Speechless (Language Not Suitable for Young Audiences)

Hmmm, wow.  I am absolutely speechless right now.  You really have to admire talent.  And this is some serious talent I am about to talk about.  So almost 4 years ago a company runs a kickstarter, for a pretty hot IP.  And to this day it still appears a non-trivial amount of backers still have not even received the core content (myself included), let alone everything they backed.  There has been a complete lack of proper communication and a number of faux pas.  Seriously, sending me email coupons for 25% off an order of the stuff I backed in the kickstarter but still have not received!? Also saying if I bought something from the webstore, they would ship my kickstarter along with it!?

So after 3 years (I'm giving a 1 year grace period for immediately after the kickstarter) of this type of behavior, it requires incredible talent to drop something on me that leaves me speechless (if it isn't obvious by now, I'm not really speechless).  Who and what exactly am I talking about?

Oh yeah, that's right:  Prodos Games and the Aliens vs Predator kickstarter.  But see, you might not have noticed what exactly that picture above is of.  Click on it for a larger image, you might have to zoom in on the box.  Go ahead, I'll wait.

See it?  Second Edition...  All new models, protective foam inside the box, no assembly models, redesigned (aka "fixed", maybe) game modes, revised (aka "fixed", maybe) rules and improved art!  How much better are all these things than the original edition?  I have no fucking idea, since I still haven't gotten mine!  And since I recently received notification that mine was now in shipment, almost a month ago, I'm sure I'm getting the "old" edition.

You might be thinking this might not even come out till 2020?  Nope, they claim it will start shipping on March 17th.  Of this year.

I am fucking speechless.  You have to be a seriously talented asshole, idiot, or both to even come up with shit like this.  It almost requires deliberate intent to fuck people over like this.  And this is not even a fuck you to those that haven't gotten our stuff yet.  It's a fuck you to those that have already received their's too.  Perhaps even worse.  Because there is an outside chance (yeah right) that I may actually get the second edition.  And there is an even slimmer chance that if I did, the models might not suck more than the 1st edition ones (I'm going to go out on a limb here but I speculate that 1st edition multi-part models will "look" better than one piece 2nd edition models).  But at least there is that chance.  All that people that have already gotten theirs have to hope for is that Prodos offers the "upgrade" pack (15 pounds retail) to them for free.  And that is pretty wishful thinking IMO.

Now, I suspect that I am actually making this out worse than it is.  I suspect what you see above, advertised as second edition, is actually a scaled down version of the 1st edition game to hit a reduced price mark and to hopefully gain market penetration due to that price point and simpler components.  And it just happens to "utilize" updated rules.  But if that is really the case, the way this was announced is just another faux pas demonstrating how incompetent this company and it's leadership are.  And that still leaves me speechless.

No matter the case, it is important to realize one thing.  For this to have occurred (2nd edition box set with all the mentioned "improvements/changes") Prodos Games had to have had positive cash flow at some point (hard to imagine I know).  And at that point they face a decision:  1)  Dump cash into designing 2nd edition assets or 2) Fulfill their previous promises (ie, deliver their kickstarter).  They choose wrong.

Fuck you Prodos.