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Monday, June 19, 2017

Kickstarter - Far West - Far-gotten and Likely Never to Be


On May 1st, Gareth updated on the Far West Kickstarter that he was dealing with "some serious family matters. I wanted to give you a light at the end of the tunnel, though -- the way things are looking right now, the obligations which are currently weighing on me will be resolved in the next couple of weeks.  At that point, I mean to get back on track and get this done and delivered."

That was seven weeks ago today. Nary a peep. I mean, sure he's been making convention and podcast appearances, but as far as his Kickstarter obligation goes? Nada

Well, i'm glad he has time to tweet:


If I recall correctly, Gareth stated in the past that tweeting doesn't take time away from his work on Far West. I believe him. You can take time away from work that you aren't doing.

Gee, just think, we are coming up on the 6th anniversary of the launch of the Far West Kickstarter.

Holy shit! Really six years! I wonder how many of those 28.6k tweets happened in those six years.

Its always good to know where you stand with a publisher as a customer. It was expensive but now I know...

#ConManKen - you are not alone :)

22 comments:

  1. We're about to hit the 5-year anniversary for Con Man John -- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1778492214/appendix-n-adventure-toolkits-dcc-rpg-modules. He hasn't updated (aka made excuses) since February, where we were promised shipment three in the next couple of weeks. I managed tp get the other two, but I think there were folks that haven't seen a thing yet.

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    1. Thanks for the reminder. Brave Halfling i backed at over 100 myself - got the first two early, then nothing

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    2. It's a shame really he used to be one of the good ones I mean he would sometimes run a little late on things but he usually got his jobs done. I bought both white boxes from him

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  2. Its been three years and two months since invincible overlord funded. Ever since the early 80's I have been trying to complete a physical map set and I have no hope that I will ever receive all of the maps, minis, and book I pledged $260 for.

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    1. At least there are still updates on that one....

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    2. Yeah. Frankly, I have 100% faith that the Judges Guild will deliver eventually. It's just that eventually might be 2020.

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    3. The bobs have stopped updating lately. It was once a week but now it's not.

      There's always some excuse or another. I wish they'd hire a layout person and get it done in a month instead of the next 3 years. We were supposed to have our product by the end o fjune as of the last timeline. Now? PFISH.

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  3. I've been meaning to post about this one:

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1469264303/strange-voyages
    Est. Delivery: October 2014.
    The publisher, Quinn Conklin, went MIA after the 3rd Alpha version came out in PDF. The authors of the book took over the KS went silent, but still nothing. They worked hard at trying to get things going, but Mr. Conklin was sitting on the funds. Last update was Dec. 2015. I've heard there's a PDF on DTRPG, but I haven't checked it out, because you know, I'd have to pay for it. Which I already did.

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  4. He was busy being a good little virtue signaler and looney ass sjw: https://twitter.com/gmskarka/status/733719602681810944

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  5. But but..Gareth is such a stalwart member of the community. Certainly we can trust Gareth right?

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  6. I was really sad that I didn't have the funds to back Far West when it was live... now I would still love to have a copy but I'm glad I didn't back it.

    On the downside I got hooked by 4/6 of Ken's KS's (KoDT,Traveller,C&C,RPG Pencil dice) and Cartoon Action Hour Season 3 from Spectrum Games. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/800609645/cartoon-action-hour-season-3/

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  7. Yeah, my daughter is going to turn 6 as well. She was born during the kickstarter's funding period.

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  8. Please don't set the bar for #ConManKen. All we need is for him to say, "Only six years? Here...hold my beer."

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  9. Check out the guys on outpost kickstarter. It's been three years already and looking like it's going to be another three because molds are hard.

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  11. If you want The Tavern to start a list of overdue Kickstarters - 2 years late or more - I'll need links and some background info

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    1. Just out of interest - what constitutes a overdue kickstarter? As an example, I backed Cartoon Action 3 at the PDF level, so I think they delivered (apologies to all those at the physical level). Do stretch goals count - there are a number I've backed that have created the 'original' item kickstarted, but disappeared so that promised stretch goals (which meant that I backed) were never delivered.

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    2. If physical rewards or stretch goals aren't delivered, then people were ripped off and should take legal action. It's as simple as that.

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    3. Bruce,

      At least for me I consider a KS overdue if the main item(s) that the KS was funding are more then six months past the predicted completion date. Anything less then that I consider more or less normal. Once you get to where you are measuring the delay in years imho it's doing serious damage to the companies/authors rep unless there are REALLY REALLY REALLY good reasons for the delays. (again imho, I also give a lot more slack of there is good/regular/honest communication.)

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  12. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1888572386/mekton-zero

    Four years late.

    Still giving regular updates, but they consist of "We're still working on it".

    The layout and graphic design preview was IMHO garish and in places unreadable... And looked like it was done in Microsoft Publisher.

    I had really high hopes for this, but I guess thinking Cyberpunk 3.0 was a fluke was wrong. I wish Pondsmith had gotten some real help with putting the game together.

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  13. Shotguns & Sorcery is a real slug, but they called in help and it's starting to move again. The artist didn't do any work until after the text portion was complete, which took a couple years. He had our money, but figured he'd do other work until the rest of the book was done. So, after, all of the work on the book, he *then* tries to get motivated enough to crank out 40 something pieces of art, and says it will take a couple months. I'm an artist, and to do 40 some full color pieces doesn't happen in a month or two, especially after you have shifted your interest into something else. So we pay the price for his double dipping,the price of time that a captive audience must pay. Have yet to see a single drop of color, but we could probably make an adult coloring book or of some of the roughs and line art.

    I back kickstarters to help people bring their dreams to life, but this project is not the artist's dream, there is no passion at all, just an artist being forced to art and we being bad guys for pushing him. Until last week when they called in help.

    It's the first independent attempt at a Cypher System core book, but another kickstarter for "Vurt" started a year later, and is at the printer's now, so S&S was shown how it's done.

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  14. I'm pretty disgusted with Skarka's backers who are still defending him. I don't blame them for backing in the first place - anyone can trust the wrong person. But making excuses for him at this point is tantamount to grabbing their ankles and saying, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

    Defending an egregious case like Skarka just encourages other bad actors and makes it harder on everyone else involved with Kickstarter (backers and creators alike).

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