WM's Magical Game Factory: ProjectY for Mega Drive/Genesis

[BawesomeBurf]

If PP has actually screwed him over, that sucks, but I believe he has brought this all on himself. Red flags went up at PP either because he broke the rules on preorders, or because he had too many refund requests. Had he actually kept investors and customers in the loop about how the game was coming along and not disappearing for months at a time, maybe people wouldn't have been so worried about Paprium being a scam. 

 

It's my understanding though that PP only holds money for 6 months while they investigate. Then the money either goes to the account or refunded to customers. I could be mistaken, but that's what it sounds like from what I've read. 

 

Then Fonzie gets the brilliant idea to just open another PP account in another country. Somehow PP didn't catch it right away, so he goes ahead and takes money from new customers, so he can use those funds to ship to previous customers. New customers get an immediate shipping notification, but no tracking info. So people wait, receive no updates on shipments, and of course Fonzie refuses to respond to questions or tickets on the website. People get scared and start requesting refunds, and trigger's PP's fraud protection yet again. 

 

I applaud him for doing what he could to fulfill the original preorders, but so many of his issues could have been avoided if he just frickin' communicated with people. 

[Crazy Climber]

On 2/28/2021 at 2:53 AM, BawesomeBurf said:

 

I applaud him for doing what he could to fulfill the original preorders, but so many of his issues could have been avoided if he just frickin' communicated with people. 

but...he did communicate until 2018...then paypal took all his money for whatever reason. Any communication would have just been "You are NOT getting your game" lol

[BawesomeBurf]

Not nearly enough. When you have people's money for a future product, it is your responsibility to keep those customers and investors up to date with what's happening with their product. Disappearing for months at a time and coming back with either excuses or the teeniest, tiniest crumb of info isn't great communication. I get that it's a small team and there's a ton of work that goes into releasing something like this, but it's not hard to take a half hour every 2 to 4 weeks to write a quick update. 

 

I backed Bloodstained on Kickstarter, which of course had a much larger team and their own issues, but they were at least smart enough to send email updates every 2 or 3 weeks. They also listened to fan feedback (something else Fonzie has a problem with) and used it to improve the final product. 

[Gentlegamer]

Received Paprium last week. I used a 4.5mm bit to open the cart and remove the loose metal piece inside. Works fine on model 1 + Sega CD model 1.

[Crazy Climber]

15 hours ago, BawesomeBurf said:

Not nearly enough. When you have people's money for a future product, it is your responsibility to keep those customers and investors up to date with what's happening with their product. Disappearing for months at a time and coming back with either excuses or the teeniest, tiniest crumb of info isn't great communication. I get that it's a small team and there's a ton of work that goes into releasing something like this, but it's not hard to take a half hour every 2 to 4 weeks to write a quick update. 

 

I backed Bloodstained on Kickstarter, which of course had a much larger team and their own issues, but they were at least smart enough to send email updates every 2 or 3 weeks. They also listened to fan feedback (something else Fonzie has a problem with) and used it to improve the final product. 

...but what if there are no updates? I don't know, disappearing for months is pretty normal for this stuff. Most of the "updates" would be pretty boring ones that non-developers wouldn't understand anyways. Not sure if you invested in Pier Solar but it was a LONG wait too with very little communication. Pretty much anything from the Neo Geo dev team (Gunlord, Krautbuster, etc) goes YEARS without and significant updates and they have $700 or more of individuals money lol...don't get me started on the lack of communication for Beggar Prince/etc from Super Fighter team, another one I waited years for without so much as an email lol.

 

Just curious, what other fan feedback should fonzie have listened to for Paprium to have been improved? You do know we voted for pretty much everything in this game right? Yes, he asked exactly what we wanted and we told him. Thats pretty much the pinnacle of listening to fan feedback lol

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I've been quiet on all of this but this is my take of how things went down:

 

I wasn't part of the project when it originally started and so I didn't invest in the game until the initial announcement and pre-orders back in 2017. At that time the game was to have supposed to come out that following fall or early winter of 2018 as I recall? 

 

My understanding is that PP locked him out because he took money on a pre-order item and that was against PP rules.

 

Now we start to get into the 3 years where there wasn't much of any communication at all, and everyone that would try and reach out to Fonzie to find out the status of things (including people who had worked on the project), weren't getting any information from him. Then I believe in Oct 2018 is when Fonzie sent out emails to all those who pre-ordered about the Paprium release party to take place in France and inviting those of us to attend. The party did happen but what was shown at the party was far from being a releasable game. Lots of stories came out from that party and I don't think anyone got a straight answer. Things to what was shown was the current state of the game and prototype cart to show code working on actual hardware. And a story that the reason what was shown was so buggy and incomplete was because the proto cartridge used wasn't the right one but something happened to the actual and so that was all that could be shown at the time. Again, I don't believe Fonzie actually stated anything official to answer what was going on at that time. 

 

I honestly figured Paprium would do the same as what happened with Pier Solar. I pre-ordered the game like 2 years in advance, didn't hear much about it and forgot about it. Then right around Christmas of 2010 Pier Solar shows up in my mail box and I had forgotten about it by then. I figured Paprium would be something similar and it basically was. Only this time I was trying to keep up with news on it instead of ignoring it and forgetting about it. I too eventually felt the game would never come to pass and had written off the $70 I spent on my pre-order for the game. Then that surprise email comes in back in December stating they need me to confirm my address. I clicked on the link, amazingly remembered my initial login details and confirmed my address for the order. The week of Christmas Paprium shows up on my front porch but not from the mail man, but from a woman jumping out of the passenger side of a car and dropping it off. I suspect it was delivered to the wrong address initially and the woman who dropped it off sought out my address and delivered it. (Not the first time this has happened to me honestly).

 

So in my case, the game basically was the same way as it was for Pier Solar only an extra year longer. Do I think Fonzie should have communicated more? Absolutely? Am I pleased with the product I received? Totally! As it does work on all of my consoles minus 1 but since it works on my main Genesis console I'm very happy with it and the game play. Do I think Fonzie deserves the razzing that is taking place in the past and currently? To a degree yes, because communication is always key in things like this. I think there would have been less refunds being requested etc. if Fonzie had just shown some progress here and there along the way. I know he wanted to keep the game secret and a surprise, but I don't see any harm in showing a bit of game play on what had already been seen from the release party etc. Keeping the secrets, extra paths, and extra unlockables could have easily been kept under wraps and just shown things here and there so that at least investors and those who pre-ordered like I did would know it was still being worked on. I think there would have been more patience given and more understanding as a whole from the community had that been done.

 

So I will say that going forward, I'm not planning to pre-order anything from WM or a project from Fonzie in the future. I am willing to spend money and buy a completed product from them in the future should they be able to do so.

 

[BawesomeBurf]

The fan feedback thing was directed at both projects. Anytime someone said something that wasn't praising him as some kind of genius, he would either come back by saying something like, 'Let's see you do better', or he would just have a childish hissy fit. It was nice that they had the fan voting at the beginning of the project though.

 

I pre-ordered the Dreamcast release of Pier Solar. At the time, the game was set to release the following month. It didn't come out until about a year and a half later, which is fine, but the communication was piss poor. The updates were all pretty much the same, claiming that the game will be going into production soon. Then there would be 3 or 4 months of complete silence, and then an email with an excuse and the same claim again. I was beginning to think it was a scam due to all the silence and lack of any real info. They eventually did deliver. I would have forgotten all about the delays and terrible communication if the game was good...

 

And yes, even if the update is only going to be understood by like .005% of people, tell us what is going on! 

[MAYAman]

Still locked out of my account and can't claim my special edition!  Customer service doesn't respond.

[Rick Dangerous]

8 Month later i get a random email....these freaking people!  I guess some communication is better than none but i'm well past caring at this point. 

[nick3092]

Supposedly he released some statement that he's working on porting this to Switch. And still promising delivery to everyone who ordered the original cartridge a copy.  I saw a copy of it back then, but don't recall the exact details. 

 

A couple weeks ago TerraOnion publicly offered to work with him so he could sell digital copies that would be locked to a single MegaSD flash cart. A couple days later he went on a crazy tirade of tweets not only shooting that proposal down, but also seemed to sour many people in the community. The guy is clearly unhinged.

[BawesomeBurf]

I heard that he will be running a Kickstarter to fund the Switch port. Does this mean he will be opening a 3rd Paypal account to handle the money?

[jhd]

On 9/25/2021 at 8:53 PM, BawesomeBurf said:

Does this mean he will be opening a 3rd Paypal account to handle the money?

 

Do it Old School style -- send a money order to a PO box (and then hope for the best).

 

I understand that sending prepaid gift cards are another very popular way to make untraceable/unrefundable payments. 

[+jgkspsx]

Apparently Paprium Mini is coming to the Game Gear.

 

 

I backed it knowing I may lose the money or may not get it until 2025, but if you have any kind of track record and plan to release something for the Game Gear you can have some of my money

[Rick Dangerous]

They never sent me the Genesis game, even though I paid in full and followed up with them multiple times, and the website is down currently. 

 

I would never give these people a cent ever again.  I'm going to keep pestering them in perpetuity (when they resurface again) until they send me my damn game!  A-holes. 

Edited January 6 by Rick Dangerous

[Sapicco]

There was a successful Kickstarter last year or so, so WM is still around and still giving updates. The game gear version was part of the campaign. Try to hit the guy up, I got my copy a year or two ago out of absolute nowhere. 

[Rick Dangerous]

Giving this YET another whirl.  enquiries@watermelon-games.com

[Sapicco]

This was the 1/3 update

 

We wish you a happy new year 2023.

Please enjoy (if you can) this small clip made few weeks ago to celebrate two things:

• The arrival of the first Paprium MegaCab to its final destination;
• And... the completion of our Armageddong batch, to be offered to every backer (the most important point of this whole Kickstarter, maybe).

 

The year 2023 will be long but we are working round the clock to ensure a great delivery,

Please note our customer service is still crippled but we have new recruit joining the team in next few days. Thank you for your patience and trust, more will be unveiled shortly!

Best Regards,

WM