soporj Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 This should be the topic of the next Intellivisionaries podcast. 5 hours worth! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Received mine today. I'm not sure if anyone else has commented on this due to 30 posts a day from the same people once again telling us that they haven't received theirs, so I apologize if this is duplicate info. The quality is very nice, but it's certainly different than the original ones. It's less like plastic and more like very glossy paper - bordering on something like Tyvek maybe? I dunno. Definitely high quality but they just don't "feel right". Although I do think these may last longer. The originals tended to wrinkle and lose paint after use. Some of the trimming is sub-par - my Tower of Doom overlays are noticeably long by a mm or 2, and a bit wider Not sure how much it will affect use, but you can see where they were cut from the original sheet. And speaking ToD - it and Spiker both have "Psycho Stormtrooper" on them. The rest all have @2014 IPI so it's pretty obvious they are the new ones, but I do wonder just how close to the 2009 release these are. I guess that's why people are wondering about ebay fraud with this. Overall pretty nice set for the price. I wish I could order a complete 125 set at similar cost (obviously licensing prohibits this). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 (edited) This should be the topic of the next Intellivisionaries podcast. 5 hours worth! It would be a pretty boring podcast: "Hey, here's a business that provided excellent service to most of its customers, and pretty shoddy service to a handful." "So, pretty much like every other business?" "Yup, but this one has forums where people can call them out on it." *Insert 4.9 hours of talk about how the sky is blue, except when it's not* Edited January 27, 2015 by freeweed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soporj Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 It would be a pretty boring podcast: "Hey, here's a business that provided excellent service to most of its customers, and pretty shoddy service to a handful." "So, pretty much like every other business?" "Yup, but this one has forums where people can call them out on it." *Insert 4.9 hours of talk about how the sky is blue, except when it's not* Uh, that's the joke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Uh, that's the joke. OK, it's rare that my humour detector is broken so badly. My hat's off to you! I laughed pretty good at your response, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfy62 Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 I don't mind defending him, for he is a nice and respectable man. When you order THOUSANDS of overlays from a printer, you get something like this: post-39446-0-40736200-1421162596.jpg So comes the opening day of sales and instead of the dozens of orders he was expecting, suppose he gets hundreds. Mr. Robinson does not have access to a sweatshop in Taiwan that will put those together. It will be him, the other person in his staff, and maybe a friend or two picking those overlays--one at a time--building a full packet, verifying that they are complete, and preparing it for shipping. HUNDREDS OF TIMES. I'm glad I'm not involved in that hellish nightmare. Not only that, you have to make sure they go to the right person, the right address. Someone ordered three--make sure you put those aside. Oh, this guy placed two orders, but they are both to different addresses--better not screw that up. We have someone requesting a BSR autograph--darn!--let's make sure we get those straight for the fans. HUNDREDS OF TIMES. So on top of the daunting manual labour involved in handling and packaging the orders, there's the order management side: someone has to pick up the orders from the fulfillment system, someone has to organize them, sort them, print the labels, coordinate with the other staff, etc. HUNDREDS OF TIMES. It quickly became apparent that this was going to be a full time job for a few weeks and that the orders would not make it on time. They apologize to customers with their tail between their legs, humbly announce the delay and asked for understanding, and quickly set up to work. And then the inquiries started coming in. "Where's my order?" "Will it make it for Christmas?" "I ordered three, but only got one!" "Please don't forget to autograph my pack." "I didn't get a confirmation, did you get my order?" HUNDREDS OF TIMES. And, of course, the complaints. "If I don't get my order, I'll cancel!" "These are not the overlays I'm looking for, I want my money back!" "Where's my f*cking order?!" "I ordered on the very first day, why don't I get a response???" "ANSWER ME!!!" HUNDREDS OF TIMES. In the end, these are just people. A very small set of people. It's a small business, used to dealing in very low traffic, and not accustomed to this amount of attention. The irony is that Intellivision Productions, Inc. finally won the jackpot: they hit on a product so attractive to the fans and the masses that they quite literally could not fulfill all the orders or provide the level service they wished to offer. I'm sure a few ulcers come in that package as well. Death by success, I guess. Most of us understand all this intuitively. It's unfathomable to me how people in this forum are so quick to judge and attribute malice to what is absolutely clear the accidental and unintended failures of a small operation gone mainstream. And not even complete failure: people are getting their orders fulfilled, just not as fast as they wished, but there you go. You know what I hate the most about this situation? That this entire thread turned into a bitch-fest for a mere $15.00 pack of overlays. "It's the principle of the thing," some may retort, to which I will answer: Is it the principle of being entitled to have the world cater to your every whim? Is it the principle of demanding personal and immediate attention from an overwhelmed, mostly-one-man operation? The principle of denying your patience and understanding to others when things do not go precisely as you wished? Or perhaps it's the principle of getting a sense of satisfaction from complaining and bitching about trivial things to complete and utter strangers? I say, get some f*cking perspective--how's that principle for you? Dz you and i know we are not always on the same page, my apologies there......but I agree with this! Wolfy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfy62 Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 And i haven't sent an e-mail or actually been worried once. When I spoke to him in person last week he said everything would be ok. It seems like slowly, and yes maybe slowly but surely all of this is coming true. He is clearly overwhelmed by the amount of orders, understaffed as he doesn't release many products so he can't keep employees around full time. I am glad this did not happen to me! Two person operation at most and if the cyber Monday accident didn't happen most of these issues would never have happened whatsoever. Best to all of us, I am positive things will all be fine! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soporj Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 I don't understand why he didn't just hire a couple of workers from a temp agency to help out. That's why those places exist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ignorama Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 I don't understand why he didn't just hire a couple of workers from a temp agency to help out. That's why those places exist. Pretty easy: The product was sold for a dumping price, which means the profit is pretty small. Hire workers isnt very smart in that situation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Pretty easy: The product was sold for a dumping price, which means the profit is pretty small. Hire workers isnt very smart in that situation That's my thinking. This is the kinda thing where I'd like to actually get the whole story, and Keith's overall take on it, just out of pure curiosity. Yeah, he owns all the INTV rights and whatnot, but how often, if ever, has he had to actually deal with orders in any volume? I'm under the impression that he just licenses stuff out and the bulk of his time is spent negotiating, not order fulfillment - sure they sell some items but did they really sell hundreds of Xmas ornaments? Unfortunately business owners are rarely willing to share the real story, especially in situations where it may make them look bad/unprepared. Especially not someone like Keith - I get the impression that he's a fairly proud man, but more than that, that his priorities in life may not line up exactly with ours. That's why I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt here, but realistically - even if he has completely screwed everything up, I don't expect him to come clean on it. Extremely few businesses do. All I know is, the webstore didn't charge me for shipping to Canada, and he made good on that. Even though I'm 95% sure it was a mistake (pretty sure I read elsewhere that shipping was only free to the US). I'll give kudos to anyone who's willing to make good on a mistake that costs them money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soporj Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Pretty easy: The product was sold for a dumping price, which means the profit is pretty small. I don't believe that for a second. Keith would do anything if he couldn't make a buck. I also believe that's why there were no licensed games on the Inty Flashback like there was on the Coleco Flashback. He didn't want to share the money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Tarzilla Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Received mine today. I'm not sure if anyone else has commented on this due to 30 posts a day from the same people once again telling us that they haven't received theirs, so I apologize if this is duplicate info. The quality is very nice, but it's certainly different than the original ones. It's less like plastic and more like very glossy paper - bordering on something like Tyvek maybe? I dunno. Definitely high quality but they just don't "feel right". Although I do think these may last longer. The originals tended to wrinkle and lose paint after use. Some of the trimming is sub-par - my Tower of Doom overlays are noticeably long by a mm or 2, and a bit wider Not sure how much it will affect use, but you can see where they were cut from the original sheet. And speaking ToD - it and Spiker both have "Psycho Stormtrooper" on them. The rest all have @2014 IPI so it's pretty obvious they are the new ones, but I do wonder just how close to the 2009 release these are. So these are noticeably different from the ones that came with the Flashback? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ignorama Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 So these are noticeably different from the ones that came with the Flashback? I guess he ment the overlays from the 80s And the material is pretty good, just the cut could be better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 So these are noticeably different from the ones that came with the Flashback? Ignorama is right - I mean compared to the ORIGINAL original My FB is boxed and hiding for a bit so I haven't compared, sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 So these are noticeably different from the ones that came with the Flashback? OK - dug stuff out and compared. They're very much different than the FB overlays. With the FB overlays, you can see through them when you look at the reverse. The new ones have a solid white backing (pretty sure it doesn't peel off but haven't tried). The front of the new ones is much glossier and more reflective as well. It kinds feels this way to me: you know how the FB overlays feel a little less like sheets of plastic than the original 80s ones? Well, take that difference another step further and you have the IPI ones. The material for both seems fine, but when you hold the 2 in your hands and compare, the AtGames ones definitely feel more "80s" to me. I don't have any homebrew overlays so I can't compare to any of those. I suspect quality is all over the map with them. There's certainly nothing wrong with the IPI overlays and I hope I don't sound like I'm saying that. I was just surprised at how different they feel. My fingers know that Mattel plastic so well that anything different just seems weird. They DEFINITELY feel nicer than the later INTV Corp paper-like overlays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Does anyone know when the overlays will start shipping? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Does anyone know when the overlays will start shipping? Start? Several weeks ago. Finish? No idea. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soporj Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Start? Several weeks ago. Finish? No idea. I'm pretty sure that was the joke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmart604 Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Does anyone know when the overlays will start shipping? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 I'm pretty sure that was the joke. Well, Keith's never emailed me personally to tell me, so I don't know how accurate my numbers are. Just trying to help out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric7100 Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 It must be nice to physically feel ANYTHING from Intellivision Productions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tron Unit Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 It must be nice to physically feel ANYTHING from Intellivision Productions. Dude we get it. You don't have yours yet. You remind us of that at least 20 times each day. Probably the reason why Keith is ignoring you. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric7100 Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Dude we get it. You don't have yours yet. You remind us of that at least 20 times each day. Probably the reason why Keith is ignoring you. What will be your response to me if I don't receive my overlays in say, two years from now? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 What will be your response to me if I don't receive my overlays in say, two years from now? I know what my response will be: "Dude, it's been two years, can we stop with the hour-by-hour updates?" Although I would hope you'd relent or get banned by then. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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