Few men would have believed, in the early years of the Twenty
first century...
That Kickstarters could be delayed by this long and more
importantly, have the runners of that Kickstarter have the audacity to start
selling the product made by the Kickstarter before delivering all the
rewards...
Today, Sadly, I have to report that this
is the case.
Those of you who've been around the blog a
while may remember that I posted this
http://millionwordman.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/no-one-would-have-believed-in-last.html
Some time ago, more than five months ago
if the truth be known, about the receipt of the first part of my All Quiet on
the Martian Front game, the tripods and a few other bits from the other forces,
together with the excitement of receiving the other parts of the game and the
possibility of playing it with my friends, who are also massive fans of the War
of the Worlds.
I’ve been around the block on Kickstarter, I understand well the
nature of delays and I understand that the kickstarters that make their
delivery date are in the minority, not the majority. None of this I mind, indeed, if I did, I
should stop backing any kickstarters, because I do get that it’s not a
preorder, it’s a promise from them to deliver their best endeavours to manage
the project they’ve offered and deliver the goods that they are making.
I’ve been fairly lucky so far, in that most of the Kickstarters I’ve
backed have been delivered, if not on time, then delayed somewhat, In the case
of one, Alas Vegas, there’s an even longer delay than this one, but the
difference here is that I backed Alas Vegas because it was being run by a man I
know (which I do with a lot with people I know), and so the delays were not so
important because I know what’s going on there and I’m willing to wait.
The difference with this one, and the reason I’m compelled to
write about it, is that Alien Dungeon, the company who ran the kickstarter, are
now selling the products in their store for any who want to buy them, and there
are no other updates for those waiting for product that they’ve already paid
for, but they’ll be able to buy those things if they want with no delay if they
want to pay more.
I understand that some kickstarters go over, and I understand that
budgeting isn’t an exact science, much though it should be, and I wouldn’t even
begrudge them having to sell things because they’ve gone over budget and don’t
have the money to ship out the remainder of the rewards.
What I do have a problem with is the lack of communication, it’s
clear the product is there and it’s available, but the last updates we got were
some time ago, and the updates have been the same for some time.
Just wait, your things are coming...
You hear that a few times and you start to ask why people need to
be saying it all the time, after all, if it were true, surely we’d have got
notifications of shipments, and when I say we, I mean all the backers. The comments on the page are now all the same,
initially there were messages of support and indications that we didn’t mind
that things were delayed because it was clear that things were still being
worked on and updates were still forthcoming.
Then this happened
Curiously enough, all the support dried up, there are other games
on the ebay account that are labelled All Quiet on the Martian Front, but not
these, these are labelled AQMF, so that searches for All Quiet merchandise
wouldn’t pick them up...
It was at this point that most of us started asking questions with
less than british reserve, but herein lies the problem, there’s no denial from
Alien Dungeon that they’re selling things that haven’t been given out to
backers yet, and there’s no real explanation other than “We’re shipping”, which
most backers are now treating with the same contempt that’s been shown for them
by Alien Dungeon when it comes to getting their merchandise first.
In all, a great shame, because Alien Dungeon had a great product
here, a grand idea, nice figures and a good rules set to work with. The promise shown by the product was
excellent and it had a lot of backing that would have translated to further
sales in the future, together with the people who did the designing who have
their own fan bases out there, there was no fail to be had, but after what’s
happened in the last five months, the chance of me recommending them to anyone
else or indeed backing any of their other kickstarters is zero.
So an update from me to Alien Dungeon, if I find myself at a
convention with you lot at it (and I do a fair few conventions), and you’ve got product there that I’m still
owed, be aware...
I’m collecting it...
And in the mean time, I’m going on Ebay to see if I can get enough
figures together to have the first fight I promised myself five months ago...
