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Yep, they're pretty speedy with the refunds!

I was very surprised with how much I got back, but it shows just how little the Kickstarter has actually fulfilled at this point (And that I probably sunk way too much money in it in the first place).

Still waiting on my refund but I think it's a Paypal issue it was processed last Monday and it's gone from my Backerkit projects list. Got most of the money back as said I was surprised how much was (or should be) refunded even after fees.

Good to hear it was a painless experience for you, Sasori.

They're determined to spend it all, the way they and some in the community keep referring to it as a 12 million dollar game, and I've no doubt the annual BackerKit reopening tops up the funds rather nicely (perhaps less so these past two years, mind). The storefront seems to continue doing well, which I vaguely recall being brought up a while back to allay concerns about finances.

 Sasori wrote:
I think folks have to start wondering how long the money he got via kickstarter can really be stretched out

That money is long gone. The GenCon after, Poots said that the KS funds didn't even last a year and rolling releases were keeping things going. Whether gone means completely gone, or just budgeted for stuff like the remaining 50% of payment on delivery-not sure, but $12m goes pretty quick these days.

There is roughly ZERO chance of KD being bankrupt.

Adam has just kept his same team running at the same pace, based on his annual Shop revenues are. Unfortunately, having several times the amount of work to do, and increasing it even further with extra rules content for lateness makes a late project even later. It's very cost-conscious, based on him nearly going bankrupt during the 1st KS.

Adam never really scaled up like he should have after the 2nd KS, when he should have brought on an Ops guy and an 2nd dev team. The lack of an Ops guy to rationalize products and delivery, to rein him in a bit for timeliness vs "perfection" vs scope creep is what's absolutely killed delivery. The lack of a 2nd dev team focused on future product ("Wave 4"), and a 3rd team focused on new product concepts (eg. "Death High" boardgame, "KD: Starter") is why there's no new product coming out the door.

But the idea that he's bankrupt is completely ludicrous. The 2nd KS reprinted the Core and original Expansions for several Million pure profit. The most recent Core reprint injected another few $ Million profit. Adam very likely has a cash balance of at least ten Million and can literally afford to drag this out for the next decade if he wants to. There is no other small developer with the sort of deep cash position that he has, and as long as he doesn't do something stupid, he'll continue to be deeply-funded for the next several years. He is so well-funded that he has absolutely ZERO revenue pressure.

The total lack of revenue pressure is the big difference with the 1st KS, where he absolutely needed to deliver the Core and Expansions to recover his investments and generate future revenue.

wait, whats that - Adam has 10 million in the bank off of board game sales? Sounds a lot like the game is driving sales to me.

It's for the miniatures in the boxes.

Maybe he should not have been so well funded... The need of money would pressure the project to actually be delivered and move on.

Anecdotally, I bought the game the other week because I wanted the models, however having played the base game for a bit I am thoroughly enjoying it.

I just wish it was easier to get hold of new copies of the base game & expansions...

Yeah, the game's OK, but that's not the main draw. Adam did an experiment at GenCon where he offered the Core Game at a lower price without miniatures, and there were basically no takers. The miniatures drive the price of the content.

This is why I say Adam's gamplay priorities are wrong. Kingdom Death miniatures are priced comparably to Games Workshop, but they include gameplay that is expensive and slow to develop. People would pay just as much for the same expansions if the gameplay elements were cut to the absolute bare minimum, as evidenced by GW being able to charge more for models without any gameplay whatsoever. OTOH, there's basically no market for selling the expansions as pure gameplay without miniatures included.

The GenCon experiment was flawed as he only offered them to people who were already queueing up to buy the game at the regular price.
You can see from the sales of Pinups of Death vs. the other stuff in the pledge manager that the gameplay content is vastly more popular. And PoD delivered recently so those that purely want minis are getting their content. All the current complaining is from those that just went in for the gameplay stuff.

deano2099 wrote:
The GenCon experiment was flawed as he only offered them to people who were already queueing up to buy the game at the regular price.
You can see from the sales of Pinups of Death vs. the other stuff in the pledge manager that the gameplay content is vastly more popular. And PoD delivered recently so those that purely want minis are getting their content. All the current complaining is from those that just went in for the gameplay stuff.

I’m not sure that’s a great comparison either, it might just be that the pin up models aren’t as popular either. I don’t know which is more popular, and I don’t think you’d really know unless they offered the exact same models with and without the gameplay stuff at the same time. The models were by far more a draw for me than the game, but I’m not a fan of the Pin Up models for the most part.

 aku-chan wrote:
Yep, they're pretty speedy with the refunds!

I was very surprised with how much I got back, but it shows just how little the Kickstarter has actually fulfilled at this point (And that I probably sunk way too much money in it in the first place).

Their refunding policy is just another example of how bad they run their business. I emailed support@kingdomdeath.com, no response. Did it via backerkit, actually got a pretty quick response. All of a sudden they are offering me a refund of $1008, even though I only backed for $815 AND I already received half my stuff . I told them again, that I only backed the $815, so they took that as the refund number minus 10% fee stuff, and ask ME to confirm if that is correct . At this point I just agreed just to be done with it. Not complaining that they gave me more than they should have, at that point after having pointed it out twice it's on them..

MoD_Legion wrote:

 aku-chan wrote:
Yep, they're pretty speedy with the refunds!

I was very surprised with how much I got back, but it shows just how little the Kickstarter has actually fulfilled at this point (And that I probably sunk way too much money in it in the first place).

Their refunding policy is just another example of how bad they run their business. I emailed support@kingdomdeath.com, no response. Did it via backerkit, actually got a pretty quick response. All of a sudden they are offering me a refund of $1008, even though I only backed for $815 AND I already received half my stuff . I told them again, that I only backed the $815, so they took that as the refund number minus 10% fee stuff, and ask ME to confirm if that is correct . At this point I just agreed just to be done with it. Not complaining that they gave me more than they should have, at that point after having pointed it out twice it's on them..

I never even thought about it, I just assumed they'd know how much to refund me.
Giving it a quick look now, I don't think they've charged me for anything I've been sent.

Guess I'd better set the money aside for a while, see if they realise they've made a mistake.

 ImAGeek wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
The GenCon experiment was flawed as he only offered them to people who were already queueing up to buy the game at the regular price.
You can see from the sales of Pinups of Death vs. the other stuff in the pledge manager that the gameplay content is vastly more popular. And PoD delivered recently so those that purely want minis are getting their content. All the current complaining is from those that just went in for the gameplay stuff.

I’m not sure that’s a great comparison either, it might just be that the pin up models aren’t as popular either. I don’t know which is more popular, and I don’t think you’d really know unless they offered the exact same models with and without the gameplay stuff at the same time. The models were by far more a draw for me than the game, but I’m not a fan of the Pin Up models for the most part.

Maybe - the other comparison is the models they are continuing to make and sell for various events. On the one hand, they sell out straight away. On the other hand, they don't make enough to even stock any of the international stores with them.

Or KDM is the 50th most popular board game on BGG. To put that into perspective, Silver Tower is 1920, Blackstone Fortress is 1399, Underworlds is 754. (AoS itself is 4011 thought that's not a fair comparison). Zombicide is 203.Cthullu Wars 275.

The only miniature-focused games that beat it are Nemesis (at 17) and Blood Rage (36). You could argue for Eclipse and Mansions of Madness I guess. I was trying to look for the next highest rated game that had minis on sprues but got bored at 300. It's probably Shadows of Brimstone (419).

The game is very popular. When the biggest board game site in the world ranks you as the 50th best board game ever, ignoring that aspect of the market would be unwise!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Yeah, the game's OK, but that's not the main draw. Adam did an experiment at GenCon where he offered the Core Game at a lower price without miniatures, and there were basically no takers. The miniatures drive the price of the content.

This is why I say Adam's gamplay priorities are wrong. Kingdom Death miniatures are priced comparably to Games Workshop, but they include gameplay that is expensive and slow to develop. People would pay just as much for the same expansions if the gameplay elements were cut to the absolute bare minimum, as evidenced by GW being able to charge more for models without any gameplay whatsoever. OTOH, there's basically no market for selling the expansions as pure gameplay without miniatures included.

Adam has also experimented with selling "preview" miniatures without the forthcoming gameplay content, and the sales on those werent particularly great either, with some being available weeks after they were posted on sale.

deano2099 wrote:
You can see from the sales of Pinups of Death vs. the other stuff in the pledge manager that the gameplay content is vastly more popular.

No, the new fancy monsters are vastly more popular than ordinary humans that people have plenty of via Armor Kits, Echoes of Death and so forth. There are multiple Dragon-type Monsters (eg. Ivory Dragon, Gryphon), and they are, by far, the most popular (ie. profitable) Fantasy thing to sell.

deano2099 wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
The GenCon experiment was flawed as he only offered them to people who were already queueing up to buy the game at the regular price.
You can see from the sales of Pinups of Death vs. the other stuff in the pledge manager that the gameplay content is vastly more popular. And PoD delivered recently so those that purely want minis are getting their content. All the current complaining is from those that just went in for the gameplay stuff.

I’m not sure that’s a great comparison either, it might just be that the pin up models aren’t as popular either. I don’t know which is more popular, and I don’t think you’d really know unless they offered the exact same models with and without the gameplay stuff at the same time. The models were by far more a draw for me than the game, but I’m not a fan of the Pin Up models for the most part.

Maybe - the other comparison is the models they are continuing to make and sell for various events. On the one hand, they sell out straight away. On the other hand, they don't make enough to even stock any of the international stores with them.

Or KDM is the 50th most popular board game on BGG. To put that into perspective, Silver Tower is 1920, Blackstone Fortress is 1399, Underworlds is 754. (AoS itself is 4011 thought that's not a fair comparison). Zombicide is 203.Cthullu Wars 275.

The only miniature-focused games that beat it are Nemesis (at 17) and Blood Rage (36). You could argue for Eclipse and Mansions of Madness I guess. I was trying to look for the next highest rated game that had minis on sprues but got bored at 300. It's probably Shadows of Brimstone (419).

The game is very popular. When the biggest board game site in the world ranks you as the 50th best board game ever, ignoring that aspect of the market would be unwise!

Time-out: Is it 50th best or 50th most popular? Because you're using them interchangeably and they mean very different things...

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

deano2099 wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
The GenCon experiment was flawed as he only offered them to people who were already queueing up to buy the game at the regular price.
You can see from the sales of Pinups of Death vs. the other stuff in the pledge manager that the gameplay content is vastly more popular. And PoD delivered recently so those that purely want minis are getting their content. All the current complaining is from those that just went in for the gameplay stuff.

I’m not sure that’s a great comparison either, it might just be that the pin up models aren’t as popular either. I don’t know which is more popular, and I don’t think you’d really know unless they offered the exact same models with and without the gameplay stuff at the same time. The models were by far more a draw for me than the game, but I’m not a fan of the Pin Up models for the most part.

Maybe - the other comparison is the models they are continuing to make and sell for various events. On the one hand, they sell out straight away. On the other hand, they don't make enough to even stock any of the international stores with them.

Or KDM is the 50th most popular board game on BGG. To put that into perspective, Silver Tower is 1920, Blackstone Fortress is 1399, Underworlds is 754. (AoS itself is 4011 thought that's not a fair comparison). Zombicide is 203.Cthullu Wars 275.

The only miniature-focused games that beat it are Nemesis (at 17) and Blood Rage (36). You could argue for Eclipse and Mansions of Madness I guess. I was trying to look for the next highest rated game that had minis on sprues but got bored at 300. It's probably Shadows of Brimstone (419).

The game is very popular. When the biggest board game site in the world ranks you as the 50th best board game ever, ignoring that aspect of the market would be unwise!

Time-out: Is it 50th best or 50th most popular? Because you're using them interchangeably and they mean very different things...

50th best according to boardgame geek. https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame

So it's rated highly, doesn't mean it's actually that popular.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

deano2099 wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
The GenCon experiment was flawed as he only offered them to people who were already queueing up to buy the game at the regular price.
You can see from the sales of Pinups of Death vs. the other stuff in the pledge manager that the gameplay content is vastly more popular. And PoD delivered recently so those that purely want minis are getting their content. All the current complaining is from those that just went in for the gameplay stuff.

I’m not sure that’s a great comparison either, it might just be that the pin up models aren’t as popular either. I don’t know which is more popular, and I don’t think you’d really know unless they offered the exact same models with and without the gameplay stuff at the same time. The models were by far more a draw for me than the game, but I’m not a fan of the Pin Up models for the most part.

Maybe - the other comparison is the models they are continuing to make and sell for various events. On the one hand, they sell out straight away. On the other hand, they don't make enough to even stock any of the international stores with them.

Or KDM is the 50th most popular board game on BGG. To put that into perspective, Silver Tower is 1920, Blackstone Fortress is 1399, Underworlds is 754. (AoS itself is 4011 thought that's not a fair comparison). Zombicide is 203.Cthullu Wars 275.

The only miniature-focused games that beat it are Nemesis (at 17) and Blood Rage (36). You could argue for Eclipse and Mansions of Madness I guess. I was trying to look for the next highest rated game that had minis on sprues but got bored at 300. It's probably Shadows of Brimstone (419).

The game is very popular. When the biggest board game site in the world ranks you as the 50th best board game ever, ignoring that aspect of the market would be unwise!

Time-out: Is it 50th best or 50th most popular? Because you're using them interchangeably and they mean very different things...

Best. Which then creates popularity.

Being good doesn't necessarily make something popular. When was the last time a Best Picture winner grossed a billion dollars?

Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good - see: Twilight.

Hence why I asked for the distinction.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
Being good doesn't necessarily make something popular. When was the last time a Best Picture winner grossed a billion dollars?

Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good - see: Twilight.

Hence why I asked for the distinction.

Yeah, for sure. There are many, many games below that ranking that are much more popular than KD for instance.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
You can see from the sales of Pinups of Death vs. the other stuff in the pledge manager that the gameplay content is vastly more popular.

No, the new fancy monsters are vastly more popular than ordinary humans that people have plenty of via Armor Kits, Echoes of Death and so forth. There are multiple Dragon-type Monsters (eg. Ivory Dragon, Gryphon), and they are, by far, the most popular (ie. profitable) Fantasy thing to sell.

That comparison isn't at all accurate. The biggest monsters are tied to the most game content, compared to "armor kits" (which btw undermines your case, they're not talked about like they're popular, not priced like they're popular, and have no gaming content) or echoes of death (low gaming content, still more popular than the armor kits). Yes, obviously people like their epic models. But the question is, would these models be things that the average consumer of the line cares about, without the game content? There's resin models which represent a limited specialty item (low print volume) and much higher price point, and that speaks to yes the existence of a collector's market, but the plastic-only version of kits which are occasionally released get far less attention than new expansions; these never evaporate off the digital shelves like things with gaming content, and I would say reflect an "average" customer interest inlarge models rather than those superfans who need the most detailed and limited edition, faithfully resin-cast monster genitals without game content for $200. The aftermarket is pretty nuts regardless (high prices for models only, content only, etc), and I was going to say it's a wash, but no, it isn't: the question isn't, do customers like models or content more (which would be hard to tell from that), but do customers predominantly like only the models, and no, the aftermarket doesn't support the models-only hypothesis either: last I noticed, there hasn't been a high volume of rules broken off from their content to be sold and left to languish on ebay or wherever; rather, new fans are always talking about which is the best expansion to get, which suggests an interest in mechanics rather than visual taste (why start internet threads about which model you should like the look of best? considering answers to such threads, I would say that people assume likewise that it's a mechanical question). Related: there's apparently a high enough demand for a digital version of the game. No, we probably will never know sales numbers, but again we have demand to work with, and that isn't counting the people who play illegal versions of the game online.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
Being good doesn't necessarily make something popular.

Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good - see: Twilight.

On Yelp, McDonalds is both popular *and* "good".

Just because something is rated highly doesn't mean that the rating is meaningful.

 DaveC wrote:
After much thought I’ve decided to ask for a refund of the balance of the pledge and unreceived add ons (over $200 there alone!) The game has been unplayed for quite some time and I have little interest in it anymore plus it will probably cost me over €200 in future shipping and VAT so better to take whats left now.

I've been pondering doing this. I bought into the game in 2015 and my last pledge was delivered over 4 years ago. I may even sell off what I have as I've never touched it and can't find anyone to play the game with. The stuff I ordered from Wave 4 is likely still YEARS away and I honestly would rather have that money for the New Eldar and Tyranid releases. How did you go about asking for the Refund?

It's really weird, whenever I try to sell the game to people to play with me, I always get "Yeah, that game looks amazing. But, I'm not interested in playing it. Thanks."

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
You can see from the sales of Pinups of Death vs. the other stuff in the pledge manager that the gameplay content is vastly more popular.

No, the new fancy monsters are vastly more popular than ordinary humans that people have plenty of via Armor Kits, Echoes of Death and so forth. There are multiple Dragon-type Monsters (eg. Ivory Dragon, Gryphon), and they are, by far, the most popular (ie. profitable) Fantasy thing to sell.

Ah yes, this is why Age of Sigmar is mostly dragons. Every week there's a new dragon Lieutenant coming out.

I'm sure Silver Tower has outsold Kingdom Death. The minis in that were also very popular at the time. And yet that game is rated far lower. People on BGG aren't rating it high because of the fancy minis clearly. The game itself is very popular for being a pretty unique style of game.
And these days board games are a bigger market than minis.

 Togusa wrote:

 DaveC wrote:
After much thought I’ve decided to ask for a refund of the balance of the pledge and unreceived add ons (over $200 there alone!) The game has been unplayed for quite some time and I have little interest in it anymore plus it will probably cost me over €200 in future shipping and VAT so better to take whats left now.

I've been pondering doing this. I bought into the game in 2015 and my last pledge was delivered over 4 years ago. I may even sell off what I have as I've never touched it and can't find anyone to play the game with. The stuff I ordered from Wave 4 is likely still YEARS away and I honestly would rather have that money for the New Eldar and Tyranid releases. How did you go about asking for the Refund?

It's really weird, whenever I try to sell the game to people to play with me, I always get "Yeah, that game looks amazing. But, I'm not interested in playing it. Thanks."

Email support@kingdomdeath.com and request a refund. They refund to PayPal so give them your details for that.

Mine came through yesterday after following it up again. Used it to pay off my Marvel Zombies and Rampart KS and still have a nice chunk left for some future KS or 2. 1 KS becomes 4 or 5.

 DaveC wrote:

Email support@kingdomdeath.com and request a refund. They refund to PayPal so give them your details for that.

Mine came through yesterday after following it up again. Used it to pay off my Marvel Zombies and Rampart KS and still have a nice chunk left for some future KS or 2. 1 KS becomes 4 or 5.

I actually got no response directly emailing that address. If you go to backerkit there's an option the 'refund my original pledge' and they'll forward the message to KD. I got a very fast response through that.

I mean, if the point of a game is for people to play it, then it being popular does mean it's good.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
I mean, if the point of a game is for people to play it, then it being popular does mean it's good.

No, I think you're not understanding. Subjective responses that don't support your view are meaningless even when the issue is subjective responses. It's just their opinion, man.