Sandy Petersen has Changed the Terms of Your Interest-Free Loan to Him

I think they probably tripped up on the math because they essentially opened up their entire catalog for purchase in the pledge manager. They were offering dozens of products, and probably many didn't hit the magic number where the money raised covers the manufacture of the number of items ordered plus the manufacture of the number of items the distributors want (which is typically a verbal agreement with no contract or upfront money)

That's a great point. I have wondered about the viability of a lot of the CW catalog in the past. Why is Great Old One Pack 3 just one model? Is that enticing enough to both meet production quotas (cost effectiveness for model and packaging) and occupy shelf space (size of packaging, etc.)? There's always been a bit of a "We should do this cool thing!" element to the game that may not actually reflect consumer desire/interest. But, then again, everything constantly sells out, so there is clearly some demand. I haven't looked at the secondary markets recently. Is there regularly CW stuff available that isn't just someone trying to find the one fool willing to pay them 3x market price?

Nothing will change. Kickstarter has the loyalty of so many customers hooked on that FOMO/early bird hit and the excitement of following the month long campaign, it's like an onlyfans for board games

fightcitymayor wrote:

Jackwraith wrote: ...and this is a deliberate choice to take advantage of a situation to the mild detriment of many who've supported them for a long time and many who still do, given the high number of "That's fine! Go ahead and keep my money for as long as you want it!" responses on KS.

These are the people I loathe the most.
These are the people who guarantee KS will never stop with its ridiculous "KicKsTaRtEr Is nOt a sToRe" bullshit.
These are the useful idiots who give their money away to companies abusing a system not meant for them, no strings attached, and when repeatedly kicked in the ballsack respond with "THAT'S FINE!"

It's only because most people in the boardgaming business aren't mendacious pricks (yet) that KS' ridiculously open-ended idea of "crowdfunding" hasn't resulted in copious amounts of backer cash spent on hookers & blow with zero avenues for recompense.

In fairness, it looks, from an unscientific point of view, as if the majority of those directly replying to the latest update see through it and are varying degrees of angry about it. Whatever tolerance there is seems to boil down to a few factors:

* People like CW.
* People (I would say wrongly, but YMMV) feel a certain empathy for the creator, who, whether cannily or no, seems able to evoke that sort of pathos. (Not quite a quote: I second-mortgaged my house; I'm thinking about cashing in my retirement.)
* People have too much stuff and don't really care whether they get this or that thing on any particular timeline as long as they were able to "help out."
* The KS ethos promotes a faux communal sense that can turn what should, in many cases (probably all cases involving board games and the like) into passion projects for both creator and backer.

But, like I said, most commenters seem to see it in varying flavors of sketchy.

I'm thankfully off the CW train. I have most stuff from OS 1 and OS 2, and the only thing I really wanted from OS 3+ was the updated errata for existing products that were changed even after the errata wave in OS 2.

jpat wrote: * People like CW.
* People (I would say wrongly, but YMMV) feel a certain empathy for the creator, who, whether cannily or no, seems able to evoke that sort of pathos. (Not quite a quote: I second-mortgaged my house; I'm thinking about cashing in my retirement.)

I'm old enough to remember 4 years ago then SP threw a tantrum and left BGG because someone referred to his mildly misogynistic description of an alien race as mildly misogynistic. And the BGG drones lined up to fellate him on his way out the door.

Good times!
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1844060/goodbye/page/1

* Sighs in KDM *

I'll give them a *little* credit for being more open as to the reasons for why they are taking the course they are vs just continuing to issue vague excuses. That said, considering it funded 18 months before the pandemic even started, this campaign and the company clearly have underlying issues that the pandemic likely exacerbated . Shipping costs being the most obvious - no way back when this funded that they could have foreseen the current shipping rates. And given how huge some of those CW boxes are, on a per box basis todays shipping rates are gonna be WAY over what they budgeted. Asking for more money for backers would be ugly given the likely cost increases.

And as some of the backers have pointed out in the KS comments and the BGG torch and pitchfork thread, past updates that hinted at imminent production were obviously in no way accurate. PHALANX has run into similar ( and justified criticism ) for implying production was imminent for SUCCESSORS when in retrospect more recent updates exposed their past ones as pretty much lies.

The fact that after so many past KS and the high prices their games command, that this one project is such a stretch to print retail copies shows that not all of their past output has been as profitable as it should have been . When you have to resort to KS to fund REPRINTS, that ain't a good sign.

And Uba has a great point - opening up the PM to their whole catalog might have bit them in the ass in terms of low order quantities for fringe SKUs.

Kickstarter must have some amazingly vague wording in their Terms of Service to allow bullshit like this to persist. Are companies really allowed to take $200+ preorders for a game and instead use that cash for business development? I do not get it.

themothman421 wrote: Kickstarter must have some amazingly vague wording in their Terms of Service to allow bullshit like this to persist. Are companies really allowed to take $200+ preorders for a game and instead use that cash for business development? I do not get it.

In a word: Yes.
In two words: Hookers & blow.

The last time I saw KS do anything related to clamping down was when they suspended Kolossal Games for creating Maple Games as a front so they could run concurrent KS campaigns (which is apparently verboten, when KS feels like enforcing that rule.)

I backed the cat faction at a dollar, but didn't end up bumping that up to more to actually get the cat faction. I think the base game plus the first couple factions is all I need. The never ending updates of "yea about that thing you're supposed to be getting..." makes me glad I didn't sink more money into this crap show. This certainly seems like a company on the ropes scrambling to stay above water at this point.

Well, when you hire your family members with no business experience to run the company and pay them huge salaries, it's kind of hard to expect the company to do well.

This is like the BEST reality TV show ever.

Sagrilarus wrote: This is like the BEST reality TV show ever.

I would rather watch this one:

Good call, uba.

From Arthur's latest update:

I did not state in that update, but perhaps could help further explain, is to remind you that we launched the campaign without expecting to reprint virtually everything. Recall that on the last day of the live campaign we were still taking polls (due to backer feedback) for which items from CW O1, O2, and O3 we should reprint. Once backers – at the very end of the live campaign – had “unlocked” so many items, this later opened the door (in the following weeks and months) for distributors to order these same items. This was never hidden from backers – none of these were marked as KS exclusives, and from the outset we said the print runs would be for backers + retail (more on this below).

I didn't even back this when it originally went up, I hopped on the late pledge store thing they use right before it was supposed to deliver because Cindy wanted to play the cats. Now it's been well over a year past then.

dammit Sandy

When they finally go print the thing, they better make damn sure the retail copies ship AFTER backer copies, if the whining over TERRAFORMING MARS ARES EXPEDITION is any indicator.