Barcadia is a “success” (!?)


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P. Ness
P. Ness
1 year ago

It’s 14 days since their campaign ended, so Kickstarter should be paying out the jackpot soon.

Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  P. Ness

I saw the website is up. With what must be stock photos. Also, pinball? there was no mention of that in the campaign. https://www.barcadia.uk/

Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Yep, I looked into buying one about 6 years ago. There’s a lot to go wrong, the youtube channel Joes Classic Video Games showed me all the repairs needed. You can of course go down the virtual route but then anyone can get one of those at home.

Tapewormz
Tapewormz
1 year ago

I believe they won’t last a year. They won’t be able to maintain these machines once they start to break down (which will be frequently). They probably achieved their goal with a few shill accounts since it was an all or nothing campaign.

Thanks for covering this story George!

Stevie Aaron
Stevie Aaron
1 year ago

What is this “amazing vegan food” angle supposed to even be? If the idea is to aim this thing at retro gamers, or gamers in general, vegan food is the last thing on their minds. Have you seen the state or most of them? They don’t give a shit about their diets! This is just more hipster bollocks for the sake of it. Bust out the 13cm tall cheese burgers and cater to your intended audience ffs.

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Stevie Aaron
Stevie Aaron
1 year ago
Reply to  Stevie Aaron

Excuse my spelling mistake there but… I’m busy… eating… fries and burgers… and trying to play 1943 at… RETRO REPLAY!

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An OK Boomer
An OK Boomer
1 year ago
Reply to  Stevie Aaron

True. Most retrogamers are fatties that enjoy their dead animals and grease. You can tell Pete isn’t a real retrogamer because he pays way too much attention to his appearance.

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Stevie Aaron
Stevie Aaron
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Oh my god. He really does.

7EA5B7D7-616D-4DD8-B6F4-EA520EE6F79D

An OK Boomer
An OK Boomer
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Nailed it.

Juganawt
1 year ago
Reply to  Stevie Aaron

There’s no such thing as “Amazing Vegan Food”.

There’s:

“this is shit, no wonder why most Vegans are miserable cunts”

“This is like Cardboard and barely within the legal definition of food”,

and

“This isn’t too too bad, y’know, considering it’s Vegan Food”.

Frot hat
Frot hat
1 year ago

The bank manger must have pissed himself laughing when they presented their ‘business plan’

“Hey Susan, guess what those two just asked for….you’ll never get it so I’ll tell you.
A ‘YouTuber’ who has no experience in retail, and a lady with a debt heavy snakes and ladders shop want to borrow a load of money… guess what for!?? They want to open a bar down stabby-stabby-willy-out street, rent out a few electricity guzzling arcade machines and change people for them, AND they want to have serve expensive Vegan food.
… I know right! Not only that, but there’s an established business down the road which charges a single fee to play ALL the machines, and the snakes and ladders shop the lady owns, is also a vegan food place….. I know! It’s a niche market in a pissy area AND they want to make it more niche by cannibalising their other business!! And get this…. They want to do this during a cost of living crisis where we have high energy costs and the cost of borrowing is the highest it’s been in 15 years!!! …so I told them to F off and start begging”

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Bone
Bone
1 year ago
Reply to  Frot hat

Love that road name.

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Norwich Bike
Norwich Bike
1 year ago
Reply to  Frot hat

…and his proposed business name was “Shots and Slots”.

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An OK Boomer
An OK Boomer
1 year ago
Reply to  Norwich Bike

To be fair, “Shots and Slots” would be a good name for a bar in that part of Norwich, though some of the punters walking through the door might be disappointed when they find that the titular slots are not what the kinds of slots they were expecting.

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Really?
Really?
1 year ago

Just released: https://youtu.be/feC9UX8PyQk
Excuses from Octavius King

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Frisky Dingo
Frisky Dingo
1 year ago
Reply to  Really?

“Louis?” “Lewie”? This is a new one. But the rest is the same shite as always.

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An OK Boomer
An OK Boomer
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Octavius would probably make more money if she left YouTube and went to OnlyFans. She wouldn’t even have to nude up. I’m sure she still has plenty of simps thirsty enough to spend 50 quid on a jar of her bath water or whatever.

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Ross Sillifant
Ross Sillifant
1 year ago
Reply to  George

WTF is it with these people and the hollow talk of ‘Wahhh i’ m leaving YT’.OHHH NO I’M NOT’.

It’s the worst kind of pantomime going.

Just piss or get off the pot.

Anyone, literally anyone can do what they are doing.

Probably better if they had better researchers than the limp dicks they currently use.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Ross Sillifant

Yep, it’s the social media equivalent of a DFS sale. “Sale ends soon” when DFS seems to have a sale on pretty much every day.

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Frisky Dingo
Frisky Dingo
1 year ago
Reply to  George

LOUIE needs to step away from YouTube, twitter, the lot. He/they/whatever is clearly extremely mentally disturbed or at least, struggles very much with the pressures of being a creative persona online. Louie needs to embark on some self care immediately.

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James P
James P
1 year ago
Reply to  Really?

My name is Lilly ? Not Sarah. I am sure this video will be saved and looked it in detail by many people. Hopfully she gets the support she needs, I am still not sure she should be making videos. However thats not my call. Hopefully she finishes the book that people have paid for

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James P
James P
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Er ok whatever makes them happy. Just looked at Twitter and the bio now reads “Louis he/they box of frog”

For the record life is hard and sometimes far to short so call yourself whatever makes you happy. Looks like they have had the sense to stay clear of this bar mess

Frot hat
Frot hat
1 year ago
Reply to  Really?

“Me me me me me me me *deep breath* me me me me me me….”

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fierce onion
fierce onion
1 year ago
Reply to  Really?

I have more than enough experience with anxiety to know that the first thing a CBT approach calls for is to face it. I was ignoring it for about a year then had to take a few months off work to get the help I needed as it physically made me ill.

If you drop your head in the sand like octavious has you will fucking fester away, as much as I pity what she’s going through at this point she’s doing it to herself as the easy option.

Facing it and using your own brains logic centres and making new pathways to stop the panic cycle is the only fucking way to do it.

Why define yourself like this, fuck living as your own victim.

fierce onion
fierce onion
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Her books going to be bleaker than being stuck on a bus with 52 Jewish kids watching Schindler’s list on one of those old 14 inch CRTs stuck on a bus ceiling surrounded by fibreglass and cheap carpet while breaking down in the middle of a mains gas leak.

She needs to get out more and stop with all the victim shit, what the fucks wrong with writing a book about feeling happy.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  fierce onion

Seems to me the worst thing you can do is revisit games and other creative works which take you back to a particular troubling time in your life. There’s songs I can’t really play because they remind me of a very bad relationship I had. So to regress back to times of much worse and then wonder why you’re relapsing?

Retro Replayer
Retro Replayer
1 year ago
Reply to  Really?

Jesus wept. How many personas can one person have… It’s Louis .. no Sarah… No Octy… Oh wait she’s just a fictitious character, or is she? Fuck sake. She’s clearly disturbed. And she’s studying to be what… a psychologist. Fuck sake…. Five minutes with her and anyone sane would be jumping out the window. It would be like having the Joker and Harlequin as your psychologist. You’d come out more fucked up than you did before you went in.

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Food for financial thought
Food for financial thought
1 year ago

If the “last big backer” ensures they use a credit card that will bounce (one of those onetime disposable numbers, for example) the campaign will still succeed but there will be no need to pay back the person who made the pledge, and no 10% tax taken by Kickstarter- meaning it would be *free* to rig the completion…

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James P
James P
1 year ago

Now that is interesting to know

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James P
James P
1 year ago

Well its been funded, now time to watch this train wreak over the coming months. My money is on it being closed by winter. Some of the KS comments I cant even tell if they are trolling are just deluded
“Thank you so much for your efforts to recreate the magic of the arcade days, I can’t wait to play games, eat awesome vegan food, meet fellow gamers and finally have a place to just nerd out!
I think this will be a fun and popular place in time, and a real step towards bringing some fresh new life to Prince of Wales St (which it desperately needs, IMO!)
Best of luck, I’ll be there as soon as the doors open! :D”

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  James P

They’ll go once, see the food is £18 for a burger and never bother again.

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James P
James P
1 year ago

I wonder if Peter has pushed things too far with this. Yes it has been “funded” with some real backer money. However a lot a people are very angry at this one, he might have just poisoned the well him him and all those who are involved in the secret club they clearly all in. This business does not need to exit, Slice and Dice is close by as is another arcade place. That is more than most towns / cities in the UK will ever have. I have been in this hobby for a very long time and have seen people come and people go but this is bad. Ashens was on twitch last night doing some watch party of some shitty film over 500 watching, one 30 second plug from him could have sent a lot of them to the KS but no nothing. Like others have said if they community really wanted this it would have been funded in hours and gone way over target. The comments on the KS are a right mess one of the worst I have seen for an active project. I have spoken with a few people who have backed, just so they can get access to the discord to watch this mess unfold to them £10-£20 is worth it just for the laughs. Anyone who read news knows how bad things are right now with the price of everything rocketing Like George said vegans are not on the bread line worrying about how much money they have for food this week. Peter and Co are clearly in some bubble where the economy is going great and people have a lot of disposable income for £18 burgers at lunch. If I was local Slice and Dice does look like the kind of place I would stop for a coffee however that would be once in a blue moon / on a holiday. However it also feels like the kind of place I would get a lecture about my leather shoes along with my coffee

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James P
James P
1 year ago
Reply to  George

I am glad that I am not the only one who is angry at this. I am not even sure how much of a Peter thing this is. Yes he might be vegan and like arcades but running a business like this takes a lot of work. To me it smells of upper middle class “liberal guilt” Like I keep saying the Slice and Dice business is clearly way more involved than they are letting on. Its clearly not an arcade at happens to sell vegan food. Its a vegan pub that has a few arcade machines that will only be turned on at times will have the machines on. The place looks massive so god knows how many staff they will need and how much they will need to turnover just to keep the lights on. I cant see Peter running food out to tables or pulling pints.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  James P

Will the alcohol be vegan too? only there’s a lot of it which isn’t because it gets cleared with finings made from fish bladders (isinglass).

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An OK Boomer
An OK Boomer
1 year ago
Reply to  James P

The fact that Ashens didn’t give the Barcadia Kickstarter a plug during said watch party speaks volumes.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  An OK Boomer

He needs to focus on the day job. His videos lack to comedic spectacle, they’ve never been the same since all the bad pound shops closed.

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Anonymous User
Anonymous User
1 year ago
Reply to  Bert

Says a lot that Ashens’ most popular YouTube videos are all a decade or more old, and he rarely uploads anything there these days (the few he does produce are retreads of old topics). The TV career he seemed to long for never happened either.

Chief Kegwin
Chief Kegwin
1 year ago

Something smells rotten in Norwich.

…I’m told Vegan food just smells like that regardless.

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Pat The Junkie
Pat The Junkie
1 year ago

I know all these guys from the circle jerk!

I supply them

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BarrymoreConstructionsLTD
BarrymoreConstructionsLTD
1 year ago

I have my own business and theres no way it wii last more than 8 months and NN will be back making videos about how brown the C64 is.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago

They will open, get the summer trade which will create an illusion of success and then be in with a huge shock once the weather goes downhill.

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Kingrock
Kingrock
1 year ago

I pretty much knew NN’s character years ago, I haven’t watched his videos for years, but his earlier content seemed to say how often as a kid (we’re the same age, 40) he’d go through a new system (even if second hand) merely months between them, taking his words as gospel, that he got /this/ system and /that/ console in xxxx year, means he must have been a spoiled as a kid; and it’s that background that shows through in many of these YouTubers.

Last, always, always, be wary of someone who has to point out their virtues in life. I learned that very early in life when I saw all these so-called Christians at the church my mom took me to, pointing out their do-gooding for all to see and hear; when behind closed doors they were shagging around, committing fraud, evading tax, talking ill of people with less wealth, making homophobic and racist attacks and more…needless to say, I’m not religious as an adult. The fact that so many of these YT folks spend more time pointing out their virtues says more about them than anything else.

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Frisky Dingo
Frisky Dingo
1 year ago
Reply to  George

For me, it was the “so. Get. Involved. ” in the kickstarter that made me gag. Firstly, backer “involvement” is little more than being a silent contributor to someone else’s project, in exchange for practically fuck-all. And the presumptuousness of expecting everyone to come flocking to help because theyre “celebrities”.

The relative silence of the other usual suspects on the scene speaks volumes. They’ve barely said a positive nor critical thing about it, strange when they’ve been all too happy to wade into a controversy to get their two cents in. Kim Justice and Quang’s last-moment involvement feels to me like it was precipitated by a bit of begging on Peters part. Trista Bytes doesn’t appear to have touched it with a ten foot gaming chair either. Usually they all come out to cheer on their pals. But not this time. I think mostly they know that recent grifts, lies, and scams have made many people skeptical and they’re keeping away in case they look complicit. Barcadia represents a sea change in the UK retro gaming scene, which I believe will culminate in the evaporation of the “celebrity” status of the likes of NN, Octav1us, Slopes, THGM et al. And about time too.

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KevinChampion
KevinChampion
1 year ago

I got to say this news is vile and disgusting on all levels. The pub is a grade II and while many of you nerds may think so wot? This is a prized piece of local Norwich architecture. If it cant be restored to a pub then it should remain closed. Its not fit for a pub, which is a british insitution historically to be turned into an arcade. Its a fucking disgrace that video games should have any place in a historical pub. It would be like turning the Albert Hall into a brothel. As for you nerds half of you here live with your parents and dont go out, so why on earth the Nerd thinks he will have customers is anyones guess.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  KevinChampion

That’s probably why it has stood empty for 5 years. I wonder if they’ve got some sort of state aid or introductory offer to get it open again. Anyone that has rented a house knows the rent always goes up after the initial contract has expired.

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ruskie
ruskie
1 year ago

Congratulations to NN and his other half on this twattery and skullduggerly. Throw enough shit at the wall and some of it will stick. The shit in this instance, is the Kickstarter (simp) audience. When the business goes tits up, will the “investors” throw yet more money, or will it be once bitten twice shy…

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Dr Mastiff
Dr Mastiff
1 year ago

Dazz (DYKW), Ashens and NN have collectively 3.5 Million Subscribers, not to mention the circle jerk affiliates who shilled for the Kickstarter! So, for argument sake let’s say a potential reach of 3.7 to 3.9 Million people! And it only received 345 backers…(well 343 if you don’t count the 2 “sponsor” pledges).

My points are:
1. Surely if you are NN and look at the Subscriber to Backer ratio (even using his own 500k subs) it would show that 99.9% of your subscribers don’t give an actual fuck about your Barcade.

2. If the “sponsors” were really sponsors then why did they leave it to the dying hours to pledge, and secondly if they were legit sponsors why was there sponsorship donated through Kickstarter, anytime I dealt with sponsors, you pitched to them and they gave to the money you were looking for PRIVATELY, away from any other investments.

3. After reading Dazz’s comments on Twitter he stated that “Why would they jeopardise there campaign by putting in the money themselves…well it’s because there was never anything to lose! If kickstarter found out (they would do nothing anyway) but worse case would be that the campaign would close and they would receive nothing anyway, so surely the risk is to fund the extra 4K yourselves for the bigger prize!

Chinny Hill was absolutely correct though, you watch and wait, this isn’t over..next it’ll be a Kickstarter for The Making of..Barcadia book, then when the business inevitably starts going tits to the wind it’ll be either a Kickstarter to keep it afloat or a patreon with a free token system to help keep it funded on a monthly basis, the grift will never stop!! and sadly people will keep firing money into it because ….”It’s my favourite Z list YouTubers running it..and they care about me!!!” It complete fucking nonsense!

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An OK Boomer
An OK Boomer
1 year ago

Congrats! Not just to Pete and Sam for hitting their funding goal, but also to George. Can’t wait to see the videos George will make when Barcadia goes tits-up in 6 months’ time.

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Jimmy Chan 'Top Lawyer/ ex rimming pornstar'
Jimmy Chan 'Top Lawyer/ ex rimming pornstar'
1 year ago
Reply to  An OK Boomer

Did u say tits

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An OK Boomer
An OK Boomer
1 year ago

Yep. And there are plenty of them in the British retrogaming scene.

Chris - TRVG
1 year ago

Let’s hope this vegan burger for the price is one of the best ones on the market second to none outside of the 6 arcade machines

As I suspect Peter hasn’t considered the UK fast food review influencers will be after this bar for content and they’re a vicious bunch.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris - TRVG

Vegan food should be cheaper than meat given that it’s all just plants which are way less expensive to raise, most of the time you only need rain and sun. But like anything “ethical” they double the price.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  George

There’s that annoying Jack Monroe person, the one that was poor and then wrote a book about how to cook things when poor. The Graund featured her all the time. But she’s a bit dim, in a recent book she said if you don’t have a can opener you can use a hammer and a screwdriver. Plus instead of a rolling pin, use a bottle filled with water frozen in the freezer. That got her book pulled on safety grounds. Plus who on earth has a screwdriver and hammer but can’t afford a tin opener? Plus does freezing water somehow magically make it weigh more and work better for rolling stuff? you’re more likely to get bloody cold hand and drop the blooming thing.

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Frot hat
Frot hat
1 year ago
Reply to  Bert
Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Bert

Oh I’m hardly surprised. Such people rant about the government but then take every perk and bit of government money going. Much like Scargill and his “right to buy” flat application.

Bazz
Bazz
1 year ago
Reply to  Chris - TRVG

TripAdvisor, Yelp…

Bone
Bone
1 year ago

Well then. Didn’t see this coming.

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Gordon Ramsay's left eyebrow
Gordon Ramsay's left eyebrow
1 year ago

When you stop, step back, and think this thru, if you back this on Kickstarter (dont get me started on that – I will just stick to my point), you are puttting your money into a business project, so, surely you are allowed to ask a few pertinent questions?
Imagine going on Dragons Den and asking for £25k, and when Peter Jones starts asking you a few hard questions about your plans, what they money will be used for etc, you get abusive and call him a troll…
It beggars belief…..

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago

You just know they’re going to do an update and talk about all the haters and trolls. The word they are looking for is sceptics and when you are sceptical it is for them to convince you, sell your their idea and vision. To merely call you names and block your comments just shows they are not proficient in business.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Something to do with him doing very little work, getting paid a reasonable amount and possibly having a few women on the go? (pure speculation, but most “personalities” can’t resist).

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Frisky Dingo
Frisky Dingo
1 year ago

This is exactly why they chose Kickstarter. Sam even said it herself in the comments – KS backers aren’t investors, and don’t need to be shown any business plans. (even though it would have been a super good-faith gesture to share their plans for the money, to assuage any fears). That’s when I knew they had nothing by contempt for their backers.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Maybe he didn’t want to say he is in a relationship with Sam because he’s got a few people he’s seeing. Might have told them that Sam is strictly business. Of course this is playground level chat, but when answers aren’t given people fill in the gaps with their own speculations.

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Bazz
Bazz
1 year ago
Reply to  Bert

I think Peter might like his sausage seasoned with a bit of Daz Automatic.

Bob Flemming
Bob Flemming
1 year ago

What a complete farce this campaign is, thieving fucking twats. Some people did say this would get over the line with a few hours left with some help from some twatty family members or idiots pledging a few grand and getting it back when funded. Don’t wish things bad to happen to this place but hope it falls on it’s arse, nothing more than these Z list YouTubers deserve with their begging videos and talking “I’m Done with YouTube” bollocks…..get fucked Peter you smarmy prick. Going to cull some people I follow on YouTube , there are still a few out there who get on my tits. I might go to the bar and shit in their burgers, give it some flavor.

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Collieuk
Collieuk
1 year ago

Some cutting swipes there George. Don’t hold back fella! We all expected this, but part of me thought they couldn’t be so brazen about it. But just like some sort of retrogaming based freemasons, they’ll club together and help each other out. Then publicly high five each other. Oh and thank the everyday folk too who made it all possible of course. Unbelievable. I’ve been making retro videos for nearly 16 years now and never seen the need to watch anything these later arrivals put out, nor have I paid any attention to any of their no doubt groundbreaking, well researched and mind blowing video exclusives! So I went into this campaign fairly neutral. Now, however, their conduct in this campaign alone has made them come across as self-important, smug, arrogant attention seekers who wouldn’t think twice about taking advantage of their viewership if it meant gaining a leg up. They may be lovely people in real life, (maybe they nurse wounded pigeons back to health in their spare time) but there’s no excuse for treating people for mugs, and taking advantage of their good nature.

Honestly, the best “content creators” in this crowded field of appendage-wavers are those that go about it without fuss, without the need for self-aggrandisement and do videos for the sheer fun of it. That’s why folk like George will always have an air of authenticity about their videos that these wannabe influencers and excrement expeditors will never have. I look forward to the next videos.

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Frot hat
Frot hat
1 year ago
Reply to  George

They should have a new slogan “protect the revenue stream at all costs”. I do wonder what other ethical lines they’d cross to keep the machine going?

Bazz
Bazz
1 year ago
Reply to  George

We don’t even know what hours they’ll be open as the pricks censored anyone who dared to ask. I’d bet on them opening for lunch only. Definitely not late into the night.

Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Bazz

That will be the first negative review I’m sure “We travelled from the midlands to try out this new Barcadia and it was closed”.

Frisky Dingo
Frisky Dingo
1 year ago

It’s beyond the pale. The most transparent grift I think I’ve ever seen. And yet, people continue to chuck their pennies into this poisoned well, despite the most obvious evidence that they just pushed themselves over the line, to secure the money pledged by everyone else. What is it about these personality vacuums that makes everyone in the UK retro community so eager to kiss their talentless arses? This surely signals the final death throes of the YouTube retro gaming “celebrity”, surely there will be no goodwill remaining for anyone else who tries this kind of shenanigans again.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Frisky Dingo

In the 1980s a grifter was a crap Raleigh bike that weighed a ton and made you look poor when your mates all had BMXes.

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Frisky Dingo
Frisky Dingo
1 year ago
Reply to  Bert

Ahh, nostalgia.

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Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Frisky Dingo

You might say I’m something of a nostalgia nerd, but without the scruffy tramp beard.

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Chinnyhill10
Chinnyhill10
1 year ago
Reply to  Frisky Dingo

I’ve asked myself time and time again., why is the money so easy to come by?

I can only think we need to look wider than retro. It’s the influencer thing. You are invited in to their lives, they share stuff about how happy and sad they are. They live stream stuff and chat away. They are your friend, you live through them,

It’s a brand and from that brand you can extend out. If you are big time you launch a perfume or a set of bum implants. If you are a risk adverse retro YouTuber who wants a fast buck, you write a book. Doesn’t matter if it’s crap. After all the suckers aren’t going to be reading it in Waterstones pre-purchase are they? They paid for it months in advance! And if the book doesn’t come out you just say you were sad but you tried really really hard. Or, as some people have done, you vanish off the face of the planet.

I don’t begrudge people making money. But I want them to be straight with me. You doing it for the love or because it’s better than doing another job more suited to your talents? How can you pretend to be an expert when every word that comes out of your mouth is written by someone else? When you have no love for the actual gear and can’t give a real opinion for fear of offending some of your audience? You have banal offend nobody output with no real opinions and you sit there reading the autocue dead eyed while waving your arms around to distract from ‘autocueitus’.

There are probably people reading this who think I’m a prick. That’s fair enough. But what would really wind me up is if someone thought I didn’t have a genuine love of this hobby or didn’t speak my own words.

The thing is not to let these idiots impact the rest of us. I enjoy sharing stuff with people. The good, the bad. The things running a Youtube channel has given me is meeting new people and being forced to discover new stuff outside my Amstrad/Spectrum/C64/Amiga comfort zone. I probably wouldn’t own an MSX without having the channel and that’s been a vast journey of discovery at times. Likewise getting my BBC out of storage and going “right about time I used this properly”. Yes I could probably do this without a channel but if I can encourage a few people along the way to try stuff out, it’s worth it.

Also Alan Sugar pays me 25 grand a year to shill for Amstrad, and lads, that makes it all worthwhile.

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Chinnyhill10
Chinnyhill10
1 year ago
Reply to  George

I suspect many people are oblivious to what goes on and just take stuff at face value. I’m reminded of all the timeshare stuff in the 80’s. All sorts of people screaming “don’t do it” and people just walking into it anyway.

The only crumb of comfort I have is many of us were involved in the scene before these people arrived (be it posting on forums or whatever) and we’ll hopefully be here when these people are long gone.

And don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of new people getting interested in the 8 and 16 bits. And what motivates me is just trying to show it’s accessible and interesting. But it has to be for the right reasons. Be it seeing a new Vic 20 game (just been playing a superb new racing game) or getting someone interested in a system that have never used rather than sitting in their single machine silo (yes I know we all argued our corner at school but my secret dream was to own them all!).

Perhaps this happens to every hobby when the money moves in. It feels a far cry from the days of reading on CSS that Retro Gamer had launched and then it might go monthly. This seemed like madness. A magazine about old computers? Surely the only people who cared were the saddos like me posting on Usenet. This was going to fall on its arse! I was wrong! We were at the start of something.

Let alone I might have modern storage on my machines. Things were so bad by 2000 that that I only bought machines out for high days and holidays with my regular use being on emulation! Now I have everything on SD cards and all my machines are on in seconds! The support is amazing. Storage, power supplies, cables, signal converters. It’s fantastic and I am genuinely grateful to the people who sell these things. And I didn’t see the HxC chap, The Future Was 8 Bit or Mike Chi (Retro Tink) begging for money on Kickstarter. All 3 of those people fronted up their own cash for their products. Terrifying amounts I suspect for some of the products (tooling for injection moulded cases alone is big money).

There’s lots to be grateful for in the community and the people contributing throw those who just see it as a cash cow into sharp relief. We need to celebrate those who have given something and throw the e-begging grifters in the bin.

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Frot hat
Frot hat
1 year ago
Reply to  Chinnyhill10

Those guys are great. Making things which actually benefit the retro gaming community rather than releasing an ego massaging book.
Voultar is another gem – always really helpful, friendly and his soldering videos have been a god send. Rob of RetroRGB too. His website is a goldmine of retro goodness, and his weekly podcasts, which are free, are a delight. These guys and gals are proper retro gaming enthusiasts.

R Sole
R Sole
1 year ago
Reply to  Chinnyhill10

It’s what’s called, in prostitution circles, the GFE – girlfriend experience.

You pay money so that they can pretend they are in a relationship with you. At least until the money runs out.

James P
James P
1 year ago

As the saying goes a fool and his money. Even if come of comments on the KS where trolling there are valid questions like opening hours, cost to play, and my favourite what is the relationship with slice and dice. I object to being called a troll simply because I did into fall inline and started asking questions about where a signifiant amount of money was going. Its very clear this site is being discussed at length in some new discord mk2. They really pulled out the big guns getting Quag and Kim. Its clear Ashens does not even care enough to make a video. He alone has over a million subs on YT you are not telling me he could not get a single sponsorship for £25k if he really wanted to and believed in the project. As George and others have said before the YT UK retro well is running dry and they all know it so they need other income streams. However a vegan retro arcade bar in the wrong part of town opening during the worst income squeeze in living memory is not it. If arcades where such great money makers and people still wanted to go to them they would be all over the place Quag. People need to get out of the retro bubble and see what’s really going on.

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1
James P
James P
1 year ago
Reply to  George

No I was not Wayne that was more effort than I was willing to put in. Like you said a lot of people in this hobby are on the “on the spectrum” so can therefore get hyper focused on things. Wayne might have been a troll or just someone with a lot of questions. Like I said it does not matter ether way, they were all valid questions. Something simple like opening times should be an easy answer

Chinnyhill10
Chinnyhill10
1 year ago

A last minute push over the line against the trend of where the campaign was headed is exactly what I expected to happen.

Get ready for a crowd funder for the book of how they opened their own bar followed by a crowdfunder to keep this ‘unique’ venue afloat.

The one advantage of being an Amstrad owner is at least all the parasites stay away from our scene as nobody can be arsed doing a CPC Mini or some terrible coffee table book where emulated screenshots of Bridge It are blown up over 2 A4 sized pages

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3
Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Chinnyhill10

I’m sure the GX4000 mini is in the planning stages 😀

MarkyMark
MarkyMark
1 year ago
Reply to  Chinnyhill10

“The Roland Story: How a shape shifter defined a micro”

Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Chinnyhill10

Hawken has done a few Amstrad books though.

RUSH
RUSH
1 year ago

Kind of distracted by the awesome footage of the game being played haha! What’s it called?

5
2
RUSH
RUSH
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Cheers mate. Will give it a whirl.

Ross Sillifant
Ross Sillifant
1 year ago

The old saying about a fool and their money… has never been more true than here.

We knew certain individuals would help push this over the line and we know Peter will be back sooner or later, asking for more money, to keep the venue the afloat, citing rising energy costs etc.

I thought i had seen it all, when people crowd funded a book that hadn’t even been written (but we are assured is being written as we speak 🤔).

But this, marketed as if it’s something Norwich has been crying out for, for years.

Anywho, I await the inevitable angry feedback, when the great unwashed that use the venue, find a distinct absence of expected YT celbs present and themselves pretty much ignored by the likes of Peter, as they are deemed unworthy of his time.

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RUSH
RUSH
1 year ago

Now the fun truly begins…

15
1
AceGrace
AceGrace
1 year ago
Reply to  RUSH

I forgot about this angle. Over the coming weeks and months, we can bear witness to what happens.

I don’t think anyone will be surprised if he comes back, cap in hand asking for more money.

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James P
James P
1 year ago
Reply to  AceGrace

They are going to have massive overheads
Rent
Gas / Electric
Waste disposal
Rent of machines
Staff
The list goes on

Do they even have a business plan, how many vegan burgers will they need to sell just to keep the lights on. Six months and it will be gone (in its current form) I am 100% sure of this now. Slice and dice along with Barcadia will become one and the same before then. I can see then coming back to the KS well one last time to try and keep the lights on before the end

10
R Sole
R Sole
1 year ago
Reply to  James P

Well…. If you check
https://www.norwich.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/8881/all_live_accounts_with_rv_and_reliefs_-_march_2023.xlsx

And look at line 2915, it would appear that the rates are now going to be due as there is an “Upto 6 months” period where you would not pay due to being unoccupied.

That would have started end October 2022 so, 6 months later, you are looking at end April for that to expire.

Nice timing.

MarkyMark
MarkyMark
1 year ago
Reply to  George

I have pledged for that book. I must be a simp (but not a bad one.)

MarkyMark
MarkyMark
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Blinded by tits probably is the right answer, but did enjoy her earlier content, and thought it may be along those lines and a way of supporting a creator. Seems so long ago pledging that I do feel a dunce for doing so. Cest la vie.

MarkyMark
MarkyMark
1 year ago
Reply to  George

A moment of weakness…I am not a Patreon or Twitch sub, so at least there’s no ongoing financial support.

YouTube is a strange world. Much prefer the Chinnyvision, Rod Hull style etc who have no delusions of grandeur.

Keep fighting the good fight, will report on the book in 2025…if I’m lucky.

Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  RUSH

That’s what I was thinking. If it failed then that would not be very newsworthy. We now have Youtube reviews, Trip Advisor, Google Reviews to read and laugh at. There will be a lot of ordinary joe public types expecting to get a cow burger in there instead of all the Mekon food.

Frot hat
Frot hat
1 year ago
Reply to  Bert

Haha! I hadn’t considered the Wild West that is the public review platforms.

“Peter wouldn’t sign my tits and I blocked the loo with a massive sweetcorn laden shit. 5 out of 5, highly recommended”

Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Frot hat

We can only hope that Hawken pays a visit and writes a book about it 😀

Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Bert

That said, Hawken would get the name of the place wrong and call it “Berkadia” or something.

Colonel basic
Colonel basic
1 year ago

So many strange people out there, makes no sense to me at all why anybody would fund somebody else’s business.

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windcase
windcase
1 year ago
Reply to  Colonel basic

Especially when there are so many legit ways to get money.
Surely if Slice and Dice is profitable the bank alone would jump at the chance to give them, what is in reality, a small loan to expand?
I know people who were unemployed but yet were loaned thousands by local Govt schemes to start their own businesses in the name of unemployment figures and boosting local economies.
One can only assume the financials are not great, are seen as a liability and KS was a last resort. They are already in hock to their necks or this nothing but a pure grift.

12
AceGrace
AceGrace
1 year ago
Reply to  windcase

I wouldn’t be surprised if the bank was the last place to go.

Didn’t Sam ask for 5K a while ago to help improve Slice and Dice so there is form there.

I also watched the NN video he did in 2016 where he asked “as joke” to fund a new PC.

He keeps maintaining in the video that it was a joke and experiment and didn’t really want the money but he kept it anyway.

Colonel basic
Colonel basic
1 year ago
Reply to  windcase

It’s just money for nothing at the end of the day. I’m more annoyed at the people who gave them the money than the Barcadia lot tbh.

Colonel basic
Colonel basic
1 year ago
Reply to  Colonel basic

Ffs I just seen someone on YouTube asking if they can still donate!! 😅

AceGrace
AceGrace
1 year ago
Reply to  George

25k. Hmmm. Where have I heard that amount recently?

I wonder if the bank refused funding due to being 25k in debt and won’t loan any money until it is cleared?

Be interesting to see the accounts for Slice and Dice next year to see if that 25K has been mysteriously wiped out.

Frot hat
Frot hat
1 year ago
Reply to  AceGrace

That’s probably a good shout
“See Mr Bank man, I can just raise £25k as and when I like. You’d be insane not to invest in us…….yes I’m filming this… for a YouTube series”

BIEQUXG
BIEQUXG
1 year ago
Reply to  George

I was an accountant, it’s actually around the £60k mark

Frisky Dingo
Frisky Dingo
1 year ago
Reply to  BIEQUXG

That’s before the assets are offset against it, isn’t it? Either way, s+d is in the red, and that’s never the time to expand ones empire. A most counterintuitive move on Sam’s part.

Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  BIEQUXG

Does it mention the turnover and income? be interesting to see how much they actual take in vs going out. Naturally energy prices are high and should fall, but then with a choice between two political parties who are both pushing the net zero thing the only way is up for all our bills, making people poor means they generate less CO2 (but more methane from increased baked bean consumption).

An OK Boomer
An OK Boomer
1 year ago
Reply to  BIEQUXG

That sounds about right. I don’t have the figures in front of me, but Slice+Dice had something like 60k in current liabilities yet only 35k in assets (mainly fixed assets).
For non accountants:
– current liabilities = debts due in the next 12 months
– fixed assets = assets that may be difficult to sell and are often mandatory for the business to function

James P
James P
1 year ago
Reply to  George

Dont worry according to some write up in a local rag I saw. Sam is going to spilt her time between the two businesses. Which reads like they are both going to be open at the same time. Therefore further splitting the vegan crowd who are willing to pay £18 for a burger. However what do I know, I am just a simple troll at the end of the day who knows nothing about business, arcades, vegans, or Norwich

windcase
windcase
1 year ago
Reply to  James P

Everyone knows that the vegans that like playing retro arcade games when eating a mushroom burger are a totally different crowd to the vegans who play board games when eating a mushroom burger.

facts
facts
1 year ago
Reply to  James P

Remember they can’t be a true vegan place if they have avocados on the menu as most avocado farms use bees to pollinate the flowers.

Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Colonel basic

It happens, tough trading conditions and all that. Just today a friend of mine said the cafe near to him which I’ve visited with him in the past it looking for donations to reopen. It’s a bit of a casual “open when I feel like it” sort of place, so I’m not surprised it is struggling.

Bert
Bert
1 year ago
Reply to  Colonel basic

Maybe next time I’m walking down the street I’ll give someone £5,000 and ask them to come wash my windows.