Well, shit... (G:AR Kickstarter)

[Guus]

are full of what comes out of the rear end of my avatar.

[Triffnix]

3. Thunt has asked us not to go after Richard ourselves.

Thunt is not a party to the contract between Evertide and me. So why should I listen to him? I might be inclined to mail a turd to Richard James - as a proof of concept for cheap and easy shipping. After all, Mr. James claims that he cannot send the finished product to his backers, because he ran out of money for shipping.

5. There have long been indications that Evertide was in financial trouble. You can't get money from them that they don't have.

Well, let's see. Evertide used to have at least four employees. It even had a "Director of Publicity". Back-of-the-envelope calculation tells me that wages and rent for the office would have used up all of the Kickstarter money after roughly a year. And lo and behold, one year after the successful Kickstarter campaign, Evertide unexpectedly finds itself in financial trouble and lays off all employees.

When I look at the impressive amounts of hot air that Richard James and Graydon Schlichter have produced over the past 18 months, I cannot help but think that they do not want to lie, but try their best to obfuscate the truth. Starting in late 2013, the Kickstarter updates become increasingly vague. Beginning in 2014, the excuses are accompanied by stalling tactics. When you read between the lines, it becomes obvious that game development has been put on the back burner, and no tangible progress is being made. If you need a couple of weeks before you get around to play testing a new version of your game, it is obviously not your highest priority.

It seems that Evertide has put a lot of effort into finding new sources of money. This is the "publicity" that Richard James writes about in his last email to (some) Kickstarter backers. They failed, and now there is not enough money left to produce the game.

[Liesmith]

3. Thunt has asked us not to go after Richard ourselves.

Thunt is not a party to the contract between Evertide and me. So why should I listen to him? I might be inclined to mail a turd to Richard James - as a proof of concept for cheap and easy shipping. After all, Mr. James claims that he cannot send the finished product to his backers, because he ran out of money for shipping.

I think shipping a turd is probably illegal, depending on where you live. Just forward him all your "For Resident" junk mail so he can get some pretty sweet deals at your local grocery.

[Krulle]

In previous years I would have suggested sending him all your AOL-cd's, but I didn't see one for years....

[mustache_man]

In previous years I would have suggested sending him all your AOL-cd's, but I didn't see one for years....

I threw one away last week when I was cleaning an old cabinet.

[DrinksBeer]

3. Thunt has asked us not to go after Richard ourselves.

Thunt is not a party to the contract between Evertide and me. So why should I listen to him? I might be inclined to mail a turd to Richard James - as a proof of concept for cheap and easy shipping. After all, Mr. James claims that he cannot send the finished product to his backers, because he ran out of money for shipping.

I think shipping a turd is probably illegal, depending on where you live. Just forward him all your "For Resident" junk mail so he can get some pretty sweet deals at your local grocery.

You might be surprised. Google "gift cow turds."

Yeah, I had no idea either, but there it is...

[Krulle]

They package it in a very specific way to ensure hygienic handling (I've seen it about 2 years ago).
Also, it's not legal everywhere (and subject to temporary bans in case of sickness outbreaks), and there are some very strict legal points regarding hygiene when shipping anything organic.
That's the main reason why meat-eaters turd is excluded from postal services everywhere, and may only be transported by licensed companies in most countries.

Cow shit is manure, and thus very useful to anyone with a garden, and in small amounts even for balconies with potted plants.

[WearsHats]

I saw an article from a friend about one of those places now accepting Bitcoin as payment. It surprised me. Apparently, Bitcoins are worth a pile of manure, after all. Who knew?

[Sessine]

Though I don't claim to know anything about card game design, I have designed a couple of card decks as merch memorabilia for an online text browser game I am associated with. In that capacity, I've been hanging out at The Game Crafter, a print-on-demand game production company used by a lot of amateur and professional card and board game designers. In the news channel there, I ran across the following quote:

"For new designers, the instinct is always to solve a problem by adding something to the game to balance it out. Ninety percent of the time the correct answer is to simplify the problem away. Take something out instead. Find the core of your game, and take away everything else that doesnÔÇÖt directly support that."
- Ben Rosset

Since Thunt has undertaken to finish G:AR, this sounds like it might be timely advice. If it's useful, that is! At the very least, simplifying the game will likely reduce the cost to produce it, and since for KS backers the cost is apparently going to come out of Thunt's own pocket, that's a real concern. Now here's this guy saying it may well make it a better game, too!

I'm wondering if any of you who know more about game design would care to comment?

[Trojan]

Most frauds I've come across were for either silly small amounts (petty cash type stuff) or for far more than $200k - that really doesn't go very far, and nowadays it's hard to start over if people think you've ripped them off. The bigger ones also tended to take the money and disappear for dust unless they were scamming family, I'd go with "small co thought too big", it's a very common problem, particularly (no offense Thunt) with artistic types in charge, and teeming and lading the projects in an attempt to get something out is typical even if the last project gets stuffed royally.

I put $114 in to the KS but figured it would be a bonus if anything came out, I mainly wanted to support Thunt - so I'm glad to hear that he's going on to Patreon, from a finance point of view Patreon indicates a steady income which is something he can take to a bank/etc and generally let him relax a bit about the money.

I'd suggest possibly publishing as an e-card game which should prove the concept, let people have something for their money, etc. If some local producer/distributors can be found then you can think about producing a tangible version, but frankly it isn't hard to print reasonable quality cards on modern printers, so while professional cards would be great, the marginal increase in awesomeness will come at a higher price than is reasonable for Thunt to bear.

[WearsHats]

Third update. Thunt can't get the backer list from Amazon because they're not recognizing his right to it. (If I'm reading things right, I've got an idea for a different tack which may work. I've messaged him. We'll see what he says and how things go from here.)

Meantime, he's still having fun with the game and has introduced some new elements.

Oh, and his new computer may arrive today.

http://www.goblinscomic.org/lowtide-the ... rd-update/

[Triffnix]

Third update. Thunt can't get the backer list from Amazon because they're not recognizing his right to it.

This issue can be solved easily. Every backer needs to write to Kickstarter, and ask them nicely to hand their personal information over to Thunt.

Of course, handling more than 2000 requests is going to be a sizable workload for Kickstarter, but that is a small price to pay for keeping to the letter of the privacy policy.

[DrinksBeer]

Hey WearsHats, I saw on Thunt's twitter this morning that someone had found Richard's old UCLA page and suggested he go looking for him there. You might want to point him to the G:AR thread in the community forum for more recent info on Richard's post-doctorate whereabouts.

I don't know if Richard is still in Vegas though. That most recent photo update to his facebook page was Time Square in NYC. And he was apparently an attendee at this Entrepreneur's Roundtable event in New York in October:

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/entrepreneu ... 3308537193

That group is a venture capital group for tech start-ups. If they like your idea you can get $40k in funding plus free office space, mentoring, etc.

[YardMeat]

Is there any way that KS can send a message to the backers on Thunt's behalf instead of handing over their personal information?

[SUGauthor]

This is ridiculous, no one on the backer list would care about them handing personal information to him, that's essentially what we were doing when we backed the project to begin with. I'm not sure what they're thinking.

[Sessine]

Thunt's next communication with Kickstarter should be a lawyer's letter. I suspect a lawyer would advise focusing on two key points:

1. Kickstarter's own privacy policy says:
"We do reserve the right to disclose personal information when we believe that doing so is reasonably necessary to comply with the law or law enforcement, to prevent fraud or abuse, or to protect KickstarterÔÇÖs legal rights."

2. As Thunt said in his first update about this:
"As of now, Evertide is no longer involved with the Kickstarter or G:AR and IÔÇÖm taking on all efforts and responsibilities. Also, last week marked the contractual deadline for the release of the game. Which means that every aspect of G:AR, even the parts designed and created by Evertide, became legally mine." (The lawyer's letter would, of course, quote from actual contract language.)

They can legally release the list. Their lawyers are just worried that they'd be stepping into the middle of something if they did. What a properly worded lawyer's letter from Tarol can do is convince them that they are already in the middle of something, and the least-risk course for them is to release the list.

[Mec]

I see KS' point. They don't want to get involved in every argument between creative people about who gets the list of customers.

Thunt could sue Evertide Games for the rights to the Kickstarter project (including the customer list). I don't think that would be his style though.

Everyone who backed the project has gotten e-mail from kickstarter.com. Thunt could post a comment on the KS saying: if you backed this project, and you haven't gotten anything from Evertide, and you'd like to get something from me, then please forward your KS mail to foo@bar.com . Then get someone to review the e-mail and re-build a list.

[WearsHats]

Stalking Richard? Not sure how much Thunt knows, but I'll point it out.

Amazon writing a backer update on his behalf? Unlikely. They'd have to take Thunt's word for it, and they don't seem to want to act. Easier and cleaner for them if they just stand back.

We didn't give any information to Thunt when we backed the KS. The KS was run by Evertide. It was their game. They're the ones who got all the money. And all the information. It was just licensed merchandise. Kind of like Munchkin Axe Cop. The brothers who make the Axe Cop webcomic didn't make the game and don't have access to the information about people who ordered it. That's all internal to Steve Jackson Games. All Ethan and Malachai get are royalty payments.

Sessine's second point is the one I made to Thunt. He wasn't so sure about that, but I told him it couldn't hurt to try. All they can do is say no again. Nothing lost there. He didn't say much, but he says he's got a plan. We'll see how it goes.

I'd thought of having people send their backer emails to Thunt. It's still a lot to sort out, though. And he'd have to trust people not to fake the emails. And hope people hadn't deleted them. And there's the matter of PayPal donors and add-on buyers, but that's a whole other mess. This is not going to be easy to sort out.

[Fanatic]

Wow, this is an interesting discussion.

Pretty sure the contract governs everything. Look to the contract (or have a lawyer do it) to determine what you can and can't do, always.

If you are curious, per the records of the Secretary of State of Connecticut, there is a company known as Evertide Games Inc. The Statutory Agent of Evertide Games is JEFFREY HALL, 125 SILVERMINE AVENUE, NORWALK, CT, 06850. Naturally, some other company could have registered that name, but I get the feeling this is the person you'd have to send stuff to if you want the company to respond.

Also... Let me understand this. I could (in theory) still pledge money to this game, even though the game is not going to go forward?
I would be very interested to know who pledged money AFTER the game was tanked. Kickstarter of course claims that they are not liable for any damages, but I think there could be a cause of action there against Kickstarter if they received notice (or a request) to cease collecting money and ignored it - at the very least, they might be contributing to damages in a breach of contract claim against Evertide (assuming there actually is a breach of contract). Again, it would all depend on the contract language (this time between Kickestarter and the rest).

Wow, I'm actually interested in all this...

[Krulle]

I am sure that if anyone would notice kickstarter, they would block further payments to Evertide games made throguh the G:AR project site...

[Mec]

I'd thought of having people send their backer emails to Thunt. It's still a lot to sort out, though. And he'd have to trust people not to fake the emails. And hope people hadn't deleted them. And there's the matter of PayPal donors and add-on buyers, but that's a whole other mess. This is not going to be easy to sort out.

Detecting fake e-mails is something he could delegate.

But, I agree. It's a mess. Thunt didn't make the mess. And what gets me -- it's not one of his vocations. He's like a level 15 or level 20 creative artist and a level 2 business person. But instead of making art, he's sweeping up after Richard James' business mess.

ADDED: I'm not saying he's wrong to be cleaning up Evertide's mess, just that the world would be a better place if Thunt got to spend more time doing what he loves.

[Krulle]

1. Kickstarter's own privacy policy says:
"We do reserve the right to disclose personal information when we believe that doing so is reasonably necessary to comply with the law or law enforcement, to prevent fraud or abuse, or to protect KickstarterÔÇÖs legal rights."

The fraud or abuse has already happened, and cannot be prevented anymore by giving out personal information...

So, this will not be sufficient to hand over any data.....

Edit: didn't Thunt get a list of backers so that he could send the vouchers for the e-books they gave as backer bonus?

[WearsHats]

Quick flyby:

Fanatic, the Kickstarter is closed, and has been for over a year now. But after it closed Evertide set up a way for people to buy stuff on their website. Apparently, they never took it down. So, this whole time, they've been accepting preorders for the game. You can, right now, go to the Evertide website and order a copy of the game and it will happily take your money. For a product they will never make. That has nothing to do with Amazon. (PayPal, on the other hand, should be notified of fraud.)

Anyway, Thunt has a lawyer, and is pursuing his options.

[stevedj]

Third update. Thunt can't get the backer list from Amazon because they're not recognizing his right to it. (If I'm reading things right, I've got an idea for a different tack which may work. I've messaged him. We'll see what he says and how things go from here.)

Meantime, he's still having fun with the game and has introduced some new elements.

Oh, and his new computer may arrive today.

http://www.goblinscomic.org/lowtide-the ... rd-update/

Thunt spends a great deal of time at the end of this update trying to defend why Kickstarter cannot not have the data:

So Kickstarter is hinting that they actually, seriously dont have that information. I really cant believe this, for a few reasons

To make it more clear...

Having run a Kickstarter myself (for a local Doctor Who convention coming to the Seattle area), I can confirm for everyone that Kickstarter DOES have the data. They will always have the data. And the Kickstarter owner just needs to log in and download it. You get one file for each reward tier (because each tier can have different survey questions, so each file has different columns of data).

Of course, the owner in this case has disappeared.

So it isn't an issue with Kickstarter having the data, it is all an issue of Kickstarter giving the data. Well, unless it is encrypted with the password which Thunt doesn't have...?

[Glemp]

Has Thunt considered making a profile on Kickstarter and asking backers to message him there? He should be able to check that they've backed on their profiles, but I don't know if that'd be a TOS violation for asking for personal information.