It’s whet your appetite, as in, to sharpen, or wet your whistle, as in to slake thirst, I do believe.
Jon still hasn’t chimed in? That’s worrysome.
Nothing on Twitter either the last 6 months. I’m not one prone to getting upset or worrying myself, but I am starting to get genuinely concerned.
He’s alive and doing better according to a message- I asked someone who knew him.
Glad to hear. Staying away from Conifer’s forums is probably good for his health.
Glad to hear he is ok.
However as a substantial contributor, I must admit I am frustrated with no updates from him.
I agree that health takes priority 100% but how sick so you have to be to post or have someone else post an update.
At this point I suspect that we will not be seeing the game any time soon and I am ok with that. I am not ok with no update however.
Any response is better than none.
Agreed. You don’t have to read the forum or even really interact with anyone to post an occasional update. 6 months is way too long for radio silence when you’ve taken people’s money.
Yeah, I realize “Still working on it!” or “Working on some things, but can’t give specifics yet” isn’t a hugely helpful update, but it certainly is when you compare to radio silence where people are wondering if the project is completely dead. It’s just poor form, IMO, especially when the last update was “Hiring a community manager to avoid lack of updates in the future”.
His next update will be “Firing the community manager for lack of updates!”
Sometimes you drill a dry hole and you have to go to your investors and tell them the bad news, that they lost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. And sometimes you have to go to your Kickstarter backers and tell them they lost $30 US.
I think Jon took this way too personally. Sometimes sh$% doesn’t work out. He can’t think anyone expects him to live on $25,000-$33,000 a year while he makes some game. Maybe he messed up because he became too perfectionist and blames himself for the delay. Sometimes you don’t make your investors happy, and sometimes you don’t get to save face. Part of being self employed. Things happen. It’s just business. Don’t kill yourself over it.
He should probably just close the doors on this one and not leave people hanging.
But if you drill a dry hole, you’ve fulfilled your end of the bargain in a fundamentally speculative venture.
I don’t know Mr. Schafer’s personal situation, but I think straight up ‘quitting’ is very bad advice here. Fewer things are more precious than one’s reputation. If things get that bad, you release something - anything. Even if it’s just a buggy beta + source code.
Quitting, especially when one is the principal, does irreparable damage and puts one down a dark path.
As I understand it, and I didn’t back at that level so can’t confirm, there is playable code out there. Not ‘finished’, and they’ve had more than one redesign, but there is a playable game system out there that some have seen.
Even if one were to release just what’s been displayed in his ‘let’s plays’ + the source code + a substantial explanation/dev diary - that’s huge. People are forgiving, but you’ve got to lay down your cards. Simply walking away (and I have no evidence to suggest that’s going to happen here, just discussing it generally) from a project in the absence of overwhelming personal circumstances (i.e. the death of a child, the loss of one’s sight) - it’s rare to rebound from that. At the risk of sounding unkind, I don’t think a temporary psychiatric crisis is a qualifying circumstance, though everyone has their own criteria.
I’ve seen that advice given, and even sort of received it myself, at great value to recipient. I think it’s especially common for people just starting out (early 20’s) to not fully understand the implications of quitting. I genuinely hope such persons receive advice from a positive figure in their lives.
I’d disagree, if only as a customer who did plunk down money on the KS. I’d rather he call a spade a spade and pull the plug, than release something I won’t have any use for. To me, it is more professional to admit defeat than it is to spew out something stillborn.
[quote=“TheWombat, post:514, topic:71685, full:true”]I’d rather he call a spade a spade and pull the plug
[/quote]
I agree. To the extent the game is his creation, if he is really unsatisfied with it, I’d want him to keep it, because once it’s out there, it represents him, for better or for worse. I backed him so he could have a chance to make a game he wanted to make. I hope that the chance to do so was worth something. I didn’t see it as a preorder, although I know other people feel otherwise about their KS backing. He doesn’t “owe” me anything.
I just hope that he can use the lessons he learned here. I’d hate for this to drive him out of the industry, whether by his own decision or not. Too much bad stuff happens even to well-meaning people that roasting them for it seems petty.
I mean, it’s not easy to do this stuff. And what he was trying was pretty cool, and innovative, and difficult. So if it failed, so be it. Good on him for trying, and I regret my KS payment not one bit.
Wasn’t he selling his house to fund development of the game? I hope he has somewhere to live. Anyone here actually play the beta? What was holding it back from release? Lack of an endgame?
You expressed my feelings on it better than I could myself, @Brooski. I backed it as helping out someone I got to know on the forums and wanted to give him a chance to try to build the game he wanted to make. I just hope that journey hasn’t done more harm for Jon in his life than if people like me never backed.
Nor do I. I when I write entrepreneur a check, I don’t expect any money back. The mode of an investment in a start up or kick starter campaign should be zip.
What I do expect is the entrepreneur will make a good faith effort to execute on his biz plan and produce the product that he promised. Jon has done that, in a spades.
I do expect one more thing though timely and honest communication on the progress. Jon hasn’t done that, and as I said earlier that’s not uncommon. However, that doesn’t make it right.
Lots of people think that perseverance is the be-all and end all, but there are lots of situations where throwing good money after bad is the worst decision you can make. This is especially true in situations that involve health. It is much easier to recover from bad financial or career decisions, than it is to recover from bad health.
Knowing when and how to quit is probably the most important life’s skills one can have.
I have no idea what Jon’s situation is at the moment, though. Hopefully he makes the right decision for him.