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 John Prins wrote:
IIRC correctly we already knew from a previous picture that Palladium had overproduced RTT in the thousands (based on "Box #X of Y" for the starter box, which some back of the envelope math would show was 2-3 times the amount of boxed sets the backers ordered without counting add-ons. You'd have to rifle through the old updates to find it, though.

Kevin thought he could fund wave 2 on wave 1 sales. That's where a good portion of the money went. It was probably 2 more shipping containers than they needed to produce.

I think that this is the most likely explanation for the missing Wave 2 stuff, unfortunately.

It also means that PB will be able to kick this particular can down the road almost indefinitely, or at least think that they...can.

 Alpharius wrote:
It also means that PB will be able to kick this particular can down the road almost indefinitely, or at least think that they...can.

Because they "can"?
Forgive me, it is time for a song and dance number:


Why do we make fun of Palladium? Because we can!
Why do we complain about them keeping our money? Because we can!
Why do we not shut up and just hand them our money anyway? Because we can!
...
Anyway... I think I will continue trying not to care anymore...

 Alpharius wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
IIRC correctly we already knew from a previous picture that Palladium had overproduced RTT in the thousands (based on "Box #X of Y" for the starter box, which some back of the envelope math would show was 2-3 times the amount of boxed sets the backers ordered without counting add-ons. You'd have to rifle through the old updates to find it, though.

Kevin thought he could fund wave 2 on wave 1 sales. That's where a good portion of the money went. It was probably 2 more shipping containers than they needed to produce.

I think that this is the most likely explanation for the missing Wave 2 stuff, unfortunately.

It also means that PB will be able to kick this particular can down the road almost indefinitely, or at least think that they...can.

Alpharius... I don't want them to kick the can down the road. Nor think that they can, because Kevin thinks he can get away with it. I want them to be held accountable. If Palladium is that wrapped up in protecting their reputation (what little of it as they have) then they should be making every reasonable effort in finishing this in a timely manner.

Many here are, and on the Kickstarter, are rightly enraged at how this is being handled, and rightly enraged that Palladium is being rather tone-deaf about it. Palladium cannot point fingers at Ninja Division, o the manufacturer, or the failure of the Rifts Board Game or whatever excuse of the moment Kevin Siembieda wishes to use to justify fething this up from one end to the other. If Palladium really gave a tinker's cuss about their fanbase, like they repeatedly claim, then this should already be resolved and a dead issue. But know, they abuse their fans' faith in them repeatedly and their fans keep coming back like an abused partner in a rather toxic relationship.

@Seawolf, that's really the point. From PB's perspective, the real fans come back. The complainers aren't real fans. And they don't care about people that aren't fans.

Well yes, no one *wants* them to do that, but because KS is a toothless slug when it comes to project/creator accountability, they *will* be doing just that - Can Kicking for 4 years and counting, with no end in sight!

It is actually *easy* for them to 'justify' doing it too, again, per Kickstarter's rather weak "update the masses" standard too...

Its certainly shady they took the pics down, i certainly grabbed a copy of both, it would be interesting running it through a decent magnifying program so we might be able to make out whats what a lot easier, unfortunately i dont have one!

Somebody set the game on fire to celebrate 100k Comments on the kickstarter
https://vimeo.com/234220476

Bit of foul language, understandably.

 Original Timmy wrote:
Its certainly shady they took the pics down, i certainly grabbed a copy of both, it would be interesting running it through a decent magnifying program so we might be able to make out whats what a lot easier, unfortunately i dont have one!

Anyone who has good resolution of those images, and want to compare them to the recorded box on file, it was in Update 155

Here's the picture in question.


Does that text formatting match up with the sides of the boxes on the pallets on the right in the "Atlanteans signing" photos? Lets see, shall we?


Sure as hell looks like it. SEVEN pallets shown, just on the LEFT, not including the pallets at the back or on the RIGHT. So... 8 boxes per layer, 7 layers, 3 copies per box = 168 copies per pallet. So, 1344 copies, just on the LEFT hand side fore/mid ground. Good to know they have plenty of supply.

EDIT: Correction, only 7 pallets in that run. But I figure the boxes on the right make up the numbers assuming the pallets in the other locations aren't this (and at this point, who'd argue otherwise). I also screwed up my left and right, cause I'm a f'n moron (Hey, PB, HIRE ME! I'd be a good fit!), and so I changed them, but capitalized the corrections, just so you know just how stupid I am.

Holy hell, there were 5,834 boxes of 3 mains each?

That's 17,500 produced for a game that only had 5,342 backers.

Fethers.

Robotech minis were basically gold! Only a fool wouldn't have maximized his investment!

I could understand producing 10,000 units given 5,300 unit backer demand. But 17,500? That's delusional. Oh, wait...

But...but...you'll get back triple what you put into it.

You're just not a business guru. You don't UNDERSTAND.

Morgan Vening wrote:
@Seawolf, that's really the point. From PB's perspective, the real fans come back. The complainers aren't real fans. And they don't care about people that aren't fans.

Actually youre spot on. Kevin has said exactly that a few times publicly. Basically if youre not a fan your a hater.

evilsmurf wrote:

Morgan Vening wrote:
@Seawolf, that's really the point. From PB's perspective, the real fans come back. The complainers aren't real fans. And they don't care about people that aren't fans.

Actually youre spot on. Kevin has said exactly that a few times publicly. Basically if youre not a fan your a hater.

Ah... how silly of me... I forgot who we were talking about... thanks.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I could understand producing 10,000 units given 5,300 unit backer demand. But 17,500? That's delusional. Oh, wait...

Not to completely defend PB, but in a world where Forar exists, 10k units isn't unreasonable. Likely quite a few people ordered 2+ core sets, and Forar's cult had I believe 8 boxes on 1 backer? So, 8-9k could have actually been needed for the backers, because of the bizarre things Canadians get up to in the winter.

Of course, 17k would be delusional IF you understood that KickStarters magnify the apparent demand in a niche and you can't equate number of backers to number of traditional pre-orders. PB likely was wholly unaware of this and plugged the number into their "pre-order calculator" (or abacus...) and thought they'd be shifting tons like with a regular product offering. Sadly for the backers, reality is that most of the initial demand was satisfied by the KS itself, and any residual demand was likely easily satisfied by disaffected backers and/or stores unloading the product. I don't think that's really a-typical of most KS projects that the after-campaign demand is less than that of the campaign by a wide margin, some notable exceptions aside. Also this campaign was so long ago I'm not sure that factor was as widely understood as it is today. Four years is a lot of time to gain perspective as anyone who had a child when the campaign ended can tell you. Such a child will be starting school soon!

So, still PB not knowing what the feth they're doing, but a different flavor than it might seem at first.

As I said, 10k wouldn't have been unreasonable given the KS demand for 5.3k. While some ordered multiple sets (for clubs, etc.), the grand total known demand was only 5+k.

Post-KS demand is highly variable, but the incremental cost of a 7.5k second printing when you already have the tooling completed is very attractive - the pennies saved don't justify the risk. That's why it's delusional.

@Morgan - sadly, the boxes on the pallets to the left are not wide enough to be Main Box sets. If you look closely, they are stacked "one sideways, two face on", with the "face on" boxes almost half the width of the sideways box. As you may notice, the main box case you posted above the picture is almost square in it's dimensions, not rectangular.

They could, however, be add-on boxes like Valks, Destroids and Battlepods.

And I have to ask - who are the two guys signing the books? And are they signing Kevin's name into the book?

But even if half the backers bought 2 copies of the game.. that should only total 7,500 copies...
That makes it seem we also paid for the 10,000 copies he planned to sale at retail..
So there is your answer.. your RTT kickstarter money is sitting in the warehouse collecting dust..

Counting the campaign page on KS, there were 6,684 main box sets purchased during the campaign. If we're generous and believe the statement they got 10% more in the backer kit, we're only looking at 7,352 sets for the KS campaign.

 Stormonu wrote:
Counting the campaign page on KS, there were 6,684 main box sets purchased during the campaign. If we're generous and believe the statement they got 10% more in the backer kit, we're only looking at 7,352 sets for the KS campaign.

There were people who ordered extra boxes a la carte, but for the most part, 10k units should have been the max. It still would have left several thousand to retail, which could have paid for a second run all on its own.

Yeah, I suspect the temptation to help fund retail sales at the same time as KS fulfillment was too great to pass up, and I'm sure there was some way to internally justify this, at least to PB.

 Stormonu wrote:
@Morgan - sadly, the boxes on the pallets to the left are not wide enough to be Main Box sets. If you look closely, they are stacked "one sideways, two face on", with the "face on" boxes almost half the width of the sideways box. As you may notice, the main box case you posted above the picture is almost square in it's dimensions, not rectangular.
They could, however, be add-on boxes like Valks, Destroids and Battlepods.

Even if the boxes are not the main box, it is still a ton of product that has sucked up all the liquid assets.

Anyone here going to PB open house?
I would to see what boxes are around but that would mean giving them money, so no.

 Talizvar wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
@Morgan - sadly, the boxes on the pallets to the left are not wide enough to be Main Box sets. If you look closely, they are stacked "one sideways, two face on", with the "face on" boxes almost half the width of the sideways box. As you may notice, the main box case you posted above the picture is almost square in it's dimensions, not rectangular.
They could, however, be add-on boxes like Valks, Destroids and Battlepods.

Even if the boxes are not the main box, it is still a ton of product that has sucked up all the liquid assets.

Anyone here going to PB open house?
I would to see what boxes are around but that would mean giving them money, so no.

It wouldn't be too hard to slip in unnoticed, you'd just need a spider suit to get past their security.

 Stormonu wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
@Morgan - sadly, the boxes on the pallets to the left are not wide enough to be Main Box sets. If you look closely, they are stacked "one sideways, two face on", with the "face on" boxes almost half the width of the sideways box. As you may notice, the main box case you posted above the picture is almost square in it's dimensions, not rectangular.
They could, however, be add-on boxes like Valks, Destroids and Battlepods.

Even if the boxes are not the main box, it is still a ton of product that has sucked up all the liquid assets.

Anyone here going to PB open house?
I would to see what boxes are around but that would mean giving them money, so no.

It wouldn't be too hard to slip in unnoticed, you'd just need a spider suit to get past their security.

If PB's Crisis of Treachery is anything to go by, you could be literally on fire, and their Security wouldn't notice anything amiss.

"Your money looks pretty dusty. I'm going to take it to be cleaned. Be back with it tomorrow."

When Morgan and I ran the numbers years ago, we came to a similar estimate of around 7k core boxes for the backers (give or take). 17.5k to cover backers plus 10k for global supply doesn't really seem like that crazy a number, IF you think like Kevin and co with big dollar signs in their eyes and a belief that they'll probably move that in the first year, bro!

Plus, I wouldn't be shocked if there wasn't some kind of Economy of Scale in play here. Like, maybe they wanted 8 or 9k, but at 15k+ the price per unit dropped substantially and they talked themselves into a position where covering backers+10k looked good. While there's often diminishing returns in play, as I've commented before, depending on what you're making and who you're working with, there can be a point where getting X costs you one price, and then getting 2X costs only a pittance more.

Granted, with something as big and heavy as pallets of core boxes, the extra weight and volume probably hit them with increased shipping costs as well (reducing the savings from the production run), but again, if they were paying like $20 a core and expecting to sell them wholesale for $50 and maybe even some on their shop for $75-100, it can be easy to talk yourself into seeing it as an opportunity to double or triple your money (or better), so why not! Even if they only sold a fraction of the excess, they'd still be covering the extra fees!?

And then a few years later they still have enough boxes around to build rather substantial forts out of, and even if they basically broke even on the sales, all that extra product didn't turn into piles of money as anticipated. And factories won't take RRT cores as payment, so having 10k extra just laying around does them no good (and is actively detrimental if what I'm hearing about taxes on existing stock is true, I'm not a business guy).

There are dozens of other factors that could be in play, and yes the debate will forever rage on about who paid for all those extras (probably backers, it'd be overly charitable to think that these fethmuppets treated those funds respectfully and entirely separately from their other expenses).

I've gotta jet to a dinner, just some musings as I catch up here.

They vastly overestimated the demand, when GW does a release it's typically a run of 5-10k units to cover worldwide supply that's fething GW the giant of miniatures gaming not a joke company like Palladium. With start ups most of the demand is filled with the initial KS offering, established companies (like CMON) can count on retail sales to carry on after the KS but a start up will be lucky if they can even get close to matching their KS numbers via retail. They saw stars in KS numbers and got seduced thinking they'd hit it big, not realizing post KS sales wouldn't continue like that without a lot of extra promoting and support which they can't provide.

CMON games run about $8 for a game like Zombicide and most of that cost (about 2/3rd) is the heavy cardstock tiles, packing materials and the boxes themselves, the RRT boxes are largely just plastic components and shouldn't run more than $10-$12 tops, if they are paying more than that they got taken to the cleaners.

While I don't have the specific quote, from other bulk quotes I've seen, PB saved less than 10% per unit cost by producing 17.5k vs 10k. Probably less than 5% difference. The key was getting over 5k units, which they already had committed.

They'll never move all that product. I had a LGS that ordered 6 box sets.
All 6 remained on the shelves for over a year. They were eventually marked down to 15 dollars. Still didn't sell.
Someone did seem to dumpster dive them after they were left out in the back at least.

Right, with hindsight we all know that. Hell, at the time people pondered if the Kickstarter didn't represent a very substantial portion of worldwide demand at the time (before we even knew what a gakshow it'd become).

But if I just took in ~1.5m USD, saw crowds eager to buy thousands of boxes, and an economy of scale breakpoint could save me a pretty hefty chunk of change (even 5% of a couple hundred grand is still around 10k, though as I noted above they probably lost a chunk of that in the extra shipping), I could see how they got greedy and decided that worst case scenario they could do a few steep sales to turn $12 boxes into $50 boxes and still be ahead of the game in some fashion. (4x ones money not being nearly as great as 8x ones money, but surely people will snap 'em up, right!?)

Except it seems they can't. They've been dragging those boxes to conventions for a few years now, running sales, shipping to distributors, and a random pic of a section of the warehouse might show a 1000+ just sitting around, with who knows how many more pallets off camera?

I'm not saying it was a good idea, but I can see how they might've gotten themselves into this mess, further compounded by being pathologically unable to admit that they're in a mess in the first place.