Feeling Cheated By CMON? What You Can Do About It

so you're feeling completely screwed over by come on and you're wondering what to do next let's talk about it [Music] i'm alex radcliffe from board game co and this video is neither a defense nor an attack on come on on cool money or not it's gonna have some things in there that aren't the best look for come on it's gonna have some things that are context as to the greater situation in the general space hopefully come on still talks me after this video i do like working with them on a variety of things but i've i've always i've always taken that fun stance in which i both give them a hard time but things while also defending them at times i remember going way back in the day when my channel first started i had two videos linked down below both of them one is uh commando's evil from king of average congrats to the video calling come on evil and then i did a defense video about the nature of the conversation that stance and conversation is always true i tend to take not take the company side i tend to look at things from both sides of the conversation of the nature of running a company and the nature of being a backer because i have done both i am both and i recognize that things are not always as simple as people want them to be this video before we go further will be divided up into three sections three primary sections everything time stamped down below of course more than the just the three sections but all the further in details we're gonna have going over some other campaigns talking about some other context because this is hardly a individual scenario uh we should also probably talk about what's actually going on for those who have no idea what i'm talking about i'll do that too i'll do that in a second so we'll have what's actually going on going over some other campaigns what this means for come on and crowdfunding in general and then finally what you can do to minimize the pain yourself i do have actual practical suggestions as far as if you really really really don't like the situation and are trying to figure out what to do so let's talk about all those things starting off with what is actually going on the initial ramble is it's on brand but it's not necessarily helpful come on marvel zombies that's why i have marvel and i have zombie side over here but i don't have both at the same time come on and marvel zombies they did a campaign as you may or may not know it became incredibly successful did really really ridiculously well and they just opened up the pledge manager and people saw the shipping prices people are not happy with the shipping prices not surprisingly as the shipping prices seem to range from as low as like 58 on the low end for a single base pledge and that's like the low low low end i don't even know if i saw anything that low all the way up to like 330 dollars for two-way shipping single shipping whatever it was for very high prices for context my shipping price going all in getting galactus getting everything my shipping price is one of two options i can either spend 140 for single wave shipping that's a single shipping a single wave of shipping for 140 or i can spend 190 to get two-way shipping just to be clear that's an extra 50 to get a single core box an extra 50 to get a single core box because i actually don't think the shipping prices are that outrageous in some areas but i think some things are a little crazy again neither an attack nor a defense just a whole lot of conversation people lost their minds understandably so because the the initially quoted prices by command were significantly lower than what people are seeing so you have these two camps of people you have the people who are like oh my gosh it's a giant freaking galactus have you seen i seen how large that thing is of course it's gonna be 190 it's surprising that's not 190 for just that alone forget your whole pledge and then that people are like yeah but we were told there was going to be less and now it's higher than what we were told and come on should have known about all these shipping crisis things there's no surprises here this stuff was going on why is it suddenly now that it's becoming a conversation i think everyone has a good point everyone has a good point none of this is made any better by the fact that for the first time ever in the history of come on although to be fair to them they they have danced around recently with pledge managers but still not a good look for the first time ever they had two pages of legalese binding agreements of you know no returns no this you can't do that you can't do this all these things printed out on the first two pages before you can actually check out on your pledge it's not a good look to have two pages of binding legalese in your pledge manager that no other company has done when i say no other i don't mean no other but i mean that i go through a lot of pledge managers and i back a lot of games and i've never seen that before and they have that right before they slap you with some of the higher shipping we've ever seen i understand completely understand the desire of a company to protect themselves in whatever situation there is and having this many backers and having this much money on the line and having to be sure that they don't get hit with a million people who decide to cancel the pledge after they've already produced them i understand the context and need to protect yourself i do but it's not a good look the same way they have a need to protect themselves you have a whole lot of people in the comments very upset and angry and trying to protect themselves when the company tries to protect themselves at the cost of the relationship the backer protects themselves the cost of the relationship i'm not saying it's wrong i'm not i'm just saying it's not a good look to have that legal lease in place before you slap that shipping down i kind of find myself in the middle of these camps i kind of find myself more towards the idea that shipping should be expensive it should be ridiculously expensive i don't underst i don't think people understand exactly how much they're getting and 190 dollars for two-way shipping or 100 let's focus on 140 for one-way shipping 140 for one wave shipping for what you're getting seems like a good price honestly like a good price i i will grant you that they quoted as less i will also say that come on for better or no just for worse no for better on force for worse come on in general has always had one price of shipping and then they're like but this is just the core pledge and they'll be stretchable unlocked and those things will change the prices and so obviously these prices will go up and they have a little caveat of like this quote is based on the core pledge as if there's magically no stretch goals and of course we all know that there are stress schools and so they always have that lower price and the higher price that's always the case i just think this time is worse because of just how bad the higher price was but again galactus is huge galactus on its own if you told me galaxies on its own was 140 forget the other 17 boxes of goodness i'm getting along with my all in i understand that honestly the thing that bothers me the most the thing that bothers me the most before we go into more stuff is the fact that a single core box when you split into two-way shipping a single core box costs fifty dollars that is egregious to me like absolutely agrees to me that is that is some of the higher shipping like galactus i can defend the 14 boxes of goodness i can defend a single core box costing you an extra fifty dollars that seems insane and by the way don't do it don't get two-way shipping here this is one of those things where command is probably gonna actually thank me for this but i'm gonna recommend you that you should not go two-way shipping what you should do is just buy another core box at retail because it will cost you like 80 90 dollars you're paying an extra 40 for core box on its own which is a good price you'll have a second core box you'll have to sell it at some point but effectively paying a full 50 extra to get this core box when you just pay 90 to actually own a second one seems like a better deal to me no guarantees of course and obviously if everyone listens to me that will flood the market with extra core boxes if you wait in your patient it'll hold this value just fine 40 is just a good deal for a fresh new off the boat zombicide game so i would say and that's for context that's what i'm doing i'm not going two-way shipping this time despite my usual advice to always go one-way shipping to out always go to if shipping don't go one way shipping because you get your stuff later and then you have fomo and then you miss out and all those things i'm going for a single way i'm paying that 140 i'm sucking it up it is what it is and i'll buy a core box when it comes to retail the unboxing of a single core box isn't that big a deal for the channel and i'll figure out someone who has a copy if i can i'll figure it out but i'm not paying 50 extra to ship a single box that part bothers me but it's complicated i think that the pricing is what it is i think that if you look and this is the part where we'll get into a second about the whole what's going on with other campaigns but we will talk about other campaigns that have had plenty of other shipping drama and i'm just picking a handful of recent ones i'm not even trying to be exhaustive in this if i was trying to be exhaustive in this i'd find so many more the current state of the world does result in things that are crazy expensive my biggest problems here my biggest problems i'm not even i should have three problems i only have two but i should have three the three problems i should have is that they quoted a lower price i happen to know from backing many command campaigns to always expect it to be a little higher than what they say just always expect that off the bat so that doesn't actually bother me but it is a value it is a valid critique and complaint the second thing that does bother me is the 50 shipping for the core box and the third thing that bothers me is the look of throwing two pages of legalese up there i'm not even sure if it'll help them i imagine it all they had lawyers write it up and all this stuff but i mean in theory you should be able to demand a refund and this and that if they take too long i don't i don't know the details i'm not a lawyer i just don't even know if it'll help them there's certain consumer laws and protections in place and i don't think writing up a contract just invalidates those but i could be wrong i'm not i'm not a lawyer like i said i'm just here drinking coffee talking about board games which should be our biggest problem by the way we should be so lucky that these are our biggest problems it's expensive i'm not minimizing the expense but if you can afford to spend hundreds and hundred dollars on marvel zombies these should be our biggest problems so that's a bit of a recap of the situation of what's going on a few other things worth mentioning i touching upon before we go further is one of the complaints i've seen addressed which is come on saying hey we're not making money on shipping for what it's worth i believe them i can't prove it obviously but i believe them just based on the state of the world and based on again how ridiculously off the top the amount of stuff you're getting is but additionally i've seen a lot of comments about how hey obviously the numbers aren't right because i can go ahead and if i buy galactus cost me an extra eighty dollars to ship and if i buy a second galaxy cost me an extra forty dollars that's not right the volume of the beneficial volumes you get out of shipping only applies when you're shoving things in the same box it does not apply when you're shipping an entirely different box and i have to imagine galactus is coming in an entirely different box i could be wrong maybe you're assembling him maybe you're getting in parts i don't know i could be wrong with this but i just don't imagine that it makes sense that your second pledge of galactus costs significantly less and there's other games people have played with adding this removing that playing with that and showing different inconsistencies with the numbers and using that and holding it up as proof against come on that their numbers aren't right and they should reevaluate and refund people and all those different things i don't buy that personally i do buy that you can find ways to arrange things in which you get things for cheaper that theoretically shouldn't be cheaper practically speaking i just assume that you're making common lose even more money on shipping on those particular options shipping that will be offset by the profit they get from the item obviously but i don't imagine that you've had you've caught them out in some sort of lie about how accurate the shipping manager is i imagine that the nature of complex the nature of complex programs of complex entities of throwing a million things a million products into a shipping manager trying to take into account the pick rate the cost of doing the cost of the labels the cost of everything the dimensional rate of this the actual rate of that trying to tie all that together into a complex system will result in weird exceptions it doesn't mean that the numbers are just inherently wrong it means that you may find many loopholes in which you manage to get one over them so you can hold that up to their faces like some sort of example of how they're clearly wrong but i just think that they're probably making less money on those specific examples i can tell you again practically speaking complex systems are complex that's the very nature of what's going on throwing in a million dimensional rates for products that don't even exist yet throwing it in actual rates of products don't exist yet those things are complicated i have seen the people who said well come on should only show the shipping rate when they're actually produced but honestly would you rather that because the problem then the problem with that scenario which i understand why people would want that they're like hey maybe shipping will go down maybe it will but the flip side is what if it doesn't first of all what if it goes up secondly is if it doesn't go up i mean at the end of the day you're still looking at a situation in which now you're going to have people who are demanding refunds after command has produced your place when it's closer to shipping which could be more of a problem you might be more frustrated they might be more frustrated i don't know if it necessarily solves the problem in general i think it's a better solution if you actually expect ridiculously high prices but if you don't i don't know if it necessarily improves the conversation so again i think that it's complicated that's what the entire thing comes down to i don't think it's an easy conversation i have i have as usual with any conversation involving come on i can both defend them while acknowledging full well that they could have or should have done things in a more consumer friendly fashion and they chose not to and there's a cost to that there's a cost of goodwill in general and this will be in that section we cover soon of the what does this mean for command campaigns in the future of crowdfunding in general of what you should do in the future it's complicated we'll talk about that soon but first just to go over some recent dramas and this is taking me much longer to get this time stamp than i thought it would we'll have all this stuff still everything time stamped but we have a few using campaigns that had more shipping drama as well and this will happen crowdfunding is escalating what you get in pledges is escalating the amount of content being delivered to you the mountains different options and optional buys as long as we continue to be part of the problem and i say that as somebody who is definitely part of the problem but as long as we continue to be willing to buy these things and continue to escalate what once used to be the the ultimate ridiculously over the top expense of like 150 for a crowdfunding campaign has escalated to like 500 plus for a crowdfunding campaign as long as we're willing to do this we will be slapped with a lot of things and as long as we're slapped with those things you'll be slapless shipping charges for said things at the same time it is messy out there and companies are trying to just get by i'm not saying come on is or isn't making tons of money on this they just had a very successful campaign but i can tell you that there are a lot of other successful campaigns that aren't making as much money as you might think so what are these campaigns we have chronicles of drinker i'm not going to go heavily into the details on each of these because that's not the point in this video it's just to to remind you this is not just command the command is just one of many companies that are having more and more issues recently cronkite underground had this ridiculous all-in campaign with again over-the-top shipping prices that people lost their minds over people were very upset they felt the trade and i bought the people over at chronicles dinner car i bet they're looking at this situation and saying it's not just us then again i don't know if they want to be looped into the same bundle as come on so it could go either way there but they have this whole issue they try to do what they can they try to get a little bit margin here try to load something there but they were just quoting the prices given to them there was no profit being made it's just the nature of shipping being expensive when you're getting way too many things we had the dark quarter this is a recent one because the dark quarter was one in which they actually changed the pricing but they had a correction but they had the all in pledge for the dark quarter or the any of the us pledges being more expensive than they should be they tweaked those they adjusted those but not without pushback they wrote it off as being a dimensional weight versus actual thing it might have been i honestly don't know i never really know when companies are going with the legalese spin or the defensible whatever versus just you know maybe they're sucking up the price and they're calling it a day i don't think they're making money that's for sure i think it's entirely possible that they just lowered the pledge and said hey we gotta suck this up we can't we can't do this we have to deliver and we'll just take we'll eat on the margins that's possible or there actually was a shipping mix-up either way we have hannah kojie hannah cody he had a recent one a small box game a small box game that they they announced the whole thing they did the pledge manager and then your 64 dollar pledge had a 34 shipping price on it that was not fun it wasn't fun for me it wasn't fun for them and then lo and behold they worked their magic and they managed to lower the price to like 24 22 or whatever it was managed to still expensive what the game is but they were like error shipping everything they managed to find the margins again i don't know what it means to find the margins more often than not i think that they are potentially taking a hit on the prices because of the amount of backlash and pushback and refunds offered it is messy out there it is going to continue to be messing up it's going to continue to be messy out there which brings us directly to time stamp number two it's the seventh or eighth time stamp but from the ones i told you were coming what does it mean for come on what does this mean for future crowdfunding campaigns the problem with what's happening now is it incentivizes a structure that sets us up for failure it won't it won't actually do so because people won't actually do what they should ideally do myself included for that matter i probably won't do what i should ideally do either i really should do it and i'll there's a reason i don't but it's it's annoying we we're incentivizing a structure we being the companies involved are incentivizing a structure in which backers are incentivized to do things that are worse for everyone more and more it becomes hard to justify ever paying more than a dollar to be in the pledge manager and even that's kind of half optional given how many campaigns you can jump into the pledge manager without even paying a dollar more and more the more you slap people these unknowns the more you give people these hey i know we thought it was going to be x but now it's y you continue to push and incentivize others to back at a dollar in all campaigns this is something i genuinely believe you should do i genuinely believe i should do it i'll explain why i don't soon but i should i should do it we should all back at a dollar and not actually go to any all-in pledge why should you because the people who do find themselves in a harder situation at least when you're back at a dollar you can walk into the pledge manager you can cheat the shipping prices and you can say i either want it or i don't it may be more for something you like and that's unfortunate that's not fun but at least you can make a decision on the spot given all the information on the table contrasted with those who have made a decision already and are being faced with a new bill and now to go through the process of the messy process of trying to get a refund and hoping they get as much debt as possible or just dealing with it more and more i can find very few good reasons to not back at a dollar that's not good for the crowdfunding ecosystem it's not good for those day one funds it's not good because every time this drama happens every time it happens there's another percentage of people that get pushed into the dollar camp or get pushed off of kickstarter altogether both of those happen now the percentage is not as high as it should be because we keep complaining we keep coming back for more i don't for context i don't complain and i do come back for more i if for me it is what it is but the people who complain and walk away entirely they're doing the right thing the people who don't complain are doing the right thing people who complain and just keep coming back you're not making it better for yourself if you are frustrated with the situation you should turn into a either i'm not backing on kickstarter anymore it's just not sustainable or you should turn into the hey i'm backing at a dollar because i'm not being suckered into this again it happened with chronicles it happened with come on it happened with whatever campaigns you've been in i can't keep being suckered into these higher prices back at a dollar that should happen people will be more cautious but they won't be as cautious as they should be we will see small drops and every time this happens we'll see a few more drops but it will not happen as fast as it should crowdfunding will continue to go well because of the many people who either don't care or care but still keep doing this as far as why you should consider not backing a dollar there's different reasons the first is if a company does give you a lower pledge a lower price for a pledge if you get the pledge during the kickstarter during the campaign compared to the pledge manager that's a good reason to knock back at a dollar keep in mind you're signing up for this conversation you're signing up for these unknowns these uncertainties of the what to do next but at least there's a reason at least there's like a given reason as to why you should consider not backing at just a dollar and companies may have to do this by the way the flip side of what i said is if enough people start backing down to the dollar pledge more and more companies might say listen we gotta we gotta say it's gonna be ten dollars more for the pledge and then the pm we just gotta say that and then just make a decision of which degree of risk are you comfortable with and that might push you from being the backing of the dollar to the undone with kickstarter entirely it might push you this is not good for the ecosystem rising costs rising uncertainty rising everything is not good for the ecosystem i have all sympathy for publishers make no mistake that doesn't mean you should back a game that isn't worth the price point to you the sympathy extends to the situation that we're all in it does not extend to you feeling obligated to back things that i mean you have plenty of games anyway you don't need this stuff this last marvel zombies is plenty you do not need the next 14 zombicides that come out until they come out dc's homicide that's a different conversation entirely i don't actually care about dc nearly as much but pirates on the side we can have a conversation the second reason the reason i don't back it a dollar is unfortunate but again i i still it's rare that i don't end up just kind of moving forward reluctantly and calling it a day it is what it is it's unfortunate i don't like the price tag either but it's unfortunate but the reason i don't back it a dollar is because if i want the game if i know i want the game backing it a dollar for me is often a recipe for either forgetting entirely to up my pledge which has happened to me in the past unfortunately i do not like what it does or sometimes finding out that the pledge costs more in the pm and i didn't even realize and that's always unfortunate i hate paying that i hate paying that almost more than the other the shipping i kind of view it as it is what it is it can't be avoided the extra 10 in the pledge manager that kind of views me as like i could have avoided that and that bothers me so much more and also when i do that on a personal it kind of feels when i know what's going on with the campaigns i know when it hits my wallet with the campaigns and i know all that doing it during the pm always feels like a second wave of being hit with the same price even though it's only happening once it feels like being hit twice so for more emotional abstract not really rational helpful reasons reasons that i could probably get around and figure out solutions i don't back at the the dollar pledge but if you're upset by these things you should because that's your biggest defense your biggest defense is to continue to drop down to the dollar pledges whether it's on every campaign whether it's in just the command campaigns that's up to you but it's the safest way you can avoid these solutions these problems not solutions which brings us to the third option a mirror 20 plus 25 is minus videos into this video which brings us to the third option on the table not third option third time snap what can you do here to minimize the pain so there's two camps first of all there are two camps that you fall into if you're watching this video three camps one is you don't care at all you're just watching this because you watch all my videos thank you thank you for being here i appreciate it it's i wish it wasn't a drama filled video the drama filled videos are always good for views which is unfortunate it is it's it is what it is but they're not my fun conversations i'd rather talk to you about the amazing game that marvel zombies actually is and just be excited as opposed to like hey come on it's also you know not doing this part great but they're doing that part fine and then i end up you know annoying come on and annoying the people who don't like them defending come on both people are unhappy i don't like doing these videos these videos happen when enough drama happens and the marvel zombie situation is enough drama but past the people who just watched all my videos thank you again there are two kinds of people there are those who don't like the situation and there are those who wouldn't have done the situation who wouldn't have backed the game and those are two different camps if you are in the camp of i don't like the shipping prices but let's be honest i would have backed it anyway and you're just frustrated come on for laying these on you but you would have backed it anyways i get over it i'm sorry i like i'm not unsympathetic to the increased prices but get over it because while it is very annoying if you would still pay these prices if given the choice now with what you now know if you would still back the game fill out the pl fill out the pm fill the pledge manager and move on with your life and don't let this sour you on what marvel zombies is marvel zombies is the best version of zombicide i've played let yourself enjoy the game it's very very fun not a guarantee you'll like it just because i like it but like for me black plague has been the standard i have not loved any of the new ones as much as black plague zombie sign invader was a miss for me compared to black plague undead or alive i like but i do not think will take over black plague marvel zombies to me is the gold standard of zombicide do not let this this experience sour you on what you have backed on the things you have coming your way move on find something else to deal with and and just enjoy yourself it's not fun i'm not saying it's fun but if you would have done it anyway why let this ruin your day camp number two are the people who wouldn't have done it you backed but that extra hundred dollars is just too much that extra eighty dollars fifty dollars whatever number it is it's just too much and you don't like it and you're frustrated by it and i get that and so here are some solutions for you because if you wouldn't have done it that means you're not gonna get all the stuff right so let's try to figure out what you can do to backtrack first of all you can request a refund you can try to do it you can try to do what you can to as much as possible you can either try to get it through kickstarter directly you might get some fees lost there are some consumer protection options where you can try to go ahead and get the full amount back 100 i don't know how fast how fast or efficient they are but i know there are things out there to get all of your pledge back if they haven't delivered a product that they promised you can try those routes the other option is decide what you're comfortable getting pretend you have a dollar pledge pretend you're starting from scratch decide what you're comfortable getting and then after that take the change your pledge go into the pm switch your pledge level change it to the lowest option that you are comfortable with it might just be the pure undead pledge just the base game maybe it's the undead plus pledge with the base game and the other base game and then getting those with all the extras and the kickstarter goals stress goals none of the extras you don't need everything you absolutely don't and galactus is a complete waste of time if i were not a content creator i would not be getting galactus i passed on cthulhu whatever and god this is just i mean i can justify it because i do these videos but i wouldn't be able to justify it otherwise and so figure out the lowest option on the table that you personally are comfortable with load your pledge to that and then take all your remaining credit and turn it into extra undead pledges the undead pledges are the best return because what you're going to do now is you'll get those pledges and keep in mind this advice does depend on where you are this is primarily us best advice i know the us-based market wherever you are it likely applies to some extent but it may not be perfectly accurate so factor that in turn around and sell those extra undead pleasures to help fund the extra shipping costs to help fund your base pledge you'll have to go through some extra hoops by selling them on ebay but they will hold their value just fine despite all this drama despite everything else you will have people who are going to be want this game and they're gonna want all the extras after the fact you can take all the extra money that you are not comfortable with turn it into into extra undead pledges and just sell them whatever situation you might be it might be simply dropping galactus and getting it out in their pledge selling that fracture you save the extra shipping price you can turn around sell everything you'll end up saving a hundred dollars or 150 extra off of everything you paid for over here and that might be true if you're dropping down to a pure blaze pledge and getting two or three to sell convert your extra funds into the extra base pledges and sell them that is something you can do i'm not saying it's not more work but i'm saying it's more work that will translate into more of a return for you it'll ease the pain of the current extra expense and it will give you a win on the way out is it a little bit of extra work yes but so is trying to email come on 14 times to get what you want so is being in the comment section angrily complaining selling things on ebay or facebook marketplace groups or whatever chat or place you're in is not as hard as it seems it does take some time it does take some getting used to and if you haven't done it before maybe you'll find this actually not as bad as you thought and maybe you'll find you can start selling other things that are sitting around yourself being completely unplayed so those are the practical solutions and lastly it's a completely random note i probably should say this in the beginning at some point but just as a note in case you are someone who's not upset and you made it this far in the video also please note that there are extra hydra troops that you can buy in the pm that were not there previously so if you want to spend an extra 20 to get some extra of those zombies shooting soldiers over there you can do so twenty dollars for like 14 troops like that it's not a tremendously amount what not but it might be something you want i know it's something i want this isn't meant to be a sales pitch for come on i just want to make sure you understand that that's an option in case of something you are interested in and that's kind of the situation as usual i think c'mon can handle the communication better as usual i think they could be more consumer-friendly in some of the ways they approach things and as usual i don't think it's as bad as people are making out to be you're going to get if you have an all-in pledge if you're paying that 190 which is what it costs for me for everything including galactus galactus is tremendously large it is tremendously expensive to ship that thing and then all the other boxes there's gonna be like two or three or four giant shipments of stuff that on its own if i were looking at a single large box and paying the 50 bucks for it i wouldn't be that concerned life's expensive shipping is getting more expensive it could have been handled better but that's most of where the frustration on my end goes that's basically it as usual a little bit of defense a little bit of understanding a whole lot of sympathy to mostly you some sympathy for come on but mostly sympathy for anyone hit with this trust me it's not fun i saw the number i went through my pledge manager i saw the number and i was like whoa it's a lot more than i thought it was going to be but for me the game's worth it and it's not worth souring my experience on it until next time i'm alex radcliffe from boardroom co i'm gonna go play a game and as always have a good one

Channel: BoardGameCo

Views: 51,350

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Id: Q5IbMS-4t24

Length: 27min 53sec (1673 seconds)

Published: Sun May 01 2022