Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[forsaken1111]

yeah. I didn't back this specific kickstarter because it looked kinda sketch, even if it had some promise. Of the kickstarters I have backed only 3 have went bust and two of those offered refunds. The reasons for them going bust were generally things like scope creep or unavoidable production issues. Some of them have been unforseen things like a boardgame being delayed because the company they went with for printing went out of business. I haven't regretted any of them.

When you pledge to a kickstarter you are knowingly taking on the risk that you may never see a product, or the product may not be what you wanted. You are choosing to pay for something that doesn't exist. That risk will never go away, no matter what you do, so long as you keep paying for things that don't yet exist.

[Serenseven]

And this should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, none of this means that any form of harassment is OK.  The accountability I talk about is financial, nobody should be getting attacked for failing to deliver on their promises, only sued.

The cost to sue Josh over TWS would be worth far more than the recoverable amount at this point, which is why anyone who has looked seriously into the matter has refrained from proceeding.

[ThtblovesDF]

Plenty of Kickstarters do what they say they will and produce great products. This is the 2nd Kickstarter out of 20 I’ve backed that was a bust.

So the “consumer outrage” seems misplaced. Hate on this one project but it’s not enough for the size of the soap box you’re currently shouting from.

You are a lucky one, the stats suggest that less then half make it to a finished thing.

https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats

[ZeroGravitas]

And this should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, none of this means that any form of harassment is OK.  The accountability I talk about is financial, nobody should be getting attacked for failing to deliver on their promises, only sued.

The cost to sue Josh over TWS would be worth far more than the recoverable amount at this point, which is why anyone who has looked seriously into the matter has refrained from proceeding.

I don't think that's really true and I'd be curious who said that where.

The issue is more that it's not worth any one person's time to mess with. Getting ripped off for $25-$50 doesn't really give you a big incentive to run out there and hire an attorney. Even if you're entitled to recover attorney's fees, which many states let you do in a fraud case, and even if your attorney is going to work on contingency fee (which he probably would). You'd have to be so mad about the whole thing that you'd be willing to invest a bunch of your own time to get revenge over $50.

If you were an individual person and somebody stole $85k-100k from you, of course it would be worth your time to hire an attorney.

[Damiac]

Such an elaborate scam, it keeps resurfacing for some durn reason.  When it could have stayed dead and forgotten.

Really though, I just chalk it up to the money being spent years ago and it ain't really worth responding to refund requests.  (not professionals)

There's a word for when you spend all the investment capital without producing anything, and thus are unable to refund the starting capital, nor are you able to produce the promised product. "Nonperformance".  It doesn't have to be intentional, but it's still a breach of contract.

There's even another word for THAT when the investment capital was procured at least partially by saying a prototype of the product exists and functions. That's "FRAUD"! No accident here, because it takes a lie. Something like "This game already exists and we have played it" or something like that...

I would love to see how you feel if your electric company overcharged you for years and owed you $1000 when you found out, and then decided

it ain't really worth responding to refund requests.

I think you might call that.... a scam?

But yeah, just keep blaming the people who lost their money because they believed a lie, they put too much pressure on the liars and that's why they couldn't finish the game they lied about already having.

[Persus13]

Plenty of Kickstarters do what they say they will and produce great products. This is the 2nd Kickstarter out of 20 I’ve backed that was a bust.

So the “consumer outrage” seems misplaced. Hate on this one project but it’s not enough for the size of the soap box you’re currently shouting from.

You are a lucky one, the stats suggest that less then half make it to a finished thing.

https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats

Pretty sure those stats include kickstarters that aren't successfully funded.

The cost to sue Josh over TWS would be worth far more than the recoverable amount at this point, which is why anyone who has looked seriously into the matter has refrained from proceeding.

I don't think that's really true and I'd be curious who said that where.

If you were an individual person and somebody stole $85k-100k from you, of course it would be worth your time to hire an attorney.

It sounds like both of you are trying to say the same thing here.

[ZeroGravitas]

Such an elaborate scam, it keeps resurfacing for some durn reason.  When it could have stayed dead and forgotten.

Really though, I just chalk it up to the money being spent years ago and it ain't really worth responding to refund requests.  (not professionals)

There's a word for when you spend all the investment capital without producing anything, and thus are unable to refund the starting capital, nor are you able to produce the promised product. "Nonperformance".  It doesn't have to be intentional, but it's still a breach of contract.

There's even another word for THAT when the investment capital was procured at least partially by saying a prototype of the product exists and functions. That's "FRAUD"! No accident here, because it takes a lie. Something like "This game already exists and we have played it" or something like that...

But yeah, just keep blaming the people who lost their money because they believed a lie, they put too much pressure on the liars and that's why they couldn't finish the game they lied about already having.

and let's keep in mind, it's not just that single line in the KS about "we have a working game." it's crap like this:

The moment you take a "radical" choice like killing the King and his immediate family, you get the unexpected - like one time I had cursed the King's Family, the Barons declared him unfit, split into two nations, and began to fight a civil war.  Meanwhile the Tribes had united behind a Hero, who they proclaimed their chosen king, but he was Cylarian, the barons have a diplomatic summit after a bloody battle, declare the Cylarian hero their king (I didn't see this result but I'm assuming its because he is friends with all the barons and the heroes that were acting as diplomats), making him the king of both powers, he then went on to marry the daughter of the elves (at this point he's simply a diplomatic monster)... overthrows the Elvish Council and declares himself King.... now his ego and diplomatic skill are both max, he manages to Annex Elerion into Cylaria (still only three crowns) - I'm just watching this happen, because I'm spellbound, I don't want to interfere because I need to know what can possibly happen.   The united three kingdoms attack Arden, recapturing the farmlands, he makes peace and turns Arden into an ally. 

Long story short, he discovers I'm rising and crushes me.  Despite the fact that he was simply taking over the world he was friendly with every hero, so no one was stopping him.  I ended up adjusting how heroes see other friends if they're growing too powerful, but the completely random events that lead up to this were otherwise "expected" to function that way.   In addition, later builds implemented the Balance of Power desire which makes nations take a more critical eye at people who are growing stronger.

Now that's an outlier but still somewhat understandable based on the scenario setup, if you add in the Game Modes you get some real crazy stuff.  I have a lot of favorite Modes, but on the North Burns playing with "Liberty" is a really fun way to switch it - it makes revolutions and slave revolts much more common and you get to see the world rip itself apart and remake itself.

he is very clearly describing a working game there. and this was 3 days into the ks campaign, before it had even funded.

[ZeroGravitas]

The cost to sue Josh over TWS would be worth far more than the recoverable amount at this point, which is why anyone who has looked seriously into the matter has refrained from proceeding.

I don't think that's really true and I'd be curious who said that where.

If you were an individual person and somebody stole $85k-100k from you, of course it would be worth your time to hire an attorney.

It sounds like both of you are trying to say the same thing here.

not really. he's saying it would be too expensive. i'm saying nobody cares enough.

[forsaken1111]

I would love to see how you feel if your electric company overcharged you for years and owed you $1000 when you found out, and then decided it ain't really worth responding to refund requests.

Don't you think that is a slightly different thing? Just a little?

1. If an electric company overcharges you, they are in error. They have charged you more money than you agreed to pay whether that is per KWH or per month or whatever.
2. An electric company is obligated by law to respond to grievances as they are a utility. They're also heavily regulated by law as to what they can and cannot do.

Now this kickstarter situation:

1. You were only charged exactly what you agreed to pay, with the knowledge that the money would be used to fund a creation process.
2. The creator is under no legal obligation to provide or even respond to refund requests. This does not make anything a scam, it's just how Kickstarter works.

You've talked a lot about what you want kickstarter to be but that isn't what it is. If you want kickstarter to be something it isn't, some dream you have for a crowd-funding website, then go make your own crowd-funding website and make it the way you want it to be. Kickstarter isn't going to change into what you want it to be just because you want it to.

The fact of the matter is that you accepted the kickstarter terms of service, you pledged an amount of money to a project with an uncertain future, and now that the uncertain future has (gasp) been shown to be uncertain you are upset. Accept that you made a bad decision, or be patient and maybe eventually get your game that you paid for.

Or just keep blaming other people for your mistakes I guess. You seem to be very focused on how everyone has wronged you and nobody is doing it right. Is that working for you? At the end of the day, as far as I can tell they have broken no laws nor have they violated any kickstarter rules. The only one responsible for you being parted from your money is you.

[ZeroGravitas]

I would love to see how you feel if your electric company overcharged you for years and owed you $1000 when you found out, and then decided it ain't really worth responding to refund requests.

Don't you think that is a slightly different thing? Just a little?

1. If an electric company overcharges you, they are in error. They have charged you more money than you agreed to pay whether that is per KWH or per month or whatever.
2. An electric company is obligated by law to respond to grievances as they are a utility. They're also heavily regulated by law as to what they can and cannot do.

Now this kickstarter situation:

1. You were only charged exactly what you agreed to pay, with the knowledge that the money would be used to fund a creation process.
2. The creator is under no legal obligation to provide or even respond to refund requests. This does not make anything a scam, it's just how Kickstarter works.

You've talked a lot about what you want kickstarter to be but that isn't what it is. If you want kickstarter to be something it isn't, some dream you have for a crowd-funding website, then go make your own crowd-funding website and make it the way you want it to be. Kickstarter isn't going to change into what you want it to be just because you want it to.

The fact of the matter is that you accepted the kickstarter terms of service, you pledged an amount of money to a project with an uncertain future, and now that the uncertain future has (gasp) been shown to be uncertain you are upset. Accept that you made a bad decision, or be patient and maybe eventually get your game that you paid for.

Or just keep blaming other people for your mistakes I guess. You seem to be very focused on how everyone has wronged you and nobody is doing it right. Is that working for you? At the end of the day, as far as I can tell they have broken no laws nor have they violated any kickstarter rules. The only one responsible for you being parted from your money is you.

as always, the flaw with this argument has always been that he was running around describing this elaborate game he had already developed, with all kinds of amazing situations emerging, in the game that he had supposedly created.

plenty of people pledged thinking, "wow, that sounds cool, i'll support that." when in fact the game being described was a total fabrication. which means the pledges were acquired fraudulently.

[forsaken1111]

To prove that you'd need to obtain evidence of fraud. I consider it much more likely that the process failed due to the stretch goals, but I'd rather not rehash old arguments as I know we've been down this rabbithole before and it ended with an angry toad and a locked thread.

As always, your options are:

1. Report it to kickstarter if you think they broke one of the terms of service.
2. Sue the parties responsible if you think they broke the law.

If the cost for individual suits is not worthwhile, then you need to gather more people and perform a larger suit, compiling the individual complaints and spreading out the costs.

It's unlikely you will get much, I doubt the dev has a lot to be sued for. It isn't like he got a ton of money for this. Personally I hope the whole mess results in a good game. Failing that, maybe a half decent game we can mod to be good.

[Serenseven]

It's unlikely you will get much, I doubt the dev has a lot to be sued for. It isn't like he got a ton of money for this.

This is actually what I meant with my original comment. Sure a court can find him liable for $85K, but if he doesn't have the money, we still don't get paid. A court order can't create money where none exists.

[ZeroGravitas]

To prove that you'd need to obtain evidence of fraud. I consider it much more likely that the process failed due to the stretch goals, but I'd rather not rehash old arguments as I know we've been down this rabbithole before and it ended with an angry toad and a locked thread.

You're thinking about what did or did not happen after the campaign succeeded and the stretch goals. That really has absolutely nothing to do with it whether or not he defrauded the backers.

It could absolutely be that "the process failed due to the stretch goals" - it would still be fraud.

There is plenty of evidence of fraud. The post of his I just quoted is evidence of fraud, because it's a total fabrication, which he's using to get people to back his game.

[forsaken1111]

It's unlikely you will get much, I doubt the dev has a lot to be sued for. It isn't like he got a ton of money for this.

This is actually what I meant with my original comment. Sure a court can find him liable for $85K, but if he doesn't have the money, we still don't get paid. A court order can't create money where none exists.

A suit could possibly force him to turn over evidence of the original kickstarter claims of a working game to prove it wasn't fraud. If he can't, that might spell trouble. I still doubt anyone would get their money back though.

[ZeroGravitas]

It's unlikely you will get much, I doubt the dev has a lot to be sued for. It isn't like he got a ton of money for this.

This is actually what I meant with my original comment. Sure a court can find him liable for $85K, but if he doesn't have the money, we still don't get paid. A court order can't create money where none exists.

that's what liens and garnishments are for.