''owed'' to our faithful backers was unfortunately lost at sea, and due to a lack of sufficient funds, because we wanted to deliver the best darn product possible as quickly as the factory could deliver, sadly uninsured by either ourselves, the carrier, and the shipping company.
You can definitely, totally, trust us on this. ®™
Or something else along those lines that will at some point prove equally fishy. (The above includes a link to a NSFW image/site.)
Smilodon_UP wrote: Or something else along those lines that will at some point prove equally fishy. (The above includes a link to a NSFW image/site.)
Just had a thought along those lines. What if the "relaunch" is literally exactly that? That their intent is to offer up another Kickstarter, not for another generation, but for the existing material?
"Due to high demand*, we're proud to offer up a chance to get in on one of the most successful* gaming Kickstarter campaigns of all time*, and changed the way people feel about crowdsourcing*. Not only will you be able to join the thousands of excited* backers in getting the rewards by the end of the year*, you'll receive the initial pledge shortly* after the campaign ends! So you can get into the game immediately!*"
* May not be a factual statement, at least in how we want you to interpret it. But we can construct an argument that says it's true. And the people who claim otherwise are haters.
I was thinking about the FireTeam Zero campaign, which is finally shipping, and their second Kickstarter, which was for essentially the same stuff as the first one. The second campaign had the option of French language components (rules and cards), but was otherwise the same.
If PB did that, I would definitely follow it. Because it'd be hilarious.
jaymz wrote: Unless there are missing posts I am not sure what in the thread justified it getting locker *shrugs*
There's a couple posts missing from it. Someone had brought up this thread in it, and I asked for a link. Then a third had commented about this thread in that thread. However, those posts were removed about a day before the thread was actually locked.
I'm glad that I was able to get the link prior to it being removed though. I had known about the delay and lack of information you guys were getting. What I didn't know was how bad the issue is. This thread's the first I've seen it mentioned that there is no fracking money. Haven't seen it mentioned in any of the FB groups I belong to, and it sure as Hell won't ever be mentioned on their website. (If someone does get it posted, I can guarantee it'll be removed the second a mod finds out about it and the poster likely banned. PB themselves will never fess up.) That actually helps explain why the Rifter issues have been coming out late, or in the case of the latest issue, combined with the next one. I'm now glad I haven't renewed my subscription yet.
Honestly I don't even care if the "no money" thing is even true or not. There's at least one book I'd like to buy once it gets released, and maybe two more that at one point were planned (but likely won't ever be printed, even if they had the money). However I feel I can no longer financially support that company due to the way they've been screwing you investors with the wrong end of the stick, without so much as a reach around. I don't feel they've been honest with any of you regarding RRT. IMO, the money issue is the only possible reason I can see that explains why Wave 2 isn't in production yet. There's only two ways I could see myself purchasing another book from PB at this point. The first is if Wave 2 is in the backers' hands before my birthday (St Patrick's day). Unless PB's been really tight-lipped on Wave 2 being in production in order to surprise everyone when they finally announce it's ready, I doubt the it will happen. The second is if Kevin Siembieda leaves the company. That will only happen once he dies. Not meaning that in a bad way, or wishing him to die, or anything like that. I just don't see him as the type that would place his creation in the hands of someone else.
Hi, welcome to Dakka! You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and... oh wait, no, that's PB. ;-p
I honestly kind of feel sorry for you having got yourself invested in the game (by buying in a retail) when it's looking so much like it won't come to fruition and it's launch to the mini gaming marketplace in general has been botched so badly.
It's still supposition that the money's run out; however it's a very probable supposition given the amount of time that's gone by and even basic calculations of the costs undertaken to date. From the evidence seen (that photo that let us know the size of the initial shipment of core boxes) it seems much like PB splurged the KS funds on a first, massive run of retail product, expecting it to shift like hot cakes. Completely, utterly, unforgivably irresponsible. Edit: And something that just doesn't happen with minis games, with the possible exception of x-wing, and even that has only really gained so much success because it's a damn good game, that is constantly updated and supported with new shinies and consistent, sensible rules updates.
So myself, and a lot of people who fronted up for this mess (way over 2 years ago) are now of the opinion that PB are in breach of their contract with us, and (for me personally at least) we're going to do our best (without throwing good money after bad) to see PB held accountable for it.
jaymz wrote: Unless there are missing posts I am not sure what in the thread justified it getting locker *shrugs*
There are several things pruned out of that thread so that the answer to the OPs question could be given without a lot of trolling, flaming and similar.
It's not like the stuff not being ready yet is a forbidden topic. Some posters prefer to take advantage of the opportunity to troll Palladium and its fans, which is what gets things removed.
Alpharius wrote: I didn't know until yesterday that Jeffaris a MOD over on the PB Official Forums.
DO we have any other PB MODs over here now too?
I've only ever seen two mods there in the past (including Jefffar) but there may be more. The other mod that in my experience was historically much more stalinist in enforcing the party line is Jeff "NMI" Ruiz. Jefffar seems to have gotten much more active of late as I don't recall him previously moderating much; to his credit, his few and far between mod edits used to be quite fair in the past. I've only posted once or twice though in the last year since NMI handed me a 3 month suspension for precrime in 2014 ...I suppose that's a mission accomplished for him! I haven't seen him posting here ever but admittedly I didn't know his real name until the open house demo video surfaced last year in which every time he had a model interaction he made a rules mistake (at least until I stopped watching five minutes in). I learned that he's apparently also a coordinator for the official Palladium demo volunteer organization and maybe that is taking up more of his time with Jefffar seemingly picking up the slack.
That horrible let's play demo video is ironically still the only one on youtube that is run by an official demo rep.
edit: I don't think I was being completely fair above. The Palladium forums have always been odd in different ways and, despite my feelings now, NMI didn't used to be as heavy handed many years ago. Going back before the crowdfunding Palladium did, the biggest problem IMO were the white knight vigilantes. When they say a thread criticizing some aspect of palladium or their product, they hit the thread in force (all two or three of them) with a "best defense is a good offense" style of posting no matter how mild the initial criticism. Someone posts that a single rule didn't make sense? The response was that you just don't know how to roleplay and are too limited to understand and utilize the "freedom" that gakky rules give you to make your own. That would of course elicit an escalation on the part of the OP and others wishing for change and it would shortly spiral out of control. For the most part, both sides seemed to have posts removed but the white knight instigator in chief (can't recall his name at the moment) would never stay gone long. Jaymz might be able to comment more about the white knight vigilantes as I believe he interacted more with them than I did (with my average one post per month for years prior to Robotech).
It was only with crowdfunding and the taking of folks money years upfront from a poorly planned product did NMI's mod style change from just favoring slightly the white knights into cracking the whip until morale improved. Of course, the number and scope of complaints once palladium started screwing up for years WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY increased substantially compared with when they were simply screwing up with their own. That doesn't of course excuse punishing folks for simply stating uncomfortable truths about blatant broken promises or for speculating in the face of a purposeful year's worth of info blackout on Palladium's part.
Alpharius wrote: I didn't know until yesterday that Jefffar is a MOD over on the PB Official Forums.
DO we have any other PB MODs over here now too?
In his first post in this thread, he identified himself as such. Based on his join date of 2011 and his nearly couple-thousand posts (mostly under 40k), I think it's fair to say he's been "here" (as in Dakka) for a while. I know you probably didn't mean it this way, but it did read like an implication he was mainly here (as in this thread) for damage control. Not to say that he doesn't have reason to view PB in as sympathetic a fashion as possible, just that I don't see where he's done any of the untoward things that we've seen from other arenas of this project.
While I don't agree with the viewpoint he espouses, I'm glad he's here to present it. As Mike "I broke my iPod's repeat function because I hate hearing the same thing so much" 1975 () would point out, hearing the same viewpoint over and over again does tend to lead to be a bit of an echo chamber where things get to be out-of-hand.
It would definitely be a significant change in SOP for them.
They're so prone to exaggeration and a need to read in between the lines (we can start shipping in August!... more like October when container 2 arrives with the battle cry bonus bags...) that doing so would be both out of character and considerably counter productive.
Now, yes, it'd be a nice little passive aggressive "feth you" to those who want info, but that's gambling with pissing off the few vocal supporters that remain just to stick it to 'the haters', whom everyone on 'the other side' is quick to point out is just a couple of angry dudes on the internet.
I wouldn't rule it out, but it'd just be... so sad. "Awww, look, you embraced even worse business practices for no good reason and to no appreciable benefit, just to annoy a group whom are allegedly a rounding error in the user base..."
I think the theory of the "relaunch" being another kickstarter for the Robotech (whether the same products or another era) is a bit more likely than a suprise "we've made everything!" announcement. Either way, I'm not buying (figuratively and literally) either for more than $1.00.
Me neither. I'm firmly in the camp of "Give me what I paid for, then maybe we can discuss* me spending more money with you."
*
Said discussion to be along the lines of -
PB: Here are more goodies you haven't already paid for, you really want to buy them, don't you.
Me: This is not the sucker, mug, er customer you are looking for. You want to go home and think about your business practices.
PB: We want to go home and think about our business practices.
"Surprise! We've finally finished the gak you've been waiting on for over 3 years! Also please give us another million or two for series 2 and 3 figures! We totes promise we won't take another 3 years to do them!* :-D"
*: spoiler alert: it'll take 4. Maybe 5. If you're lucky.
Nah! Kev'll promise it'll be guaranteed to be shipped 7 months from the end of the campaign, because, y'know, 98% done already, but in secret Wayne'll get told off for forgetting the '0' again.
warboss wrote: The Palladium forums have always been odd in different ways and, despite my feelings now, NMI didn't used to be as heavy handed many years ago.
When your "job" is to support and defend a company led by lying thief who's now been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, yeah, things change...
I'm not one to defend PB or Kevin from their mistakes, but I've seen no evidence of personal embezzlement whatsoever. Plenty of evidence of either deliberate misinformation or staggering incompetence, or both. Could well be misuse of the Kickstarter funds in small part to cover operating costs, but I doubt by beyond a portion that is acceptable. More likely a total disregard for market research or knee jerk reaction to setup (tooling) costs and a consequent massive doubling down on stock from the initial production run.
Not to speak for John, but by "thief" I think he's referring to taking backer money and failing to deliver in full for years, rather than them absconding with the funds.
Though there's some grey area that Morgan has touched on a few times where questions about whether or not they're using KS funds for day to day bills, which *can* be acceptable if actual RRT work is ongoing.
Putting in a 20 minute chat with HG and 'China' a couple times a month not remotely justifying that, y'know?
It is definitely theft / embezzlement if any funds are being spent on PB operating costs not directly related to RRT development. Paying for the electricity and rent above and beyond the pro rata portion tied to RRT development.
For example, Kevin claims to have made a couple calls. That's maybe 0.3 hours each call, as RRT work should be documented to the 0.1 hour like legal billing. Anyhow, that 0.6 hours needs to pro rate against the 60+ hours per week that Kevin should be working. Plus the other staffers / volunteers, and RRT might be 1% of the total time. So PB could allocate up to 1% of their general overhead as a RRT cost. If they allocated more, then that would be illegal.
After a full year of nothing but lies and excuses, Kevco no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt, and may be branded fething liars and thieves until they can prove otherwise.
Whatever is going on, they've been very deliberate about keeping us in the dark, with many "We've been good to you in the past, just hang in there" updates.
Personally, I'm pretty damn sure they are out of mney, and until PB comes forward with a real status update on Wave 2 or a summary of funds expended/left, that's the stance I'm staying at.
If, as a customer, I can't get an update from them, I'll find a legal entity that WILL get an answer out of them, regardless whether either of us likes the end result (I just want what I paid for).
All agreed, but posting something inflammatory like 'caught with his fingers in the jar' is only going to help an on-point defense attorney paint backers in an unreasonable light, as opposed to stating the cold, hard, damning facts themselves or backing up a supposition with corroborating information. Play it smart chaps.
Edit: Also, you have to remember that Kickstarter is NOT an investment, nor a purchase. It is in effect a donation of money, which is refundable if the rewards promised are not achievable. What the money is spent on, as long as there is a good faith* attempt to deliver all rewards, is irrelevant.
*Good faith, from what I've read of commercial law so far, runs under the tenet that commercially accepted standards of work are followed; and this would include correct, competent management of a complex development project like this.
The fact is that PB has been caught in multiple lies. They have obviously misspent monies based on their inability to deliver or account for funds. The reasonable conclusion is criminal neglect, criminal fraud, criminal malfeasance, criminal theft, and criminal embezzlement.
On both information and belief, I hold the above to be true. That means it is neither libel nor slander, under American law, where both I and PB are located.
And if PB has the money to hire lawyers, they have the money to refund and/or deliver. Or negotiate a settlement. Not to stonewall like the lying criminals that they are.
Years ago, I was excited to finally get a game based on a show that I loved as a child. My friends were excited. We brought new friends into the fold by making them watch the entire Macross Saga (on VHS no less). We all spent hundreds of dollars. We started talking about standardizing the paint schemes, so that everything would match on the table top. We started making plans for different tables. I wanted to do Mars, so I watched that episode over and over for terrain ideas.
Now, years after our initial excitement, we could care less. I have my big box of Wave 1 product...still unopened...hiding behind a table upstairs. I have no desire to even open it, let alone put anything together.
One of my favorite mecha designs of all time, the Female Power Armor, will never be delivered to me it seems.
The game store we all go to has 4 boxes of product sitting on the shelf...the same 4 boxes that they ordered years ago. No one has even asked about them.
One of the guys, that I introduced to the series, just gave me the models that he had left after selling what he could on eBay...at a considerable loss...and even then no one wanted everything that he was offering. How sad is it that we cannot even give our stuff away...
And now, we are talking about PB without funds, full of lies and deception, and people wanting to go to the authorities.
It could have been so good. It could have been such a fun ride. Instead, we are left with frustration, bitterness, and disappointment.
At this point, all of my friends have withdrawn from the game. They have dumped their stuff, and don't want to even talk about the game. How in the heck is PB going to "re-launch" this game? It's dead...if it was ever alive in the first place.
Sorry for the long post. But, I am tired of reading page after page of this junk. Regardless of the reasons for this joke of a KS, I think we need to finally do something. As a community.
We need to either bring this thing to life, which seems almost impossible at this point, or we need to hear official word from PB about ending this disaster. They are not going to say or do ANYTHING unless we, as a community, make them.
So, what is it going to be? As a community of gamers, are we going to bring this corpse back to life, or are we going to finally DO something about it?
JohnHwangDD wrote: The fact is that PB has been caught in multiple lies. They have obviously misspent monies based on their inability to deliver or account for funds. The reasonable conclusion is criminal neglect, criminal fraud, criminal malfeasance, criminal theft, and criminal embezzlement.
On both information and belief, I hold the above to be true. That means it is neither libel nor slander, under American law, where both I and PB are located.
And if PB has the money to hire lawyers, they have the money to refund and/or deliver. Or negotiate a settlement. Not to stonewall like the lying criminals that they are.
Problem is, in the end, lies have to be proven. We cannot without seeing their finances. They have no obligation to share them to all backers. Lawsuits may make them available to those instigating the lawsuit, but not to the entirety of the pledgers.
So proving negligence and misuse of funds is, basically, not going to happen in a way to benefit all backers UNLESS their is a class action style lawsuit. Reasonable conclusions matter not one whit in these types of cases. It helps to reason things out, but it does not get the money back.
In the end, if PB does not have the $, they simply do not have the value in books, IP, pretty pictures, or whatever else, to pay the backers back more than a fraction of what was paid.
warboss wrote: Jaymz might be able to comment more about the white knight vigilantes as I believe he interacted more with them than I did (with my average one post per month for years prior to Robotech).
Indeed there were a few I had multiple encounters with.
First - yes they would in fact tell new and old players alike that if they didn't like the rules to play another game OR they were obviously not intelligent enough to actually understand the rules properly...that was almost always their reaction to people posting that the rules did not work in one fashion or another.
Second - my most direct confrontation with some was over the Facebook fiasco.
Fall 2010. Kevin was interviewed on the Palladium fluff podcast Gateway to the Megaverse. usually a decent listen even when Kevin is interviewed. This particular time he went on at length, after being asked about Facebook, about how hard it is and how time consuming it would be to set up an official company page. All the man hours and maintenance time needed to run it, so on and so forth., would be too much right then. THAT pissed me off. Such blatant ignorance was just unfathomable to me, be it intentional or one of his yes men telling him that was the way it was.
So I took to the forums and said as much. Well here they came going on and on about how I knew nothing and this and that and blah blah blah and cries of PROVE IT. So I did. I had no desire to actually run a Facebook group but these clowns pushed me over the edge. It took about 30 minutes, while assembling Lego for my son, to set up a group. About 5-10 minutes the next 24-48 hours to tweak a few things and bam. By the next week 100 people were members and looked like it was going to be a good endeavor, Hell I even got in contact with right hand man Alex about doing up a gallery of book covers with links back to their webstore.
Then...out came the White Knights again. Slinging accusations galore of how I was out to embarrass Kevin and Palladium and this that and every other. I even had Kevin go off partly and attribute things that were said to me which I never said as well as him effectively whining that they and to put up their official FB Page months in advance of when THEY wanted to put it up.
The funniest part of all this was I did it shut up the White Knight who kept screaming for em to prove I was right in my position then when I did they came back with effectively "HOW DARE YOU DO SOMETHING AND BE RIGHT PROVING US WRONG?!?"
The group for the record is still up and running though I handed off the reigns back on March 1st of 2015.
On the other side however there are any number of the "Cabal" (the opposite f the "White Knights") who don't like me much either since I am not 100% anti Palladium. Right no I am sort of 60/40 anti/pro. But that number is steadily shifting more to the anti side the longer this farce continues.
On the other side however there are any number of the "Cabal" (the opposite f the "White Knights") who don't like me much either since I am not 100% anti Palladium. Right no I am sort of 60/40 anti/pro. But that number is steadily shifting more to the anti side the longer this farce continues.
warboss wrote: Jaymz might be able to comment more about the white knight vigilantes as I believe he interacted more with them than I did (with my average one post per month for years prior to Robotech).
Indeed there were a few I had multiple encounters with.
First - yes they would in fact tell new and old players alike that if they didn't like the rules to play another game OR they were obviously not intelligent enough to actually understand the rules properly...that was almost always their reaction to people posting that the rules did not work in one fashion or another.
I believe that in PRPG a thief was unable to scale a wall 13 feet or greater. I assume that every wall on the planet was 13 feet higher or greater, for 100% thief-proof security.
Hopefully the atmosphere surrounding this project will reach critical toxic mass and Palladium will feel forced to respond. After decades, they're immune to smouldering discontent and can ignore it for years. It's only when the situation worsens significantly do they prepare a useless canned response. Spartangate, the sham Gencon vote, the scale switch... that's the level of vitriol that Palladium needs to notice the paltry after years of delays. It's sad but true... so feed the anger! *insert Sith speech here about anger leading to hate and hate leading to an update*
Is that the litmus test for being a thief? Not being able to scale a 13 foot wall?
Can anyone at palladium scale a 13 foot wall to prove no wrong doing?
What needs to happen is simple, a gakload of people need to complain to the FTC, not Palladium. The FTC will then handle it and Palladium will gak the proverbial brick.
Edit: Also, you have to remember that Kickstarter is NOT an investment, nor a purchase. It is in effect a donation of money, which is refundable if the rewards promised are not achievable. What the money is spent on, as long as there is a good faith* attempt to deliver all rewards, is irrelevant.
Regardless of how KS or PB wants it to be true, that's a bunch of BS. The RRTKS was nothing more than a preorder, in the same way I could have order GTA 5 before it came out. They can't explain away the backerkit (where *specific* items were ordered). If it were a donation, everyone would have recieved the same thing - a boxed set, a t-shirt or whatever. Not specific items of specific value each.
Edit: Also, you have to remember that Kickstarter is NOT an investment, nor a purchase. It is in effect a donation of money, which is refundable if the rewards promised are not achievable. What the money is spent on, as long as there is a good faith* attempt to deliver all rewards, is irrelevant.
Regardless of how KS or PB wants it to be true, that's a bunch of BS. The RRTKS was nothing more than a preorder, in the same way I could have order GTA 5 before it came out. They can't explain away the backerkit (where *specific* items were ordered). If it were a donation, everyone would have recieved the same thing - a boxed set, a t-shirt or whatever. Not specific items of specific value each.
Yeah. I'm sorry, but if I'm giving you a specific amount of money, for a specific type and quantity of product, and we even reach the point where you are REQUIRED to give me a refund if you don't supply said product for said money...
That's a purchase. Pretending otherwise is ridiculous.
jaymz wrote: ...So I took to the forums and said as much. Well here they came going on and on about how I knew nothing and this and that and blah blah blah and cries of PROVE IT. So I did. I had no desire to actually run a Facebook group but these clowns pushed me over the edge. It took about 30 minutes, while assembling Lego for my son, to set up a group. About 5-10 minutes the next 24-48 hours to tweak a few things and bam. By the next week 100 people were members and looked like it was going to be a good endeavor, Hell I even got in contact with right hand man Alex about doing up a gallery of book covers with links back to their webstore.
Then...out came the White Knights again. Slinging accusations galore of how I was out to embarrass Kevin and Palladium and this that and every other. I even had Kevin go off partly and attribute things that were said to me which I never said as well as him effectively whining that they and to put up their official FB Page months in advance of when THEY wanted to put it up.
The funniest part of all this was I did it shut up the White Knight who kept screaming for em to prove I was right in my position then when I did they came back with effectively "HOW DARE YOU DO SOMETHING AND BE RIGHT PROVING US WRONG?!?"
I hate to say but when I filed with the BBB PB was telling me it was no different than the rewards and I was investing in a project.
I was only asking for a refund on wave2 backer kit "purchases".
Their wording would have changed now due to the FTC going after a kickstarter proved a few things different.
Great thing is: all their words are available on file if anyone gets the interest up.
I said as much to the FTC.
Every little bit helps.
Yes, well, an answer like that is all part of covering their asses. They're not going to admit to anything that would cost them a penny without that penny being pried from their cold dead fingers.
jaymz wrote: ...So I took to the forums and said as much. Well here they came going on and on about how I knew nothing and this and that and blah blah blah and cries of PROVE IT. So I did. I had no desire to actually run a Facebook group but these clowns pushed me over the edge. It took about 30 minutes, while assembling Lego for my son, to set up a group. About 5-10 minutes the next 24-48 hours to tweak a few things and bam. By the next week 100 people were members and looked like it was going to be a good endeavor, Hell I even got in contact with right hand man Alex about doing up a gallery of book covers with links back to their webstore.
Then...out came the White Knights again. Slinging accusations galore of how I was out to embarrass Kevin and Palladium and this that and every other. I even had Kevin go off partly and attribute things that were said to me which I never said as well as him effectively whining that they and to put up their official FB Page months in advance of when THEY wanted to put it up.
The funniest part of all this was I did it shut up the White Knight who kept screaming for em to prove I was right in my position then when I did they came back with effectively "HOW DARE YOU DO SOMETHING AND BE RIGHT PROVING US WRONG?!?"
That still is pretty funny.
What is funnier is how he swore the guys that work for him were pretty tech savvy.......yet apparently they told him it would take weeks to set up a Facebook page and once i showed it wouldn't and had showed it was a good thing with people joining etc, they had theirs up in a day or so.
Edit: Also, you have to remember that Kickstarter is NOT an investment, nor a purchase. It is in effect a donation of money, which is refundable if the rewards promised are not achievable. What the money is spent on, as long as there is a good faith* attempt to deliver all rewards, is irrelevant.
Regardless of how KS or PB wants it to be true, that's a bunch of BS. The RRTKS was nothing more than a preorder, in the same way I could have order GTA 5 before it came out. They can't explain away the backerkit (where *specific* items were ordered). If it were a donation, everyone would have recieved the same thing - a boxed set, a t-shirt or whatever. Not specific items of specific value each.
Yeah. I'm sorry, but if I'm giving you a specific amount of money, for a specific type and quantity of product, and we even reach the point where you are REQUIRED to give me a refund if you don't supply said product for said money...
That's a purchase. Pretending otherwise is ridiculous.
It's got nothing to do with PB or KS, and everything to do with the 2013 Kickstarter terms of service. That forms the contract for your base pledge, and binds us as much as it does PB. Backer kit is a preorder and clearly states itself to as such, so whatever legislation is in place for that applies.
Please, please read through those terms and when you complain to whatever body you wish to (and you should!), do so from the contractual standpoint you are actually in, it makes things stick better.
There are a few white knights but their tactic seems to be for one to attack at a time and taking it in turns who'll do it that week, which after a while feels suspiciously coordinated. Most are freelance wanabees including;
Prince Artemis
Akashic Soldier
Warwolf
Have to say, havent seen much of them lately though.
evilsmurf wrote: There are a few white knights but their tactic seems to be for one to attack at a time and taking it in turns who'll do it that week, which after a while feels suspiciously coordinated. Most are freelance wanabees including;
Prince Artemis
Akashic Soldier
Warwolf
Have to say, havent seen much of them lately though.
Akashic is a Moron.....always defending. One day I pointed out how he was defending without reasoning or evidence, pointing out where it was obvious he had no idea what it was he was talking about based on the points he was touting on about.
His feelings hurt he turned to Jeff NMI who gave me a warning to which I responded and was told to "Be the Better Man". From that I really got annoyed and started the "Being a Better Man" thread. I wish I had a link to that thread on hand.
evilsmurf wrote: There are a few white knights but their tactic seems to be for one to attack at a time and taking it in turns who'll do it that week, which after a while feels suspiciously coordinated. Most are freelance wanabees including;
Prince Artemis
Akashic Soldier
Warwolf
Have to say, havent seen much of them lately though.
Prince Artemis - Host of Gateway to the Megaverse.... was supposedly writing a book for Palladium... also has some very odd political ideas at times and yes will defended Palladium blindly in the face of actual evidence. IIRC he was one of the ones that was screaming about me to prove my statements and claims in regards to Facebook.
Akashic Soldier - I believe he has been permanently banned for his crap. He was usually one of the first to scream "you;re obviously not intelligent enough to understand he rules" even when shown EXACTLY why and how a rule was broken or did not work as written. He;d also purposefully go into threads and inflame things...repeatedly to get them locked. Mind you he also claimed to be a published author with many credits to his various pseudonyms (like ghost writing for Young Justice) even though you will find ZERO items published by his actual name....he claimed to have been in a biker gang, homeless, part of the Australian military (special forces no less iirc), to have had to survive by stealing dog food from neighbouring dogs etc, lived alone in the outback, so on and so forth...all before the age of 30 so yeah he's a nutter. He also threatened ME with lawsuits for people "slandering/committing libel" against him on the Facebook group I created and to just shut him up he became he that will not be named because honestly I didn't need the fracking headache. When you have someone creating multiple groups slamming you and and calling for a boycott of ANY material you work on....yeah you're Class A nutter.
Edit - also there was a rumour, that seems to bear fruit though based solely on hearsay that Akashic Soldier also bribed NMI by helping replace a significant number of books in NMI's Palladium Library that he previously had to sell off for financial reasons.
Warwolf - him....I've not encounter much beyond his occasional update that his Nightspawn sourcebook (no I will not call it by it;s other name) is totes coming soon. (And has been for multiple years at this point)
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Alpharius wrote: That sounds like an interesting thread - if you can find a link to it, I'd appreciate it!
That thread will not be found. As is Palladium;s way they lock a thread they don;t like and then eventually remove it altogether.
Here is one though that shows Akashic's ignorance though he act's like he is an expert and knows what he is talking about.
Yikes!
I have obviously taken for granted my knowledge of model manufacture and preparation.
"Snap together" indeed.
Good job with the Jorel / Forar / Steve combo of keeping it "constructive" in that forum.
Some interesting drama to that small community.
I shudder to think what it would take to bribe Alpharius.
Edit: Also, you have to remember that Kickstarter is NOT an investment, nor a purchase. It is in effect a donation of money, which is refundable if the rewards promised are not achievable. What the money is spent on, as long as there is a good faith* attempt to deliver all rewards, is irrelevant.
Regardless of how KS or PB wants it to be true, that's a bunch of BS. The RRTKS was nothing more than a preorder, in the same way I could have order GTA 5 before it came out. They can't explain away the backerkit (where *specific* items were ordered). If it were a donation, everyone would have recieved the same thing - a boxed set, a t-shirt or whatever. Not specific items of specific value each.
Yeah. I'm sorry, but if I'm giving you a specific amount of money, for a specific type and quantity of product, and we even reach the point where you are REQUIRED to give me a refund if you don't supply said product for said money...
That's a purchase. Pretending otherwise is ridiculous.
It's got nothing to do with PB or KS, and everything to do with the 2013 Kickstarter terms of service. That forms the contract for your base pledge, and binds us as much as it does PB. Backer kit is a preorder and clearly states itself to as such, so whatever legislation is in place for that applies.
Please, please read through those terms and when you complain to whatever body you wish to (and you should!), do so from the contractual standpoint you are actually in, it makes things stick better.
Yes, I'm going to argue from the point it's a breech of contract because PB violated the terms by offering an illegal preorder.
I so wish people wouldn't go down that route. We'll end up with huge lists of how they broke the terms.
Failed to deliver in a timely manner.
'Were mistaken' about backers getting rewards before retail [in a global marketplace]
Toted non-KS product on the website.
Failed to communicate in any meaningful way with the backers.
Can we also get them on making the air toxic due to all the unicorn farts they are putting out [makes some noise, does nothing productive, kills off backer enthusiasm]?
When attempting to get a refund, that's all fair (and legal) game.
While most of them are overall minor quibbles I'd overlook for a company making progress, they add up to legal fodder against PB to get something actually done.
Add to that list the Blast Template, which was supposed to have colored lines (as per the campaign page AND an update). Also, I believe adding folks to their newsletter without permission violates some statuates in EU countries...
Yup, Akashic is/was the biggest offender and the one whose name I couldn't remember. Back when I was still semi-active on the forums there, he had a big dramatic "farewell, cruel world!" going away post/thread where he promised that unlike other drama queens who do that he actually meant it... and then he came back a few months later and started posting. After getting fed up with NMI's gulag ban sweeps, I don't frequent there much anymore beyond the occasional link posted here.
Is he actually gone on his own this time? IIRC he couldn't ever be banned for long no matter how much he flamed critical threads because he just called up Papa Kevin who reversed it after the proper supplications were made. The only possible reason I could see him ever actually leaving the forums for would be the realization that, no matter how much or hard he white knights, he won't be a Palladium book author beyond the occasional fanzine article.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I took a peek at the KS comments and had something to add to that. Since it's mostly the same folks as here and I can't remember my KS password, I'll reply here.
Mike, you made a point on the comments that being ignorant and complicit are two different things and Kevin Siembieda can only be one or the other in regards to the failures of his company's biggest project. I disagree. You're ignoring the third option of willful ignorance that combines the two. Even if he was above the fray during the actual KS and the month after (until the point when Palladium "realized" that they'd have to run things after funding), at that point there is no reasonable way for him not to know how badly things were and continue to be screwed up years later. If he CHOSE to remain ignorant after finding out that he was NOT 98% done but closer to maybe 10% and had NO fething chance of meeting his looming "estimate" of Dec 2013, he is in fact complicit with the screw ups that occurred since. Driving the getaway car filled with masked armed men to the bank and then closing his eyes and turning up the radio real loud while he's parked outside doesn't absolve him of responsibility for what happens inside.
warboss wrote: Yup, Akashic is/was the biggest offender and the one whose name I couldn't remember. Back when I was still semi-active on the forums there, he had a big dramatic "farewell, cruel world!" going away post/thread where he promised that unlike other drama queens who do that he actually meant it... and then he came back a few months later and started posting. After getting fed up with NMI's gulag ban sweeps, I don't frequent there much anymore beyond the occasional link posted here.
Is he actually gone on his own this time? IIRC he couldn't ever be banned for long no matter how much he flamed critical threads because he just called up Papa Kevin who reversed it after the proper supplications were made. The only possible reason I could see him ever actually leaving the forums for would be the realization that, no matter how much or hard he white knights, he won't be a Palladium book author beyond the occasional fanzine article.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I took a peek at the KS comments and had something to add to that. Since it's mostly the same folks as here and I can't remember my KS password, I'll reply here.
Mike, you made a point on the comments that being ignorant and complicit are two different things and Kevin Siembieda can only be one or the other in regards to the failures of his company's biggest project. I disagree. You're ignoring the third option of willful ignorance that combines the two. Even if he was above the fray during the actual KS and the month after (until the point when Palladium "realized" that they'd have to run things after funding), at that point there is no reasonable way for him not to know how badly things were and continue to be screwed up years later. If he CHOSE to remain ignorant after finding out that he was NOT 98% done but closer to maybe 10% and had NO fething chance of meeting his looming "estimate" of Dec 2013, he is in fact complicit with the screw ups that occurred since. Driving the getaway car filled with masked armed men to the bank and then closing his eyes and turning up the radio real loud while he's parked outside doesn't absolve him of responsibility for what happens inside.
Feel free to disagree all you want. We con only guess at the real truth and are assuming a lot to do so.
IF you read what I was saying, you are actually agreeing with me. What I was saying is that from day 1 post KS, I doubt Kevin honestly really knew how much additional work they had to be done and how far away they were from getting that done. Having spoke to him personally in December later that year, the fact that they were far from 98% had just recently be thrown on him. Likely somewhere in late October when they could see that there was no way that they could make that deadline.
What I disagree with is the fact that he was complicit and lied day 1 about the project. The few who know him also understand he sits back and lets it all happen and pretends to soak and bask in his own glory. Once actual work reaches his desk is when he decides to take control and make a mess of things and pretend it is all wrong and that he is the to use his massive experience to fix things.
So, from day one, stupid as it is, he is one of those people who is completely hands off and makes many many assumptions about what is going to show up at his desk. Then months later when something does reach him he needs to fix it and since he does soooo much in his mind, it is more his work than that of the originator. THAT is based on past evidence and actions. That is where his management style is just crap and where he allows himself (almost purposefully) to remain ignorant. So I totally believe his personality has not magically changed and that for the first month or so after the KS ended that he was woefully ignorant of what was going on. This is also aided by employees fearing to just tell him straight what is happening because they know at that point he'll try to take complete control.
I totally agree with you that AFTER that point, he was totally complicit and accountable for his actions. I also think that although ignorant, his management style makes him at fault for what happened before that point. To say he was lying and complicit day one is a total failure to understand his personality, history, and the situation.
So I will continue to correct people who, although they feel personally justified, make seriously bad assumptions.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I also think Jaymz may very well agree with this assessment having known Kevin and having had much more extensive experience with them than I have.
Whether or not Kevin was misled, misunderstood, or otherwise, doesn't change that he was referring to the entire project with the infamous 98% statement.
That it was based on bad info (if it was, as they claim) simply makes him negligent in doing his homework before upping the stakes on the biggest project they've ever handled.
Arguing 'oh he totally didn't know!' doesn't actually make it any better. If one of the Project Managers I work with (and yes, Kevin isn't a Hyper Project Managing Super Bad-Ass, but he IS known to be the chokepoint for their entire operation) said "7 months? We'll do it in 5" without having anything to back that up, a couple nerds on the internet whining about it would be the least of their worries.
If this does come down to a legal matter, "oh I said those things without actually knowing it was possible, what do you mean it indicates taking money in bad faith during the Pledge Manager period?" style questions become exceptionally difficult. I'm not a lawyer, but it's my understanding the law does not give one gak if you know it or not. Ignorance of the law is not a defense.
And it's a lot of mental gymnastics to come to a place where they can totally say they're going to deliver (ignorantly as it may be) the whole thing in seven (NO, FIVE!) months, but totally aren't actually speaking about the whole thing. Kevin. The micro-manager. Who apparently wasn't even aware of the scope of the project they were headlining.
"So how many models we making here? Five? Six? THIRTY SIX WHAT THE... eh it'll add what, two weeks to production? Three?"
It requires accepting not only that PB were sitting back and letting ND run things, but also, what, blindly ignoring the KS campaign happening in front of them? Did they do nothing but watch the pledge counter creep upwards and ignore the nearly 100 updates detailing how they were going to deliver not just Battlepods and VTs, but Super VTs and FPA and MAC-II's and MPA and Gnerls and resin bits and and and and?
Anyway, since we're continuing this chatter here, yes, we are certainly both free to believe what we like. However, believing this tale of PB's innocence shattered requires and awful lot of suspension of disbelief (in that I'll bet Kevin has been in business almost as long as Ninja John and his team have been alive.
The only way I can see you even bothering to 'correct' this is if you have inside information from The Man himself, and frankly Kevin (and his crew) are unreliable narrators at best.
You said they thought the 98% thing was about the core only, and despite PB's own words and actions, you continue to assert that somehow you know their words and intent better than they do/did.
Mike1975 wrote: I totally agree with you that AFTER that point, he was totally complicit and accountable for his actions. I also think that although ignorant, his management style makes him at fault for what happened before that point.
I'm glad we agree on that at least. I would however disagree with you on the timing as this type of mistake extends retroactively. Given his long history of apparent willful ignorance (going back a decade or more to the Bill Coffin posts that detail the same), he has been IMO accountable from Day 1 post funding. He didn't just catch an acute case of the seehearspeaknoevilitis. If anything, what happened on this KS is sadly just a continuation of what he has always done but more obvious by two orders of magnitude congruent with the increased number of backers and the total funding. In the past when he was willfuly ignorant with his own money, the only people who cared were a few super fans on the forums (who if they preordered weren't charged until the actual release). He is instead accountable for everything both in spirit and in letter because it is exactly his chosen style of (mis)management that led us to this point from the day he decided to start the project despite dozens of badly handled projects across the decades that should have altered his company's practices.
Forar wrote: Whether or not Kevin was misled, misunderstood, or otherwise, doesn't change that he was referring to the entire project with the infamous 98% statement.
That it was based on bad info (if it was, as they claim) simply makes him negligent in doing his homework before upping the stakes on the biggest project they've ever handled.
Arguing 'oh he totally didn't know!' doesn't actually make it any better. If one of the Project Managers I work with (and yes, Kevin isn't a Hyper Project Managing Super Bad-Ass, but he IS known to be the chokepoint for their entire operation) said "7 months? We'll do it in 5" without having anything to back that up, a couple nerds on the internet whining about it would be the least of their worries.
If this does come down to a legal matter, "oh I said those things without actually knowing it was possible, what do you mean it indicates taking money in bad faith during the Pledge Manager period?" style questions become exceptionally difficult. I'm not a lawyer, but it's my understanding the law does not give one gak if you know it or not. Ignorance of the law is not a defense.
And it's a lot of mental gymnastics to come to a place where they can totally say they're going to deliver (ignorantly as it may be) the whole thing in seven (NO, FIVE!) months, but totally aren't actually speaking about the whole thing. Kevin. The micro-manager. Who apparently wasn't even aware of the scope of the project they were headlining.
"So how many models we making here? Five? Six? THIRTY SIX WHAT THE... eh it'll add what, two weeks to production? Three?"
It requires accepting not only that PB were sitting back and letting ND run things, but also, what, blindly ignoring the KS campaign happening in front of them? Did they do nothing but watch the pledge counter creep upwards and ignore the nearly 100 updates detailing how they were going to deliver not just Battlepods and VTs, but Super VTs and FPA and MAC-II's and MPA and Gnerls and resin bits and and and and?
Anyway, since we're continuing this chatter here, yes, we are certainly both free to believe what we like. However, believing this tale of PB's innocence shattered requires and awful lot of suspension of disbelief (in that I'll bet Kevin has been in business almost as long as Ninja John and his team have been alive.
The only way I can see you even bothering to 'correct' this is if you have inside information from The Man himself, and frankly Kevin (and his crew) are unreliable narrators at best.
You said they thought the 98% thing was about the core only, and despite PB's own words and actions, you continue to assert that somehow you know their words and intent better than they do/did.
Which seems super strange.
On one thing I totally agree here. The style of just letting things happen and not "Managing" is not an effective management style. Hence why PB should have had someone specifically dedicated to this since the first time they spoke to Tom and Paul and decided to work on the ideas.
I hope you guys don't mind if I continue the conversation here. I'm not a fan of the KS comments (although they seemed to have died down somewhat with some of the biggest spammers not posting much anymore) as it's very difficult to follow a conversation there. It's more like following a stock tickertape in the 1920's I'd guess.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Ignorance can be a temporary excuse for days, weeks, maybe even a few months.. Years later? Not so much.
And at no point does ignorance excuse responsibility, accountability or culpability.
I never said that to absolve guilt, that was an assumption others made. I was clarifying that he was likely dumbfounded that things were having issues soon after the KS. The fact that he was shows an ineffectual leadership style and also matches the past history of the couple projects a year out of the many promised that have actually been completed over the last 20 years.
Mike1975 wrote: I totally agree with you that AFTER that point, he was totally complicit and accountable for his actions. I also think that although ignorant, his management style makes him at fault for what happened before that point.
I'm glad we agree on that at least. I would however disagree with you on the timing as this type of mistake extends retroactively. Given his long history of apparent willful ignorance (going back a decade or more to the Bill Coffin posts that detail the same), he has been IMO accountable from Day 1 post funding. He didn't just catch an acute case of the seehearspeaknoevilitis. If anything, what happened on this KS is sadly just a continuation of what he has always done but more obvious by two orders of magnitude congruent with the increased number of backers and the total funding. In the past when he was willfuly ignorant with his own money, the only people who cared were a few super fans on the forums (who if they preordered weren't charged until the actual release). He is instead accountable for everything both in spirit and in letter because it is exactly his chosen style of (mis)management that led us to this point from the day he decided to start the project despite dozens of badly handled projects across the decades that should have altered his company's practices.
Which tracks as to why I've always said they should have hired someone to manage things even before the KS. True to style Kevin probably thought he could sit back and that ND would do the heavy lifting and never read the contract on where ND's responsibilities started and ended. That also tracks with all that we know of this fiasco.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
warboss wrote: I hope you guys don't mind if I continue the conversation here. I'm not a fan of the KS comments (although they seemed to have died down somewhat with some of the biggest spammers not posting much anymore) as it's very difficult to follow a conversation there. It's more like following a stock tickertape in the 1920's I'd guess.
Oh, and I forgot, going over what PB were telling us;
October 4th, 2013:
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
We continue to working away on this project which is also drawing to completion. We can hardly wait to get Robotech® RPG Tactics™ into full-blown manufacturing. We want this game out as badly as you do. Getting there. Looking good!"
Early Oct, still on target.
October 12th:
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
The rule book is laid out. We’re helping Ninja Division give it one last proofread. Alex and Julius went through it on Friday. Wayne’s looking it over now. The final sculpts for the YF-4 have also come in, and we’re looking over the redone 130+ data cards. Packaging has also started to come in. Once everything is finalized, we send it in to Harmony Gold for their stamp of approval (and any changes). After Harmony Gold signs off, we send it all in to manufacturing! Like I said last week, we can hardly wait to get Robotech® RPG Tactics™ into full-blown manufacturing and into your hands. Getting there. Looking awesome.
Still looking 'awesome'.
October 17th:
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
The rule book is laid out and has gone through final proofreading and we’re waiting to get the final, corrected version from Ninja Division so we can get Harmony Gold’s approval. Likewise, the 130+ data cards are going through final editing and proofreading by Jeff Burke. Final packaging should be done soon and also sent to Harmony Gold for final approval. Everything is looking fantastic. Once everything is finalized, we send it in to Harmony Gold for their stamp of approval (and any changes). After Harmony Gold signs off, we send it all in to manufacturing! Can hardly wait.
Ship date remains undetermined pending the final manufacturing schedule. Though we’d love to see a December 2013, release, it is looking more and more like Robotech® RPG Tactics™ will not arrive at the Palladium warehouse until sometime in January, 2014.
Ooooh, mid October, we've had a slip! Of a month! No worries guys, it'll be at the warehouse soon(tm)!
October 24th:
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
Everything is moving toward completion. Almost there. We’ll provide all the latest news next Weekly Update.
Nnnnope, still pretty confident, but surely the NEXT update will indicate where things start looking fuzzy (in that with hindsight, they're literally a year away from beginning fulfillment in earnest).
November 1st:
A bit of fun: Entrepreneur Magazine Ranks Robotech® RPG Tactics™
Entrepreneur is a magazine published by Entrepreneur Media as well as having an online magazine. On October 24, 2013, Entrepreneur ranked the top 100 Crowdfunded Companies. Palladium Books with its Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Kickstarter was ranked at #19 overall, and #5 among tabletop crowdfunders. Pretty sweet. Thought you’d enjoy hearing about this. If you’d like to read the article, hear’s the link:
Good job living up to that highly prestigious award!
We are busy as all get out!
We are crazy busy trying to get books finished, new books and projects started, juggling business matters, dealing with the loss of our dear friend Kay, Halloween and all kinds of other stuff. As Robotech® RPG Tactics™ gets ever closer to manufacturing, our emphasis has shifted to getting RPG sourcebooks into your hands.
Oh cool, they're getting close to manufacturing!
November 8th:
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
● Flexible Date of Release: An exact release date is yet to be determined, but it is looking like some time in February, 2014. Ninja Division’s original projections had product delivery at October or November, but we were all a bit too optimistic. In order to make this game line everything it can be, there have been delays. As a result, the game has yet to be sent into manufacturing. That said, 98% of the work is completed, the game pieces look incredible, and Ninja Division is wrapping up on final packaging, layout and tweaks. We expect to get final approval from licensor Harmony Gold in two or three weeks. At which point, Robotech® RPG Tactics™ goes into manufacturing. Factoring in manufacturing time, shipping from China and other factors, it is looking more and like a February 2014 release. We’ll see. Note: As stated in the past, we will ship product to the Kickstarter supporters before we ship to distributors.
Huh, let's speed this up;
November 15th: still February 2014.
November 22nd: still February 2014.
November 27th: same.
December 6th: same.
December 13th: same.
Dec 19th: same.
January 9th:
● Release Date: I’m sorry, but we still do not have a hard release date for the game. I know it is frustrating to say we are working on it and it will be released as soon as possible. When we know more, you will know it too. We are as frustrated and disappointed with the slow progress and sliding release date as anyone, but things are moving forward on all fronts. Hang tight. We are getting there. I’m sorry we can’t give you anything more substantive at this time. We are sharing information, photos and progress as we get them ourselves! Things are shaping up to be a Spring release.
Oh, so here we finally hit a snag, a full quarter after Mike has alleged that they realized how bad things were. And didn't say anything. For like 3-4 months (slipping from Dec to Jan to Feb is NOT indicative of "holy gak we're like 10% of the way done!"). And if they DID know, they were clearly more interested in covering their own butts than communicating just how drastic things were.
Jan 17th:
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
I hope to have more to report in the next Weekly Update. As of right now, not much has changed from last week. We are deep into the engineering stage and dealing with a number of matters that inhibit us from locking down a likely release date. We don’t want to keep shifting dates. The next time we report something, we want it to be solid, so it will probably be a few weeks. You’ll know when we know. Keep the faith. Robotech® RPG Tactics™ is absolutely coming out in 2014, Kickstarter supporters will get product before retail, and this game is going to be epic fun.
Okay, they'll know in a couple of weeks, and it will be solid!
Jan 23rd:
We are still unable to lock down a likely release date at this time, and may have to wait until after the Chinese New Year (a celebration that lasts a couple of weeks!) before we have something concrete to tell you. You’ll know when we know. Keep the faith. Robotech® RPG Tactics™ is absolutely coming out in 2014, Kickstarter supporters will get product before retail, and this game is going to be epic fun.
Oh, it'll 'be out' in 2014 alright... just not as much as we might be lead to believe up until this time. Remember, they still haven't said anything about 2 waves of shipping.
Which brings us to;
Jan 30th:
UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™
Palladium will be sending out a separate announcement about Robotech® RPG Tactics™ that we think will make people happy. You can expect to see it later tonight or Friday.
Meanwhile, with the Chinese New Year in full swing, we won’t have much new to report for a couple of weeks. After that, we expect to be able to give you more news about manufacturing and progress. I can say that Jeff Burke continues to work diligently creating a comprehensive Macross Mecha Color Guide and he’s about 80% done. Looking good. Meanwhile, Ninja Division and Palladium are both continuing to finish and fine-tune other aspects of the product line. Again, Robotech® RPG Tactics™ is absolutely coming out in 2014 and Kickstarter supporters will get product before retail. This game is going to be epic fun.
So yeah, I guess we needed to take a trip down memory lane, but if PB was remotely concerned about this project, they spent an awful lot of months failing to properly address the backers, or even manage expectations. If they did find out in October (or sometime in 2013) that they were vastly further behind than they thought, they waited until the start of 2014 to actually say anything beyond 'oh, it might slide a little, don't worry'.
Apologies for the length, but I think it's pertinent to recall what they actually said and did, and the context surrounding those statements.
Thanks for the timeline research, Forar. The only thing I'd add is the facebook notification from Ninja Division that told us everything was NOT ok with the files (which may have been their last discussion of the matter of this project) and Palladium's confirmation around a year later which proved that they knew their previous "everything is fine! just a bit delayed!" proclamations were complete bs as they already knew the scope of their 98% done failure.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, when I win the billion dollar powerball lottery tonight with my single $2.00 purchase of a ticket, I will devote up to 0.01% of my winnings on finding out the truth behind this fiasco.
I think sometime in January 2013 there was already knowledge of problems with the ND models not being done since the VT wings were way too small and PB told ND to adjust it and lo and behold since nobody followed up there was a moment a few months later when PB was like "I thought we told you to fix this?"
You ALWAYS follow through when you ask someone to do something important.
Automatically Appended Next Post: So who can come up with a plan to combine enough stings to hurt the fat bear?[i][b]
Mike1975 wrote: I think sometime in January 2013 there was already knowledge of problems with the ND models not being done since the VT wings were way too small and PB told ND to adjust it and lo and behold since nobody followed up there was a moment a few months later when PB was like "I thought we told you to fix this?"
You ALWAYS follow through when you ask someone to do something important.
Automatically Appended Next Post: So who can come up with a plan to combine enough stings to hurt the fat bear?[i][b]
I think you mean 2014 not 2013....
As for the rest if they (Kevin) did not know several months after the end of the campaign the end result is STILL his fault, whether he is complicit or blissfully unaware. Exactly which, is semantics.
Mike1975 wrote: I think sometime in January 2013 there was already knowledge of problems with the ND models not being done since the VT wings were way too small and PB told ND to adjust it and lo and behold since nobody followed up there was a moment a few months later when PB was like "I thought we told you to fix this?"
You ALWAYS follow through when you ask someone to do something important.
Automatically Appended Next Post: So who can come up with a plan to combine enough stings to hurt the fat bear?[i][b]
I think you mean 2014 not 2013....
As for the rest if they (Kevin) did not know several months after the end of the campaign the end result is STILL his fault, whether he is complicit or blissfully unaware. Exactly which, is semantics.
Mike1975 wrote: So who can come up with a plan to combine enough stings to hurt the fat bear?[i][b]
What do you mean, precisely?
Get an actual informative response? We know that Kevin does not give a feth what we think or want. Historically speaking, it takes hundreds of people posting thousands of comments to really needle them into action. (IE: Spartangate, Scale Discussion, etc)
Well, that, or one (allegedly) hyper aggressive phone call. I'm more the diplomatic type. (believe it or not)
Do you mean literally 'hurt' them (financially, presumably)? They've been coasting along for years (decades?) with meager releases and a small but fanatical fanbase. Other than keeping the negative press going, there's only so much people can do short of instigating actual legal proceedings, or threatening such in a believable manner. Being international, while adding my own (thoroughly cited) paper to the BBB, AG, and FTC pile is growing in appeal, that's a bit more effort than this Canadian is willing to go to for the time being. Obviously they're not impervious to consequences, but short of faxing them a picture of my upraised middle finger and spreading the glorious news of their fethmuppetry, there's only so many options present.
Or something else?
We've clearly had issues communicating at times, so let's be very clear on what you're asking right here. :-D
Mike1975 wrote: Only a team of people, organized, will have any effect. Anything less is simply spinning our wheels
I'm not sure if you're talking about Palladium or us in that post. Of course, they have the benefit of $1.4 million allowing them to spin their wheels in comfort for a few more years.
You up for it? I guarantee we pay as well as Palladium did for your playtesting and community organizing. We don't have mental health benefits like weekly newsletter counselling though but we have Alpharius on duty for anger management.
), in aggregate people adding a core box here and a core box there in BackerKit could add up to a substantial number as well across 5,342 people.
