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 Hulksmash wrote:
Uh....it's Riverside.....There are already at least two truly good stores in Riverside. And one of them, GMI Games is friggin amazing....Adventurer's Guild is solid and been around forever.

11 Independents Selling GW and 3 GW Stores within 30 Miles of the center point of Riverside. Yeah, if you can't make it then it's likely a problem with the business, not demand.

There's one gw store and it's in Los Angeles a whole hours drive away, and one store in riverside, 2 in Claremont.

Nope, There are 3 GW stores within 30 miles of the center of Riverside. So says their website. As for other stores if Adventurers Guild went under then it went under. GMI is still an excellent place to game. The Realm is within 30 miles and is another excellent store.

Sorry AG closed down but if it couldn't make it then it's just to bad.

25.25 miles
Games Workshop - Portola Plaza

28.11 miles
Games Workshop - Larwin Square

29.80 miles
Games Workshop - Morningside Plaza

 Zweischneid wrote:

 Daggermaw wrote:
crowd funding a product like zombicide gets me something I might not otherwise be able to get. like a board game or set of miniatures.

That is the point. Crowd-funding isn't supposed to get you anything. It's not a pre-order. It is not an investment. You have no customer rights and no investor-returns.

Crowd-funding is just that... funding.

If some people have turned the cute idea of adding "little carrots" along the way into the main show, that is perhaps unfortunate. But that is not what crowd-funding is.

Thank you for pointing that out. Seems that things like Sedition Wars and Reaper Bones have kinda hurt the idea...now people are starting to look down on kickstarters (and the like) that dont pile them up with goodies. Kinda sad really, as it seems that now many great concepts are getting overlooked because they cant offer tons of stuff up front.

People need to get over themselves, the crowd funding model will ensure that only businesses with support get of the ground so if no one likes the idea it won't go forward, so if you Don't like it don't support it.
You don't need to crap on the thread though just to get a thrill.
If you got nothing nice to say just say nothing and move on but don't rain on someone's else's show just because they are trying a new way of funding.
Crowd funding is good for anything not just things were you get "stuff" .

Ah, and there's the definition being copy/pasted. Such a shame.

I spent 6 years working at the store in question, 3 of which were under the new owner hereafter called "Black Eagle" to avoid names, and there is indeed a back story. Oh boy is there ever a back story! The store was The Adventurers Guild of Riverside which opened in 1993 and later just AGR when Black Eagle took over in 2007 during a location move. The short of it is the new owner initially had the absolute best of intentions and really really REALLY wanted to own a game store and treat his employees right and be successful, it was his lifelong dream come true. Unfortunately he had absolutely NO head for business, no willingness to learn how to actually run a business, and a stubbornness that would make a mule look downright ditzy, and the store and owner went from an absolutely awesome person and place to work to a putrid, angry mess of passive agressive blame-gaming and smack-talking until I was essentially fired over the phone in May of 2010. It wasn't bad at first, 3 of us employees basically shared the roles of manager for the last year and a half or so under the old owner and ran things under the new owner. Plus his wife actually did all the accounting and paid all the bills, in addition to working full time and running what became an extremely successful Magic the Gathering tournament scene. But as the major employees left for other things, the amount of work they put in wasn't completely replaced by the remaining people.

As the store failed a long, slow, drawn out death it became everybody's fault but Black Eagle. It was people buying online instead of at the store, even though there was rarely enough product on the shelves to make proper armies. It was customers going elsewhere instead of doing special orders (for no discount) that sometimes wouldn't be filled for weeks depending on the company. He couldn't understand when customers would order stuff online themselves instead of driving down to special order at a store that didn't have it on their shelves, since Black Eagle had to be coerced into ordering any product outside his own personal interests (mostly just board games and 40k). In 4 years owning the shop he never came to understand the gamer tendancy to see New-Shiny and buy New-Shiny, even though they REALLY shouldn't be buying New-Shiny, but man oh man it's so New and so Shiny and it's RIGHT THERE so okay! It was also the employees not pushing sales hard enough. If you didn't sound like a cheap used car salesman, Black Eagle would passive aggresively talk crap about you to other employees and regulars. It happened to each and every employee there, but absolutely never to their face since he hated any sort of confrontation. It was also the former employees stealing with their "copied keys" that they still somehow had even after changing the locks and even after moving locations. Money was ALWAYS going missing (never product, just cash) even though the doors were all locked tight, and it was ALWAYS a former employee who must be sneaking in at night and snatching it from the cash box. In fact the only former employee that I haven't heard of being accused of stealing is the former manager that was banned from the store for getting into arguments with the owner for not carrying enough new product to handle demand. I heard second hand from a customer and friend that I was also accused of stealing, as was a guy who only came in 1 day a week and worked just for store credit and an employee discount. I found out from a customer that Black Eagle had been accusing me of stealing as well. The stealing continued after I left and they had changed locations again (I never had a key to the new place) so that was clearly what had been happening. Did I mention it was his wife did all the books and controlled all the bank accounts? No, sorry, what am I saying, surely it was the employees that were sneaking in at night and stealing. Only employees.

All the while Customers were continually lied to about availability of product, Black Eagle would constantly tell people we could get oddball games that we couldn't through normal distribution and he would tell people that other items weren't available (both of these things are EASILY checkable via online inventory with our distributors, but he never bothered). I'd watch him tell customers that an item wasn't in stock when really, we just hadn't placed the order yet. I'd watch him overorder stupid amounts of an item that was kind of hot for a few weeks that would later sit on the shelf for years, or kooky games that he really liked instead of getting enough new releases. I have never ever been so angry as the day the Warmachine mkII rulebook released and had enough to fill only the 8 preorders and another 3 to put on the shelves. Bear in mind that at this time, Warmachine was second only to Magic the Gathering in terms of popularity at the shop, and we consistantly had 25+ people playing in the official league. We got so few because we "didn't have the money to order any more" while we had literally just recieved 3 copies of a $75 History of the World reprint and 2 $150 german board games just one day prior. Black Eagle then went home for the day leaving me in charge, we sold the 3 books in a half hour, and it was me that had to explain to customers for the rest of the day (and the entire weekend, as it was too late in the week to place another order) how we had already sold out. I personally turned away nearly 20 customers that day alone who had cash in hand, and I know more than a few of them simply drove 5 miles down the road to the other FLGS in town, and I feel really sorry for the saturday guy. All because we "didn't have the money", even though we were on 30 day terms with our distributors (i.e. we had a month to sell those books before the payment came due). Nor did we have any real product on the shelves, he had us stop reordering Warmachine since it had slumped in sales right after mkII was announced (surprise surprise) and didn't have us reorder anyhting at all until the khador armybook released months later, by which time we really DIDN'T have the money to replace $8,000 worth of product.

My second favorite anecdote is about a super avid 40k player (and regular player at the shop), specifically IG. He was about 19 at the time, worked a crappy blockbuster job renting movies and stocking shelves, and was more into 40k than anybody I've ever seen in all my years gaming. He ate, slept and breathed the game and the fluff and the rules and would spend most of his free time at the shop. He spent 6 months saving up for when the now-current codex released to get all the new stuff and made sure we preordered it for him (at essentially 10% off retail), knowing it was considerably cheaper online but wanting to get it at the store he played at. Pre-ordered something like 6 valkyries, a bunch of the new tank kits, new infantry sets, all told it was over $400 after I rang him up. He looks in his wallet, counts up all his cash, goes back over to the shelf and grabs another 2 cadian command kits. He's now got about $6 left to in his wallet and laughs about how much it's gonna suck until payday but he just can't believe it's finally out after so much waiting! Black Eagle, who watched all this happen, who was standing RIGHT THERE while it all went down, jokes "That's it? Don't you want anymore?". Me and the guy just froze and do a double take. We share an incredulous look, we were both completely stunned,like we can't have POSISBLY heard what we just heard. We're absolutely flabbergasted. No Appreciation. No gratitude, Not a "thank you for buying that stuff here, we appreciate it" and absolutely no understanding that Black Eagle had just missed every social grace you possibly could have, Black Eagle was just standing there like he made the funniest joke in weeks. The guy was too shocked to demand his money back and walk out the door which he later told me he wishes he has done. The customers, even the regulars, were not friends, they were not compatriots, they were just walking wallets who of course owed all allegience to AGR simply because it existed and not because it was earned. By the time I stopped working at the shop, almost none of the loyal regulars that had kept the store going for 14 years under the previous owner were still going. It was a completely new crowd, and not nearly enough new blood to keep the store afloat.

The ONLY thing that kept it going as long as it did was the magic the gathering program, which was run completely by Black Eagle's wife who built it up from almost nothing to one of the larger venues in southern california, and already worked full time for the state as well. Meanwhile he paid his employees dirt for 14 hour days (the kid that replaced me earned $25 a day) for abosutely no appreciation. The employees, much like the customers, were not valued, were not appreciated, and most CERTAINLY weren't anything close to equals. I don't mind working for dirt, so long as I get to sell toys to grown men and I get a thank you out of it. I don't mind pulling 14 hours with no overtime so long as I get a "thanks for staying late" out of it. I really debated going to OSHA and the IRS or not and reporting everything for a long time, but Black Eagle's wife is really nice and more importantly, his son is all kinds of awesome and it would have ruined them too. But then again, I'm just a disgruntled, lazy employee who was probably stealing, and it was all my fault for not selling enough product that we didn't even have on the shelves. So now I'm totally excited, are you excited? Because I'm excited, lets go crowdfund this thing already!

Interesting to see the drama that unfolds from that.

Hear hear.

Kalameadea, so which is it? Was the wife an evil crook cooking the books or someone so nice you couldn't bring yourself to report sweatshop-like labor conditions?

Anyway, this thread seems to be heading into bad territory. Sounds like Riverside has itself some Grade-A gamer drama!

Cool story bro.
Your. Long winded anecdote would certainly be useful for local gamers who may be tempted to support a new enterprise in their local area, me I live in Australia and I would'nt put anything towards except maybe some goodwill, something I would give anyone starting a new endeavor.
My stake in this is that I come to dakka to get inspired and excited about the hobby and I constantly am excited by the talented people creating something new, and also about the not so talented people creating something and participating ( me being one of them).
Most days I read through the negative crap that is vomited in between the gold on the site but I was offended when someone puts up a plan for doing something new and all the negative people try to drag him down, they don't get the process for creating,building innovating and they just fling their poo.
I know I'm ranting now but I just couldn't sit by and let the chimps have their way.
To the OP go for it man, try your hardest and do your best if you fail you have learnt something ready for your next try.

On one hand, the OP is going to encounter some hostility as he's clearly just joined Dakka with the sole intent of promoting this crowdsourcing thing that has no "return". - and like it or not, Zweischneid, that's what people here expect from their crowdsourcing pledge-a-thons. Call it a local norm if you like, but raging against it won't get you anywhere. He's also slipped from "it's not for me" to apparently it is for him? Charity? Well, I'd rather give to local charities if I'm not "buying" something with a Kickstarter than help someone on the other side of the world realise their dream of opening a games shop. I've got a local FLGS for that which I support by buying some of my stuff for more than I could online.

But then, if we ignore it, it'll go away, as will the OP. Just like JimmyJango's attempt to get $45k or whatever it was to make a documentary on gamers at Gencon. He suddenly stopped posting here. I checked his page recently. He's a little bitter.

In response to the more recent posts:

And this is why I have never persued my wounded warrior project... I had the idea to solicit a donated army and a pro painting service, and then approach gencon indy or adepticon to raffle it off with the proceeds going to the wounded warrior project...but I just didnt think it would receive a positive response and I almost felt it would be asking toom much of the community. Which is a shame..the building I work in is about a block from where their office is and I see them all the time. I am actually in rehab for an airborne injury right now, and see the wounded warriors going through their rehab while I am there, its hard for me, and I cant imagine how it is for them...

lollllll, wounded warriors.

I was a platoon sgt there for wayyyy too long.

but I digress.

 quickfuze wrote:
And this is why I have never persued my wounded warrior project... I had the idea to solicit a donated army and a pro painting service, and then approach gencon indy or adepticon to raffle it off with the proceeds going to the wounded warrior project...but I just didnt think it would receive a positive response and I almost felt it would be asking toom much of the community. Which is a shame..the building I work in is about a block from where their office is and I see them all the time. I am actually in rehab for an airborne injury right now, and see the wounded warriors going through their rehab while I am there, its hard for me, and I cant imagine how it is for them...

I'm going to put on my "serious hat" here for a rare occasion.

What you're wanting to do is a very different project than that which is being proposed here. Approaching the community and a business in a professional manner, with a plan of action and safeguards in place to ensure that the project is in fact "legitimate" with a serious cause benefiting?

You are going to have a very positive response, and what's more you'd have quite a few individuals (and likely a few painting services/businesses) lining up to help contribute in any way they could.
Why? Because even though we all here on Dakka may not agree upon the politics of wars or what game systems we like best--we all are, at heart, pretty decent people who would be willing to contribute to a Good Cause. Add to it that we have veterans of not just the United States armed forces, but allied forces as well--and I'm pretty confident to say you'd likely have no problem with running such a project if it can be legitimately shown that the WWP would receive all the proceeds.

However that is not what is proposed here. This is someone wanting to use an international forum to solicit donations to a floundering business. We now have reports that the shop really just is a subpar operation and poorly run to begin with, likely being the driving cause of why the business is going under.

In short:
Crowdfunding as a source of income for a shop which is poorly run, poorly stocked, and deserves to go under should not be tolerated on an international forum. If you feel it's an important enough cause, start up a local forum or Facebook group and go from there.

I am not going away, I've got 4 40k armies and one helluva Warmachine Cryx army to talk about, but if your all really as negative as you appear I may not want to talk to you guys anyway . . .. Thanks for the feedback, I'll put it to good use, though it seems I'm wasting my time.

And this is why I have never persued my wounded warrior project... I had the idea to solicit a donated army and a pro painting service, and then approach gencon indy or adepticon to raffle it off with the proceeds going to the wounded warrior project...but I just didnt think it would receive a positive response and I almost felt it would be asking toom much of the community. Which is a shame..the building I work in is about a block from where their office is and I see them all the time. I am actually in rehab for an airborne injury right now, and see the wounded warriors going through their rehab while I am there, its hard for me, and I cant imagine how it is for them...

Actually, with the right support from several companies this could probably actually take off. People are going to be more receptive to supporting a nationally known charity organization than some store in in SoCal. It's similar to what 40k radio and several others have done in the past.

 Max_The_Fallen_Angel wrote:
I am not going away, I've got 4 40k armies and one helluva Warmachine Cryx army to talk about, but if your all really as negative as you appear I may not want to talk to you guys anyway . . .. Thanks for the feedback, I'll put it to good use, though it seems I'm wasting my time.

No, you're not wasting your time.

You are however misunderstanding the purposes of a forum.

They are not captive audiences for you to have come to your support when you call. They are a place for relatively reasonable discussion and the exchange of ideas, opinions, and in the case of miniature wargames our personal projects.

What you really need to take away from this experience is that there is a certain audience which will be more receptive to certain ideas. In this case, it backfired on you as quite frankly quite a few of us here on Dakka have had experiences with these kinds of "NSFLGS" establishments where they play favorites.

Add to it that despite your protestations, this is not the only shop within your locale and it shows the Dakka userbase that this shop is seemingly going under for a reason.

The wife was nice and again the son was awesome, and I decided against ruining their financial lives just to get back at the owner being an idiot. I dont' even hate the guy since he was never intentionally screwing people over, he just didn't get it. I spent the last year and a half working there wishing he'd simply pull his head out of his rear and start running it like a business, and figure out how to treat his customers so they'd stick around instead of getting continually burned. I worked there for peanuts and did it willingly because I made just enough to pay for rent, food and my toys. I'm a simple enough nerd that that's all I need to enjoy life. I got to "work" doing something I genuinely loved doing. I got to paint stuff on the clock so long as there were no customers needing help, the employees got a nice discount, and I got to spend most of those 14 hour days hanging out with regulars, talking gamer talk and playing games. Of those 14 hours, maybe 4 would be spent actually working, the rest was more like hanging out with friends making sure the place didn't burn down or the roof fly away. It was an easy gig that it payed dirt, and I loved doing it despite that.

And that's a big part of why I'm still upset about it now. Black Eagle wasn't evil, it wasn't malicious what he was doing and he seemed to always have the best intentions in mind, he just he was just a nerd with no head for business and no social graces that didn't realize he had no social graces or head for business. That made it all the more frustrating, you're not arguing with a guy who is intentionally screwing people over to turn a profit, you're arguing with a guy that just doesn't get it. But thinks he totally gets it and so everything around him must be what is wrong. I spent far longer than I should have trying to keep it going because I enjoyed most of the aspects of working there, but it also means I was there front and center seeing the store circle the drain from the inside and not having the clout to do anything about it. As much as it was his dream to own a game shop, it was mine to work at one. He was just bull headedly doing things his way, oblivious to the reasons things were falling apart and blaming everyone around him.

So oblivious in fact that now he's trying to do it again, but with other people's money this time. I lost a job that I loved, a lot of good friends lost jobs that they loved, a lot of people in the area lost a solid gaming community that had been built up since the 90's, and his family had to suffer through that crap. I'd rather not see it happen again, or at least see people do it knowing ahead of time what they're in for.

 Max_The_Fallen_Angel wrote:
I am not going away, I've got 4 40k armies and one helluva Warmachine Cryx army to talk about, but if your all really as negative as you appear I may not want to talk to you guys anyway . . .. Thanks for the feedback, I'll put it to good use, though it seems I'm wasting my time.

You're always going to encounter negativity online...it's a fact of life. The anonyimity of forums allows mild-mannered folks to be complete dicks with little to no repercussions. You need to grow thicker skin or just learn to ignore the trolls.

That being said, you really need to take what a lot of these folks here say to heart. As I stated in my last post in the thread, it sucks to lose that place that was special to you...but the reality of the matter is that this is of limited interest to the international community, and in today's economy, you won't get much support for this, especially when you don't present a professional plan or that the real details of how the store was run begin to come out. I'm not intending to be a jerk when I say you need to move on, but seriously, life will go on. If you are so determined to open up a shop, don't do it under the guise of a previously failed business model; start your own store...do the legwork, get a venture capital loan and buy a store front. If you can't start a business from the ground up, you really won't be able to fix something somebody already broke. Just remember, what is there really in it for the internation community to give money to a previously failed business when they really get nothing in return?

 quickfuze wrote:
And this is why I have never persued my wounded warrior project... I had the idea to solicit a donated army and a pro painting service, and then approach gencon indy or adepticon to raffle it off with the proceeds going to the wounded warrior project...but I just didnt think it would receive a positive response and I almost felt it would be asking toom much of the community. Which is a shame..the building I work in is about a block from where their office is and I see them all the time. I am actually in rehab for an airborne injury right now, and see the wounded warriors going through their rehab while I am there, its hard for me, and I cant imagine how it is for them...

See, this is something I could actually see people here getting behind - as it's for a good cause, and not for "personal profit".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I see Kan already said it better. But I'd still like to emphasis that it's the kind of thing that would meet with positivity here.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Max_The_Fallen_Angel wrote:
I am not going away, I've got 4 40k armies and one helluva Warmachine Cryx army to talk about, but if your all really as negative as you appear I may not want to talk to you guys anyway . . .. Thanks for the feedback, I'll put it to good use, though it seems I'm wasting my time.

No, you're not wasting your time.

You are however misunderstanding the purposes of a forum.

They are not captive audiences for you to have come to your support when you call. They are a place for relatively reasonable discussion and the exchange of ideas, opinions, and in the case of miniature wargames our personal projects.

What you really need to take away from this experience is that there is a certain audience which will be more receptive to certain ideas. In this case, it backfired on you as quite frankly quite a few of us here on Dakka have had experiences with these kinds of "NSFLGS" establishments where they play favorites.

Add to it that despite your protestations, this is not the only shop within your locale and it shows the Dakka userbase that this shop is seemingly going under for a reason.

Isn't that just what I'm doing, I started a project, be it an army, youtube channel or trying to fund what I think was great place to play, and asking " how does this look, what would you do different?" it looks by all means like it's going to fail and I can only look forward to the experience I gain from it. like all plans it's not going to survive the enemy. I would love to be a part of something that I thought was good, but I was obviously mistaken. save your harsh words, save your criticism, I thought I'd give it a shot, wouldn't you? how close is close enough, I have to go thirty minutes in any direction to get to a gaming store. Really I'm used to one being just down the Block. and finding a place to play is turning into an orchestrated event. so sorry I offended most of you with my project.

 Max_The_Fallen_Angel wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Max_The_Fallen_Angel wrote:
I am not going away, I've got 4 40k armies and one helluva Warmachine Cryx army to talk about, but if your all really as negative as you appear I may not want to talk to you guys anyway . . .. Thanks for the feedback, I'll put it to good use, though it seems I'm wasting my time.

No, you're not wasting your time.

You are however misunderstanding the purposes of a forum.

They are not captive audiences for you to have come to your support when you call. They are a place for relatively reasonable discussion and the exchange of ideas, opinions, and in the case of miniature wargames our personal projects.

What you really need to take away from this experience is that there is a certain audience which will be more receptive to certain ideas. In this case, it backfired on you as quite frankly quite a few of us here on Dakka have had experiences with these kinds of "NSFLGS" establishments where they play favorites.

Add to it that despite your protestations, this is not the only shop within your locale and it shows the Dakka userbase that this shop is seemingly going under for a reason.

Isn't that just what I'm doing, I started a project, be it an army, youtube channel or trying to fund what I think was great place to play, and asking " how does this look, what would you do different?" it looks by all means like it's going to fail and I can only look forward to the experience I gain from it. like all plans it's not going to survive the enemy.
I would love to be a part of something that I thought was good, but I was obviously mistaken.
save your harsh words, save your criticism, I thought I'd give it a shot, wouldn't you? how close is close enough, I have to go thirty minutes in any direction to get to a gaming store.
Really I'm used to one being just down the Block. and finding a place to play is turning into an orchestrated event. so sorry I offended most of you with my project.

First of all:
Please use proper punctuation and spacing. It is a very small thing, but it is an important thing when engaging in discussion on forums. Especially when you are coming on those forums to try to start up funding for a business.

Second:
Considering us "the enemy" is not going to get you anywhere. You are going to have to realize that you will face critique as you engage with people who do not simply say "Yes! Do it!".
People who simply say "Yes! Do it!" are doing you no favors and are detrimental to the experience of bettering yourself.

Third:
Thirty minutes in any direction to get to a gaming store is not that bad. For a year and a half, I had a two hour round trip to get to the nearest hobby shop. And that was for anything--getting new glue, paints, a game in, etc.
If your sole motivation for getting this shop "back" is because of the convenience factor, I hate to break it to you but that's no real reason to help fund a poorly run business.

If you truly want to try getting a shop up and running and it becoming "successful", you could ask some of the shopowners here on Dakka like Mikhaila (who runs not just one but two very big shops in his area) for advice on how to even get past the beginning planning stages.

Lastly:
You have not offended anyone. You simply need to realize that people critiquing your proposal or not agreeing with you is going to happen, and learn to roll with it rather than get defensive or pack up your ball and go home.

We here at Dakka would love for you to stay and share your hobby projects with us. Just realize that we are an international community and very few of us would likely be willing to invest in a business in Southern California.

 Max_The_Fallen_Angel wrote:

Isn't that just what I'm doing, I started a project, be it an army, youtube channel or trying to fund what I think was great place to play, and asking " how does this look, what would you do different?" it looks by all means like it's going to fail and I can only look forward to the experience I gain from it. like all plans it's not going to survive the enemy. I would love to be a part of something that I thought was good, but I was obviously mistaken. save your harsh words, save your criticism, I thought I'd give it a shot, wouldn't you? how close is close enough, I have to go thirty minutes in any direction to get to a gaming store. Really I'm used to one being just down the Block. and finding a place to play is turning into an orchestrated event. so sorry I offended most of you with my project.

It's not that you've offended us (well, the majority of us, that is), it's that we're giving you honest feedback, and you're not listening to reason. Some of us aren't lucky enough to have an FLGS only 30 minutes away, and I know there are many folks that will gladly travel farther than that to get a good game in!

Take a deep breath, and use this as a lesson for the future. Like I said, if you're really that determined to have a store close by, do it the proper way and start your own one up under its own brand.

Max, I don't think anybody wants you to fail in your endeavors or fail at starting a game shop, they just don't agree with crowd-funding as the way to go about it. Myself, I'm less concerned with the idea of a game shop being crowd-scourced. Actually I kind of like the idea, if done right. I'm more concerned with the specific shop in question because I've got a bit of inside information and I've seen what it's done to the people that thought it was great thing back in 2007.

To his credit, Black Eagle is indeed incredibly passionate about these things, and if you missed the 20 times I said it, he's rediculously bull-headed stubborn about them too. The one good thing about that is he absolutely refused to let the store die long after it was obvious that it should, refused to let it die in the face of everybody, and apparently even now after it has failed he's still trying to make a go of it. I can't hate him for having that kind of passion about it, but it's a blind passion that has done a lot of damage to his family and friends. I don't want to see that happen again. I can't stress enough that I don't think he's a bad guy, or that another game shop (run properly) is a bad thing, he just shouldn't be running that business. If you're partnering with him, you should to be aware of it. If you don't believe me and do it anyways, just be mindful of it when you see it, and deal with it when you see it, or it'll crash and burn all over again.

Kalamadea, sent you a pm. spectreoneone thank you. everybody else thanks!

There are absolutely no safeguards on any of these crowdfunding sites to prevent the organizer from getting paid, taking the money, and then spending it all on Pez candy. The only recourse would be costly litigation against a potentially destitute plaintiff. This is true of any such project.

There are only two sorts of campaigns that stand out as being worthy in my mind. The first option is one that is backed by a reputable company. I don't necessarily mean a big company (they'd probably not have any interest in this funding scheme anyway) but a company which has a name to stand on, such as Reaper, or Maxmini or Kromlech or someone like that who has been in the business a while and have shown they are receptive to customer interests and are likely to successfully deliver a product. In this case, there is no "product" to be delivered; the average gamer who doesn't live geographically adjacent to this area gets nothing of value for participating in this.

The other sort is one where a tangible product is secondary or immaterial. Amanda Palmer had a kickstarter recently to deliver her next album, and while there were some tangible rewards (the album itself, at a base), the money is really being donated to an idea, to a specific project you want to see get off the ground. In this case that is sort of the model you're going for, but it's not the same for several reasons. There is nothing groundbreaking about a FLGS, and there is no real reason to think, even with this cash infusion, they won't just go out of business anyway because of core poor business practices. You'd be throwing good money after bad for a store that shutters in a few weeks or months anyway. If the FLGS can't stay open because they have an usual extenuating circumstance, some force majeure they need this cash injection to overcome, it would be one thing, but it seems they are, from what you wrote, simply victims of natural market forces and their own poor savvy, none of which this effort will help with.

TLDR; We don't know you (you registered here a year ago), and you're looking to get $25,000 with nothing in return; with which you intend to throw onto the deck of yet another sinking ship of a FLGS. The sorts of reactions you have been getting are normal and expected. Try raising the money locally instead, via your chamber of commerce, groupon, things like that instead. That's my advice, instead of panhandling on the internet.

This conversation is over stop trying to impress us with your ability to mimic the members who have said exactly the same thing.

 Max_The_Fallen_Angel wrote:
This conversation is over stop trying to impress us with your ability to mimic the members who have said exactly the same thing.

If you are done taking the "feedback" you solicited, best to post explicitly advising people of this and asking a Mod to lock this thread.

If you want this thread to remain open, then you gotta take your feedback like a big boy (or girl)

Ugh, stop giving me advice! All I want is your money.

 Max_The_Fallen_Angel wrote:
This conversation is over stop trying to impress us with your ability to mimic the members who have said exactly the same thing.

If you had understood it the first time, we wouldn't have to repeat ourselves.

This conversation is over stop trying to impress us with your ability to mimic the members who have said exactly the same thing.

Yeah, that'll help your cause.

Do we really need two ongoing threads about this?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/469676.page