Palladium Weekly Update Feb 21 2015

[Jaymz]

It has been another week thus another weekly update is upon us.

To those who take issue with what I say here, I do not care, these are my opinions. Unless you pony up real information to refute my opinions then frankly don't post (and none of this "well I could tell you buy my NDA won't let me" as that is essentially going NUH-UH! and adds ZERO to any discussion going on)

That said, here we go my little Palladiumites

www.palladiumbooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=770:palladium-booksr-weekly-update-february-21-2015&catid=52:weekly-updates&Itemid=183

"We’ve all been super-busy this week on many different fronts: juggling production of several books, assigning work for upcoming books, advertising, a number of business matters, Robotech®, Bizantium, The Rifter®, convention schedules and logistics. "

Uh "we work SO hard for YOU the fans"....does anyone recall when they haven't been "super busy"? I don't....

" It has been nonstop for me. Oh, and I squeezed in a podcast interview."

"I work SO hard"....not for nothing but honestly if you are SOOOO busy why the hell are you taking time out of your super busy day/week to do something that does not actually get you any real return on the time spent? Especially when any "podcast interview" I have heard you in essentially is what you post here just in audio?

"Rifter® Super-Subscription Drive – ENDS next weekend – February 28, 2015 – place your orders – get FREE gifts – have fun"

Again this is a REALLY good deal for those living in the US and I fully recommend to those people to buy into it. It is worth it in my opinion.

However I make a 50/50 call that they extend it evne if only for a few days.

"Podcast interview with Kevin Siembieda on ThisWeekInGeek.net"

Again, why, if you are SO busy, would you do this? Especially since the topics covered really do nothing to promote you, your company or your product.

"UPDATE: Chaos Earth® Rise of Magic™ – Ships Next Week – February 24, 2015"

It is always good to have a book back in stock but I still do not like how it's being portrayed as a "release" as opposed to just "back in print" regardless of the changes made.

"UPDATE: Chaos Earth® Resurrection™ sourcebook – spring release"

Well again, Spring TECHNICALLY runs until June 19th roughly so....

"UPDATE: Bizantium and the Northern Islands™ – Getting close"

So not February and is still possibly an April release though it looks like it will be mid to late March... gotcha (though this was supposed to be out what? last October or so?)

"UPDATE: The Rifter® #69"

Art has been assigned.....so If we are lucky we will see it in April? Maybe?

"UPDATE: The Rifter® #70 and beyond . . ."

The real question is will you let him actually do it on his own? Also when did he come back to work for Palladium? I thought he left to pursue Hollywood? I understand doing freelance work but it seems as of the last few weeks he is back full time?

"UPDATE: Robotech®: Expeditionary Force Marines™ Sourcebook"

April? HAHAHAHAHAHA...oh that was a good one....

"UPDATE: The Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Rulebook is available now"

Uh...ok. Unless you have the minis the book is next to useless but alright.

Maybe plan to release some Cardstock Minis like what MADMANMIKE has been doing for quick pick up games for those who just buy the book?

"UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™"

and here we go ..

"It is available in stores across the USA and Canada, and soon in Europe and Australia."

Unless you had an agreement in place for your distributors to not sell outside of North America then guess what, no, it has been for sale everywhere for months now, please get a damn clue in this regard. It has only been pointed out to you for months yet you STILL do not acknowledge it.

"More online support for the Robotech® RPG Tactics™ game is coming in the days and weeks ahead."

Let's hope this includes a PDF of the FAQ as a LOT of people want it printable and not on your forums where they REALLY do not want to have to go to.

"RRT Europe!"
"Australian and all other Overseas Backers, we must have any address change by February 28!"

This has just been a damnable farce.

"UPDATE: ROBOTECH® at AdeptiCon – March 19-22, 2015, Chicago – www.adepticon.org"

I hope this goes off well and makes a mark on the mini scene for RRT I really do...

"UPDATE: DriveThruRPG.com – FREE Robotech® RPG Tactics™ color guides, detailed and comprehensive building instructions, The Rifter® #59 and more are available now"

Unless you are offering up non out of print relatively current books...and while it is good that you are offering some online material....catch up and let me know when you do, otherwise I am not interested all that much in this.

"UPDATE: 2015 Palladium Open House (POH) – May 15-17, 2015 – at the Palladium warehouse in Westland, Michigan"

Passport stuff is in the processes, though I think maybe they'd rather me (the office staff that is) not show up heh...

"That’s all for now"

If there is more to talk about, and considering you already have indicated it takes you HOURS to write these things, why not tell us instead of telling there is more and not telling us...seriously....what more is there? Telling IS the point of these updates isn't it?

Until next week

[MacrossMike]

"We’ve all been super-busy this week on many different fronts: juggling production of several books, assigning work for upcoming books, advertising, a number of business matters, Robotech®, Bizantium, The Rifter®, convention schedules and logistics."

Suuuuure you have, Kevin.  

So let me ask... if I were to send one of my analysts out there, would they report back that you'd done maybe four hours of actual work and spent the rest of the time on flicking cards into a hat or watching the birds?




"We’ll also be doing a lot for Robotech® on the Palladium website too."

That's real big of you to want to follow Robotech down on its death spiral, Kevin, but don't you think your time, money, and energy would be better spent developing the original IP that will hopefully keep Palladium Books from bankruptcy when the Robotech franchise finally implodes a few years from now?  The Robotech franchise is not long for this world, Kevin.  We did a little talking to their distributors, and found out the reason they're so reluctant to quantify their so-called "successes" is because the franchise's average media sales have plummeted over 92.2% since the reboot 13 years ago.  That's not even counting the toy lines, which crashed so hard they're STILL sitting on inventory from 2008!

Harmony Gold and Robotech have reached the point where management is no longer willing to continue funding development of the franchise.  Even the relatively paltry budget of $1 million they received for Shadow Chronicles is now a bridge too far in the eyes of those holding the purse strings, and they have to (unsuccessfully) beg for money on Kickstarter.

Seriously, Kevin... what are you going to do for Robotech on the Palladium website?  Errata for the tabletop game you've only sold a few thousand sets for?



"I enjoyed an interview with Mike Dodd earlier this week. It was fun. I think the 40 minutes or so will be edited down to around 20 minutes. Our conversation touched on the gaming industry in the 1980s and 1990s, TMNT®, Robotech®, Rifts® and getting started in the business. It’s fun, and hopefully the first of more to come."

That was fast... I figured it would take another few years of slipping sales before Palladium had to resort to nothing but endless, exaggerated reminiscences of how they were awesome back in the day.  Please don't sink as far as Harmony Gold has, and start claiming you created the modern tabletop gaming industry.



"Bigger. Cooler. Almost done."

I'll take "one-word falsehoods" for $500, Alex.



"The second I’m done with Bizantium I am all over Robotech® Marines. I want this book out in April at the latest. We’re kicking around ideas for a number of Robotech® products for down the road. Keep your eyes peeled."

*cough* BULLSHIT *cough*

April 2017 it is.  It's cute that you're kicking around ideas for new Robotech products that Tommy can reject or you can just never finish... but again, don't you think your time and money would be better spent elsewhere?

Seriously man, you've been out of material for Robotech since about halfway into the New Generation sourcebook.  Marines isn't even Robotech, it's a mixture of material Harmony Gold thought was too shit to acknowledge as legitimate Robotech mixed with designs that MOSPEADA's creators thought were too shit to even animate.



"Want an extra copy of the Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Rulebook for your players? Order it from Palladium Books right now. Heck, Robotech® collectors might want one just to have."

At least we know he's not completely mad... he still recognizes that the vast majority of the people who buy Palladium's Robotech line never actually play it, and were only interested in it because the word Robotech was on the cover.  Mercifully, they're 4,500 strong and shrinking fast!

[Sci-Fi]

You have alot of anger in your heart over this Robotech stuff Mike.

[MacrossMike]

Feb 23, 2015 18:20:00 GMT Sci-Fi said:

You have alot of anger in your heart over this Robotech stuff Mike.

Far from it.

If I had to put a label on my feelings about the Robotech franchise, it would probably be "dispassionate exasperation".  I look at how Harmony Gold manages the franchise and interfaces with its customers, and it's a source of constant amazement that someone could make the worst possible business decisions THAT consistently.  It's like the Dilbert comic strip brought to life.  In some ways, Palladium's management gives me the same vibe... which is, if anything, worse because that's their bread and butter at stake, whereas for Harmony Gold Robotech is barely a tertiary source of income.

I'll admit I'm not a huge fan of the Rifts setting, but I'd like to see Palladium stay in business.  It doesn't take any great feats of logic to see the approaching doom of the Robotech franchise, even without access to the objective quantifications of performance they're so afraid of showing people... so, for me, seeing Palladium put a lot of its eggs in the doomed Robotech basket is like seeing a friend get super excited about something when you know full well that it's going to end badly for them.  It's not what you'd call a good feeling, but after a while you start to lose empathy when the bad decisions keep piling up.

[Sci-Fi]

You seem a good bit more invested than that though. Like this stuff, REALLLLY MATTERS to you. It's just a japanese cartoon and rpg. Yeah?

[Jaymz]

That is kind of telling a Star Wars fan that "it's just a movie"

Let's all just agree that Palladium screws the pooch too much in all matter of things and leave it at that eh?

[Sci-Fi]

*Grins* Them's fighting words!

[Jaymz]

My point exactly

[MacrossMike]

Feb 24, 2015 3:46:09 GMT Sci-Fi said:

You seem a good bit more invested than that though. Like this stuff, REALLLLY MATTERS to you. It's just a japanese cartoon and rpg. Yeah?

Well, I kind of AM a fan of Macross and, to an extent, Palladium... but this is mostly just exasperation.  As both a businessman who specializes in fixing the screw-ups and bad processes at other companies and someone with a certain nostalgic fondness for Palladium, it's kind of facepalm-worthy seeing them cheerfully announcing their intent to throw large amounts of time and money at a dead-end project that even the IP owner has given up on.

Like I said before, it's like bearing witness to a living Dilbert strip.

[Sci-Fi]

I don't disagree that the project is dead end. Hell it;s DOA right now..Hell it's not even DOA. It's partially stillborn. They've shown no evidence of wave two even after being asked. Which is a bit telling if you ask me. Remember wave two was supposed to be out last year. Wave 1 hasn't even reached all the people. Wave two is supposed to be out in a few months? We've not even seen prototypes, nor heard tell of Palladium getting them. Much less production. Much less shipping from the other side of the planet. Much less Palladium getting them, boxing them and shipping them, themselves.

I don't forsee this thing going much further than it already has. Twenty different problems are crippeling them.

It might get one expansion, maybe two, if so, because they're already contracted some how. I wouldn't bet on anything after that. Even getting that would be surprising in the next 3 to 5 years


Remember back when Palladium was making a huge deal of the containers getting into LA? How some of us pointed out "Yeah but they have to cross the country. Then they have to be packed and shipped out. That's going to take forever"

We were told we didn't know what the fuck we were talking about. When we said it'd take months and months and months just to ship them all out. We were told we were fools and had no clue.

When we pointed out that it'd take even longer to get them over seas, we were told we had no idea about modern shipping and logistics.

here it is, 4 days before the third month of the FOLLOWING year, and Europe hasn't gotten thiers. Australia hasn't gotten theirs. It DID take months and months and months to ship them and they're still not done. Palladium went back on it's word and started to sell domestically. More over people in Austrailia have bought the damn things off the shelf, weeks (if not months) Ago and the backers still haven't gotten theirs.

Ya know. Sooner or later, people are going to realize that some of us aren't just negative nancy's. Some of us have a clue what we're talking about.

Batting 1000, when it comes to this shit is (depressingly) Telling. We called it on Lumeria, we called it on NG 1 and 2 and we've called every aspect of RTT. That's not just luck.

[MacrossMike]

Feb 24, 2015 18:48:36 GMT Sci-Fi said:

I don't disagree that the project is dead end. Hell it;s DOA right now..Hell it's not even DOA. It's partially stillborn. They've shown no evidence of wave two even after being asked. Which is a bit telling if you ask me. Remember wave two was supposed to be out last year. Wave 1 hasn't even reached all the people. Wave two is supposed to be out in a few months? We've not even seen prototypes, nor heard tell of Palladium getting them. Much less production. Much less shipping from the other side of the planet. Much less Palladium getting them, boxing them and shipping them, themselves.

Yeah... that's the sort of thing I'm talking about.  

When viewed from a process control and project management standpoint, this is like some sort of maddening, nigh-impossible case study in how to f*** up practically every aspect of development, production, and marketing.  I cannot stress enough that the number of issues with Robotech RPG Tactics that could have been avoided or minimized with barely more than a token effort is absolutely bloody tragic.  The shipping issues were particularly irritating, because that could've been solved with one phone call... maybe two hours out of Kevin's busy workday and the backers would've had their shit months before anything went to retail.

The frequency and severity of the issues, and the ease with which many of them could have been prevented or fixed, just sort of leaves you feeling like we ought to be expecting Ashton Kutcher to pop out of the woodwork and announce that we've been punk'd.

Feb 24, 2015 18:48:36 GMT Sci-Fi said:

I don't forsee this thing going much further than it already has. Twenty different problems are crippeling them.

It might get one expansion, maybe two, if so, because they're already contracted some how. I wouldn't bet on anything after that. Even getting that would be surprising in the next 3 to 5 years

Personally, I wouldn't hold out much hope that the Robotech license will last more than a few more years... the franchise has been in a bad way for a long time, but the events of last year were a serious nail in the coffin.  With sales down to levels that justify looking back fondly at the cancellation-rife days of the mid-90's, a significant backlash against Harmony Gold over their exploitation of Carl Macek's memory, an equally significant backlash against Palladium over RRT, and the series of extremely poor choices motivated by arrogance and general contempt for their customers that culminated in making the company's owner look like a complete idiot in front of the worldwide audience and a legendary ragequit, management confidence in the brand is at an all-time low.

After all that, Steve, Tommy, and Kevin are lucky to still have their jobs... but Robotech is effectively dead as an animated property.  We won't be seeing a new series, and probably not even a resolution of Shadow Chronicles with management refusing to put up the dough for development and production.  In practical terms, Palladium should consider the Robotech RPG license to be on borrowed time.

The prospects for the Robotech RPG Tactics game were never good, which in some ways explains their decision to open with the strongest saga (in both commercial and narrative terms), but it was always doubtful they'd ever actually proceed past the Macross Saga.  To invest large amounts of time and energy on the Robotech line when the franchise is on the rocks is just ASKING to get screwed and stuck with unsellable inventory if it goes under.

If Harmony Gold and Palladium Books were clever, they'd be sitting down together to talk codevelopment of original IP... not further tying themselves to IP neither one owns, where one misstep could land one or both of them in a copyright infringement lawsuit or lose them both access to the material permanently.  What they're doing here is as safe and sane as holding an Irish dance competition in a live minefield... one toe out of line and it'll all end in tears.

Feb 24, 2015 18:48:36 GMT Sci-Fi said:

Ya know. Sooner or later, people are going to realize that some of us aren't just negative nancy's. Some of us have a clue what we're talking about.

Batting 1000, when it comes to this shit is (depressingly) Telling. We called it on Lumeria, we called it on NG 1 and 2 and we've called every aspect of RTT. That's not just luck.

Yep... but that doesn't make it any easier for the devoted fans to take.  

Citing the unfortunate truth is often dismissed as "hating" rather than "telling it like it is".