Relic Knights Delayed

So one of the more hot topics from the past day has been the fact that Relic Knights got delayed from May to Nov '13. Although considering that's the expected date it will land in their warehouse, it's really more accurate to say we'll only possibly receive our toys in Dec '13 if we're lucky. If not, then it's 2014.


I'm not going to say this is shocking news or anything because I'm pretty sure a few people saw it coming. Delays on Kickstarter are nothing new; unless you've backed Mantic that is. Sedition Wars, Zombicide, etc. All popular kickstarters which were delayed. Even small Kickstarters like Bombshell babes got delayed from an estimated date of Jan to April. And that took in less 140k compared to RKs 900k. 

I guess the real issue is that some people are upset about the huge delay in shipping. 6 months is a long time, half a year in fact and the amount of time it took for a local gaming shop to admit they couldn't bring in the zombicide they ask people to put down full preorder payments for. I would be cheesed too, except I also kind of get where they're coming from.

The issue with a lot of KS is the fact that the shipping dates aren't really concrete most times but more guesstimates. Based on if I get X amount of pledges, I can produce X in Y timeframe. So what happens when the kickstarter becomes even more wildly popular than the creator could have imagined and they start being able to produce even more than X products? Maybe 2X or even 3X number of products? Then shipping dates start slipping. However, this is rarely reflected in KS pages because to do so would slow the movement down a lot. The sensible thing is to split everything into waves, like what DreamForger and Mantic are doing, which allows you to get the core X products out in Y time, with everything after that being shipped out a few months later. This keeps people somewhat happy.

However, it's also a lot more expensive to do that. As someone who's had to pay for lots of his own shipping when buying overseas, it really adds up after a while. And businesses won't do that. Being able to generate goodwill is great but it means nothing if it bankrupts you in the process.

Another problem really is that a lot of these miniature KS are several men-shows. Not one-man, not two-men shows but close. They have nowhere near the amount of staff needed to be able to pull off their success...well, successfully. It suddenly becomes a matter of too much money and not enough resources. Sodapop seems like one of them, Bombshell miniatures is another. Kingdom Death is definitely one of them and MAN, the delay KD:M will probably experience...will make the nerdrage over this one seem like a picnic. I hope there's no delay in KD:M because I know quite a few people pledging from it, but judging from patterns, there probably will be.

Overall, I'm not as annoyed by this delay as I would normally be. Maybe it's because I expected it in some way, or maybe because I have a lot on my plate at the moment, what with Cygnar being my new army and other video games to pay. Either way, I don't like it but I can accept it.