Why I've Never Hated CMON....And All The Reasons Some Do

let's dive into it i'm going to tell you why i like commands so much why i tend to not be bothered by the things that they do but before i do that i'm going to give you what you seem to want and go through list by list item by item of a detailed listing of all the complaints and frustrations that people seem to have with come on [Music] hey i'm alex radcliffe from board game co and the truth is that's not really fair because that's not actually what all of you wanted the truth is to about 10 to 20 of you people don't care as much as you think they do about this issue and we'll we'll come back to that first some background to those who have no idea what's happening here so very short version just to keep you all up to speed come on marvel zombies they had a campaign they had shipping prices that were completely expensive expensive is the world you're looking for they were out of line with the estimates they were very expensive and people were very upset uh fast forward a little bit to last sunday where i put up a video talking about the conversation both criticizing their communication while also defending the actual shipping cost themselves going into a back and forth conversation and generally well received there was a large enough segment of people who didn't like the stance i had to the point that it's take two for this video take two where i'm to go into a whole lot of other things vilifying come on to the nth degree going over every single reason why you should consider not backing their campaigns in the future and then of course because it's me also telling you every reason why i don't care but i'm gonna do this because i think it's a worthwhile conversation to have and because i think the one criticism that was fair about the last video is that i didn't fully cover everyone's complaints i covered some aspects their communication is not great i've covered the defense of the shipping costs but i didn't go into every single reason why people are upset and the truth is this video i think is a good reference point if you find this video some far off point in the future if i reference this video the next time i'm saying should you back come on kickstarter or not then this is a good laundry list of what you're signing up for if you back a command kickstarter at least as of now and you know whatever in may 2022 things may have changed i don't know but it's a good expectation of what you should it's a good set of expectations you should have before you jump down this rabbit hole but then again i'll also tell you why these things don't bother me and yes we absolutely have wine for this conversation it's that kind of day so let's go into it first of all going to those 10 to 20 people people don't care as much as you think they do this is one of those things that's fascinating because we all get wrapped up in our own little bubbles myself as well by the way i'm only just using other data points to extrapolate from there but we all get wrapped up in our own little bubbles and we presuppose our own assumptions about how the world should work about the frustrations people have and a lot of people just don't always care about the things that we care about and i mean that in wildly different ways and it's something that applies to myself in general but a whole bunch of different elements just the way we engage i kind of assume that everyone who's into board games has you know a few hundred games in the basement but it's not really true we all have different levels of obsession with the hobby we all different levels of obsession with any aspect of our lives and we sometimes just think that everyone thinks the way we do and that's just not true to give you some data points as to why i think most people don't care about the command shipping drama the way some of you do and i say some of you because i don't know what percentage it fully is but to give some data points first of all read the comments on my last video while there are many comments who are disappointed with the fact that i didn't take a harsher stance against c'mon there are many many many more comments that are supportive of the stance i did take about how it doesn't bother them about how they fall into the reluctantly okay with the situation it is what it is there are many many people who are totally fine with the viewpoint i had and then also some people who are very frustrated with the fact that i didn't take a harsher stance but don't just look at your own comment look at everyone's comment in fact if you look at the the like ratio on my video which granted you can't see anymore because of youtube's change in the way they work but looking at the back end on my end i have a 90 like ratio on that video that video is prime content to like have a whole bunch of people expressing just how unsatisfied they are with my take now for context my normal like ratio generally averages around 97 which means an additional seven percent of people were unhappy with that video now you'll say hey but you know some people just like the video because they like you but they don't like your take this that whatever absolutely totally reasonable which is why i said ten to twenty percent of you and not seven percent of you i assume a higher percentage of people are unhappy with it i just don't know exactly what that number is to give you another data point that's interesting is there at the time of marvel zombies at the time of the kickstarter closing they had 84 643 comments this is a fun little fact you can get from kick track it shows you how many total comments there were during the course of the campaign eighty six thousand eighty four thousand six hundred and forty three which means as of now when i'm filming this there are additional 8 800 new comments on the marvel zombies kickstarter that's 8 800 new comments you know how many people backed the campaign 29 000 people back the campaign even if you assume that every single one of those 8 800 new comments is from some unique person and not the same person spamming their upsetness again and again and again and by the way i do not make that assumption but even if you do make that assumption less than a third of people are more than a third slightly more no no that's the third i did it right less than a third of backers in any way illustrated some sort of comment on their page when i went to go check out my backup kit there were 19 000 people who had already completed their pm by the time i completed mine 19 000 of those 29 000 people had already moved on with the lives that already hit go they may have been upset i'm not going to say they weren't but however upset they were it wasn't upset enough to leave a comment if you take those 8 800 new comments that we have my guess is at most half of those comments are the most uh those comments represent 4 500 people or so meaning i assume at least an average of two counts per person but again even if you assume all of them most people couldn't be bothered to leave a comment none of this means that there's nothing to be upset about it's just a reminder that your stance your upsetness does not necessarily extrapolate to everyone and i don't think it does it doesn't mean you're wrong it doesn't mean they're right it doesn't mean anything like that it just means that don't assume that everyone shares your level of upsetness i had a comment accusing me and i know don't worry they were all good but i had a comment accusing me of you know being one of them of not being a regular gamer of being a paid command shill which first of all i don't get money from them so i'm doing a terrible job getting money from them secondly is that i accuse them of or said not accuse them i stated very very clearly that their communication was terrible i'm doing a horrible job being a command shill in fact in general if my opinion was to if my goal was to maintain my relationship with come on neither that video nor this video would be videos that i make that's never my goal i'm not looking for that kind of conversation i'm not looking to white knight i'm not looking to fanboy i'm not looking to protect anyone i'm just here to have conversations around the way i see the world and if you share those stances that's great and if you don't show those answers that's fine too sometimes i make missteps and again i did make my steps in the last video i didn't focus as heavily on one key point which we will focus on today but yeah i'm not i'm not here to make friends or or convince anyone i just like talking about board games i just like talking about the hobby and this is honestly just another excuse to have a fun conversation but one that leans heavily into all the complaints i've seen against come on over the years complaints that i know exist complaints that i understand the reason for them and then to go over all the reasons i don't care it's a fairly lengthy introduction time stamps down below let's let's head on into this so where are we so far what does come on do wrong what are some of the things that they do wrong that make people frustrated with them there's a laundry list and i probably won't hit all of them i think i have most of them i tried going through all the ones i know but but i don't necessarily have them all let's but let's start with the fact and i'm not defending these as we go i'll defend these all in the next time stamp check the timestamps if you want to see defenses right now i'm just focusing on all their sins this is a great point a great part to jump into if you are someone who's considering backing your first command game and if you made your way to this video because i shared it or someone shared it or whoever shared it this is a good laundry list of things to consider before you jump down that rabbit hole number one why are they on kickstarter to begin with kickstarter was created for small creators it was created to help bring projects to life come on with their overflowing vaults of gold that they are sitting on like scrooge mcduck does not need your money they should not be on kickstarter they should just be doing regular pre-orders or something or this or that they don't need to be on the platform stealing money from other creators who really need it that's number one number two delayed shipping their campaigns often see delays granted you know marvel x-men united did pretty well but for the most part the campaign campaigns see heavy delays trudbang is still delayed a massive delays in that one and in general whatever time stamp will you see enough times whatever time estimate they have on their campaigns adds six months at eight months add a year you can expect to get your games later than they actually say that you will so expect that they're lying to you to begin with speaking of which their shipping estimates are generally off this is true in all their campaigns not just the most recent ones whenever you see their shipping estimates on a campaign assume it will be more than what they're telling you now again that might change in the future but for right now whatever the estimates you see are assume some degree larger the reasons always vary sometimes it's because hey the shipping estimate is for the core pledge and obviously as we unlock stress goals more things will be added but we all know that they're gonna unlock stress goals so it's just a game to give you a lower number to give you a better reason to jump in now but it's okay you'll see a larger shipping bill maybe ten dollars more maybe twenty dollars more maybe thirty dollars more in the case of marvel zombies maybe it'll be two hundred dollars more because you went all in on galactus and that doubling over there is not insignificance so the shipping estimates are always off on a command campaign they tend to communicate harsh news after the fact okay they give you when they the first time they implemented vat on a campaign i believe is massive darkness they didn't tell you doing the campaign they told you after by the way hey that's on your bill there's 20 extra enjoy you can ask for refunds and lose seven percent later they're doing marvel united the first time they're the marvel united campaign they're like by the way fun fact we didn't tell you this but marvel united the retail box is gonna be going to retail before anyone else gets it so you know how you thought you were special for getting this game before everyone else you're not special you're not getting this game before everyone else and other people are gonna get that core box at cheaper than we charge you for the core box and then the shipping estimates in this most recent campaign they gave those shipping estimates and they had that they're like oh by the way here's a little update and things got significantly more expensive whoopty do sorry about that also in the meantime things hadn't even gotten more expensive in the real world the price had actually gone down by marginal amounts and so there's this magical jumping of numbers that they communicated to you after you already backed they took extra money for troy bank now this is an interesting specific one but it's a big enough one that i want to talk about it doing the truddying campaign i believe is doing tread bank there was all this stuff about trump and exports and all this you know rumors of potential issues potential extra fees and so they in anticipation of these extra fees they took extra money on shipping and then lo and behold the extra fee never came about nothing ever happened their shipping estimates were based on stuff that never came to pass and there were no refunds there was no money back they managed to make money off their backers and they pocketed it along a cool x amount of money i don't know how much it was and they kept it and never gave it back that's a big deal it's a very big deal their games are just regurgitated miniature bling that's all their games are they're shiny they're they've got tons of miniatures they're just built for the suckers out there and they don't actually produce quality gameplay all this stuff is just over the top miniature bling that you don't need you shouldn't back and they're taking advantage of your fomo more importantly they keep milking that zombicide train every single year another zombicide every single year a rehashing of the same game again and again and the suckers keep coming back for it every single time they just keep giving the money keep incentivizing them to do this but it's just the same game it's just the same rehash they're the next ea and zombicide is their call of duty along with all the extra stuff you can pay for along the way those little like you know in-game purchases well those are all the extra expansions you can buy during the kickstarter because they know you're going to they keep looking at zombicide training they keep doing so through the slow escalation of costs they are predatory marketers and everything they do about their campaigns they've dabbled in early birds they don't do those right now but they've instead switched to just slow releasing of all ins like oh here's a bass pledge that's hundred dollars this seems really easy to get your hands on and also by the way here's our optional bot it's gonna be forty dollars here's another one that's gonna be thirty dollars here's another one that's 40 the campaign slowly goes on and optional buys keep being introduced and the reason they do that is because once you're in for that first hundred dollar pledge well it's kind of hard to kind of get yourself out of it you're like well just what's another 40 and there's another 40 like but i kind of mentally already bought this and now i could i could back out entirely i could just go down to the 100 pledge but it feels like i want more they take advantage of the predatory marking of the slow escalation cost it's the same aspect that you have with that with the release shipping the delayed information of all these things once you've mentally bought in it is harder to step away and they take advantage of that in their entire business model and to make it worse all their stuff all their expansions aren't even properly play tested or balanced they're charging your premium for this kickstarter model and they're giving you stuff that isn't play test or balanced along the way they're charging you a whole lot of money for a whole lot of drama a whole lot of issues and they're doing so just they can just so they can get extra money from you they don't care about you they care about profits they don't care about the games they don't care about the industry they're just here to make money off of us and that's the laundry list of stuff if i missed anything let me know by the way because we're going to go through all these shortly one at a time why i don't care about all but one of these there's only one that i actually care about the rest of them i just don't care it doesn't mean that there's not something there to complain about it doesn't mean this is not an actual issue i'm just gonna explain why they don't bother me but if i missed anything let me know so i can respond to it and engage with it because the goal here if if this video is going to convince you of anything is that i'm not here to try to brush who come on is under the rug i know who they are i know how they dabble things i just don't see it the way well 10 to 20 of you do 10 to 20 not all of you so let's go through why i don't care why these things don't bother me starting off with the fact that they use kickstarter to begin with i've been very vocal about this in the past i don't care who decides what kickstart is for who makes that decision because i'd imagine it's kickstarter and they don't seem to mind one bit and if you're like well kickstarter is just in it for the money too well yes they are but who decided that kickstarter is for the small creator because it sounds like it's you it doesn't sound like it's them it sounds like it's you who decided that well it's kickstarter's original intent well then let kickstarter enforce that but they're blinded by pro well again who's making the decision about what is allowed and not allowed on kickstarter and then to make it worse it's not even about who makes a decision is the data has shown consistently that the larger creators on kickstarter have brought more funds to kickstarter the platform as a whole larger creators who don't need the funding in theory let's forget the fact they don't need the funding a second larger creators being on the platform have the data shown that they do bring more money to even smaller projects if you take every single beat campaign off kickstarter you know who disappears quickly me and every other person like me who's here for the b campaigns and occasionally dabbles in the small campaigns but wouldn't bother to spend the time there if it wasn't an incredibly attractive platform so don't don't white knight you know the smaller creators the kickstarter helps them just as much come on helps them just as much by being on the platform and then who's the size whether come on needs to be on it or not have you seen their financial releases their publicly traded platform have you seen how much money they made in 2020 and 2019 and 2021 it's not nearly as much as you think they had massive losses one year they they've consistently it's a little hard to see because they have funds and expenses one year and then not the next year it's a little hard to see but they're not doing as well as you might think they make money don't get me wrong but they have expenses too if you think they can suddenly take all of their upfront things and drop it off kickstarter the answers are strong maybe maybe they could it's not entirely clear they're not like parading around as much money as you think they reported massive losses one year and all the same people who hate command cheered they cheered the same people who hate command for being the money grubbing milking company that's just taking your money on sitting on their massive piles of gold when they found out they didn't have massive piles of gold they didn't change their opinion they still had that perception of scrooge mcduck sitting on the pile of coins but the pile of coins was gone and the perception remained it's a weird dichotomy how can you both hate them for having all the money but then when you find out they don't have the money you cheer because you hate them for having all the money it's a weird dichotomy it's one that i've never understood how people can hold both their thoughts in their head at the same time the delayed shipping part the fact that the shipping is delayed well so what so is every other campaign and you might say alex well you should hold them to a higher standard i i i'm not i don't i don't i don't hold every campaign to the same high standard of giving you an accurate shipping date i just don't i would it would be nice if they did it absolutely would be nice but this is kind of like being a contractor of being a mechanic of any of these situations where life sometimes is just messy when a company gives you a date and i really should do a full dedicated video on the subject it's not necessarily a lie it's the best estimate if everything goes right the reason you give that date is because why would you give any other date ideally your date should be your best estimate if things get go right you shouldn't be like hey we hope to have it you know in three months but i'll just guess nine months in case all things go go wrong but you know now i told you nine months well now the person's upset that you told them nine months and it could have been three months and it might have been three months now things do go wrong along the way but every other company has this issue now again i hear you if you're if your main argument comes down to well we shouldn't give any of them a pass fine but it's not a common issue that's an entire kickstarter issue and there are issues with the kickstarter model there are issues with the kickstarter platform and how they work and whether it's good for consumers or not my vote is yes but i think there are strong arguments to be made as to how it's not the shipping estimates are always off this one i'm going to bundle together with the next aspect the shipping estimates are always off and they communicate harsh news after the fact the the vat the retail the shipping campaigns all that the general idea that they do feed you information that sounds more favorable and then gives you the information after the fact now this one's hard because i'm not in their boardrooms i haven't spoken to anyone from come on they don't i don't like talk to them before i do these videos like i have people come on i can speak to but i don't like sit there and say hey by the way i'm doing a whole video on all the things you do wrong let's have a conversation about it maybe i should but it would be harder to do this video if i did that first and so i i do this first and then i hope that they still talk to me maybe they do maybe they don't it is what it is but that's neither here nor there but the point is i don't know what goes on in their board meetings i don't know what goes on the decision space i do agree that it looks like garbage it does not look good when you constantly find out key pieces of information after the purchase has been made this is why the one thing i have always given as a credence to come on not credence against come on i've done given her confidence against come on is every time the complaints have been made i've acknowledged their communication is not where i want it to be i do not like the fact that this is bad look now i'm not nearly as vindicative as some people are because of the fact that i don't know what's going on i don't have guaranteed information as to the various elements that are going on behind the scenes and i can't say for sure that there's people who are sitting there saying well let's hold back information because if we do we'll get them to give us more money and then we'll release the information it could be that's what's happening it entirely could be but i'm not there so all i can say is it looks bad and i wish their communication were better because it's not a good look and i'll continue to say that as long as these things are issues now it doesn't necessarily bother me as much as it might bother you because i know for the most part that i would have backed those games anyway but you might not have and so that's a fair complaint and it's a fair critique and i wish come on would do better so i could just defend them instead of defending them on most things but not on others not because i need to defend them because i don't like halfway defending i don't like being like they're doing all these things that are not actually issues but there's this one thing that is an issue it makes my defense come across as weaker because it is weaker so that's the the main one that i'll give you credence on i don't like that either and i wish i wish their communication was significantly better so that so it just didn't look so bad so that it wasn't so bad because i don't know if it looks bad or if it is bad the whole tread bank thing taking extra money never returning it this is one that bothered me briefly briefly but give me a second the wine is actually here to drink not just to look pretty so the tried bank situation the treadbank situation briefly bothered me except for one small thing there are other campaigns marvel united for example they never asked for extra money when freight costs went up and great costs went up across the board i'll be doing a full video on the subject but we saw huge jumps in freight costs and if you can imagine how much how many games come on sold for marvel zombies significantly from out for mobile united significantly more by the way than what they sold for tread bank they never came back to him and said hey by the way we need extra money they charged you a price and they stuck to it now not 100 because they have estimates and they don't but they tell you it's estimates when it came time to actually charge they never came back to anyone and said hey we're selling promo cards we're asking for donations or we're holding your pledge blackmail in order to stop you from getting it and you have to pay us money to get it many other companies did these things and those companies got significantly larger passes from all of us because most of us understand the craziness that is going on in the world and all these great issues going on today come on never came to us asking for money which means command seems to have taken a stance that they go on whatever information they have at the time and they will charge you what they need to charge you based on the information they have on the time but they will not come back to you for money after they are taking a slightly more distanced approach we're not purely a community who's going to be willing to ask our backers some money no we're selling you stuff we'll give you an estimated shipping price we'll call it an estimated shipping price but then whatever happens next it's on us it doesn't matter how many hundreds of thousands of dollars extras we incurred as expenses and i guarantee you it was hundreds of thousands of dollars extra for all the marvel united stuff they sold based on the volumetric aspect of how much freight has gone up it is a lot of money that they undertook and paid themselves and never came back to the backers for more in other words if your argument was that well they should have returned it by tread bank then your argument for consistency's sake should also be they should have asked you more money they actually asked you for money from marvel united they didn't either had they done either or neither i'd be fine with it had they done one or not the other that's where i think you'd have a reasonable argument so i understand the frustration that they asked for my money doing trod bang and never returned it but they also did not ask for more money during the whole freight crisis and everything situation so so that's the tread bang issue from there we have the games are just regurgitated bling well i like the game so i'm okay with that my first introduction to come on was actually not zombicide it was blood rage i love blood rage it was great i actually kind of was dismissive of zombicide for a long time thinking it just looked like a toy when i actually played zombicide i found that i really enjoyed it from there we went to cthulhu death may die which i absolutely adore we have rum and bones which is a fantastic game there are many many other games behind me on the shelves on various areas of here and many more that i back that i've loved doesn't mean they're good games it means i like them and guess what a whole bunch of other people like them too just because you don't like them and again you as not all of you does not mean that they're not good games we don't have to attack people who like their games we'll get to more on that later they keep milking the zombicide train i hear you on this i do there's only so much zombicide i need and i love zombicide as a system so what i tend to do is because come on games hold their value as i go ahead and keep back in the new ones try them out if they're not from me i sell them that's okay i enjoy the process i enjoy the campaigns i enjoy the games i enjoy the unboxings i enjoy seeing all the miniatures i put on the table i play it and then more often than not i'll say that well this homicide doesn't hold up to the other zombicide so i'm getting rid of this new zombicide and that's fine i don't feel like a victim along this way this pathway i feel like far more of a victim for the fact that i've bought seven call of duty games over the years and constantly getting the new one never got my money back on the old ones with the quan games i certainly do get my money back so it's a whole different conversation not that there's any obligation for me to get my money back that just happens to be i'm choosing to engage in a business model that offers a similar version of the same thing constantly re-releasing it to the next person what i find fascinating with this one is command also gets flack for not supporting their product lines well zombicide is to a certain extent their most supportive product line constantly giving a new version of it instead of supporting the old version but that's fine it's a new way it's tweaked it's adjusted it's re-released for whatever customer base they think currently wants it which might be the same customer base that got the last one you don't have to like the fact that they keep milking this homicide train but people like myself keep coming back for the ride what are they supposed to do say we shouldn't sell things to people even though they want them is that the expectation we have of come on that might be it might be the explanation you have come on it's not the expectation i have if people show a clear and consistent desire to buy the same thing again and again i can tell you this much i'd keep selling it to them why in the world wouldn't i the fact that they keep milking the zombie side train does not bother me it's fine with me now the predatory marketing doing their campaigns that's a slightly different one as well because again it doesn't bother me but i understand why it might bother you that slow escalation of the cost the fact that they give you that 100 pledge upfront and slowly drip things i understand that the surprise is not a fun which is why every single time i do one of my should you back up videos for a command kickstarter campaign i always start off by warning people people who might be new to this gravy train that you should expect the prices to go up i want you to walk in informed as much as possible because i agree that i don't want you to have that sticker shock go ahead back that 100 pledge but understand that it's likely going to escalate to two three four five hundred dollars by the time the campaign is done i want you to know that i understand come on might not it's an iffy one to me i don't i don't doesn't bother me personally but i understand the complaint around predatory business practices predatory marketing for me i view most forms of sales of predatory marketing hey this thing that's normally twenty dollars is now fifteen dollars go ahead and buy it you're basically trying to convince someone to buy something that they weren't otherwise going to buy and a sale is different than the slow release information they're all different conversations but to me sales and marketing they are part of a business model similar to the way that kickstarters are often late they're a part that i have come to accept as part of business practices you might view it as being completely unethical and horrible and we should never stand for these things i understand that viewpoint i'm not saying it's wrong i'm saying it doesn't personally bother me and the last point that the game is not even playtested or balanced again i can't speak for that as a concern there are a few characters in zombicide black plague that i specifically don't play with or if i do play with i throw in a whole bunch of extra abominations to make up for it but they're the exception it doesn't really bother me it doesn't really cause that much of an issue the whole play tested and balanced thing around the things the good news is if you have that stance you don't have to get any of their games at kickstarter get their games at retail because all these extras that are the only reason to get them on kickstarter in the first place well they wouldn't exist for you if you don't view them as being playtested or balanced or worth your money those are all the answers to the various elements i went through again one that really does bother me and i wish i had better answers for and a whole bunch of things that either i disagree with entirely or i understand why it might bother you but it doesn't bother me there are many reasons why you should not back a command kickstarter and i've hopefully listed most of them and i'm also telling you why i keep backing them why i don't care why these things are not factors for me but there's more there's more than just answers as to why these things don't bother me because there's more stuff and more reasons why i appreciate command and why i like them they engage they care they comment their updates their live streams they they really fully engage in the community in a way that many other campaigns don't and again you don't have to like them you can say it's all part of the sales practice to get you more involved that's fine i don't care why they do it but they do if you follow a command campaign their comment section is one of the most enjoyable places to be generally until they do something that ticks off a large segment of people and then it turns into a very antagonistic area in some areas with a lot of people trying to have fun along the way there's running jokes the come on kickstarter campaigns if you've been following them for a long time there are jokes that have been going on again and again and again from one campaign to the next they tease they engage they tease information they ask you questions people say we want to see these characters there was an ongoing community and an ongoing conversation in every command campaign the level of activity you see there is it's baffling those 85 000 comments that you see in the command kickstarter it's because they really give people a reason to engage sometimes for reasons they're not as much fun but they give people a reason to engage they have the updates that go out multiple times per day keeping you in the loop but every new stretch goal every new thing showing you all the stuff it's down to a science but it's a science that works and it's engaging they have surprises every kickstarter campaign they give you new things they do adjust they are frequently almost every campaign has at least one thing that they changed or did something last minute to accommodate backer requests something that clearly wasn't planned on but they throw it in there because they are trying to listen they are trying to work with what people want they started doing live streams on the most recent campaigns they have like you know two or three live streams a week for for an hour and a half you have multiple people from the command team engaging with people and there are many trolls in those comments there are many trolls in those livestreams there are many people who hate come on with a passion and try to ruin the fun for everyone else but you're just trying to ruin the fun for everyone else what is everyone else's biggest sin the fact that they don't mind the things that you mind so you're trying to make it worse for them are they enablers are they just giving command money and allowing all these business practices to go by without a hitch fine but they're having fun and you're ruining it for them you just if you if you want a solution for yourself if you are bothered by these things you could also just not back the command campaigns they might not be the right place for you because you are bothered by things that however reasonable they might be other people aren't and you're just ruining the fun for them who's the real villain in the situation the people who are having a good time enjoying the ride who paid for their ticket but are enjoying themselves or the people who think the tickets are overpriced and are ruining the fun for everyone else who paying for that ticket i know who i was at more i mean that's a strong word but i know who i know which one bothers me more one of them offered yeah i know which one bothers me more and on top of all that i like their games a lot i like the games a lot i don't have time for games that i don't like and i get rid of their games too many of the games are not for me i prefer blood which rising sun rising sun is gone i prefer half the zombie size so the other half the other half are gone bloodborne wasn't the game for me didn't particularly enjoy it the um the sports one something ball i don't remember what's called even not a game for me but most of their games have been games that i thoroughly enjoyed and they give you the best bang for your buck compared to any campaign including with all the additional cost and shipping and all those other factors as well i do look at kickstarter very often as why are you giving me a reason to back why should i get this now as opposed to retail why should i get this at all and come on for all their other stuff that goes on they give me one of the best reasons to back from any campaign out there not exclusively there's other campaigns to do an amazing job without the drama awakened realms is fantastic without all the drama so there are there are definitely better companies than come on make no mistake but at the same time better from my stance we all have our own opinions and grading scales by the end of the day command gives me a strong reason to back those free stress goals they're not free that's true but they are an amazing price for the amount of content you get you are paying more for what you get in kickstarter but you get a whole lot more as well they consistently give me a good reason to back when more and more campaigns still aren't or were but are no longer doing so now before we wrap this up actually i am finally going to wrap this up in a mere 40 minute long video this will be before we wrap this up can we agree for a second that the hate for come on is irrational because you might have your reasons to hate them that's fine but we agree there's a large degree of hate for a company that is completely irrational going back to the hate on the zombie system the fact that every time people back a game from come on there are threads popping up in forms all over the place about all those suckers who are just buying another zombicide game i can't believe a full-grown adult is going to spend 400 on plastic well that's true but there's 27 000 of us who decided to spend 400 on plastic and whatever game you're buying into there's not a lot of people not nearly 27 000 people buying that and you don't see us making fun of you we're all adults here who are playing in our little fantasy worlds whether you're rolling dice and pretending a little elf archer or something i don't play dnd i'm sorry whether we're pretending that we're terrifying mars whether we're planting crops and feeding our people we're all pretending in our own little play rules as we move our chits across the map as we take control of other things as we get in stupid little arguments with king making and all these other conversations and 400 page long threads on board game geek about whether you can or can't shuffle a single card maybe this shouldn't be a degree of irrational hate towards a bunch of people who think that a command kickstarter is worth their money people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and there's a degree of completely irrational hate not just around come on but around the people who like to participate in command campaigns around the people who are white knighting them who are defending them who just like the toys that come on puts out who are fine paying the price and their biggest crime is not being as upset at this company's existence as you are and again you might be upset but you are one of a crowd but not the same level of crowd that likes come on that appreciates command the entire kickstarter landscape by the way is a tiny microcosm of how many people actually buy come on games people talk about how kickstarter can come on they ruin the content after the fact i probably should have included this on my list of complaints that the retail their games are completely incomplete that's a good sentence there but they don't realize how many people actually back come on buy come on games in retail the vast majority of command sales comes from retail channels not from kickstarter there are entire ecosystems of people who aren't even aware that these arguments or that this hate or that this resentment even exists and they don't care and we're still hating on this this company i don't know why we target them the we again being 10 to 20 i don't know why they're targeted i don't know why what it is about them maybe it's the fact that they're the biggest company in the space that still gives you the time of day and the closest thing you're going to do is chase them away if you think about the other companies out there that are larger than come on the fantasy flights the asthma days if you think about the other companies out there there's no there's no one at fantasy flight who's taking your call there's no one at asthma day that you can complain to in the comments and be upset at them and frustrate what's going on these companies aren't even pretending to engage with you and i'm not saying that against them i don't care that's fine come on is the largest company that seems to actually character seems to actually participate and one of their crimes is that they are the largest i'm not saying they don't have missteps i'm not saying they don't do things i disagree with i'm saying the level of hate for come on has to be irrational by the very fact that we again adults who play with farms and make sheep and and cows and wheat and whatever is going on agriculture and cavern and cave mining i love quickly and kavanaugh but the fact that we can look at other adults and make fun of them for liking miniatures and zombies and all that and be like just be baffled at the fact that they like that it's irrational it is irrational the fact that we have found particular rational reasons to be upset doesn't change the fact that the larger conversation is rational all companies are are late on the shipping all companies have that many companies engage in for add-ons and fomo and predatory practices in their marketing and engagement command has a level of hate that is unrivaled i don't understand why but i like their games i like the people there the people that i've engaged with at least both in direct comments and in in the in the kickstarter comments in their live streams i like their company i like the people there i like the games they make i do wish they would do some things differently but i'm not here to white knight or defend them because of any of this again i i put out my first defensive command a long time ago one of the first videos on my channel before they even knew i existed this isn't done to preserve a relationship with them i never cared about that this is just because i don't have the same level of hate and frustration and irritation that many do and so i like having that conversation for the same reason i do anything else in board games because i like this hobby and i like talking about every aspect of this hobby whether it's some of the epic moments i've had in zombicide black plague or whether it's why you probably shouldn't really hate the company that makes it that much until next time i'm alex radcliffe from board game co i'm going to finish this wine and have a good one there was a thread recently it was an interesting thread onboard geek referencing me not about me but referencing me it was about why are content creators always so serious like they're board game content and they never smile like do they even enjoy board games it was referencing me and like i did a vlog trip to gamma and i wasn't smiling the entire time i think it's because most people don't smile the entire time but like this video makes me wonder if they have a point i mean i love board games i love the entire hobby i just i feel this conversation doesn't work if i'm smiling the entire time like imagine imagine this starts off at the beginning okay people don't care as much as you think they do like if you read the comments on the videos i mean i have a 90 like ratio on that video it's hilarious and come on i'm going to give you ev i'm going to tell you during the course of this video i'm going to tell you every single reason why you shouldn't back a come on game but then i'll also tell you all the reasons it doesn't it doesn't work it doesn't work you can't sometimes you have to be serious it doesn't doesn't mean anything it just means that the conversation was a serious conversation so i was serious for the sake of this video but i do love board games a lot actually like d serious myself because i was serious but i'm excited for all zombies very much so like it's just it's a really good game like again i i did not like zombicide invader compared to black plague i do like zombicide invader zombies high second edition was again fun but not when compared to black plague too many complaints that way way way too easy undead or alive i didn't like some of the mechanical changes they made but i did think it was at least difficult so i'm looking forward to that one but i don't think it stays in my collection black plague was the gold standard for me marvel zombies beat it yes the ip's a part of it but it's not the only part of it i like other other games too i've been playing a lot of foundations of rome recently a really fun game that's probably not a good reference point here that's another over-the-top blingy kickstarter with a lot of miniatures different kinds of miniatures but over the top blinky and expensive they didn't ask for money either by the way that's another company their campaign was like two years overdue they didn't ask for a dollar you know how big that box is i do not want to think about how much money they lost in that campaign i think they lost money in that campaign the thing to remember is the bigger the box the few of them you can ship you can fit into a freight container which means the more extra cost there are per box which means your expenses can jump by hundreds of thousands of dollars especially if you have a successful kickstarter where you're selling a lot of it hundreds of thousands of dollars in board games is your entire margin i like foundations of rome but that doesn't mean that there aren't conversations to be had around around the landscape around why we don't make games in in the us that's a conversation we should have that conversation too because we don't make games in the us but we and we arguably should but it's a much longer conversation you're talking about years of years of infrastructure built up in china years of professional like knowledge built up in china i mean games in the us cost so much more to make we'll have a conversation around this it's a good conversation to have because two of the comments i saw on a regular basis on my video the last one not this one this one i'm still filming as we talk one is the fact that easy solution don't back on games i agree with you that isn't easy lucious and don't solution i'm like slurring my words i'm not i'm not i'm not drunk i'm not i'm not even tipsy i just i often slur my warriors just now i'm drinking wine at the same time but don't back come on games is an easy solution there's no question about that but people want to back them on games they just want to complain about it too as far as the whole production in the in the us i almost intensely i almost intentionally said the ush because i thought it would be funny to share my words on purpose but then i thought you wouldn't think it's on purpose and you'd think that i was saying this on purpose to cover up my mistake and sure i didn't make that mistake fun fact about me i've never been drunk in my life i don't like losing control like in any way shape or form and if you watch my videos that's probably not a surprise to you i don't like the idea of ever being not in control of what's happening i've been tipsy at times i don't think i've ever slurred my words or at least not noticeably so again past the usual speed talking but a little tipsy a little bit more excitable a little bit more open or free or carefree as i drink a little bit the worst part is when you tell someone that you've never been drunk ninety percent of people are fine with that ten percent weirdly take it as some sort of challenge like why why is that a challenge why is the fact that i've never been drunk in my life a challenge to you to get me drunk that's irresponsible you see the good news is you can still accuse me of not smiling but you can't accuse me of not having fun it's just it's just too this hobbyist this hobby is so much fun like board games i mean it's board games i've had a lot of hobbies in my life for context i've done magic like not magic the gathering i've done actual magic well not actual magic magic tricks but i've done magic tricks i've done juggling i've done contact juggling i've done poi you know poi if you know boy that made sense if you don't know paul you just think i'm drunk again i i've drawn i used to draw a lot okay i draw faces i'm fairly good at it if i take the six seven hours it takes to draw a face i've done magic the gathering not magic tricks or actual magic but magic the gathering i've done both i've done both in fact the magic the gathering store is actually pretty close to the magic store where i lived toronto but done all those things really enjoyed them done warhammer into guild wars for years i've always had different hobbies at different points different things that kept me interested but you know what what what hobby i've been in the longest it's board games every other hobby lasted me like several years three maybe four years on the high end magic the gathering was possibly one of the longer ones i mentioned warhammer right did i mention warhammer if i didn't mention warhammer warhammer 2 well not warhammer 2 warhammer also there is no warhammer 2. this warhammer and then warhammer 40 000. they skipped 3998 in the middle what's the 3999 no they skipped 3998 because you have to count the one in the 40 000. so there's no warhammer 2. it's warhammer also that's the new version to come out with they're coming out with a new starter pack for warhammer also it's going to cost you 99 do you know by the way guild wars get not guild wars games workshops their retail like sales in like 2020 or maybe 20 21 hours a year was like 280 million two commands like 19 million so just for context in case you want an idea of scale games workshop is like 30 times the size of c'mon in terms of their sales just in case you want to talk about expensive miniatures and what actually costs money because it's not come on in the shares it's games workshop miniatures i'm actually impressed with myself i managed to like loop that back into a connection point while drunk talking i'm not drunk i don't get drunk we talked about this but board games going back to the hobby part i've been in board games the longest since 2011 that's 11 years of my life that's two and a half times the length of any other hobby i've been in i love this space i love board games i also just like the fact that now i get to have conversations on camera where i talk about board games even more and i get to have follow-up conversations to the first conversations because not everyone agreed with me but it's not about the fact that not everyone agreed to me it's about the fact that i didn't vilify come on as much as i should have and so here this is my opportunity to vilify them to the nth degree every single complaint i've ever heard of them that i remember i'm sure there's four comments below of things that i've forgotten about darn it video number three challenge accepted i think my takeaway from this is i should drink more on camera because those last five minutes were very entertaining for me i can't speak for you but i i found that very entertaining in any case until next time i'm alex radcliffe from board game co and thanks for being here in hindsight saying that this is the video i'm going to send people to in future videos when i talk about come on may have been a bad idea

Channel: BoardGameCo

Views: 11,260

Keywords:

Id: tCRW1gQRuyA

Length: 45min 16sec (2716 seconds)

Published: Sun May 08 2022