ZOMBICIDE: INVADER EPIC FAIL – PART 3
WALLET INVADER
And now,
2018, we have Zombicide: Invader. The
pretence of producing games that were merely similar to Games Workshop’s Mordheim and Warhammer Fantasy Battles (WFB)
ranges is long gone. This one moved into the domain of Warhammer 40,000 and Necromunda,
borrowing heavily from both in artwork and model design. But there were several
glaring problems, and CMON wasn’t interested in listening to any feedback that
didn’t spew mindless adulation for their product or campaign.
CMON had
previously suffered poor performances from several other campaigns they’d run
between the Zombicide ones. A Song of Fire and Ice was a deliberate
attempt to move into the WFB market, the
one GW had used to build its empire from the very beginning… then idiotically re-released
it as Age of Sigmar to generate quick
revenue and profits before dumping it altogether. But A Song of Fire and Ice had only generated US$1.69M with just over
9,000 backers.
It
provided a Core Box that was a straight pledge of US$150 and contained 103
miniatures that (mostly) fought in ranks plus an exclusive model and a further
62 (+60%) models resulting from SG, with only a few being listed as exclusives.
The rest of the available material was simply optional buys with no need to add
any of them to unlock any SG. Hate
generated less funding at just under US$1.47M but had just over 10,000 backers,
more than A Song of Fire and Ice.
Hate also required a pledge of $150 to get
the Core Box. It contained 51 miniatures and the entire game was exclusive,
limited to kickstarter backers only, and would not be available at a retail level.
It added a further 52 (+104%) miniatures in the form of SG. The whole thing was
aimed at people who wanted relatively cheap models to form a Chaos Warriors
army to use in games of Warhammer Fantasy
Battles. Maybe it was the limited awareness of the kickstarter platform
that led to such poor figures…
Then
again, maybe it was the death of WFB
or, more likely, the attitude of CMON. Zombicide
Invader seemed to prove every point people like me had been making during
the Green Horde campaign. It was
expected to do well where others had fared poorly because it was designated as part
of the Zombicide range. But it wasn’t.
And it didn’t. It did badly. So badly, in fact, desperation on the part of CMON
to make something positive happen became blatantly obvious, and only made
things worse.
First, the
campaign ran for five days less than the Black
Plague and Green Horde campaigns.
It wasn’t clear if this was due to arrogance or designed as an excuse for poor
results because CMON had no faith in the product. Some backers claimed it did
better than Black Plague, and would
have had better results if it had run those extra five days. The reality was,
all the additional content to get it that far had made a mess of the numbers,
costing much more to sell (just to backers) than Green Horde, and potentially driving down retail sales as people
refused to pay the same for just half the content.
It only had three days left before it finally
managed to generate half the funding and backers as Green Horde had managed when it had concluded. So what went wrong?
Well, you won’t find many answers on the kickstarter pages. CMON ruthlessly
purged almost every last comment that provided feedback that didn’t fan-boy
blow them. The only evidence of the purge is a few bizarre responses to
comments that no longer appear. Even so, only backers are allowed to post
comments there. Try Facebook.
The CMON facebook page is a ghost town. Not even
tumbleweeds are found there despite how much it blows. But if you hang around
long enough you’ll see things. People complaining that they never got the
products they paid for during a kickstarter, or a few people making suggestions
and leaving feedback about campaigns. They get a few likes from others, even
support, and then vanish. CMON is making every effort to eradicate that
feedback to present an image of pure success and everyone being happy.
Again, the tell-tale signs may still be found.
People responding to comments that have been removed. It suggests duplicity on
the part of CMON. An inability to accept criticism in any form. An inability to
adapt. An unwillingness to adapt. A belligerence and abusive attitude toward
its market. Efforts to deceive and manipulate potential clients unaware of the
reality hidden behind CMON. Looks a lot like the artwork, design and content
isn’t the only thing CMON has assimilated during its desperate efforts to claim
market share from GW. They got the same anti-social, unpleasant, shitty
attitude in the process.
But let’s have a look at the figures for Zombicide: Invader. With less than a day
to go they had US$3M and just under 16,000 backers. What went so wrong is
answered in what backers got for their pledges. First up, CMON got greedy.
Very, very greedy. They failed to learn from the warnings people like me tried
to give them about treating their market badly. Instead of taking it on board
and adapting, they doubled-down and escalated the mistakes they were making,
just like GW.
The Core
Box for this campaign, at least the first one, came at a cost of just US$100.
It was US$20 less than the Core Box for Green
Horde. It still contained 72 miniatures but came with an exclusive. But the
artwork from Black Plague and Green Horde was gone, and the new
Necromunda-40K rip-off artwork sucked. The game lacked any continuity links to
previous versions. No Zombies. Just aliens. And no real thematic link to make
any of it really connect even within the game.
Just an eclectic collection of crap.
The Core
Box was defined as a Civilian Pledge. It got a lot of complaints that quickly
vanished even as no changes were made. You could, if you wanted, upgrade to a
Soldier Pledge for an additional US$50. This added the Black Ops expansion that came with just 9 more miniatures, plus an
exclusive. It was not received well. It was not seen as value for money. But
some of the SG were contingent upon it. Unless you added it, you didn’t get
those SGs. This also drew a lot of complaints that vanished just as quickly.
If at least some of those SGs had simply been
part of the Black Ops box, there
would have been fewer complaints. Sure, the trolls were extremely active,
insisting CMON made what the market wanted despite the fact that the market was
there saying they didn’t want it and wanted changes. Oddly, people making complaints
were not mollified with insults and no positive responses. Go figure. But it
wasn’t just this that saw the funding barely begin to crawl in. It was death by
a thousand other acts of stupidity.
The models themselves were clearly designed to
substitute for Space Marines, Tyranids and Daemons in games of 40K or Necromunda. There were complaints about design. There were no
zombies, just ‘Xenos’ (a term heavily used by GW in its 40K ranges and
literature). Too many models looked like Pirates of the Caribbean had thrown up
on them and given them a bad case of tentacles, some kind of spicy curry
induced diarrhoea, and (in one instance… then three more) a bad case of
litigious-ity.
In short, too many models had too many tentacles
when they didn’t need them, and some of these (and others) looked like they had
the shits. The few with weapons looked like they were armed with cheap
nerf-guns, and some of these were so badly designed they either looked wrong or
just plain stupid. The practice of taking pop-culture to create model designs
also backfired when one based on Will Smith’s character from Men In Black was withdrawn and replaced
with something else with no real explanation.
Rumour had it that this was the result of legal
action. Somebody at CMON had failed to get permission to blatantly rip-off the
intellectual property of MIB. And then, after the campaign concluded, people
representing Laurence Fishburne, Tina Turner, and Harrison Ford appear to have
had words and SGs bearing their likenesses also vanished. There is a very good
chance others may follow. It makes you wonder how many others will suddenly
result in legal action for infringing upon Intellectual Property and Copyright
laws. My money’s on the Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, and Stephen Hawking
ones.
And when will GW notice CMON, chew them up, and
shit them out? Don’t get me wrong, I think some of the stuff CMON does is
great, and it’s long past time the fascist monopoly of GW ended, but not by
replacing it with more pricks just like them. Besides, GW built its empire by
stealing the Intellectual Property of others, and then trying to claim it as
their own, so any attempt by them to prosecute CMON will look hypocritical and
result in a great deal of bemused head-shaking.
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