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clockworkjoe posted:In other TG industry news, Ken Whitman of d20 Entertainment blocked Jolly Blackburn from the KODT Live Facebook group. https://www.facebook.com/jolly.blackburn/posts/10203949857901408 Well I suppose if you're gonna burn your bridges you might as well burn all of'em.
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Jul 27, 2015 03:15
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Kenzer have a pretty good rep overall. I don't trust their webshop though, I have been buying the KODT PDF collections and my credit card got jacked several times over that period.
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Jul 27, 2015 03:56
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Pope Guilty posted:Does Jolly have a good reputation? I always loved KODT. Jolly's got a pretty good reputation in the industry. Whitman has a shockingly terrible reputation, so I was pretty surprised that Jolly & Kenzer got into bed with him. Whitman's taken about $170k over 4 or 5 kickstarters, none of which he's delivered on (and how the hell do people throw nearly 40k on pencil dice). He has a long string of failures and a terrible attitude. I feel bad for Jolly and the backers, but ten minutes on google would have thrown up a lot of red flags.
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Jul 27, 2015 17:16
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Apparently everyone's been unblocked from the Facebook group after everything went public.
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Jul 27, 2015 17:47
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I was the one who mentioned Whitman before, and I don't even know why he was ever in charge of a Kenzer-related Facebook group. I'm frankly baffled that any longstanding, professional company in the business would work with him. How did he worm his way into being in charge of Kickstarters for KoDT and Larry Elmore? Also LOL at calling your company "D20 Entertainment."
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Jul 27, 2015 18:11
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Halloween Jack posted:I was the one who mentioned Whitman before, and I don't even know why he was ever in charge of a Kenzer-related Facebook group. I'm frankly baffled that any longstanding, professional company in the business would work with him. How did he worm his way into being in charge of Kickstarters for KoDT and Larry Elmore? Halloween Jack posted:I was the one who mentioned Whitman before, and I don't even know why he was ever in charge of a Kenzer-related Facebook group. I'm frankly baffled that any longstanding, professional company in the business would work with him. How did he worm his way into being in charge of Kickstarters for KoDT and Larry Elmore? 10 minutes on kickstarter has turned up: Whitman set up d20 entertainment to create 'geek media' April 2013, Knight's Quest card game as Ken Whitman Games $9k (seems to have mostly delivered but not everything people backed for) December 2013 - KODT to create live action episodes of the comics, $70k June 2014, Spinward Traveller, live action traveller episodes, 50k July 2014, Dice-O-matic, raised 3k but suspended by Kickstarter for selling a cheap item from china and claiming it was custom. October 2014, Castles & Crusades TV Pilot, 6k January 2015 pencil dice kickstarter, 38k February 2015, RPG Pencil dice, 8.5k March 2015, Deck Dice 5k Given how little has come out from the above, his new business model seems to be the kickstarter ponzi scheme. I suspect that's now fallen apart on him otherwise we'd have had another couple along the way (that or he just needs to set up a new company or two to use). It looks as if he's friends with Elmore which is how he's been involved in his kickstarters or at least ones with his name attached as well (some have delivered, some haven't). A quick google's come up with a half dozen companies he's gone through in the past 10 years, most of which have vanished entirely.
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Jul 27, 2015 19:05
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I'm wondering now if Ken got the job because he's friends with Elmore; I'm pretty sure he and Jolly have worked together in the past as old-school buds.
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Jul 27, 2015 19:35
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I'm not surprised that Whitman turned to Kickstarter. Most of his work is as a printer, so he mostly deals with small-print publishers--most fans have never heard of him. Kickstarter allows him to directly deal with customers who don't know his rep as a scam artist. But for him to be managing Kickstarters and producing product for people who have been in the business for decades...wow. I'm particularly surprised at him producing a Traveller series. He got into the business working on the 4th edition of Traveller, which AFAIK is his only credit as a writer. My understanding is that 4th edition isn't well-regarded by ardent Traveller fans, and that ardent fans are the only kind of Traveller fan. In other words, everyone interested in a Traveller series should know better than to give money to Ken Whitman. What I find funny about the whole thing is that Kickstarter is tailor-made for somebody like Whitman. Accusations of taking orders for RPG products that were poorly-printed, or never delivered at all, have been following him since before online shopping became a thing.
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Jul 27, 2015 20:00
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Didn't Whitman have the Ralph Bakshi Wizard's license as well as some kind of Mutant Cops game published back in the 90s?
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Jul 27, 2015 21:06
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Yes, he owned a company (Whit) that produced RPGs for Bakshi's Wizards, WWF wrestling, and I believe the game you're thinking of is Mutazoids. He didn't officially write for any of those except Mutazoids: That's the one non-Traveller credit that I missed.
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jul 27, 2015 |
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Jul 27, 2015 21:42
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I have the Wizards game and both 1st and 2nd edition of Mutazoids. The rules must be in some box somewhere.
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Jul 27, 2015 22:53
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I have Wizards sitting in a box somewhere. I remember it having a pretty crap system and a solo adventure that seemed like the only use you'd ever get out of it.
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Jul 27, 2015 23:45
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In this respect I would say it accurately reflects the movie as a tool for entertaining children.
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Jul 27, 2015 23:47
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It gets worse: http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2015/07/kickstarter-ken-whitman-redefines.htmlquote:But hey. At least the backers at $450 are going to get front row seats to the Premiere, time with the actors, a Q&A and an after party, right? I backed the KODT live at a low level - like 10 or 20 bux because I enjoy KODT but holy gently caress I feel bad for the people who spent hundreds for the Gen Con party level.
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Jul 28, 2015 01:15
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It looks like the big KODT Live event at GenCon has been cancelled by Ken, which sucks for the backers and Jolly.Jolly Blackburn posted:So Ken just posted this apparently; Jolly, a few hours later posted:Hey folks, Ken Whitman canceled the After Party out of spite apparently. We are working on a new venue and some entertainment for backers. Now I don't have access to the kickstarter data and Ken's not providing it. So I have no idea who paid/backed for special seating and/or the after party. If you are reading this (and please spread the word because I know a lot of backers don't check her) please contact me at jolly at kenzerco dot calm. If we can get a list and get some details (time/place) we'd love to have you and thank you for supporting the project. There are some great folks helping with this effort - I will reveal who they are when they are ready to release the details. All I can say that despite Ken's behavior this is a great industry filled with a lot of great people still. In short - Ken can't take our party away. What's more, Ken tried to shift the blame to Jolly when talking to the KODT actors, one of whom shared this: quote:(From Josh who plays the role of Brian in KODTLAS. Ken was supposed to fly Josh to GenCon to be at the premiere but broke that promise.)
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Jul 28, 2015 14:16
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Legit question - ttgs seem to have by far the rockiest history with Kickstarter I've seen. Outside of the BIG ones (well, big one singular, Star Citizen) has video games had this number of prolific scammers hit Kickstarter?
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Jul 28, 2015 15:52
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Well, I wouldn't call it a scam, since I'm pretty sure Mighty Number 9 is going to come out eventually, but it's certainly worrisome that the same guys from the same studio have gone to the well again to raise money for a second game in the same IP before it came out.
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Jul 28, 2015 15:56
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ProfessorCirno posted:Legit question - ttgs seem to have by far the rockiest history with Kickstarter I've seen. Outside of the BIG ones (well, big one singular, Star Citizen) has video games had this number of prolific scammers hit Kickstarter? I mean, pretty much every video game on Kickstarter overpromises and underdelivers, and are aided by sitting in Steam Greenlight Early Access hell. The tides are turning on EA, though, and now people openly mock others who buy EA games. Double-Fine basically screwed the pooch, and they were the big KS that got mainstream attention. But frittering away your money before shipping a half-finished, buggy mess is still shipping something, so I guess they aren't all scams.
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Jul 28, 2015 15:57
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the Warmachine game that cost a bundle on Kickstarter ended up being dogshit. That was the last video game I backed on KS.
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Jul 28, 2015 16:00
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Yeah, for some reason they chose to not just adapt the actual game itself? Because taking that math and just using it would be too easy.
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Jul 28, 2015 16:01
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ProfessorCirno posted:Legit question - ttgs seem to have by far the rockiest history with Kickstarter I've seen. Outside of the BIG ones (well, big one singular, Star Citizen) has video games had this number of prolific scammers hit Kickstarter? Two comics kickstarter stories come to mind. There's the story of Sullivan's Sluggers, a graphic novel about a baseball team fighting monsters. The writer, Mark Andrew Smith basically hosed it up catastrophically and sent copies to comic shops before contributors, which is pretty lovely. He also ran a second kickstarter to sell off copies off the book, again before the people who contributed to the first got anything. Kickstarter's TOS forbids just using the service to sell stuff so he had some problems. He's also kind of a jerk, he was pretty awful to the artist James Stokoe (who had no ownership, he was a freelancer) who is a superb artist, the whole situation kind of dragged his name through the mud. More details here: http://www.comicsbeat.com/the-strange-tale-of-sullivans-sluggers/ Much weirder is the case of Ken Lowery and Robert Wilson IV's comic Like A Virus. Someone copied the kickstarter for the comic wholesale and dumped it on Indiegogo. Guess they happened across it and figured they could get some cash and no one woud really notice because it was an obscure indie comic, but they didn't realize that Ken Lowery is a pretty popular guy and has quite a twitter following. Oops! Again, more here http://comicsalliance.com/like-a-virus-ken-lowery-robert-wilson-iv-interview-kickstarter-indiegogo/
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Jul 28, 2015 16:05
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ProfessorCirno posted:Legit question - ttgs seem to have by far the rockiest history with Kickstarter I've seen.
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Jul 28, 2015 16:05
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Miniatures also have a really rocky history with kickstarters failing to deliver or being outright scams. I think this was in part aided by the high profile kickstarter success of reaper bones causing people to believe the absurdly impossible campaign promises.
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Jul 28, 2015 16:20
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ProfessorCirno posted:Legit question - ttgs seem to have by far the rockiest history with Kickstarter I've seen. Outside of the BIG ones (well, big one singular, Star Citizen) has video games had this number of prolific scammers hit Kickstarter? There were some vaguely scammy kickstarters for OUYA games, though. The latest news is that OUYA is claiming that since they've been bought by Razer they don't have to fulfil their Free The Games deals, where they promised to match what devs raised via crowdfunding in exchange for six months exclusivity. In conclusion,  redtube 90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 17:26
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Aw man, now the games will never be freed. 
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Jul 28, 2015 17:46
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Scammers? I dunno. I'm not sure how many of these failed TG projects are outright scams either, but video game kickstarters had a bad time of things for the first couple of years. It was a maze of wild promises, unrealistically low funding requests, and really credulous backers. It's somewhat better now, but I think that's mostly due to a larger population of backers willing to kick up a stink over failures real and imagined.
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Jul 28, 2015 17:46
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Everblight posted:Double-Fine basically screwed the pooch, and they were the big KS that got mainstream attention. this is only 10% an "ahaha I told you so" to the few people in my Wasteland 2 thread who were like "dude you KNOW Double Fine can deliver, why should we believe Brian Fargo is capable of it???"
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Jul 28, 2015 17:59
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Quarex posted:this is only 10% an "ahaha I told you so" to the few people in my Wasteland 2 thread who were like "dude you KNOW Double Fine can deliver, why should we believe Brian Fargo is capable of it???" 
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Jul 28, 2015 18:34
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Harebrained's Shadowrun Returns KS was a huge success, they delivered both the first game and the much-improved second campaign, and after another successful Kickstarter the third campaign (Shadowrun: Hong Kong) is due out next month. It's one of the better Kickstarter success stories.
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Jul 28, 2015 18:51
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Pope Guilty posted:Harebrained's Shadowrun Returns KS was a huge success, they delivered both the first game and the much-improved second campaign, and after another successful Kickstarter the third campaign (Shadowrun: Hong Kong) is due out next month. It's one of the better Kickstarter success stories.
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Jul 28, 2015 19:00
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Everblight posted:I mean, pretty much every video game on Kickstarter overpromises and underdelivers, and are aided by sitting in Steam Greenlight Early Access hell. The tides are turning on EA, though, and now people openly mock others who buy EA games. Shadowrun and Carmageddon Reincarnation, on the other hand, turned out great and I was very happy to have backed both.
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Jul 28, 2015 19:18
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Yeah Shadowrun Returns has been far and away the best KS I've ever backed. Not only was the base game good, but the expansion was even better. Plus the modding tools have allowed some really cool stuff to come out of the community. I didn't think twice about pledging to the new Hong Kong game just on the strength of how good their first KS was. I wish more companies could deliver like they have.
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Jul 28, 2015 19:24
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MadScientistWorking posted:I've heard bad things about them if I remember correctly from within game developers so its not exactly like they have a pristine record either. Obviously I can't speak top their business practices, but from the consumer end of things they've done exactly what their Kickstarter said they would and delivered quality product.
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Jul 28, 2015 19:35
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Serf posted:Yeah Shadowrun Returns has been far and away the best KS I've ever backed. Not only was the base game good, but the expansion was even better. Plus the modding tools have allowed some really cool stuff to come out of the community. I didn't think twice about pledging to the new Hong Kong game just on the strength of how good their first KS was. I wish more companies could deliver like they have. Well, the base game was good until the end and those loving bugs.
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Jul 28, 2015 19:51
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It looks like Whitman's actually going to be at GenCon. That's pretty ballsy if true.
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Jul 28, 2015 20:05
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ProfessorCirno posted:Legit question - ttgs seem to have by far the rockiest history with Kickstarter I've seen. Outside of the BIG ones (well, big one singular, Star Citizen) has video games had this number of prolific scammers hit Kickstarter? To be frank, I think you've just got a bit of tunnel vision on this one. I mean, the video game KS scene has been problematic all over, with Confederate Express being a shining example of how to make an rear end out of your backers.
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Jul 28, 2015 20:08
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Dead Man's Switch would really benefit from a Director's Cut that backports all the Dragonfall DC improvements, adds a big chunk of actual shadowruns to the game, and fixes that loving ending. It would be nice for it to be as good as Dragonfall rather than be the bad one out.
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Jul 28, 2015 20:10
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Pillars of Eternity (which was kickstarted as "Project Eternity") was a bit late, but it came out, had everything promised, and was excellent. I paid $20 and got a really good game for it.
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Jul 28, 2015 20:19
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I dunno if I missed something, but I feel like both of Double Fine's Kickstarter games turned out okay?  I liked Broken Age Act 1 pretty well (though I haven't played act 2 yet) and Massive Chalice is a neat twist on XCOM. I guess they were both late, but that's like every goddamned Kickstarter, video game or otherwise.
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Jul 30, 2015 04:51
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Spacebase DF-9 was apparently a massive fiasco, what with it being released unfinished and buggy. And soon after that Double Fine declared that they wouldn't make any more patches and that no one was currently assigned to it.
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Jul 30, 2015 05:32
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