Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am all for Prodos getting paid in exchange for me getting their excellent sculpts. I'm not going to be co-opted into someone else's boycott. At the same time, I'm also not going to pre-order from a company with a track record of not delivering.

 Manchu wrote:
I am all for Prodos getting paid in exchange for me getting their excellent sculpts. I'm not going to be co-opted into someone else's boycott. At the same time, I'm also not going to pre-order from a company with a track record of not delivering.

I'm all for Prodos getting me their excellent sculpts which I paid for years ago.

 CptJake wrote:
I'm all for Prodos getting me their excellent sculpts which I paid for years ago.

I feel your pain, having been screwed on other KS projects. But the correct lesson to learn from a company fething over their pre-order customers is not to pre-order anything from said company.

 Manchu wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
I'm all for Prodos getting me their excellent sculpts which I paid for years ago.

I feel your pain, having been screwed on other KS projects. But the correct lesson to learn from a company fething over their pre-order customers is not to pre-order anything from said company.

An argument could be made that in a community as small as ours some solidarity among customers to shun bad vendors is another lesson that should be learned in a situation such as this to prevent more bad practices in the future.

Now, I am not making that argument in your case, Manchu, or for anyone else who wish to buy products from companies with shady reputations. I am simply pointing out that the acceptance of poor behavior by vendors in our particular market ensures the continuation of those bad practices. If the community won't shun them what lessons will those companies learn?

That being said everyone has free will and can do with their money as they wish. But it is interesting to me that as a community we tolerate such shoddy practices from the companies who are fighting for our business.

But I guess that is life. You do something well enough and you are forgiven for even the worst offenses. See Michael Jackson, GW, Michael Vick, and I guess Prodos for examples of this.

I initially pledged a good deal of money to the AvP KS. At no point did I really believe that the existence of the figures would hinge on the success of the KS. Prodos had already paid for the license and paid for some sculpts, among other things. Unless the company simply defaulted on its debts in bankruptcy, the figures were going to make it to market.

So the only relevant question for me was - does the risk that Prodos won't deliver outweigh the possible discount? And I just didn't have a good feeling about the KS, especially considering the amount of money I was going to pledge. I bailed.

Prodos has in fact brought the figs to market. And they are excellent. If we want to talk about buying and boycotting in terms of encouragement and punishment then I must be encouraging Prodos to continue to make great figs that I want to buy. I would, however "boycott" a Prodos KS (under any name) as well as any other direct preorder scheme, as for the second edition here.

I suppose I could pretend this amounts to something righteous, such as punishing Prodos for screwing over other people. But all it honestly is, is common sense. I avoided getting screwed on the KS. I'm not about to now make the mistake that I previously avoided.

So here's what me buying AvP figs really means: I am willing to buy high quality sculpts, even from companies that I don't trust to deal with directly, if those sculpts are available through reputable discount retailers. Do I think our little community should tolerate that? Yes, heartily.

I think what you are saying is, I am actually sending Prodos the message that I don't care how they treat customers who do direct business with them. That's probably true. Prodos as a company and through its employees/representatives have proven to me that - at this point at least - only a fool would give them money directly in any kind of pre-order scenario. As someone who bailed on the KS, who didn't get fooled (this time at least) I can't say there were no reasons to suspect as much until X or Y months of delay. I suspected it during the KS, after all.

The other thing is, I don't think Prodos is a scam. It's a real company genuinely pursuing profitable manufacture/sales of quality miniatures. Neither has Prodos disclaimed what it owes to backers still waiting on rewards.

So another project that I did lose out on is RoboTech RPG Tactics. I got to play the game with the rewards that did arrive for that one. If I was playing it more often, I would buy more stuff for it at retail (especially in view of some of the discounts). Yeah I am critical of Palladium for all the delays - what may in fact be permanent delays - and deceit ... but I just don't see this as a morally relevant.

I am also okay with buying products from companies whose owners or management have different political views from me.

 Manchu wrote:
So here's what me buying AvP figs really means: I am willing to buy high quality sculpts if they are available through reputable discount retailers. Do I think our little community should tolerate that? Yes, heartily.

For you it means that. But pulling back a bit, what your actions mean on a grander scale are:

 Manchu wrote:
that I don't care how they treat customers who do direct business with them.

If a company is so untrustworthy that, as you say, only a fool would pre-order with them, then supporting that company through purchasing their products is supporting their awful business practices in their entirety. You are helping to keep the lights on as they scheme to find another way to bilk people out of money.

You say Prodos isn't a scam because they have brought product to market, but they haven't fulfilled obligations to people who helped make those products a reality. How do you morally square that round hole? Weren't those people scammed? I mean, quite literally many of them, if they receive their pledges at all, will be receiving obsolete materials since the game is now moving on to a second edition. That smells scammy to me.

Again, I am not trying to encourage you one way or another on boycotting Prodos so I don't want these posts to be misconstrued. Supporting companies like Prodos is ultimately a personal decision each of us has to make in regards to which businesses we give our patronage to. I am merely commenting on a trend I have noticed is especially strong in our community and your post above was a good example of that. We gamers tend to get screwed over time and again by companies (sometimes the same companies) and yet, when those companies show a new green, or render, or make an announcement about an upcoming release, there is glee and almost immediate "forgiveness" for the transgressions those companies made in the past in the form of people rushing out to buy whatever new hotness is being dangled in front of them.

Anyway, the AVP figures are gorgeous and I wish they were produced by a less questionable company because I'd love to own some.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
If a company is so untrustworthy that, as you say, only a fool would pre-order with them, then supporting that company through purchasing their products is supporting their awful business practices in their entirety. You are helping to keep the lights on as they scheme to find another way to bilk people out of money.

You say Prodos isn't a scam because they have brought product to market, but they haven't fulfilled obligations to people who helped make those products a reality. How do you morally square that round hole? Weren't those people scammed? I mean, quite literally many of them, if they receive their pledges at all, will be receiving obsolete materials since the game is now moving on to a second edition. That smells scammy to me.

It can be looked at from a point a view that doing business that benefits them, helps them keep the lights on. It can also be looked at that benefiting the company eventually means they will 'deliver' product to those that are still outstanding. Keep in mind that if they go under, no one gets anything ever again and there is never any chance for lost product to be 'delivered'.

It really comes down too... "Do you believe it was done with malicious intent?". There is a difference between poor business and management and someone deliberately scheming to just rip people off of money. Although this can be a fine line, we haven't quite gone into the "they just want to rip people off". Otherwise they could have easily done that with a few endeavors and then declared bankruptcy. That doesn't mean there aren't flags, but they aren't quite red flags as opposed as "buyer beware" yellow flags.

There are two big "unknowns" which contribute to this whole experience being "puzzling" for everyone. The main thing is, how many people are truly outstanding and awaiting product. Visiting the Facebook lawsuit page, there are 61 followers and 62 likes so does that mean that only 61-62 people are outstanding out of thousands or does that mean 123+, because that means either 5% is outstanding or it is higher. The other unknown is simply why they just haven't sent product out or emailed those involved to get everything settled... I mean they should have all the outstanding emails. We can make assumptions as to the reasons all night, but even those assumptions don't make any practical sense which makes the whole thing even more puzzling.

I happened to be a lucky person at least with my dealings with them. My Wave One stuff arrived from them directly, not through the US distribution. When they initially announced about Wave Two, stating that if people ordered something they would include the shipments... I scoffed. I wasn't about to give them anymore money towards AvP. After a couple weeks I gave in simply because it made more sense to pay $10 to get my stuff, instead of being stubborn and paying $0 and getting nothing. In between that time I had started getting into Warzone so ordering from them, I have never had any issues with my Warzone items. When I had bad casts, they quickly dispatched replacements. I wasn't about to buy anymore AvP stuff so instead I did order a couple Warzone miniatures that I would have bought retail otherwise. My Wave Two stuff came within a few weeks of that with my Warzone order. I also ordered some Unicast pieces because I wanted to samples of them to determine doing casting with them and that was when I received the rest of the 2.5 items that were missed in my initial Wave Two shipment.

That said... I won't pre-order through them, even though I have protection with my credit cards, it is just a hassle and I hate doing charge backs. If they go to retail, I'd probably buy retail to support the retail store not so much Prodos directly. I really like their Unicast items. I really want to product Unicast items because it is way cheaper than plastic but gives me the same quality if not better... but at this time I won't use them for casting until there is a better track record which may unfortunately be never.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
then supporting that company through purchasing their products is supporting their awful business practices in their entirety

Explicitly not. I don't trust Prodos to deliver a pre-order to me in what I consider to be a reasonable amount of time. So I don't pre-order things from them. This is the part of Prodos's business practices that I object to - this is the part I will not participate in. You seem to frame this issue in terms of guilt/forgiveness - but how am I in a position to forgive Prodos anything since they owe me nothing? For me, this is not a moral issue anyhow. The only questions are cost and risk. Gamers would lose less often if they thought about these things as morally neutral.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
You are helping to keep the lights on as they scheme to find another way to bilk people out of money.

The premise is necessarily that Prodos exists to scam people and the evidence simply doesn't amount to that, if you set anger and righteousness aside.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
they haven't fulfilled obligations to people who helped make those products a reality

Another bad premise. As I explained, the evidence doesn't show Prodos could only bring AvP to market with KS "investment." In this case, as in so many other licensed-based projects, KS was a marketing tool and vehicle for pre-orders. This was a big consideration for me when I weighed the risks of backing the KS.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
obsolete materials

Bogus. KS backers are due first edition product. None of the rewards are obsolete relative to the edition they backed. The appropriate complaint here is that the first edition rules are terrible, not that Prodos has since improved upon them. But frankly, I don't expect much from Prodos rules either way. I just want the minis!

Yeah, I think Prodos has a terrible track record, but it seems like they're more negligent than actually scamming...

"Do you believe it was done with malicious intent?" Yes I do.

I don't even believe they exist after the shell games that they have decided to play. They use other "Companies in name" to fund their gaff and continue to play games such as THIS one.
Negligent, AND scheming.

Hmm, that's a fair point. Shell companies don't speak to honesty, didn't notice/remember that part. Yep. "Scamming" sounds accurate.

@Manchu all fair points, but as a consumer, we have the choice to fund or not and Prodos has not a good track record. Let's just say i will consider this when Space Crusade gets released

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
Hmm, that's a fair point. Shell companies don't speak to honesty, didn't notice/remember that part. Yep. "Scamming" sounds accurate.

Neither does plagiarizing other rules like they initially did with LOAD. Outright lies to backers and to KS also indicate more than just incompetence.

Yeah previously I'd be ready to give them the benefit of the doubt. As was said, incompetence and bad planning are much much more common than malice, so w/e its just toys. But that LOAD KS, swearing up and down that they were under strict NDA not to reveal the KS creator until AFTER the project funded.. . Such BS. Saying that they'd get into legal trouble if the creator were revealed, i.e. people should back off from probing who the creator was. . . They set out from the start to lie and conceal, it wasn't by accident, they planned it out.

In the end its a personal choice. Personally there's no way i can support a company like this.

"Do you believe it was done with malicious intent?"

Some of it, yes. Clearly.

Keep in mind this wasn't a single situation or incident. Sometimes they lied with no malice, but in some situations they were clearly trying to screw KS backers.

Simple example:

You can't keep repeating no store will get any product until all backers get theirs and then do exactly that.
I understand they had to deliver to stores, contractually. I do. But they never said that.
They could've come out - honestly - and say "We have a set date to deliver to stores. We have to keep that date. We'll do our best to deliver to KS backers first. We're confident we can do it. But we MUST deliver to stores on that date, no matter what". And we found out because... someone walked into the local store, and there was AvP on the shelf.

This is not my opinion, it's fact. They did this. It's a very simple, clear, example of Prodos doing something that I doubt any customer would find acceptable.

I hope people dropping money into this pre-order won't go through the same situation. I - sadly - wouldn't find it surprisingly if someone is in here in a few weeks saying they paid for pre-order, still haven't received anything and their local store has the same product in stock.

SeanDrake wrote:

 MadCowCrazy wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 MadCowCrazy wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
I'll admit I'm amazed people are still supporting this company.

People still support Mierce Miniatures even though they are owned by the guy who ran Maelstrom Games who scammed hundreds of people out of tens of thousands of pounds worth of product, me included...

And we'll never know if Maelstrom would have dug themselves out of debt, or if you personally would have received your order after they took money from someone's next order, if Wayland hadn't forced them into bankruptcy.

Wayland offered to honour every outstanding order that Maelstrom had as they offered to buy Maelstrom. Maelstrom refused so Wayland bought their debt and claimed it. Maelstrom pretty much liquidated everything so that Wayland would get nothing and in doing so also screwed over ALLOT of people.
So everyone would have gotten their orders if Maelstrom hadn't been so bitchy about it.

Also mealstrom were planning on screwing everyone long before Wayland intervened, you can trace the setup of Mierce and other shell companies months before they folded and also the sale of all rights and equipment from mealstrom to mierce for a nominal amount.

For the last months of business mealstrom were taking pre orders for stock they knew they could not get as suppliers (GW for example) had started cutting them off.

There bussiness strategy for the last 12 months was to take pre orders and use that money to buy stock for the previous set of pre orders and then take more pre orders to pay for those pre orders. They at some point hit a tipping point with not enough cash to honour the pre orders taken at that point the sales started in a desperate bid.to claw back some cash.(Sound familiar)

It was in the middle of all that when mealstrom was asset stripped by the managment to other companies in family members names as well.as his(according to one staff member the boss cleared his mortgage) hard to be certain where it ended as no financials werel reported for the final years and I missed the court hearing.

This sounds familiar. Better go ask Carlo Ponzi...

What a mess. Sucks to everyone currently getting stiffed over this

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
An argument could be made that in a community as small as ours some solidarity among customers to shun bad vendors is another lesson that should be learned in a situation such as this to prevent more bad practices in the future.

While this is neat in theory, Id like to point out the Defiance Games Hard Suit KS that raised 46k. Several people from this board mentioned 'throwing their money away' by backing it ... then realized they literally did just that.

We, as a community, are not and never will be united on anything. KS is a platform where you get to risk your $$ for potential discounted rewards. The correct use of the platform is for places like Dakka to find out when an incomplete KS operator tries to run another one. Risk mitigation based on track record is what the community should offer but its up to the individual to make the decision to back or not back a project. I think we are seeing the Golden Age of KS has passed in that new projects are viewed much more critically. Yes, we still get runaway Kingdom Death style ones and small reputable operates are able to fund a dozen minis at a time as part of their range. Its the small operators slowly building a range and a world that are the most exciting to me.

Operators like Prodos who have run several delayed/incomplete projects will find it harder and harder to get new funds leading them to either change their business practices or go out of business.

Vhalan wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
An argument could be made that in a community as small as ours some solidarity among customers to shun bad vendors is another lesson that should be learned in a situation such as this to prevent more bad practices in the future.

While this is neat in theory, Id like to point out the Defiance Games Hard Suit KS that raised 46k. Several people from this board mentioned 'throwing their money away' by backing it ... then realized they literally did just that.

We, as a community, are not and never will be united on anything. KS is a platform where you get to risk your $$ for potential discounted rewards. The correct use of the platform is for places like Dakka to find out when an incomplete KS operator tries to run another one. Risk mitigation based on track record is what the community should offer but its up to the individual to make the decision to back or not back a project. I think we are seeing the Golden Age of KS has passed in that new projects are viewed much more critically. Yes, we still get runaway Kingdom Death style ones and small reputable operates are able to fund a dozen minis at a time as part of their range. Its the small operators slowly building a range and a world that are the most exciting to me.

Operators like Prodos who have run several delayed/incomplete projects will find it harder and harder to get new funds leading them to either change their business practices or go out of business.

I think it depends. Boardgames have seen lots of success via KS, I personally own a couple and a couple graphic novels that were funded via KS. However, I think you're right: it's still a risk platform more than a store, and people need to treat it as such. Want the game but don't want to back it? Wait until it hits retail, ofcourse you may hit the snag Scythe is running into: it's so popular that they're running out left and right once it hits stores.

 Manchu wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
then supporting that company through purchasing their products is supporting their awful business practices in their entirety

Explicitly not. I don't trust Prodos to deliver a pre-order to me in what I consider to be a reasonable amount of time. So I don't pre-order things from them. This is the part of Prodos's business practices that I object to - this is the part I will not participate in. You seem to frame this issue in terms of guilt/forgiveness - but how am I in a position to forgive Prodos anything since they owe me nothing? For me, this is not a moral issue anyhow. The only questions are cost and risk. Gamers would lose less often if they thought about these things as morally neutral.

I don't accept that. I understand that is your justification, but you giving Prodos money condones their business practices. All of their business practices. It is a moral issue because the company is doing real harm to some of their customers. That you have gotten lucky in your past purchases, or found methods of avoiding the major *known* risks of dealing with Prodos is beside the point. Your monies funnel back to a company that has shown a repeated behavior of failing to fulfill their obligations.

 Manchu wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
You are helping to keep the lights on as they scheme to find another way to bilk people out of money.

The premise is necessarily that Prodos exists to scam people and the evidence simply doesn't amount to that, if you set anger and righteousness aside.

Please stop assigning "righteousness and anger" to my position. I have no anger as I have not dealt with Prodos and haven't been victimized by them. My concern in this matter is larger than Prodos, and centers entirely on the behaviors of a community that can justify mistreatment by vendors out of pure self-interest.

Prodos exists to make money for Prodos, and they have continued to do that through mismanaging various Kickstarters, some under the guise of different companies. Does that seem like the behavior of a legitimate business? Or does that more closely resemble the behavior of scammers who, when they have burned enough bridges, regroup under another persona in order obfuscate their connections to their previous bad dealings?

 Manchu wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
they haven't fulfilled obligations to people who helped make those products a reality

Another bad premise. As I explained, the evidence doesn't show Prodos could only bring AvP to market with KS "investment." In this case, as in so many other licensed-based projects, KS was a marketing tool and vehicle for pre-orders.

False. "Kickstarter isn't a preorder system" right? I can't seem to access the KS page at the moment, but surely there were stretch goals unlocked and components added that would not have been funded without Kickstarter. I can't believe you are actually making this argument.

 Manchu wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
obsolete materials

Bogus. KS backers are due first edition product. None of the rewards are obsolete relative to the edition they backed. The appropriate complaint here is that the first edition rules are terrible, not that Prodos has since improved upon them. But frankly, I don't expect much from Prodos rules either way. I just want the minis!

And this. This is priceless. This is the same crappy argument people make when GW releases a new edition and people complain. Then someone steps in and says, rather haughtily, "GW isn't taking away your models, you can still play the old edition!" knowing full well that games grow and thrive on their current editions and obsolete editions are relegated to discount bins and die hards who try and keep an old edition relevant.

You just want the minis so the obsolete rules don't affect you. However, people who paid for product years ago (including the rules that are now obsolete) are going to be getting outdated materials if they get their materials at all. How is that possibly a good thing for those backers? And how is that even remotely a responsible course of action for a company to take in their treatment of those backers with outstanding pledges? Yes the minis can be used in second edition, but so what? If a backer paid for first edition and still hasn't received it and second edition is coming out then that is a colossal disaster on the company's part.

That is the type of company you are supporting with your purchases regardless of the mental gymnastics you undertake to try and pretend otherwise.

Vhalan wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
An argument could be made that in a community as small as ours some solidarity among customers to shun bad vendors is another lesson that should be learned in a situation such as this to prevent more bad practices in the future.

While this is neat in theory, Id like to point out the Defiance Games Hard Suit KS that raised 46k. Several people from this board mentioned 'throwing their money away' by backing it ... then realized they literally did just that.

Operators like Prodos who have run several delayed/incomplete projects will find it harder and harder to get new funds leading them to either change their business practices or go out of business.

I understand that community action to prevent these bad actors is a pipe dream. People are motivated by selfish desires and will buy what they want regardless, however what you posted above is exactly the behavior that I have been commenting on. Gamers willingly lining up to support companies that show utter disregard for the community in general and their own customers in particular. As my orange president would say, Sad!

We already have a thread for discussion of the original AvP kickstarter (link is in the first post) which I actually backed.

However, while referencing it is of course fine and even welcome in this thread as it's extremely relevant, if this thread is just going to duplicate that one this thread will just be locked.

It's certainly worthwhile to discuss the new edition, and sales from it will likely help with finishing their KS obligations. So basically, feel free to discuss from whatever perspective you like, but be civil and allow others to talk about the new edition as well, as that is the topic of this thread.

Thanks all

So, for someone who never backed the original and disregarding all the KIS drama, would this be worth picking up?

 jreilly89 wrote:
So, for someone who never backed the original and disregarding all the KIS drama, would this be worth picking up?

It could be. I would wait for it to actually be released and perhaps wait until you could download the rules before purchasing.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
Yeah, I think Prodos has a terrible track record, but it seems like they're more negligent than actually scamming...

I fully believe that negligence contributed to a cash-flow shortage which required them to go to market with their retail version before fulfilling Kickstarter pledges so that they could keep the doors open.

That excuse ran out at least a year or two ago. Kickstarter backers should have gotten their products by now, even if that meant Prodos had to delay other projects.

There's really no reasonable excuse for the way they have treated the customers that basically provided them the venture capital to launch the AvP product line, with no other expected ROI than just "getting the stuff they ordered".

I've been a big critic of the "Boycott Culture" where economic damage is inflicted on otherwise innocent third parties. Like that ridiculously stupid Uber boycott a few weeks ago because they had the gall to pick up customers from the airport during a taxi strike without price-gouging them with Surge rates. Uber was an innocent party in all that (and if you disagree, PM me, and I will give you the long-form explanation of why you are completely wrong based on market share and potential revenue gains vs potential revenue losses). Uber provided a service to its customers and acted ethically at all points, but was boycotted by foolish people jumping on a bandwagon that was started by people who apparently have no understanding of math, and no contextual knowledge of the ride sharing industry. They were just mad at someone else, and decided to punish an uninvolved third party.


But Prodos has earned its boycott through clearly unethical business practices. It's not even up for discussion whether or not Prodos has acted unethically. And I'm not even one of the Kickstarter backers who didn't get their stuff. I just recognize a bad business when I see one.

 jreilly89 wrote:
So, for someone who never backed the original and disregarding all the KIS drama, would this be worth picking up?

I haven't read anything positive about their game rules, AvP or otherwise. They abandoned the first version of their AvP game rules, and subsumed AvP into their Warzone rules, but didn't support 3-player games (Aliens, Predators, and Marines).

To clarify - the moral/ethical/practical consideration of Prodos's outstanding obligations to first edition KS backers is obviously relevant to the topic of Prodos releasing a second edition.

@DarkTraveller777

We can agree that Prodos has a moral obligation to fulfill its end of its contract with its KS backers. I think where we differ is that you seem to see this obligation as morally owed to the entire "community" of miniatures gamers, whereas I see it more narrowly owed only to the backers themselves as individual parties to individual contracts with Prodos. In essence, I think you are positing a moral right to honest dealing owed to the entire community, which in turns implicates a moral duty on the part of the community to reward honest companies and punish dishonest ones, via "supporting" or boycotting them. In this scenario, the dollar becomes the instrument of moral justification/damnation. The idea is to threaten Prodos with annihilation in order to persuade them to straighten up. The assumption seems to be that they will not straighten up otherwise.

By contrast, I believe the individual is the proper subject of these moral rights and duties. No duty as to me can arise from Prodos dealing unfairly with someone else. (You can probably guess, I am extremely skeptical of the concept of the "community.") For me, Prodos's bad dealings with others are simply data points for analyzing risk. For me, the point of spending money on a figure is not to reward "good" companies or condone the practices of "bad" companies - it's just to get the figure. I also don't believe that Prodos's mission is to rip people off and that they will do exactly that unless the "community" punishes them. I think their mission is to profitably manufacture and sell miniatures. Part of this plan involves pre-order schemes - but the data indicates participating is too risky for me (especially considering there is no countervailing discount in this case). So I am not going to pre-order ...

... and importantly, I would also warn others not to pre-order second edition purely because all the evidence points to this being imprudent. I guess this is the closest I get to believing in the miniatures gamer "community" - I think it is important that people have the facts so that they can make informed decisions. If the facts result in some group of customers trying to organize a boycott to punish Prodos for immorality ... well this is just market risk. Similarly, if the facts also lead customers to avoid giving Prodos pre-order dollars ... it's just market risk. Prodos will have to either survive without pre-order dollars or convince customers that direct pre-orders are not risky, despite their ongoing failure to send out backer rewards and deliver past pre-orders. Obviously, one way to do it is to finally deliver those rewards and pre-orders ...

Maybe it goes without saying, but I would like to see Prodos succeed in offering high quality, competitively priced miniatures. (That generic, self-interested well-wishing applies to all miniatures manufactures.) I don't buy AvP figures from Wayland because I want to "support" Prodos, however - I buy them because I want the figures and am willing to pay a certain price for them and I trust Wayland to get them in stock or refund my money.

So when AvP second edition makes it to retail, I don't agree that it must be boycotted. But I really doubt it will be worth much, other than the figures (which as single-piece miniatures are not as interesting to me, honestly).

 jreilly89 wrote:
So, for someone who never backed the original and disregarding all the KIS drama, would this be worth picking up?

Yes. I was not part of the KS, but picked up the game retail. Everything but the rules was excellent, but their new rules edition (free to download) fixed that. So yes, if you ignore the KS debacle, I would recommend AvP.

Personally I am waiting to order it from a known retailer for all the reasons stated...plus there seems no benefit to pre-order (and their shipping cost to the US, and therefore total cost, actually might be higher than ordering from Wayland).

 jreilly89 wrote:
So, for someone who never backed the original and disregarding all the KIS drama, would this be worth picking up?

From Prodos- NO. From a third party company, or someone who has the product on hand- Yes- If you are in the mood to get caught up in drama. 20th Century Fox is interested, but large organizations run slow on the uptick. Hopeful that another established company can get the IP and actually do some good with it.

PRODOS has no business running preorder platforms, and the evidence is all there to be researched as to why, and how they have lost their character by being cute by playing fast and loose.

I read through Mancu's post and partially agree, but in looking at all the evidence together, I can see how you don't seem to have all of the information, and haven't been involved in the whole Prodos/ Archon/ "Your name of the week for the business here" as they have a well documented history of already pulled this crap...

http://prodosgames.com/

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08373380

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1915792245/vanguard-of-war-archon-studio?ref=nav_search

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1915792245/load-the-board-game?ref=discovery

http://loadboardgame.com/

With this little tidbit added in to stick it right in your face-
" There are two major challenges when it comes to fulfilling our obligation to backers. The first is miniature production and the other is shipping.

Our manufacturer helped us make the miniatures happen. Their experience was invaluable in the process and we are left with only the final step, mass production, which can begin as soon as the Kickstarter ends. All of the hiccups and delays that can happen prior to mass production have already been successfully dealt with.

We did our homework. Now, it’s time to make this dream a reality!"

LOAD kickstarter

"AVP The Hunt Begins Kickstarter" Removed, AFTER receiving funding, and then slowly they backed away from it.
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1275451/ip-dispute

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1732647/hunt-begins-second-edition

http://prodosgames.com/blog/announcing-avp-the-hunt-begins-second-edition-and-avp-unleashed

http://ninjadivision.com/alien-vs-predator-the-hunt-begins/

https://www.facebook.com/prodosgamesltd/

If you will notice, they CONTINUE to shill. Acting like a company doesn't make them any less criminal. ANyone else is quite welcome to throw the cards on the table with this one.

To leave it on a high note- FOX has a real "Alien: Covenant" Movie that will be coming out in MAY of this year.
Enjoy the trailer, and remember that it is Alien's stuff that we like, even if PRODOS wants to take a Xenomorph sized crap on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0VW6sg50Pk

One of my pals showed me THIS as well, Enjoy-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0VW6sg50Pk

We're getting a little far afield, but the Load board game delivered just fine. I split a pledge for it, and the models are just like the pictures. Pretty darn good for the price.

The company definitely has gotten better at following through, hopefully they'll make good on their original customers, too.

Following through as in actually delivering? Or followed through as in farted then shat?
I'm pretty sure it's actually the second one.