BattleTech: Mercenaries – CGL does a shipping booboo? Internet rages!

[tankkommander 6454xp 1]

KS is the problem. They have created a platform that can easily be exploited by scammers. They ignore user reports. They take a cut and never return money to backers who have been scammed.

KS is the perfect example of something that needs urgent regulation to bring in to line with every other online sales platform.

 

 

[limburger 22081xp 1]

Regulate how ?

It’s not illegal to make stupid decisions in a business. Fraud is already illegal and you better not lie to the IRS.
And unless they’re as subtle as a sledgehammer it’s impossible to prove that they wasted money.

Incompetence is not illegal and almost impossible to prove positive in court.

Besides … the stakes per backer are too low and there is no global court to use.
The best you can get is sueing them in whatever location they happen to call home.

Except CGL is based in the USA, which means their courts favour corporations over consumers, so you’re screwed especially now that the Orange Cheeto is in charge over there.

The best and only method is to simply avoid crowdfunding in general.
You’ll get better consumer protection while buying retail anyway …

+/- 300 crowdfunding projects backed over the years … and I’d say less than 10% failed to deliver after funding (probably even fewer than that).
And of those there has not been any actual fraud.
Incompetence ? Yep
Underestimating cost ? Definitely.
Basic failures ? Yep, those too. Some things simply were never meant to be.

There is no method for stopping people spending money even after you’ve told them in 10 foot letters that there is NO guarantee of completion or delivery.

You cannot fix stupid.

// —

Scale75 kickstarter delivered …
Port Royal kickstarter in transit …

No tracking mail from CGL/QML/GameQuest for the Battletech Mercenaries Kickstarter.
It sucks, but live goes on.

I’m estimating July 2025 at this rate.

[limburger 22081xp 0]

Tuesday almost upon us.
I still haven’t heard a peep about my stuff.

Comments are filled with people who miss half their pledge, because CGL didn’t tell them they would be shipping multiple packages instead of just one. It also sounds like there is nothing inside the packages that indicates that ‘missing’ items would be in a different shipment, because that would require a company to care about their customers.

I do wonder what kind of non-info we’re going to hear in their next update.

btw:
Anyone else still waiting or is it only me?

[sundancer 43722xp 1]

I think in regards to OTT you’re the last one or anybody else has just given up. That KS is really a nightmare.

[limburger 22081xp 1]

One can wake up from a nightmare and realise it was not real …

This has definitely been the worst managed kickstarter ever.
I’ve seen small inexperienced crews handle kickstarters better than this one.

 

[limburger 22081xp 2]

for those following along :

In this weeks update CGL said that they had ‘forgotten’ to hit the ‘post update’ button.

I guess they were too busy doing nothing all week ?

The fact that they didn’t dare to mention their Battletech Gothic variant tells me all I need to know about how ‘real’ that project is.

The wait continues …

I hope I can enjoy the game when it arrives, but my motivation for the game is negative at this time.

[pagan8th 13364xp 2]

Crooked Dice 7TV Fantasy was due to ship in March and mine is in the post. Project funded in November last year.

I know that Battletech Mercs had a lot more backers (about 73 times more) and that makes fulfillment a more arduous task, but I’d rather back a small project that ships on time (and helps out a small company in the process) that a big one that gets delayed by too many stretch goals, or just plain bad management (which has been the warcry in this thread).

 

[limburger 22081xp 1]

I don’t mind the missing of deadlines, because things aren’t easy to predict when you’ve got to estimate a year+ worth of planning.

The thing I do mind is the chaotic nature of the updates that show zero signs of improvement.

Pretty much any other kickstarter is honest about delays or any lack of updates.
CGL appeared to have a pattern of doing weekly updates recently.
And instead of apologizing and posting the next day … they decided to just wait a whole week and give us the most nonsensical excuse imaginable.

There’s no way they ‘forgot’ to post this update last week IMHO.
I’d say they deliberately chose not to post an update so as to hide their total incompetence regarding getting updates from the folk they’ve paid to ship their/our stuff.

Another example is Firelock. I emailed them this week to ask if they had any updates as to why my tracking hadn’t updated in over a week. Not only did I get a response the same day. They even told me why (mother nature was causing issues locally) and asked me to email them if I didn’t get it in a week so they’d send it again.

Of course there’s always going to be some folk complaining about any delay, but as I said … most kickstarters tend to react to that sort of thing within a relative short timespan. CGL choses to let things go from bad to worse by not mentioning a single thing. They might have said stuff on one of their life streams or other media (as apparent by the announcement of their Adepticus Mechanics clone game), but they sure as heck aren’t handling their kickstarters with the kind of care and attention that gets them loyal customers.

[limburger 22081xp 0]

and speaking of ‘forgetting’ and ‘updates’.

For some reason they managed to do a tiny additional update with new percentages for the EU and AUS regions.

This IMHO really shows that they lied when they said they had ‘forgotten’ to post the update in the week before, because why else would they not hit ‘post’ the moment they noticed nothing had been posted on their weekly update cycle.

At this rate I will have my bits ready for spring clean 2030 😉

[tankkommander 6454xp 1]

Too busy sticking skulls on to mechs to actually deliver on all of their outstanding kickstarters.

[sundancer 43722xp 0]

it’s a travesty

[grantinvanman 6248xp 0]

I have said it before: KS is an unregulated scam. CGL is running a massive Ponzi scheme now, with each KS funding the last – and at some point, the cards will fall for CGL.

KS doesn’t care because they always get their cut. How it pans out to buyers is none of their concern. It’s true that many KS do fulfill and are fine, but the ones that implode do so spectacularly.

Some companies I think are ok – Crooked Dice has never failed.

[limburger 22081xp 1]

I’m tempted to say that the vast majority of companies within our hobby are ok.

The exceptions are all the more heart breaking.

As for Kickstarter as a company … I’d say Southpark had a good episode about that 😉
That’s why I’d rather trust the company doing the kickstarter instead of the crowdfunding platform itself.

//

Time to watch what the resident tank god thinks about BG 😀

[athelstane 700xp 0]

Why does ‘Mythic Games’ come into my mind?

[sundancer 43722xp 0]

IDK @athelstane I don’t know.

What I do know: yesterday a German guy on Mastodon got his big pledge shipped to him (didn’t say what level he was but I’d say he had 3 to 4 time the amount of boxes I had.

He lost interest in BT between the end of the KS and now.

He sold it on “as is”.

That’s the state of BT. :S

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