Sadly, but not unexpectedly

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Gladius
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Sadly, but not unexpectedly

Post by Gladius » Thu Jul 25, 2013 1:40 am

The Doom that Came to Atlantic City, which successfully kickstarted (to the tune of over $120,000) has been cancelled/failed. I'll admit to being burned by this particular kickstarter (something that I knew was a risk, as any kickstarter backer should).

I'm not sure if you can read the updates if you weren't a backer, but the final update is here:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/for ... city/posts

TLDR version:
Erik Chevalier apparently used the money from the kickstarter to move to a new city and try start up a whole new company, oh, and maybe publish a board game. For the last 8 months he's been giving sporadic and increasingly sparse updates about the progress of the game. In the end, it seems unlikely that any of that "progress" was in any way real. He now claims that he's going to try to pay some of the backers back, eventually, over time - but given his past track record, I'm simply kissing my money goodbye.

Unfortunately this is simply the risk one takes with any business venture; in this case, everything was roses right up til the game funded, at which point everything collapsed. I don't believe Erik set out to defraud anyone, but it seems to be one of those cases where he was a really good salesman and not a very good businessman.

I feel bad for Keith Baker and Lee Moyer, though - they had nothing to do with the company or the publishing process, as Keith explains on his blog:
http://keith-baker.com/

Hopefully Keith will find someone else to publish the game eventually.

R.J. MacReady
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Re: Sadly, but not unexpectedly

Post by R.J. MacReady » Fri Jul 26, 2013 4:26 am

The story made it to the Gawker family today (on Valley Wag specifically), as this appears to be a potent example of a pitfall with Kickstarter. However I'd like to think it's an exception to the norm for Kickstarter.

While Chevalier may not have started out to defraud anyone, $122,000 is a hell of a lot of cheddar to be unaccounted for and then issue a statement of, " I can't give any type of schedule for the repayment...." which I imagine is quite vexing to the backers.

It shows that Kickstarter is not flawless model, but I'd like to believe the majority of people involved are in it for the right reasons (aside from multi-millionaire d-bags such as Zach Braff and Spike Lee.)
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Re: Sadly, but not unexpectedly

Post by Zombieneighbours » Fri Jul 26, 2013 10:51 pm

R.J. MacReady wrote:The story made it to the Gawker family today (on Valley Wag specifically), as this appears to be a potent example of a pitfall with Kickstarter. However I'd like to think it's an exception to the norm for Kickstarter.

While Chevalier may not have started out to defraud anyone, $122,000 is a hell of a lot of cheddar to be unaccounted for and then issue a statement of, " I can't give any type of schedule for the repayment...." which I imagine is quite vexing to the backers.

It shows that Kickstarter is not flawless model, but I'd like to believe the majority of people involved are in it for the right reasons (aside from multi-millionaire d-bags such as Zach Braff and Spike Lee.)
Not sure that calling Zach Braff a multi-millionaire d-bag, is entirely fair.

The level of funding that WISH I WAS HERE received far exceeded the levels that someone would reasonable risk of their own money. Lets be clear, by hollywood standards he is small fry.

Such an investment, if he even had that kind of investment availible, would be very similar in level of risk to most of us re-mortgaging our homes to invest in a business.

It can be done, but in the age of kickstarter, it seems like a poor choice.


It is also worth pointing out that the film he has described making, would almost certainly not be funded to that level by most traditional film financing methods.

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Re: Sadly, but not unexpectedly

Post by R.J. MacReady » Sat Jul 27, 2013 2:47 am

Perhaps my language was a little strong and I didn't mean to offend, however if Mr. Braff wanted to put some of his own coin down on a project he is so driven to make and feels it must be done, I'm sure he can front a little of his own dough to get it off the ground. Now obviously he doesn't have tens of millions sitting around in a savings account just waiting to used, but someone of his wealth and connections should be able to amass a few million to make his movie. Coppola took out a huge loan on his house to get "Apocalypse Now" made because he believed in the film so much he was willing to gamble on his financial future. I can't say I blame Zach Braff for not wanting to put his own money up when people are willing to do it for him. At the end of the day executive producers who greenlight the cash are the hollywood system that ultimately decide what gets made and what doesn't.

I get a bit frustrated when I see stories such as Braff's and Spike Lee "needing" money for their art, when my best friend from high school spent many, many years as a peon working around and on films eventually going into severe debt from financing his own short films hoping they would lead to something bigger. For him those sacrifices (and there were many) did pay off and eventually led to him writing and directing a cool, successful little film called The Pact and he now has other projects lined up and his future is bright. I guess it just irks me to see multimillionaires asking working stiffs to pay for their projects, where the "funding" of their films should be done by the crowds at the box-office as opposed to in front of the computer. It's also not like his first (and only) film "Garden State" was a flop by any means in that it grossed 36mil on a 2.5 mil budget. The guy has a successful track record, which as we've all heard before, in Hollywood you're only as good as your last movie.

I don't think Braff was unethical or anything of the like in his kickstarter campaign, nobody was obliged to contribute to his project and those that did were glad to do so. However, at the very least it seems opportunistic in that the film did eventually get funding (another 8 mill on top of the 2mill from the Kickstarter) from a legit film financing company Worldview Entertainment, after all the Kickstarter controversy and publicity. So essentially the Kickstarter campaign saved Worldview a few million in production costs and gave Braff and the film plenty of free advertising before a single second has been shot. The whole thing just seemed pretty unsavory in many ways, but that's only my two cents.
Last edited by R.J. MacReady on Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sadly, but not unexpectedly

Post by shownotfound » Sat Jul 27, 2013 9:01 pm

Not to pile on the 'kickstarter failure' mode here, but it looks like I had forgotten about one that I'm pretty sure we're not going to be getting:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/133 ... reen-print

Which was a shame, because I was really looking forward to that being on the wall. Much more small potatoes (1300 bucks) but still a dissappointment. The digital copy I have is more a pain to put on the wall, heh.

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Re: Sadly, but not unexpectedly

Post by Keeper Dan » Thu Aug 01, 2013 11:20 pm

Well Gladius, it looks like you're getting your game after all. :yay:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/26370.html
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/26371.html
Keeper Dan of the Miskatonic University Podcast

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Re: Sadly, but not unexpectedly

Post by Gladius » Fri Aug 02, 2013 2:43 am

That's really awesome. That's going to earn Crypto a lot of good will in the hobby.

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Re: Sadly, but not unexpectedly

Post by creatureslagoon » Mon Aug 05, 2013 1:21 pm

Hey Gladius, I was a backer on this too, didn't see you started this thread, but check your email, you should have got one from Keith Baker saying all the details about Cryptozoic, etc. If not make sure you email him through his site as he was supposed to have a list of all the backers. Cryptozoic is awesome for stepping up and giving us the game for free. It will earn them tons of cred in the gaming community, they make the dc deck building game and epic spell wars (best drinkiny game ever!).

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Gladius
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Re: Sadly, but not unexpectedly

Post by Gladius » Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:24 am

creatureslagoon wrote:Hey Gladius, I was a backer on this too, didn't see you started this thread, but check your email, you should have got one from Keith Baker saying all the details about Cryptozoic, etc. If not make sure you email him through his site as he was supposed to have a list of all the backers. Cryptozoic is awesome for stepping up and giving us the game for free. It will earn them tons of cred in the gaming community, they make the dc deck building game and epic spell wars (best drinkiny game ever!).

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Yep, I got it, thanks. Keith and I actually worked together a few years ago on the LEGO Universe MMO when Keith lived here in Colorado. He actually showed me some photos of Komodo's miniatures a couple years ago when the game was in it's early incarnation.

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Re: Sadly, but not unexpectedly

Post by creatureslagoon » Thu Aug 08, 2013 4:36 am

Wow that's really cool! Keith is supposed to be at the TABLE con in coppell, tx in march, hope I have a copy by them to bring to it.

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