Confederate Express (Kickstarted RPG) "postponed" while devs announce new game.

Gaogaogao said:
someday someone is going to get sued over this.
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"I donated money to these people and they haven't used it well!"

Not sure what you'd be suing for. You don't have a contract with the developer, you're not buying a product, you're giving them money to help them try to make something.
 
wetflame said:
"I donated money to these people and they haven't used it well!"

Not sure what you'd be suing for. You don't have a contract with the developer, you're not buying a product, you're giving them money to help them try to make something.
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This defense for shady Kickstarters is the worst.

It's not a donation, it's not an investment, it's backing a Kickstarter, which is outlined very specifically on their site. This carries very specific expectations, such as the fulfillment of the pledge rewards, which often contain the game itself. Backing a game does not mean they have no rights as a consumer or Kickstarter backer and nor does it mean they have no recourse if the Kickstarter goes sideways.

It's not a gift. It is... more of a trade.

The only problem here is that Kickstarter appears happy to pocket their portion of a Kickstarter's funding and then look the other way the rest of the time. This approach is leading to some problems, considering the Kickstarters that have begun to appear lately...
 
Eddie Bax said:
Some more info on the Airbnb squatting saga here and here.

Looks like Maksym might be quite the scammer.
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Jesus. This guy is a total scammer, and I'm now totally inclined to outright say that I think his stories are full of shit.

Neither game is ever coming, and people's money is just gone.
 
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Seriously, job well done, Kilobite.
If I sound extremely sarcastic, I'm not. I'm being totally sincere, but I don't blame you if you think I'm being sarcastic.
That last update took a lot of guts to put up, but I think it was well worth it.
Again, I'd like to apologize for how brash I was in my first post. in the end, it turns out it was the investment firm after all. Yeah, you've really got to watch out when that happens. Money of that sorts is not always a good thing, especially if you are independent. But it happens, a lot more than we would like it to happen in this world. If you're under contract with that investment firm, then please, work on this game first before you finish Confederate Express. If you are legally obligated to release Knuckle Club first before Confederate Express, then please do so. At the moment, you're in their pockets. Let's not make that situation worse, if that's a possibility.
I'll keep my pledge though at the moment. If anything, I'll try and find a way to get more money into me account so I can pledge more, which is hard at the moment, because I'm in a foreign country and it's hard to find a bank that accepts the currency that I use.
Again, thank you for that wonderful update. I commend you all.
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I can't believe some people. There's supporting and then there's actually thanking. I suppose it's another warning to be careful who you back.

Also their staff page is ridiculous. Like none of them have previous experience in the position they've been slotted.
 
LurkerPrime said:
This defense for shady Kickstarters is the worst.

It's not a donation, it's not an investment, it's backing a Kickstarter, which is outlined very specifically on their site. This carries very specific expectations, such as the fulfillment of the pledge rewards, which often contain the game itself. Backing a game does not mean they have no rights as a consumer or Kickstarter backer and nor does it mean they have no recourse if the Kickstarter goes sideways.

It's not a gift. It is... more of a trade.

The only problem here is that Kickstarter appears happy to pocket their portion of a Kickstarter's funding and then look the other way the rest of the time. This approach is leading to some problems, considering the Kickstarters that have begun to appear lately...
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The Kickstarter terms are weak as hell. It's basically 'if you don't fulfill your rewards you might get sued' and that's it.

It's not a gift. It's not a trade. It's not an investment. It's patronage.
 
He seems like the type of dude, that if they had a NeoGAF account, would be threatening to sue everyone in this thread.

Can the OP add links to the Airbnb drama?
 
I'm sorry anyone backed this game.

It fails all three questions on the Will it Ship? test.

crowdfunded_game.png
 
I'm not sure anyone should trust this guy, who is clearly taking advantage in the squatting situation. It is very tough to side with him when the owner is out there working to help the blind.

I wonder if he has to avoid that discussion for legal reasons and to keep playing his loophole game.
 
From the Kilobite KS comments so take with a grain of salt:
Reached for comment Thursday afternoon, Andreas Inghe, who is listed as a team member on Confederate Express on the Kickstarter page, said he too hasn't heard from the brothers.

"I have had no real connection with the 'team' besides making one track for their game demo (and a few unreleased ones) that is up on the Kickstarter-page," he wrote. "I have been waiting for months for an update on when I could start making more music for them, considering that they had officially put me on the Kickstarter page. I am still waiting (have been waiting for almost a year), but I don't know what to think anymore. It all seems a bit fishy. But I could be pleasantly suprised in the end, or not. I hope it will go as planned!"
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Con Express.

It's right there in the fucking title and people fell for it.

EDIT: I'm not berating people for donating, it looks cool from the demo, but the guy's got some nerve.
 
Eddie Bax said:
Some more info on the Airbnb squatting saga here and here.

Looks like Maksym might be quite the scammer.
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I get the feeling that he was actually trying to make a game and unfortunately everyone has been on his case. Now he's making stupid statements that are coming back to bite him in the arse.

Vigilant Gambit said:
I'm sorry anyone backed this game.

It fails all three questions on the Will it Ship? test.

crowdfunded_game.png
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But that doesn't work because I backed (the only one ever) Keiji Inafunes Mighty No9 and that game is getting a fair bit of controversy thrown it's way too.
 
BumblebeeCody said:
But that doesn't work because I backed (the only one ever) Keiji Inafunes Mighty No9 and that game is getting a fair bit of controversy thrown it's way too.
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Well, he is the guy that got four Megaman games cancelled in the span of two years and burned the franchise into the ground, he yeah, people should have considered things a bit more before backing it.
 
LurkerPrime said:
...Couldn't they just request that he verify his identity with actual identification instead of going by scout's honour?

This whole ConEx saga has been ridiculous.
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The process server is not a cop and cannot compel a person to show identification. So he can just say that he has no id and there's nothing the server can do.
 
It's like these guys took a professional scamming course.

Also;

The quotes that appeared on the Kickstarter page seemed a bit suspicious, so I looked them up.
Notice how all the quotes seem to indiciate that the person who wrote actually played the game.
3276aa0695dbe1fde5f0eff710890739_large.png
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Full quotes;

Posted as a tweet, not on the actual content site;
Confederate Express might be the only recent zombie shooter worth your time
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Based on the Kickstarter video;
The variety of absurd death animations harkens back to the golden age of adventure games certainly adds something as well.
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Reaction to the Destructoid quote;
However, I will say that I am irked by how the team represented my words during the campaign. Where I originally wrote, "I tend to shy away from videogame Kickstarter campaigns that don't show much gameplay or that seem too early in development, but what little we have of the tactical RPG Confederate Express is just too good not to share," Pashanin truncated to "Confederate Express is just too good not to share" in its promotional materials.
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Stumpokapow said:
My advice to anyone considering backing smaller projects: Don't back games with budgets under, say, $35,000 unless the money is going towards a specific external expense ("We have a completed game but need to pay our musician upfront").

If you back games at a $10,000 budget, you are not paying a professional team. You are paying an independent developer's rent while they work things out. That's OK, but you should expect the following:
- Scope creep
- Loss of team members when people have real stuff to do
- Inability to execute
- Another project is more interesting to me
- I got sick
- My family got sick

There are lots of counterexamples like Risk of Rain and Volgarr, but mostly if you can't pay someone a professional salary until completion of the game, you can't guarantee they are going to be working on the game.

For example, I backed a project with a ~$5,000 goal. The plan was to release the game for free. The person who made it changed the scope a bunch, learned a lot along the way, some team members who were volunteering their time stopped being able to, the person found new team members. The KS money is long-since gone and the game is nowhere near ready. It's still being worked on and the people working on it have a lot of passion. I'm not mad because I knew what I was getting into, but a lot of people would be because this is not a professional situation.
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This is such illogical thinking, Stump. Seriously. Small projects dive. BIG projects dive, too. There is no corellation between goal and success yet but IF ANYTHING - we have read more about larger funding project failures and burns than smaller.

Your problem (and im assuming others) apparently starts with the idea that backing projects is paying for someone to MAKE a product when you should be looking for interesting projects to back that are asking you to help them FINISH a project.

Never back anything the person/team isn't willing to and/or already hasn't cut their teeth on.

I want to live in a perfect world, too, Stump. Shit isn't going to happen though.

Edit:
I'd like to see some receipts. As someone with my eye on using KS as an avenue I'd like to see a comparison of projects above and below 35k just in the past 2 years. There are GAFfers here (not me) who have gone well under that magical 35k number and are legit.

I'd honestly like to know how those examples you listed of pitfalls are exclusive to campaigns under 35k. Genuinely, honestly curious as to how you came to such a conclusions.
 
Herbspiceguy said:
It's like these guys took a professional scamming course.

Also;

The quotes that appeared on the Kickstarter page seemed a bit suspicious, so I looked them up.
Notice how all the quotes seem to indiciate that the person who wrote actually played the game.


Full quotes;

Posted as a tweet, not on the actual content site;


Based on the Kickstarter video;


Reaction to the Destructoid quote;
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With such hyperbolic statements, the journalists are all but begging to be quoted.

It's practically the Citizen Kane of monetization.
 
What a bunch of dickbags. Good thing that squatting news got broke, should make for a considerably harder time screwing people over in the future. Starting with their second go at a kickstarter scam.
 
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