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The thing I find most mystifying is... why set the funding goal so high? I mean, other then a possible allusion to the major game system, putting it at $40k just seems foolish.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
The thing I find most mystifying is... why set the funding goal so high? I mean, other then a possible allusion to the major game system, putting it at $40k just seems foolish.

Reaper went for $30K and made $3.4 million.

BTP went for $40K . . . perhaps he wanted to pay off the building and buy an island or two.

Reaper was making something people actually wanted.

I Definitely do not think it is all hurricane/holidays. Trollforged's Kickstarter, for example, had a steady upward climb the whole way, and then raised well over 50% of its' previous pledge total from day 30 on the final day (today).

Endless Fantasy also had a Fantastic final day , despite levelling off in the middle. The dip it suffered was only from a few backers dropping.

This KS, on the other hand, I do not think will surge like that towards the end. Perhaps they will make more incentives to cause it to reach funding level- but I don't think it will.

I can't think of a worse kickstarter to back, the rewards are minimal and the "project" doesn't really add anything to gaming as far as I can see. I don't wish any ill will to BTP. The are a private company and can do what they want I wouldn't put my money behind the project and would advise friends not to either.

I don't think this has anything to do with hurricanes, or even with angry ex-employees. I think people started talking about how absurd a concept it is to provide free capital for stock to a company that it was doomed to fail. Maybe they should have went the Indigogo route so they could have kept the money pledged even if the goal wasn't met.

another $1,000 dollars has jumped ship today...

man, this whole affair got real ugly, real fast...
hopefully it will die with a wimper, but i have a feeling there will be some more drama in a week when the Kickstarter ends in failure...

cheers
jah

Anyone else think it's funny that their kicktraq chart is looking more and more like their company name?

The endless moaning about the BTP kickstarter is so tiring. Complaining about something they don't have to give 1 red cent to? The Kickstarter is pretty well defined. Want a painted army? Donate X dollars. Simple. No different than the billions of products that people waste tons of money on every day on Kickstarter that end up as vapor. At least with BTP I would have pretty high confidence of return on the investment. Whether you love or hate their painting techniques is a whole other topic.

What is complicated about needing a hefty amount of capital to have a huge inventory of (insert any product or service here) pre-painted armies people can purchase? Who cares what we think about their estimate of how many armies are unpainted out there, or what the market is for this? They're the ones taking the risk, they get to find out whether this is viable or not. And to be honest they've got a billion times better idea than we do since, love him or hate him, Shawn has made a pretty legit business in an industry that is mostly comprised of 1 or 2 dudes in their garage making $8/hr or less painting minis. If someone had asked me if it was possible to employee 20-something people in a miniature painting business I would have laughed in their face. Well it seems they've made it happen, so I'll tend to believe them over some anonymous wargamer's armchair market analysis or invented idea over what types of services deserve funding..

At the end of the day I will not donate or ever use BTP's services (or any commission painter's services) because I paint my own armies, so I do not have a dog in the race. I just can't wait for the moaning to end.

Doesn't like people moaning on the internet.

Moans on the internet about it

 d-usa wrote:
Doesn't like people moaning on the internet.

Moans on the internet about it

I don't like your tone, sir!

But I like your style.

fleetofclaw wrote:
The Kickstarter is pretty well defined. Want a painted army? Donate X dollars. Simple.

Well, at some pledge levels that's what happens. At others, it's donate X dollars, then send them the models you want painted, plus a shipping fee*. you don't just 'get a painted army'.

They're the ones taking the risk,

What risk are they taking? They want the great gaming public to pay for it all!

You're giving them money to buy models for some else's army down the line, who'll of course also be paying for them, whilst you're supplying separate models for your own pledge level's work done. They apply a quick base coat and dip to all of it, trousering loads of cash in the process. There's nothing about this that doesn't seem like a Kickstarter cashgrab.


* in fact, almost all the pledge levels have a shipping fee regardless of location - do they really need to charge a $10k backer $10 for shipping?

 d-usa wrote:
Doesn't like people moaning on the internet.

Moans on the internet about it

I see what you did there!

I don't get it, why complain about people complaining about BTP? I've only seen it in two BTP related threads, which I went to by choice. Maybe I'm missing it, but I've not seen it spill out into any other threads.

It's like wearing uncomfortable shoes and then complaining about how uncomfortable they are. Take the shoes off!

I mean, yes, this gets into the pseudo-existential argument about if whining on the internet should be allowed. (Because as we know, all other forms of communication are full of nothing but positive, content driven material.)

But on a different note, I think there are some genuine problems with the kickstarter that the thread has revealed. Personally, I don't find the rewards "well defined." You are paying, up front, for the ability to later pick an army that was build and painted out of a template. So, not only is the reward very remote, it's also very vague. I mean, yes, in some ways "1500 points of warhammer" is a well defined product, but not to anybody that's remotely serious about warhammer.

Further, there is one nearly universal death knell for any business, and that's using cash for future orders to pay for past ones. Anybody that's been on Dakka for long enough remembers the Dropzone fiasco, and the current Maelstrom games shows that this trend hasn't died down. BTP isn't a fresh start up. It's been in business for many years, and if it's eating it's seed corn, it's unlikely that will make it to deliver on this KS.

Sure, the optimist thinks, "this influx of capital is just what BTP needs to get right!" The pragmatist asks if the cashflow woes are due to an acute incident (fire, theft, lawsuit) or due to a chronic condition (poor management, employee fraud, or a flawed business model.)

Count me among the latter. I have no ill will for the company, but even if they sold a product I wanted, I'd be leery about doing business with them.

If BT had set their goal at $20K, they would have been successful!

Hard to believe, but they were undone by 40K...

Hey, the main reason I follow a good quarter of the threads that I do is for the shaudenfr... schaud... DAMN GERMANS! I bet their laughing at my anguish in trying to spell their fancy words right now!

 Alpharius wrote:
If BT had set their goal at $20K, they would have been successful!

Hard to believe, but they were undone by 40K...

/rimshot

 Alpharius wrote:
If BT had set their goal at $20K, they would have been successful!

Hard to believe, but they were undone by 40K...

Exalted. Your puns are top notch sir.

Another $1k removed. It's almost like the people pledging are actually researching what their money is going to get them and steering well clear.

fleetofclaw wrote:The endless moaning about the BTP kickstarter is so tiring. Complaining about something they don't have to give 1 red cent to? The Kickstarter is pretty well defined. Want a painted army? Donate X dollars. Simple. No different than the billions of products that people waste tons of money on every day on Kickstarter that end up as vapor. At least with BTP I would have pretty high confidence of return on the investment. Whether you love or hate their painting techniques is a whole other topic.

What is complicated about needing a hefty amount of capital to have a huge inventory of (insert any product or service here) pre-painted armies people can purchase? Who cares what we think about their estimate of how many armies are unpainted out there, or what the market is for this? They're the ones taking the risk, they get to find out whether this is viable or not. And to be honest they've got a billion times better idea than we do since, love him or hate him, Shawn has made a pretty legit business in an industry that is mostly comprised of 1 or 2 dudes in their garage making $8/hr or less painting minis. If someone had asked me if it was possible to employee 20-something people in a miniature painting business I would have laughed in their face. Well it seems they've made it happen, so I'll tend to believe them over some anonymous wargamer's armchair market analysis or invented idea over what types of services deserve funding..

At the end of the day I will not donate or ever use BTP's services (or any commission painter's services) because I paint my own armies, so I do not have a dog in the race. I just can't wait for the moaning to end.

One word. " "

Alpharius wrote:If BT had set their goal at $20K, they would have been successful!

Hard to believe, but they were undone by 40K...

This made me laugh,

For me, its a toss-up between the comment about the graph beginning to look like a blue table and the 20K/40K remark.

See, this thread is serving a good purpose after all.

We get to see how clever our fellow gamers are.

Thanks for the laughs, guys.

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3rtshm/

I'm just gonna put this here.

 Alpharius wrote:
If BT had set their goal at $20K, they would have been successful!

Hard to believe, but they were undone by 40K...

I thought it was a fairly strange Kickstarter--and the paying for past orders with current cash certainly rings a lot of bells. Still, they must have a strong following---given that there's that much money being thrown at it.

 TrojanArt Painting wrote:

For me, its a toss-up between the comment about the graph beginning to look like a blue table and the 20K/40K remark.

The 'graph actually looking like a Blue Table' made me LOL - it gets my vote!

Or this shows what the market will bear out for their service for this. Personally, I can't believe they charge money but that's me.

The haemorrhaging continues... down a whopping $2.6k today. A 10k drop tomorrow would see it even further table-shaped.

It will be interesting to see if BTP pretends this never happened or acknowledges the failure and seeks community feedback.

Whether or not you thought this was a good idea, I do find certain of the posters here and elsewhere to be akin to the tricoteuse of the French Revolution.

The failure of others and their subsequent misery has the finest of tastes.

We hunger.