Ah, you gotta love it when one flat out lies to one's backers about putting product into their virtual hands before the year is out (yep, never happened - color me surprised) and yet finds time to release a product for yet another product line.
Thrilling Tales 2e: Pulp Villains - The Subterranean Monarch
Awesome! So, this means all proceeds are going towards putting already paid for physical copies of Far West into backers hands, right?
Er, right?
Maybe?
Far West. When tomorrow is always a day away.
In all seriousness, the reason that Far West is Far From Complete is because there is no money in it. The money is long ago spent and the layers of media that were planned to be built upon the Far West property have rotted away over 5 years of falsehoods and misdirection.
New releases, semi detached from the Albatross can generate income for Adamant / Gareth. Far West is a time and money pit with no current upside - all the upside was spent up front with little if anything to show for it.
This is why there are no refunds - there IS NO MONEY left to refund anybody. I'm not going to guess what it was spent on, but it certainly wasn't held aside to ensure print copies went out to backers.
There is mismanagement here, not just of time but of the funds and it should serve as a warning for anyone looking to do business with Gareth in the future.
Remember, if it never releases, there will never be further refunds. I think I understand now...
Oh, and those "beta versions"? Four months later - haven't happened.
Yeah, he should just walk away from this disaster, own up to his failure, and give the backers what he has done up until this point.
ReplyDeleteThis, at this point, is the only way forward. It is therefore such a shame he will have nothing to do with it.
DeleteHe also went back to posting and complaining about his health on his personal twitter, I guess he could not stay away.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that every time I see another non-Far West release from Adament I see it as just more time he didn't spend working on Far West when he should have been.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't have an option.
DeleteWhat he needs to do is be honest. It's pretty obvious what has happened: for whatever reason, good or bad, the money from the Kickstarter is long gone, and has likely been all gone since about 2012. As such, GMS needs money to pay the bills and put food on the table, and the other releases do just that.
He needs to admit this, to himself and to everyone else. Then, he needs to make a schedule, like the Judges Guild is doing with its late Kickstarter, and come up with goals for what he will have done at what time, and share this with the world. He also needs to share what he has done as of yet with his backers.
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ReplyDeleteI have no stake in this except that I'd love to see some resolution. While he surely holds the blame, I truly feel for GMS as each new "update" just digs things a little deeper. He would have to be completely shut off from reality for this not to get to him. Here's to hoping something happens that lets everyone move forward.
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't "feel for him" if you'd backed the KS and were out money, as many of us are.
DeleteI will never buy another Adamant/GMS release again.
I believe he has explained that the recent Thrilling Tales releases aren't his work, so he's not writing other things in place of Far West. Yes, his company is putting them out, but despite Eric's sarcastic tone, more money coming in can only be good for Far West fulfillment. That said, it is definitely irritating that we have no further update on yet another slipped release date. I believe there's a book and that Gareth continues to work on it -- even that he honestly believes it every time he says it's 7-10 days out -- but clearly there's something going on he's not being upfront about.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be the one to say what many must have thought at least one time: there's a good chance our money went to medical bills. Can't prove it, of course, but I cannot be the only person who's wondered.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, we don't know the truth about anything and when you combine that with five years of lies and broken promises, even a possibly innocent release by Adamant pisses people off.
As far as his health, I'm out of sympathy. If the stress of FW is causing him to be ill, he needs to walk away. I won't fault him for that. It's not that I want him to be ill or suffer, but after excuse after excuse after excuse, I'm to the point where "I don't feel good..." is just the latest one. If he is ill and refuses to handle it responsibly by either calling the project or handing it off to others, he has nobody to blame but himself.
I'm tired of this molly-coddling when it comes to Gareth. He had a soured reputation long before this debacle. One I sadly learned of after the KS.