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As I've often mentioned, without knowing the break points where economy of scale savings might have been, and without knowing where what funds were allocated, it's impossible to say what was and wasn't efficient. As a (not apples to apples) example, a friend of mine got calendars printed off for her business. The difference between getting 300 and getting 1000 was like $3.

I entirely recognize it's possible they over committed on wave 1 retail stock, but that doesn't implicitly mean they blew a ton of cash doing it (or necessarily that it was KS funds spent, but with the fungible nature of cash, that's more of an academic point).

Again, I certainly don't know how that all shook out, and I think we can agree I'm not one to give benefit of the doubt here, simply pointing out it's not flat out something I'm getting riled up over at the moment.

The box size is a funny thing. In skimming some of the older updates, I found a hilarious exchange where people were concerned the box would be too small for all the contents. There was also conjecture that the idea was to have boxes big enough for both the core contents and the battle cry extras bag, though that always struck me as a strange idea, given that it'd mean tweaking however many thousand retail boxes to be too big based on shipping out the KS backer stuff.

That all said, at this point it wouldn't shock me if there was a Black Friday sale in the half off range, something hefty to convert as many of those left over core boxes to cash, even at a slim profit margin in the wholesale'ish range.

If cash is truly a consideration, and wave 2 delays are hurting general sales (it's not super common, but waiting for X particular figure to become available has been mentioned by a number of people), then having "$200,000 in cores" at their MSRP price doesn't mean anything if they're only selling a few per week or month. Until they find a factory that will take payment in boxes, if they need cash, then that stuff needs to convert back into a liquid asset.

While I agree with the rest, Mike, I disagree about the retail part. IF they bought extra retail boxes with kickstarter funds instead of using their own cash reserves, that was the wrong move and absolutely NOT what those funds were supposed to be used for. Until RickFury unleashed his legal tsunami, we won't know if that is what they actually did. Judging from previous Palladium poorly planned but well meaning (for them) moves like advertising for gencon and wave 1, they likely did it with the unrealistic expectation that they'd quickly recoup those funds and more through retail from the ravenous fans they'd been gaking on for the year prior and the year since. It doesn't seem to have turned out that way and now they're just treading water at best (no progress to show for 8 months? wtf?) or just drifting further out to sea (because of steadily INCREASING costs in china).

The "problem" is did PB sufficiently differentiate KS fund spending from their own finances.

KS funds could be legitimately spent on the production run and production start-up costs that entails for all the backer product needed.

THEN they could piggy-back with further orders for what they wanted for retail from their own finances.

I think they have always been so cash strapped that they needed/wanted to dip into KS funds because they had no money of their own.

Well yeah, the smart thing to do would be to have that giant wad of KS money tucked in its own account and only drawn from *strictly* for KS related expenses (advertising, molds, materials, paying for renders/artwork, etc).

... so of course I'll assume that wasn't the case here.

But even if it was, the writing does seem to be on the wall that *something* is up.

It does not take 3.5 fething months to get a status update on 3 dozen'ish items. If this info isn't common knowledge or easily accessible, their failure goes so deep it hit the bottom of the proverbial barrel and then found a shovel to keep going.

If that is the case than when (not if) they are forced by an Attorney to refund backers they and Kevin personally are in deep, deep trouble. That decision would almost certainly be ruled as deliberately reckless, leading to piercing the corporate veil as far as liability is concerned.

The benefit that PB should have been seeing from the KS is that they should have factored in the costs of the moulds into what was produced FOR the KS. AFTER the KS, any sets they sold would have been more expensive retail than the KS rewards, but there would have been no money taken out for the mould costs - increasing PB's profit as at that time the moulds could have been considered 'free' as they had been paid for during the KS

IF this had been planned from the start - correctly constructed for a tabletop game, not miniature models paralleling the designs of much larger kits, expenses worked out, boxes of the correct size for what went in them - then PB could have considered future sales of RRT as 'gravy'.

Unfortunately the colour may be the same, but the wiff is decidedly malodourous.

 Forar wrote:
Well yeah, the smart thing to do would be to have that giant wad of KS money tucked in its own account and only drawn from *strictly* for KS related expenses (advertising, molds, materials, paying for renders/artwork, etc).

... so of course I'll assume that wasn't the case here.

But even if it was, the writing does seem to be on the wall that *something* is up.

It does not take 3.5 fething months to get a status update on 3 dozen'ish items. If this info isn't common knowledge or easily accessible, their failure goes so deep it hit the bottom of the proverbial barrel and then found a shovel to keep going.

I wonder what interest rate they got for this great wad of cash? And how long could palladium last on such interest income?
Oh my, I hadn't thought of this before: what kind of taxes do you pay on Kickstarter cash?

I'm pretty sure you have to declare it as income. People have commented on some issues with timing lining up with taxes in other projects I've participated in (receiving it but not spending it as business expenses for breaks or something?), but the government definitely wants to know/take their cut.

Unless they got an absolute sweetheart deal, I can't imagine the interest is anything to write home about, especially after converting so much of it into wave 1.

Even half a mil only goes so far month to month. (this naively assumes they even still have over 1/3 of the funding/PM cash).

If they're short and need to fluff up the rest through sales or a standard loan, the longer it takes the rougher it'll be. Unless their interest is matching or exceeding inflation and heightened costs for shipping/production (or they find a way to eke out a cut from them), they're just going to fall further and further behind.

Shipping is more expensive now than it was in 2014 than it was in 2013.

2016/2017 probably won't be any better, for example.

I'm not a trained business/finance guy, but I can't imagine just sitting on the money (whatever may be left) is beneficial, especially compared to whatever sales they presumably hoped to make, and would; whatever 'hating' we may do, clearly it's not seeing literally zero sales; weak perhaps, flagging, lower than expected maybe, but there are people buying stuff now and then (yes yes yes, I know, a single core has been sitting in local store X for a year, I'm talking about overall, including their sales and CSI and whatnot).

Under the assumption that 'OMG GRAAAAAB BAAAAAG!' time is probably their biggest influx of cash of the year, converting a pile of random stuff into cash again (especially old stock that isn't selling directly), if they don't jump on things in the next few months, I'm guessing the long haul will really begin to drag.

Heh. Q1 as the target for delivery, allegedly, but let's be real, we'll be lucky if they manage to get production rolling by then (Chinese New Year included).

But don't worry guys! There are 284 days until Gencon 2016, where The Hype and The Buzz are found! There's no way they'd miss THAT!? :-P

They did wave one in way less, surely 9.5 months is enough time to trim a few pieces and get production going! >.>

I think the guessing game now is just when they will admit that it just isn't happening. Or when they'll stop mentioning it.

But, hell, I guess pasting in "And we're working on it sooooo hard" is free. So, why ever stop and admit it?

@Forar:

First, remember that they've got a limited first come first served amount of grab bag robotech starters so you have to act fast. Don't wait till they're gone! Or the end of the grab bag season! Or when they inevitably extend it later! If you order in the next 15 minutes, Kevin will personally spit in your general direction and curse your name you ungrateful sod! This authentic backer experience is provided FREE if you act fast! This of course limits palladium's profits for the limited time only grab bag but they're willing to do that to keep the valued backer experience special... Until they offer it again in 6 months at least...

I mean, the obvious subtext to them only having 'a few RRT core boxes available' is, in my eyes, 'limited to the number we have in the warehouse'.

If some madman wants to pay $42 + a giant load of shipping for a core box, I can't imagine they'll balk. Better $42 and more free space than $0 and boxes sitting in the warehouse not going anywhere.

While this is pretty much always true, I think there may be a time sensitive factor here; the demand doesn't exactly seem to be growing, so a dozen pallets of cores now is probably going to be worth less next year, or the year after.

I wonder if they could even sell old stock if the license got pulled? Which is to say that they might have a double-vested interest in selling these off; recoup funds in any way they can, AND try to provide some evidence that there's demand for their products at all.

But yeah, 'get them before the sale ends' is hilarious. Don't play coy with us, that gak will get at least a couple of weeks added, and with the Christmas In July aspect, it's like a Steam Sale; oh noes, I missed out, whatever will I... oh it's for sale again. Never mind.

 Talizvar wrote:
The "problem" is did PB sufficiently differentiate KS fund spending from their own finances..

For example, did PB commingle RRT funds with RIFTS funds to produce NG?

If so, then they are liable.

Worse, if us law is similar to uk, it would make the shareholders of the firm personally liable.
If I were in a position of authority at PB I would be gaking a brick right now.

 Mike1975 wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:
Nowhere in the campaign did it mention funding the creation of the game AND allowing them to produce a surplus for retail.
The whole focus was on individual goal levels, with each step being funded, to produce rewards FOR backers.
Palladium can cry about it all they want, but it's all there word for word with pictures.

I think it is a given that many KS's want to sell retail and make $ at the end of the day and must make extra product to do just that. The problem is not that PB bought extra stuff to sell, that was the right move. The problem was that they did not use or practice any management or oversight of the project once ND handed it over. The extra space alone in the boxes probably cost enough in shipping extra containers that they could have been much closer to actually having molds done and ready on wave 2. The problem is not that they bought extra stuff, it is that nothing was planned, organized, or watched over from day one after the KS ended. Too many poor assumptions were made that led to even poorer actions primarily due what appears to be a careless attitude on something that is apparently more important to fans than the license holders themselves.

I completely agree, was speaking more about the worrying response from Kevin to the guys that reported KS to their AGs, about the retail value of their rewards.

As Forar pointed out in the KS Comments, the latest PBWU is up. And there's actually some Wave 2 news!

You can get the Wave 2 paper standees on DriveThru this weekend, maybe. No mention on if the Wave 2 stat cards will be up, which would kind of miss the point of having Wave 2 standees, but doing something halfassed *IS* the Palladium way. Unless they're only doing the MPA/FPA/SValks.

Cause surprise surprise, the "Only available to backers and at conventions" restriction for Consclusives? Yeah, they've removed that again, for the second time in 30 days (September 25th-28th). You have to request them in a Christmas Grab Bag, and they're in "limited quantities". Yeah, limited by the stock they want to get rid of. Look, I don't like the idea of exclusives (especially if they've got an in-game exclusivity, which thankfully these don't). But if you're going to have them, don't go offering them to the general public for a "limited run" of four days, then have them available for at least an entire month. And let's not kid ourselves, anyone who thinks the Grab Bag deadline isn't going to be extended at least once, hasn't been paying attention.

Aaaaaaand that's it, beyond the usual "Working hard on it" vagueness we've come to know and loathe from Palladium. Of course, it looks like Backers will only know about any of it from word of mouth, because they don't appear to be even trying to follow through on "And we’ll try to do more Kickstarter updates.". Since the start of the year, they've done at least two Updates a month (excluding April). Since they first said "And we’ll try to do more Kickstarter updates.", on August 27th, they've done one on September 5th mentioning the first set of stat cards, and one on October 7th, errata-ing the Blast Rule. And that's it. Keep up the good work, fellas!

I may have pushed myself burning the midnight oil too much, because I’m sick as a dog as I write this (Friday afternoon). Though I’m feeling a bit better than last night and this morning, I can tell I’m foggy and struggling some to put words together, so this Update will be on the short side.

Speaking of items, I forgot to include the Rifts®, Palladium Fantasy® and Dead Reign® mouse pads as being available for request as well as this year’s Robotech® RPG Tactics™ convention exclusives. Please remember, just because you include items on your Wish List doesn’t mean you’ll get them. Items such as the RRT exclusives are limited and only people who request them will even be considered.

* Rifts® Glitter Boy Mouse Pad (full color cover). Actually, all three of the mouse pads – Rifts®, Dead Reign® and Palladium Fantasy® – may be requested in the Grab Gags. Each has a value of $9.95 retail.

* Robotech® RPG Tactics™ 2015 Convention Exclusives – Grell – Breetai – Miriya’s Super Valkyrie in Guardian mode – all are very cool and look great. Only eight pieces or less to put together. These items have limited availability. Only people who request this item will be considered.

UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™

The second batch of Robotech® RPG Tactics™ paper game pieces for Macross should be posted this weekend, for free, on DriveThruRPG.com. That’s Wave One and Two figures.

MORE is coming as we continue to work on other areas of support and getting Wave Two into manufacturing.

FREE Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Force Organization Charts, stat cards, rules and special items – coming soon!

Closing thoughts

I feel like there’s more to talk about, but that’s about all I can muster right now. It took me two hours to write this, so I know it’s time to head home and finish fighting off this bug. I’m delighted so many of you are enjoying the Palladium Christmas Surprise Packages. Take care and game on.

Morgan, I hope you're happy. Wave 2 is finally out and, per your request, they made it instead in paper! What remains to be seen is if my suggestion of mash potatoes and gravy minis will also be considered next.

I think the main purpose of "kickstarter exclusives" is to be able to flog them on the KS update page and be conforming to the KS site rules. If they open them up for all later, no harm no foul right?
They are just staying classy as always.

just thought I'd give you guys some food for thought on where the FTC stands, very interesting reading.

even a few sections in there that would comply with KickStarters me thinks. :

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/business-guide-ftcs-mail-internet-or-telephone-order

Asterios wrote:
just thought I'd give you guys some food for thought on where the FTC stands, very interesting reading.

even a few sections in there that would comply with KickStarters me thinks. :

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/business-guide-ftcs-mail-internet-or-telephone-order

Rick, what does your friend that you've told us so many times will represent you for free in the lawsuit (until Palladium of course reimburses him his fees when they lose) say? What is the ETA of your lawsuit? Is it still by the end of the year like you've threatened for over a year (although you've been backing off of that now that the timeframe is actually coming close)? Or are you rolling the date stealthily back again Kevin Siembieda style and hoping no one will notice? I haven't followed the KS comments since the scale debate so I don't know what your current rhetoric about that is. I really hope something comes of your hundreds of lawsuit threats as that would be a whole lot of wasted time spitting into the wind otherwise.

 warboss wrote:

Asterios wrote:
just thought I'd give you guys some food for thought on where the FTC stands, very interesting reading.

even a few sections in there that would comply with KickStarters me thinks. :

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/business-guide-ftcs-mail-internet-or-telephone-order

Rick, what does your friend that you've told us so many times will represent you for free in the lawsuit (until Palladium of course reimburses him his fees when they lose) say? What is the ETA of your lawsuit? Is it still by the end of the year like you've threatened for over a year (although you've been backing off of that now that the timeframe is actually coming close)? Or are you rolling the date stealthily back again Kevin Siembieda style and hoping no one will notice? I haven't followed the KS comments since the scale debate so I don't know what your current rhetoric about that is. I really hope something comes of your hundreds of lawsuit threats as that would be a whole lot of wasted time spitting into the wind otherwise.

actually my date has not changed and it is still the same, you would like to think it has changed but it has not.

For those of us unsure of just what that's all about, what is your date, and what actions will you be taking on it?

 Alpharius wrote:
For those of us unsure of just what that's all about, what is your date, and what actions will you be taking on it?

in Dec. my attorney will be doing the paper work, it might not get filed till January at latest but thats the courts for you.

now this is all dependent on PB not refunding me my pledge, or showing actual Physical evidence of work being done (sorry but 3D images do not count).

It is hard to believe that PB won't just send you a refund so you go away.

Was your pledge one of the $3500+ pledge levels?

 Alpharius wrote:

It is hard to believe that PB won't just send you a refund so you go away.

Was your pledge one of the $3500+ pledge levels?

no, my pledge total was a mere $220 for my pledge.

And I sent a request for refund in the amount of $120 for items not delivered in this project to me.

Asterios wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
For those of us unsure of just what that's all about, what is your date, and what actions will you be taking on it?

in Dec. my attorney will be doing the paper work, it might not get filed till January at latest but thats the courts for you.

now this is all dependent on PB not refunding me my pledge, or showing actual Physical evidence of work being done (sorry but 3D images do not count).

Thanks for clarifying. I anxiously await any proof of life for RRPGT.

So all it would take to stop a lawsuit is $120 and PB won't do it?

They must seriously doubt your ability and/or desire to follow through with your threats.

 Alpharius wrote:

It is hard to believe that PB won't just send you a refund so you go away.

Was your pledge one of the $3500+ pledge levels?

It's hard to believe alot of what palladium does yet they rarely fail to disappoint regardless of how low we set the bar.

 Alpharius wrote:
So all it would take to stop a lawsuit is $120 and PB won't do it?

They must seriously doubt your ability and/or desire to follow through with your threats.

not really that, but PB knows if they refund me, they will have others threatening the same and they will have to refund them and not sure how long PB could hold out on that or survive.

PB is in a catch 22, they should have refunded a lot earlier while there was still interest in the game.

Wow if your sending a lawyer after them for $120, I should be sending the FTC, the SEC, Treasury Dept, SCOTUS and FBI.