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How has this not been posted yet? Retro VGS


racerx

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It's really a shame about all of this, as I like Mike and have listened to him on podcasts for years, and have supported his past stuff like Retro. I think in the end he just got in over his head.

 

And wow, has this exploded! :-o

 

Yeah, pretty much. I dunno if his tech guys have misled him or if they've just collectively taken on more than they realize. It's a shame because some of the stuff they are talking about sounds cool. I'd definitely be on board for buying a system that played games like Shovel Knight, Gunlord, etc. and packed them on cartridges. All the issues talked about here and on Neogaf though pretty much burn through any goodwill these guys might have had.

 

Despite it all, I'd be willing to give them a shot if they shut things down now and came back in 6 months with a stronger vision and (most importantly) a working prototype. If they needed money to fund their initial prototype they should have shot for that first instead of trying to use crowdfunding to sell units of something that doesn't even exist.

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Yeah, pretty much. I dunno if his tech guys have misled him or if they've just collectively taken on more than they realize. It's a shame because some of the stuff they are talking about sounds cool. I'd definitely be on board for buying a system that played games like Shovel Knight, Gunlord, etc. and packed them on cartridges. All the issues talked about here and on Neogaf though pretty much burn through any goodwill these guys might have had.

 

Despite it all, I'd be willing to give them a shot if they shut things down now and came back in 6 months with a stronger vision and (most importantly) a working prototype. If they needed money to fund their initial prototype they should have shot for that first instead of trying to use crowdfunding to sell units of something that doesn't even exist.

Exactly. If they had started an IGG with the goal of setting up a working prototype I am sure it would have been received quite well and they would have been able to ride a tidal wave of support through another, in the future, IGG/Kickstarter campaign to produce the actual console. They didn't do that and it is too late to do it now.

 

They just announced that Garry Kitchen is now a contributor to the RETRO VGS. While getting someone like Mr. Kitchen involved is good and goes forward with the idea of the console, they need someone with name power that has a huge fan base. Imagine if they had John Romero working on a new 3D Doom style shooter for this. That would get people talking.

 

I also extended an offer of doing an interview with anyone from their team for my site, RGM. No answer.

Edited by triverse
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They just announced that Garry Kitchen is now a contributor to the RETRO VGS. While getting someone like Mr. Kitchen involved is good and goes forward with the idea of the console, they need someone with name power that has a huge fan base.

Garry Kitchen has only contributed to the Indiegogo campaign, this isn't an announcement that he is involved with the project. He will just be another customer who won't get anything when this isn't funded.

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I honestly do hope this thing does get funded, though I cannot possibly contribute to it, myself.

If it doesn't get funded...well it almost seems like the world will be be getting off too easy.

 

No, I want to watch them try to make this thing. I like eating my popcorn quite a lot, and I want maximum drama extraction. Besides, if by some snowball's f'n chance Jag2 actually comes out and becomes a hit--well that's not exactly a bad outcome either.

 

See, nobody's really 'in over their head' if this doesn't fund. It just goes away--*poof*.

And what fun is that for anybody?

So go on and pledge for the usb controller tier--system or no, you know $25 is a bargain for a controller like that...

 

i9AeCGs.gif

Edited by Reaperman
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The Facebook announcement isn't written well.

They mean garrykitchen "contributed" to the campaign; as in $1040.

I wrote a post about this and deleted it, but apparently I should've posted it. IMO the Garry Kitchen thing is yet another part of their snake oil. They talk about his games, post a screen shot and say he's contributing to the project. To the uninformed, this is extremely misleading. While they didn't tell an outright lie, it's a bit of deception IMO.

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So you have a Hardware Guy, a Software Guy, and a Marketing Guy.

 

Each one of these guys plays a role but each one also keeps the other two in check.

 

Case in point, when the Marketing Guy goes off the rails making wild promises that are technically impossible to achieve it's the Hardware and Software Guys that need to speak up and inject some reality before things get too far out of hand. When the Hardware Guy is stuck on a specific problem or wants to tear everything down and start fresh because he's found a better, more elegant way of doing something the Marketing Guy needs to step in and bring things back on track towards the agreed upon endpoint.

 

Common to both of the above dynamics is COMMUNICATION. It looks to me like one part of the trio was making decisions and changes without the input of the other two. Even going into the IGG campaign the specs shown on their web site conflicted with those on the IGG site. Things were changing so quickly and so last minute that these guys didn't know whether they were coming or going. Sloppy and unprofessional doesn't even begin to describe it and they should have postponed the fundraising until they got their shit together and more importantly got everyone reading from the same page. A consistent vision was vital to the success of this project.

 

For Mike & Co:

 

If you really think that some people speaking objectively and in some cases negatively about your product on a forum is the cause of the current flatline in the funding campaign then this whole venture was truly dead in the water long before the campaign began. If twenty people on one forum was all it took to sink the whole thing then you really need to take two steps back, be brutally honest and ask yourself these questions: "Was the product strong enough?" "Was there a coherent vision and did we effectively communicate that vision to everyone?" and "Did we make a strong enough case for why people should give us their money and trust?". If you can't answer these questions objectively and honestly then you really dont 'get it' and you will learn nothing from this setback.

 

I kind of wish Kevin had waited a few more days to speak up -- so you couldn't pin this failure to make it off the launch pad on his much-needed honesty.

 

In ONE POST he provided the necessary technical clarity that you refused to impart to your audience for six months straight.

 

Now you are looking for scapegoats. At one point you were saying that you were OK with Kevin using his cores in your product and in other competing products. A day later and your tune has changed to "Kevin threw us under the bus" and his work is shoddy, amateur, and unfinished.

 

Kevin hasn't changed his side of the story one bit. Yours is all over the map.

Edited by rob_ocelot
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I wrote a post about this and deleted it, but apparently I should've posted it. IMO the Garry Kitchen thing is yet another part of their snake oil. They talk about his games, post a screen shot and say he's contributing to the project. To the uninformed, this is extremely misleading. While they didn't tell an outright lie, it's a bit of deception IMO.

 

I was being generous. At this point I'm pretty cynical.

At the very least, I'm sure they hope his classic gaming cred. will give them a boost.

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And the answer is a non-dramatic and rather mellow no. I kinda wanted this to project to keep rolling, but it is our collective opinion it needs to stop here and now. Reformat. Reboot. And try again sometime next year. I'll maybe post a detailed postmortem of our deliberations & discussions for anyone that cares. I have to catch-up on this and other threads first. And the prize search search continues for next year's infamous tech smash'n'bash.

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