I love this idea! I've always appreciated how you stick up for the board gamers by calling out bad crowd funding practices. But, giving the creator an opportunity to present their side is the right thing to do and trasnforms your content into legitimate journalism, which is very cool. Probably the best practice going forward is to contact the creator with your concerns before releasing the video so their response can be included in the original video. Anyway, keep it up. We need big voices like yours to speak up for backers getting ripped off on crowd funding disasters!

You could have reached out to them before this video. It seems you didn’t dive into anything, I had all the info you stated in this video before watching it, just by reading the kickstarter comments. Just seems like you had to vent and it turned into a hit piece about one piece of the whole. If you have played terraria then you know the love, care and loyalty the people over at Re-Logic have for it and their fans. I don’t believe they would choose a company that is as unscrupulous as you say to make their board game.

Yes and no. I make it a point to weigh the information, my opinions, and timeliness before posting any video. For this one, while they can explain their reasoning, I see no way that they can refute what's coved here as it's really just going over details anyone can look up. Everyone can see the issues with final delivery of the past campaign, everyone can see he's the sole director of the new company, etc. They can respond, but it's a response, not answering some unknown. Also, you'd be surprised how many times I'm either not responded to, responded after a campaign or otherwise have things slow. Even after my contact and questions asked they aren't going to respond to me until Thursday, and that's with a video. At the end of the day, this whole video could have been avoided had they properly explained risk of their leader, and not just the single business entity devoid of all else. While not as bad as this example, imagine if Leo made a new company where he's the sole director, and they made no mention of it in that new company and acted like it's no big deal. Obviously people would be interested in this information. Making up a new company doesn't wash everything clean sadly. So, now you all have more information. You can make of it as you wish, and if they wan to respond I will let them.

Come on, you are supposed to ask for a comment before you go to print, not afterwards. That is how journalism is supposed to work. This is just a clickbate hit piece. Lots of publishers have separate divisions for different styles of games, it's not that unusual. And paperfort have run and fulfiled a Kickstarter campaign between now and senjitsu anyway. You have absolutely no idea about the company finances, it's all guesswork and it's wrong. You've added 2 plus 2 and got 5, they have a game in mass retail in the US, they are in good shape. Honestly you should apologise and take this video down.

I can tell you've not actually done anything like this before :) I comment on dozens of companies, campaigns and games several times a week. I'd be sending so many emails for response on each negative thing I said constantly it'd be a full time job itself. And all my news would be weeks late, usually after the campaign is finished and money is taken. It's fine to disagree with me of course. But please pause a bit and think outside of that disagreement of conclusion of what you are asking here. :) It'd be a crazy world to live in if every time I had something negative to say online I had to hear back from company that runs it.

I hate to have to make the video, but I am glad if it can do some good

@@TheKingofAverage They have addressed the comments with the following: Hello everyone. We just wanted to let you know that we have seen your comments and have heard your concerns, and as soon as we're packed up from UKGE we will be addressing the issues raised. Thanks for bearing with us - Chris

Glad to hear it!

@@TheKingofAverage James Faulkner has taken to the comment section and started to replying to everyone who wanted answers. Would love to hear your take on it.

There will definitely be a follow up. he also asked for a phone interview on Thursday :)

100% I will now only ever pledge $1 unless it is a very small indie creator that is barely going to scrape by their funding goal. I just can't in good conscience let KS take my money for supporting scams.

Some of these dirt bags have been blocking access to the pledge manager with $1 no rewards tier now, just gotta check the FAQ, which is where you’ll find the shady stuff now.

I once pointed out to them that their site only allows reporting a campaign once, and after that the report option is no longer available, even if the campaign owners stop updating it again after being poked by kickstarter. Then again, that time I had email contact with them and requested them to remind the creators to resume updates, nothing happened. So I don't think kickstarter cares more than "We sent them a DM, we did our job and please let us roll around in our cash now while you suffer".

I guarantee they know, they just don't care so long as the money keeps rolling in and they have zero legal repercussions.

I'm mostly done backing Kickstarter games now. I usually would back the $1 level just to have access to the updates and comments.

After the toyzzo game table debacle we can be 100% certain that they know and do not care. Remember that they get between 5-10% of the pledges right off the top, before they even send the rest of the money to creators. Once that's done, they wash their hands of it entirely.

I've backed well over 40 games last 4 years and I don't see that the risk have increased at all. The biggest risk is getting it late and possibly not being a good game, pure frauds is not more common now than 10 years ago

@@nihlify I'm at a similar backing rate for longer. Though economic pressure has increased. Prices have increased (especially for Europe). Competition has increased. And there have been a few big failures, even from companies that have been regarded as pretty successful and solid up to the point of collapse. Regarding scams I am still surprised there isn't that much of it going on as it seems kind of easy to do : "hey look at that cool thing I have. Send me your money and I'll send it to you in a couple years". Also the oups, we need more money kinda thing which is borderline of a scam. So yes the risk is definitely increased. Of course there are plenty that will deliver. But I am bracing for some failure in some kind of way.

PFG didn't just acquire Terraria's IP ; Re-Logic is actively working with them to ensure their product meets the standards and visions of Re-Logic. It also needs mentioning that this video is based solely on speculation, third hand information and downright lies. I'd advise you look into this more than this video, perhaps on the bgg page or in the KS comments.

@@brothiscatcreaks Not taking anything as gospel. But IPs are popping like shrooms everywhere. And oftentimes the party holding the IP rights is not really involved as long as the guidelines to the IP implementation are followed. I am talking in general terms.

@@brothiscatcreaks Yea that's the thing, there's basically no better company than RE-Logic, they still update a more than a decade old game for free, I feel like if they have input it'll be good. I'm still waiting on backing till they release gameplay or a rulebook but if they don't till 1 day left idk what to do tbh

In the kickstarters comments, and an interview at expo it's being talked about and acknowledged constantly. Mainly cause it's also constantly being brought up. They aren't trying to hide anything there and answering to the best of their abilities

Yeah I didn't realize it was having so many issues cause I stopped following the updates after it delivered. I backed it and got it back in November, and I've seen it go on sale at a lot of places for pretty cheap (at least the expansions tempted me a few times cause I only got the deluxe core).

CTG? WHEN AND WERE IS THE EVIDENCE

I think you misread the previous comment...

@@debbiemawer6441 I LOVE YELLING ON THE INTERNET!

I'm sorry I don't understand your comments. CTG = Chip Theory Games AR = Awaken Realms Though they experience issues, they still have delivered everything they promised so far. Garphill Games is another good company.

Awaken Realms is not a trustworthy game designer. They’ve left a train wreck of bad games behind them. They can be trusted to bloat and over-engineer with poor, incomplete and untested rules.

They did, paper fort games is more then what you see in this one video, and that company is being an active partner in the games development, not just giving them an IP and letting them do their thing

This one doesn’t bug me. Creators need to sell as much of their product as possible and missing a big convention because shipping hundreds of copies to backers is a slow process shouldn’t be criticized. If they make more money they make more games. Same with all the complaints about seeing games at retail before you get your games. It’s not ideal but it doesn’t bother me.

That's fine that it doesn't bother you but a lot of people are bothered by this. I'm still waiting for my game and live in the creators home town of Nottingham. After also visiting UKge and seeing the game being sold by a number of retailers it did grind my gears. Afterwards I saw on the kickstarter comments the creator had actually been there, obviously not promoting Stone Sword Games but at the massive Tarraria stand. Just wish I had known beforehand.

Wait which stand was selling it?

Plenty have but sadly plenty haven't as you could see. Check out the comments section, or better, as a backer ask for info from others. I didn't want to dive into the comments and updates to prolong the video, but after reading them myself I felt confident in the video. I'm super glad you guys got the game btw!

@@TheKingofAverage Thanks for the reply. I do agree there are many who have had complaints. I went and looked myself after watching the video. The hard part for me is knowing how most campaigns I’ve been apart of have people who say they never received their games. Unfortunately I don’t have any metrics or data on what that number is for Senjutsu, so given that it’s hard for me to make a comment. As we all know people with issues are much more likely to comment than people who have had good experiences. I do think it’s odd if non English versions have taken 6 months more and still aren’t out. Guess I just don’t feel I have enough information. It is definitely fishy though doing it all under a new company name and I’m very curious as to why doing that was a necessity if it’s NOT for nefarious reasons. It will definitely make me think twice about backing Daimyo if they ever move that game forward. Edit: I read more and more comments and it definitely seems they have had numerous issues and complaints with the non English versions. Feel bad for the people affected and be interesting to keep an eye on this one. Thanks again for the video King.

Yeah I think delays and issues are common right? You and I are both used to that, as are most backers. The real issue is with what many feel are lies and deceit around the issues causing it. The excuses and time/lack of resolution don't tend to add up. But even if they had, I feel staring a separate company and not telling backers of the connection is dubious at best. I'm glad you looked into it more Bryan. Wether we align or not in our take aways, a more informed consumer is a better consumer :)

@@TheKingofAverage Definitely! And I have swung your way a bit more after more reading and consideration. I just always hesitate more when it’s a single crowdfunding item outstanding compared to some that have multiple. It’s harder to really discern intent in that regard. But as you said, the new company aspect adds a massive layer of suspicion on the entire thing. But then maybe I’m more niece than others!! I full my admit that …. I mean… I backed Lavon Rising, Stormsunder, Darkest Dungeon, Anastyr, Monsterpocalypse, Legend Academy, Stellaris, Okko Chronicles and more. 😂 so it’s possible I’m just a blooming idiot. I am also barely backing things anymore these days because of that. I threw away a lot of money. Which is another reason I’m always grateful to your videos.

Haha it sounds like you and me both often walk right into danger without realizing :D Backed most of those myself too. It's hard because we never have all the facts. We just have to do our best and hope for the best :)

Same 😢

Worst part is that there are no deadlines. I backed a manga in 2016. They finished it for printing 2019. Still not printed because they feel they can always delay it and ship it later, when they are not as short on cash. So every year pass and they just say "We'll print it later, promise". And according to Kickstarter terms of service all a person has to do is promise to deliver to their best effort.

There's is countless systems for pre-orders dumbass

@@linusgustafsson2629 The problem is because their making a project from scratch they really have no idea when the project will finish. They give a rough estimate based on what the manufacturer says. Also because its from scratch things happen, I had one recently they were about to send out the game, found out all the cards were all the same and had to all be reprinted for all copies, resulting in a 6 month delay.

Kickstarter is like the United States of online shopping. They have managed to convince backers that they should feel honored to have the privilege of handing their money over with no strings attached to a creator who hasn't even been verified to exist. Then when the inevitable scams and bad projects come up, Kickstarter just says "well we told you this isn't a store" despite running and advertising it exactly as one.

Indeed! An informed consumer is a better consumer.

KS gets its percentage cut of funds even on games that never deliver. Why would they care?

@@TheKingofAverage because If I backed a KS presented by a person who can be easily shown to have "dubious" business practices and THEN lost my money, I'd NEVER BACK FROM KS AGAIN. Gamefound is better anyway.

Thing is basically NO ONE lost their money on the Senjutsu campaign, this whole video is ridiculous and even admits to this itself. Yes, the guy wasn't good at communicating (which is why someone else is taking over most parts) but almost everyone DID ALREADY get their game, idk where this whole "Senjutsu is getting fixed by Terraria money" nonsense is coming from (well, as he said in his video, from a random comment by a random backer, woooow, now let's hold everyone accountable for what people are saying in their comments, shall we?)

Their is a loophole because Kickstarter is an American company.

@@CheddahSlammer KS won't get into trouble, but the guy who owns the two companies will. They're both UK based and if he uses income from one to prop up the other... I can imagine that will get sticky. Interestingly, I knew a guy in the US who 100% owned his company so foolishly thought he could use money the company earned to straight up pay his mortgage and go on vacation, right out of the company bank account. He was in for a shock when the authorities found out. The US also has similar fraud provisions. Now, if he had just set his own salary as CEO higher and paid himself, *then* used that money for the mortgage and vacations, I'm guessing that would have been fine. Maybe there's something similar the guy with the two UK game dev companies can do?

@@GoodEggGuy Yes you not allowed to fund one company with the others money, however you can use profit from one company to help out another company. It gets very complicated but from what I know as long as they tax the profit transfer as income they are fine to transfer money over. I just had a kickstarter, guy used all the funding for his medical bills. Good news is another company took over the project, so I hope I will get my game. However I feel like the kickstarter rules allow for things like this to happen when they shouldn't.

@@CheddahSlammer KS really needs to have tighter rules. I agree 100%. I took over and completed a KS campaign where the guy who ran it simply bailed with the money, so the backers there got their rewards, but it shouldn't need other good-meaning companies to step in and be guardian angels. The system has been broken for years.

@@GoodEggGuy Also just looked up some more info, and apparently one company is owned by a different guy and their actually entirely separate game companies with two teams, even though the one guy is in both companies.

I am a niche of a niche :D Sadly no one has DD wave 2 :(

Talking about good stuff doesn't give as many clicks

Very good point! HOMM3 really knocked it out of the park there

The most important part of crowdfunding is communication and transparency, both of which I feel is lacking here. I will however follow up with more info once I have it.

they are fine

I've commented briefly on this, but will certainly look further into it. I do not like the level of spam they seem to be doing lately with campaigns.

@@TheKingofAverage Hmmm, but considerable part of CMON"s profit comes from retail, they're probably fine. God of War campaign was abysmal, though..

Wonders of the First?

Sorry whats wrong with Zombicide?

He doesn’t mention it at all in this video

I'm glad you got it and like it! :)

They are not the same guy at all

Cry me a river. Risk is part of investing in anything, you're not being virtuous

Yep! :D This is the newer version of what I have, and it's thinner which is ideal: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0144DMXEO

Your post on WFG's 14th successful KS was removed because it was factually incorrect and a personal attack (doxing). The person you need to go after (if you really go after anyone) is Red Scars majority owner, but he has paid the price of that KS failure in the form of a mental and financial breakdown. If you want to discuss this in detail with me and get your facts straight then may be the 'King of Average' may want to do an interview. But considering you continue to slander and attack the wrong people...I suspect that is not something you really want. Get over it dude. Kickstarter is not preorder and you were credited for your pledge amount by Mantic.

@@wordforgegames2659 - No I wasn’t compensated for the intentional fraud you participated in Mark. You blatantly lied, as a director and shareholder of Red Scar. It’s laughable you pretend you didn’t personally write updates full of lies, because you did. You’re a scammer pure and simple.

Where'd you hear this?

@@TheKingofAverage I have it in an email from Julia at Gamefound, when I informed them about issues with SS AND Wild Assent. I was trying to warn them. "Robert has been in touch with our team about marketing as recently as yesterday." I also have in emails from KS they are banned from making new projects until SS is completely fulfilled. And from BackerKit that they are not getting responses either, and BackerKit will be very unlikely to work with Robert or LSG again due to the behaviour in these projects.

We're beginning to discuss via email :)

@@TheKingofAverage Awesome! Now see if you can even get a carrier pigeon message from LSG. Lol

I absolutely agree. KoA may be right, he may well be wrong, but there is a massive amount of conjecture, speculation, and assumption in the way this has been delivered here and that seems unfair really. Especially when you consider videos like this will undoubtedly influence people and harm a company or a crowdfunding project. On the surface this almost seemed too personal.

It's always a balance on what to show in a video. I did plenty of reading, of updates, of comments, I got emails about this, I got comments about this. But I can't always show everything. For some it'll be too much, for others not enough. In the end I strongly encourage your own research of course. In the end for this video I felt showing the sentiment helps encapsulate how backers are feeling about this. We will never have financials. Heck, we didn't from MG either. We will always be slightly in the dark, left to look for trends, red flags and patterns. This is one I worry about so I share it.

Thanks for answering, I appreciate it! To me the balance lies in how you answer the question, is it better to accuse one too many than one too few? In my view, that’s the difference between a watchdog and a crusader, and it is a fine line. But I would always give the other party a chance to be heard, because the truth might turn out to be vastly different from what seems apparent to the naked eye. The problem is: You have earned a voice. People listen. They trust your opinions, and we all know too well that once the word is out there, it cannot be pulled back. The rumor has been spread. The seed has been planted. It lives its own life now. Truth doesn’t matter anymore. Only narratives do. And that’s powerful and dangerous. Because now people will always have doubt. And doubt is the most potent fuel for misinformation. The creator will always have that stain on him now, no matter if he deserves it or not. So you better be sure that he does, because if he’s innocent? Then you need to accept the fact that you accused one too many…

@@TheKingofAverage I appreciate that you are unable to cover every piece of data, but that doesn't change the fact that the very information you've chosen not to give representation here is the same information that provides evidence which contravenes your own views. It's very evident that you've put a lot of time into researching this. However, by presenting this in such a way you have essentially chosen to publicly imply that a person is conducting illegal UK business practices, lying to his customers, and have totally disregarded any comments from the very man you are slandering. You'll undoubtedly be aware through your research that there is also plenty of evidence to show the contrary of what you've portrayed here, but you've chosen to give no airtime to those facts and many active responses. So, despite your sentiment mentioned that seems massively unfair and skewed, especially when you consider the impact of this video on his business projects and reputation. I've been a fan of your channel for a long time, but it seems that this is a step too far into scaremongering for clicks and views. Sadly this time it's come at the expense of another human being with potentially some very nasty consequences.

Same :( prevented me from backing

Sadly it has not delivered for everyone. I am glad you got the game and I hope you enjoy it!

Wave 2 is overstock from other hubs sent back to UK because they under delivered there and Wave 3 is fresh product because, again, they under delivered in the UK.

Indeed! In fact I need to do a "here's what I'm looking forward to" video I think :)

Pretty sure they used a chunk of it to get Hogs of War over the line which was a financial failure. Pretty sure they said that made a hefty loss on it.

Darkest dungeon had this same issue too :(

I've already voiced some worry about CMON's recent spam, though I do plan on touching that again. What specifically about AR do you mean?

I am going to include them in my next news video :) It's Cysmic though

Greetings program! :)