Kickstarter Current Thoughts: 05-07-2017

Way back in the day, I backed many a Kickstarter projects.

Over the last say, two years, I've cut way back. Way back.

This is due to several factors.

Kickstarter is terrible at allowing a user to know what a vendor is about. There should be some type of dashboard that each vendor has where I can see customer satisfaction, how often they hit their marks, how late their product is, and other information. Things like posts before funding, posts after funding. It's always telling if you see that between the time a late project fulfilled and when it started the posts count goes way down.

Instead, we get what? Here's how many projects this company did. Wow. Thanks. That's not really useful information in telling me anything at a glance as I now have to delve into each project and see how they went.

It's 2017. Big data is a thing. This isn't some weird request to provide information that isn't instantly available with existing technology. Kickstarter, get your head into the game of providing better customer service!

Okay, so that's one.

Two, I've had trials and tribulations. Let's see, a few years ago, my formerly awesome mechanic just completely missed like $3,500 worth of repairs that my old Saturn needed. So it was new car time. New cars are expensive.

My mom's been hospitalized a few times. Life doesn't get easier when you have a chronic condition like diabetes.

I was hospitalized! Parking in an alley is awesome in most seasons but in the winter it's challenging. So challenging that I got caught on a huge snow mound and had to get underneath my car with a shovel to get out of it. The reward? A few slipped disks that prevented me from doing anything outside of laying down without being in excruciating pain. I was very lucky in that three months of physical therapy and a few shots to the spine were able to restore most of my mobility and make the pain manageable.

I was laid off! After 19 years at my last gig, they had decided, "You know, it makes more sense for us to have like, what, five job fairs and fire the people already working here" Corporate America for the win yeah?

That one worked out a bit better for me as I have a job making significantly more money and every time I talk to peeps from the old place they have some new issue to harp on.


Three, Kickstarter projects are often on sale. Anyone heard of Zombicide: Black Plague?



I didn't get the exclusives. I also didn't wait for it to be published. I also got it for 50% off. This doesn't count other board games that get deep discounts like The Others, another one I got for almost or 50% off. I ordered it and Amazon sent it to me the same day.

Anyone remember The Grand Temple of Jing? It was about this time I was starting to get leery of these games. I don't know if gamers are just terrible project managers or if they are a cursed lot of mankind because that project was massively late. two years or something late. I picked up my copy from The Miniature Market on some crazy blowout. Think I paid like $20 or $25 for it.  A Beautiful book by the way.

How about Razor Coast? Picked up the whole lot for more than 50% off.

So yeah, outside of some great exclusives or 'freebies' like giving you the PDF with the physical copy, I'm not seeing a lot of benefit for backing these Kickstarters when so many of them are just poorly managed and late.

Four, lack of accountability. Kickstarter continues to hide behind "it's not a preorder, it's funding a process" or some nonsense that if you took it to a bank and asked for a loan they'd laugh you out. As I alluded to above, way too many of the kick starters I've picked up have been the results of late or bad management. Heck, I didn't' even get started on Sedition Wars that decided for the good of the game to screw the initial backers in some obscure ways that didn't, by the way, make the good of the game viable.

On failures, I've backed? I was a backer of the Tome of Horrors, both of 'em. Should have known the warning signs on that one. Sigh. That doesn't count Drake.

That doesn't count some that are technically still going like Imbrian Art's where they're literally using new Kickstarter, sending out the goods to those people on the new Kickstarter first, and eventually will get to the original guys who sent them money. It's not that Jody isn't an awesome sculptor. It isn't that he hasn't had his own 'curses' but damn that's a shitty thing to do to people who originally believed in you.

 Another one that's long overdue is Assimilation Alien Host. It took in over $50 thousand and it's been bleeding out at a slow fraction. Thankfully the creator decided to actual start communicating with the backers again and on a regular basis and most people are happy with the communication skills and the slow but steady progress forward.

Five, there's awesome stuff out there right now! That isn't being Kickstarted! Don't get me wrong, I get that Kickstarter for many companies, like Goodman Games, is probably more of a marketing and preorder thing to engage with their potential customers than a vital necessity, but in the meantime, there are publications like Pathfinder Bestiary 6 out there.



You want it? You want it now? You simply go buy it. Done.

Sixth, I'm crazy. I have a problem just kind of backing a thing. Like there were some awesome awesome dwarf miniatures out recently, The Iron Crows!. My nature would've put me at a pretty high pledge level on that one.

Seventh, I'm not playing or painting! My new job is cool in that it's only four days a week, but it's four ten hour days, with an unpaid hour for lunch, and it's about an hour both ways so it's a thirteen hour day. Not complaining but it is a schedule that makes me pretty unavailable for anything during the week because I have to be up so early. And then on the weekend the dreaded adulting strikes! So even though I've bought the Other and Black Plague, I haven't done much more than look at them.

Why on earth would I back anything else?

Mind you there are a few I've backed just because they looked fun and were from companies that I trusted. In reality, I did not need to back Godoman Games and their new boxed set of the Duo but I like the Twain so even though I never used the Runequest stuff, I wanted to throw some support at them.

But overall? Yeah, my spending on Kickstarter, unless it gets serious about not only accountability, but customer friendliness in data sharing, is going to continue going down.

How about everyone else? How are you doing with Kickstarter? More? Less? The same? Am I way off my gourd here?

Season Updates

In the real world, I've been out of employment for five months. Part of a small layoff at my old job at a company I'd been at for nineteen years. 

I have recently found new employment in a contract position with Medline. Pay is great but no benefits. 

It's also a bit out of the way compared to my old job. Instead of fifteen minutes, it's roughly an hour there and another hour back. 

My initial work was Monday-Friday doing the regular training and learning bits. During this time I've had to create documentation because for many things, it was all hand delivered. Always a poor way to handle issues. 

This relying on subject matter experts though isn't a new thing. It was a common sight at the old job too. Only a handful of people knowing how to do a thing without it being documented.

With me on board, there are two other new hires. We've all been doing our share of recording things.

And it's not that current employees are unfriendly. No, they are relatively so. But they're not teachers. When they go to show you how something is done, it's zip zip zip. No screenshots, no written documentation, no waiting while you write things down because they are handling vital issues, so it makes thing difficult to ensure that you've got every step necessary down. 

This makes things a bit more challenging then they need to be.

There are some things documented. The documentation in those areas is very handy. Well written and generous use of screen shots. 

But sometimes it's wrong. And it's copy protected so we can't update it. So you wind up making a copy of it for your personal use and anytime the correct file does get changed, you're now out of synch. Minor things but telling things.

The job uses PL/SQL, and it's been a challenge to take my MS Access skills to this field. Fortunately, I've always studied SQL because there are some things in MS Access that you still need SQL to do. And I've always been interested in "big data" and databases in general. It's a good way to organize things.

So long story short, I've been busy with a new job.

I'm still reading comics, still reading books. Lately, those books have veered away from fiction and into non-fiction. Some interesting results there. Did see Rogue One and will definitely have to post about that soon.

Anyway, I hope the holidays are treating everyone well and that everyone is ready for 2017 to be a better year than 2016. 

2012 Lookback aka "Not in the Face!"

2012 was a year that put a lot of challenges to me.

For one, my job kicked into overtime. There were bits that I could have done better but I've tried to run the show as a guy who keeps things moving as opposed to smashing one particular group over another because the blow back for such deeds is usually not worth it.

I initially wanted to pull back and do less in terms of the amount of hours I worked. Turns out this year I've worked more hours than I ever did in the past. Working seven days a week was not an unusual thing. Wasn't necessarily a bad thing either but I did fool myself into thinking I was making more than I was. Damn you taxes! Anyway, that cut seriously into my 'me' time.

This meant less reading, less gaming, less painting, less watching movies, less going out, less socialization, and well, more being a sarcastic crab ass just when I thought I'd reached the pinnacle of my skills in that field.

I don't know what 2013 will bring in those regards but I'm going to try and achieve a finer balance in the home life and work life.

Another problem with the dreaded mom. She visited my sister for a few months and neither one of them is used to the other. This lead to some interesting situations and while I tried to give my sister some advice, it was too couched in my smart ass ways for her to take it as seriously as she could have.

And then there are other complications with my mother's health right know which I'm not going to delve too deeply into but suffice it to say it's been stressful for both my sister and I, and I'm sure much worse for my mother herself.

Thankfully, my boss has been very supportive in terms of allowing me to move my time around. Mind you, as it's only recently been an issue and I've been doing a LOT of overtime, we'll see how that scales in 2013. Hopefully things continue going well in the field at least.

Fiction wise, while I enjoyed several books, none really 'broke' out for me. I can name some characters and some bits, but for the most part, it's mostly a blur of 'grimdark' or pseudo grimdark where the author didn't really have the stones to push it to that next level.

Not that they necessarily need to. Even the most harsh of novels and deeds and characters can just get boring after a while. You have to wonder why not one just goes, "Really? Really?"

In terms of gaming it's been a bad year. I've hung out with my friends on numerous occassions and played in the Shackled City. One of my friends has had a few near TPKs and some interesting times with it but again, it's not his DMing style or skills that have kept me from the game, it's been work.

One of the things that's odd, is that the guys I play with went from 4e to Pathfinder without missing a beat. It was like returning to visit a really cool old friend. Turned out some interesting learning experiences for me with the cleric and wizard I played as they were different enough from their 3.5 versions that there were some, "Oh that's cool".

In terms of 5th edition or Dungeons and Dragons Next... no habla. I've thought WoTC has done a terrible job with the mantle of D&D for a while now and well, I figure I'll just let the new edition surprise me.

In terms of new games or games outside my range... didn't happen. There were a ton of games I wanted to check out and play like Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics. No time. I even have the Adventurer Conquror King first book and will soon have the companion. Again, no time.

Strangely enough, that hasn't stopped my supporting of the Kickstarter model. For me, it's a preorder system. I know some people have pointed to KS itself and their words of wisdom that it's not a preorder system despite the fact that KS itself says you HAVE to deliver the goods or pay the money back. So it's not a preorder system but you have to deliver something? Yeah, we'll see how that plays out.

I initially thought that RPGs were money went to die in terms of the KS model. Still do. Way too many projects absurdly late on these things. So late that if these were people you know, you'd be wondering why they're walking across the street pretending they don't hear you.

But now I'm starting to think most niche things, like miniatures as well, are going to have further problems. While Coominiornot has done some good things with Zombicide, their second project is late. Will their third and fourth be late? Reputation is going to start being a HUGE thing on KS, especially if you switch backers and partners to try and look like you're now 'professional' while still not delivering on the previous KS. It'll be interesting to observe while I can.

For miniature games, one of the people I know from my friend's old store, Black Sun Games, has been a machine. Me? I've gotten like two games of Song of Blades and Heroes in. Over the course of the year. Can you say pitiful? What's worse is the amount of money I keep spending on the hobby like I'm really going to delve into Warhammer with my Elves or Deepwars with the Dark Mariners or any of the other games I'm painting or backing.

For painting? Again, time not there. I bought an air brush and while I love using it to lay down base coats, I haven't had enough time to do anything else with it. No time to practice and no time to try out different techniques. I'm happy if I can do three layers and a wash or two.

In terms of buying locally from say, stores like Games Plus, man did that take a hit. I deliberately went then on their Thanksgiving Saturday bit to throw some money their way because I'd be spending so much on the whole KS model. Ouch. My wallet is still recovering.

I know I sound like I'm bitching a lot. On the other hand, I could afford to spend money on my hobbies. My mom is still kicking and while not doing well, is on the road to recovery. Her being sick has actually brought my sister and me a little closer. Work is busy but I'm glad to have a job where I can work overtime and still get paid for it. There are many good things about life and while I've had some challenges, I'm hoping to make life more to my liking in 2013. I hope everyone else has that opportunity as well.

Not onwards 2013 and remember, "Not in the face!"