Official Response from VG History Museum Staff About Storage Locker Robbery Requested

[portnoyd]

Since Frankie locked the last one, here's a new one.

I'm requesting some sort of response from the staff about this incident. It is not 'senseless shit'; it concerns the people who donated for storage lockers for the museum - the whole point of the museum Kickstarter. When they get robbed, the people who paid for them need to know. It's pretty clear that Joe will let this incident die and be buried if he can.

It is unreasonable that someone should have to contact them for information. When they made the public part of the process, that tactic became moot. Make a statement. They have been lax to do so in any form of media.

Lock, delete or bury this thread and we'll let Kotaku, Joystiq and Game Informer dig up the story to let the backers know.

[otoko]

I completely agree. This is grade A bullshit. Where's the answers?

[Ed Oscuro]

It's sad that DP folks tried to do something nice and were robbed, but being fellow victims in this doesn't mean, to me, that there's no duty to the kickstarter members. Whether or not people were too busy to do things in a timely fashion, or whether or not there was a real effort to get it done, legally there is still a requirement to get it done or provide a refund:

https://ksr-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/creator-responsibility.png

I don't want to imagine that the reason for not being transparent about it is an attempt to wiggle out of any kind of legal obligation coming into force, but the fact is, people have nothing to show for their money and that alone would seem to be enough to take action, if that's what happens. I think people would be much more understanding and supportive if something was shown.

[digitalpress]

Since Frankie locked the last one, here's a new one.

I'm requesting some sort of response from the staff about this incident. It is not 'senseless shit'; it concerns the people who donated for storage lockers for the museum - the whole point of the museum Kickstarter. When they get robbed, the people who paid for them need to know. It's pretty clear that Joe will let this incident die and be buried if he can.

It is unreasonable that someone should have to contact them for information. When they made the public part of the process, that tactic became moot. Make a statement. They have been lax to do so in any form of media.

Lock, delete or bury this thread and we'll let Kotaku, Joystiq and Game Informer dig up the story to let the backers know.

Sorry I haven't been around, what is it you want to know? Here's the basic deal:

1) One of our storage lockers, specifically the one holding half of our arcade cabinets, was broken into. 8 machines were stolen.
2) While en route to Game Developer Conference, Sean and John connected with our local Vegas guys who had already sniffed out the culprit. Seems someone had scored a major haul, posted it on KLOV and the combination of machines was too coincidental to NOT be ours.
3) That major haul included 6 of the 8 missing machines, and we coordinated their safe return with the buyer. John is in the process of filing a police report and we're pretty sure we know (thanks to the buyer) who took them and may even be able to recover those 2 lost machines.

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for. I'll try to follow along over the next few days; still re-organizing from our PAX East and GDC exhibits and getting ready for E3.

Joe

[Kitsune Sniper]

Edit:
Ninja'd by Joe. Go figure. Well, it's something...

[portnoyd]

That's exactly what was requested. Were these the storage lockers purchased with the Kickstarter money?

[digitalpress]

That's exactly what was requested. Were these the storage lockers purchased with the Kickstarter money?

We cover storage with our own money, as we have with CGE for many years before there was talk of a museum. The Kickstarter money went into the storage WITHIN the lockers themselves, primarily mobile cases and heavy duty and easier to organize containers. We've also used that funding to make some of our exhibits happen - and as a result of that, we've got enough word out where we're starting to see sponsorship money for events now. Truth is, we've been very conservative with that Kickstarter money and would prefer not to use it until we are making some money on our own.

The best news of all is that it looks like we're going to recover all but 2 machines, and they're both pretty easy to replace. If we can reclaim their cash value through small claims we will be "whole again".

Since I'm here, thought I'd plug our latest show, videos from joystiq and kotaku at Game Developer Conference last week:
http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/27/take-a-tour-of-the-videogame-history-museum-at-gdc-2013/

http://kotaku.com/a-retro-video-game-exhibit-to-make-your-inner-collector-458775299

Hope everyone is doing well!

[skaar]

Some good news on the recovery of items and what was lost - that would have been devastating!

[SOL BADGUY]

What two arcade games havent been recovered? I didnt donate any, just curious.

[digitalpress]

What two arcade games havent been recovered? I didnt donate any, just curious.

One was "War Assault", which is one of three linkable units. We gave the other two units to the buyer who returned the machines to us. The other was a converted "Ms. Pac-Man", which was last seen at CGE 2k12.

[Greg2600]

Glad to hear it worked out positively Joe.

[Griking]

One was "War Assault", which is one of three linkable units. We gave the other two units to the buyer who returned the machines to us. The other was a converted "Ms. Pac-Man", which was last seen at CGE 2k12.

It's nice to see that you're somewhat still around.

It's a shame that you aren't more active and visible

[InsaneDavid]

It's nice to see that you're somewhat still around.

It's a shame that you aren't more active and visible

I'll echo this. All in a positive manner just the same. :)

This was an interesting ride to read about at KLOV, glad things worked out as well as they did.

[Ed Oscuro]

Interesting reads about the recovery, the guy who sent word out is a saint.

But the damn mongrels that treated a Computer Space like that..! I didn't read anything about them but I think that's for a good reason, so I won't ask more. But they should be put to work cleaning out that one rat-infested machine I read a post about... LOL