The BillyBobs Civility started off in an interesting way, the people behind the Civility approached the community in January of 2013 using a Kickstarter campaign with an initial goal of reaching $3,500 to make their design. By the end of the campaign they ended up $27 shy of $23,000. The reasoning for bringing the Civility to market was to give players a yo-yo that they can be assured would allow them to learn the tricks that are taught on the BillyBobs website without having to worry if it is the yo-yo holding them back while learning BillyBobs’ tutorials. As it seems to be the norm with higher profile Kickstarters, the Civility had some hiccups along the way including production delays and adjustments to the specs. After almost a year of being in production, the Civility was finally released in early 2014 at a retail price of $90. Now the question needs to be asked, is this THE yo-yo needed to learn BillyBobs tutorials or are there other yo-yos in the same price bracket or lower that will allow you to learn just as easily?
Oh, and thanks for the review, I’ve been considering picking one of these up, and still might, I like what they’re doing over there. It’s good to have another review to consider.
I’ve never liked what the Civility stood for. All it ever seemed to be to me, was an attempt to make money off those on the Billybobs website.
Even though it’s an uninspiring design and expensive (for what it is), you know they still made a hugh profit since the kick starter raised so much money and they never had to dip into their own pockets to begin with (unlike a lot of yoyo companies that paid for their first runs out of their own pockets).
Almost any modern unresponsive yoyo is more than enough to learn any trick on, and it’s misleading to try and convince people otherwise. I met Yoyojam’s Seth White at UK nats on Saturday, and he was busting out minute-long crazy tech combos on an undersized, cheaply built Magicyoyo T6, which is like $10.00… he even competed with it.
People put together 23,000 for this bull? For brainwashing the next generation of yoyoers into thinking they need $90 yoyos to learn tricks. Disgusting. What a giant waste of money.
Thanks Colin, may your fixies forever continue to break and people give you 20k to produce a yoyo that is going to further damage starting players.
The marketing language was lame, IMO. Anyone with a brain knows you don’t need this yoyo to learn their more advanced tricks.
But that said, let’s remember a two simple things:
Every Kickstarter for a commercial product is created… because they want to make money without having startup capital onhand. That’s its whole purpose! Don’t knock a person/company because they used it for its intended purpose. Maybe these other startups should consider Kickstarting. Or not, if they have their own capital. Better to not Kickstart if you have the money.
They never claimed the project was charitable. So the marketing language is lame… so is almost all marketing language. Since it’s a commercial project, why are we upset because they’re charging money?
Far be it for anyone to want to make some money. I’m not a bigtime capitalist or anything, but I really don’t begrudge people (especially ones that generally seem pretty nice like the guys over at that site) the right to try to make some dosh. And if the marketing rhetoric is misleading, I’m not that bothered. I’ve seen far worse marketing within the yoyo world alone, never mind the world at large.
I will say, at least they give a recommendation besides the Civility for a top-of-the-line yoyo. Though their recommendation is the Yomega Prodigy, which I know very little about. shrugs
It’s a yoyo designed by daniel dietz who was sponsored by onedrop before getting hired by yomega and is manufactured by onedrop so the name is really the only thing yomega about it.
I jumped on board the kickstarter largely because I wanted to support the company since I did learn a lot of the basics from their tutorials. Is the marketing spiel more than slightly misleading? Yes. Can you learn every trick on it? Yes, but you could do likewise on any other yoyo as well. Is it a good yoyo for learning on? The relative slowness, stability and long spin seem to be conducive towards learning. Would I pay $90 for it? Not when companies like C3 and YYF are churning out metals for around half the price.
I have a Civility and while it has quite a bit of vibe to it I would agree with the review that began this thread. At $90 it’s not bad considering that CLYW and TP and Duncan’s high end yoyo’s all cost more than $100. While there are other yoyos that are cheaper I still like the way the civility throws.
