TheHandsomeDan's page

I fortunately found out about the Starfinder minis after the initial funding ended but I was seriously considering becoming a late pledge after the fact; ultimately, it was the involvement of ND (who wasn't yet showing their true colors on Starfinder) and my experience with Robotech that convinced me to instead just wait for the project to potentially hit the shelves or to buy out a pledge on the secondary market once it delivered. I'm glad that I was able to avoid this minefield unlike my first experience with crowdfunding.

In all reality, the true colors were WELL known before the Starfinder KS campaign launched. Within minutes of launch, they were being swarmed with users from previous campaigns warning others about ND/SPM's history of lies/delays/failures.

Their initial response? They tried to pretend that ND and SPM were different entities with different employees and different owners. It took 1-2 hours for so many backers to pull public records PROVING that was a lie before they backpedaled on that too.

Numerous users with understandable grievances against them flooded the comments with specific and detailed accounts of why nobody should trust the folks at ND. So much so that others got irritable with them over it. This is realistically the single biggest red flag that a crowdfunded project could have. It started on day one, and ran the entire funding campaign. People saying they didn't know either COMPLETELY ignored the comments or are lying. Only two options on that.

Many of you have expressed that it was my vouching for Ninja Division in the early days of this project that pushed you over the line to make a pledge. If that’s the case with your decision to back, I also apologize to you. I certainly had much higher expectations that have not been met. I was very impressed with Ninja Division’s sculpting abilities and design expertise, and at the time we partnered with them they gave me reason to believe that the various setbacks they had encountered up to that point were unique and in the process of being handled. That gave me faith in them that they have not backed up with action, and I understand your frustration—and share it.

I realize that what I'm about to ask might be a bit tough to answer, but I think it may be genuinely helpful for us to hear your thoughts and answers.

During the campaign, when backers and potential backers saw Paizo putting support behind Ninja Division for this Kickstarter, you received emails -perhaps not you personally Erik, but I know that numerous people emailed customer service and even some of the specific folks in charge at Paizo. Many expressed very serious concern, and the specific reasons that they felt you (again referring to Paizo overall here) should NOT be partnering with them for this or any other business venture.

I'm not talking about generic angry cursing and outrage emails. I saw some drafts people were sending over, and many of them were very well formulated messages. I've only heard of one or two of those people getting a response, which was fairly generic, if they had sent their email to customer service. But nothing else, nor from anyone else.

Knowing that Paizo received a strong reaction such as this, with people reaching out to share very specific causes for you to be concerned, these questions come to mind:

-Why did Paizo not "pull back", "reconsider", or outright cancel this joint venture? Was too much contract ink set in stone before we heard anything about it?

-Why did Paizo continue to speak so positively on their behalf, despite all these warnings?

-Many of the decision-makers associated with this (and numerous other crowdsourced games that have failed to deliver) have jumped over to new companies, where it seems likely they will repeat the same decisions that led to the current ND situation. This makes things a bit more complex than "just don't partner with X company". What will Paizo do differently in the future, to prevent/mitigate this sort of thing from happening to its own fanbase again?

Again, I understand and recognize that ND appears committed to making all of their obligations work. And I respect that they want to see things through. I think many of us simply question whether or not that's possible at this point, and in that regard only time will tell. Fingers crossed, for the sake of everyone who put cash down on ND products.