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Infinitum posted:What the hell is happening here... I know it’s a hand position that most nerds are used to keeping several times a day, but that does NOT look like it would be comfortable for painting. E: ooof what a page snipe. 
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Jul 13, 2021 23:35
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Rat Queens crashed and burned in its last few issues iirc, with weird bad art and a wrap up to a story arc that was basically 'and everything was solved off-camera'.
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Jul 14, 2021 01:53
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Rat Queens was a heart breaker. A great premise, and then the Roc stuff. Then Sejic came in for a few issues (who I was super stoked for because Death Vigil was fun stuff) and basically had to draw everyone naked before calling it. Then cap it off with Tess Fowler having a real bad time. So yea - very on the fence on this Kickstarter.
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Jul 14, 2021 02:02
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Yep, my feelings too. Good premise, very flawed execution.
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Jul 14, 2021 02:27
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Greg Stolze's latest, Duelling Fops of Vindamere is up. It's a very light one-shot comedy game about awful people having swordfights and hitting on each other.
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Jul 14, 2021 09:26
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Greg Stolze has really nailed the ransom Kickstarter and I wish everyone else who might possibly be capable of doing so would follow in his footsteps.
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Jul 14, 2021 10:47
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Thanks for posting that. Stolze is one of the few things that could get me to pay attention to a Kickstarter and his attitude helps this one along ("Risks - it's a PDF, we've already written it.")
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Jul 14, 2021 16:52
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Blacklist is currently advertising their next kickstarter, which will bring them to 5 (five!) simultaneous unfulfilled projects. Plus two more preorders that were done direct rather than through KS. I genuinely don't mind delays due to shipping or whatever. But continuing to pile more on just looks irresponsible.
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Jul 14, 2021 18:44
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Arcsech posted:Blacklist is currently advertising their next kickstarter, which will bring them to 5 (five!) simultaneous unfulfilled projects. Plus two more preorders that were done direct rather than through KS.
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Jul 14, 2021 18:55
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potatocubed posted:Greg Stolze's latest, Duelling Fops of Vindamere is up. It's a very light one-shot comedy game about awful people having swordfights and hitting on each other. Calls to mind the scene in Rob Roy where Cunningham gets challenged to a fight and plays up the powdered-wig fop angle to the derision of the crowd, only to kick their asses with his pansy fighting.
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Jul 14, 2021 19:09
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Blacklist, as a name, tells me all I need to know about that company.
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Jul 14, 2021 19:21
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Arcsech posted:Blacklist is currently advertising their next kickstarter, which will bring them to 5 (five!) simultaneous unfulfilled projects. Plus two more preorders that were done direct rather than through KS. I’m interested in seeing what it looks like, James Hewitt is late of Games Workshop and IIRC designed Blitz Bowl, so I’m interested to see what direction he takes the game in.
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Jul 14, 2021 19:29
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Hollandia posted:Rat Queens crashed and burned in its last few issues iirc, with weird bad art and a wrap up to a story arc that was basically 'and everything was solved off-camera'. Yeah, I have the printed books for Rat Queens, and it's a mess. The first two books were great, fun, love the art. Then they tried to make a plot, it went awry, they redacted it, but then brought it back multiple times, it was bad. The art just kept getting worse, until the final book I laughed 'hah, this must be a one off gag or something' and panic flipped through the book. What the hell it's all terrible. Not interested in the game, especially with the fully thing being $100+
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Jul 14, 2021 20:46
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Yeah. Unfortunately Rat Queens never really recovered. The art was just as important for the comic's identity as the story, and the replacement artists just weren't the right style for the book. Booting Upchurch was the right (the ONLY) move, and the comic was collateral damage.
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Jul 14, 2021 21:29
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Infinitum posted:Blacklist, as a name, tells me all I need to know about that company. I mean, not really. They've fulfilled four KS'es reasonably well (although they picked a bad distributor for Street Masters: Aftershock and that turned into a fiasco). But maybe you're just being comedic on a dead internet comedy forum.
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Jul 14, 2021 21:33
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Memnaelar posted:I mean, not really. They've fulfilled four KS'es reasonably well (although they picked a bad distributor for Street Masters: Aftershock and that turned into a fiasco). But maybe you're just being comedic on a dead internet comedy forum. Yeah, I'm reasonably sure I'll get my plastic from them eventually. I've kinda cut everyone a huge amount of slack on shipping and fulfillment after last year.
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Jul 14, 2021 21:36
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Memnaelar posted:I mean, not really. They've fulfilled four KS'es reasonably well (although they picked a bad distributor for Street Masters: Aftershock and that turned into a fiasco). But maybe you're just being comedic on a dead internet comedy forum. I dunno, how they've handled this has left a really bad taste in my mouth. All of their commications are like 60% repeated explanation and links about shipping crisis. Which... Sure. Fine. poo poo's gonna be late, that happens. I don't really care about that part. But they have such a huge backlog of unfulfilled work - literally more unfulfilled Kickstarters than completed ones - and they're adding more on the pile. And drat near zero concessions to backers. Not even an apology, not even after like 3 months in a row of "oh, we're gonna get them on a ship this month! (A month passes) oh they didn't actually get on a ship, sometime eventually but definitely nothing is our fault at all". It really feels like they're going "eh, we've got your money, who gives a poo poo about you now? By the way please give us even more money"
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Jul 14, 2021 22:09
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Memnaelar posted:I mean, not really. They've fulfilled four KS'es reasonably well (although they picked a bad distributor for Street Masters: Aftershock and that turned into a fiasco). But maybe you're just being comedic on a dead internet comedy forum. Although it's important to note that while a fiasco, it was still a fiasco in which as far as I know most (every?) backer still got the poo poo they ordered eventually. Certainly I did.
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Jul 14, 2021 23:14
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malkav11 posted:Although it's important to note that while a fiasco, it was still a fiasco in which as far as I know most (every?) backer still got the poo poo they ordered eventually. Certainly I did. Yep, as did I.
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Jul 14, 2021 23:15
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Memnaelar posted:But maybe you're just being comedic on a dead internet comedy forum. I would never be intentionally funny.
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Jul 14, 2021 23:21
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Memnaelar posted:Yep, as did I. A company that keeps creating new Kickstarters during a shipping crisis to pay its employees, but that will still fulfill its obligations in time, may not be distinguishable from one creating new Kickstarters during a shipping crisis, but that has full knowledge they're not going to make it.
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Jul 14, 2021 23:30
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homullus posted:A company that keeps creating new Kickstarters during a shipping crisis to pay its employees, but that will still fulfill its obligations in time, may not be distinguishable from one creating new Kickstarters during a shipping crisis, but that has full knowledge they're not going to make it. Same, I imagine, with all the companies up and down the manufacturing, shipping, and distribution chains. More than ever, KS is going to be a question of faith in the short-term. I imagine the well will dry up for a lot of folks in the short-term as a result.
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Jul 14, 2021 23:41
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I'm still waiting on my Blacklist series 1 stuff so yeah I likely won't be backing anything else of theirs for a while
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Jul 15, 2021 01:35
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I think shipping costs are going to be a HUGE factor in a lot of Kickstarters atm. Costs are just skyrocketing.
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Jul 15, 2021 01:39
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Infinitum posted:I think shipping costs are going to be a HUGE factor in a lot of Kickstarters atm. I've brought this up in the industry thread before but this really can't be overstated enough. Shipping costs for physical goods are insane and will likely not be going down anytime soon if ever, and if creators don't adequately plan for it in their budgeting it will eat them alive. More than anything else now, you can't afford to wing it with physical shipping and distribution costs.
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Jul 15, 2021 03:14
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Thunderworks are eating over 100k in shipping costs for Cartographer Heroes and Roll Player Adventures. It's INSANE.
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Jul 15, 2021 03:36
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Is it all just pandemic-related stuff or is it tariffs, suez canal blockage, or are there other reasons beyond those?
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Jul 15, 2021 04:51
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FirstAidKite posted:Is it all just pandemic-related stuff or is it tariffs, suez canal blockage, or are there other reasons beyond those? They were steadily increasing before the pandemic due to various issues with tariffs, container availability, split shipments, the USPS being increasingly hosed with, etc, and then the pandemic happened along with Brexit and things only got worse. For board games and other similar kickstarters, physical good shipment is simply a necessary evil, but I feel like we're going to start seeing a tipping point with tabletop RPGs where creators either need to allot significantly more of a project's budget to shipping costs, or customers may need to accept the fact that hardcopy print runs are going to be more of a luxury and less a baseline expectation. Infinitum posted:Thunderworks are eating over 100k in shipping costs for Cartographer Heroes and Roll Player Adventures. This is about what the shipping costs were for the Lancer kickstarter, out of a $400k budget. It was the single biggest expense of the entire project, and it's the main reason why there probably won't be any print hardcopy versions of things like the supplements or the adventure modules even though people would really like them.
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Jul 15, 2021 04:59
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Infinitum posted:Thunderworks are eating over 100k in shipping costs for Cartographer Heroes and Roll Player Adventures. Yeah, one of the games I've backed just sent a long message about this out the other day. The notable part is: quote:In total, a minimum of 7 huge 40’ and 2 small 20’ ship containers is necessary. The cost of one small 20’ container is currently around 8,000 USD and the huge one is around 14,000 USD including all fees on its way such as insurance and customs. It means that overall costs will be 114,000 USD. There will be about 10% more additional games which are planned to be sold after. The cost of stock for backers is then 102,600 USD. The cost increase is 66,600 USD in total. That's about a 140% increase over what the project was expecting.
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Jul 15, 2021 06:07
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Speaking of shipping, my own experience from supporting kickstarter projects is that minis kickstarters often have included the shipping up front, while books I've supported have charged a shipping fee afterwards, prior to shipping. I'm thinking that the second option sounds better unless you expect to deal with hundreds or thousands of backers. In my case, all shipping from Sweden would cost the same no matter what country (yes, sending a box 28 km to Copenhagen costs the same as sending it to New Zeeland). However, depending on how big the boxes would be, that cost could vary. Would it be a faux-pas to simply leave the shipping cost as a post-kickstarter fee, just giving the current example of what a small, medium or big box would cost? Looking at backerkit's website, they seem to recommend adding shipping costs after the kickstarter as well. https://www.backerkit.com/blog/should-you-charge-for-shipping-after-your-kickstarter-campaign/ As a comparison, I backed a big illustrated history book a few months ago, and they still haven't charged me for shipping as they'll wait until the product is done and ready to send out. Maybe a risk in that some backers pay the initial backing fee but then don't pay the shipping, but well... then you still got paid for the product. lilljonas fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Jul 15, 2021 |
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Jul 15, 2021 08:18
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Vidmaster posted:That's about a 140% increase over what the project was expecting. The Deluxe Train Kits KS are mentioning price increases of 400% on shipping atm. quote:The cost to ship one pallet from China to the U.S. is now about $1,750 - $2,000 (about a 400% increase) and 40 foot container prices are now north of $20,000 (also an increase of about 400%).  FirstAidKite posted:Is it all just pandemic-related stuff or is it tariffs, suez canal blockage, or are there other reasons beyond those? It's all flow on related to the pandemic AFAIK. Limited ships = higher prices I deal with Steel for work, and my industry will be seeing price increases for the next few months because 'lol no China steel'
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Jul 15, 2021 08:39
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Bad news if you pledged for any Peterson Games KSesquote:In sorrow, I must tell you that this project is not yet done and will not ship as planned on July 31, 2021. I know this is not good news. Let me explain. Their business practices have been absolute poo poo lately (remember when they wanted to charge like $30 for errata? For this Kickstarter, even?), so this isn't so much a surprise as it is just a relieved sigh of confirmed disappointment.
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Jul 15, 2021 19:05
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The root cause analysis is an interesting multifaceted piece. It's a combination of spending shifting from services to goods, which is increasing demand. Then ports in China and the US are bottlenecking due to a combination of covid restrictions reducing their throughput and demand increasing. This in turn is causing boats to be late, which means physical containers that you load things in are spending more time in the supply chain rather than at either end. Additionally, boats are leaving the US and heading back to China without full loads of empty containers because the physical containers are stuck in the supply chain This is causing a shortage of physical containers to load onto boats in China (as well as less boats available, because they are spending more time at sea due to the port bottlenecks). Why don't they make more physical containers you ask? It turns out that because manufacturing is dead in most places, almost all physical containers are made in China, and the Chinese container manufacturers don't want to make more containers. So demand has spiked, which combined with covid has caused supply of boats and Containers to go on boats to drop, which has caused the price to sky-rocket.
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Jul 16, 2021 01:39
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:The root cause analysis is an interesting multifaceted piece. It's a combination of spending shifting from services to goods, which is increasing demand. It's not just that, though. Petersen Games have previously been a boutique company, with most of their customers paying them directly for product. It was at first meant to be Sandy's glorious farewell from gaming, then it became a fun thing to do in his retirement. Now they've attracted enough interest that from an economic standpoint they can't really refuse to transition to retail. But this has its own difficulties. They're used to customers paying up front and have modeled their finances around using that money to pay the production costs. Now they have distributors saying "We love your games, we'd love to sell lots of copies of them! What - you want us to pay up front so you can manufacture them? Hell no!" In summary: PG have failed to understand that what they're trying to do involves a paradigm shift.
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Jul 16, 2021 09:23
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I backed a 5e creature compendium from Agate Studios who create Fateforge, due for delivery some months ago. After it completed they had shipping issues and started a second Kickstarter for a lore book to ship at the same time which with some reservations I also backed (as someone else said, trying to be sympathetic in extreme circumstances). Today I’ve had an email asking if I’d prefer to back a third Kickstarter to help cover the costs of all the stretch goals coming from China or just pay some extra shipping - they have the books in hand and just need all the extra crap to complete the pledges. I’ve asked if I can just have the books I paid for and forego the free dice and other rubbish but not had a response yet. Getting less and less hopeful of receiving anything but the pdfs. Original campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1176616619/book-of-creatures-200-npcs-and-monsters-for-5th-edition/description Follow up: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1176616619/encyclopedia-complete-lore-book-for-5e Sanford fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Jul 16, 2021 |
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Jul 16, 2021 12:39
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Jedit posted:
To be clear, I was responding to First Aid Kites question about shipping prices, the intervening post was made while I was typing. Petersen games are being idiots yeah.
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Jul 16, 2021 12:49
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Sanford posted:I backed a 5e creature compendium from Agate Studios who create Fateforge, due for delivery some months ago. After it completed they had shipping issues and started a second Kickstarter for a lore book to ship at the same time which with some reservations I also backed (as someone else said, trying to be sympathetic in extreme circumstances). Today I’ve had an email asking if I’d prefer to back a third Kickstarter to help cover the costs of all the stretch goals coming from China or just pay some extra shipping - they have the books in hand and just need all the extra crap to complete the pledges. I’ve asked if I can just have the books I paid for and forego the free dice and other rubbish but not had a response yet. Getting less and less hopeful of receiving anything but the pdfs. Ah yes. Start more kickstarters to cover the costs you are behind on. What could be bad about that?  condolences
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Jul 16, 2021 13:34
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Yeah, this shipping fiasco is going to gently caress over any kickstarter without a substantial cash surplus, and gently caress over any creator who intended that to be their profit.
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Jul 16, 2021 13:52
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Yeah, combined with the 1-2 year lead time on some Kickstarters it's real bad.
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Jul 16, 2021 16:37
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Jedit posted:It's not just that, though. Petersen Games have previously been a boutique company, with most of their customers paying them directly for product. It was at first meant to be Sandy's glorious farewell from gaming, then it became a fun thing to do in his retirement. Now they've attracted enough interest that from an economic standpoint they can't really refuse to transition to retail. But this has its own difficulties. They're used to customers paying up front and have modeled their finances around using that money to pay the production costs. Now they have distributors saying "We love your games, we'd love to sell lots of copies of them! What - you want us to pay up front so you can manufacture them? Hell no!" I dunno, it sounds like they understand that it involves a shift to their normal operations and are pivoting in a way that delays the product for the people who gave them money up front. I'm not really super sympathetic in either direction. They've run a pretty half-assed inefficient operation overall (which, I mean, for a fun thing you're doing in your retirement, is understandable, but still frustrating) and should have planned for this transition better, but also at this point, if you're on Cthulhu Wars project 4, I feel like you should know that PG stuff invariably seems to end up years behind schedule and assume that going in. I received Hyperspace update like #159 a couple days ago. Almost nobody else does or needs that many KS updates in the 450+ projects I've backed since 2012.
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Jul 16, 2021 16:47
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