Regular readers of Warp Zoned will know that I’ve been covering crowdfunded game projects for just over five years now, and through most of it I have had a wholesome, positive outlook on the path that it takes. Someone has an idea, and they have the skill, talent, and (above all else) passion to make their dream a reality, but what they don’t have is money. So people give them money in exchange for the finished product and some other cool extras. Everyone wins. The person can sell their idea-made-whole to the masses, while those who contributed to its creation can bask in the glory of its success knowing that they, in part, made it possible.
But what happens when it goes wrong?
Over the course of the last five years I have backed 15 projects on Kickstarter…
Actually, before I even get into this, I should explain why I predominantly focus on Kickstarter and not other crowdfunding platforms such as Indiegogo. Simply put, Kickstarter, while not infallible, has some quality and control checks in place, and it took other companies a long time to catch up, advertising projects that were tantamount to people just asking for free money in exchange for nothing, and that’s not what the spirit of crowdfunding is about.
Ironically, Indiegogo has a project eerily similar to the one I’m about to dissect, although by the looks of it, one that is of far superior quality and will actually work.
Where was I? Oh yes… over the course of the last five years I have backed 15 projects on Kickstarter that have been successful, and many more that failed to meet their funding goals.
Out of those 15, only one failed to deliver on its promise. It was a gorgeous looking stop-motion animated game called Knite & The Ghost Lights. I’ll not go into the reasons why it failed here, but if you want to find out more, I’d recommend you check out Joanna Mueller’s article on Cliqist.
There is always a small risk when crowdfunding, but you can insulate yourself by doing some basic checks, like looking at the company’s website, reading reviews on their past work, finding out more about the key players. Which is why I am frustrated with myself for ever funding a Switch battery case known as the Pelda Pro.
What Is It
The Pelda Pro was promoted as “the first Nintendo Switch battery case with HDMI,” and this may have been true in September 2017 when it was successfully funded, but now there are multiple devices that can make that claim kicking around.
Back then, I wanted one for two reasons. Firstly, I tend to travel for work, and there’s not always a power point or USB port to give the Switch battery some much needed juice beyond its three hours. Being able to double that seemed like a no-brainer. The Pelda Pro also came with a separate dock, much smaller than the Nintendo docking station, so you could take it abroad or on business trips and use it in any hotel TV with an HDMI port. In short, it answered several needs.
The case was due to be delivered in January 2018, but most Kickstarter projects usually suffer small delays, especially those that require some sort of physical production.
However, backers would normally receive an update explaining this, but January came and went without a whisper. It was not until February that we were told of the delay, with the company, Amdisi, blaming the Chinese New Year during which their production factory would be closed. But, we were promised that it would definitely be shipped in March.
There were several backer-only updates posted throughout March, again stating production had been delayed, this time without any explanation or excuse. However, it was a post on April 14th that raised my suspicions. It was attributed to Mark Deng, the supposed founder of Amdisi:
We are very sorry for the delivery delay of Pelda in the past time as our team need little more time to double check the product character. It’s a good news that our Pelda can work with the new firmware Nintendo Switch. No worries that pelda will brick your Nintendo Switch with 5.0.0 update.
Now, the broken grammar was not the issue. I knew the company was based in China so assumed that English was Deng’s second language. However, the word “brick” was a huge red flag. So I started looking a little further into the campaign and Amdisi themselves. The deeper I delved, the harder I kicked myself for not doing this prior to supporting this campaign. I could not find Mark Deng on social media, or on any media posts beyond those relating to the Pelda. The same was true of the company’s CEO, James Boardman, or the Amdisi team of Adrian Perez (Technology), Jolen Wang (Marketing), and Adam Dionsio (Creative).
Was this entire team fictitious? It sure looked that way.
Amdisi has a website promoting the Pelda, along with a few other Switch products. I tried contacting them through this, their Facebook page, and the messaging system on Kickstarter itself to no avail. Like many other backers, I was now suspecting that this was a con. A convincing crowdfunding con, but a con nonetheless. The comments section was filled with irate backers demanding answers, all met with a stony silence.
There were a few more updates that reiterated what had come before – that the device was tested, finalised, and would ship soon. The last update was on July 25th, and when August came and went I assumed that was simply money lost and a lesson learned. I contacted Kickstarter to see if they could do anything, but alas, I knew they could not, and Amdisi had kept us hanging on long enough that we could not process a chargeback on our credit cards.
I reconciled with myself that this was one bad experience in 15, that I wasn’t the only one to have been duped, and vowed to keep supporting game projects by writing about them in my Kickstart This! column, as well as funding them.
Still, it left a bad taste in the mouth.
But several days ago, a package arrived. Lo and behold, my Pelda battery pack and dock had arrived. They were flimsy plastic and the design paled to what was promised, but still, it had arrived. However, I had now been following the comments section on Kickstarter, and many of those who reported receiving their Pelda reported issues of bricking and burning smells.
So now that I have it, after waiting nine months, I am loathe to use it for fear it will cost me more money. Amdisi still promotes the dock on their website, but you can’t actually buy it (you can buy their other products, but I would not recommend those either). Their Facebook page has actually closed, and no one at the company has ever got back to me or replied to the hundreds of comments on Kickstarter.
I am assuming that someone, somewhere, has made a small profit from all of this. Though they still delivered a product, although one far inferior to what was initially promised.
Until Next Time…
As I said, I will still be supporting crowdfunding games, but, like after all negative experiences, I have learned my lesson and will be more vigilant from now on. I hope you will be too.
