PGS Windows 10 gaming handheld - GPD WIN competitor


So the CEO made a ranting post on the comments section... (line breaks mine):

Our dear backers, I have something important to tell you.

Nearly 2 years ago the idea of PGS was born in my mind. I discussed with gamers around the world, discussed with another engineers, I've made hundreds of tests of reference devices. I created a compact team of people to whom I trust. We were driven by one goal and idea. The idea kept clarifying with details, something was added, something removed. I've visited tens of potential investors, the most of them were agree to invest the project only if we develop the device exceptionally on Android and if we significantly raise the cost. Such a perspective didn't satisfy me, I wanted to create not just a high quality device but also an affordable one, for many people could buy it, its cost would be fair and the device would have groundbreaking features. That's why we've come to Kickstarter.

This funding platform isn't a goldmine for us, Kickstarter is a tool which is intended for the people all over the world to invest in creating the future and the truly revolutionary products.
I'd like to say thank you to all of you who believe us, who also think that the future of portable devices will be driven by such things as PGS. The future is being built by your hands.

Now a word for those who don't trust us and maliciously trying to humiliate and insult our project.

Cancel your pledges and disappear please, this project is a clear SCAM. Isn't that what you think? We don't need any cent from you. Later, if we manage to release the prototype in time, do not return to our project. Cause anyway it's a SCAM for you and the prototype is nothing else but the case from 3D printer and the internals from another finished devices. After the campaign ends and some time passes, our YouTube channel will show the prototype based on a custom PCB. At that time do not make a preorder, don't give it a like, you just close the page and go away.

At the beginning of the next year, when the backers will get the first devices and when the device starts selling on Amazon, do not buy it. It won't be that device you want to see and, by the way, it will be a fake.
During these 7 days, day after day, instead of helping our guys developing the prototype, I keep convincing you, explaining, again and again convincing the skeptical ones. I'll remind, if you have just a bit of disbelief, feel free to cancel your pledge. You can play games on PS Vita and 3Ds (by the way, these are cool devices), at least you can play on Android portable devices, do not believe and do not wait the PGS.

Even if after this post all backers go away and the campaign fails with 0 dollars, anyway we will finish and release the PGS. We will do it because we believe in PGS.
That's all I had to say.

I think he is right about something, and that is that people shouldn't call it a scam. Because a scam implies deliberate deception, taking money with no intent of developing or delivering anything. Unfortunately, people often see KS projects as one of two things: rock solid near-guarantee of delivery as promised or scam. When there's this huge gulf in between where you have well-intentioned project starters who simply don't know what they're doing and lack the budget, schedule, skill, parts, or even plain old compliance with reality needed to deliver their product.

I don't think PGS is a scam. And when people call it one it gives the project ammo to strike back by proving their sincerity and passion. That's no good because ultimately their sincerity and passion don't matter. Their promises and dedication aren't enough. They want trust but trust must be earned. Blind faith is not a good principal for Kickstarter investment.

He says that even if all the Kickstarter money goes away they'll make PGS happen anyway. I can ask how exactly, but I'd rather instead ask this: then why are you doing this Kickstarter? Or at least, why do it before you have anything useful to show? He talks about the prototype but it's not really a prototype. It's not really a proof of concept either, because it doesn't prove anything, at least not really. It's just an illusion. It's playing make believe to convince backers, and I don't know, maybe to convince the creators themselves. He does seem convinced. But that's no good.. that's just delusion. The statement that he'll make PGS happen even without the campaign only makes him look more delusional, doesn't it?

I feel tempted to contribute myself and make my case there, even after he told people not to. But at this stage there's no real point. The creators won't listen and they're way too far past the goal to get enough people to pull out.

It's all really sad. On the one hand we have a lot of people who will likely lose their money and we have a device concept that will be looked at with even more skepticism in the future. But I feel worst for the PGSLab LLC stakeholders themselves. Because they'll be the target of everyone's scorn, and they'll be under real risk of becoming the next big KS failure that resulted in legal action, where the courts awarded the backers substantially more money than they contributed. They are playing with fire here and there's a real risk they'll get burned. I wish they could see that.
 
I didnt call it a scam. I said that if you interpret KS rules, in the best of interest accoding to what PGS provides, anything is indistinguishable for a scam.

"If we release a prototype in time" in time for what, the release of the kickstarter?

"Trust" "team" "we", many passionate words with no actual content.

"Now a word for those who don't trust us and maliciously trying to humiliate and insult our project."
The problem is more-so seeing potential customers two ways, in, or out.

"malicious" At the hight of irony, did I just read that? And reading onwards, there is not a single credible word spent on reassurance on my part. However the convinced may find solace.

Its funny how our "belief" is that important. Unless you are operating a religion, isn't the teller of truth the merchant of proof?

If the custom PCB is created _after_ the campaign ends, that's all the recourse people had, and KS sure isn't liable at this point for anything (I read their whole terms and conditions)

And as the propheszy tells unto us, when in the midst of despair the willing shall overcome the unwilling, and the cretins will take to amazon, wherein they will find great wonder, look at the stars, and ravel at the blessings of the hella fresh idea that I just came up with, then. THEN, will you not be sorry, or will you have squandered, and spent your eyes on Android portable devices TM, (of which use I can not attest to be truthful in its pervasiveness, nor doth the usage rights thereof belong to me)

And on the seventh day, I had still not helpetheth our devs plural with makething the prototype, for I was busy, busy with the Gabens work on the internets. I think not these years of testing reference devices, which must not be mistaketh for the slaketheth off, but instead as a rite of passing to accept starting with the "technical things"
Then will I perchance be no longer for the mock, heavied by the burden of proof. Free, free of hardship! Cast thein vsync away and parttake in these times, for they will be totally OK, I promise, OK.
 
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Didn't he say earlier, that they have Investors, but the Investors want them to do an KS?

https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/th...-gpd-win-competitor.77205/page-8#post-1382136
The good news in that we have finally reached agreement with investors and signed a contract. Thanks to that, the basic price of PGS will start from 230$ as we planned before.
<snip>
As the result, our investors were able to find this video :( They decided that it can be a great idea to evaluate customers demand for device (as well for the first period of promotion) and insisted that the project has to be presented on Kickstarter.
Thanks for lying the KS Backers into the Face.

https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/th...-gpd-win-competitor.77205/page-5#post-1373931
5. Our company is registered in the United States, Detroit. The head office is located in Moscow. Logistics office in China.
Sprawled all over the World? Good no Problem with that, if it works.

https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/th...-gpd-win-competitor.77205/page-6#post-1374554
Thank you for your example. Interesting idea. I'll talk to the engineers.
How if you only have oneEngineer in your Team?

https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/search/242006/


Ether PGSLab here on the Forums is an troll (unlikely), or they/he are Stupid and/or clueless or this is an Scam.
 
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i'm afraid even the best scam artists don't even know they're scamming...

yeah, one of the ways you can find a deluded person is by them requiring you to trust them before you really know them... (and trying to guilt trip you into trusting them, as if you'd be wrong not to...)
 
But what really separates these two scenarios is that with Pandora, and again with Pyra, the teams didn't start taking money before they had credible engineers who did a substantial amount of the necessary work and were clearly able to drive the thing to completion.

True. If they at least had SOMETHING to show... but the team is just a bunch of managers, it seems only one it at least experienced with some PCB design (though probably nothing so complex).
It sounds to me like they have a good intentions but heavily underestimate the work. They probably opened up some tablets and thought "hey, that can't be too complicated, look!".

Yes, things can fail even if properly thought through. Heck, the Pyra could fail, if some showstopping hardware bug would suddenly be found, but we have at least working systems already, so a failure is a lot less likely than with PGS.
 
True. If they at least had SOMETHING to show... but the team is just a bunch of managers, it seems only one it at least experienced with some PCB design (though probably nothing so complex).
It sounds to me like they have a good intentions but heavily underestimate the work. They probably opened up some tablets and thought "hey, that can't be too complicated, look!".

Yes, things can fail even if properly thought through. Heck, the Pyra could fail, if some showstopping hardware bug would suddenly be found, but we have at least working systems already, so a failure is a lot less likely than with PGS.

If the PGS10 fails, the Pyra will be there to cheer me up :)
 
i'm afraid even the best scam artists don't even know they're scamming...

yeah, one of the ways you can find a deluded person is by them requiring you to trust them before you really know them... (and trying to guilt trip you into trusting them, as if you'd be wrong not to...)

What separates them from real scam artists is that when the dust settles they have no money and nothing to show for themselves but a ruined reputation and legal liability.
 
Yes, these kinds of projects give crowd-funding a bad name, the road may be paved with obstacles and skepticism for future hardware projects.
 
I feel tempted to contribute myself and make my case there, even after he told people not to. But at this stage there's no real point. The creators won't listen and they're way too far past the goal to get enough people to pull out.

If you do believe they're delusional and will not have any real chance of succeeding and fulfilling the rewards, is it worth spending effort in trying to convince KS to close the project instead?

I've no idea how to effectively spend time to do that, by the way. From my perspective some pissy blog posts took down that lazer razor thing, but perhaps private emails and messages carried the actual message, I dunno.
 
Being sceptic is a good thing. Weeding out the bads is good. And the good have nothing to fear.
If you can't operate a h-a-r-d-w-a-r-e project without sceptics around, it is not a h-a-r-d-w-a-r-e project.

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, at the least opportune moment. Is the mantra of the engineer.
 
As I said on the Dingoonity forum:

They knew they were going to get slammed, shit I told them they were going to get slammed if they went ahead with the KS with no real prototype - even as late as a day before the KS. They knew not having an explicit working prototype and using photo realistic renders were against KS rules, but despite all that, they went ahead anyway. Can you blame people for reacting obviously and as predicted.

I'm glad they eventually got rid of the photo realistic renders, but why did they launch with them

By the way, Alan Williams is stated as Product Designer in the PGS Video, but in the KS update, he is stated as Community Manager . Strange role shift
 
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If you do believe they're delusional and will not have any real chance of succeeding and fulfilling the rewards, is it worth spending effort in trying to convince KS to close the project instead?

I've no idea how to effectively spend time to do that, by the way. From my perspective some pissy blog posts took down that lazer razor thing, but perhaps private emails and messages carried the actual message, I dunno.

It might be worth it to some, but I'm not going to do it. That's because they aren't breaking any KS rules that I know of. They may have been earlier with their "prototype" vs the renders but they changed the renders. The only thing that could possibly get them is the fact that they did make changes been after receiving a bunch of funding already. I don't know if that's even spelled out as a violation, or if there's even a good evidence trail to show this.

But at its core everything that looks really wrong with this project is also perfectly in line with the spirit of KS's rules and their mentality, so I wouldn't advocate trying to make special pleading for every time a project like this happens. KS is just fundamentally broken, I'd rather put the effort into convincing others to turn to crowdfunding sites with much higher standards and much better processes.
 
@Exophase

Don't forget that one of the KS rules is to explicitly show a working prototype, and in fact , that was the rule that got the Skarp razer booted. Yes, they are still breaking one rule.

But I agree, I wouldn't stoop low and report them.
 
@Exophase

Don't forget that one of the KS rules is to explicitly show a working prototype, and in fact , that was the rule that got the Skarp razer booted. Yes, they are still breaking one rule.

But I agree, I wouldn't stoop low and report them.

I thought the rule was that you needed to show a working prototype if and only if you have photorealistic renders. Hence why they downgraded their render quality.

Skarp Laser Razer could have technically run afoul of that but it was a pretty dumb application of the rule.
 
Short answer, no, that's not the case.

https://www.kickstarter.com/rules/prototypes

I think they changed the wording at some point. Maybe this was the original intent and they updated the wording to be more in line with it. I never thought the old rule made a lot of sense.

When push comes to shove, they're going to argue that they have a prototype and it's really going to come down to KS's opinion of exactly what qualifies as one. On some level someone could argue that what they're showing "does" the function it's supposed to, while on some other level someone else could argue Skarp didn't. I have a feeling that the background, knowledge, and preferences/bias of the KS reviewer play a big role in this, and maybe the level of outside media buzz and negative attention the project is getting along with overall amount raised. And maybe also because Skarp was promising a quite groundbreaking new application of technology that demanded more proof of concept. The Skarp cancellation was not a very ordinary thing to happen, if every project w/o a true well approximating in form/fit/function prototype got booted I think we'd see it happening all the time.
 
Lets be honest here, if people complained to KS, and KS actually got around to seeing those complaints amongst the zillions they must get everyday. Then I'd find it hard to believe they would not toss the PGS project for breaking that rule. Hard to argue a tablet and ipega controller with a rough shell are in the spirit of the rule to explicitly show a working prototype. Even the 3d print connected to third party items didn't even have anaologue sticks in it - just blank holes

That would be like me starting a KS to develop a car, only for me to show a Ford Explorer with no wheels, and doors I made out of foam . I then said, yep, explicit prototype. It aint going to fly.

By the way, to anyone reading this, I do not condone reporting them.
 
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