Pebble Ships To Best Buy But Not Kickstarter Backers

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Boy, it sure seems to be a trend lately to totally screw over Kickstarter backers in favor of selling out to big box retailers. First OUYA, now these clowns. :(

They wanted to know how Pebble had enough watches to stock Best Buy’s shelves, but not to send to those who had been waiting for months or even a year since ordering them. In an email to Consumerist, Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky explained that “After experiencing the trials and tribulations of shipping out over a hundred thousand Pebbles,” they “made a tough decision” to work with Best Buy to “to help get Pebbles out into the wild in the US.”
 
You know where this is all heading eventually, people will get tired of this and the lawsuits will fly.
 
Seriously, this makes OUYA look good. What a joke.
 
lol the irony, hasn't ouya done similar shit, some backers still have no console most got shitty controllers and no upgrade. What the heck are these companies thinking. This is why I have never and likely will never back a project, unless you are giving me stock in your company I am not paying to be your alpha tester to shit on.
 
Yeah, Kickstarter could give a Fck less or the people making these items. It's all money money money. Fck the small guy.

Help a group of people with their dream via a financial pledge and once the big money comes, the small people get kicked right in the tail-end.
 
Meh, I keep telling people: Kickstarter is like gambling not an investment. As long as you look at it that way, it works out fine.
 
This is the reason why I dont do kick starters. Will the company give me back my money if they dont ship, or they go bankrupt? Nope? I usually wait until it becomes an official product before I buy any kickstarter project. To this day I have yet to buy anything that started with kickstarter and became a retail product because they usually always suck. Pebble looked decent but they way they have treated their backers makes me not want to get one ever.
 
Overblown page view seeking headline. Most people received their pebbles, a small vocal few were missed, they will get their watch eventually. They obviously have plenty of black ones if they can sell country wide at best buy so there is not a supply problem getting black ones to backers that were missed. Mistakes happen when people new to the business world get flooded with business.

Put this pitchforks away.
 
sad isnt it. people using people.

its like kickstarter let people realize u are not powerless as the little guy.
only to find that its been the little guy the entire time selling all of us out when we helped him get to where he is.

hope ouya and pebble owners/creators get cancer, suffer greatly, and diminish agonizingly and slowly.
i'll have pity for them as they suffer, but it will be bitter sweet for those that has had their trust twisted.
 
The only people getting screwed over are the ones that were supposed to have gotten a black watch and haven't. I don't think we have an accurate count of these people, is it 10, 50, 100, 1000?

They mailed all the backers that had color watches selected and told them that they were having trouble with the color faces and they had plenty of black available and you could switch and get a $10 discount or wait for the color ones to be available. (I was one of them, I switched, have the watch and my $10.) They are ONLY selling black at Best Buy. So, unless you're one of the people their shipping department screwed up on, your butthurt is bull. IF Best Buy gets color Pebbles before the KS people that also would be grounds for butthurt, but so far nothing points to this being the case.

KS projects are a risk, read the damm warning! Don't expect to get your stuff on time! Don't expect flawless customer service, especially from the projects that blow up to orders of magnitude larger numbers than expected.
 
I have no issues with Kickstarter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/821804826

So far, I have had 100% success with every project I've backed. Some are still in progress (e.g. Wasteland 2). Then again, almost all are either local, or someone I know is involved. I tend to avoid the "hot" projects. For those projects where it's someone I know... I've been fairly generous.

I avoided the Pebble. It was "hot", but wasn't anything could get behind as far as useful, creative, or any or that... from a tech standpoint, it's actually pretty lame. Based on the updates, I sort of saw this coming... it got "too" popular.
 
Unless the article says otherwise, as I cannot read it at work, it seems that this is an issue with the decisions of the company producing the watches; not Kickstarter itself, which would be the same I would say about the Ouya.
 
It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. That's what happened here. He had an immediate opportunity to capitalize on selling to BB and he did just that. From a PR point of view this is a fail. He decided to go for immediate sales rather than back his base.
 
I have no issues with Kickstarter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/821804826

So far, I have had 100% success with every project I've backed. Some are still in progress (e.g. Wasteland 2). Then again, almost all are either local, or someone I know is involved. I tend to avoid the "hot" projects. For those projects where it's someone I know... I've been fairly generous.

I avoided the Pebble. It was "hot", but wasn't anything could get behind as far as useful, creative, or any or that... from a tech standpoint, it's actually pretty lame. Based on the updates, I sort of saw this coming... it got "too" popular.

You helped fund sequels of Dorkness Rising! I love that movie! I had no idea they were making sequels.
 
"It's because we already have your money, stupid."

This. The kickstarter gets them started, the venture capitalists finish the deal. The VC's probably stipulate they go to market by X date with X retailers.

An investor isn't going to give a crap about people who already paid for their units, they want the new people to buy so they can get an ROI.
 
I have no issues with Kickstarter:
Same here, it's helped produce some quality stuff we would have seen otherwise.

So far, I have had 100% success with every project I've backed.
Same here. Evenif a project doesn't meet all your expectations, it's not like they signed a contract with you and you can sue them, right? It's a risk.... OBVIOUSLY... and if you didn't realize it was a risk then it's your fault you lost that money.

Complaining about the crap you pre-ordered is less annoying than complaining about crap you helped kickstart. If you are so sensitive that your panties get in a wad then why not try simply buying stuff that already exists and is proven to not be crap? OMG ITZ COMPLICATED :p
 
So here's the idea, you help fund development of project (kickstarter) and depending upon your level of funding you get promised stuff (example this product).

Company gets money, gets into development, costs ramp up, but they do eventually get a finished product and a container ship of said product shipped from a Chinese factory, whew!

So who should get those first ones? Those who funded the project? Or those who are willing to buy it as consumers? You helping to fund a product in no way makes you a consumer.

If the project funders get theirs, then company doesn't have anything to sell to keep company in the black, no money they can't order another shipment of product X. If the consumers are the first to get a chance to buy, company makes money, company can make more of said product, company can even give you a voucher to go to Best Buy (or wherever) so they don't have to deal with the cost of shipping too.
 
Overblown page view seeking headline. Most people received their pebbles, a small vocal few were missed, they will get their watch eventually. They obviously have plenty of black ones if they can sell country wide at best buy so there is not a supply problem getting black ones to backers that were missed. Mistakes happen when people new to the business world get flooded with business.

Put this pitchforks away.
The only people getting screwed over are the ones that were supposed to have gotten a black watch and haven't. I don't think we have an accurate count of these people, is it 10, 50, 100, 1000?

They mailed all the backers that had color watches selected and told them that they were having trouble with the color faces and they had plenty of black available and you could switch and get a $10 discount or wait for the color ones to be available. (I was one of them, I switched, have the watch and my $10.) They are ONLY selling black at Best Buy. So, unless you're one of the people their shipping department screwed up on, your butthurt is bull. IF Best Buy gets color Pebbles before the KS people that also would be grounds for butthurt, but so far nothing points to this being the case.
QFT, and to increase the odds of people reading them. Kickstarter backers who ordered black, but still have no watch, have a valid grievance. Kickstarter backers who ordered a color, then switched to black, but still have no watch, have a valid grievance. Everyone else, no. The Consumerist article and the [H] headline are making this out to be worse than it is.

wearing my black Kickstarter-edition Pebble
 
Yeah, this sucks for those that actually backed the projects. If this keeps up no one's going to invest in projects. This is supposed to be a win/win for the backers and the builders.

To have companies start using the backers as shit upon investors is simply wrong. Maybe the thing to do is have kickstarter hold the funds to back a loan the companies can get and not release the payoff until the project is done and the backers get their promised goods, or something similar. That way the company has an incentive to get it done and treat the backers properly. Fail to do so....No loan payoff.
 
This. The kickstarter gets them started, the venture capitalists finish the deal. The VC's probably stipulate they go to market by X date with X retailers.

An investor isn't going to give a crap about people who already paid for their units, they want the new people to buy so they can get an ROI.

Good luck with your next kickstarter. At this point if they begin a new kickstarter that I was interested in, red lights would go off for me now.

You just don't screw over investors.

Anything I've seen associated Kickstarter implied to me you're an investor, not making a pre-order. Kickstarter either needs clarify that or make being a kickstarter investor have some teeth, or kickstarter is going to go away.

In fact, a good kickstarter would be a kickstarter replacement that ensures investors are clear whether they an investor or just making a pre-order and secures their end of the deal appropriately.
 
Well you anyone can make any excuse they want but all these guys are doing is warning more people to stay away from kickstarters. Sooner or later we are going to have a big failure. The difference between a kickstarter and an investment is you get a return on an investment. That's why its silly for people to risk their own money on these projects, if the ouya or pebble blow up and become the next Microsoft you think they are going to go back and give a big payout to the backers they shit on? Nope
 
Funniest thing about this stuff, is that this is only finally getting attention due to the high profile projects having issues. Smaller projects on kickstarter, indieagogo, rockethub, etc. have been failing like this here and there all this time, you just never hear about the screwups unless they're as big as pebble, ouya, tim schaefer's game, etc.
 
To be fair -

All Ouyas technically shipped before retail release, the delay was with the shipping company.
 
Meh, I keep telling people: Kickstarter is like gambling not an investment. As long as you look at it that way, it works out fine.

Yes. And what is the key fact one must keep in mind about gambling? The house always wins.
 
Well, like buying any product or investment, do your homework before sending your money in a Kickstarter project!

All of the projects in Kickstarter I've been involved in so far have been very open to their backers and so far all the ones who are completed have delivered on their promises.

However you can't take it for granted all will, do your homework first.
 
This isn't like Ouya.

Ouya "surprise!" shipped to third parties before shipping the identical product to all Kickstarter backers.

Pebble is shipping two colors to Best Buy after all Kickstarter backers of those colors have received theirs (barring individual shipping problems.)

I'm still waiting on my Gray Pebble. I was given the opportunity to downgrade to a black one to get it earlier. If I had done so, I would have had my Pebble before Best Buy put them up for sale. But since I stayed with Gray, I have to wait. Best Buy won't be getting gray, so I won't be preempted.

(I've become both very jaded and very zen about Kickstarter. I now back things only because I want to support the creation of it - not with any expectation of a timely reward. If I get my reward, great. If not, well, whatever. I haven't yet been truly burned, just a lot of delays.)
 
I think it's pretty funny that people who supported such a stupid idea as crowdfunding are getting screwed. Apparently they didn't notice we do not live in a collaborative economic utopia.
 
If this is true (they didn't screw people), the thread should probably go in the trash.

No sense in making the situ worse.
 
You helped fund sequels of Dorkness Rising! I love that movie! I had no idea they were making sequels.

Dead Gentlemen have been busy ... JourneyQuest, Gamers 3, a Pathfinder module, not to mention Ben getting Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (ZOE) up and going as an umbrella point for small production companies that are putting out some really good fan supported shows.

I know most of the cast / crew from DG (and many from ZOE), most on a "I have met you" level. Scott C Brown, Christian Doyle, Andy Doparski, and Beau Prichard (maybe Ben) will be at our local con in August showing off projects. Scott and I do an Scotch tasting that is usually packed. good times getting all geeky.
 
This is the reason why I dont do kick starters. Will the company give me back my money if they dont ship, or they go bankrupt? Nope? I usually wait until it becomes an official product before I buy any kickstarter project. To this day I have yet to buy anything that started with kickstarter and became a retail product because they usually always suck. Pebble looked decent but they way they have treated their backers makes me not want to get one ever.

Hmm, most of the kickstarters I have backed have created awesome products (referring to material product, not software). However, I do stay away from mass market items and focus on more niche products that appeal to me. I'd be pretty POed if I kept on getting pushed to the back of the line when I funded the creation of said product. The gamble vs screwing it up and going bankrupt thing is an element of risk I accept though. I'm fine with it as much of what I back probably wouldn't get made otherwise.

Cell phone accessories and game consoles? I'll pass for something where you aren't dealing with a hoard of Chinese companies that have been doing it for longer and can do it faster and cheaper too, or you are trying to go toe to toe with either existing cell phones or multi billion dollar divisions of multi-national companies for something that benefits directly from market share.
 
Hmm, most of the kickstarters I have backed have created awesome products (referring to material product, not software). However, I do stay away from mass market items and focus on more niche products that appeal to me. I'd be pretty POed if I kept on getting pushed to the back of the line when I funded the creation of said product. The gamble vs screwing it up and going bankrupt thing is an element of risk I accept though. I'm fine with it as much of what I back probably wouldn't get made otherwise.

Cell phone accessories and game consoles? I'll pass for something where you aren't dealing with a hoard of Chinese companies that have been doing it for longer and can do it faster and cheaper too, or you are trying to go toe to toe with either existing cell phones or multi billion dollar divisions of multi-national companies for something that benefits directly from market share.

Dont get me wrong I think kickstarter has the ability to be a useful tool. But they way kickstarter is set up now I feel like its more gambling than anything else. I am not a gambler, I always tend to lose when I gamble. Now if Kickstarter would hold the money, or release it in stages to make sure that the start ups actually make it to a certain stage then maybe I would start really looking. As it is kickstarter just gives them the raised funds I believe and if they fail or dont make it the money is gone. Some companies need to learn about CS and money management as have been apparent by the recent news.

I havent kept up with the Pebble but I spent yesterday looking at it and I really want one. Its waterproof enough to go swimming so I can leave it in a locker in my gym close to the pool and still get notification of calls text and email. Plus it works with runkeeper. I might get this for my birthday present since it comes out the same day this sunday in bestbuy stores.
 
Started to post some rant about kickstarter, saw it had been covered. Bothered to look up product, confused how they sold any. That has got to be the single ugliest excuse for a device worn on a wrist I've ever seen. Please don't call that a watch, that is an insult to watches.
 
Started to post some rant about kickstarter, saw it had been covered. Bothered to look up product, confused how they sold any. That has got to be the single ugliest excuse for a device worn on a wrist I've ever seen. Please don't call that a watch, that is an insult to watches.

lol, its not the prettiest thing out there but looks IMHO quite a bit better than whats out there already. But again opinion but what really gets it that 99% of all other smart watches can only do basic stuff like alert you there is a email or phone call. Or if they can do more its only for Android or iOS. Pebble can show stuff with runkeeper which I find immensely useful since I bike and run a lot. Can actually show contents of a text and email and vibrate to alert you to a call. All that while being reasonably water resistant up to 5ATM. I find that super useful. Plus battery life is immensely better than its competitors. But its kinda looking like beta right now, potential is huge but actually applications right now are small.
 
Dead Gentlemen have been busy ... JourneyQuest, Gamers 3, a Pathfinder module, not to mention Ben getting Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (ZOE) up and going as an umbrella point for small production companies that are putting out some really good fan supported shows.

I know most of the cast / crew from DG (and many from ZOE), most on a "I have met you" level. Scott C Brown, Christian Doyle, Andy Doparski, and Beau Prichard (maybe Ben) will be at our local con in August showing off projects. Scott and I do an Scotch tasting that is usually packed. good times getting all geeky.

Do you mind linking me info on their Pathfinder module?
 
I think KickStarter is a great idea for startups since it is very hard to bring products to market without a pile of money to start with. Just this aspect of it is often a deal breaker because it drives up the end cost of the product.
Who is vetting these persons or companies that use KickStarter?
It seems an easy way to scam thousands of people.
 
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