EGM 'Compendium' Kickstarter Raises $1.8 Million, Has Yet To Actually Deliver The Book [Update]

A couple years back a Kickstarter campaign called "The Electronic Gaming Monthly Compendium" launched, offering a printed, hardcover book "combining meticulously curated excerpts from the magazine with new insights and never-before-told stories".

After a lengthy backer window it raised almost $1.8 million from 21,947 supporters, with a planned release window of July 2025. It's now September 2026 and not only have the books not shipped (after multiple delays), but the campaign's organiser hasn't provided any updates since July.

That last update promised the books would finally be shipping out on September 14, following a statement in June that the book was "in the printer’s capable hands". The passing of that date (after previous delays) and more importantly months of silence since have caused backers to start speaking out, creating Reddit posts on communities such as r/shittykickstarters saying stuff like "Whole thing is a disaster", while some in the comments section of the campaign page say they've started filing FTC complaints as well.

While some backers and onlookers are calling this an outright scam, the campaign has at least delivered on digital versions of the EGM archives, spanning the main magazine, spin-off EGM2 and various special issues, which anyone who paid for the printed book can now access. So, as cooler heads are suggesting, this could just be an issue of a team taking on more than they could handle on the printing and delivery side of things, rather than the complete collapse of an entire project (though, of course, the lack of updates keeping people in the loop about this is half the problem here).

We've reached out to the team and will update if we hear back.

[thanks Donnie D!]

UPDATE 7pm, October 5, 2026: The campaign's organisers have posted an update on Kickstarter, saying:

When we made our updates that the printer was found and the books were printing, we had paid an advance and were given a schedule that was acceptable.  Problems arose shortly thereafter, however, when we were told that the agreed price would be higher.  This caused production to stop, and we gave ourselves a short window to investigate alternative options.  We thought this would be a quick process since we had already spoken with other printers prior to selecting the one that we picked.

Unfortunately, the size of the project and what we needed – which includes not only printing but packaging and bundling services across multiple products – was beyond what we could get done quickly from a different source.  After examining the options, we determined that the best course of action to deliver the books as fast as possible was to stay with the printer we had originally selected. 

And, in order to keep backers more informed, have said:

Going forward we’re going to be providing you with updates as things are happening and completed at the printer, the assembly, the shipper, and the fulfillment house.  Those are the big beats left on this project and rather than continue to provide dates that rely on third-parties that may end up being wrong and force us to backtrack, we’re going to be sending you information and images as each of these steps are completed. 

As things stand, the next available "print window" for the books is October 16, with copies to be pound, packed and shipped shortly afterwards.