Thread by @Delafina777

This is... um... some incredible chutzpah, and not the good kind. Let's take a tour down memory lane, shall we? gameontabletop.com/cf194/kingmake…

Paizo's first Kickstarter was for not a game, but a *demo* of a Pathfinder MMO. kickstarter.com/projects/16759…

Incidentally, employees (especially the ones who played MMOs and were like "this is a bad idea") were assured that this incredibly risky endeavor was being done by a company independent from Paizo (Arrested Development narrator voice: it wasn't)...

...and that the financial risk being undertaken wouldn't affect Paizo's finances (narrator voice: it did... no bonuses). So, the KS for the demo funded.

Having gotten money for the demo (and apparently unable to go the normal video game startup route of finding investors), the executive team went on to Kickstart the MMO itself. kickstarter.com/projects/16759…

When it became apparent that the KS wasn't on track to fund, they made Paizo employees (supposedly a separate company, remember) produce an incredibly work-intensive superdungeon book (written primarily by authors unfamiliar with the PF system, so the developers had to rewrite).

This was in addition to the normal (already overburdened) workload of producing the regular Pathfinder monthly and hardcover products.

So just to be clear, while lying to employees about the MMO company's finances being separate from Paizo's, the executive team also made Paizo employees work unpaid overtime (because we were salaried, and should supposedly be grateful for a chance to work on Pathfinder at all)...

...to produce a non-MMO product to save the failing Kickstarter. So, it funded. Woot.

But, of course, as anyone can tell you, a million dollars and whatever was being siphoned off of Paizo isn't enough to actually produce an MMO. So they charged players to alpha test the game for them.

And, after draining the coffers of everyone involved, it got made. Sort of. massivelyop.com/2018/05/05/wha…

So then Paizo partnered with Ninja Division to Kickstart a line of Starfinder miniatures. kickstarter.com/projects/32546…

Ninja Division had, at the time, 4? I think? 5? failed Kickstarters behind them.

As in, the Kickstarters funded, but they didn't deliver. So the Paizo forums had questions, but the executives reassured them that this was fine and they should pay for these minis. paizo.com/threads/rzs2um…

Needless to say, Ninja Division didn't deliver. Ninja Division's customer service team quit. Paizo's customer service team was left to try to handle the angry backers while the executive team was silent.

Finally, the executive team responded, with, "oh yes, when we urged you to put your faith in this company with a terrible track record, it was because WE TOO were deceived by them." paizo.com/threads/rzs2um…

Ninja Division, incidentally, is now under investigation by multiple states' attorneys general. idahostatesman.com/news/business/…

But hey, it's cool! If you backed the Starfinder/Ninja Division minis and they ran off with your money, you can now pay again, to a different company! (At least Wizkids is reliable.) icv2.com/articles/news/…

So now they're doing another crowdfunding project, although this one's not on Kickstarter, because presumably that well is well and truly poisoned for them at this point. gameontabletop.com/cf194/kingmake…

It's a big anniversary edition of the Kingmaker adventure path, for Pathfinder 2E and D&D 5E (which is an interesting bit of bet-hedging about 2E).

Be careful when you back, because unlike Kickstarter, this platform charges you immediately. Oh, and for some parts of the world, the shipping was $999 because they hadn't figured out how to fix that yet and just went live anyway.

Charged. Immediately.

And just to be clear, they're crowd-funding the production of a book that is already written and just needs to be updated to 2E. They did this already (with 3.5 -> 1E) for two other adventure paths without crowdfunding.

Because making books is, y'know, what. the. company. is. set. up. to. do. This isn't a new venture for which they need patronage to experiment. This is literally what the company does day-to-day. And they're crowdfunding it.

And even though this is just the company's day-to-day product production operations as usual, when crowdfunding it, they couldn't be arsed to wait to pull the trigger to ensure that people didn't get immediately charged $999 for shipping.

Like, what a profoundly naked cash grab by a company that 1) didn't really deliver on the MMO it crowdfunded, 2) partnered with another company that hadn't delivered on multiple Kickstarters and... didn't deliver, and is now 3) crowdfunding its day-to-day operations.

And, I can't emphasize this enough, auto-charged some people $999 for shipping for a book that's not yet produced because they couldn't be bothered to fix that before launching.

WTAF. I mean, I *know* the executive team and watched them be delusional and refuse to listen to their own employees and charge ahead with stuff that was going to lose people the money they put in for 5 years, and I'm still flabbergasted at the sheer chutzpah of this.

Oh, also, speaking of naked cash grabs, they produced a limited edition hardcover of their *playtest* for 2E--you know, playtest, rough draft, the document that's relevant for a few months and then useless? and got retailers to carry it. amazon.com/Pathfinder-Pla…

Oh, and by the way, the $999 shipping thing? Wasn't a bug that came up after they launched. They knew about it and went forward anyway.

Also, if this makes you want to yell at Paizo, by all means, yell at Paizo. But please be careful *how* you do so, because the customer service team is great people who didn't make any of these calls, and the executives use them as human shields.