"We were doing weekly updates," said Peakes. "I know that complaining about people criticizing us sounds dumb but honestly, it was discouraging to hear from [critics] who just didn't think the updates were good enough and were dissatisfied. It is hard to work on something while you are being criticized about it. Game development is hard work. I know it would be better to take it on the chin and respond to every criticism but it can be psychologically taxing to do so."Alex Peake, it does sound dumb. Many of your backers just want to hear from you.
Time and time again, you promise to give info. You promise to keep your backers in the loop. You don't.
"The website is down temporarily and will be back up soon," he told Polygon. "A release is close to done. It's just been a little overwhelming with people being so negative. It's hard to respond until the release is done in a way that will address people's concerns."Actually, no it's not. It is not hard to post weekly with, "Hey guys, right now we're doing blahblahblah," or a, "Sorry guys that we said the new build would come out on May 21st, but it's unfortunately still got some kinks in it." You do not have to directly respond to criticism, just respond.
By Alex Peake today on Kickstarter:
I apologize for the lack of communication lately. We're working to get the site back online as soon as possible and a new alpha release with it. We're also securing additional developers and funding to fulfill shirt rewards and accelerate development. The first beta will be released September 1st and we'll make a full announcement and Q&A on the site when we get it back online.
As much as I want to believe it, it's hard to, because I have seen this before and I have seen you not follow through. Past experience tells me history will once again repeat itself.
Why do your backers have to completely lose faith in you before you respond, and then not only do you not respond to them directly, but to someone else?
Mr. Peake, this website was made for you, since it takes other websites getting involved to get any real response out of you. Going totally mute on your backers who you have failed to meet basic Kickstarter requirements with is not good. Your decision of silence is speaking loudly that you don't care enough about them, that talking to them isn't worth the effort. No? Prove me wrong. Please. I'm hoping you will.
Thanks for making this page. There is a LOT of historical data about lxpk (alex peake) floating around that needs put in one place, as well as following the current drama surrounding Code Hero.
ReplyDeleteYou link to his 'about me' bio page, but it is gone. If you look at the internet archive page you'll see that he deleted all the content off of it a few weeks before it was taken down. A mirror is here : http://web.archive.org/web/20130429175945/http://www.alexpeake.com/
You're welcome. After following the comments for a couple months, and especially after the most recent happening, I felt something like this was worth putting together (or at least try to).
DeleteAnd thank you! I should've thought to double-check my links with the site being down part of the news now. (Duh moment there?) Link replaced.
I don't know exactly where this thing will go or what I'll do with it, but I guess it'll just be a ride to find out!
No problem.
ReplyDeleteI really recommend going through his 'past projects' and doing a simple writeup. The Tactical Corsets project in particular is interesting. People purchased by preorder these 450~ish dollar items and after he got the money he stopped all communication with everyone. The Tactical Corsets facebook page has 18k likes and if you scroll back to 2010 you'll find numerous people demanding an update (and not getting it) about their 1+year late product.
The galling part is that while he was promoting the CH kickstarter on the Tac Corset wall he told his previous customers that if it was successful he would bring the project back alive. I'm not sure he exactly meant "Promote Code Hero if you ever want to see your products", but it certainly came off that way.
I'd love to see what interviews with past customers were like, and the tacticalcorsets.com webpage has been DOA for quite a long while now.