Over the next month, enthusiast fans raised $198,185 and were told Delta Six controllers would ship to backers in December 2013, a little over six months later. The peripheral was delayed several times, but the initial batch of controllers began shipping in May 2014. Kotkin Enterprises was intent on fulfilling orders for its highest backers first, folks who'd paid $500.
In subsequent updates, backers were becoming understandably restless regarding the lack of communication about the rest of the orders. The controllers seem to exist, so where were they?
At this point, the project went completely silent. There were no updates about Delta Six for a whopping seven months. There's zero word on what's happening from August 2014 until February 2015. The latest update didn't have encouraging news for the more than 800 people patiently waiting for their Delta Six controller to show up. In fact, they'd now have to pay more.
If you're a backer in the US, an additional $30 is required. If you're international, it's $70.
Apparently, the company running the Delta Six operation is now under new management. The statement admits the project was poorly managed, but it hardly inspires confidence in Delta Six
It's one thing for a project to completely fail or even ship and ultimately be a disappointment. Crowdfunding isn't a guarantee of anything, of course. A handful of Delta Six backers did get their controllers, while the rest have their controllers held hostage because a company that's eating "hundreds of thousands of dollars" isn't willing to float the additional shipping fees.
The way Kotkin tells it, the Delta Six suffered from missteps that befall many Kickstarter projects. Producing a Delta Six would cost more to make than projected, it was taking time to work out the kinks, and the peripheral weighed heavier than expected, costing more to ship.
The $200,000 raised through Kickstarter will apparently not cover the costs of shipping the backers their guns. According to Kotkin, it will be closer to $600,000. This is why backers are being asked to pay a little more.16
Kotkin said the money gap proved problematic enough that Delta Six guns were being sold and shipped to customers on Avenger Controller's website. The backer guns, however, weren't going out.
"I didn't know how to communicate this one [to backers]," he said. "I didn't know how to get this across. To say 'hey, we're selling to other people so it will support the company while we improve the gun.' You understand? There's certain things that wouldn't have gone over well and probably still won't go over well. There's no answer to some of these questions. The only answer was to keep the gun going and make the gun as good as I could."
Delta Six sales were being used to subsidize an updated version of the Delta Six that would eventually ship to backers. Of course, Kotkin never told backers any of this. Instead, six months went by without any word from Kotkin Enterprises. Then, an update asking for more money.
"How do you come out and say some of the issues that were going on?," he said. "I wanted to wait. I also knew I had to bring in a new management team that put things in order and go through the numbers and say what we had to do to survive. [...] It's a can of worms. You say one thing and you spend half your life answering emails, rather than finishing the project and making it as good as I could. I didn't know how to answer it, and any answer might not be good. I didn't know which direction I was going in sometimes."
In our conversation, Kotkin sounded like a man stressed about a delayed project, but one who mistakenly assumed keeping backers in the dark about project delays was the right approach.
If you feel burned by the process, though, there's no refunds. The money's been spent.
"It's an investment," he said. "When you invest in this company, you invest in it. If you did invest in the company, I spent the money on ordering a certain amount of Delta Sixes. So if, all of a sudden, you don't want it, it's [not possible]. It's not like you bought the purchase. You didn't purchase a product. You invested in a company to develop a product in the hope of getting a prize. But I want you to realize I'm honoring the promise. I'm more than honoring the promise, I believe."17
Kotkin said his company has already shipped half of the Kickstarter orders out to backers.
When contacted, Kickstarter would not comment on this project specifically, but pointed me towards their Kickstarter 101 page. In short, backers will need to come their own resolution