Founders, Benefactors, and doing the right thing

I'm a Founder, pledged the game day 1 of Kickstarter. I'm actually a Duke, meaning that they have a fatty slice of beef from me on their table.

Honestly: i just demand Portalarium to ship a superb game. Nothing else.

I don't mind if they decide to try and gain more profit....they are a company aiming to profit....never forget.

i had only one argument in the past, regarding prosperity items and how they introduced the " 6 packs thing". They imediately commited to solve it.

I'm really REALLY impressed by the HUGE amount of work they are putting in this game and the speed they are proceeding toward the final Goal.

Keep it up Portalarium.

Duke Vulcano

PS
This is my personal point of view and as such has to be respected. I do, infact, respect and understand people argumenting about "founder" thing. I just don't consider it particularly problematic. I was promised XXXXX amount of benefits for YYYY amount of money. They are still delivering what promised. They simply decided to broad the fork of people receiving those benefits.

 

There are a lot of people who think like you, but there are also a lot of people who pledged at the level they did because of the promised rewards. Not being able to provide those benefits because they don't have enough money set aside to handle it seems odd considering that they wouldn't have got as much money if they didn't promise what they did.

Disagree. If an artist had a special edition sculpture where he would take orders only before the end of day and then no more, then those people who bought it could be buying it based on the limited availability and the chance to say that they were one of a special few. If the artist decided a week later to re-offer that sculpture because some people happened to miss it, then he would be devaluing the purchase made for people in that first batch. That's essentially what happened here. Scarcity IS a reward.

 

Just as loyalty was rewarded. Alas.

 

Why do people care that others get a certain title and not what them to have it. It seems sortof childish to not want others to have it just so one can sit in judgement and say you dont deserve it let me dangle my superiority over your head be in awe peasant of my superior status. Since crowd sourcing is so popular now i was hoping some kind gents would fund my next vacation founders get a free post card and get to hear all about it

Seriously its erroneous to think one can make a blanket statement indicating what the right thing is. If i learned anything from playing ultima its that mirals are subjective and right for one ist for the other

Some would think stealing from a blind reagent vendor is the wrong thing. I, however consider letting a blind person be a reagent vendor to be more wronger

 

You were never a founder, its the benefactors cashing in on a gift that's the main problem. They could only be a benefactor if they missed the Date to back the game like you.
As your quote says only founders can buy/gift pledges. You are a founder in name only and your date of backing is not in time to allow you to buy any original pledges to hand out to anyone.

Quote from Portalarium's Post.

thought this was clearly communicated in Update #25, dated April 9, 2013, when I stated: "We are currently designing the new tiers for brand new backers, and should have those available by end-of-day Sunday, April 14th, at the conclusion of our current one-week grace period. It is our intention for all Kickstarter backers to be able to purchase/upgrade to both the previous tiers (pending availability of limited tiers), and the new tiers, whereas new backers after April 14th will only have access to the new tiers." When I wrote "purchase/upgrade" the word "purchase" was referring to buying additional pledges, and the word "upgrade" was referring to existing pledges. Since a tier is defined by the rewards it contains, when I wrote "both the previous tiers...and the new tiers" the previous tiers was referring to rewards listed in the tier descriptions prior to the end of the Grace Period, and "new tiers" was referring to rewards listed in the tier descriptions after the Grace Period. This means that all backers up to May 20, 2013 would be able to purchase additional pledges that contain all the original rewards and the new rewards, as well as upgrade any of their pledges to tiers that contain all the original rewards and the new rewards, thru April 7, 2014

January 31st 2014
Gracekain said: ↑

I am a benefactor original pledge date of 21 may 2013. If I upgrade today to founder do I maintain the original date?​

February 1st 2014
Gracekain said: ↑

MERGED!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now i am no longer upset that i missed the Kickstarter by 2 hours and 14 min! And it only cost me $40 lol. enjoy my $40 Portalarium!​

Gracekain said: ↑

See, you should have went threw me, my customers get accepted after a few seconds! ​

February 8th 2014
Gracekain said: ↑

If you donated to the game before May 20th 2013 then you are a Founder Early Royal Founder and nothing can change that.​

20th February 2014
Gracekain said: ↑

I am officially pulling out of the Founder upgrade service. I have helped 30 people upgrade to founder and those people in turned have helped me reach Lord status. I will forever be in there debt and I wish everyone a happy adventure here in SotA​

Gracekain said: ↑

If you are still looking for founder status please let me turn you to my friends who need your help in reaching their goals! @O`SullivanUpgrade Thread @Bodhbh DearghUpgrade Thread @enderandrewUpgrade Thread You cant go wrong with either three of these great avatars! Yours truly -Grace quote] ​

​

 

You will find that I am making a point about how Portalarium have handled this affair, if they make loopholes for players to use the blame is on Portalarium not the player.
Gracekain's post were helpful to me being able to show that even after Portalarim added that article about promises they had made to a few players they did not set out exactly what could be done and most of their statement can be scrutinised because each new update contradicts the first which is what they said was the promise.

 

People who understand business care. By your logic I should get LOTM rewards without paying for it, and likewise the Pantheon cloak without even pledging. It isn't like they lose anything is it?

 

No, by my logic you should be able to buy whatever you want at any point in time because it does not really matter when you buy it as long as the money was transfered. I never said anything about "for free" because that would be a pretty bad business decision on their part.

But if they decided to give out something to you for free or less money because its a promotion or sale, that would be perfectly fine for me, because I got the stuff that I paid for, and I do not really care if you get it for less or at a later date. You are perfectly right that I am not losing anything if you get something, so why would I care?

Of course I would feel unlucky if I bought something and then two days later its 50% off, but that happens to me at the supermarket every day, and I get over it in like 20 seconds.

 

I'v already pledged so it I wouldn't be getting anything for free. Just a massively reduced price. It certainly wouldn't be fair to charge a LOTM far more.

You wouldn't but the LOTMs might. This asymmetry is one of the reasons why some care and some don't. If you haven't taken the extra risk then you don't care if someone else has. It isn't good business sense to reward investors with no regard to time. The devs have, admittedly, acknowledged this.

Edit:
I'll also add that investing in Emerging Market is inherently riskier than investing in Developed Markets. Doing business in emerging markets (one major aspect) is not the same as in the DM, add to this that the stock market itself doesn't quite behave in the same way there are additional risks to investing in Emerging Markets. Therefore it makes no sense to invest in Emerging Markets, and assume additional risk, unless you expect greater reward.

Comparably, investing at the time of SOTA KS was inherently riskier hence greater reward.

That may be true for something that you pay for now and receive now. If you pay now but wait for delivery (far longer than the two days you mention) you aren't likely to be as happy. I'd also wager you'd be less happy in a situation where the item is a significant percentage of income.

 

Yes, but you aren't investing in a market here. You are not investing at all. This is not the stock market, and you are not an investor. This is not comparable at all, really.

See, an investor invests money to get a return on that money, which essentially means if he invests 100$ he expects to get more money back after a while. There is a financial risk here obviously, and yes, it only makes sense to invest in a high risk market if they offer you more money in return.

In a kickstarter, you invest 100$ and expect to get a certain product or nothing. It does not really matter if its early or late, because either the project gets backed or not. If the project is not backed, you get your money back, otherwise there is a pretty high chance you get your product. There is nothing in kickstarter like a "higher risk".

If you backed in kickstarter, you either get your product or not. This is the same situation we have now. We pledge, and the project may fail and we may get nothing. The project may even fail after release in fact, look at Tabula Rasa.

So there is really no point in comparing that to the stock market.

 

I think the culprit here was the fact, that also the "new founders" could make people to founders and get the referal 25$. So the chances for the original founders to get enough of these referals themselves to upgrade their own pledge diminished.
I can understand this, since I am also affected by this "lost chance", but it makes no sense to demand change, rotate in circles or jump through the roof. The dinner is eaten by now.
*Salute*
Olahorand

 

Stalking is a very serious allegation, and is stated to try to scare someone into silence. I suggest people stop resorting to these tactics to silence someone. If you make posts in this forum, you can and will be quoted. If you don't want to be held up to scrutiny by what you say, maybe you should think twice about saying it.

If a politician is hammered from things they said over the course of years, is that stalking? If it's provable how many times a company (Portalarium) has not kept their word, and one person is totally vocal and advertising, that proves the point, this is not stalking. It is illustrating a progression.

 

So, quoting someones post is now stalking? I guess I must be stalking you right now ...

 

To me "doing the right thing" would be creating an environment where everyone feels valued instead of pitting people against each other based on real world economics instead it seems to get money they have no problems distinctly drawing a socioeconomic line in the virtual sand and make people that dont donate feel unappreciated by seemingly ignoring their concerns and only validating those that donate

 

Except for the fact that it is like an investment. Richard Garriott has even stated that he wants in-game houses to have real dollar value. If I pledge $500 now and then sell my house for $5000, then clearly I've made a return. In fact I could sell for $50 and still have a "return", just one that didn't perform very well. So your argument is contra-fact.

edit: now that I've thought about it, I've missed the obvious: SOTA backing is like a call option. Limited downside, unlimited (and unknown) upside.

If I'm enjoying the game then I'll stay. If I don't then I like having the optionality of selling out without suffering (I hope) a complete loss. RG's comments that houses will have real value heavily suggested to me that I would have that optionality.

Except for the fact there is a "higher risk"; the risk is most certainly not binary of "product / no product". Backing at $100 is not the same as backing at $1000. Naturally, the higher pledge level receives greater rewards. That assumes that the game completes and that the player likes the game (or can sell for a reasonable recuperation of investment), which is an investor-specific risk.

If the KS failed then we might not be here talking, KS pledgers had to accept a greater risk based on the fact that (1) there was less information at KS, (2) there was less money invested than now, (3) there is a working demonstration of the product that thousands of people have tried. Ergo risk has a time component that should be respected, and actually is in the investment world. Portalarium have demonstrated that they understand this.

If you've ever tried to raise money for a start-up, or invested in a start-up, then you should be familiar with the fact that money has a time-weighted value. Earlier investors assume greater risk and naturally as promised a higher reward. Investing in Google the start-up is most definitely not the same as investing in it today. If Portalarium don't have to upset early investors then they shouldn't. It would be different if the company is in dire straits.

Later stage investment is always necessary, absolutely no dispute there, but the terms are never as favourable. Therefore, to tie this up to the original point, benefactors are assuming less risk but that doesn't mean that they should get a bad deal. They should get a fair deal which is proportionate to dollar value and some component of time. Which was the case, and arguably is again. Once the game is launched the risks will differ again. Pledgers from then onward should receive different rewards.

Personally I would have structured the benefactor tiers differently. I don't know Portalarium's reason for doing what they did; however, I wouldn't have made benefactor pledge amounts higher but would have opted for fewer rewards.

Which is a risk that benefactors will also bare.

 

No, stalking is not quoting someone in the same thread. It is collecting quotes from multiple threads and from weeks ago in order to make someone feel bad.

 

Its like life the more you put into it the better life is.If your budget can only afford a Honda and somebody else has a benz does that mean you should have a benz for the same price as your Honda?.

 

Not really. Kickstarter is a donation. You donated your money to these guys. I guess essentially you did not really understand what you were doing on kickstarter.

Its like in this article: http://www.wesleyverhoeve.com/kickstarter/

Essentially, to quote it: "[...]look at a Kickstarter donation as a pre-sale with an embedded marketing campaign based around the feeling of community and belonging as identified in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs."

What you did was buying a product before it is released with no legal right to get anything back for your money. So essentially the same everyone else is doing until release.

You do not even know if you are allowed to sell in-game houses or your account for real money when the game is released. They could still forbid it and restrict it to in-game trading, which would be perfectly reasonable. Or they could change house pricing during balancing so that a castle takes about 2 days of playing, which then makes all other houses completely worthless.

If you were an investor, you would have rights, and stuff like that could not happen.

 

Not sure what your trying to say. But just because its a crowd funded game doesnt mean the funders are in any way responsible for the outcome