This is not an easy update to send out, but I have always been open, honest and transparent with you all and recently the Torn World team has had to have some very unpleasant conversations regarding “Torn Armor.”
We have hit a major obstacle here – which I will detail below – and it is only fair to be open and clear on the parties involved. I will simply layout the facts as they have occurred and you can form your own conclusions. What I will say is that ultimately you put your faith and trust in me to ensure that this project was delivered, and in that I have failed you. So while the Torn Armor team has hit unforeseen circumstances and been subjected to unprofessional behavior and broken promises, ultimately I am responsible and please direct your frustrations squarely towards me.
A Recap:
As you will remember, immediately after the Kickstarter ended last year we contacted the China-based companies to finalize our quotes, and were then informed that even though our quotes were less than 90 days old the new production prices, across the board, jumped by 30%. This caused us to seek an alternative production company and during this time one of our backers came forward with a recommendation. This recommendation was given and genuinely provided to help the project, but in hindsight it set us on an unfortunate path.
The company recommended is here in the United State, and this – if anything – I viewed as being beneficial. What I did not know, and honestly had no way of knowing, was that they were about to head into some very troubling times. This company is Defiance Games.
Back in June/July of last year I had my first contact with Defiance and after talking to them for a short while, I felt that it was a good solution and I felt confident that everything was still on track. But the intervening time has been nothing but stalls, delays, staffing shuffles, and sideways movement. They brought on a new CEO shortly after I signed contracts with them, which I found to be alarming, but was told that it was to improve the running of the company. They acknowledged that they had been experiencing turbulent times and the new CEO was to help get things back on track; I was reassured, numerous times and by their upper management that all was on track and schedule.
The team I had recently been introduced to and communicated with soon left and a new team was brought onboard. Again I got to meet them and again I was reassured that the changes were for the best. We were still prepping miniatures for mold production, deadlines and timelines were re-affirmed as being “November,” and while I was uncomfortable with the constant switching of staff, I felt that the wheels were moving and shortly we’d start seeing masters roll off the 3d printers. When this did not happen as promised I started updates regarding delays, later delivery timeframes and so on. I simply need time to sort out what was actually happening and where I might be able to adjust as needed.
Now while I am a patient person and I can be understanding the constant delays and lack of action from Defiance made me think that this was more than a “changing of the guard, or a that new production schedule was being implemented.” I realized there was something seriously wrong.
With our initial deadlines past and the old year ending I put them under great pressure to get things moving. With this pressure we saw the hoplite. He was great and Defiance confirmed that they could work with the model.
I believed we had a light at the end of the tunnel. With constant pressure and micro management on my end I cautiously believed we could get the project on a track towards completion.
It was at this time that Defiance stated that they would not produce any masters until they had finished a batch of models. They then informed us that the file format we had provided them, their choice, wasn’t going to work. This new format was already a replacement of the original format they said wouldn’t work, which again was their choice. Soon after this they started talking about “going back to the models from last October” It was at this time I knew we were going into a downward spiral of excuses and finger pointing.
Ironically their chief responsibility was the creation of a usable, printable, castable 3d miniature models. Early on, they informed me they were unable to work with my artist/modeler and they in turn chose the artist/modeler they wanted to work with. The file format wasn’t going to work!
Clearly we have a serious problem.
Get Another Production Company?
Last Friday I concluded that Defiance was completely unable to fulfill our needs and that I made a mistake in choosing them. Being noble and generous I would say that they truly felt like they could handle it, but the reality of the project – in addition to their own projects – was too much. There may well be other reasons.
I formally asked for our money back less the approved and agreed charges and after a weekend of badgering they told me on Monday that “We do not have the available cash on hand to return these funds at this time” and “We are gearing up here for our own releases to get new product to market and improve our cash flow.”
The Problem
And herein lies the problem: Defiance have not been able to produce the miniatures, but they are also unable to return the funds. And the funds are somewhat substantial.
Currently, we are reviewing all legal options, but I have very little faith that we will simply get this money back.
Torn Armor is effectively dead in the water.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Clearly our options are considerably broadened if Defiance returns our funds: Reaper Miniatures offered to help out, but without these funds allocated to the miniatures being able to fulfill on the miniatures is an impossibility.
The money lost is crippling, but it wasn’t everything and we can put the remaining funds to good use. Currently we are discussing offering partial refunds, creating the game-only tier (rules, maps, cards, units, dice) or simply staying in a holding pattern until there is news where our funds are returned, but this last option could honestly be something that dragged on for years and we are not a fan of that route.
This situation simply sucks.We have put in a lot of our own personal money into this, we created a dream and you – our incredible backers – were the best that anyone could have ever asked for. We all passionately worked together for the Kickstarter and I earned some good friends because of it, so to now be reduced to this a year later is utterly crushing.
I fought off this moment as long as I could, but I would not send out an update like this without firmly believing that we just ran into a brick wall.
Tl:dr
In a nutshell we have been screwed by our supplier and are now not able to fulfill this Kickstarter project. We are discussing all options at the moment, but do consider the miniatures portion of this project dead.
Well, while Defiance is obviously a major culprit, she is right in taking the blame herself... I did not back this campaign as I felt they had a great idea, but were too inexperienced in actually having models made- the only actual models shown were a few 3d prints during the campaign, and sculpts / renders... but no casts.
It is really a bummer and I hope that they are able to recoup the funds, but to have this long without word and then to suddenly find out they gave most of the money to Defiance is very irresponsible, I think.
But this comment from a backer on the update page captures my initial reaction:
Darsc Zacal wrote:I am stunned that you went to Defiance and Tony Reidy given his history of taking money and giving nothing in return. It's widely known to anyone that follows miniature hobby news that he is not a person to be trusted and someone you will not be getting your money back from.
Most of the popular hobby forums will have a thread dedicated to his exploits of the past several years.
.
I am sorry but there was a lot of naivety in that decision to go to them. Anyone who thinks they'll get their money back from waiting should do a bit of googling about Tony Reidy and check out a few online forums for threads on the subject.
.
I cannot think of a worse decision that could have been made.
Frakin douchebags.... Seriously, they need to end up in court. How many small companies and individuals does someone need to screw before they end up with civil or criminal charges?
Seriously, though, this really sucks. She probably should've done some research on Defiance games, but regardless, hopefully this all catches up with this Reidy character sooner or later and he ends up in prison.
Yeah, I know, just had to work the Dakka meme in there somehow.
I seriously don't understand how she could make this mistake. I don't really keep up with Defiance games at all, can't even remember what minis they supposedly make, but I'm still somehow aware that they're crooks.
At the end of the day, she will have lost quite a lot as well. Including, quite possibly, the ability to work in this industry again. It's a shame. Nobody deserves to have an idea they've clearly spent a lot of time on become a byword for fraud and failure. Except Tony Reidy, it seems.
This crap makes me so glad that I was too broke to touch DG's kickstarter
Yeah there is enough blame to go around
She should have done her own research on Defiance Games history and she should have had her contract better worded and have at fault clauses.
Her lawyer should have had better breakout clauses in the contract as it seem all the fault of wanting to break the contract are caused by DG not her.
Defiance should not be the dicks that they are and should not be involved in what imho is theft by fraud
I am not a lawyer but one particular person needs, desperately needs to have a unfriendly meeting with several mobsters holding high quality baseball bats.
Yes, she should have checked the credentials closer, but if she has contracts and terms then there should be a reasonable expectation from the company. Also I'm intrigued at the fact that she's looking at doing a refund to backers . Isn't the point of a kickstarter that your investing into a product, and you MIGHT get something if everything pans out in the end, but there's no certainty. I'd be impressed if she gets this going, but not really sure I'd buy into it if offered again.
Theophony wrote: Yes, she should have checked the credentials closer, but if she has contracts and terms then there should be a reasonable expectation from the company.
Even if Defiance had held up their end of the bargain, her backers would be left with a bunch of miscast restic crap. I don't care for the concepts, but there is no way she could reasonably have concluded that Defiance was capable of doing justice to her designs.
Also I'm intrigued at the fact that she's looking at doing a refund to backers . Isn't the point of a kickstarter that your investing into a product, and you MIGHT get something if everything pans out in the end, but there's no certainty.
No. The point of Kickstarter is what happens when things go right: a project manager obtaining the capital they need to complete their project without a banker acting as gatekeeper.
Did you really have to take so little responsibility and say that WE failed? After a nice paragraph in which you say you should take the blame, you write a long text blaming us. Wrong.
Basically, your figures were not produced because the digital files you provided do not work. Yet you try to shift responsibility for that to Defiance. Defiance DID NOT create the digital files. It was never our responsibility to do that. You should admit that, but you do not.
This is your project -- the only person responsible for the fact that Defiance never received workable files is ultimately you, Alyssa. The buck stops with you when it comes to Torn.
After the original files proved unworkable, the vendor you hired to fix them did not provide results which could be manufactured (Did you really want us to try and make a 20 mm resin figure in 5 parts???). Nothing that happened at Defiance, the 'changing of the guard' or the 'turbulent times' changes that.
You claim to have patience. Well, you are now choosing (it is a choice on your part) to close your project. Ultimately, this might still be a fixable problem. We have suggested possible solutions. You have decided not to do that. That is your decision and your responsibility. Do not blame anyone else for it.
I am really disappointed in you.
John Morse
People have already started to ask them why not refund the money.
As they are in the US it opens up a lot of options, legally speaking. I'd start by putting a mechanical lean on the company. They will legally be barred from selling or buying any property, equipment, or major stock until they have repaid the money. If they violate this the repercussions would be.....interesting, to say the least. There was a company that once did something similar to a client. The client ended up with a sheriff's deputy and a couple moving trucks at the companies front door. They had two choices: cut a check EMMIDIATELY or we start taking physical assets (computers, desks, chairs, tables, office supplies, ect.)
Did you really have to take so little responsibility and say that WE failed? After a nice paragraph in which you say you should take the blame, you write a long text blaming us. Wrong.
Basically, your figures were not produced because the digital files you provided do not work. Yet you try to shift responsibility for that to Defiance. Defiance DID NOT create the digital files. It was never our responsibility to do that. You should admit that, but you do not.
This is your project -- the only person responsible for the fact that Defiance never received workable files is ultimately you, Alyssa. The buck stops with you when it comes to Torn.
After the original files proved unworkable, the vendor you hired to fix them did not provide results which could be manufactured (Did you really want us to try and make a 20 mm resin figure in 5 parts???). Nothing that happened at Defiance, the 'changing of the guard' or the 'turbulent times' changes that.
You claim to have patience. Well, you are now choosing (it is a choice on your part) to close your project. Ultimately, this might still be a fixable problem. We have suggested possible solutions. You have decided not to do that. That is your decision and your responsibility. Do not blame anyone else for it.
I am really disappointed in you.
John Morse
People have already started to ask them why not refund the money.
Odd, I've seen several 20mm models in 5 or so pieces.
RatBot wrote: Yeah, I know, just had to work the Dakka meme in there somehow.
In this case it's 100% true as Defiance's "open letter" is a prime example of victim blaming. "It's your fault you gave us your trust. I'm disappointed in you."
cuda1179 wrote: As they are in the US it opens up a lot of options, legally speaking. I'd start by putting a mechanical lean on the company. They will legally be barred from selling or buying any property, equipment, or major stock until they have repaid the money. If they violate this the repercussions would be.....interesting, to say the least. There was a company that once did something similar to a client. The client ended up with a sheriff's deputy and a couple moving trucks at the companies front door. They had two choices: cut a check EMMIDIATELY or we start taking physical assets (computers, desks, chairs, tables, office supplies, ect.)
Agreed, it's in the US and they should be able to take some sort of action.
After that letter from Defiance... wow. I hope they burn.
Did you really have to take so little responsibility and say that WE failed? After a nice paragraph in which you say you should take the blame, you write a long text blaming us. Wrong.
Basically, your figures were not produced because the digital files you provided do not work. Yet you try to shift responsibility for that to Defiance. Defiance DID NOT create the digital files. It was never our responsibility to do that. You should admit that, but you do not.
This is your project -- the only person responsible for the fact that Defiance never received workable files is ultimately you, Alyssa. The buck stops with you when it comes to Torn.
After the original files proved unworkable, the vendor you hired to fix them did not provide results which could be manufactured (Did you really want us to try and make a 20 mm resin figure in 5 parts???). Nothing that happened at Defiance, the 'changing of the guard' or the 'turbulent times' changes that.
You claim to have patience. Well, you are now choosing (it is a choice on your part) to close your project. Ultimately, this might still be a fixable problem. We have suggested possible solutions. You have decided not to do that. That is your decision and your responsibility. Do not blame anyone else for it.
I am really disappointed in you.
John Morse
People have already started to ask them why not refund the money.
1. If the files were formatted using the program/style that Defiance wanted, then this is complete bs. It doesn't take this long to get a problem like this resolved. 2. Refund the money. They gave you money, you produced nothing, return the money. Oh, you spent it on another of your doomed-to-failure projects? Color me surprised.
I don't know Alyssa or John from a hole in the ground, and I have zero vested interest in this project, but I can smell bs, and a truckload of it just got dumped on the curb.
Both parties here are to blame. Alyssa for not doing simple research on these knuckleheads, and Defiance games for being Knuckleheads.
3 sides to every story, hers, his, and the truth....but it seems like the Torn armor people paid to have some services rendered, defiance didnt provide those services. Lots of finger pointing but at the end of the day defiance makes no mention of doing any actual work which seems to be the biggest reason to just give the money back. This isnt a PR fight they will win
What I find funny is the number of people here on Dakkadakka that still backed the defiance games kickstarter. Most were saying something to the extent of well I'm not tossing a lot of money that way, but if they do payoff then I'm getting so much good stuff out of it. Even the test model they showed was terrible with the 3d grain on it from printing, and the "professional Painter"
Agreed, that letter from Defiance makes it clear how they are just ripping off Torn Armor, like they have other companies many times in their history.
The folks behind Torn Armor should have known better than to choose Defiance, but that does not let Defiance off the hook- on the contrary, I hope they put the rest of the KS funds into legal action and get the bulk back that way. It certainly worked for Rust Forge, as posted in the Dakka Discussions thread here (direct link to their post):
Rust Forge on November 21st, 2013 wrote:Several people have asked about the events that happened that caused Rust Forge to seek legal assistance in order to secure payment from Defiance Games. Below is a timeline of events that should answer everyone’s questions.
Days 1 - 14 We contacted Defiance to inquire about a product trade for advertising purposes. We had been searching for some 28mm hard sci-fi miniatures to use for display and advertising to help show our products scale and we thought that the DG marines might fit the bill. Initially we sought to trade them some cargo containers they could use in a similar fashion for their promotional materials. DG countered that they would actually like to carry the product as part of their Alien Suns line. After discussion, it was decided to go ahead with this plan. Their order was placed and shipped with a NET10 payment schedule.
Days 15 - 45 A second smaller order was placed this time with a net 30 pay schedule before the initial net 10 became due. When the initial net 10 came due DG stated that the initial NET10 payment wasn't possible for them to make and asked for a NET 30 on the original order citing waiting on distributor payments. As having to wait for a distributor to send payment on their own net 30, net 60, or sometimes longer schedule is not uncommon we agreed with this time frame. After the 30 days had gone by with no payment, DG stated that due to some production issues, they had not received the money that they were expected and were going to be further delayed with payment. We weren't happy, but we accepted this reason. Everyone has unexpected issues that crop up from time to time.
Days 46 - 90(ish) DG continued to be in regular communication throughout this time. They continued asserting that the production issues were causing the delays and as soon as they were paid we would be paid. They also stated that the were having discussions with possible investors that would speed up the payment timing issues. During the end of this timeframe, we began discussing possible legal actions with our attorney. We decided to hold off for a bit more time because we still felt that we weren't be lied to and that DG were just having a rough time.
Days 91(ish) - 120(ish) DG launched their kickstarter and announced the management change. We learned of the change when everyone else did via 3rd party sources. We had no prior notice of this before the first public notice on FB and the DG website. We immediately contacted the "new" management who continued with the same story of delay issues, BUT started to give us time frames of when we would get paid. These time frames came and went several times with no payment or likelihood of one. At time we began to witness a serious level of blame being thrown between the old and new management. Each claiming the other was responsible for the debts of the business, controlled access to funds for making payments, and whose responsibility it was to satisfy the debts. At this time we told the attorney to send the intent of lawsuit paperwork. Immediately after talking to our attorney, DG announced that the "new" management is no longer the management at all.
Days 121(ish - 135 Our attorney sends the intent of lawsuit paperwork to both Tony and Gary (old and new management). Gary immediately replies that he is no longer management and that he never was actually in charge and that this is Tony's issue. Tony replies that a check will be sent out shortly. Almost one week later we received a check, for full payment owed, by Tony. That check was cashed and had since cleared in full.
As of today we have had several discussions since this all started and we have determined that for the time being, DG is in too much turmoil to continue to do business with. It is just not a good idea considering all the new information that has come to light the past few weeks to continue to be associated with DG. Tony is a very likable individual. He is very pleasant to talk to and has many high hopes and ideas for his company. We hope that he can get things together so they can be brought to reality.
I hope that clears everything up with people. We do not hold any ill will towards anyone involved. Everything was finally resolved and in full. We are moving forward and we hope that all other parties are able to so as well.
If someone wants to forward that link on to Torn Armor, it may help them to reach out to Rust Forge / Rust Forge's lawyers, as they'll have already done a lot of due diligence on Defiance and how to bring legal pressure.
Oddly enough this isn't the first odd projec that Natalya Alyssa Faden has been involved with...
There was an RPG Kickstarter called Cairn launched by Mike Nystul Cairn KS it raised roughly $24K. After six months of so the project creator came out and announced that he has squandered the money and would be unable to fufill his obligations and he had no money to process refunds. He claimed to have completed some parts of the project and what he had finished would be sent out to backers, as far as I know, no one has received anything. Fast forward a few weeks after the announcement and we get an update saying that Mike has solved the problem, he transfered the IP to a company called SoulJAR run by Ross Isaacs with what seems like alot of help from Natalya... He trasnfered the IP, but not the debt owed to backers... SoulJAR using Natalya as their spokesperson claimed to still be fufilling some of the original kickstarter obligations. Since then nothing, no information on their website other then an announcement for another Kickstarter. She has also been involved in a few other Kickstarters that never got funded.
At this point I can't help but wonder how much of this wasn't actually problems created by Natalya herself...
I would be extremly cautious about trusting Natalya, Ross or SoulJAR at this point.
That's odd Catyrpelius... looks like she tried to help bail out that project, but didn't really succeed?
That doesn't mean it's failure is on her, but just that she maybe was too ambitious, taking over an IP but with no money being exchanged, it would be hard to follow through on... it does look similar in some ways to Torn, though...
Natalya Alyssa Fayden in the Cairn Kickstarter Comments wrote:Hey guys and gals, my name is Alyssa and I'm part of the SoulJAR team. Together with jim pinto and Jack Cull, we have banded together under the SoulJAR name to help Ross make this game - and other games - a reality.
We are huge believers in utter transparency and honesty and have been updating our own FB pages, the Cairn page, SoulJAR Facebook and our SoulJAR Blog with regular - if not daily - updates. We are also completely open to being PMed and emailed, and - believe me - are here to help, answer questions, and attempt to alleviate some of the frustration that has built up around the Cairn name.
I am also a Cairn backer (hence me able to post here ). I backed at a fairly high level so I could also get all of the miniatures. I get where you are all coming from, so please consider me empathic to your thoughts and feelings around this title.
The gathering of the team (and why), and the playing cards (and why) were announced here: http://souljar-games.blogspot.com/2013/08/souljar-grows.html But allow me to put this into my own words:
We love Cairn. We truly believe in the title, the subject matter, the setting and the sheer possibilities that lie within. We want to see this book go live, because - quite frankly - too much hard work and your money has gone into it.
So Ross offered to take this off Mike's hands and help finish the writing, the proofreading and layout, get it printed and distributed. The IP transferred to Ross for the book, NO MONEY WAS EXCHANGED. This is important, because Ross and SoulJAR want to ensure that you get a copy of Cairn, but it will be at SoulJAR's expense. I know you spent money - I spent money as well - but noe of that went to Ross, none of it went to SoulJAR, so for SoulJar to get you your copy of the book we're effectively got to eat the cost. That's not your problem, but it is a reality.
We therefore started the Cairn Bicycle Cards to help offset these costs (the rest will come out of our pockets). There are several strong pluses here as it has enabled us to -
- COLOR THE ARTWORK
- ADD ADITIONAL ARTWORK
Neither of these would have been possible otherwise, and - please note - both are also out of SoulJAR pocket.
With patience already exhausted and communication over the last year probably not what you wanted it to be, it's a tad cheeky of me to ask "please bear with us while we bring Cairn together." But I do ask for your understanding: We did not run the Cairn Kickstarter, nor have we been running the communication since it funded to now; so we cannot be responsible for what was said, promised or otherwise inferred. We are however cognizant and sympathetic to everything that has occured, and intend to show a slightly different face and method of communication moving forward.
If you have any questions - or simply wish to vent - please find us:
http://souljar-games.blogspot.com/ https://www.facebook.com/SoulJAR.Games https://www.facebook.com/CairnRPG and my own personal wall:
https://www.facebook.com/alyssa.faden
This looks to me to be more (unfortunate) incompetence / over-ambition rather than anything nefarious, though...
For the current project, it does truly seem they just foolishly gave the money to Defiance Games and got nothing in return... and as Defiance has a clear track record of ripping off other companies, I'm inclined to believe that the folks behind Torn Armor are being genuine, and were just very, very foolish with the money.
Hopefully, someone can pass along the links to Rust Forge's course of action above, where legal steps led to their being fully refunded.
Did you really have to take so little responsibility and say that WE failed? After a nice paragraph in which you say you should take the blame, you write a long text blaming us. Wrong.
Basically, your figures were not produced because the digital files you provided do not work. Yet you try to shift responsibility for that to Defiance. Defiance DID NOT create the digital files. It was never our responsibility to do that. You should admit that, but you do not.
This is your project -- the only person responsible for the fact that Defiance never received workable files is ultimately you, Alyssa. The buck stops with you when it comes to Torn.
After the original files proved unworkable, the vendor you hired to fix them did not provide results which could be manufactured (Did you really want us to try and make a 20 mm resin figure in 5 parts???). Nothing that happened at Defiance, the 'changing of the guard' or the 'turbulent times' changes that.
You claim to have patience. Well, you are now choosing (it is a choice on your part) to close your project. Ultimately, this might still be a fixable problem. We have suggested possible solutions. You have decided not to do that. That is your decision and your responsibility. Do not blame anyone else for it.
I am really disappointed in you.
John Morse
People have already started to ask them why not refund the money.
Showing off, making personal remarks in an unprofessional manner in response to a clients wishes and being incompetent enough to be unable to change a filetype ... Usual defiance games then?
Creator SoulJAR on Jan 2
Thank you all ... thank you, thank you ... we are very proud to have the opportunity to deliver this great game (plus expansions!) to you and are thrilled to have you as backers =D A more formal update will be coming to celebrate our funding and stretch goals!
~ Alyssa & the SoulJAR Team
Are you allowed to have multiple accounts on Kickstarter to make multiple projects? That seems very uncool... I am NOT saying there is anything wrong, as she is obviously using her name on both. But, it just doesn't seem to make sense to have two separate accounts that she controls / is able to make the comments on, rather than one account, to create projects.
Wasn't aware she had been involved in other campaigns. That's a bit worrisome if that's the case.
I thought she seemed like a typical first time KS-er who had hit some stumbling blocks along the road.
I hope they can recoup their losses and continue on with the game. I couldn't pledge for it at the time but I've got a soft spot for bloodthirsty anthropomorphic animal warriors.
RiTides wrote: That's odd Catyrpelius... looks like she tried to help bail out that project, but didn't really succeed?
That doesn't mean it's failure is on her, but just that she maybe was too ambitious, taking over an IP but with no money being exchanged, it would be hard to follow through on... it does look similar in some ways to Torn, though...
Natalya Alyssa Fayden in the Cairn Kickstarter Comments wrote:Hey guys and gals, my name is Alyssa and I'm part of the SoulJAR team. Together with jim pinto and Jack Cull, we have banded together under the SoulJAR name to help Ross make this game - and other games - a reality.
We are huge believers in utter transparency and honesty and have been updating our own FB pages, the Cairn page, SoulJAR Facebook and our SoulJAR Blog with regular - if not daily - updates. We are also completely open to being PMed and emailed, and - believe me - are here to help, answer questions, and attempt to alleviate some of the frustration that has built up around the Cairn name.
I am also a Cairn backer (hence me able to post here ). I backed at a fairly high level so I could also get all of the miniatures. I get where you are all coming from, so please consider me empathic to your thoughts and feelings around this title.
The gathering of the team (and why), and the playing cards (and why) were announced here: http://souljar-games.blogspot.com/2013/08/souljar-grows.html But allow me to put this into my own words:
We love Cairn. We truly believe in the title, the subject matter, the setting and the sheer possibilities that lie within. We want to see this book go live, because - quite frankly - too much hard work and your money has gone into it.
So Ross offered to take this off Mike's hands and help finish the writing, the proofreading and layout, get it printed and distributed. The IP transferred to Ross for the book, NO MONEY WAS EXCHANGED. This is important, because Ross and SoulJAR want to ensure that you get a copy of Cairn, but it will be at SoulJAR's expense. I know you spent money - I spent money as well - but noe of that went to Ross, none of it went to SoulJAR, so for SoulJar to get you your copy of the book we're effectively got to eat the cost. That's not your problem, but it is a reality.
We therefore started the Cairn Bicycle Cards to help offset these costs (the rest will come out of our pockets). There are several strong pluses here as it has enabled us to -
- COLOR THE ARTWORK
- ADD ADITIONAL ARTWORK
Neither of these would have been possible otherwise, and - please note - both are also out of SoulJAR pocket.
With patience already exhausted and communication over the last year probably not what you wanted it to be, it's a tad cheeky of me to ask "please bear with us while we bring Cairn together." But I do ask for your understanding: We did not run the Cairn Kickstarter, nor have we been running the communication since it funded to now; so we cannot be responsible for what was said, promised or otherwise inferred. We are however cognizant and sympathetic to everything that has occured, and intend to show a slightly different face and method of communication moving forward.
If you have any questions - or simply wish to vent - please find us:
http://souljar-games.blogspot.com/ https://www.facebook.com/SoulJAR.Games https://www.facebook.com/CairnRPG and my own personal wall:
https://www.facebook.com/alyssa.faden
This looks to me to be more (unfortunate) incompetence / over-ambition rather than anything nefarious, though...
For the current project, it does truly seem they just foolishly gave the money to Defiance Games and got nothing in return... and as Defiance has a clear track record of ripping off other companies, I'm inclined to believe that the folks behind Torn Armor are being genuine, and were just very, very foolish with the money.
Hopefully, someone can pass along the links to Rust Forge's course of action above, where legal steps led to their being fully refunded.
At this point in time with all the new companies competing for my $$ on Kickstarter I'm more then willing to lump incompetence, over-ambition and nefariousness into one catagory called "you shouldn't be working in this industry anymore".
Best of intentions are a great thing, but lets think of this another way... Do you really want a game created by someone so out of touch with the hobby that they wouldn't know about Definaces and Tony's past? Do you really want a game created by someone who couldn't take the time before commiting a large sum of money to google Definace and Tony and read up about them?
Sure Tony and Definace are up to their usual game. Sure it's unfortunate. However I think that the folks at Torn Armor deserve most of the blame. Alot of people have been talking about blaming the victim memes, I think this is one instance where it's perfectly acceptable to blame the victim. They lost backers money because they didn't do their due diliangance. If they were goverment officials they's be in jail.
I am not sure about the blame part of your post, but I don't think it's cool that she launched a new project that funded this month raising almost 20K while failing to deliver on this one... I actually reported the new project to Kickstarter just now in case they were unaware or that is against their policies, since it just funded 3 weeks ago it's possible the funds didn't release yet.
If it's kosher with them, no problem, as she did admit her name and involvement... but obviously if she had used the same account as she did for Torn Armor she may not have been able to raise 20K while admitting to have lost the almost 70K from this one.
In other words, those who felt really bad for her and said she may not be able to work in the industry again... well, she already has another 20K project that funded this month... so I think she needs to be a little more upfront about that.
Regardless of all that, I really hope Torn Armor nails Defiance, and I've sent them the link to Rust Forge's course of action against Defiance and suggested that they get in touch with Rust Forge's lawyers...
She's not the one who is going to be out of pocket over this. If you're going to be investing other people's money, you should do your due diligence.
She indicated she HAS put money in this, so she's going to be out that if this can't get going. So she's a victim as well, and probably out more than any backer.
Yes, she should have done more research. But she made a mistake. Defiance acted criminally. Lets not lose track of who the villain is.
Like I said, if Kickstarter is cool with it, no problem.
But, most of those companies didn't admit to just failing to deliver a 70K project the same month they receive the funds for a new 20K project... again, their call, I just think being a little more upfront about what she is involved in would be good.
In the end, I think it's pretty clear that Defiance are the only ones with bad intent here, and I hope Torn Armor is able to recover... but I think the absolute only chance of that is taking legal action as Rust Forge did (which I copied above, and sent to Torn Armor directly).
I guess it's easy when isn't your money and all you need to do is feign apology in a forum post.
highlord tamburlaine wrote: I couldn't pledge for it at the time but I've got a soft spot for bloodthirsty anthropomorphic animal warriors.
It's not my cup of tea so I can't tell you much about it other than it exists, but presumably you've checked out Brushfire? The owners post regularly on dakka and have their own forum subsection.
Just to clarify here, what would have been floating around about Defiance Games/ Tony last summer?
The RustForge/Proxie issue hadn't emerged yet, they were basically considered to be overly ambitious and slow, with varying opinions on the quality of their products.
I don't remember anyone blaming RustForge for dealing with Defiance so this attitude seems a bit weird.
Are you allowed to have multiple accounts on Kickstarter to make multiple projects? That seems very uncool... I am NOT saying there is anything wrong, as she is obviously using her name on both. But, it just doesn't seem to make sense to have two separate accounts that she controls / is able to make the comments on, rather than one account, to create projects.
I suspect the answer would depend on whether they're two different legal entities/companies even if they involve the same people/person. If she created two separate LLCs or has separate business licenses, I don't see any issue with that from Kickstarter's perspective.
Someone in the comments linked to a scandal 4 months before this funded, and they went with Defiance later, after their Chinese manufacturing quote was too high...
Defiance has had a bad rep for a few years now, though, regardless.
On the surface, this seems like a classic case of failure to do due diligence on Torn Armor's end, and breach of contract by Defiance.
Of course, who knows what's really going on. The great thing about having a reputation for ripping people off? It's easy to say you're the reason a project failed!
I'm not saying that they intentionally used Defiance to arrange a scapegoat, but it makes it more likley that people turn on Defiance, not Torn Armor.
The simple truth is if they had done no work, and after estimating found that the file format of the sculpts made it a non starter, you end the contract, return the money and go your separate ways.
The core issue is the money is GONE. Defiance doesn't have the money available to provide a return. Why? No one knows. They clearly didn't keep it separate, and it apparently got spent.
Why defiance doesn't feel the need to return the money, or even address it is confusing. If they returned the money, then it would have been an example of 'file formats not being valid'. But instead it is a failing company with cashflow issues using one projects funds to pay for another. If the money was returned, then it would be back on Torn for choosing a bad manufacturer and then it is back on them for delays and they can simply find a new manufacturer.
The rumor i"ve heard is that Defiance has been robbing peter to pay paul for years. I'm pretty certain Rust Forge got paid out of Kickstarter proceeds.
I was gonna work with Defiance at once point, a while back before all the drama ensued, for my first KS. But I had a couple of metal figs done already and decided to stick with that. Dodged a bullet there...
It's not my cup of tea so I can't tell you much about it other than it exists, but presumably you've checked out Brushfire? The owners post regularly on dakka and have their own forum subsection.
But of course I've checked out Brushfire! Who else is going to make armored Capybaras to fight with?
I normally stick to the reptiles, but when I see more exotic and less common mammals ready to skirmish, I have to partake now and then.
Sure Tony and Definace are up to their usual game. Sure it's unfortunate. However I think that the folks at Torn Armor deserve most of the blame. Alot of people have been talking about blaming the victim memes, I think this is one instance where it's perfectly acceptable to blame the victim. They lost backers money because they didn't do their due diliangance. If they were goverment officials they's be in jail.
Sorta like how Rust Forge and Ken/Proxie Models deserve most of the blame, right?
Sure Tony and Definace are up to their usual game. Sure it's unfortunate. However I think that the folks at Torn Armor deserve most of the blame. Alot of people have been talking about blaming the victim memes, I think this is one instance where it's perfectly acceptable to blame the victim. They lost backers money because they didn't do their due diliangance. If they were goverment officials they's be in jail.
Sorta like how Rust Forge and Ken/Proxie Models deserve most of the blame, right?
Rust Forge and Proxie models only lost their own money. Torn Armor lost backer money. As far as I'm concerned it's two completly different things. Basically do whatever you want with your own money but if you start looseing my money then we've got a problem.
If you give your money to somebody on good faith then more power to you.
Obviously people that mismanaged kickstarters are either morons, incompetent or malicious and deserve all the ire in the world. However, if you gave them the money you should know that is one of the risks. Surely KS makes that clear?
Sure Tony and Definace are up to their usual game. Sure it's unfortunate. However I think that the folks at Torn Armor deserve most of the blame. Alot of people have been talking about blaming the victim memes, I think this is one instance where it's perfectly acceptable to blame the victim. They lost backers money because they didn't do their due diliangance. If they were goverment officials they's be in jail.
Sorta like how Rust Forge and Ken/Proxie Models deserve most of the blame, right?
No, because that's an entirely different situation. Rust Forge and Proxie Models were at risk because they did work and weren't paid for it. They should have demanded up-front payment for their product, but their plan was otherwise sound. Torn Armor is at risk because they were paid to do work and didn't do it, and subcontracted the job to someone else who was paid to do work and didn't do it either. And frankly, if they'd been up-front about the fact that they were putting people's already paid for product in the hands of Defiance Games, people would have been asking for refunds.
Medium of Death wrote: However, if you gave them the money you should know that is one of the risks. Surely KS makes that clear?
No. This is a lie, just like EULAs are a lie. You can claim that pre-ordering product through Kickstarter forfeits your consumer rights, but that doesn't make it true.
I just see non business sense and a healthy dose of learning.
As much as I'd want to jump on the bandwagon and !@#$ all over the the victim, I'm going to have to pass...
The concepts are sound. It would not take much at all to turn the luck around on this whole pot of mess and pull out something that would fiesibly be a pretty fun game.
As much as they want to run around Kickstarter, trying to scoop up funds, it is not out of the realm of possibility to gather up what little money, games, and pride that is left and just up and pull out a game.
They have Nystul's magic aura hot mess, they have a concept of a world, and some game mechanics, and pictures of some figures. Not much more needed here but guts and brass cajones to go the distance.
Go back to the drawing board, salvage this lot and stop jumping around kickstarter with the "oh, I'm a clever geek" sickness that some gamers have that gives them the idea that they can eat plastic and crap out figures.
The work is pretty much there, it would not take much to pull back, re engage with a fresh BUSINESS PLAN, and a SMALL selection of base figures. (Warmachine started out with 5 or 6 boxed sets with four or five figures, and ... grew.) It grew because people could up, pull out a box and just up and play right away. It was not pretentous ( in the beginning....) and it was FUN.
THIS is the part of the concept has that appeal to me. The KS project was too scatter brained and lacked a single focus, Much like MOST of them do. Defiance isn't the blame of that, that goes all on just being silly and not serious on your expectations of the project. You just got caught up in the moment, as much as MOST of these KS projects do. ( oh, if you get to the NEXT goal, we'll GIVE YOU FREE STUFFS!!!)
Defiance was just a crap decision, made by not knowing any better that they can not be trusted for the time of day.
Your team needs to go back, have a gut check, and move forward. ALL of the KS projects and the webpage show promise, you just need to get with reality and focus your efforts on what the game is really going to be. Bullgak dice dungeon that people will forget in five seconds, or teams of fighting mice allied with some ancient greeks, and the Monkey king, vs snake men and demon women from the deeper pits. ( YES, I'm making light of it, but I'm serious that the base concept is pretty good.)
Animorphic adventure game, with fantasy stuff, if done right would be pretty cool. especially if done with some FUN, it would really be something to see on the tabletop.
If you go back, produce just a couple of teams of figures, and rescale the project, you get to salvage your pride, learn on a smaller scale, and actually PRODUCE a workable game system, that you can later grow ( along with your reputation that you took a risk, it backfired, but you came back and pulled out a win. Along the way, you develope your business chops, design OTHER future projects, and scale up as you grow, not just put a bunch of vaporware out and cry like a child about what could have been, because the good idea fairy took it away.
Sorry, but Blood, Sweat, and Tears are the coin of the realm if you want to make a game.
5 boxes of guys/ warbands.
1 rulebook.
1 game board.
1 adventure book.
THAT is a beginning. Focus ONLY on THAT, and that alone. All of this other garbage that has been shell-gamed needs to go to the "Good idea fairy" as a sacrifice for real life, real world business.
I've seen the background. This crap reeks of "Al LIM, esq." crap that we have seen more then a few times on KS.
These people have gone to the Mike Nystul school of KS projects to raise quick filthy lucre.
It takes more then money. It takes brains, and a fear of failure that people have lost anymore.
I'll go right out and say it. I think that THIS game could be a winner, if it was handled with the care that it deserved, and not the gak fest that was thrown all over it for the sake of being naive.
I like the concept. The world could use polish, but on the whole, using the game baord is a simple way to begin the adventure for the tabletop for later. Maybe use some dungon tiles, and have the gaols be interactive with the table top stuff later... In the "dungeon phase" where you'd be able to put a party together and go in and fight some creepy crawlies, or some of those snake guys/ demon wenches, or whatever the bad guys are supposed to be.
One last question for the "Creator" of the game system.
Are you serious about the game project as a whole, or is the KS just a fund raising scheme?
Medium of Death wrote: However, if you gave them the money you should know that is one of the risks. Surely KS makes that clear?
No. This is a lie, just like EULAs are a lie. You can claim that pre-ordering product through Kickstarter forfeits your consumer rights, but that doesn't make it true.
Surely until KS, or a leading body in such matters, says otherwise it isn't a lie? It certainly has stopped me from using KS.
AlexHolker wrote: And frankly, if they'd been up-front about the fact that they were putting people's already paid for product in the hands of Defiance Games, people would have been asking for refunds.
This is my issue, that if they had ever once mentioned Defiance, people would have warned them.
However, I have never asked for a refund on Kickstarter, and don't plan to... if a project turns out to be an actual scam, I'll just challenge the charge on my credit card. I know that means they'd be retrieving the funds from Kickstarter, not the project creator, but KS is making enough money as it is.
The point is, though, IF people want refunds, there is recourse for that... however, in this case if I had donated I would not be demanding a refund- I would be asking that they use my funds to nail Defiance legally and get what they paid Defiance back.
------------------------------------
Another backer who reflects my thoughts on this:
David Smith on Kickstarter wrote:Very disappointed with the news and feel sorry for you and us, but why the heck did you decide to go to Defiance, they can't even release their own products in time let alone anyone else's.
It really sucks, but it's just plain shocking that someone who has backed 50 projects as this creator has, and would seemingly be somewhat plugged into the wargaming community, had no idea that Defiance was a risky choice. I believe it, but man... what a poor decision... hopefully now that they've come clean about it legal action can be taken, maybe with the help of Rust Forge's lawyers who are already familiar with Defiance.
Medium of Death wrote: However, if you gave them the money you should know that is one of the risks. Surely KS makes that clear?
No. This is a lie, just like EULAs are a lie. You can claim that pre-ordering product through Kickstarter forfeits your consumer rights, but that doesn't make it true.
Surely until KS, or a leading body in such matters, says otherwise it isn't a lie? It certainly has stopped me from using KS.
Crowd funding is a gamble. It is not just a way to "get rich quick, or get free stuffs."
You are under no sort of obligation on crowd funding whatsoever.
If I wanted to, I could raise 6 million bucks, push forward, and can the project after I got funded and squander the funds on wine, women, and song, and there would not be a thing you could do about it, except cry about how I took your money.
Thats why I'm pretty much done with the so called "New way of game production funding".... crap.
Playing devils advocate here: defiance seemed to be turning things around for a while, and were catching up on back logged orders from what I had been reading, so depending upon timing this may have looked good. The were working with Rust Forge, who in my opinion is a operation, and seemed to be trying to right themselves. We don't have all the info, or an actual timeline so the armchair quarterbacking and 20/20 hindsight are great, but in the end its another nail in Tom reidy(hopefully), and a bad outcome to a questionable decision otherwise.
okay, I don't believe it either, but all sides should be expressed As always feel free to ignore me, that's why the mod's make that button available.
Grot 6 wrote: If I wanted to, I could raise 6 million bucks, push forward, and can the project after I got funded and squander the funds on wine, women, and song, and there would not be a thing you could do about it, except cry about how I took your money.
No matter how many times this is repeated, it simply isn't true. It's an internet myth that gets echoed around and by being repeated makes it seem true... but it simply isn't.
1. You can quite easily get your money back by challenging the charge on your credit card, as I stated above. Many people for the scam Kickstarter I list below did so.
2. You can take legal action, if the amount warrants it... A poster from the scam "The Doom That Came To Atlantic City" Kickstarter is doing just that... see the spoilered text below.
The point is, this is currently a grey area of the law, but there are means of recompense for a campaign that is truly a scam. I don't think that this campaign is, however, so none of those apply... but the idea that you can run off with 6 million with no consequences isn't true.
First, the bad news: I’ve been back and forth with the Oregon DOJ the past several weeks and their bottom line is we as kickstarter supporters are on our own. I spoke at length with both Alex Salinas and her supervisor Geoff Darling (503) 934-4400 (both extremely knowledge-able and helpful people) and while they acknowledge we don’t fall into the category of “investor”, we also don’t fall into the category of “consumer”. We’re in this weird middle ground of “crowdfunding”. It was likened to supporting the arts. Further, for them to pursue a fraud charge we would need to prove “intent to defraud”. We may believe it, but we can’t prove it. Our only real recourse is small claims court. However, it’s not all gray skies.
Some good news: If anyone is in contact with an actual “consumer” who preordered the game through The Forking Path website but did not receive a refund, the Oregon DOJ would like to hear from them. Send them Geoff Darling’s way. Unless there are a significant number of customers and a high enough dollar amount, the case may not be big enough for his office to take action, but it’s worth a shot.
Scorched earth good news: Like me, if you’re less worried about the money and more concerned with the principle I’ve stumbled upon an interesting solution. There’s an online legal network that will handle all of the small claims filing for you in the state of Oregon, regardless of where you live. You still need to arrive in person for the actual court date, but they’ll handle all the filing and setup, including SERVING PAPERS. The cost is $165 for the service, plus court filing fee ($50 if your claim is between 0 and $2500). More details can be found here:
http://www.smallclaimsdepartment.com/oregon.asp Supposedly, you can request these fees be added to any judgment you’re awarded.
For me, I contributed $100 to the Kickstarter campaign. Is it worth it to me be out of pocket a total of $315 plus travel to Portland on principle? Yes, yes it is. If I don’t get my money back I can at least ensure a small claims judgment follows Erik around. I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of thing that shows up on standard employment background check and loan reviews.
Anyone else up for it?
Grot 6 wrote: If I wanted to, I could raise 6 million bucks, push forward, and can the project after I got funded and squander the funds on wine, women, and song, and there would not be a thing you could do about it, except cry about how I took your money.
No matter how many times this is repeated, it simply isn't true. It's an internet myth that gets echoed around and by being repeated makes it seem true... but it simply isn't.
1. You can quite easily get your money back by challenging the charge on your credit card, as I stated above. Many people for the scam Kickstarter I list below did so.
2. You can take legal action, if the amount warrants it... A poster from the scam "The Doom That Came To Atlantic City" Kickstarter is doing just that... see the spoilered text below.
The point is, this is currently a grey area of the law, but there are means of recompense for a campaign that is truly a scam. I don't think that this campaign is, however, so none of those apply... but the idea that you can run off with 6 million with no consequences isn't true.
First, the bad news: I’ve been back and forth with the Oregon DOJ the past several weeks and their bottom line is we as kickstarter supporters are on our own. I spoke at length with both Alex Salinas and her supervisor Geoff Darling (503) 934-4400 (both extremely knowledge-able and helpful people) and while they acknowledge we don’t fall into the category of “investor”, we also don’t fall into the category of “consumer”. We’re in this weird middle ground of “crowdfunding”. It was likened to supporting the arts. Further, for them to pursue a fraud charge we would need to prove “intent to defraud”. We may believe it, but we can’t prove it. Our only real recourse is small claims court. However, it’s not all gray skies.
Some good news: If anyone is in contact with an actual “consumer” who preordered the game through The Forking Path website but did not receive a refund, the Oregon DOJ would like to hear from them. Send them Geoff Darling’s way. Unless there are a significant number of customers and a high enough dollar amount, the case may not be big enough for his office to take action, but it’s worth a shot.
Scorched earth good news: Like me, if you’re less worried about the money and more concerned with the principle I’ve stumbled upon an interesting solution. There’s an online legal network that will handle all of the small claims filing for you in the state of Oregon, regardless of where you live. You still need to arrive in person for the actual court date, but they’ll handle all the filing and setup, including SERVING PAPERS. The cost is $165 for the service, plus court filing fee ($50 if your claim is between 0 and $2500). More details can be found here:
http://www.smallclaimsdepartment.com/oregon.asp Supposedly, you can request these fees be added to any judgment you’re awarded.
For me, I contributed $100 to the Kickstarter campaign. Is it worth it to me be out of pocket a total of $315 plus travel to Portland on principle? Yes, yes it is. If I don’t get my money back I can at least ensure a small claims judgment follows Erik around. I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of thing that shows up on standard employment background check and loan reviews.
Anyone else up for it?
As to go along with what Tides is saying, Pay with credit cards, not debit cards, you can challenge charges easier and almost always win.
Thanks, pities. I'm not sure why that isn't more common knowledge... I mean, credit cards don't mess around. I was with relatives abroad when the hotel they were staying at was listing erroneous charges. Rather than fight them, they waited until they got home and simply challenged them on the credit card, and very easily got their money back.
In this case, yes, the money would come from Kickstarter, not the project creator- but you can, quite easily, get your money back from an obvious scam project, as long as you used a credit card....
--------------------------------------------
Now that that is out of the way, again, I really don't think it applies here. Here, hopefully backers can rally behind Torn Armor using the remaining funds to take legal action against Defiance Games, to get the bulk of the funds back and then try to deliver some product by another means once they are refunded. It's the only possible way I can see this ending well... so hopefully Torn Armor has the grit to go through with it.
Alright, everyone who is saying "She should have known better, just google "Defiance games" or "Tony Reidy":
When the kickstarter had ended, most of the big Defiance games stuff hadn't gone down.
In fact, if you do a google search for articles published within a month of the kickstarter ending (which I assume is when they started working with Defiance). There really isn't any major red flags coming up.
Even if you google "Tony Reidy Defiance Games" now there's only one page that comes up in the first few pages that's negative (a post on Dakka, about some mold issues".
That's fair enough Grot 6 (and interestingly, is the prior campaign from the same guy as linked to above, which SoulJar took over the IP of, but wasn't paid...). But the point is, any individual backer could get their money back from Kickstarter if they choose to, assuming they paid by credit card.
Whether or not that guy sees justice is more up to how much perseverance people have in chasing after him / whether it's worth it to them or not (in this case, it probably isn't worth it... in the Atlantic City game case, which raised over 100K, that I linked to above... I think it is much more worth it, and the Oregon DOJ is actively looking into it).
Yep, definitely plenty of blame to go around, but I put more of it on Defiance.
Based on the facts presented, Torn Armor gave DG money to produce models. As others have pointed out, nothing was produced, and Torn Armor had agreed to pay expenses incurred in the return of their funds. DG doesn't have the money to pay them back, which indicates the money for the Torn Armor project was already spent elsewhere. So, if the money was already spent, how were they going to pay for the production of the models which, last I checked, still costs money? Yes, the "Rob Peter to pay Paul" setup is DG's MO anymore, and a little bit of research reveals this, but at this point DG seems like they were acting in bad faith by committing monies they hadn't earned to other projects, and now being unable to return the funds to their rightful owner.
Stupid choice in supplier, and even worse to give them such a big chunk of the KS money up front so the Torn Armor folks aren't innocent angels, but they seem like the party deserving the lesser share of the blame.
However, I have never asked for a refund on Kickstarter, and don't plan to... if a project turns out to be an actual scam, I'll just challenge the charge on my credit card. I know that means they'd be retrieving the funds from Kickstarter, not the project creator, but KS is making enough money as it is.
The problem with this approach is twofold.
Firstly, you're basically stealing money from the middle man.
Secondly, you'll likely end up banned from further Kickstarters or possibly even from Amazon itself.
I suspect trying to reverse charges over 6 months old on your card may prove more difficult than you think. The longer time goes on the harder it becomes. Not every bank is going to automatically give you your money back at that point.
RiTides wrote: Someone in the comments linked to a scandal 4 months before this funded, and they went with Defiance later, after their Chinese manufacturing quote was too high...
Which company are you referring to here?
Scams usually offer something too good to be true to appeal to the greedy as they gloss over the gaps in the story as they think they are getting one over con man.
We don't know all the facts here but I would be very surprised if any company wanted to do business with another company without first checking up on the company, its basic business sense.
AlexHolker wrote: They should have demanded up-front payment for their product, but their plan was otherwise sound.
That seems to be how Defiance themselves operate. If you hire them, they apparently take a large sum of money up front. If they hire you, you ship them before they pay anything from the Rust Forge drama. In any case, all the risk is on the other party in the transaction and not Defiance.
Did you really have to take so little responsibility and say that WE failed? After a nice paragraph in which you say you should take the blame, you write a long text blaming us. Wrong.
Basically, your figures were not produced because the digital files you provided do not work. Yet you try to shift responsibility for that to Defiance. Defiance DID NOT create the digital files. It was never our responsibility to do that. You should admit that, but you do not.
This is your project -- the only person responsible for the fact that Defiance never received workable files is ultimately you, Alyssa. The buck stops with you when it comes to Torn.
After the original files proved unworkable, the vendor you hired to fix them did not provide results which could be manufactured (Did you really want us to try and make a 20 mm resin figure in 5 parts???). Nothing that happened at Defiance, the 'changing of the guard' or the 'turbulent times' changes that.
You claim to have patience. Well, you are now choosing (it is a choice on your part) to close your project. Ultimately, this might still be a fixable problem. We have suggested possible solutions. You have decided not to do that. That is your decision and your responsibility. Do not blame anyone else for it.
I am really disappointed in you.
John Morse
People have already started to ask them why not refund the money.
I like how he glossed over the point that it was his company that specified the file formats. Twice.
Krinsath wrote: Yep, definitely plenty of blame to go around, but I put more of it on Defiance.
Based on the facts presented, Torn Armor gave DG money to produce models. As others have pointed out, nothing was produced, and Torn Armor had agreed to pay expenses incurred in the return of their funds. DG doesn't have the money to pay them back, which indicates the money for the Torn Armor project was already spent elsewhere. So, if the money was already spent, how were they going to pay for the production of the models which, last I checked, still costs money? Yes, the "Rob Peter to pay Paul" setup is DG's MO anymore, and a little bit of research reveals this, but at this point DG seems like they were acting in bad faith by committing monies they hadn't earned to other projects, and now being unable to return the funds to their rightful owner.
Stupid choice in supplier, and even worse to give them such a big chunk of the KS money up front so the Torn Armor folks aren't innocent angels, but they seem like the party deserving the lesser share of the blame.
I 100% agree with this post, sums up the whole situation very well...
There's also a huge difference in term of passive negligence in failing to properly vet a potential supplier, and actively refusing to refund a failed contract.
As a consumer, I wouldn't trust either party with a lot of money, but Torn Armor was un-wise, while Defiance is scummy at best, fraudulent at worst.
I see a lot of people saying if they had mentioned defiance people would have warned them but in Alyssa's initial opening it says one of the backers mentioned defiance as someone to use
Motograter wrote: I see a lot of people saying if they had mentioned defiance people would have warned them but in Alyssa's initial opening it says one of the backers mentioned defiance as someone to use
I wonder if backers name was Tony per chance ......
Motograter wrote: I see a lot of people saying if they had mentioned defiance people would have warned them but in Alyssa's initial opening it says one of the backers mentioned defiance as someone to use
I wonder if backers name was Tony per chance ......
as pointed out the KS ended in April and this was before the Rustforge and Proxie models debacle (in fact last March/April they were showing off the vehicles, mech, and hardsuits and were about to release the Chinese so things were actually looking not too bad)
Yes, but there was plenty of history prior to that.
Not to mention, when the whole Defiance Games scandal blew up all over the internet in the fall, Torn Armor remained silent that that was who they had given the money to... and only just now came clean on it.
Obviously, Defiance is the huge culprit, but saying they are being totally transparent with backers and yet not revealing that they were also mired in with Defiance, particularly when Rust Forge was taking legal action against them, means they may have missed the boat on a chance to get their money back.
The title of an update is a quote from their production company, on September 26th...
Update Title wrote:Your figures will be fantastic. You have my personal guarantee.
RiTides wrote: Yes, but there was plenty of history prior to that.
Sure but wasn't Gary in charge at this point? Defiance had "turned a new leaf" and was releasing product and being active on their FB page and actually talking to their customers and shipping product. Then I guess Tony decided he wanted to buy a new Land Rover or something
How dare they take money off someone who has clearly worked very hard to achieve their goal and their idea, and then have the balls to send a letter like that. Some goddamn people.
Twelvecarpileup wrote: Alright, everyone who is saying "She should have known better, just google "Defiance games" or "Tony Reidy":
When the kickstarter had ended, most of the big Defiance games stuff hadn't gone down.
Obviously she didn't do due diligence and predict Defiance's actions into the future.
By her own words:
Back in June/July of last year I had my first contact with Defiance...
But in July, she should have been able to read Xeno's review written on the 27th of June, which includes the following:
Xeno wrote: However, the casting flaws there were . . . oh my.
For starters: the right toe of the boot on EVERY SINGLE kneeling figure was missing. That's all figures from two sets.
On many of the arms, the edge of the shoulder was missing and, given how little surface area there already is for glue bonding, that's a problem, on that would be easy to fix with green stuff, but that's barely acceptable, even to an easy-going guy like myself.
The single piece bodies had a couple of common flaws: the first is that on the one with a visible gun stock, said stock was always half cast. The end of the barrel was frequently missing (~50% of the time) on all rifles except, ironically, Mr. Half-Stock. If you needed an excuse to make these little less like AK-47s, there you go. You'll probably have to trim them all down anyway.
...
However, a number (about 25%) of the head tabs between both sets were affected by misaligned molds making the face look like it had suffered a stroke:
Others looked misaligned, like perhaps the master model had been slightly squashed during molding or just were suffering from less overtly noticeable molding issues.
If you're looking to bet your own reputation and ten thousand dollars or more of other people's money on Defiance's ability to not feth this up, don't you think stuff like that is something to be worried about?
Some of you are bananas.
Almost 700 people (120 MORE than backed Torn, albeit for less money overall) gave money DIRECTLY to Defiance well after Torn would have become involved with them.
There were fairly mild snide remarks about rolling the dice, but there was no impassioned out cry.
The Rustforge/Proxie stuff didn't emerge until a week or so after their KS closed.
It's also weird to think that Torn would start yelling about how they were involved with Defiance at that point. Defiance obviously has a huge chunk of their money and they would be working to retrieve that or get the work done before posting "OMG you guys we're involved with a company that people on the internet don't like!". Now that it's clear that Defiance are crooks it very much makes sense to 'go public' with what has been happening.
plastictrees wrote: Some of you are bananas.
Almost 700 people (120 MORE than backed Torn, albeit for less money overall) gave money DIRECTLY to Defiance well after Torn would have become involved with them.
There were fairly mild snide remarks about rolling the dice, but there was no impassioned out cry.
To be fair, some of us made more than mild snide remarks.
After reading the DG reply to the accusations on their FB page, I reject their excuses as utter crap and blame shifting. Not that the creators of the KS are completely blameless but the onus is on DG to provide a quote in good faith for the work they were contracted to complete.
I have plenty of experience working with digital files and I can tell you I reject the defense given by DG. An upstanding company could easily identify the issues and get them resolved with minimal effort and expense, or at the minimum be able to tell the client 'exactly' what is required and provide a good faith quote for the work in a very short time.
You can open a file in some rather inexpensive software and determine if the mesh is viable for print in a matter of seconds.
I can tell the mesh creators are using Z-Brush, a popular software for organics, it will not output into STL format but you can run it through another program such as Rhino (also an inexpensive program) to convert the file format and check for naked edges while you are there.
The only other concerns are how the model has been broken up to accommodate printing and undercuts. You can further break the model up in Zbrush or Rhino. If the complaint is that the model is in too many parts, just drop it into Zbrush and have it create a new skin with the parts all placed in their proper positions, this will make a new closed mesh integrating one or more components.
If there are components that are too thin for print and reproduction, you may need to work a little more, an hour or two per file to expand the component and get it to fit the size required (thinking thin spears here)
All of this is fast, easy and not complicated if you know even the basics of these programs. If you did not know how to use these functions or do not have the software, hand it back to the client with your concerns and charge them for the amount of time examining the files and let them decide how to proceed with a reasonable quote to complete the job.
Bottom line, opening a file and identifying the issues to generate a quote, perhaps ten minutes per file on the outside. So if no substantial work was done... where did the money go?
This all seems very odd. Ultimately someone offering a product on kick starter did not fulfill there obligations. The how's and whys of their business dealings are their problem. The kick starter T&Cs are quite clear:
"Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or fulfill"
And in this case the creator not only used a know dodgy company, but seems to have paid upfront for work that really should have been done on credit terms. Not that any of the business dealings of the company matter.
NoseGoblin wrote: Bottom line, opening a file and identifying the issues to generate a quote, perhaps ten minutes per file on the outside. So if no substantial work was done... where did the money go?
Agreed, NoseGoblin (and you obviously know what you're talking about on this issue). The excuse by Defiance was just stalling, plain and simple.
plastictrees- Interesting article, thanks for linking to it! I guess you don't want a lawyer backing your Kickstarter if you plan to not deliver anything
Hopefully, Torn Armor can follow up with what they plan to do now- i.e., take the remaining funds, hire Rust Forge's lawyer who got Defiance to pay up in the fall, and sue Defiance Games to get the money back. Just writing it off would be the worst thing to do at this point. You wouldn't write off almost 70K of your own money if someone had swindled you out of it (not that they gave Defiance Games all of it, but it seems to have been a considerable chunk... and up front, to boot).
Twelvecarpileup wrote: Alright, everyone who is saying "She should have known better, just google "Defiance games" or "Tony Reidy":
When the kickstarter had ended, most of the big Defiance games stuff hadn't gone down.
Obviously she didn't do due diligence and predict Defiance's actions into the future.
By her own words:
Back in June/July of last year I had my first contact with Defiance...
But in July, she should have been able to read Xeno's review written on the 27th of June, which includes the following:
Xeno wrote: However, the casting flaws there were . . . oh my.
For starters: the right toe of the boot on EVERY SINGLE kneeling figure was missing. That's all figures from two sets.
On many of the arms, the edge of the shoulder was missing and, given how little surface area there already is for glue bonding, that's a problem, on that would be easy to fix with green stuff, but that's barely acceptable, even to an easy-going guy like myself.
The single piece bodies had a couple of common flaws: the first is that on the one with a visible gun stock, said stock was always half cast. The end of the barrel was frequently missing (~50% of the time) on all rifles except, ironically, Mr. Half-Stock. If you needed an excuse to make these little less like AK-47s, there you go. You'll probably have to trim them all down anyway.
...
However, a number (about 25%) of the head tabs between both sets were affected by misaligned molds making the face look like it had suffered a stroke:
Others looked misaligned, like perhaps the master model had been slightly squashed during molding or just were suffering from less overtly noticeable molding issues.
If you're looking to bet your own reputation and ten thousand dollars or more of other people's money on Defiance's ability to not feth this up, don't you think stuff like that is something to be worried about?
That's a hard sell for me... her due diligence, was coming on this specific board, to see a single review of a product on the 52nd page of a thread?
I know we're all on this board, but the vast... vast majority of people do not browse this board.
Twelvecarpileup wrote: That's a hard sell for me... her due diligence, was coming on this specific board, to see a single review of a product on the 52nd page of a thread?
The same review was posted on Defiance Games' own forum.
Defiance Games just posted this on their FB page...(edited for clarity)
Defiance Games wrote:...we are compiling a record of events that shows what actually happened with the Torn Kickstarter and why we are now the scapegoats for this project that could never have been completed given the financials. We are reviewing this with our lawyers but will hopefully post it up tomorrow.
I feel bad for Torn Armor and hope things are resolved justly.
Defiance Games, aside from looking like crooks so far - especially stating the project "could never have been completed" with what they were paid, but taking the money anyway(?) - , come across as remarkably unprofessional. Not only are they responding through Facebook, but the replies so far (that have been quoted in this thread) and other comments on Facebook are very childish. By their own admission nothing has been produced because Torn Armor didn't submit files in a format Defiance Games was willing to accept; that means it should be a no-brainer that Torn Armor gets its money back.
Legal action also seems a no-brainer unless Torn Armor lack the funds or wherewithal to hire an attorney. They could always do another KS for that.
You have to be a pretty big moron to take somebody's money, use it up by doing absolutely nothing and claim THEY'RE the ones at fault. Hope Defiance Games gets whatever is coming to them. Sounds like Tony belongs in jail for a long time.
NoseGoblin wrote: After reading the DG reply to the accusations on their FB page, I reject their excuses as utter crap and blame shifting. Not that the creators of the KS are completely blameless but the onus is on DG to provide a quote in good faith for the work they were contracted to complete.
I have plenty of experience working with digital files and I can tell you I reject the defense given by DG. An upstanding company could easily identify the issues and get them resolved with minimal effort and expense, or at the minimum be able to tell the client 'exactly' what is required and provide a good faith quote for the work in a very short time.
You can open a file in some rather inexpensive software and determine if the mesh is viable for print in a matter of seconds.
I can tell the mesh creators are using Z-Brush, a popular software for organics, it will not output into STL format but you can run it through another program such as Rhino (also an inexpensive program) to convert the file format and check for naked edges while you are there.
The only other concerns are how the model has been broken up to accommodate printing and undercuts. You can further break the model up in Zbrush or Rhino. If the complaint is that the model is in too many parts, just drop it into Zbrush and have it create a new skin with the parts all placed in their proper positions, this will make a new closed mesh integrating one or more components.
If there are components that are too thin for print and reproduction, you may need to work a little more, an hour or two per file to expand the component and get it to fit the size required (thinking thin spears here)
All of this is fast, easy and not complicated if you know even the basics of these programs. If you did not know how to use these functions or do not have the software, hand it back to the client with your concerns and charge them for the amount of time examining the files and let them decide how to proceed with a reasonable quote to complete the job.
Bottom line, opening a file and identifying the issues to generate a quote, perhaps ten minutes per file on the outside. So if no substantial work was done... where did the money go?
Glad you jumped on here to talk about this.
I work with CAD software (Unigraphics) every day, and converting between file types, while not every day, is fairly commonplace.
We've worked with small machine shops who just knew what type worked for them, and we had to figure out how to get them that type.
And a simple google search can quickly get you on the path to figuring that out.
If Defiance couldn't use the file types given, they should have been able to specify a type they could use.
There should have been no cash exchanged before they confirmed that they could work with the files.
I also have friends in the miniatures/gaming industry that have told me that much of the industry works on credit.
You commit to doing work for someone, then you get paid once the work is done.
This is evidenced by the Rust Forge and Proxy Models situation with Defiance.
They did the work in good faith, as they probably had many times in the past.
It is stunning to me that Defiance required money up front.
Even more so that Torn gave it to Defiance in advance of any work being done, regardless of their history.
And the Facebook comment about a model in too many pieces says bad things about Defiance's abilities to produce quality models.
Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote: Defiance Games just posted this on their FB page...(edited for clarity)
Defiance Games wrote:...we are compiling a record of events that shows what actually happened with the Torn Kickstarter and why we are now the scapegoats for this project that could never have been completed given the financials. We are reviewing this with our lawyers but will hopefully post it up tomorrow.
It's official: Defiance Games is the new Foam Wars.
Polonius wrote: I'm not saying that they intentionally used Defiance to arrange a scapegoat, but it makes it more likley that people turn on Defiance, not Torn Armor.
If you're not saying that, what are you saying, friend? Because it looks to me that you're implying it.
This might be a little offtopic, but Mantic recently had a problem where the file format they delivered to their Chinese manufacturers was incompatible with the tooling machines.
Of course, China being China, instead of buying the file conversion software, they just got some random factory worker to trace over the files and do a quick bodge-job 3d sculpt in a format that was compatible.
But in July, she should have been able to read Xeno's review written on the 27th of June, which includes the following:
So a person whose admittedly not into miniatures wargaming should very specifically go to a random miniatures forum (that is a majority of Games Workshop games) and read a random post by someone? Really? You've never been in a position where you had to do something you didn't know how to do and your solution was not optimal?
I can mirror your sql database and write a custom crm to meet and exceed your needs; but if I venture into an area where I don't have expertise and my job requires that I do (say, multithreaded video editing) then I'll research what others have done - and many times I'll get to where I need to go and learn a little best practices experience; but sometimes I do things incorrectly that will necessitate a large rewrite (and a corresponding loss in labor dollars, obviously). It happens.
As of that point in time, Gary was in charge of Defiance, they were actively talking to their customers, fulfilling orders, showing off test prints, releasing new product, etc. I personally had ordered and received UAMC and Bugs. None of the Rust Forge/Proxie stuff had happened. You then have someone not too experienced with miniatures companies get suggested to go to Defiance - and from what Torn Armor indicated, the beginnings were just fine. I can easily imagine they took a turn for the worse when Gary etc left and Tony had to start paying Rust Forge and Proxie back (and probably bought a new Land Rover).
By the same token, both Rust Forge and Proxie were producing and shipping product to Defiance with the expectation of receiving payment (NET30/etc accounts - get product now, pay for it later) at around the same time. Obviously there was some trust within the industry of Defiance's ability at that point to fulfill it's obligations.
Judgedoug, it's a fair point, but let's not put on rose-tinted glasses here. It was already clarified that that review was also posted on Defiance's own page, which someone looking into Defiance could certainly have looked at.
Also, when I've had to do things I wasn't familiar with, I generally wasn't risking almost 70K of other people's money . It is totally fair to say that Defiance is the crook here, but it's also fair to say that Torn Armor was a little reckless in going with them. They haven't revealed how much they paid them upfront for no work done, but it seems to have been a lot. Saying they should have done their homework better is reasonable.
And we can all agree that we hope they nail Defiance to the wall for this legally... but they were reckless with the funds in going to Defiance and paying a significant portion of the funds they took in upfront.
Both can be true at the same time, it doesn't have to be one or the other... and imo, that's usually how it is in cases like this. I really hope Torn Armor gets justice and gets their money back.
Okay, sorry, I do apologize as re-reading that it seems I'm saying Torn Armor is not at fault at all. All I mean to say is that while Defiance had troubles in the past, at that point in time there was enough trust in the industry for three other companies to agree to work with them. Based on the situation around that time, I could easily see that Torn Armor could enter into a production agreement in good faith with the expectations of an acceptable result. I could also see that, at that time, Defiance seemed to be in a relatively stable enough position to be able to deliver on it.
Obviously that all went to hell and Rust Forge, Proxie, and now Torn Armor has been royally effed by Defiance. I certainly hope that Torn Armor gets their money back and are able to get Reaper to help (perhaps, as mentioned, with an internal loan to be paid by percentage of net profits). I also hope that Defiance somehow magically fulfills their own KS obligations, and then at the moment the last item is shipped, Defiance explodes and Tony never curses our little niche hobby ever again.
A surprisingly reasonable response from Defiance. I'm open to the idea that my assessment is incorrect that Torn Armor may actually have the majority of the blame.
Defiance Games wrote:
Let us preface all this by saying that Defiance Games has had it's share of ups and downs and we've made a lot of mistakes along the way. It has definitely not been a pretty journey in the least and we are well aware of our reputation.
Over the last few months we have been regrouping and rebuilding to fix our past and bring new products to the market - helped along by a small, but successful Kickstarter in October.
That all said, we can't stand by and have our reputation further destroyed by statements that only tell a part of the story.
Alyssa Faden (or Natalya Faden) of Torn World has made a statement that basically says we are to blame for her Kickstarter failing. This is absolutely untrue. We don't believe she could afford to finish her Kickstarter with us or anyone.
Torn raised $67K in April 2013 primarily by including a large number of miniatures as stretch goals and a free shipping offer - similar to what the large companies like Mantic Games do – when they have $1M+ Kickstarters. The core game had 12 unique miniatures (39 total figures per set). They hired another company to sculpt these figures for them and provide manufacturable STL files.
This didn't happen. It was clear early on that the sculpts that were being produced were not manufacturable at all. A combination of undercuts, ultra-thin part areas, and other problems would mean anyone would be hard pressed to actually produce them. Alyssa then described these sculpts as "sketches" that could be used by other sculptors to create manufacturable models. Torn also hired a number of physical (i.e. non-digital putty/greenstuff) sculptors to make versions of these as well.
The sculpts from Alyssa's digital sculptors cost close to $20K from what she has told us. This doesn't include the additional sculptures ($300-400 or more each) done in putty.
At the same time, as Alyssa realized that nothing she had paid for from the digital sculptors was usable, she was receiving quotes from China factories to produce the miniatures. These were coming back 30% or so over what she had “estimated”. One quote we saw put the molding alone at $45K. (i.e. it didn't include the manufacturing of any miniatures – just the molds to do so – leaving $20K for sculpting, printing, shipping, etc). The project was absolutely doomed at this stage.
At this point she called us and wanted to know if we could help do this project for her. We pushed back as we already had a lot going on here and didn't want to complicate things. She kept coming back to us asking us to please quote on the project. Finally - and how we now regret this - we did.
Her plan was that she was going to have a new digital sculptor take the digital files and “fix” them to allow them to be molded. This sounded doable and we put in place a project to mold and produce 500 core box sets. Keep in mind there are 12 unique figures in this box set and 39 figures per box. It is not a huge project but something that should take a few weeks to produce after receiving usable files. (Our project also did not include any of the 20+ other sculptures – some of them quite large multi-part expensive pieces including a massive Mu warmachine thing in many separate parts – that were needed to satisfy the Kickstarter – go visit her Kickstarter page to see all the add-on sculpts that were part of this – our part was just the core box set. She planned on having us quote on the additional work for these figures after the first project. At the time we did not know there was probably zero budget for this available.)
We drew up a contract together and this was our responsibility list:
1. Create molds for plastic production from TW-supplied master sculptures
2. Produce plastic figures from DFG-created molds.
Torn were responsible for giving us workable 3D files – which she failed to mention in her post - which we would of course work with the sculptor to make sure we could use. And that is where it fell apart.
As this was happening, the conventional sculptors had finished their work. We were ready to start molding those and producing parts. We sent pictures of the ones we received to Alyssa who posted them up on her Kickstarter pages. Based on the feedback she received she decided that the physical sculpts weren't good enough. She instructed us not to produce them and wait for the digital files to be redone.
She brought in a sculptor who began to work on the files. Unfortunately, at the time we didn't know that the files were such a mess that he was basically just re-sculpting everything from scratch. Reportedly, he was being paid $100-200 each - a really low price for the amount of work he was doing. Unfortunately, as he began to deliver the files to us we saw that changes needed to be made. The technical fixes themselves were fine - but the way they were being laid out presented issues with undercuts and in some cases used way too many parts per figure.
For example - the Mu Slinger - a 20mm tall mouse person - was delivered in five separate parts: head, two arms, body, and tail. Alyssa's instructions were to have as little gluing for the end customer as possible. We went back with a list of changes and suggestions on how to repose the sculpts to get close to a single piece figure.
The sculptor refused to communicate with us. We were forced to play the telephone game through Alyssa. But even then that did not result in changes. Alyssa was pulling her hair out - we were pulling our hair out as well. We just wanted to get some manufacturable files, print them, make the molds and produce what we were hired to make.
We recommended Alyssa hire another sculptor to try to fix the files - someone we trusted and whose work we respected. That was in December – only a short time ago. He started to look at the files and manipulate them. He quickly realized – as the original “fix” sculptor had - that one of the problems was the original files themselves. He asked if we could receive the native ZBrush files to work from. Those would be layered ZTL files. If he had those, he could make changes quickly.
To be safe, we asked Alyssa to ask the original digital sculptors for a sample of the original files to make sure they worked. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Instead, Alyssa apparently gave those digital sculptors $1000 to send her all the files without looking at them first. (We found out at this point that she and the original sculpting company had had a falling out and weren't on speaking terms – we don't know the whole story.)
The new sculptor received the files and discovered that they were a mess. In his words: "the issue isn't the poses as much as how they decided to layout the layers gaps and spaces that are hard or impossible to patch up because they bound them together. You can cut a piece off there is nothing under it lol have to fill the blank and then smooth it and it looks like crap."
He spent a lot of time and got us the one hoplite pose finalized which Alyssa posted January 8th. We thought we were now going to be okay but the more the sculptor dug into them the worse the files were.
Alyssa told us that she could not afford to pay for additional sculpting. We HAD to make what we had work. Unfortunately, that was impossible given the files we had to work with. Unless someone were to completely re-sculpt these figures from scratch there was no way we could produce them.
Defiance Games is now a scapegoat for Torn's decision to shut down this project - a convenient and easy target because of our own well-documented problems. We don't deny them – we definitely have had them – but we feel they are being used now to cover up Torn's inability to fulfill their Kickstarter.
We signed on to make their figures but we were never given the files that would allow that to happen. We are still prepared to finish the project and we've budgeted the materials and man-hours to do it. We just need usable files and we would be thrilled to do the work and make this project a reality.
Instead we are being blamed for the project's failure and we've been asked to refund the payment. And in the big scheme of things it is fine that they are bailing on their project – that is their right - and want us to pay back money for a part of it that was never completed. But as a small company, we're just not in a position to do that immediately in a lump sum. Along with offering to complete the project if we're given files that can be turned into miniatures, we've also offered to work out a payment plan. We'd love to see Alyssa's project succeed, but we won't lay down and let Defiance be dragged through the mud for something that is - for once - not our fault.
We did not complete the project – because we did not receive files that could be turned into produceable miniatures. If we had these – this project would be done now. We now highly doubt it would have shipped given the financials...this was a severely underfunded Kickstarter and anyone can look at the sheer amount of figures, printing, and shipping and see that.
We know we don't have a great track record and we've been working to fix it. We know we did not complete the project. But we also want people to understand the other side of this story and why that is. This is a terrible situation for everyone involved and the result may be that both our companies go down because of it.
RiTides wrote: Judgedoug, it's a fair point, but let's not put on rose-tinted glasses here. It was already clarified that that review was also posted on Defiance's own page, which someone looking into Defiance could certainly have looked at.
Also, when I've had to do things I wasn't familiar with, I generally wasn't risking almost 70K of other people's money . It is totally fair to say that Defiance is the crook here, but it's also fair to say that Torn Armor was a little reckless in going with them. They haven't revealed how much they paid them upfront for no work done, but it seems to have been a lot. Saying they should have done their homework better is reasonable.
And we can all agree that we hope they nail Defiance to the wall for this legally... but they were reckless with the funds in going to Defiance and paying a significant portion of the funds they took in upfront.
Both can be true at the same time, it doesn't have to be one or the other... and imo, that's usually how it is in cases like this. I really hope Torn Armor gets justice and gets their money back.
Alright, let's say that for some reason she went to their forum, found the specific post (this is a pretty big stretch). The review itself wasn't super detrimental. It talks about casting issues, which anyone could take as it being a bad batch or something. I'm sure they sent her test minis that were just fine.
I'm not saying she couldn't have done more research, but expecting someone who doesn't know wargames (remember it's a board game with plastic pieces), to scour message boards looking for a specific post on a specific forum (this one or defiance's), in a specific thread, on the 52 page (not sure where it's at on Defiance's board) is a little much.
For example, I post on this board occasionally, play lots of mini games, have bought Wargames Factory minis in the last year from the FLGS. But I have no clue what people are talking about when they mention the "wargames fiasco".
RiTides wrote: Judgedoug, it's a fair point, but let's not put on rose-tinted glasses here. It was already clarified that that review was also posted on Defiance's own page, which someone looking into Defiance could certainly have looked at.
Also, when I've had to do things I wasn't familiar with, I generally wasn't risking almost 70K of other people's money . It is totally fair to say that Defiance is the crook here, but it's also fair to say that Torn Armor was a little reckless in going with them. They haven't revealed how much they paid them upfront for no work done, but it seems to have been a lot. Saying they should have done their homework better is reasonable.
And we can all agree that we hope they nail Defiance to the wall for this legally... but they were reckless with the funds in going to Defiance and paying a significant portion of the funds they took in upfront.
Both can be true at the same time, it doesn't have to be one or the other... and imo, that's usually how it is in cases like this. I really hope Torn Armor gets justice and gets their money back.
Alright, let's say that for some reason she went to their forum, found the specific post (this is a pretty big stretch). The review itself wasn't super detrimental. It talks about casting issues, which anyone could take as it being a bad batch or something. I'm sure they sent her test minis that were just fine.
I'm not saying she couldn't have done more research, but expecting someone who doesn't know wargames (remember it's a board game with plastic pieces), to scour message boards looking for a specific post on a specific forum (this one or defiance's), in a specific thread, on the 52 page (not sure where it's at on Defiance's board) is a little much.
For example, I post on this board occasionally, play lots of mini games, have bought Wargames Factory minis in the last year from the FLGS. But I have no clue what people are talking about when they mention the "wargames fiasco".
It should become a sticky. Just as a who's who of games manufacturer, let's say. I grow tired of PM it over and over again.
judgedoug wrote: A surprisingly reasonable response from Defiance. I'm open to the idea that my assessment is incorrect that Torn Armor may actually have the majority of the blame.
Interesting, if what they are saying is 100% true, it sounds like Torn has some explaining to do.
However, there are still a few problems. First off, it's hard for people to take Defiance's word on this, as they have a long track record of screwing people over. Second, I don't get the "we can't refund the money because we're a small company". If the money was paid to produce a product, then they didn't produce the product. Shouldn't they have most of the money that would have been set aside for the costs of production?
Edit: Also, the "we knew this project wasn't workable, but she asked us three times so we took it" is really a poor excuse.
Kilkrazy wrote: This announcement lays a lot of blame on Torn but it does not get Defiance off the hook.
Defiance thought the other project was unworkable and accepted the contract -- and the money -- anyway.
That's unprofessional, and unacceptable as an excuse for their conduct.
Where did the money go that Torn paid to Defiance?
You're right, I was going to point that out too. But let's be generous and assume that their guys did spend a modicum of time trying to fix things, playing around with digital files. I could understand for some money being gone. Some of it. From the Defiance post, which of course is not substantiated at this point, "all the money" that Torn gave them probably isn't as big of a percentage of the KS as I was thinking at first.
Instead we are being blamed for the project's failure and we've been asked to refund the payment. And in the big scheme of things it is fine that they are bailing on their project – that is their right - and want us to pay back money for a part of it that was never completed. But as a small company, we're just not in a position to do that immediately in a lump sum.
While Torn does look like they are heading for a hard road ahead... Defiance needs to return the money... the only thing they are being accused of is 'not refunding the money for the non-work they did'. Regardless how bad Torn is handling the KS, the issue is they gave Defiance money, Defiance is not going to do the work, Defiance has spent the money and cannot provide a refund.
Until the money is refunded, Torn is paralyzed and cannot move on regardless of the 'situation' the KS is left in. Defiance being a small company has no justification for not being able to refund 'unspent' money.
"This is a terrible situation for everyone involved and the result may be that both our companies go down because of it. "
I smell Defiance setting up a reason to fold and not fulfill their own KS obligations... and then a few months later a new Tony Reidy company starts up with big promises and a "roadmap" of new releases
Instead we are being blamed for the project's failure and we've been asked to refund the payment. And in the big scheme of things it is fine that they are bailing on their project – that is their right - and want us to pay back money for a part of it that was never completed. But as a small company, we're just not in a position to do that immediately in a lump sum.
While Torn does look like they are heading for a hard road ahead... Defiance needs to return the money... the only thing they are being accused of is 'not refunding the money for the non-work they did'. Regardless how bad Torn is handling the KS, the issue is they gave Defiance money, Defiance is not going to do the work, Defiance has spent the money and cannot provide a refund.
Until the money is refunded, Torn is paralyzed and cannot move on regardless of the 'situation' the KS is left in. Defiance being a small company has no justification for not being able to refund 'unspent' money.
Once again, agreed. But if the percentage of the total KS money initially given to Defiance is returned in full (best case scenario), what if it isn't enough to bring the project to fruition? Torn Armor will still be a dead in the water project.
Kilkrazy wrote: This announcement lays a lot of blame on Torn but it does not get Defiance off the hook.
Defiance thought the other project was unworkable and accepted the contract -- and the money -- anyway.
That's unprofessional, and unacceptable as an excuse for their conduct.
Where did the money go that Torn paid to Defiance?
You're right, I was going to point that out too. But let's be generous and assume that their guys did spend a modicum of time trying to fix things, playing around with digital files. I could understand for some money being gone. Some of it. From the Defiance post, which of course is not substantiated at this point, "all the money" that Torn gave them probably isn't as big of a percentage of the KS as I was thinking at first.
As an ex-games producer who's had to play around with fixing bad 3D files on a number of occasions, I can authoritatively say it doesn't cost very much to do. You either get it fixed with a bit of faffing around, or you give up because it is going to be too expensive and tell the supplier of the files to sort them out.
Files for printing are simpler than game files, too.
Instead we are being blamed for the project's failure and we've been asked to refund the payment. And in the big scheme of things it is fine that they are bailing on their project – that is their right - and want us to pay back money for a part of it that was never completed. But as a small company, we're just not in a position to do that immediately in a lump sum.
While Torn does look like they are heading for a hard road ahead... Defiance needs to return the money... the only thing they are being accused of is 'not refunding the money for the non-work they did'. Regardless how bad Torn is handling the KS, the issue is they gave Defiance money, Defiance is not going to do the work, Defiance has spent the money and cannot provide a refund.
Until the money is refunded, Torn is paralyzed and cannot move on regardless of the 'situation' the KS is left in. Defiance being a small company has no justification for not being able to refund 'unspent' money.
Once again, agreed. But if the percentage of the total KS money initially given to Defiance is returned in full (best case scenario), what if it isn't enough to bring the project to fruition? Torn Armor will still be a dead in the water project.
Agreed. But if Defiance returned the money the second they ended their business relationship, then nothing would have been lost but 'time' and if Torn fails to deliver, Defiance's hands would have been clean. Everything they said was 'reasonable' except the reasont hey couldn't return the money. No one is blaming them for not being able to produce them miniatures, or the sculptor/files issues. Simply refusal/inability to return the money.
As an ex-games producer who's had to play around with fixing bad 3D files on a number of occasions, I can authoritatively say it doesn't cost very much to do. You either get it fixed with a bit of faffing around, or you give up because it is going to be too expensive and tell the supplier of the files to sort them out.
Files for printing are simpler than game files, too.
Fair enough. I had no idea and wanted to entertain the possibility. So the "work" they seem to imply they did in their latest post wouldn't actually have been time consuming? To a layman, it sounded like they actually tried to actively fix them for Torn. Lucky I have you guys explain the big words to me.
While it certainly seems like Torn made some major, one might even say disastrous mistakes, this excerpt from the last message is damning, all the more so because Defiance considers it exculpatory;
Instead we are being blamed for the project's failure and we've been asked to refund the payment. And in the big scheme of things it is fine that they are bailing on their project – that is their right - and want us to pay back money for a part of it that was never completed. But as a small company, we're just not in a position to do that immediately in a lump sum. Along with offering to complete the project if we're given files that can be turned into miniatures, we've also offered to work out a payment plan. We'd love to see Alyssa's project succeed, but we won't lay down and let Defiance be dragged through the mud for something that is - for once - not our fault.
We did not complete the project – because we did not receive files that could be turned into produceable miniatures. If we had these – this project would be done now. We now highly doubt it would have shipped given the financials...this was a severely underfunded Kickstarter and anyone can look at the sheer amount of figures, printing, and shipping and see that.
It's entirely reasonable that Defiance incurred costs and so should be made whole. What is not reasonable, and indeed may be legally significant, is that Defiance, by their own accounting, took money for work that has not been done, and that money is now not available.
Consider the ramifications of that: suppose that Mark Mondragon, Reaper technoworks and the magic man from Mars swoop in and turn the crap sculpt files into gold. By Defiance's own admission, the money to go forward from that point is not available.
They say they are "offering to complete the project if we're given files that can be turned into miniatures", putting aside the self-serving nature of that comment, how? Either they have spent money on specific, itemized things (and one will notice precious little in the way of itemization of costs on their part in their statement) which they are entitled to payment for, or money remains in a client account waiting to be spent on the project. A legitimate business should simply be able to refund the unspent funds from the client account.
But it's quite clear here that there is no separation, that the money that Torn paid went into Defiances' general fund and was not segregated for specific use on Torn's project. That's why Defiance can't pay it back as "a lump sum".
DG is not wrong with their estimate but they are still duplicitous in their actions.
39 miniatures for $50.00 was not a good plan and free worldwide shipping is a fool’s errand.
Let’s have a look at the numbers, this is an estimate and I may be a bit off but likely not horridly so.
I am ONLY using the base set, 39 minis; the other expansion sets have not been included in this estimate because there are too many variables. There are other costs associated with this project I will not venture to guess; the original sculptors fees, the fees that DG initially agreed to pay to make the files printable and workable in a 28mm format, etc.
KS fees/credit card fees 10% $5.00 per transaction
Mold fees for 39 figures in PVC format (12 sets) and I am being VERY generous here $36,000 likely this would be closer to $50-$60k if all were to be PVC. (Instant fail, if my assumptions are correct)
Let’s look at what she could actually do with the PVC as an option that has been ruled out.
Let’s say for a moment that they realize this cannot be accomplished and release them in the most inexpensive format possible, White metal for the smaller units and resin for the larger. Mold fees would likely be $500.00 for the spincast and $500.00 for the open pour resin. The resin open pour will likely only last 50 casting on the outside before needing a new mold but services like Valliant fold that into the per mini price.
Total mold cost $1000.00 (granted this gets though amortized through the cost of the entire project run)
Being generous let’s call this 0.05 per mini
Production costs per mini. She did not get enough backers to be able to rely on a production discount so she would likely pay $1.25 per spincast mini and $2-5 for each resin model (this may be generous as well as the larger figures may cost twice that depending on the service provider selected.
35 X $1.25 – 3X $2.00 - 1X $5.00 (does not include shipping fees to her location for fulfillment)
Total casting fees $54.75
Total cost to deliver 39 minis
KS/CC $5.00
Mold fees $1.95
Casting fees $54.75
Shipping fees: From Portland Oregon (making assumptions that she has roughly the same demographic I had with my KS) Within the US $12.77 to New York $8.75 to California (average based on demographic ($11.45) Outside the US (Europe) $28.40
Estimated average shipping cost $19.90 per order
Total cost $81.60 : to deliver 39 miniatures to the backers
Collected $50.00
Net -$31.60
Granted this does not reflect what most of her customer base ordered but it is a glimpse and my best estimate of what it would cost to fulfill the items outlined in the base 39 miniature offering without the game. Did she pad the game costs enough to offset the net loss? I find it hard to believe that between the print/ship costs that she could make back $31.60 in losses. At its core, she undercut herself too far and I doubt that unless she has access to other finances (and she may) that this KS could be delivered. Judging by my rather crude estimate I think this KS was doomed to fail before it started.
A small manufacturer with an unknown final volume should never charge less than $3.00 per min in white metal, add to this the KS free shipping and you have a loss leader. The only way to overcome this is by moving to China and going PVC and that requires volume, volume this KS did not generate. It is small wonder that the China manufacturer looks at the order and increased it 30% based on the lack of volume, they would have been operating at a loss.
This however does not detract in anyway the behavior of DG, which I find reprehensible. Give her back her funds and let the project stand or fail on its own merits. The fact they would take the job and then not deliver and refuse refund is morally reprehensible.
Twelvecarpileup wrote: I'm not saying she couldn't have done more research, but expecting someone who doesn't know wargames (remember it's a board game with plastic pieces), to scour message boards looking for a specific post on a specific forum (this one or defiance's), in a specific thread, on the 52 page (not sure where it's at on Defiance's board) is a little much.
Kilkrazy wrote: This announcement lays a lot of blame on Torn but it does not get Defiance off the hook.
Defiance thought the other project was unworkable and accepted the contract -- and the money -- anyway.
Defiance is claiming the other project as a whole was unworkable, not the part they were being asked to work on. It's like saying Mantic's restic caster should have refused the contract if they thought the HIPS contract would fail, or vice versa.
I love how they are displacing the blame saying it never would have worked. That doesn't provide an excuse to promise work, fail to deliver and still take the money.
If the files were in fact unusable then Defiance should have refunded the money immediately and let TA take her project to another company. DG's statement sounds an awful lot like well it wasn't going to work, so we liberated her money to save it from being misspent.
Like Dream Forge stated it takes virtually no time to determine that the files won't work, you can check for file integrity using free ware (mesh lab or nettfab) and know within 5 minutes if the file is print worthy or not. It does not take a long involved process. They should have sent Torn Armor a refund for the service that wouldn't be able to be delivered on and cancelled their agreement, not keep the TA money and say oops your bad.
The sculptor who looked at/played with the 3D files for defiance has posted (on Frothers UK) saying he'd rather that his name stayed out of things so I wont post it here (but pop over to frothers if you want to know)
1. the files were a mess, not suitable for use for printing/casting (in terms of quality and also in terms of not being designed with casting in mind)
2. It became clear that without loads of extra work which he did not have time to do the files provided were not going to be any use
3. He spent about 40 hours playing around with them to see what he could do (he did not ask for or receive payment for this)
so there appears to be corroboration for the problems on that score,
but as has been said above that is no excuse for Defiance not returning the money that had not been spent on the Torn project to date
3. He spent about 40 hours playing around with them to see what he could do (he did not ask for or receive payment for this)
What is it that Defiance does that gets these people to work for free for them?
could just be that the guy didnt have any other "paying" jobs at the moment and as just trying to do a solid for them. Or its likely if he would have actually gotten the files to work and would have been able to bill his time then he could have then included the fixing time
Defiance Games wrote: This sounded doable and we put in place a project to mold and produce 500 core box sets. Keep in mind there are 12 unique figures in this box set and 39 figures per box. It is not a huge project but something that should take a few weeks to produce after receiving usable files.
HaHa!
What? When have Defiance EVER demonstrated that they can do anything on that sort of timeline?
Their story stinks. Torn had to BEG for them to take the job? Right, that's why they money was immediately spent.
Hopefully defiance can learn to abbreviate their company logo soon , I think that's been brought up before too.
After reading the post earlier about the kickstarter for an iPad holder, I hope this gal is incorporated, because there's lots of angry gamers out there that will be getting their money back one way or another.
Hopefully defiance can learn to abbreviate their company logo soon , I think that's been brought up before too.
After reading the post earlier about the kickstarter for an iPad holder, I hope this gal is incorporated, because there's lots of angry gamers out there that will be getting their money back one way or another.
Agreed. People will be coming for your personal assets if your KS doesn't deliver and you are not incorporated. That is why lots of KS which lose money or need extra money the project person makes effort to 'find money' to complete it as that is cheaper than being liable for the losses and refunds.
NoseGoblin wrote:This however does not detract in anyway the behavior of DG, which I find reprehensible. Give her back her funds and let the project stand or fail on its own merits. The fact they would take the job and then not deliver and refuse refund is morally reprehensible.
Nice post, Mark, and just wanted to pull this out and say I agree of course. Let her project succeed or fail on it's own... but for Defiance to say it was doomed to fail so it's OK for Defiance to just take the money and run? Lol...
Same as Paulson says below:
paulson games wrote: I love how they are displacing the blame saying it never would have worked. That doesn't provide an excuse to promise work, fail to deliver and still take the money.
If the files were in fact unusable then Defiance should have refunded the money immediately and let TA take her project to another company. DG's statement sounds an awful lot like well it wasn't going to work, so we liberated her money to save it from being misspent.
Like Dream Forge stated it takes virtually no time to determine that the files won't work, you can check for file integrity using free ware (mesh lab or nettfab) and know within 5 minutes if the file is print worthy or not. It does not take a long involved process. They should have sent Torn Armor a refund for the service that wouldn't be able to be delivered on and cancelled their agreement, not keep the TA money and say oops your bad.
Twelvecarpileup wrote: I'm not saying she couldn't have done more research, but expecting someone who doesn't know wargames (remember it's a board game with plastic pieces), to scour message boards looking for a specific post on a specific forum (this one or defiance's), in a specific thread, on the 52 page (not sure where it's at on Defiance's board) is a little much.
Kilkrazy wrote: This announcement lays a lot of blame on Torn but it does not get Defiance off the hook.
Defiance thought the other project was unworkable and accepted the contract -- and the money -- anyway.
Defiance is claiming the other project as a whole was unworkable, not the part they were being asked to work on. It's like saying Mantic's restic caster should have refused the contract if they thought the HIPS contract would fail, or vice versa.
Their excuse for not delivering the 3D master or whatever is not that the project was unworkable, but the bit they were asked to do was unworkable. Yet they went ahead to do it anyway, and took the money. And haven't returned it.
Let's separate the question of blame of Torn and the question of blame of Defiance.
Torn seem to have been incompetent. That is bad.
Defiance seem to have been doubly dishonest. You can judge for yourself if that is bad.
Defiance Games are not absolved any financial responsibility to Torn. Even if what they posted is true. They're not denying that no work, aside from reviewing and rejecting files, was done. The only issue anybody is having with them over the current situation is their inability to refund Torn's money; essentially holding them hostage and freezing their operation by denying the funds they need to move forward.
Right now it seems Defiance Games are responsible for Torn's failed Kickstarter until they refund the money.
I honestly kind of hope that Defiance can step up and not only do what's right and get the money returned but also earn themselves a bit of goodwill in the community and help get Torn headed in a better direction.
I tend to always want to root for the underdogs. Both companies are in pretty underdog positions at the moment.
I would be genuinely impressed if Defiance would take steps to get things for both their companies back on track.
Not solely responsible if the numbers quoted are correct.
67k-20k for the digital models=47k
39 models x $400 = 15.6k after the "live" sculping, leaving 30.4k
Based on NoseGoblin's post [1], ~$1000 for molds and $54.75 per set at 407 sets (from the kickstarter page - I might be off by a little) is ~23k leaving 7.4k for shipping, and the actual board/boxing/etc. In other words, not enough.
And that doesn't count the fact that apparently the digital sculpts needed to be entirely redone.
judgedoug wrote:A surprisingly reasonable response from Defiance.
Yeah, unlike all the fights and drama they were inciting to detract from the question of why they weren't just refunding the money.
Defiance Games wrote:We don't believe she could afford to finish her Kickstarter with us or anyone.
Apparently if they can convince her backers that it would never happen, then keeping the money is okay. I see literally no professional reason to mention this opinion. If it's destined to fail then great, whatever. So far though it already has because someone seems to have their money and basically delivered nothing useful. Sure charge for the attempt, but if the rest was for some production and that never actually happened it's really strange that money would somehow manged to stop existing. Was it magic? Elf magic maybe?
Defiance Games wrote:But as a small company, we're just not in a position to do that immediately in a lump sum.
So they were given someone else's money for a side project, spent nothing on their sculptors, and yet don't have funding for standard operation post refund? Really? Sounds to me like without that money DG wouldn't even exist anymore anyway without loans from doomed kickstarter projects.
In the end it seems they still owe money they very poorly mismanaged. Beyond the costs of the attempt no smart person would let the rest of that money go anywhere till the chickens are hatched.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: The sculptor who looked at/played with the 3D files for defiance has posted (on Frothers UK) saying he'd rather that his name stayed out of things so I wont post it here (but pop over to frothers if you want to know)
1. the files were a mess, not suitable for use for printing/casting (in terms of quality and also in terms of not being designed with casting in mind)
2. It became clear that without loads of extra work which he did not have time to do the files provided were not going to be any use
3. He spent about 40 hours playing around with them to see what he could do (he did not ask for or receive payment for this)
so there appears to be corroboration for the problems on that score,
but as has been said above that is no excuse for Defiance not returning the money that had not been spent on the Torn project to date
Given that particular sculptor's relative lack of digital experience, I would take that corroboration with a hefty dose of salt...
Has Defiance answered (or even acknowledged) the money question yet?
Defiance's second statement does a good job of shifting some of the blame back to Torn. I looked at their kickstarter the other day (I have no memory of it as it was happening) it does seem like a lot of stuff for not a lot of money.
But then - they might have had the work partially done/paid for ahead of time (not using KS funds) or had other funding sources we're not aware of (yet?).
Neither company is smelling of roses, so if both do wind up going belly up, it might not be the worst thing for the community.
** Some rephrasing since several posts popped up between my post and the post I was replying to.
Defiance Games really needs to stop referring to it's self as 'DFG' as that alludes to Dream Forge Games and defiance using that abbreviation really smacks of trying to muddy the waters between the companies and leech off Dream Forge's success and good rep...
MeanGreenStompa wrote: Defiance Games really needs to stop referring to it's self as 'DFG' as that alludes to Dream Forge Games and defiance using that abbreviation really smacks of trying to muddy the waters between the companies and leech off Dream Forge's success and good rep...
Eh, it might backfire, if people start referring to them as "DFG (no, the gak one)".
What I do not understand is that the update on Torn Armor KS page on January 8th is quite optimistic about creating the miniatures. Then just two weeks later they announce that it has basically gone belly up. All seems a bit sudden to me. Like most I just hope that the backers get their money back.
We did not complete the project – because we did not receive files that could be turned into produceable miniatures. If we had these – this project would be done now. We now highly doubt it would have shipped given the financials...this was a severely underfunded Kickstarter and anyone can look at the sheer amount of figures, printing, and shipping and see that.
It's entirely reasonable that Defiance incurred costs and so should be made whole. What is not reasonable, and indeed may be legally significant, is that Defiance, by their own accounting, took money for work that has not been done, and that money is now not available.
This, this, a million times this. The story Defiance told about Torn is interesting for sure but also, totally irrelevant as to "why Defiance took Torn's money and won't give it back". They want to say they don't have some of it because they had to pay their in-house people for the work Defiance did on it, I feel that, but it's all gone and you did nothing? Come on.
Kilkrazy wrote: This announcement lays a lot of blame on Torn but it does not get Defiance off the hook.
Defiance thought the other project was unworkable and accepted the contract -- and the money -- anyway.
That's unprofessional, and unacceptable as an excuse for their conduct.
Where did the money go that Torn paid to Defiance?
In accounting, the money they received should of NOT been marked as revenue in their books. When taking money upfront it is not considered revenue until the work is completed. I got a feeling the Defiance Games books are a utter mess of missing money and unaccounted for spending. God help the accountant who has to sort threw their books in court.
judgedoug wrote: A surprisingly reasonable response from Defiance. I'm open to the idea that my assessment is incorrect that Torn Armor may actually have the majority of the blame.
I would not be so quick to think that.
I remember during the Wargame Factory days that Tony had a great gift for creating believable stories to shift the blame. Just read any of his letters blaming his Chinese supplier that we now know were utter BS. We also know at this point that his "payment plans" never seem to work out for the guys who are suppose to be getting paid back. You get 1 or 2 payments then it stops.
Personally I'm inclined to believe that Torn was probably fairly naive coming into this industry, and had their fair share of issues leading up to what has happened now. But that doesn't excuse Defiance for what they are doing.
Breach of Contract Damages: the initial monies paid to DG must be repaid.
Consequential Damages: The damages due Torn Armor are what it would have made had DG completed the contract by the time specified. In addition, Torn Armor company will be able to seek the damages it suffered due to the breach, in finding a new company to do the work- or the damages it would have suffered in doing so.
Defiance Games:
Incidental Damages: DG can claim it expended time in reviewing the files and communicating with Torn Armor. These damages may be provable in a counter-suit but it is unlikely DG will be awarded anything but nominal pecuniary payback; especially considering the strength of Torn's case (based on the facts presented).
If there was an acceleration and/or TOE (time is of the essence) clause/language in the original agreement Torn's damages would go up (possibly WAY up).
Admittedly, I do not know the facts of either side intimately but from what I see it is an open and shut situation for Torn. This is exacerbated by DFG's extremely poor reputation. Adding to that DFG's past dealings in which it did the same thing to other organizations and Torn will have an easy ride to the bank.
I like how they go 'hey, the KS only raised this amount' without realising that MAYBE the KS creators put in extra money other than just relying on KS funds.
As the TAKS update says "This situation simply sucks.We have put in a lot of our own personal money into this,"
Breach of Contract Damages: the initial monies paid to DG must be repaid.
Consequential Damages: The damages due Torn Armor are what it would have made had DG completed the contract by the time specified. In addition, Torn Armor company will be able to seek the damages it suffered due to the breach, in finding a new company to do the work- or the damages it would have suffered in doing so.
Defiance Games:
Incidental Damages: DG can claim it expended time in reviewing the files and communicating with Torn Armor. These damages may be provable in a counter-suit but it is unlikely DG will be awarded anything but nominal pecuniary payback; especially considering the strength of Torn's case (based on the facts presented).
If there was an acceleration and/or TOE (time is of the essence) clause/language in the original agreement Torn's damages would go up (possibly WAY up).
Admittedly, I do not know the facts of either side intimately but from what I see it is an open and shut situation for Torn. This is exacerbated by DFG's extremely poor reputation. Adding to that DFG's past dealings in which it did the same thing to other organizations and Torn will have an easy ride to the bank.
Everything you said is great, except it's just DG, not DFG. Defiance games keeps trying to link themselves to DreamForge Games(DFG), probably due to DFGs great reputation. Tony used to work/CEO form wargames factory which produces the DFG miniatures. I think it's intentional on their part, hoping to get some attention for people not fully aware of the situation.
Yeah, there are two issues here. The first is responsibilty for the Torn Armor Kickstarter failing, which is plenty muddy, but likely good old fashioned lack of competence by Torn Armor.
The second is the breach of contract between Defiance and Torn Armor, in which Defiance took a bunch of money, decided they couldn't fulfill the contract, and won't return the cash.
The first issue will effect Torn Armor's reputation, and there is of course some precedent for legal action against a kickstarter. That all said, the second issue exists independently, and Defiance not being the cause of the Kickstarter failing should not, in my understanding, limit their liability for breach.
Polonius wrote: Yeah, there are two issues here. The first is responsibilty for the Torn Armor Kickstarter failing, which is plenty muddy, but likely good old fashioned lack of competence by Torn Armor.
The second is the breach of contract between Defiance and Torn Armor, in which Defiance took a bunch of money, decided they couldn't fulfill the contract, and won't return the cash.
The first issue will effect Torn Armor's reputation, and there is of course some precedent for legal action against a kickstarter. That all said, the second issue exists independently, and Defiance not being the cause of the Kickstarter failing should not, in my understanding, limit their liability for breach.
Yeah, DG not DFG, my bad. DFG is a great company and I intend to buy some stuff from them soon. I actually did two commissions for DG and there was a ton of drama I went through for payment so I take special interest in Defiance threads. But I digress....
Polonius- The only issue I was addressing was breach of the initial contract between the DG and Torn people; this is the main issue. In the breach of contract action, reputation, excuses, wait-times, and industry programming norms would all be used to support/defend in that case.
Anything regarding the kickstarter is secondary and could (possibly) result in further litigation (although the merits of that case would be much more ambiguous). I see the precedent provided above and while useful, it appears to be largely fact-dependent. In other words, it would depend on things we do not know or information which has not been provided to us on this forum (AFAIK). The breach of contract case is much more clear cut because the law has elements which can be applied to a parties actions in the executory stage of the contract (here, when DG was supposed to be doing its part-printing the concepts/models and supplying the agreed-upon product to Torn).
Like I said, I am on the outside looking in but from what I have read the facts are in favor of Torn.
Oh, I agree with your analysis, at least after a quick read.
I was just articulating what's been hinted at by many posters, that Defiance's explanation of why the kickstarter failed does not make them less liable for the breach.
Just as I stated in my previous post, Defiance Games is the reason for Torn Armor's kickstarter failing as of right now. They've frozen Torn's money which effectively shuts them down.
Everything else is irrelevant at this point.
It was a poor decision on Torn's part and that means they're not guiltless in the state of events, but that's only with the benefit of hindsight. At the time it may have seemed like a sensible choice.
Well, some of the facts alleged by Defiance seem to indicate that the project was underfunded. Perhaps Torn Armor could salvage something with the money, perhaps not. Either way, a good chunk of responsibility for the kickstarter remains with Torn Armor.
All the responsibility for the KS remains with Torn, which I believe they acknowledge in the initial update.
Funding being adequate for fulfillment is utterly irrelevant in this thread though.
Just to clarify, Defiance print their own masters? And cast their own models?
Why the hell haven't they produced anything new in a year then?
plastictrees wrote: All the responsibility for the KS remains with Torn, which I believe they acknowledge in the initial update.
Funding being adequate for fulfillment is utterly irrelevant in this thread though.
Just to clarify, Defiance print their own masters? And cast their own models?
Why the hell haven't they produced anything new in a year then?
plastictrees wrote: All the responsibility for the KS remains with Torn, which I believe they acknowledge in the initial update.
Funding being adequate for fulfillment is utterly irrelevant in this thread though.
Just to clarify, Defiance print their own masters? And cast their own models?
Why the hell haven't they produced anything new in a year then?
Because they can't. They are incapable of doing anything of thier own.
They need to change thier moniker to TFG.
Torn should just push forward, suck it up and produce a couple of smaller boxes with someone of better reputation, while they continue pushing to get thier money back. A couplf of thousand of thier own in a small loans, or so between thier team mates, get with someone who would give them a deal, concentrate on the animorphic miniatures, and cut the fat, and get back to the plate for another swing.
Like I said, the concept looks pretty sound to me, if you put a little more effort to not being a victim, and push on, you'd give your reputation an injection of moxie, and pull something out of this mess in a diaper.
BrookM wrote: They should just die as a company already and spare us all from future misery they are bound to bring.
. . . and maybe sell the Bugs to someone else while they're at it. I liked those things, dammit, and want more!
For the record, unless things have changed, the reason Defiance calls themselves DFG is out of habit - we were all referring to them as "DFG" when the project first started (I'm part of the group invited to playtest their game rules) and it rolled off as a good abbreviation. Nowadays I use "Defiance" specifically to make sure people know who I'm referencing, but I still want to type "DFG."
In that vein, I keep reading "Torn" in this threads as "Tony" and it's causing some mild mental whiplash
BrookM wrote: They should just die as a company already and spare us all from future misery they are bound to bring.
. . . and maybe sell the Bugs to someone else while they're at it. I liked those things, dammit, and want more!
For the record, unless things have changed, the reason Defiance calls themselves DFG is out of habit - we were all referring to them as "DFG" when the project first started (I'm part of the group invited to playtest their game rules) and it rolled off as a good abbreviation. Nowadays I use "Defiance" specifically to make sure people know who I'm referencing, but I still want to type "DFG."
In that vein, I keep reading "Torn" in this threads as "Tony" and it's causing some mild mental whiplash
Problem with that was Dreamforge games was already around when tony set up defiance and tried to snag the DFG initials. Them dying as a company would just mean that they would sell everything off, probably to Tony who would start a new miniature company before being ousted again by others. He's like a bad terminator rip off "he'll be back" to prove how he was wronged
Tony, the guy who made totally unprintable sculpts for bugs (ask Troll Forged), blames Torn Armour to make totally unprintable sculpts? Nice one Guess his reasoning is: Torn Armours can't fulfill its kickstarter anyway, so their money is better spend by us for our own amusement.
You know things are bad when they reach the missus' knitting forum.I like this summary of the situation from Ravelry:
"A: There will be no waffles. The people who we contracted to make the batter said they couldn’t read the recipe and we can’t have our money back.
B: (Facebook link): FUF! You’re the one who promised people waffles. Your recipe was wrong and you weren’t even open to using sand instead of sugar.
C: You know… I’m sure that B will give us our cupcakes. Anyway The waffle people can’t write a recipe. Also, waffles have nothing to do with cupcakes. You can tell that because waffle people don’t write a good recipe.
Not to mention public declarations of “OMG B always promises to make waffles and never delivers”, older open letters about B’s failed pancake venture, and a facebook page dedicated to tracking B’s cooking adventures."
judgedoug wrote: "This is a terrible situation for everyone involved and the result may be that both our companies go down because of it. "
I smell Defiance setting up a reason to fold and not fulfill their own KS obligations... and then a few months later a new Tony Reidy company starts up with big promises and a "roadmap" of new releases
Shut up shop while they still have a scapegoat to blame their woes on? Surely not
Seems like they have exactly what your looking for for figures for the Torn Armor game. Add in a few of those, and you could combine the Cairn stuff into an additional sourcebook.
Red Riding Hood and a group of combat mice? I'd buy a few of those, even for some of my other stuff. Fanticide comes to mind.
At the end of the day. fail or succeed, Torn Armor and all Kickstarters have the right to do so under their own merits.
The core of this issue is that Torn Armor gave a large sum of money to Defiance Games to preform services, services that by their own admission were not rendered. Now, Defiance Games is unwilling or unable to return the unspent portion to the Kickstarter creator, holding the Torn Armor Kickstarter project hostage robbing them of any chance to succeed or fail on their own merits.
Anything beyond this is simply a diversion and misdirection.
At the end of the day. fail or succeed, Torn Armor and all Kickstarters have the right to do so under their own merits.
The core of this issue is that Torn Armor gave a large sum of money to Defiance Games to preform services, services that by their own admission were not rendered. Now, Defiance Games is unwilling or unable to return the unspent portion to the Kickstarter creator, holding the Torn Armor Kickstarter project hostage robbing them of any chance to succeed or fail on their own merits.
Anything beyond this is simply a diversion and misdirection.
The files are difficult to print, as they have undercut issues and so forth. Nicolas Genovese spent 40 hours on them and did not charge any money, but the models will need alot of work to make them viable.
DG kept the money, 25k.
They do not have any production facilities, nor a printer. They dont have any plastic injection machines, they dont have a resin casting workshop, they dont have metal spinning equipement. They outscource all thier work, and do not paythe manufacturers (see the whole Proxie models vs DG debacle!)
SO they spent the 25k on what exactly? Surely TA can get a costs breakdown from DG on how the money was spent?
This boggles the mind. How do you hand over 25k? How did DG not do anything? How come they are keeping the money? Shocking, really shocking.
Kingsley wrote:I think Defiance Games might be the only company that Dakka loves to hate even more than GW.
aka_mythos wrote:Defiance Games actually sounds evil, with ill intent. GW is just heartlessly capitalistic.
RatBot wrote:Yeah, whatever our quarrels might be with Games Workshop, at least, as far as we know, they've never actually stolen money.
Yeah, the hate towards Defiance is justified. Admittedly, I'm personal friends with the Rust Forge guys, and I went to school with their lawyer, so I have a biased view, but Defiance is a toxic company. Poorly run, financially insolvent, and completely unwilling to accept that they are the cause of their own failure. They are like the Michael Scott Paper Company, only not charming.
The files are difficult to print, as they have undercut issues and so forth. Nicolas Genovese spent 40 hours on them and did not charge any money, but the models will need alot of work to make them viable.
DG kept the money, 25k.
They do not have any production facilities, nor a printer. They dont have any plastic injection machines, they dont have a resin casting workshop, they dont have metal spinning equipement. They outscource all thier work, and do not paythe manufacturers (see the whole Proxie models vs DG debacle!)
SO they spent the 25k on what exactly? Surely TA can get a costs breakdown from DG on how the money was spent?
This boggles the mind. How do you hand over 25k? How did DG not do anything? How come they are keeping the money? Shocking, really shocking.
To be fair, the Proxie models thing wasn't outsourced work - it was for reselling of models that they never paid for.
Iirc they do cast some resin in house.
Kingsley wrote:I think Defiance Games might be the only company that Dakka loves to hate even more than GW.
aka_mythos wrote:Defiance Games actually sounds evil, with ill intent. GW is just heartlessly capitalistic.
RatBot wrote:Yeah, whatever our quarrels might be with Games Workshop, at least, as far as we know, they've never actually stolen money.
Yeah, the hate towards Defiance is justified. Admittedly, I'm personal friends with the Rust Forge guys, and I went to school with their lawyer, so I have a biased view, but they're a toxic company. Poorly run, financially insolvent, and completely unwilling to accept that they are the cause of their own failure. They are like the Michael Scott Paper Company, only not charming.
You may want to adjust your punctuation, reads like your calling your friends company toxic
The files are difficult to print, as they have undercut issues and so forth. Nicolas Genovese spent 40 hours on them and did not charge any money, but the models will need alot of work to make them viable.
DG kept the money, 25k.
They do not have any production facilities, nor a printer. They dont have any plastic injection machines, they dont have a resin casting workshop, they dont have metal spinning equipement. They outscource all thier work, and do not paythe manufacturers (see the whole Proxie models vs DG debacle!)
SO they spent the 25k on what exactly? Surely TA can get a costs breakdown from DG on how the money was spent?
This boggles the mind. How do you hand over 25k? How did DG not do anything? How come they are keeping the money? Shocking, really shocking.
Well, Defiance openly said that they were willing to make payments, so that totally makes them a stand up company, Right?
If I were the geniuses behind Torn Armor, I would sue Defiance for breach of contract and damages. Then I would press the DA in the county that they signed the contract in to pursue business ethics violation charges, anything else that might stick. Getting loans after felony charges is much harder...
Seems like they have exactly what your looking for for figures for the Torn Armor game. Add in a few of those, and you could combine the Cairn stuff into an additional sourcebook.
Red Riding Hood and a group of combat mice? I'd buy a few of those, even for some of my other stuff. Fanticide comes to mind.
Alyssa Faden works for a company called SoulJar. Oficially SoulJar picked up Cairn and have claimed to still be working on delivering the ruleset (and not the other stretch goals or rewards) to backers. There really haven't been much in the way of updates and supposedly when the IP was trasnfered from Castle Nystul it was pretty close to 100% complete and ready to go to print... SoulJar has since launched two KS projects. Dice Crawl and a deck of playing cards using the Cairn art. The deck of playing cards didn't fund. Dice Crawl hasn't had a substantial update since it funded early this month. Alyssa on her own launched Torn Armor seperate from SoulJar although their is substantial overlap between Torn Armor and the SoulJar crew... I honestly don't know what to make of the companies/people I listed anymore. I think it's fairly safe to put them as a group on my Do Not Support on KS List.
I've copied over the Risk and Challenges section from the Torn Armor KS, its work a read.
Spoiler:
First and foremost allow us to reassure you that the Torn Armor team has been compiled from industry experts with a proven track record of delivering award winning products on time. You are not investing in a vaporware game with a team that is about to figure out how things work once the kickstarter ends. Believe me, you're in good hands.
Secondly, Alyssa Faden has 7 years as a Production Director delivering dozens of half a million dollar projects all at the same time. With 7 years in the role and hundreds of projects delivered, not one was past schedule. Juggling multiple resources, handling risks, setting milestones, understanding if a project is on schedule - or behind schedule - months ahead of time is exactly what she is trained to do. When you back the Torn Armor kickstarter, you hire this expertise.
Alyssa Faden herself has invested significantly into Torn Armor. This gives her a personal and deep-level drive to make this happen: for you and for her.
Of course there are risks to any endeavor and foolhardy would be the person to say otherwise. We believe that we have thoroughly mapped out the project plan, identified key milestones, and all avenues of potential challenge. Through judicious use of back-up plans, and in some instances back-ups to those backups, we feel confident that we have done everything humanly possible to deliver a quality product on time.
One of the earliest challenges would be that of sculpting. We have employed two of the industries finest sculptors to deliver the finest miniatures possible. But things can happen, and maybe one or both of them delivers late. Production on the game cannot start until that have all of the miniatures for it!
So we at Torn Armor have created the entire miniature line in a set of high quality 3D models. We already have these. If the sculptors hit a snafu, we are ready with a solution.
Another challenge could be the production company, which is why we have taken out all of the guesswork and we're going with the same guy who brought you DUST. And let's face it, this is not their first rodeo.
Plus the delivery timeframe that they told us - we padded that. We gave ourselves a little bit of leeway here. Worst case scenario? They deliver after they said they would ... and it's exactly when we promised it would be.
But let's say something disastrous struck and the production company was suddenly no longer available to us. That's okay, because we have already negotiated with THREE other companies, all capable of delivering a top-notch game with quality components. Now that's what you call redundancy.
Torn Armor will LIVE!
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Backers,
So it has been a tough week and I wanted to see what developed before I posted an update.
Before I get into that I want to thank YOU.
We had tremendous support from so, so many people, gaming companies, and miniature manufacturers. I can honestly say that I was blown away by it all. But more importantly this support gave us options for moving forward and this will be the subject for tonight's update.
Not only that, but we received support from companies who simply wished to chip-in:
Centerstage Miniatures will be running a promotion of Torn World miniatures, with every dime being donated to Torn Armor.
Fat Dragon have offered a free map set for EVERY BACKER ($15 value). We'll post details on this now that things have settled down a little.
We've even had companies approach us about producing our miniatures at vastly reduced prices. In short the support we have received has been the embodiment of the very spirit of our gaming world and it humbles me.
But - and perhaps this will be an odd thing to say - I also wish to thank the backers who "gave me a hard time." It's not just about the hugs and the well-wishes, but it's equally about the passion behind those who shout out in anger, for without that passion we would have been missing something from our Kickstarter and this game. We want our backers to be passionate and we realize that this passion will sometimes be directed _against_ us, but without passion for gaming what else is there?
So thank you backers and supporters in general: the well wishes AND the demands for improvement have been equally valid and appreciated.
--- --- ---
So What Happens Now?
Torn Armor happens, that's what.
We got a kick in the throat from Defiance Games I will not lie to you, but we regrouped, thought things through, looked at the remaining funds, work done, and the growing community support and we formulated a plan. This plan - I believe - is the way forward.
1) We're going to split the miniatures away from the game as "deliverables." The miniatures have had their own challenges and they've held everything up, but at the end of the day there's no need for that. I originally planned to ship everything in one batch per backer, but in the light of recent events I'm not going to stick with this.
We split the game, rules, maps, unit cards, dice, Reaper dragon, etc into "Phase 1." We'll be including card miniatures so you can get down and play immediately, but ultimately the important thing is that we get the game printed and delivered to you asap. Nothing holds this back.
2) While simultaneously we investigate the offers from around the world for supporting our miniatures. And we do have options. And we do intend to deliver on them.
But the miniatures are a different timeline and they have their own challenges, so instead of bundling them up in the box we're going to make them "optional boxed expansion sets," and the majority of our backers will get them!
Now .. timelines:
In this update I cannot talk about specific timelines; I have to be more general. No, I am not hiding anything from you, but there are some realities of manufacturing here:
- We are refreshing our printer quotes/timelines and as soon as I have these in and locked down I will share with you. My *gut* says 3 months, but hold on that until we get the actual quotes in. We're prioritizing this and it is extremely important to us.
- For the miniatures ... things are going to vary depending on who we use and how we go about it. I can't even speculate at this point, but I am surrounded by people wanting to make them happen. I need a little time to nail down the options. Once we have that nailed down the timeline will shape itself and we will have that particular conversation.
In either instance you guys ARE getting your miniatures, okay? I know you are financially invested and I respect that. But more than that, you put some trust in us ... some of you even got out there and helped spread the word ... and I am *NOT* going to leave you hanging like that. We will deliver.
So ... Defiance?
Defiance have indicated twice a desire to offer forth a plan to reimburse our money and told me twice when they would make those offers. They did not meet either one.
We are now in legal proceedings and our attorney will be negotiating for us.
Regardless of ... them ... we're proceeding with Torn Armor, because - frankly - you have to do a whole lot more than lie to me and take my money to stop me delivering on a dream.
Defiance have indicated twice a desire to offer forth a plan to reimburse our money and told me twice when they would make those offers. They did not meet either one.
We are now in legal proceedings and our attorney will be negotiating for us.
Regardless of ... them ... we're proceeding with Torn Armor, because - frankly - you have to do a whole lot more than lie to me and take my money to stop me delivering on a dream.
~ Natalya
Mmmm, do you smell what Defiance is cooking? To me, it smells like another Kickstarter.
Kilkrazy wrote: I doubt that Defiance Games has any cash assets, which is what their creditors need.
Hopefully Tony was as incompetent at setting up the business as he was at running it and they can grab his house, car, and anything left in any personal bank accounts.
If they do manage to sue Defiance Games, then none of the DGKS backers will receive anything.
Of course, the odds of anyone who backed DG receiving anything was quite small in the first place and quite frankly I'm shocked that they were able to raise as much as they did despite everyone on the entire internet screaming "do not back this project" at the time.
Tony Reidy will most likely shut down the company, leave the KS unfulfilled and claim "sorry, but the evil Torn Armor bankrupted us with expensive legal costs it wasn't our fault that they made unreasonable demands that forced us to shut down the hard work and excellent progress we were making on the models for you".. and, as usual, a certain majority of people will believe that line and then when he starts another company a few months later there will be support and people putting down blind pre-orders.
Plus the game is moving ahead its like a win, win, win
Agreed, that's the update I wanted to see earlier. Not "Sorry guys, 70K's gone, it didn't work out!" that some campaigns try to pull. Excellent, excellent update!
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scarletsquig wrote: If they do manage to sue Defiance Games, then none of the DGKS backers will receive anything.
Let's be honest- they won't, anyway. DG already has enough excuses lined up to be sure of that.
Defiance have indicated twice a desire to offer forth a plan to reimburse our money and told me twice when they would make those offers. They did not meet either one.
We are now in legal proceedings and our attorney will be negotiating for us.
Regardless of ... them ... we're proceeding with Torn Armor, because - frankly - you have to do a whole lot more than lie to me and take my money to stop me delivering on a dream.
~ Natalya
Mmmm, do you smell what Defiance is cooking? To me, it smells like another Kickstarter.
Thanks for the laugh this morning.
Would not be surprised at all if another kickstarter appeared. Maybe one for the wheeled vehicle they were pushing which magically "disappeared" from the site after initial sculpts were released.
You know what, this could be even better than what I thought last night. IF they manage to scuttle defiance games they could possibly ask for the designs and IP that defiance has shown as well as masters and anything else "in development". That means Torn could bring out the egg suits everyone was wanting as well as all those other sets. Maybe that's why they've received so much help from other miniature companies. If you win give us these designs and we will call it even sort of thing.
Then when everything gets produced in two years(still quicker than defiance would have delivered), Tony can rage about how he was usurped again by those evil Americans and their legal teams
Then when everything gets produced in two years(still quicker than defiance would have delivered), Tony can rage about how he was usurped again by those evil Americans and their legal teams
I almost feel bad for the pigeons hanging around the park bench which will be forced to hear that ranting raging Tony. That will be about the only audience he draws. Assuming he brings them bread crumbs or stale popcorn.
I do not believe Torn Armor would have been able to deliver the miniatures, with or without Defiance's interference.
30+ miniatures shipped anywhere in the world for $50? Nope.
I do not believe they will deliver them in the future, either, even if they magically get back the x thousand dollars Defiance has. (Just how much is that, anyway? A thousand bucks, five thousand, thirty thousand?)
Well with the help of others there is hope this will get off the ground.
As for the price of $50.00, I'm sure that the backers could see that price, but when this hits retail its not going to be close to that level. We just have to remember that KIckstarter pricing isn't going to be retail or x off of retail like a discounter would get.
scarletsquig wrote: If they do manage to sue Defiance Games, then none of the DGKS backers will receive anything.
Of course, the odds of anyone who backed DG receiving anything was quite small in the first place and quite frankly I'm shocked that they were able to raise as much as they did despite everyone on the entire internet screaming "do not back this project" at the time.
Tony Reidy will most likely shut down the company, leave the KS unfulfilled and claim "sorry, but the evil Torn Armor bankrupted us with expensive legal costs it wasn't our fault that they made unreasonable demands that forced us to shut down the hard work and excellent progress we were making on the models for you".. and, as usual, a certain majority of people will believe that line and then when he starts another company a few months later there will be support and people putting down blind pre-orders.
How it appears to others is insignificant. TA has an obligation to do everything they can to provide for their customers. Tony can set a new company all he likes, you simply refile the lien on that company. Since hes in the US there are not very many simple ways to bypass court judgements.
Theophony wrote: Well with the help of others there is hope this will get off the ground.
As for the price of $50.00, I'm sure that the backers could see that price, but when this hits retail its not going to be close to that level. We just have to remember that KIckstarter pricing isn't going to be retail or x off of retail like a discounter would get.
Oh, I'm sure. The point being that it is physically impossible to pay for raw materials for 30+ figures and ship anywhere in the world without losing a ton of money. I don't believe this KS had any chance of successful fulfillment to begin with. The Defiance stuff just piles onto it.
More than likely what happened is that whatsherface realized that and then Tony arrived on a white horse with pie in the sky promises (he's really good at those) about how it could really make it work out...
agnosto wrote: More than likely what happened is that whatsherface realized that and then Tony arrived on a white horse with pie in the sky promises (he's really good at those) about how it could really make it work out...
Result, suspension of disbelief and loss of cash.
Regardless, too goo to be true is too good to be true. In the end I hope backers get what they pledged for however I'd be happy if both parties involved with this no longer work in this hobby.
agnosto wrote: More than likely what happened is that whatsherface realized that and then Tony arrived on a white horse with pie in the sky promises (he's really good at those) about how it could really make it work out...
Result, suspension of disbelief and loss of cash.
Regardless, too goo to be true is too good to be true. In the end I hope backers get what they pledged for however I'd be happy if both parties involved with this no longer work in this hobby.
If people are going to blame Torn Armour for promising too much with too little cash, they ought to remember the epithet, "If a thing looks too good to be true, it probably is", and blame themselves for contributing.
Kilkrazy wrote: If people are going to blame Torn Armour for promising too much with too little cash, they ought to remember the epithet, "If a thing looks too good to be true, it probably is", and blame themselves for contributing.
I'm a big supporter of Kickstarter. I'm also a big supporter of people doing alittle digging on the project creator before backing... Taking a shot on a $20 game is one thing, but with Torn the average pledge was around the $100 mark.
Kilkrazy wrote: If people are going to blame Torn Armour for promising too much with too little cash, they ought to remember the epithet, "If a thing looks too good to be true, it probably is", and blame themselves for contributing.
Kickstarter is one of those grey areas in consumer protections. I mean, you really are backing something pretty ephemeral, and there are pretty common and understandable reasons a kickstarter can fail, even without fraud or malice.
While I'd never let a company off the hook for a failed KS, I think the community, on the whole, is too blase about the smaller kickstarters at times.
Had to google "blasé" to remind myself . So, basically, indifferent?
Do you mean indifferent to their failure, or indifferent to their efforts, or to their credentials? I think there has been a ton of attention (and money!) paid to small KS campaigns, but folks are seeing just how risky they are now.
I'm still extremely happy to have taken the risk with many campaigns that are still working through issues delivering: Dreamforge, Trollforged, Warsmith's Warboard, Anarchy Stencils, Secret Weapon Tablescapes... all of these are late, but have been communicating well and are working through things.
So, to me it's not a question of whether or not they're going to hit snags- it's how they deal with them. I was very unhappy with Torn's initial update, which sounded like throwing in the towel. Their newer update is much better- get the game out, and continue to pursue having the figures made. That at least shows effort, and gets the backers something.
Kickstarting something is really as much about the journey as the end product, for me... and you don't throw in the towel on your dream! So, very glad they rectified that and will be pushing forward with what they can once again.
Companies like CMoN and Mantic have set the expectations of oodles of models for the cost of a night out at the movies.
Smaller companies often get caught out trying to match that to meet unrealistic expectations (Redbox KS1).
TORN might have expected to put in a considerable chunk of their own money to make the complete game they envisioned. We really have no idea and it's a little nauseating to see people wishing failure on a gaming company that has shown no more incompetence or mismanagement than dozens of bigger, more veteran companies, that went the crowd funding route.
Apparently I forgot I was on the internet.
I mean blase about the potential to fail. I have faith that Reaper, or Mantic, or Secret Weapon, or any business with a rep to protect will deliver something.
A company I've never heard of that's using kickstarter to get off the ground, no expand? That's risky. Don't get me wrong, I've backed garage shop projects, but you have to really weigh if you can afford to just lose that pledge.
I think those are the most fun kinds of kickstarter, because it's awesome when they come trhough, but there are times to really remember that a kickstarter isn't just a complicated pre-order mechanism, even if it feels like it at times.
Defiance have indicated twice a desire to offer forth a plan to reimburse our money and told me twice when they would make those offers. They did not meet either one.
We are now in legal proceedings and our attorney will be negotiating for us.
Regardless of ... them ... we're proceeding with Torn Armor, because - frankly - you have to do a whole lot more than lie to me and take my money to stop me delivering on a dream.
~ Natalya
Can we have a show of hands for all those surprised by this?
While Mark offers some insight in costs, it is far from the be all, end all in producing miniatures.
My cost per figure for casting in house is around 50 cents per (roughly) 35mm figure. That includes the molding and materials. Figure another 5-10 cents per figure for labor if I needed to charge myself that.
Several commercial companies are down at or below $1 per figure. Old Glory is in that range. Victory Force is often under $2 per figure. Zombiesmith is in the $2 range. In most cases, they offer wholesale terms as well (which means they are selling at 50% of retail to distributors).
Resin has some added costs, but even considering low volume and mold replacement, the last time I calculated those, I was still under $2 per figure to produce, with many of the simpler molds being close to the cost of white metal (granted more labor involved).
While the Torn numbers might not leave any breathing room, $50 per backer for 39 miniatures. Luckily though, the math isnt $50 per 39 miniatures. The average pledge was $121 per backer. I havent gone through the backer list to figure out exactly what the mix is for those getting games and miniatures and all that, but $121 per backer with the posted add on prices from their page ($15 for 5 monopose humans...) it probably covers the costs well enough.
You dont have much wiggle room, but Kickstarters really are not about having a whole lot of wiggle room in many cases. While they are a retail business model for some companies, they are also a way to get product to market for others. They plan on making their money once it is in production and in stores.
Yep what I gave was a very narrow estimate, based on my experience with service providers. When I produced my own for myself the costs were obviously lower. I do not see my estimate as accurate, more as a gauge. Honestly, the postage is the killer.
The Elephant in the room is that you never know how much the KS creator is bringing to the table so really it is all just an exercise with little bearing on what may be reality.
Furthermore it has nothing to do with the core issue, which is Defiance Games took money for services they admit the did not provide and now are unable/unwilling to return the unspent portion. Everything ells is nothing more than conjecture and distraction.
True enough, I just wanted to make sure it was understood that while the wiggle room is very slim, it is still feasible (in theory) to deliver at the stated price point.
Overseas shipping would probably knock it into the red, but in the red does not mean failure. If the end result ends up being a product and supporting line of accessories which can then go into retail distribution, throwing in several thousand out of pocket can still be successful in the long run (when compared to development costs outside of Kickstarter supported products).
I should also mention I have no dog in this hunt, other than a general bad taste in my mouth regarding Defiance. Never had an interest in Torn or what they are doing, but I know it is possible to do a whole lot with a relatively small capital investment provided you are putting forth a good amount of the work yourself.
Once you start having to rely on contract sculptors, contract casters, contract writers, contract artists... well, then things get expensive really fast.
Sean_OBrien wrote: Once you start having to rely on contract sculptors, contract casters, contract writers, contract artists... well, then things get expensive really fast.
This is actually what they're doing (contracting all of that out) hence it being quite reasonable what NoseGoblin said, that they'd have to supplement what they raised. I agree with your prior point that if you do all/most of these things yourself, that you can get a lot done with little capital... but that's not what Torn is doing.
However, I also agree with NoseGoblin that this really isn't the issue atm, anyway... once they recoup their funds from Defiance, if they then still can make no progress on delivering miniatures, it will be on them. But right now, Defiance is the issue, holding a decent portion of their funds hostage.
RiTides wrote: holding a decent portion of their funds hostage.
Not that I'm looking to defend Defiance, but do we actually know how much money they have?
I just like facts.
Doesn't matter really. Businesses are supposed to keep the monies separate for just these sort of problems. When you just lump all your cash in one account then it shows poor fiscal responsibility. That combined with their inability to do everything else shows they should quit their day job
It's not an assumption- it's an implication. Torn has heavily implied in their postings that it was a significant percentage of the funds, but haven't revealed how much / exactly what that number is. That's all we have to go off of... not sure what else to tell you.
Sean_OBrien wrote: Once you start having to rely on contract sculptors, contract casters, contract writers, contract artists... well, then things get expensive really fast.
This is actually what they're doing (contracting all of that out) hence it being quite reasonable what NoseGoblin said, that they'd have to supplement what they raised. I agree with your prior point that if you do all/most of these things yourself, that you can get a lot done with little capital... but that's not what Torn is doing.
While we know for sure the contract casting aspect, are we sure about the rest? I know that from time to time creative types will get into thing based on a percentage of sales versus regular flat contract fees. Some will just get involved to help out a long standing friend (while different, take a look at all those who stepped up for Goblinaid). They might have gotten a lot of those services for free, especially if her time working at the various companies she mentions was spent well.
There are way too many unknowns for anyone to declare as adamantly as some have that this project was doomed to fail, and as so many have mentioned, it doesnt excuse money being held by Defiance...whether it is $20 or $25,000
Why do so many people think that Torn entered into this KS with no other cash?
Wouldn't it make more sense that they entered it with the cash available to handle the non-miniature portion of initial production?
Then the 50k goal makes more sense, as that would roughly cover miniature costs.
That leaves them to cover the paper components, dice, shipping, and other costs.
Once you have purchased and created molds, and got a production slot, you can go to retail.
The goal of 50k by itself would never have covered everything, even a layman can see that, so they had to have some other capital to use.
At least that's my view of it.
Maybe I just can't fathom going to KS with a plan that cannot go forward at all without backer money.
If that was the plan, the initial goal was simply too low.
And all of this is besides the point that Defiance took money, did nothing, and won't give it back because they no longer have it.
RiTides wrote: holding a decent portion of their funds hostage.
Not that I'm looking to defend Defiance, but do we actually know how much money they have?
I just like facts.
It's been said to be $25k elsewhere. The person who said it won't name their source. I trust them to be honest, but have no idea about their source, so take it with as much salt as you need.
Why do so many people think that Torn entered into this KS with no other cash?
Wouldn't it make more sense that they entered it with the cash available to handle the non-miniature portion of initial production?
Then the 50k goal makes more sense, as that would roughly cover miniature costs.
That leaves them to cover the paper components, dice, shipping, and other costs.
Once you have purchased and created molds, and got a production slot, you can go to retail.
The goal of 50k by itself would never have covered everything, even a layman can see that, so they had to have some other capital to use.
At least that's my view of it.
Maybe I just can't fathom going to KS with a plan that cannot go forward at all without backer money.
If that was the plan, the initial goal was simply too low.
And all of this is besides the point that Defiance took money, did nothing, and won't give it back because they no longer have it.
Nobody thinks that, unless they forgot to read through the information at hand. Problem is with the whole thing. TOO MUCH left unmentioned. Its like a drama queen that keeps on giving it up as the day goes on.
They seemed like a nice enough crew, but they were uninformed as to what they actually are trying to do, and are now in a hard place because of thier inexperience.
Then there is the little bit about the OTHER unmentioned kickstarters that they are a part of.
Point on target here is that there seems to be more to the story as the situation progresses.
I'm interested in the figures, and thats honestly what I want to see, all this other stuff after the fact is background noise.
Anyone have any of the figures, yet? I'm interested in what exactly we are talking about that would need THAT much scratch sent to Defiance, that either party could not manage to make even just a couple of figures to start with. I could understand that much money would be needed for plastic sprues, but we are looking at a miniature range, with an already invested artist and design.
Grot - have you seen the digital 'sculpts'? They are uncastable.
I think that justification for the large chunk of cash is the corrective work that was needed on top of the mould making and casting, but not done. As far as I know, nothing has been cast yet on the miniature side.
I am creating my own game, and I'm doing the digital sculpting for it.
Even if a model starts out uncastable, which just happens sometimes, it is fixable within a reasonable time frame (which means reasonable amount of money).
One of the major reasons why you do things digitally, and then have the extra step of printing, is that you find out these problems before you go to the casting step and can fix them without destroying an already made sculpt. That's a great feature of digital sculpting. I can literally select, and resize parts of a model, or resculpt areas as needed.
You can also ask your sculptors to stick to certain guidelines to begin with, such as limited undercuts, keeping various parts within or larger than certain thicknesses, which is what I've had to do myself, even fixing such errors in other models.
So when I see all this back and forth, all I see is more lies or profound stupidity being thrown around by both sides.
Making a game is incredibly difficult, but KS money should let you get it done if you're prepared and acting reasonably in a production environment. It appalls me that they weren't able to do anything with the money I saw them pull in, when I'm struggling with limited resources.
Grot 6 wrote: Then there is the little bit about the OTHER unmentioned kickstarters that they are a part of.
If you are talking about CSM, they make niche old-style type metal figures and are not part of the company behind the Torn Armor wargame. CSM did launch a *small* range of figures set in the same setting Torn is using via a kickstarter which was fulfilled.
From the figures that I've seen, they looked well enough that Reaper of all people already has a few of the sculpts that look pretty similar to whats needed in the game.
How exactly are they "uncastable?"
A few snakemen, some mice, a couple of furries.....
Then we won't even start on the .... non "Spartans"... Seriously? Uncastable? Those are generic Ancients, not really that much of a streach to go to several different companies, cast with several different artists, and call it a day.
The main figures are already right there. Tim Prow? What does he say about the ... uncastable figures? Have you sent the concepts out to other designers? Tim's always had a pretty good eye for sculpts, he also has a well rounded experience base to work from on countless other game systems. Not really rocket science here.
Defiance has made a reputation out of taking money for no work, and as far as I can see here, peeing on Torn's KS project doesn't do them any extra favors.
The attitude on thier end really rubs one the wrong way too, then they try to spin it to become the "Hapless dupe" based on "Uncastable sculpts..."
They are figures. You concept a sketch, and give it to someone who knows what they are doing, Cranks it out, collect up some cash for it.
It doesn't take all that much.
As to the figures themselves, 25 thousand is a game. twenty or so figures a side. A couple of heros, some generic grunts of the same sculpt with different poses, then the scenery stuff, which could easily be in cardstock for the KS, and evolve as the project moves forward.
They should regroup and NOT try to push for all of that stuff to begin with. Just start small and work forwards.
Heros are already available, BTW...
The snakemen, maybe some undead, and a group of the ancients.... there, three groups to start with. The furries, break down into the factions four or five to start with, a couple of heros, some grunts, and maybe a couple of Reaper sculpts for laughs. Dragon, maybe some of those Animorphics that Reaper is known for.... maybe even some old school D and D type figures with a little twist to them.
Oh wait, They are already being sculpted through ANOTHER KS.... by the same company that made the first couple of TORN figures...
If the structure doesn't jive for digital sculpting... change it to something that you can work with, evolve the concept and have an evolving conversation as to how to work out the issues, or go back old school as a sketch to dolly.
What does not happen is the action taken by Defiance, who indirectly sent the project into an unknown territory for a successful project, and in its shoddy practices... tried to outright sabotage the project.
1. How much does 1 figure cost to put together from concept to sculpt?
2. If there is a variation on the same sculpt, how much of an increase does the cost go up?
3. If you PARTNER with different sculpters, maybe even get a contract together for the initial game, and keep them on board as technical/ artistic talent, does that make the game any less viable?
What about either buying or contracting for already developed molds? Similar to the concept design of the game?
What is wrong with pooling resources, and expanding on the figures and pulling them into one game?
I've seen the pedigree here that we are talking about. This concept for the game, the design, and the figures for the factions are not out of the ordinary. Newish and not your average scuplts, but they do not look at all to be "Uncastable, or the concept for them doesn't look overly complicated.
As I am still feeling, there seems to be more to the situation then what is being put out here...
The folk on Frothers (who include a number of professional casters and 3D sculptors as well as very capable armatures) all agree that the figures are pretty much uncastable as is
both from the point of view of the files (they've apparently been done for 'animation/gaming' with lots of unnessesary internal bits which give hollows in a print which will collapse when casting, having detail that just won't make it through etc)
and the general design so even if they stuff was printed you'd need to cut them into far too many bits to cast them (and this is from 'Pete' who can cast things no other caster will even try)
(This is not to say the 3D work is poor, it looks very much like Alyssa did not understand the requirements of 3D printing/casting and got the stuff done by somebody who didn't know either.
Like getting a general builder to put in a full extension, things often go wrong because neither the householder or builder quite understand what is needed but think they do.
Or getting a fresco done by a famous artist, if they don't realise they have to paint onto wet plaster to make it last. No mater how good they are if they paint onto the plaster after it's dry it just won't last
Grot 6 wrote: From the figures that I've seen, they looked well enough that Reaper of all people already has a few of the sculpts that look pretty similar to whats needed in the game.
How exactly are they "uncastable?"
Here are the digital files that Torn Armor were seemingly expecting to have 3d printed from the files and then cast in restic.
As these files stand, there are too many very fiddly undercuts, thin weapons, weak points and mould tearing bits to make 'these' figures castable. Somewhere I read that Torn Armor spent 20 k on the digital sculptor, although I've heard rumours that they paid a chunk up front but haven't paid the full amount which is why he won't release all the base files and torn armor just have the final mesh to work with. Can we agree the meshes on that link are uncastable? The rest of your points can follow from there, but it's hard work to find all the links etc and type it out on a kindle
Empchild wrote: All is easily vast able you just break down the models into a sprue form is all.
Have you seen how many parts you'd need for some of those? I know it wasn't one of the core models, but look at the platform they were selling at $40 or 3 for $100!
Guys, there's something called retopologizing in the 3d industry. Which can take a high poly final model and bring it back to a more workable polycount.
And even without doing retopo, I could still take those models as shown and probably work out a great deal of the problems.
The only fiddly uncastable details are actually the thin parts. But a lot of that surface detail could actually be printed by a quality 3D printer so long as its part of a thick and solid chunk. Thin parts can be selected, and a variety of common tools used to thicken them. It's not easy, but it's doable on a reasonable budget, which they had before they threw it away.
And again, we're talking poor production practices. You don't throw all your money, all at once, at a single or few sculptors, and you should know better than to do so without giving that sculptor clear instructions on the limitations of the sculpt.
Digital sculptors should all be used to working in limitations of all sorts. From polycounts, to some more esoteric limits.
That or just make sure you hire someone experienced at making miniatures, or understands what miniatures are. While sculpting I keep a little 3mm cube on screen at all times so I can make sure I'm not creating detail that's too small.
I've contracted out to a sculptor to handle stuff I couldn't do normally. The only problem I had was that the fingers on it was too small, but I was able to correct that.
These are not greens, or other physical sculpts that are set in stone.
Empchild wrote: All is easily vast able you just break down the models into a sprue form is all.
Have you seen how many parts you'd need for some of those? I know it wasn't one of the core models, but look at the platform they were selling at $40 or 3 for $100!
No they weren't. They were offering 3 to people that pledged $100. People need to stop damning Torn because their KS 'prices' don't make sense at retail. Crowd funding isn't retail.
I don't disagree they could be reworked, but you'd need the Files and the suggestion is that Torn Armor didn't have all of them, just the final meshes. That's why it took Nick genovese 40 hours to rework the Hollister from the mesh. Even at twice the speed and only 10 bucks an hour, that's a big chunk of costs before you pay the 3d printer, mould maker and caster.
Empchild wrote: All is easily vast able you just break down the models into a sprue form is all.
Have you seen how many parts you'd need for some of those? I know it wasn't one of the core models, but look at the platform they were selling at $40 or 3 for $100!
No they weren't. They were offering 3 to people that pledged $100. People need to stop damning Torn because their KS 'prices' don't make sense at retail. Crowd funding isn't retail.
People who gave them 100 bucks got 3 of them. That's selling in my book. Wrapping it in crowdfunding is just semantics. If I recall correctly they were listed at 50 bucks retail. I'm quite happy to argue on that figure if you like (and I'm correct).
Which is why you don't bork up the initial commission for the sculpts.
Fraud by stupidity (Torn) is no worse than fraud by deception (Defiance).
And let's be frank here, unless Torn actually did give that sculptor a proper set of guidelines while sculpting, then he is correct in not giving the working files until he is properly paid for his work. Because right now, not only were the backers getting screwed, the sculptor who is just trying to sculpt for a living is also getting screwed.
What the heck is the Hollister? And from which mesh?
Yeah, I don't think that Torn are worse than defiance, quite the contrary, torn were incompetent, defiance were borderline criminal. I can forgive incompetence, I've done it myself lol.
Hollister should have been hoplite. My kindle often thinks it knows better than me what I was typing.
. Isn't the point of a kickstarter that your investing into a product, and you MIGHT get something if everything pans out in the end, but there's no certainty. I'd be impressed if she gets this going, but not really sure I'd buy into it if offered again.
). I backed at a fairly high level so I could also get all of the miniatures. I get where you are all coming from, so please consider me empathic to your thoughts and feelings around this title.
