Recent Posts
Your inspiration apparently has good timing. Maybe it really just wanted to make sure you saw that.-Vurbal (August 04, 2013, 05:57 AM)
Just wanted to contact everyone and let you all know what's going on.
It seems like the spiritual collaboration I am working with was able to work out an understanding with the military and some other various groups over the last few weeks, and things are feeling very positive for the future!
All the paper supplies are still safely in a climate controlled storage while I am saving up some money to purchase ink for printing with a different printer than I had budgeted for.
I'm not having troubles with hyperdimensional plasma attacks any more, so the only problem left to resolve is that I had budgeted for using the 4 color laser printer, and it turned out that I have to use an inkjet (for the card decks ONLY) instead, which will cost a bit more than I had budgeted for. But I'm well along the way to having the new ink budget, so once I am back in Washington state, I should be able to print up the decks without any more issues.
Wow, doesn't this Erik guy have any friends around here at all? I mean, people who know him? He is a board game enthusiast in a major metropolitan area after all....
... Oh wait. That's me.
Yes, I'm a friend of Mr. Chevalier. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I love the boy. I imagine my presence and words are dead to most of you after saying that, but my friendship with Erik is more important to me than popularity. With so much vitriol tossed around about him these days, it would be smarter (well, safer) to just sit idly by. However, after biting my tongue these last few days out of respect to Erik's privacy, in good conscience I can no longer stay silent. Erik is a good man--just a man who makes some pretty poor decisions from time to time.
I'm a little uncomfortable speaking on Erik's behalf, so let us be clear here: I am not. I did not work at Forking Path, and I can't speak to the details surrounding reimbursement. I am a little annoyed he hasn't spoken out publicly in defense of his own name, but I can appreciate that too. Erik isn't one to court conflict--he's a relatively reserved and shy fellow. From what he has told us, he is worried his situation will exponentially worsen if he says the wrong thing at the wrong time. Hedging his bets, he has been seeking legal counsel before moving forward.
His detractors will be happy to know he hasn't been in a good place lately. It's not lost on him that his name is tarnished, that future projects aren't promising, and many wish him serious harm. He has been hounded by the press, and is mortified about the damage he has contributed to Kickstarter's reputation (he is a big proponent of democratically rooted, grass root efforts like Kickstarter--a means of bypass the traditionally corporate control of funding which mollifies artistic expression into bland, tasteless convention).
Many of you are angry, and rightfully so: Erik promised something and failed to deliver, in a rather spectacular way. This failure, however, wasn't born from a willful intent to defraud. He didn't see a payday without strings--every word he communicated to his backers about issues (from legal to printer concerns) were rooted in truth. His heart was (and still is) sincerely in the right place. He wanted to deliver on the Doom, which only stands to reason since he would have little reason to establish a game company (or, as some are claiming, looking into Knizia licensing options) unless he foresaw a positive future for Forking Path. He never went into this with the intent to fail. Fraud was never an intent.
I am *very* close with Erik. We've been roommates, and I speak with him regularly. I've seen him on top of the world, and I've seen him emotionally broken. He is just a person who got in over his head--nowhere near the villain he is being made out to be.
I know a lot of the story, but I've intentional avoided addressing any of the misconceptions being aired in this forum. That is Erik's place, and responsibility. However, two points I will address:
1. Inari was under no obligation to repay any of the money Joystiq Labs incubated it with. I can say with 100% confidence that not a penny of the backers' support went into that. The troubled incubation of Inari had more to do with personnel than a desire to misappropriate funds.
2. I'm no expert on the details surrounding the Hasbro injunction, but I believe Erik contests whether the art assets he was provided in late 2012 appeased the issue.
I don't hang around here much, but if you have anything to ask, I will respond sometime tomorrow.
I'll say this... after raising over $40k for Chicken Caesar and $46k for Mars Needs Mechanics, realistically printing Doom with those miniatures was going to cost more than $35k. Shipping from China to the U.S. is $5-6k alone unless you can piggy back with someone else's order. The molding fee is $1,000-$1,500 per model. Depending on the number of copies he was going to print (I'm assuming more than 2k since he had over 1k backers), he was looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of $30-$40k just for printing. I'm pulling these numbers out of my head based on our experience printing with a high quality printer in China. If he was going for cheaper materials, he might have been able to shave up to $10k off that cost. But if it is anything like our experience, this game might have cost him a solid $50-60k to print, ship to the U.S. and then ship to backers.
My understanding was that was more based on several things he said he had done by way of excuses before he thought better of it - or (more likely) finally got some competent legal advice. I think it's more him realizing he'd better stop being stupid rather him getting smart per se.-40hz (August 03, 2013, 07:31 PM)
Supposedly he co-mingled funds and diverted investment money for his own personal use.-40hz (August 03, 2013, 04:18 PM)
What specifically did you not like about it? What features would you have preferred to see as your server box?-superboyac (August 03, 2013, 02:32 PM)
This was going to wait, but with the failure of "The Doom That Came To Atlantic City!" to the tune of $122,874 of backer's money, the time seems to have come to me. In the update "Terminus" the creator describes part of the failure as a result of "forming a company" and "I left my job" among other things.
So, I will show through example how one can create a game (and through it a game company) with less than $1,000. The budget in fact will be $999 total. I spent $12 today to register a domain, so there is $987 left in the budget. What are some ways you would spend money on a game company pre-Kickstarter?
Why?
Not just because it can be done, but because in the course of running TMG I have come across some great games which do not fit for TMG for one reason or another. Right now, there are 3 games. One game which would be best to show as a potential drinking/gambling game. Not acceptable for the TMG brand.
One game which would require more POD style manufacturing. Using lasers to etch things like dice and cut things like wooden boxes. Additionally, the play style of the game is too mass-market and not gamer-centric enough. Not for TMG...
And another which due to the amount of components could not be the correct price. If TMG did it, and it sold in retail stores, it would need to be at least $29.99 which would be a horrible price point for the game. However, $20 direct should work, and I can't sell direct only with a TMG product.
Thus, Paradise Game Labs is created. And it will only use a budget of $999 to start. Of course, revenue and profits from the first Kickstarter project would allow the continuation of the company.
And $122,874 of pledges would certainly be many times what is needed on the initial funding.
To make sure that you keep up with how things are going, and if you want to be notified of newsworthy things for the company, signup to receive emails at:
http://paradisegamelabs.com
We will be starting with a dice game by Scott Almes, designer of Martian Dice and Kings of Air and Steam. It is fantastic, requires 24 custom dice, cards, and some more stuff. And we need to target a price point of $20
More to come, including a print and play...
http://paradisegamelabs.com
Saying that KS is broken because of “Doom” is like saying that cars are broken because one drunk driver mangled his Ford Torus. Like all tools, financial or physical, it can be used well or poorly. It can be used in a variety of ways. If “Veronica Mars” wants to use KS, who is supposed to say “Oh no, you’re too successful!” To me, that casts KS as the kiddie table of art funding, when in fact it can do some things BETTER than the traditional model. Once you start throwing up fences and saying that Zach Braff and Spike Lee are too GOOD to use KS, where exactly does that end?
Have you ever looked up how to make a pressure cooker bomb? My husband, ever the oppositional kind, asked them if they themselves weren’t curious as to how a pressure cooker bomb works, if they ever looked it up. Two of them admitted they did.
For 9-bay cases, the ones that I like are the following:
Antec nine hundred: (see attachment in previous post)I like this one because it has the full 9-bays, but also the huge 200mm fan on top. Looks kind of hip too.-superboyac (August 03, 2013, 02:16 PM)
Here's a prediction... A DC comics movie about the Flash. Involves time travel. Sometime in the next 2 years.-Renegade (August 03, 2013, 12:08 PM)
Yeah, I saw it. Should I remove it? Or might it encourage others to click-through to the new Wordpress blog?-kyrathaba (August 03, 2013, 11:39 AM)
wraith, I've reestablished my Blogger blog to point to the new Wordpress blog: kyrathasoft.blogspot.com-kyrathaba (August 03, 2013, 09:11 AM)
You might want to update your about me also... any little bit of promotion helps, and some people actually look at those profiles when you post elsewhere Obama ran on the "We Want Change" theme. Well, we got change alright....-Tinman57 (August 02, 2013, 04:55 PM)
Actually, we didn't. That was pretty much the point IMO. He's pretty much the same as W in the ways that count, and has continued the programs of his predecessor.-wraith808 (August 02, 2013, 06:14 PM)
Oh no, we got change alright. More money spent than any president ever, national deficit doubled... blah blah blah. But you still have to read in the sarcasm in that post....-Tinman57 (August 02, 2013, 08:25 PM)