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2015/10/16 11:55:06
Subject: Alien vs Predator Miniatures Game from Prodos Games 08/10/15 1 day, 2 updates pg 204
warboss wrote: Did the mega update ever come out? It's been two days and I didn't see anything in the thread and there is no kickstarter page to check for updates.
Soon.
Every time a terrorist dies a Paratrooper gets his wings.
2015/10/16 14:52:16
Subject: Alien vs Predator Miniatures Game from Prodos Games 08/10/15 1 day, 2 updates pg 204
Good morning all, let me start this update with a bit of Prodos history. It might not seem necessary, but it will probably help explain some of the wider points.
The company was funded by a team of 3 passionate hobbyists believing that we can really change the industry with the latest 3D technology and an utterly unique resin casting process. Two of us were existing, longtime fans, of Mutant Chronicles and have played the previous incarnation of Warzone when we were kids. Looking at the market, we identified a gap and decided to bring Warzone back onto the market via Kickstarter. That went reasonably well, until the point when we needed to fulfil KS. It was at this point that we began to face many unexpected issues. Due to several poor calculations, the largest of which was shipping in waves, we ended up with a near 60k shortfall. The fact that it was our first Kickstarter, we sought little advice and our calculations was totally incorrect. Luckily for us, the Warzone line was received very well on the market, far exceeding our expectations, and we have managed to make enough profit to cover that initial loss.
As you may know, we are not alone in this struggle and many others have a similar story to tell when trying to break into the miniature gaming market. In fact, many companies are running KS after KS just to fulfil their previous KS. This is the case for us as well, we initially went with AvP on KS to get everything straightened up with Warzone and to make sure that we won’t have to come back on KS again, ever. Not that we don't like Kickstarter, but we don't think it's a great way to continue our business.
The plan was to get AvP, and release the game within 6 to 8 months at the most, the team was working very hard on it to make the product that will WOW our customers. As you can probably remember from our earlier updates, we were making fantastic progress, sharing pictures regularly of concept art, WIPs, samples and even completed figures.
But as it is with any plan, something always goes wrong and for us, it's actually lots of things.
Starting with a huge cost increase in manufacturing, approximately 30% from our original quotes, and ending on the pressure of having a readily available product on the market by a set date.
We decided to take a risk and spend our manpower on casting add-ons for AvP to keep as many of our staff in work for as long as possible, hoping that one day soon the game would go public with all of the add-ons and that, with that in mind, we could make it back quickly. However, constant delays caused us to be sitting on almost 650000 GBP of product in our warehouse just for add-ons alone, that’s 3 times more we need for fulfilling the AvP Kickstarter. This video is a proof for that [link here].
So why is there such slow shipping?
There are two problems we need to solve, the first problem is to cover the cost of shipping (which again, increased by a large amount since the project opened) and the second is to increase capacity on packing and sending the KS out.
After the multiple waves shipping fiasco with the Warzone KS, we decided that shipping in waves is not an option at all. Hence all calculations we have done on KS were taken just in consideration of 1 shipping wave, hoping that we would have the entire product line approved in one go. Nowadays, kickstarter creators give an option to backers to pay for multiple waves of shipping or to just wait until the full product is ready to go, we had not considered such option (check out any of Modiphius Kickstarters, you will see this is the case). However due to the cost of warehousing an approved game, with none of the add-ons approved, in our warehouse, we decided to go, yet again wrongly, in waves. As shipping in waves requires extra funds and we needed contractually to have the game on the market, the AvP board game was released and sold publicly. Also as the cost of manufacturing went up by 30% between 2013 and now, the money we had collected for shipping was used to cover that increase. To cut it short, we are funding the shipping costs from any profit we are making, in some cases to the detriment of our team.
The same goes for profit we are generating on our 3D or casting services for other companies. Some of you might know what we have been making product to cover almost 12 other companies KS, and this profit went into fulfilling the shipping costs of wave 1, wave 2 and now wave 3.
Just to make this clear, we, as Prodos, are not asking anyone to pay more than they have paid via KS. We are explaining the situation in order to hopefully allow you to better understand our situation and with that, kindly asking to a bit more patience and during that time we will solve the issue of speeding up with shipping. Of course, we do not expect you to be happy and we do expect you to be annoyed by this.
We have been considering several ways of making it faster and will gladly take on board any other options that you have that we have not considered (service@prodos.co.uk):
1. Go again on KS with a miniatures product, we really have a proven records of delivering of miniatures to the market. Profit generated on that KS would be assigned for shipping of this KS. Pure miniatures, no cardboard or printed material, no IP hence no delay due to approval.
2. I won’t hide the fact that we have been approached by a much bigger company that is interested in buying Prodos as a whole, along with its licenses, as they are mainly interested in our manufacturing know-how, however we really need to make sure that new owner will fulfil what KS backers have paid for. Until we have this guaranteed we won’t be able to make this call. If this can be guaranteed, then the new company has the capacity and funds available to easily complete the shipping of this range of all 3 waves.
3. Release the add-ons as soon as we have approval on them and use the profit to speed up the shipping and getting more staff for packing. This may mean releasing them to the public before backers which we are loathe to do.
4. Final option is to go public to find investors to speed this up.
So how long it will take to get all games out at this rate if we don’t go with any of the options above?
We have shipped so far 1785 board games + approx. 230 were collected at various shows. We are looking at another 2.5 to 3 months of Prodos profit to clear 1st, 2nd wave and 3rd wave of shipping. Add-on miniatures or cost of board game manufacturing is not an issue as add-ons are manufactured and the KS version of the board game paid for.
We are at Crisis, in Antwerp Belgium, with the Kickstarter version of AvP (for backers only) and a collection of add-ons. If you are visiting us please send us an email (service@prodos.co.uk). Please bring you PM paperwork as we are unable to hand out copies without this.
For any of you who have received KS versions of the game, please contact michal.pawlaczyk@prodos.co.uk in regards to returning your boxes, we will cover the cost of this.
The pledge manager will be opened tomorrow morning, you can make any changes you wish to your order there. We also request that you please double or triple check your address and details. You can access the pledge manager here: http://calc.prodos.co.uk/ If you do not wish to make any changes, you can close it, or simply leave it open and we will close it when the time comes.
Also, there are roughly 300 backers who have not updated their details sufficiently, please can you check your addresses? We will look at listing these by postcode next week.
We’d like to reiterate that we have approval on some of the range (Royal Guard, Queen, Crusher, Warriors, Power Loader, Weyland-Yutani Commandos, Predalien and Predator Hell Hounds), we have the stock for the approved stock and are looking to get it to you as fast as possible. All we can say is that we’re sorry that you haven’t got the game at this stage but we are looking at trying to get it to you as fast as possible.
By Friday of next week, we will be dispatching another 500 copies of AvP to Kickstarter Backers. We will make sure to update you on this.
2. I won’t hide the fact that we have been approached by a much bigger company that is interested in buying Prodos as a whole, along with its licenses, as they are mainly interested in our manufacturing know-how, however we really need to make sure that new owner will fulfil what KS backers have paid for. Until we have this guaranteed we won’t be able to make this call. If this can be guaranteed, then the new company has the capacity and funds available to easily complete the shipping of this range of all 3 waves.
The bolded part is commendable. Hope things start smoothing out for you folks.
My timeline is shorter.
Start-
In 2013 I gave you £238
Waiting...
Waiting...
Waiting...
...Annoyed
End.
The new videos do look amazing, and would tempt me to spend loads more money... I bloody love Aliens.
Except your Prodos, you've treated me bad and you deserve no more of my money.
Panic...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/16 15:33:15
Panic wrote: yeah,
What's happened to the clear predators?
My timeline is shorter.
Start-
In 2013 I gave you £238
Waiting...
Waiting...
Waiting...
...Annoyed
End.
The new do videos look amazing, and would tempt me to spend loads more money... I bloody love Aliens.
Except your Prodos, you've treated me bad and you deserve no more of my money.
Panic...
WE totally understood the situation.
2015/10/16 15:39:16
Subject: Alien vs Predator Miniatures Game from Prodos Games 08/10/15 1 day, 2 updates pg 204
Thanks for the explanation. Could you explain why the incorrect retail copies were sent to so many backers in the first place and what precautions you've taken to prevent such huge mistakes from happening again?
We Munch for Macragge! FOR THE EMPRUH! Cheesesticks and Humus!
2015/10/16 15:43:17
Subject: Alien vs Predator Miniatures Game from Prodos Games 08/10/15 1 day, 2 updates pg 204
warboss wrote: Thanks for the explanation. Could you explain why the incorrect retail copies were sent to so many backers in the first place and what precautions you've taken to prevent such huge mistakes from happening again?
the problem was with manufacturer/ our graphic team, however, they haves covered the manufacturing cost and cost of recall.
Since than point, we are signing off every batch that is manufactured.
2015/10/16 15:55:33
Subject: Re:Alien vs Predator Miniatures Game from Prodos Games 08/10/15 1 day, 2 updates pg 204
It seems to be a given that far too many gamers think that because they've rolled dice for many years and are passionate about the content that they will be able to run a good company/store/etc..
These things have no guaranteed correlation.
I was guilty of this myself, so I speak from experience.
Know and be honest about your limitations and have realistic life goals...
The sad thing is that potential failures like this make those who own beloved IP hesitant to let people use it in the future and thusfuture good ideas/proposed projects never get a fair shake because those before have left a bad taste in IP owner's mouths.
I hope they work this all out and the game survives as I'd love to get my hands on all the AVP models, but based upon what I'm reading I should run away as fast as I can and not look back.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2015/10/16 18:56:08
warboss wrote: Thanks for the explanation. Could you explain why the incorrect retail copies were sent to so many backers in the first place and what precautions you've taken to prevent such huge mistakes from happening again?
the problem was with manufacturer/ our graphic team, however, they haves covered the manufacturing cost and cost of recall.
Since than point, we are signing off every batch that is manufactured.
Thanks. I have to say I'm surprised that a small team with such a big product going out (one of only two) that you have so much riding on didn't bother checking the flagship product going out.
We Munch for Macragge! FOR THE EMPRUH! Cheesesticks and Humus!
2015/10/16 16:12:24
Subject: Alien vs Predator Miniatures Game from Prodos Games 08/10/15 1 day, 2 updates pg 204
warboss wrote: Thanks for the explanation. Could you explain why the incorrect retail copies were sent to so many backers in the first place and what precautions you've taken to prevent such huge mistakes from happening again?
the problem was with manufacturer/ our graphic team, however, they haves covered the manufacturing cost and cost of recall.
Since than point, we are signing off every batch that is manufactured.
Thanks. I have to say I'm surprised that a small team with such a big product going out (one of only two) that you have so much riding on didn't bother checking the flagship product going out.
True and nothing to say to defend to be hones. New process is in place solved the issue.
2015/10/16 16:30:30
Subject: Alien vs Predator Miniatures Game from Prodos Games 08/10/15 1 day, 2 updates pg 204
So I had a thought. Why not make an offer to backers that haven't yet recieved anything to wait until all the final wave stuff is ready to ship. You could offer extra add-on minis, that you have already produced, so it won't cost you anything that way, and you would save a ton on shipping. I realize that a lot of people are wanting this product asap, I'm no different, but realistically even if I got it now, today, I probably wouldn't have a lot of time between now and Christmas to play anyways. Just a thought.
2015/10/16 16:33:09
Subject: Re:Alien vs Predator Miniatures Game from Prodos Games 08/10/15 1 day, 2 updates pg 204
So could you just ship mine please? I'm crazy_cat on KS and my PM has been closed and contains my real name and everything - and has been like this for months.
I like the new stuff, bt until I get what you owe me there is no way on this earth I will give you more money. Deliver on your promises and my KS preorder and then amybe I'll consider it.
'You should never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die'
2015/10/16 16:33:32
Subject: Alien vs Predator Miniatures Game from Prodos Games 08/10/15 1 day, 2 updates pg 204
Grumpae wrote: So I had a thought. Why not make an offer to backers that haven't yet recieved anything to wait until all the final wave stuff is ready to ship. You could offer extra add-on minis, that you have already produced, so it won't cost you anything that way, and you would save a ton on shipping. I realize that a lot of people are wanting this product asap, I'm no different, but realistically even if I got it now, today, I probably wouldn't have a lot of time between now and Christmas to play anyways. Just a thought.
It's something we have considered, however, the problem is that with every approved wave we will get more heat.
2015/10/16 16:49:41
Subject: Alien vs Predator Miniatures Game from Prodos Games 08/10/15 1 day, 2 updates pg 204
Grumpae wrote: So I had a thought. Why not make an offer to backers that haven't yet recieved anything to wait until all the final wave stuff is ready to ship. You could offer extra add-on minis, that you have already produced, so it won't cost you anything that way, and you would save a ton on shipping. I realize that a lot of people are wanting this product asap, I'm no different, but realistically even if I got it now, today, I probably wouldn't have a lot of time between now and Christmas to play anyways. Just a thought.
It's something we have considered, however, the problem is that with every approved wave we will get more heat.
As far as that goes, I don't see how you could ever afford more than four waves of shipping, these costs are literally killing your business. I can understand a two wave, but 3 or 4? There needs to be a distinction between doing your best for your backers, and hurting your future ability to operate and continue with the license. Lets face it, the heat is already on, and its most likely not going to go away for some time. Shipping in dribs and drabs is still leaving people who haven't recieved everything anyways, so it doesn't really do anything to mitigate the heat, all it really does is kill your ability to get out of this hole. I'm not telling you how to do business, I learned that lesson already, just saying you really need to look at your bottom line and make the best decisions for yourselves as you can going forward.
2015/10/16 16:57:06
Subject: AvP: The Hunt Begins by Prodos Games 16/10/15 PM re-opened
Good morning all, let me start this update with a bit of Prodos history. It might not seem necessary, but it will probably help explain some of the wider points.
The company was founded by a team of 3 passionate hobbyists believing that we can really change the industry with the latest 3D technology and an utterly unique resin casting process. Two of us were existing, longtime fans, of Mutant Chronicles and have played the previous incarnation of Warzone when we were kids. Looking at the market, we identified a gap and decided to bring Warzone back onto the market via Kickstarter. That went reasonably well, until the point when we needed to fulfil KS. It was at this point that we began to face many unexpected issues.
Due to several poor calculations, the largest of which was shipping in waves, we ended up with a near 60k shortfall. The fact that it was our first Kickstarter, we sought little advice and our calculations was totally incorrect. Luckily for us, the Warzone line was received very well on the market, far exceeding our expectations, and we have managed to make enough profit to cover that initial loss.
As you may know, we are not alone in this struggle and many others have a similar story to tell when trying to break into the miniature gaming market. In fact, many companies are running KS after KS just to fulfil their previous KS. This is the case for us as well, we initially went with AvP on KS to get everything straightened up with Warzone and to make sure that we won’t have to come back on KS again, ever. Not that we don't like Kickstarter, but we don't think it's a great way to continue our business.
The plan was to get AvP, and release the game within 6 to 8 months at the most, the team was working very hard on it to make the product that will WOW our customers. As you can probably remember from our earlier updates, we were making fantastic progress, sharing pictures regularly of concept art, WIPs, samples and even completed figures.
But as it is with any plan, something always goes wrong and for us, it's actually lots of things.
Starting with a huge cost increase in manufacturing, approximately 30% from our original quotes, and ending on the pressure of having a readily available product on the market by a set date.
We decided to take a risk and spend our manpower on casting add-ons for AvP to keep as many of our staff in work for as long as possible, hoping that one day soon the game would go public with all of the add-ons and that, with that in mind, we could make it back quickly. However, constant delays caused us to be sitting on almost 650000 GBP of product in our warehouse just for add-ons alone, that’s 3 times more we need for fulfilling the AvP Kickstarter.
So why is there such slow shipping?
There are two problems we need to solve, the first problem is to cover the cost of shipping (which again, increased by a large amount since the project opened) and the second is to increase capacity on packing and sending the KS out.
After the multiple waves shipping fiasco with the Warzone KS, we decided that shipping in waves is not an option at all. Hence all calculations we have done on KS were taken just in consideration of 1 shipping wave, hoping that we would have the entire product line approved in one go. Nowadays, kickstarter creators give an option to backers to pay for multiple waves of shipping or to just wait until the full product is ready to go, we had not considered such option (check out any of Modiphius Kickstarters, you will see this is the case). However due to the cost of warehousing an approved game, with none of the add-ons approved, in our warehouse, we decided to go, yet again wrongly, in waves. As shipping in waves requires extra funds and we needed contractually to have the game on the market, the AvP board game was released and sold publicly. Also as the cost of manufacturing went up by 30% between 2013 and now, the money we had collected for shipping was used to cover that increase. To cut it short, we are funding the shipping costs from any profit we are making, in some cases to the detriment of our team.
The same goes for profit we are generating on our 3D or casting services for other companies. Some of you might know what we have been making product to cover almost 12 other companies KS, and this profit went into fulfilling the shipping costs of wave 1, wave 2 and now wave 3.
Just to make this clear, we, as Prodos, are not asking anyone to pay more than they have paid via KS. We are explaining the situation in order to hopefully allow you to better understand our situation and with that, kindly asking to a bit more patience and during that time we will solve the issue of speeding up with shipping. Of course, we do not expect you to be happy and we do expect you to be annoyed by this.
We have been considering several ways of making it faster and will gladly take on board any other options that you have that we have not considered (service@prodos.co.uk):
1. Go again on KS with a miniatures product, we really have a proven records of delivering of miniatures to the market. Profit generated on that KS would be assigned for shipping of this KS. Pure miniatures, no cardboard or printed material, no IP hence no delay due to approval.
1. I won’t hide the fact that we have been approached by a much bigger company that is interested in buying Prodos as a whole, along with its licenses, as they are mainly interested in our manufacturing know-how, however we really need to make sure that new owner will fulfil what KS backers have paid for. Until we have this guaranteed we won’t be able to make this call. If this can be guaranteed, then the new company has the capacity and funds available to easily complete the shipping of this range of all 3 waves.
2. Release the add-ons as soon as we have approval on them and use the profit to speed up the shipping and getting more staff for packing. This may mean releasing them to the public before backers which we are loathe to do.
3. Final option is to go public to find investors to speed this up.
So how long it will take to get all games out at this rate if we don’t go with any of the options above?
We have shipped so far 1785 board games + approx. 230 were collected at various shows. We are looking at another 2.5 to 3 months of Prodos profit to clear 1st, 2nd wave and 3rd wave of shipping. Add-on miniatures or cost of board game manufacturing is not an issue as add-ons are manufactured and the KS version of the board game paid for.
We are at Crisis, in Antwerp Belgium, with the Kickstarter version of AvP (for backers only) and a collection of add-ons. If you are visiting us please send us an email (service@prodos.co.uk). Please bring you PM paperwork as we are unable to hand out copies without this.
For any of you who have received KS versions of the game, please contact michal.pawlaczyk@prodos.co.uk in regards to returning your boxes, we will cover the cost of this.
The pledge manager will be opened tomorrow morning, you can make any changes you wish to your order there. We also request that you please double or triple check your address and details. You can access the pledge manager here: http://calc.prodos.co.uk/
If you do not wish to make any changes, you can close it, or simply leave it open and we will close it when the time comes.
Also, there are roughly 300 backers who have not updated their details sufficiently, please can you check your addresses? We will look at listing these by postcode next week.
We’d like to reiterate that we have approval on some of the range (Royal Guard, Queen, Crusher, Warriors, Power Loader, Weyland-Yutani Commandos, Predalien and Predator Hell Hounds), we have the stock for the approved stock and are looking to get it to you as fast as possible. All we can say is that we’re sorry that you haven’t got the game at this stage but we are looking at trying to get it to you as fast as possible.
By Friday of next week, we will be dispatching another 500 copies of AvP to Kickstarter Backers. We will make sure to update you on this.
The sad part about that comment is.. Mantic have never made a miniature that comes even close to the quality of these AvP minis.
Having inspected the KS minis up-close and in person they really are that good, the miniatures that every Aliens and Predator fan has been dreaming of for 25 years.
Of course, in an ideal world we would have Mantics speed of KS and the Prodos AvP minis
So I reclosed my pledge manager AGAIN yesterday and the response form prodos is YAY OPEN THE PLEDGE KANAGER AGAIN!!! What a bunch of 'expletive removeds'. Why would I want to pay for more add ons for a game I haven't even received yet? Bunch of fetching morons.
Pacific wrote: Mantic have never made a miniature that comes even close to the quality of these AvP minis.
Quoted for truth.
I've got my AVP models on my desk right now, having just finished assembling and basing them.
They are some of the best quality models I've ever worked with, and I've been at this sort of thing for 30 years.
The level of detail is jaw dropping, I can't wait to paint them.
Mantic, well, I'm reminded of the saying "Cheap, good, fast. Pick two."
If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it. item 87, skippys list
DC:70S+++G+++M+++B+++I++Pw40k86/f#-D+++++A++++/cWD86R+++++T(D)DM++
2015/10/16 19:05:25
Subject: Re:AvP: The Hunt Begins by Prodos Games 16/10/15 PM re-opened
Pacific wrote: The sad part about that comment is.. Mantic have never made a miniature that comes even close to the quality of these AvP minis.
Having inspected the KS minis up-close and in person they really are that good, the miniatures that every Aliens and Predator fan has been dreaming of for 25 years.
Of course, in an ideal world we would have Mantics speed of KS and the Prodos AvP minis
Well, you know what they say about quality, price and speed... you can have two out of three. Mantic do the last two. Prodos at least do the first?
edit: damn it can't believe I didn't read the post directly above mine first...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/10/16 19:06:16
Legion: Dark Angels 
@ me.
