Octopus Overlords

- God character art is from here, just with a sepia filter applied.
- Backgrounds are from here and here.
- Poster consists of this icon on top of this texture.
- Their sword reward pictures are from here.
- The reward tier text and values are copied wholesale from The Banner Saga's kickstarter, with just a game name search & replace.
- Their office photos are just crops from the Burton Design Group.

hepcat wrote:edit: Found a link in the RPS article for something. oh dear lord, I want this.

The project beat its original $15,000 goal to raise $25,146 by the time it ended in October 2012. The Attorney General's office alleges Polchlepek and Altius collected the money and neglected to deliver either the cards or the various backer rewards. Some of those backers live in the state of Washington, which allows the state's legal team to get involved.

"Consumers need to be aware that crowdfunding is not without risk,” stated Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “This lawsuit sends a clear message to people seeking the public’s money: Washington state will not tolerate crowdfunding theft. The Attorney General’s Office will hold those accountable who don’t play by the rules."

Smoove_B wrote:Washington State Attorney General announces lawsuit against Kickstarter project for failure to deliver:

The project beat its original $15,000 goal to raise $25,146 by the time it ended in October 2012. The Attorney General's office alleges Polchlepek and Altius collected the money and neglected to deliver either the cards or the various backer rewards. Some of those backers live in the state of Washington, which allows the state's legal team to get involved.

"Consumers need to be aware that crowdfunding is not without risk,” stated Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “This lawsuit sends a clear message to people seeking the public’s money: Washington state will not tolerate crowdfunding theft. The Attorney General’s Office will hold those accountable who don’t play by the rules."

Should be interesting to see how this shakes out...

Smoove_B wrote:Clearly you haven't been following along on BGG.

The parent company is located in Canada and the creator (Rik) has mysteriously relocated to Australia. That money is gone.

Smoove_B wrote:Clearly you haven't been following along on BGG.

The parent company is located in Canada and the creator (Rik) has mysteriously relocated to Australia. That money is gone.

Smoove_B wrote:Washington State Attorney General announces lawsuit against Kickstarter project for failure to deliver:

TiLT wrote:That sounds to me like it's more of a lawsuit against Kickstarter projects that deliberately fail to deliver, but I may be mistaken.

That's what crowdfunding needs. Someone who can document their efforts and subsequent failure, and who both have a sensible plan and can show how the money was used, should be fine. Anyone who can't, should be investigated thoroughly. I suspect the role of crowdfunding in society is only going to grow over the coming years, so there has to be a clear set of rules for such projects, and sooner rather than later.

Smoove_B wrote:Washington State Attorney General announces lawsuit against Kickstarter project for failure to deliver:

The project beat its original $15,000 goal to raise $25,146 by the time it ended in October 2012. The Attorney General's office alleges Polchlepek and Altius collected the money and neglected to deliver either the cards or the various backer rewards. Some of those backers live in the state of Washington, which allows the state's legal team to get involved.

"Consumers need to be aware that crowdfunding is not without risk,” stated Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “This lawsuit sends a clear message to people seeking the public’s money: Washington state will not tolerate crowdfunding theft. The Attorney General’s Office will hold those accountable who don’t play by the rules."

Should be interesting to see how this shakes out...

In its first case involving crowdfunding, the Federal Trade Commission has taken legal action against the deceptive tactics of a project creator who raised money from consumers to produce a board game through a Kickstarter campaign, but instead used most of the funds on himself. The defendant has agreed to a settlement that prohibits him from deceptive representations related to any crowdfunding campaigns in the future and requires him to honor any stated refund policy.

Crowdfunding involves individuals and businesses funding a project or venture by raising funds from numerous people, often via dedicated online platforms. According to the FTC’s complaint, Erik Chevalier, also doing business as The Forking Path Co., sought money from consumers to produce a board game called The Doom That Came to Atlantic City that had been created by two prominent board game artists.

“Many consumers enjoy the opportunity to take part in the development of a product or service through crowdfunding, and they generally know there’s some uncertainty involved in helping start something new,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “But consumers should able to trust their money will actually be spent on the project they funded.”

Max Peck wrote:Somebody needs to update that graphic so that it says "The Doom That Came To The Doom That Came To Atlantic City".

Or is it too soon?

baelthazar wrote:

Max Peck wrote:Somebody needs to update that graphic so that it says "The Doom That Came To The Doom That Came To Atlantic City".

Or is it too soon?

Well, we did end up getting the game and it was still rather well produced. The only thing I did not get was the pewter figurines, but that is not a huge loss.

coopasonic wrote:Yeah Corey is not a PR man at all.

hepcat wrote:Shadows of Brimstone does bug me, I will say. I recently heard that the latest shipping update for wave 2 is this time...next year.

If they'd simply sold it as subscription instead of an all in one package, it might not have stung as much. But as of now, I'm going to be waiting about 2 to 3 years for one game to finish.

As Polygon notes, this likely sets a legal precedent for taking action against people who run successful Kickstarters and don't deliver the goods, though some of the backers of this project reportedly began receiving decks of cards in June, shortly before the court issued its ruling in July.

Nash and Altius Management have been ordered to pay their 31 backers in Washington a total of $668 in restitution, as well as $23,183 in legal fees and $31,000 (a grand per backer burned) in civil penalties for violating the state Consumer Protection Act, but it's yet unclear whether they've actually done so. Gamasutra has reached out to the Washington state Attorney General's office for further details.

coopasonic wrote:Grim Dawn - estimated delivery August 2013

In A Weird Place...
Kickstarter, do we need it? Really?
This question comes to us from our current project for a first expansion to Kings of Air and Steam and a reprint of the game... Which, has a little more than 2 days to fund and is only a little more than half way there.

In relation to Kings of Air and Steam: World's Fair and the reprint... If the Kickstarter project fails, then we will not have another project, and will print the game when we have the excess cash on hand. This means that we would be looking at a late 2016 release at the earliest, probably more like 2017.

Do we need Kickstarter? Yes, TMG does need Kickstarter... But we could choose to not need it...

So, what the heck does that mean? Let me unpack the concepts at work here, which fall into these categories:
• Financial
o Cash Flow
o Security
• Behavioral
o Focus
o Expectations

Financial
Cash Flow
Our incoming cash flow has never been stronger in the existence of TMG, but our outbound cash flow to support 5 employees is high but sustainable. The pre-sales and collection in advance of our expenses allows us to be able to print more games and in a wider variety.

Consider this example... This is not how we accounted for funds from the Kickstarter, but we certainly could have accounted for them in this way.

Consider that after we funded Orléans for over $250,000, we had the cash required to deliver the games now even though delivery was 7 months away. The delivery cost allocation is approximately $59,370.

Between funding Orléans and delivering it, we manufactured and launched Flip City (no Kickstarter, and a more simple game to make). The total cost to make all the Flip City is a fraction of the delivery cost allocated for Orléans.

With strong sales at GenCon, online pre-orders, and good sales in the first 2 months, Flip City has already produced more revenue than the cost to make it. We have a little more than half of the print run left, and all costs covered.

This could have been funded from the additional cash on hand (but not yet needed) associated with Orléans...

Security
Our cash flows are strong, and our finances are stable. However, printing a game that doesn't sell will put serious pressure on this. Even doing this only once can create a serious problem. Right now, TMG has a decent amount of what I can "unhealthy inventory" which is simply games that we have too many of when compared to the quantity that sells on a regular basis.

Actively working to convert this "unhealthy inventory" to cash is a key activity that is getting more concentration these days. "Unhealthy" doesn't mean bad, for example, a couple of years ago I would have considered Belfort (which is now quite healthy, and a wonderful game) to be unhealthy inventory.

One of the keys to keeping this "unhealthy inventory" low is to not make those games in the first place (or the extra quantities). A failed Kickstarter clearly says to us, "be careful if you print this game later, because it might not sell and end up being unhealthy inventory". A Kickstarter that barely funds communicates a need to keep printing quantities low.

TMG does not have a gold mine game like many other established publishers, we have no game that we know can fund our operations. As such, we are always only a couple of failed games away from serious trouble...

Behavioral
Focus
TMG makes many different games. That is a fact. If we concentrated more heavily on the games that are already showing significant success, then we could probably have one of those gold mine games (Dungeon Roll / Harbour / Scoville / Eminent Domain / Flip City / Cthulhu Realms are the most likely candidates).

Part of the problem is that as gamers, we cannot help ourselves. I promise that we won't make a game that we think is bad, but if we think a game is very good, then we are likely to move forward with it.

If a game doesn't prove to us that we should concentrate on it, then we will not focus our attention on it. Heck, we should have made 2-4 more Dungeon Roll boosters than we have so far based on how well it sells...

TMG needs to have opportunities for gamers to tell us what we should do. We see that with sales numbers, and with Kickstarter, we get to see a portion of those numbers before the game is ever manufactured.

Expectations
Finally, we have set the expectation that TMG uses Kickstarter. It is one of the best ways that we can promote and market a game. It is mostly common knowledge that we do this, so moving away from it is more difficult.

Consider that it is a very different set of customers and behavior that needs to happen if TMG does not Kickstart a game. TMG needs to convince retailers to purchase the game to sell to their customers.

Or we need our customers to pre-order the game from their retailers instead of waiting for it to be on the shelf. So that the retailers realize that the game will sell for them.

Consider that TMG sold approximately 7,000 copies of Harbour via Kickstarter. My recollection is that 5,500+ were inside of the United States. When Flip City and Cthulhu Realms launched recently (also $20 games from TMG) we did not even sell that many games combined on launch...

We did hear about difficulties finding Flip City in particular though. So, it is a very different behavior that pulls games through the distribution system.

Conclusion
Indeed TMG has enough financial stability to publish games without Kickstarter. But we wouldn't be able to do the following:
• Publish as many games that we love.
• Be distracted by new titles instead of just expanding old ones. Requiring us to become the Dungeon Roll or Eminent Domain company.
• Employ a robust team of 5 individuals who are improving many aspects of TMG, and thus your experience dealing with us.
This year, TMG published the following games without using Kickstarter, Gold West, Steam Works, Luna, Flip City, Cthulhu Realms, Dungeon of Fortune, and more titles planned for next year.

So, we could publish without the use of Kickstarter, but why would we? Kickstarter provides significant benefits that few should dare to ignore...

Cheers,

Michael

P.S. - If Kings of Air and Steam World's Fair doesn't fund, then it will probably still be made, but it likely becomes a project for a 2017 release. But that is a long time from now, and things could change...