I know, harsh, and said mostly in jest. Bit of a bummer, I picked up Luftwaffe and IJN starter sets a couple years ago but never did anything with them. I intended to build out a complete collection of both factions for the lulz but meh
In tomorrows news Paolo Parente will be coming out with a new game system based in a WWII era period where things went wildly divergent from our timeline. The system will feature many great NEW models based on Paolo's art style and have a considerable showing of Cleavage. Unlike many systems these models will come as both pre-assembled but primed and ready for painting to get you going quicker and a luxury pre-painted version of the same models so all you have to do is open the box and play.
There is a certain calming quality, in these times, when some things are seen to return to their regular ways ... Such as Dust going out of business again.
I love Parente's art direction of this game, but I'd also love for it to be produced by Wargames Atlantic in reasonably priced plastic and with established distribution channels. Perhaps in one of the future iterations eh?
Lucas Blackwolf wrote: There is a certain calming quality, in these times, when some things are seen to return to their regular ways ... Such as Dust going out of business again.
I love Parente's art direction of this game, but I'd also love for it to be produced by Wargames Atlantic in reasonably priced plastic and with established distribution channels. Perhaps in one of the future iterations eh?
Given how the last attempt to partner with a company (Battlefront) went, I highly doubt Dust will ever be produced by an outside company.
Lucas Blackwolf wrote: There is a certain calming quality, in these times, when some things are seen to return to their regular ways ... Such as Dust going out of business again.
I love Parente's art direction of this game, but I'd also love for it to be produced by Wargames Atlantic in reasonably priced plastic and with established distribution channels. Perhaps in one of the future iterations eh?
Given how the last attempt to partner with a company (Battlefront) went, I highly doubt Dust will ever be produced by an outside company.
One of the top 3 gakshows of the industry for sure
Lucas Blackwolf wrote: There is a certain calming quality, in these times, when some things are seen to return to their regular ways ... Such as Dust going out of business again.
I love Parente's art direction of this game, but I'd also love for it to be produced by Wargames Atlantic in reasonably priced plastic and with established distribution channels. Perhaps in one of the future iterations eh?
WGA doesn't do vehicles though, at best they do like, Machine Gun emplacements or Sci-Fi Field Cannons.
Dunno why everyone suddenly thinks Wargames Atlantic is the solution to all of the industries problems. They don't do vehicle kits and it would take them many many years to build out the DUST product line again (you can probably kiss the original molds goodbye). Their supply chains aren't necessarily better (I don't know a single local store that carries their products or which can even get them through their regular distributors), etc. etc. etc.
Besides that, WGA has everything to lose by getting involved with Paolo, the game/company/he has gone bankrupt/out of business, etc. so many times with so many different partners, etc. Hes clearly difficult to work with and the game/product line is a toxic commodity amongst the community at large outside of its own small cult following. Its simply not worth the risk for what seems to be very little gain.
As for AT-43 - Paolo was one of the lead artists on that game.
I don't have much Dust. But I could tell they were struggling when I ordered some decal sets earlier in the year and they took about three and half months to get to my door. Shame for those that enjoy the game, the Dakka thread has some pretty die hard fans, but I think people could see this coming as nothing was ever in stock.
Besides that, WGA has everything to lose by getting involved with Paolo, the game/company/he has gone bankrupt/out of business, etc. so many times with so many different partners, etc. Hes clearly difficult to work with and the game/product line is a toxic commodity amongst the community at large outside of its own small cult following. Its simply not worth the risk for what seems to be very little gain.
I feel the company lost the plot a couple years back. Went from really cool mecha designs to carousel planes and uninteresting tracked vehicles. Their infantry kits felt out of scale with the excellent FFG produced box infantry set. The Cthulhu stuff was... it was there. There was that fantasy thing they were trying too.
You couldn't buy any of it without waiting ages either.
Dust going out of business is a shame, but it's not an unexpected shame.
They had a winner with the building kit. I bought a bunch of those in a miniaturemarket sale. Wish they were still available I'd buy more at the right price.
Feel much the same. I've been collecting Dust (mostly FFG era models), and also liked AT-43, but it was pretty clear with the constant out-of-stock issues that the company wasn't doing well.
As the poster above said, I'm sure we'll see another "what-if" WW2 game from him when the world rights itself once again.
In the meantime, closely watching MM for a sale to pick up a couple mecha/walkers I'd been holding off getting.
Besides that, WGA has everything to lose by getting involved with Paolo, the game/company/he has gone bankrupt/out of business, etc. so many times with so many different partners, etc. Hes clearly difficult to work with and the game/product line is a toxic commodity amongst the community at large outside of its own small cult following. Its simply not worth the risk for what seems to be very little gain.
Wisdom
I agree with the above and I should have added "with Paolo working on nothing but the art". WGA seems to have a very competent leadership with a solid production plan - it's what I'd wish for any IP I care about. And while AT-43 and DUST were backed by some of the strongest companies in the industry I recall reading P. was at best overprotective of his IP and at worst difficult to work with. Oh well, off to see if prices of the leftover stock go up or down ...
Also WGA is working on way too many things currently to get involved with something like Dust '47, last time i checked they were currently simultenously working on over 30 full plastic kits.
chaos0xomega wrote: ... and the game/product line is a toxic commodity amongst the community at large outside of its own small cult following.
What does that even mean?
It means that theres a small group of people that would consider touching it with a 10 foot pole, while most people want nothing to do with the game because of how unstable its history has been.
His Master's Voice wrote: I feel the company lost the plot a couple years back. Went from really cool mecha designs to carousel planes and uninteresting tracked vehicles. Their infantry kits felt out of scale with the excellent FFG produced box infantry set. The Cthulhu stuff was... it was there. There was that fantasy thing they were trying too.
Dust was always Weird War 2/pulp. I'm looking at the RPG book and the cult stuff was party of the setting.
chaos0xomega wrote: It means that theres a small group of people that would consider touching it with a 10 foot pole, while most people want nothing to do with the game because of how unstable its history has been.
Does that really make it toxic?
I mean, there are other games that have gone through shaky times and I've never seen anyone use the parlance you're using.
chaos0xomega wrote: It means that theres a small group of people that would consider touching it with a 10 foot pole, while most people want nothing to do with the game because of how unstable its history has been.
Does that really make it toxic?
I mean, there are other games that have gone through shaky times and I've never seen anyone use the parlance you're using.
It isn't a matter of the game being "shaky". It's a matter of partnering up on multiple occasions, and having each of those partnerships collapse. Everyone who tries to partner with Dust ends up running away from it before long.
It might be a difference between how I'm using the word toxic and how you're understanding it. I don't mean toxic as in "this community is toxic and bad for my mental health", I mean toxic as in "do not touch, hazardous, keep your distance, stay away". Sometimes also referred to as "radioactive".
Nobody wants to touch Dust outside of its core following, most distributors don't want to distribute it, most retailers don't want to retail it, most collectors don't want to collect it, etc. Not because of any woke gak or because Paolo has a bad attitude or something, simply because consumers don't want to buy into a game that seems to go bust every 2-3 years, this hobby is too expensive to invest into something with such a short shelf life. In turn retailers won't carry it because they don't want to get burned by unsellable inventory or inventory which only sells at a loss. As such distributors won't carry it because they have nobody to sell it to and don't want to carry product that eats up footprint in a warehouse and never moves.
Its a vicious cycle and a self-fulfilling prophecy - the customer base won't buy it because they believe it will fail, so retail and distribution channels won't carry it because they can't make money from it, which makes it harder to notice and harder to acquire, which reinforces the perception of it as a failing product line, which makes it even harder to sell, until the crunch finally cuts in too deep and the game gets shut down.
I don't buy that it's that toxic. Even freaking Confrontation, which the previous owner actually scammed people for money, doesn't have the level of negativity about it.
Both Miniature Market and Noble Knight stock it. Those are the two largest stores.
Paolo is someone though that shouldn't be involved in running a businesses as much as he is. People say drama queen but honestly he's just like a lot of artists I know and other's I've seen in this industry that are amazing at creating the product but really just cannot grasp how companies actually work and sell products which usually leads to the conflicts or the company shutting down (if they're in charge). His talent is hard to deny. Just compare what exists for dust to it's competitors, like Konflict, and it's pretty embarrassing for the other lines with how dynamic and/or detailed stuff is. I feel that his riffs are partly due to the cost/detail for the mech/vehicles that really price a lot of people out of the product which the other companies weren't happy with.
Perhaps a perfect candidate for a 3D printing Patreon/MyMiniFactory store. Just Paolo and sculptors making models, and you handle the manufacturing and distribution from your basement printer setup to your dining room to play with.
I don't buy that it's that toxic. Even freaking Confrontation, which the previous owner actually scammed people for money, doesn't have the level of negativity about it.
This one bit right here makes half the difference. As long as Paolo is involved its not going anywhere. IF - and thats a HUGE if - he completely divorced himself from it, sold the IP, wasn't involved in any future development, had zero input, etc. then you might see people more willing to take the risk, but while theres even the slightest possibility that he could cause another shitstorm people won't touch it. As far as Confrontation is concerned - the current owner has nothing to do with what the previous owner did, and thats why people are still willing to give it a chance - but even then theres still a lot of folks out there who wont.
chaos0xomega wrote: ... and the game/product line is a toxic commodity amongst the community at large outside of its own small cult following.
What does that even mean?
It means that theres a small group of people that would consider touching it with a 10 foot pole, while most people want nothing to do with the game because of how unstable its history has been.
The game was around for over a decade, i came into it after the kickstarter issue so i had no pre-set view of the game good or bad.
The models are of high quality with a mind to different levels of "hobby VS play" gamers because you could buy standard kits at the lowest price point, mid range with the pre-assembled and primed, or pay GW prices for completely painted finished minis. Building an army is easy to do from small skirmish level all the way up to full army level.
The gameplay is incredibly good with hard counters and good internal balance. it is a nice in-between point between the less crunchy older editions of 40K (i like to think of it as what 8th would have been if Andy was still at GW) where you could play a large game relatively fast but having some elements that make the game infinity good(alternating activations, multiple actions per activation, reactive actions etc..). the fact that Andy Chambers stepped in to make the 3d terrain rules was a big bonus
LIke many other games, the reason why people didn't do anything with the game is because
1.they didn't know about it
2.had seen the minis but had never played the game (or just used the minis for something else)
3.were to involved in other game systems to want to branch out into something "new"
4.the setting is alternate history WWII and many players are not into historicals even with a scifi twist or they already play more normal historicals like bolt action or flames of war.
5.were warned away because of the kickstarter "issue"
In my experience over the last few years. once people actually play the game they absolutely love it.
I have gotten many players into the game who have gone on to build up nice collections. That is what makes it so bad. i have 4 full armies and i love to play it and teach people to play it, as i said with good results, now it will fall into the same place as Paolo's other game (AT-43) where finding the specific minis you need will become incredibly hard because they will be the ones people still playing will not part with, and with no new stock coming what is available will dry up over time.
This was a cascade effect. i saw all the designs on the books from 2019- IJN battle robots, a P61 phaser black widow heavy plane for the allies etc...i was really looking forward to. the combination of the events over the last 2 years related to the pandemic became to much. my online interactions last year with the staff dealt mostly with trying to get things up and running again to restock supply. in the end they could not save it. same thing that happened to secret weapon (really wanted those HD bases).
Esmer wrote: Is, or rather, was (or rather, will be, apparently) this franchise in any way related to the also defunct AT-43 franchise?
Somehow, the art style and miniatures always remind me of it.
That would be because Paolo did the art for AT-43. Dust is actually the original idea for AT-43(originally meant to stand for Alternate Timeline-1943), which is why so many ideas and designs in the two look so similar.
I don't buy that it's that toxic. Even freaking Confrontation, which the previous owner actually scammed people for money, doesn't have the level of negativity about it.
Both Miniature Market and Noble Knight stock it. Those are the two largest stores.
Confrontation (and to lesser extent these days, Warzone) was/is in the unique position of having been a massive property until it's closure 10 years ago with a fanbase that has been nostalgic for it since day 1. There is a lot of good-will for each consecutive flop to burn through before the reality sets in. Dust already went through series of small-scale flops, and it was never anywhere near that big and popular. Add to that barely-existing distribution and internet drama, and you got a game a lot of people will be unwilling to go into.
Then again, Robotech from Palladium got KS'd so what do I know.
lord_blackfang wrote: And Dust, unlike Confrontation, is also still headed by the same person who keeps causing it to flop.
I doubt this time it was hes fault. Having a model factory in china is not a good thing for the past 2 years, and wont be for the next 2-3 years as global sea shipping is one small step away from total collaps.
The biggest question is why abandon the game completely and not just partner up with a 3D print file sharing service?, cus there is a marked for this game as there is no other viable alternatives on the current marked.
Not all of us are into the hobby aspect, but we do want to play the games.
lord_blackfang wrote: And Dust, unlike Confrontation, is also still headed by the same person who keeps causing it to flop.
I doubt this time it was hes fault. Having a model factory in china is not a good thing for the past 2 years, and wont be for the next 2-3 years as global sea shipping is one small step away from total collaps.
The biggest question is why abandon the game completely and not just partner up with a 3D print file sharing service?, cus there is a marked for this game as there is no other viable alternatives on the current marked.
Not all of us are into the hobby aspect, but we do want to play the games.
Depends on how the game has actually folded, if he's paid off all debts and shuttered the company it could be restarted and he'd still own the IP and assets, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were creditors in which case the whole thing will be tied up in whatever jurisdiction it's registered in (Hong Kong?), and will probably end up with somebody else owning the concept, tooling etc
lord_blackfang wrote: And Dust, unlike Confrontation, is also still headed by the same person who keeps causing it to flop.
I doubt this time it was hes fault. Having a model factory in china is not a good thing for the past 2 years, and wont be for the next 2-3 years as global sea shipping is one small step away from total collaps.
The biggest question is why abandon the game completely and not just partner up with a 3D print file sharing service?, cus there is a marked for this game as there is no other viable alternatives on the current marked.
Not all of us are into the hobby aspect, but we do want to play the games.
Depends on how the game has actually folded, if he's paid off all debts and shuttered the company it could be restarted and he'd still own the IP and assets, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were creditors in which case the whole thing will be tied up in whatever jurisdiction it's registered in (Hong Kong?), and will probably end up with somebody else owning the concept, tooling etc
If he is smart, which I think he is from the Art side of things, He probably still owns the rights to all his artwork. He could sell it to the company for use in the game and still retain full rights to it. But really, I think he's free to draw WWII tanks and planes that have legs and busty women in skimpy clothes carrying huge wrenches no matter what. Nobody that I know of can copyright/patent or claim exclusivity to WWII Era machines that have been modified.
Confrontation (and to lesser extent these days, Warzone) was/is in the unique position of having been a massive property until it's closure 10 years ago with a fanbase that has been nostalgic for it since day 1. There is a lot of good-will for each consecutive flop to burn through before the reality sets in. Dust already went through series of small-scale flops, and it was never anywhere near that big and popular. Add to that barely-existing distribution and internet drama, and you got a game a lot of people will be unwilling to go into.
Then again, Robotech from Palladium got KS'd so what do I know.
Closer to 20 years now for Confrontation, and over 20 for Warzone...
Which reminds me, isn't about time someone announced they were relaunching Warzone again with fantastic models and won't repeat the errors of the past?
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Which reminds me, isn't about time someone announced they were relaunching Warzone again with fantastic models and won't repeat the errors of the past?
The current attempt hasn't failed yet. Be patient.
Huh, I honestly thought they went out of business after the Kickstarter fiasco. Never really followed the game, as WWII based wargames aren't really my thing, but they had some cool miniatures from what I recall.
One thing that's not really being talked about is Dust Studios work outside of Dust 1947.
Dust Studios was primarily a manufacturing shop. They also had worked with a lot of high profile miniature Kickstarters and other board games to tool their miniature molds in-house and coordinated with Ludo Fact to manufacture/package them. That, I'm sure was more core to their business than the Dust 1947 game.
Their closure points to a pretty large shift in the board/miniature game industry which has relied on manufacturing in China now facing crippling cost increases in shipping, labor and materials. The board/miniature game industry had seen a large boom until recently due to those rising costs. It'll be interesting to see what comes next.
Say what you will about Dust Studios' collaborations with FFG and Battlefront for Dust game rules, but Dust Studios had done a lot of great work in the background on the manufacturing side of the industry, collaborating with many other companies, to bring many great looking yet affordable miniatures to many miniature-based games.
carboncopy wrote: One thing that's not really being talked about is Dust Studios work outside of Dust 1947.
Dust Studios was primarily a manufacturing shop. They also had worked with a lot of high profile miniature Kickstarters and other board games to tool their miniature molds in-house and coordinated with Ludo Fact to manufacture/package them. That, I'm sure was more core to their business than the Dust 1947 game.
Their closure points to a pretty large shift in the board/miniature game industry which has relied on manufacturing in China now facing crippling cost increases in shipping, labor and materials. The board/miniature game industry had seen a large boom until recently due to those rising costs. It'll be interesting to see what comes next.
Say what you will about Dust Studios' collaborations with FFG and Battlefront for Dust game rules, but Dust Studios had done a lot of great work in the background on the manufacturing side of the industry, collaborating with many other companies, to bring many great looking yet affordable miniatures to many miniature-based games.
To be fair, when someone is called "Dust Studios", they're going to be mostly associated with Dust '47 and it's less-than-stellar history, even if purely because of the name.
carboncopy wrote: One thing that's not really being talked about is Dust Studios work outside of Dust 1947.
Dust Studios was primarily a manufacturing shop. They also had worked with a lot of high profile miniature Kickstarters and other board games to tool their miniature molds in-house and coordinated with Ludo Fact to manufacture/package them. That, I'm sure was more core to their business than the Dust 1947 game.
Their closure points to a pretty large shift in the board/miniature game industry which has relied on manufacturing in China now facing crippling cost increases in shipping, labor and materials. The board/miniature game industry had seen a large boom until recently due to those rising costs. It'll be interesting to see what comes next.
Say what you will about Dust Studios' collaborations with FFG and Battlefront for Dust game rules, but Dust Studios had done a lot of great work in the background on the manufacturing side of the industry, collaborating with many other companies, to bring many great looking yet affordable miniatures to many miniature-based games.
To be fair, when someone is called "Dust Studios", they're going to be mostly associated with Dust '47 and it's less-than-stellar history, even if purely because of the name.
Right, and the point of my post was to give some recognition to the studio for their lesser-known work, beyond the more dramatic news that gets associated with them.
carboncopy wrote: One thing that's not really being talked about is Dust Studios work outside of Dust 1947.
Dust Studios was primarily a manufacturing shop. They also had worked with a lot of high profile miniature Kickstarters and other board games to tool their miniature molds in-house and coordinated with Ludo Fact to manufacture/package them. That, I'm sure was more core to their business than the Dust 1947 game.
Their closure points to a pretty large shift in the board/miniature game industry which has relied on manufacturing in China now facing crippling cost increases in shipping, labor and materials. The board/miniature game industry had seen a large boom until recently due to those rising costs. It'll be interesting to see what comes next.
Say what you will about Dust Studios' collaborations with FFG and Battlefront for Dust game rules, but Dust Studios had done a lot of great work in the background on the manufacturing side of the industry, collaborating with many other companies, to bring many great looking yet affordable miniatures to many miniature-based games.
These are some really interesting details. Thank you for posting. I had no idea.
Do we really know about the KS drama in fact? Dust Studio was Paulo's manufacturing company, and I have several games where the plastic was made by them (CMON uses them too sometimes) and post the battlefront fiasco tons of game company's still worked with him makes you think if people here are being unfair to him. If Paulo was causing fake drama over billing with Battlefront why would anyone work him again when there were plenty other options? No one else seams to have had an issue with Dust Studio manufacturing outside of this KS. I know people here use to make fun of Battlefront for being basically incompetent before this KS.
Lucas Blackwolf wrote: There is a certain calming quality, in these times, when some things are seen to return to their regular ways ... Such as Dust going out of business again.
I love Parente's art direction of this game, but I'd also love for it to be produced by Wargames Atlantic in reasonably priced plastic and with established distribution channels. Perhaps in one of the future iterations eh?
WGA doesn't do vehicles though, at best they do like, Machine Gun emplacements or Sci-Fi Field Cannons.
The original DUST Tactics Game is still rate as the best tabletop game I've played, I had so much fun with this. I still have the original 2-Player Set, and then went to buy all the expansions. It really made you think about the choices you made, and even when you're down to your last model facing unreal odds, there is always that chance you could still steal the win.
It's a shame to see them go. I amost back the KS, but then decided not to as I'd moved onto Kingdom Death and was focusing on that. Glad I didn't back it. I think the biggest problem with DUST was no one knew about it. Certaintly I struggled to find opponents in the UK.
carboncopy wrote: One thing that's not really being talked about is Dust Studios work outside of Dust 1947.
Dust Studios was primarily a manufacturing shop. They also had worked with a lot of high profile miniature Kickstarters and other board games to tool their miniature molds in-house and coordinated with Ludo Fact to manufacture/package them. That, I'm sure was more core to their business than the Dust 1947 game.
Their closure points to a pretty large shift in the board/miniature game industry which has relied on manufacturing in China now facing crippling cost increases in shipping, labor and materials. The board/miniature game industry had seen a large boom until recently due to those rising costs. It'll be interesting to see what comes next.
Say what you will about Dust Studios' collaborations with FFG and Battlefront for Dust game rules, but Dust Studios had done a lot of great work in the background on the manufacturing side of the industry, collaborating with many other companies, to bring many great looking yet affordable miniatures to many miniature-based games.
These are some really interesting details. Thank you for posting. I had no idea.
Right, I had no idea for quite some time either. For example, they did work for CMON (i.e. Blood Rage minis), Monolith (Conan minis), and even did manufacturing work on X-wing for it's first few years - an FFG property...
The original DUST Tactics Game is still rate as the best tabletop game I've played, I had so much fun with this.
I think that's the entire point. when you take out the drama of what people think of the KS issue or of the creator himself the GAME itself is simply fantastic.
With only 5 core factions and special weapons limited to 1 type per faction the game lacks much of the bloat that has become a problem in 40K while allowing for an AA system with reaction mechanics that makes the game very involved for both players. including hard counters for just about anything you may run into. There are also over 40 scenario missions available on the DUSTUSA website giving all types of deployments and objectives to play
A parting gift-some of the designs in the works that will never be(bottom of the page) many of which i was waiting on.
The original DUST Tactics Game is still rate as the best tabletop game I've played, I had so much fun with this.
I think that's the entire point. when you take out the drama of what people think of the KS issue or of the creator himself the GAME itself is simply fantastic.
You keep saying "the KS issue", as though this game didn't exist before then and go through a number of controversial shakeups prior to that, with the most notable being how it was a Fantasy Flight game until the great splittening and Paolo took back publication of the game from them, overhauled the rules, etc. etc. etc.
The original DUST Tactics Game is still rate as the best tabletop game I've played, I had so much fun with this.
I think that's the entire point. when you take out the drama of what people think of the KS issue or of the creator himself the GAME itself is simply fantastic.
You keep saying "the KS issue", as though this game didn't exist before then and go through a number of controversial shakeups prior to that, with the most notable being how it was a Fantasy Flight game until the great splittening and Paolo took back publication of the game from them, overhauled the rules, etc. etc. etc.
What are the other "controversial shakeups" outside FFG?
Kickstarter fiasco is what pushed me out, it really damaged my community. Noticed a few years later it was still around and investigated to see if it was something I wanted to get into again (still have a number of models) and saw that they were incorporating pin-ups into the game as units. I don't have a problem with pin-up models, but I don't want them dancing around amidst my tanks and armoured troopers ya know?
Dang, I bought an wlite membership last year. They never restocked the elite exclusives. Then they never sent me my shirt and mug... now I'm out the funds.
Sigh... great game and theme but the kickstarter and now this. Sad.
From my understanding Paolo refused to deliver the last half to Battlefront due to Battlefront not paying Dust for manufacturing it and that Battlefront was demanding money from Dust for work Dust never asked them to do. Battlefront denied and said it was DUST not sending them a bill so they couldn't pay it. Turned into a bit of a stalemate with Dust asking backers to ask for chargebacks on their credit cards.
Since Dust does lots of work for other companies I figure they know how to send out a proper itemized bill which is why this all seamed so odd.
Uh, the KS fiasco started with Paolo promising hundreds of dollars worth of stretch goals that the people actually paying the bills didn't know about and never approved.
lord_blackfang wrote: Uh, the KS fiasco started with Paolo promising hundreds of dollars worth of stretch goals that the people actually paying the bills didn't know about and never approved.
Then when Battlefront balked at Paulo's promises, and the stalemate happened, Paulo took it the court of public opion, airing one sided dirty laundry. LOUDLY. Which made everything worse and drew it out. Drama drama drama.
Yup, it is the KS drama that ended the game, and honestly as pointed out aslong as the word "Dust" is used for this game, the kickstarter problems will allways be there in the background.
Before the launch of the KS, dust tactis as it was then named, was doing in terms of beeing a game, quite well.
It was the easy rules and pre assembled and primed minis that captured the players to the game.
Wasn't there also a dust up (no pun intended) with FFG?
My memory is that Dust abruptly left FFG for Battlefront but FFG was still able to sell their existing stock at a discount so no one was buying from Battlefront. I still have some unopened boxes from those sales.
That is correct, it was indeed very abrupt and rendered the game OOP for a while, that was essentially the first time the game died - the KS was the second. Evidently DUST was doing pretty well for itself since nobody seems to remember anything from before the failed KS campaign.
Even before that, however, Dust was an AEG game - they sold the rights to FFG at basically the very last minute before release which delayed things a bit as FFG had to make some revisions and get stuff printed with the FFG logo on it. Given the ~12 years of history since then, its not unreasonable to assume that AEG recognized the headaches that came with working with Paolo and wanted out before it became more of a problem for them.
Theres also the failed DUST video game kicstarter, though thats less of a fiasco and more of an embarassment as it couldn't convince enough people to throw money at it (didn't even make 10% of its goal) IIRC that was in between things falling apart with FFG and before the GF9/Battlefront situation.
lord_blackfang wrote: Uh, the KS fiasco started with Paolo promising hundreds of dollars worth of stretch goals that the people actually paying the bills didn't know about and never approved.
The other reading of the situation is that Battlefront was broke, owed Dust Studios $220k prior to the Kickstarter, used the Kickstarter money to pay off that debt to the Factoring Bank (aka debt collector).
After paying for Wave 1 and setting aside money for shipping, they had no money left to pay to have the Wave 2 items manufactured. Battlefront was then dragging its feet, possibly to stall to get money, or just intended to not pay for Wave 2 at all, and so Dust Studios got lawyers involved.
The "Dust Studios not paying for freebies" debate came after months of Battlefront not giving Dust Studios payment or even a tally on what to manufacture for Wave 2. Even if Dust Studios had payed for every single freebie in the whole Kickstarter, the result would have been the same as the amount that Battlefront had made from the KS wouldn't have covered the costs of Wave 2 item manufacturing.
What actually happened with the Freebies thing? It's not known. BF said there was a definite verbal agreement, DS says there was no verbal agreement at all. I heard that BF at least consulted with Paolo on what kind of items to include for certain pledge levels, whether or not freebies were involved in those conversations. BF was definitely throwing out freebies right and left in desperation and unlocking things early to get the KS campaign moving. My guess is that something in the middle happened, where both sides were at fault, and BF never got it written down. They then leveraged that murkiness for legal and their own court of public opinion.
Dust Warfare was the Fantasy Flight game released like 10 years ago. For the last 5-10 years or so the game has been Dust 1947 published by Dust Studios. Why didn't you buy into that game?
chaos0xomega wrote: Dust Warfare was the Fantasy Flight game released like 10 years ago. For the last 5-10 years or so the game has been Dust 1947 published by Dust Studios. Why didn't you buy into that game?
Price and a confusing product line (3? Different model prep options for every unit, walkers without all options, no starter box that I know of, etc.)
chaos0xomega wrote: Dust Warfare was the Fantasy Flight game released like 10 years ago. For the last 5-10 years or so the game has been Dust 1947 published by Dust Studios. Why didn't you buy into that game?
Price and a confusing product line (3? Different model prep options for every unit, walkers without all options, no starter box that I know of, etc.)
So...you don'y know anything about the game then. a quick look through the webstore had army boxes, starter boxes, special unit boxes and special sets for things like command HQ squads with special characters etc...
The 3 levels of model availability was one of the actual selling points. it was really very simple
chaos0xomega wrote: Dust Warfare was the Fantasy Flight game released like 10 years ago. For the last 5-10 years or so the game has been Dust 1947 published by Dust Studios. Why didn't you buy into that game?
Price and a confusing product line (3? Different model prep options for every unit, walkers without all options, no starter box that I know of, etc.)
So...you don'y know anything about the game then. a quick look through the webstore had army boxes, starter boxes, special unit boxes and special sets for things like command HQ squads with special characters etc...
The 3 levels of model availability was one of the actual selling points. it was really very simple
chaos0xomega wrote: Dust Warfare was the Fantasy Flight game released like 10 years ago. For the last 5-10 years or so the game has been Dust 1947 published by Dust Studios. Why didn't you buy into that game?
Price and a confusing product line (3? Different model prep options for every unit, walkers without all options, no starter box that I know of, etc.)
So...you don'y know anything about the game then. a quick look through the webstore had army boxes, starter boxes, special unit boxes and special sets for things like command HQ squads with special characters etc...
The 3 levels of model availability was one of the actual selling points. it was really very simple
Perhaps i should have put that in the form of a question since you are getting your feathers all ruffled. Like anything else you made an un-true statement based on lack of information.
That isn't the fault of the game or the fans of the game. like any other game not GW, community promotion is about the only thing they really have.
How many people do you know who play "the other side", "beyond the gates of antares", "song of ice and fire", "warpath" etc... compared to the more well known games?
chaos0xomega wrote: Dust Warfare was the Fantasy Flight game released like 10 years ago. For the last 5-10 years or so the game has been Dust 1947 published by Dust Studios. Why didn't you buy into that game?
Price and a confusing product line (3? Different model prep options for every unit, walkers without all options, no starter box that I know of, etc.)
So...you don'y know anything about the game then. a quick look through the webstore had army boxes, starter boxes, special unit boxes and special sets for things like command HQ squads with special characters etc...
The 3 levels of model availability was one of the actual selling points. it was really very simple
While it looks simple in a three item list, having three skus and boxes for literally the same product is a huge waste of resources and money.
There’s a reason no other company in the history of miniatures games hasn’t ever done it before or since.
chaos0xomega wrote: Dust Warfare was the Fantasy Flight game released like 10 years ago. For the last 5-10 years or so the game has been Dust 1947 published by Dust Studios. Why didn't you buy into that game?
Price and a confusing product line (3? Different model prep options for every unit, walkers without all options, no starter box that I know of, etc.)
So...you don'y know anything about the game then. a quick look through the webstore had army boxes, starter boxes, special unit boxes and special sets for things like command HQ squads with special characters etc...
The 3 levels of model availability was one of the actual selling points. it was really very simple
While it looks simple in a three item list, having three skus and boxes for literally the same product is a huge waste of resources and money. There’s a reason no other company in the history of miniatures games hasn’t ever done it before or since.
I didn't even know there was three and I've bought stuff over the past few years. Only thought there was 2. Pre-build/primed, pre-painted. That's what most stores have (regular and premium) which I don't think was too confusing. I was surprised to find that the kits were a thing but I've never seen one for sale, don't even think they were on Dust's website the last few times I was there (which I rarely looked at).
chaos0xomega wrote: Dust Warfare was the Fantasy Flight game released like 10 years ago. For the last 5-10 years or so the game has been Dust 1947 published by Dust Studios. Why didn't you buy into that game?
Price and a confusing product line (3? Different model prep options for every unit, walkers without all options, no starter box that I know of, etc.)
So...you don'y know anything about the game then. a quick look through the webstore had army boxes, starter boxes, special unit boxes and special sets for things like command HQ squads with special characters etc...
The 3 levels of model availability was one of the actual selling points. it was really very simple
While it looks simple in a three item list, having three skus and boxes for literally the same product is a huge waste of resources and money.
There’s a reason no other company in the history of miniatures games hasn’t ever done it before or since.
And with good reason. Just look at the title of the thread.
chaos0xomega wrote: Dust Warfare was the Fantasy Flight game released like 10 years ago. For the last 5-10 years or so the game has been Dust 1947 published by Dust Studios. Why didn't you buy into that game?
Price and a confusing product line (3? Different model prep options for every unit, walkers without all options, no starter box that I know of, etc.)
So...you don'y know anything about the game then. a quick look through the webstore had army boxes, starter boxes, special unit boxes and special sets for things like command HQ squads with special characters etc...
The 3 levels of model availability was one of the actual selling points. it was really very simple
Perhaps i should have put that in the form of a question since you are getting your feathers all ruffled. Like anything else you made an un-true statement based on lack of information.
That isn't the fault of the game or the fans of the game. like any other game not GW, community promotion is about the only thing they really have.
How many people do you know who play "the other side", "beyond the gates of antares", "song of ice and fire", "warpath" etc... compared to the more well known games?
No, I dropped into a thread of an IP I had a fun time with some years ago to say I'd give it another go and got immediately fanclub card checked or whatever by multiple people for whether I was a "real fan".
After your message I found the Dust USA web store and clicked on the IJN starter set. Here are the first two images that accompany the product listing:
Spoiler:
Obviously very different box contents. I assume the actual content is the "lots of money for not very many miniatures option. I have no idea which model level I'd be getting if I ordered that box and I'm still not certain which if any walker options I'd get.
Let's say I bought two starter sets.. Would I be able to play with a friend? I have no idea, because they can't be bothered to use words, and I don't care to know either at this point.
The game is dead again, but as I said originally, I would be happy to jump back in if it had some decent leadership.
Browsing the website reminded me what terrific photography they have. Nobody does miniature photography better than whoever builds their scenes and photographs them.
chaos0xomega wrote: Dust Warfare was the Fantasy Flight game released like 10 years ago. For the last 5-10 years or so the game has been Dust 1947 published by Dust Studios. Why didn't you buy into that game?
Price and a confusing product line (3? Different model prep options for every unit, walkers without all options, no starter box that I know of, etc.)
So...you don'y know anything about the game then. a quick look through the webstore had army boxes, starter boxes, special unit boxes and special sets for things like command HQ squads with special characters etc...
The 3 levels of model availability was one of the actual selling points. it was really very simple
Perhaps i should have put that in the form of a question since you are getting your feathers all ruffled. Like anything else you made an un-true statement based on lack of information.
Front of the box is what you would get in the box, 2nd image is for show.
Of the 3 official dealer web shops, the usa one was the weakest in terms of info, while the italian was the one with moust technical website problems. The polish one had both solid game information and was in good working technical condition.
As for 3 level sof the same product, yes that was a huge info messup.
Studio premium was only avalible at dust studio web shop, while the 3 official web shops got them as a rare treat to sell now and then.
Model kit was sold mainly at the 3 official web shops(us shop having the smallest selection of it) but the dust studio shop had some selection too.
Primed edition was sold from the official web shops and every other shop who wanted to sell the game.
Im with Gallahad - the three tier system was obtuse and inefficient and so was the weird three regional distributors plus a direct sales website setup they have. None of them are a particularly good information resource, all of them have incomplete product listings (some products are on the polish site but not any of the other three, some are on the italian site but not the others, some are on the main website but not the distributors... the US site just seems to not have been updated after like 2019 because it really seems like they are missing the last couple years worth of products.
No, operation, because there are 4 companies involved here - Dust Studio, Dust USA, and then whatever the hell the Italian and Polish companies are called. Theres a clear lack of communication and coordination amongst the 4 companies involved, and that structure and distribution model is kinda just dumb to begin with and has its own inherent problems. I.E.. the whole operation was mismanaged.
I'm just an admirer from afar and a had been a dabbler in the minis and terrain. I was skeptical of the post-FFG Dust but it really looked to me like Paulo had made good and had a built a successful new life for the property. I'm sure you folks all felt the same.
I hope you all keep enjoying the Dust rules. If you want to try others, I can say that my club enjoyed the K47 rules a couple years back and even had one player use Dust minis. It's workable, even Dust vs K47 minis add long as you don't mix them in the same army.
I was never a DUST player but I bought quite a bit of product in the FFG blow-out (still got quite a bit of it unused) with the intent of incorporating it into my 28mm Mech Attack armies. The "Warzone Tenement" building kits and quonset hut kits were the foundation for my sci-fi/cyberpunk city and had some fun repainting and repurposing the SSU copters. All games end, but until the pandemic (though I don't know if that's the real factor in it's demise) it really did seem that this itteration of DUST had legs for at least a few more years. Oh well.
chaos0xomega wrote: No, operation, because there are 4 companies involved here - Dust Studio, Dust USA, and then whatever the hell the Italian and Polish companies are called. Theres a clear lack of
communication and coordination amongst the 4 companies involved, and that structure and distribution model is kinda just dumb to begin with and has its own inherent problems. I.E.. the whole operation was mismanaged.
italian = ammodrop, polish = warfactory.
They both do other products or games but idk if they did that before or after they became dust1947 offical web shops.
Mismanaged? idk, but unified and organised under one banner it was not, you would only find out about the 3 dealer shops if one visited the dust studio website.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Wasn't there also a dust up (no pun intended) with FFG?
My memory is that Dust abruptly left FFG for Battlefront but FFG was still able to sell their existing stock at a discount so no one was buying from Battlefront. I still have some unopened boxes from those sales.
This is what I vaguely recall. My recollection is also that Battlefront was caught off-guard by this, and was apparently unaware that FFG had a lot of unsold stock just sitting around gathering dust (no pun intended, btw). So they paid money to partner, but then couldn't get anything back from their investment so long as FFG still had product to dump on the market. The opinion from BF seemed to be that this important detail had never been mentioned to them before the partnership was formed.
So I suppose the important question here is - why'd Dust leave FFG to begin with?
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Wasn't there also a dust up (no pun intended) with FFG?
My memory is that Dust abruptly left FFG for Battlefront but FFG was still able to sell their existing stock at a discount so no one was buying from Battlefront. I still have some unopened boxes from those sales.
This is what I vaguely recall. My recollection is also that Battlefront was caught off-guard by this, and was apparently unaware that FFG had a lot of unsold stock just sitting around gathering dust (no pun intended, btw). So they paid money to partner, but then couldn't get anything back from their investment so long as FFG still had product to dump on the market. The opinion from BF seemed to be that this important detail had never been mentioned to them before the partnership was formed.
So I suppose the important question here is - why'd Dust leave FFG to begin with?
Ultimately DS left FFG because FFG pulled an FFG and was going to sit on their product too long without a steady stream of new releases in the pipeline.
People claim Paolo as being "hard to work with", but it sounded like in the FFG relationship it was the other way around. Paolo's original product was the big Dust Tactics coffin box. His plan as a creator was to create and support it board game style, with large high-value expansions, instead of hundreds of unit SKUs. FFG dictated he sell his products as more of a wargame product, separating everything out, and then FFG added their own rules Dust Warfare on top of all that, because they wanted to compete with GW and get into miniature wargaming. Paolo wasn't fond with the approach, but also stuck with FFGs plan because they paid the bills. I haven't found any interviews of Paolo taking shots at FFG while he was in the relationship, so he seemed to just stick it out
Regardless of what approach was better, it seemed FFG was controlling and changing thing much more than a normal publisher would. If I was a game creator, a publisher controlling my game to that degree would rub me the wrong way too.
If I was a game creator, a publisher controlling my game to that degree would rub me the wrong way too.
Welcome to the world of tabletop game publishing. Unless you're one of the very lucky few who self-publishes, this is the way the cookie crumbles. Most designers are lucky if the publisher even publishes the game with their theme intact, usually they take the mechanics, retheme it as needed to fill a space in the market or improve its marketability, etc. and then go. Once you sign that publishing contract, you're usually less an active developer and more of a passive participant in the publishing and selling of your own game.
I will say this -- if Paulo just starts a new game with a different company people are going to probably be pretty upset. Do any of you see that happening? Gregoire hinted on FB that something was going to surprise us.
Shrapnelsmile wrote: I will say this -- if Paulo just starts a new game with a different company people are going to probably be pretty upset. Do any of you see that happening? Gregoire hinted on FB that something was going to surprise us.
Paolo joins CMoN as they are probably looking for a game to fill their next Kickstarter . Between their connections to production in China and their work on board games I think it would be a decent fit.
Where did he say something was going to surprise us? I know he dropped a hint that something was going on but it was more along the lines of "buckle up this rollercoaster is getting started".
Anyway, my read/guess is that Paolo is done with Dust, I think Gregoire and maybe some others are trying to get the rights to continue the game without him
Shrapnelsmile wrote: I will say this -- if Paulo just starts a new game with a different company people are going to probably be pretty upset. Do any of you see that happening? Gregoire hinted on FB that something was going to surprise us.
Paolo starting a new game with a different company is literally how we got Dust in the first place.
Eastern Front in WW1 is a theme not used at all and having big battles in the Carpathian and Transylvania makes the perfect scenery for a weird skirmish game that can fit the niche
Seriously i do not understand his obsession with gorillas or zombies, But it works in DUST in a wolfenstein sort of way.
The problem would be market, there were what 2 weird war II games out there? what genre could he drop into that isn't already saturated by other companies?
Eastern Front in WW1 is a theme not used at all and having big battles in the Carpathian and Transylvania makes the perfect scenery for a weird skirmish game that can fit the niche
The lack of mechs might be a problem. Tachankas and armoured trains just aren't the same.
Eastern Front in WW1 is a theme not used at all and having big battles in the Carpathian and Transylvania makes the perfect scenery for a weird skirmish game that can fit the niche
Anything that uses the Eastern Front needs to deal with things like the fact that the Russian Imperial Army could only afford rifles for one soldier in five (if that...).
Stylistically, when you drop back to World War I, the look get quite a bit different. WWI is a lot more "horrors of war", and a lot of the technology used was still in... unusual... shapes. For example, a tank in World War 2 might have been far inferior to a modern tank, but the basic tank design is still there. Tracks, and a central turret (with a few exceptions at the *very* start of the War; they didn't last long). You look at a Sherman tank, and you look at an Abrams, and you can see the resemblance even though they're decades apart. A tank in World War One is another matter entirely. An A7V doesn't have much in common with a Leopard 2, or a Panther. It's a pretty big change in the style department, and a game themed around Weird War One needs to take this into account.
I was referring to how a Weird WW2 game not botched by P. would be double-weird ... It was late at night.
Regarding weird ww1 I think the potential lies somewhere along the lines of Turnip28 and Sludge; a large skirmish/small squad game with an anachronistic mish-mash of weaponry and body armour, weird mutations and body horror, the wholesale slaughter literally opening the gates to hell in our plane ...
Cold war gone-hot is indeed another unexplored option; kinda what Wolfenstein did recently; diesel/atom-punk, mechs and vehicles with all the lovely 50s/60s design curves, experimemantal and wild urban cammo, laser rifles vs AK47s, b-movie horror tropes instead of just the usual nazi zombies ...
As soon as you start thinking about the implications from the historical perspective, you might as well just play a straight historic game I think.
Eastern Front in WW1 is a theme not used at all and having big battles in the Carpathian and Transylvania makes the perfect scenery for a weird skirmish game that can fit the niche
The lack of mechs might be a problem. Tachankas and armoured trains just aren't the same.
Odd - I don't remember there being mechs in World War 2 either, and yet he didn't seem to have an issue populating his Wierd World War 2 setting with them.
Anything that uses the Eastern Front needs to deal with things like the fact that the Russian Imperial Army could only afford rifles for one soldier in five (if that...).
This isn't accurate. There was a rifle shortage in the early days of the war, but Russia still had enough to equip about 2/3rds of its men (As of Dec. 1914 Russia had 6,553,000 men and 4,652,000 rifles). This is confirmed by a number of first hand accounts, for example General Alexei Brusilov: "In recent battles a third of the men had no rifles. These poor devils had to wait patiently until their comrades fell before their eyes and they could pick up weapons. The army is drowning in its own blood." The more pressing issue was probably the Russian Armys lack of medical professionals, 1 surgeon per 10,000 troops meant a lot of people died that would have otherwise survived had they been in a Western army.
For example, a tank in World War 2 might have been far inferior to a modern tank, but the basic tank design is still there. Tracks, and a central turret (with a few exceptions at the *very* start of the War; they didn't last long). You look at a Sherman tank, and you look at an Abrams, and you can see the resemblance even though they're decades apart. A tank in World War One is another matter entirely. An A7V doesn't have much in common with a Leopard 2, or a Panther. It's a pretty big change in the style department, and a game themed around Weird War One needs to take this into account.
A bit of an an inaccuracy, the most common tank of World War 1 was the French Renault FT, which had tracks and a central turret. It was produced in greater numbers than all the other tanks of the war combined (and was used by several nations). The Char 2C was also in development during the war and prototype tests were done in 1917 and 1918, the collapse of the German army slowed down development by a few years, otherwise it would have likely been deployed in 1919. Given a hypothetical "DUST 1920", this (and other early interwar tanks with turrets) would be the most likely basis of design used in such a game.
Which is irrelevant anyway because its not like Dust 1947 walkers really resemble tanks all that much, Allied walkers aside the Axis, SSU, and IJN mechs don't have anything in common with tanks.
Only one of those was actually a tank, the other is an armored car - plenty of those in WW1. Its actually somewhat interesting that they recognized the value of a primary turret in armored car design, but in tanks opted for casemated/sponsoned guns instead.
If I recall, Little Willie, so the original british tank prototype had a turret, but they switched to sponsons due to technical limitations/production issues if I recall.
chaos0xomega wrote: Only one of those was actually a tank, the other is an armored car - plenty of those in WW1.
by modern standards, yes, by WW1 standards, armoured combat vehicles were all the same and that tracks being superior in terrain was not known yet
but this are pre-war designs made for combat and not re-fits or improvised cars to fill in the need
same were the non turret tanks designed during the war were made with trench warfare in mind and build as break thru vehicle
ignoring what was improvised during the war and going by pre-war designs, plenty enough to make a wired WW1 setting that get all kind of tanks, mechs, or other constructs that never made it in real life
Eastern Front in WW1 is a theme not used at all and having big battles in the Carpathian and Transylvania makes the perfect scenery for a weird skirmish game that can fit the niche
I vaguely remember having seen a Weird World War 1 tabletop (or maybe board?) game once.
The Germans were basically Wolfenstein/Hellboy Nazis for all aesthetic intents and purposes but the setting was apparently WW1 with supernatural creepies rather than WW2 with supernatural creepies.
Eastern Front in WW1 is a theme not used at all and having big battles in the Carpathian and Transylvania makes the perfect scenery for a weird skirmish game that can fit the niche
I vaguely remember having seen a Weird World War 1 tabletop (or maybe board?) game once.
The Germans were basically Wolfenstein/Hellboy Nazis for all aesthetic intents and purposes but the setting was apparently WW1 with supernatural creepies rather than WW2 with supernatural creepies.
Eastern Front in WW1 is a theme not used at all and having big battles in the Carpathian and Transylvania makes the perfect scenery for a weird skirmish game that can fit the niche
I vaguely remember having seen a Weird World War 1 tabletop (or maybe board?) game once.
The Germans were basically Wolfenstein/Hellboy Nazis for all aesthetic intents and purposes but the setting was apparently WW1 with supernatural creepies rather than WW2 with supernatural creepies.
I can vouch for that, hes a true scholar and a gentleman and just an all around outstanding dude. Had the pleasure of meeting him at Origins just before the pandemic.
This isn't accurate. There was a rifle shortage in the early days of the war, but Russia still had enough to equip about 2/3rds of its men (As of Dec. 1914 Russia had 6,553,000 men and 4,652,000 rifles).
There was a rifle shortage throughout the entire war, as the Russian armaments industry wasn't big enough to keep up with the demand. During the first year the rifle shortage actually got worse, as the Russians were using up more than they were making. Things got better later on, but there were never enough rifles right up until Russia left the war. A couple of American companies (one of them was Remington, iirc) were contracted to make over a million rifles for the Russian army to help address the shortage. Over half of the rifles had been delivered when Lenin took over, who decided not to follow through on the contract, and left the Americans without any payment for the goods that they had provided.
Even during Brusilov's summer offensive - the Russian high point of the war - there were large numbers of Russian troops who didn't have rifles.
I will admit that my one in five number was likely off. It's been a long time since I looked at the actual percentages, and my memory was likely wrong on that item.
I seem to remember at one point the Russians/Soviets were sawing rifle barrels in half to make carbines (2 guns for the price of 1!). Was that during WWII?
Yes, specifically the PPSh-41, as it used 7.62x25 tokarev, and thus was the same diameter as the Mosin, which meant they needed fewer new machine tools and setups.
Shrapnelsmile wrote: I will say this -- if Paulo just starts a new game with a different company people are going to probably be pretty upset. Do any of you see that happening? Gregoire hinted on FB that something was going to surprise us.
Paolo joins CMoN as they are probably looking for a game to fill their next Kickstarter . Between their connections to production in China and their work on board games I think it would be a decent fit.
If Paolo partnered with CMoN everyone would be hoping for an AT-43 reboot, but what we'd actually get is Zombicide: DUST edition.
Yeah, could be a great partnership. CMON retail stuff has crappy distribution thanks to Assmodee, but their Kickstarters are pretty reliable with the only exception being Trudvang to my knowledge.
I've been very happy with all the Kickstarters from them that I've backed in the last 3-4 years.
I wouldn't want CMON to touch dust. distribution for dust was already an issue, I can only imagine it would become even worse with CMON and Asmodee behind it.
besides that, CMON's track record of supporting lifestyle games is absolutely atrocious. A song of ice and fire is really their only success in that regards, after a run of multiple games which were quite fun but swiftly abandoned.
on that note, I don't see Admodee being involved with dust again given the past history with FFG. beyond that, with AMG being as small and new as it is and struggling to maintain three game lines (formerly four, RIP Armada), I don't think they could absorb dust.
> besides that, CMON's track record of supporting lifestyle games is absolutely atrocious.
What FFG and CMON (and Asmodee) have in common, I think, is that, since they have multiple game lines (namely boardgames), that they only keep in-print those games that have the best ROI. It doesn't matter if *you* like the game (and spent hundreds of dollars on it), if the books don't show a ROI, or if the company no longer supports the employee's pet project, there goes the support for the game. In fact, Asmodee took this one step further, buying game companies and only continuing to publish their best-sellers -- these companies didn't even produce new boardgames.
I *think* KS is a bad business model for new "lifestyle" games, since you have a huge at-once buy in (hundreds of dollars in one campaign, rather than over a period of time through retail) and have to be the one supplying all the mini's, rather than the "lifestyle" convention of each player buying their own stuff. "Lifestyle" games that already have a large pre-KS fanbase (eg. Vampire CCG, Confrontation, Doomtown) seem to be successful, though. However, note that these "lifestyle" games are typically the creator's only product, so they have more of a stake in supporting the line.
It's unfortunate that you need a good business sense as well as good game design for a game (or any creative idea) to be on the market. I don't see much overlap between the two, meaning that we could have *much* more creativity available to us than we have now.
Incursion is AMAZING! I have the original box set, all the resin upgrades, a bunch of metals a about 2 KS worth of the new edition in plastics. Yes, I quite like Incursion.
And I forgot to mention, a buddy of mine has been working on a series of modular 3D foam maps, including the sub bay.
What FFG and CMON (and Asmodee) have in common, I think, is that, since they have multiple game lines (namely boardgames), that they only keep in-print those games that have the best ROI. It doesn't matter if *you* like the game (and spent hundreds of dollars on it), if the books don't show a ROI, or if the company no longer supports the employee's pet project, there goes the support for the game. In fact, Asmodee took this one step further, buying game companies and only continuing to publish their best-sellers -- these companies didn't even produce new boardgames.
100% on point and agreed. The other thing here is that unlike traditional board games, the ROI on a lifestyle game can take time to materialize - the buy-in and level of commitment required to get the game to "critical mass" of profitability takes more time and a bit of a proven track to accomplish and you aren't selling people a product but rather getting them to invest into a whole new hobby. I've heard that a lot of lifestyle type games usually take a couple years to break even/become profitable, and the design/development costs for them are deceptively higher (traditional board games might have a dev team juggling multiple games at once, whereas lifestyle games usually have a few dedicated full time employees working only on that product line, they also have to work well in advance of the release schedule meaning that you'll always be looking at higher costs relative to a traditional one-and-done game as you are always paying for the development of products that have yet to be released or generate revenue in return) so if all you're looking at is a spreadsheet of the financial performance of the different games you might not get the full story.
I *think* KS is a bad business model for new "lifestyle" games, since you have a huge at-once buy in (hundreds of dollars in one campaign, rather than over a period of time through retail) and have to be the one supplying all the mini's, rather than the "lifestyle" convention of each player buying their own stuff. "Lifestyle" games that already have a large pre-KS fanbase (eg. Vampire CCG, Confrontation, Doomtown) seem to be successful, though. However, note that these "lifestyle" games are typically the creator's only product, so they have more of a stake in supporting the line.
Agreed again. I think theres only really been two successful lifestyle games funded via kickstarter - A Song of Ice & Fire Miniatures Game (which surprised many with its robust post-Kickstarter support relative to CMONs previous attempts, I think this is also a testament to the quality of the gameplay itself as well as the fact that it filled a market void/niche that had recently been abandoned by the 10-ton industry gorilla), and Kingdom Death (completely different type of lifestyle game with a completely different business model. Arguably it has succeeded in spite of itself). There have been various other successful games which blurred the lines between a traditional boardgame and a lifestyle game (zombicide and aeons end are the ones that come to mind most immediately), but I wouldn't necessarily categorize them as "lifestyle" as they are relatively self-contained experiences vs something with continual support, updates, errata, and "expansion" releases that rely on a base-game to play. Otherwise you have a long list of games that have floundered (Warcaster, The Other Side, Riot Quest - which I think has only really managed to float itself based on the utility of the minis in games of Warmachine/Hordes rather than because people actually care about the game itself, Dropfleet Commander, Wrath of Kings, etc.). As you said I think the big up-front buy-in, coupled with a lengthy delay to release, is a real killer for these games. The excitement that you generate during a campaign often dies out by the time the game hits market.
Additionally, it seems like most of these games struggle with a continual flow of releases post-KS delivery, often because the margins on KS aren't really all that great and most of the funds are chewed up delivering rewards leaving little room to develop, produce, and release additional waves of content to continue feeding the machine. In general the trend with games like this is that they live so long as there is a steady stream of new content for the community to consume. If that stream of content dries up then you usually lose all but the few die-hards as they move to other pastures to graze, you might be able to lure some of them back in the future, but often it seems once the crowd goes, they're gone for good and never coming back.
I think Kickstarters also set lifestyle games up to fail with a painfully elongated development cycle - for most lifestyle product lines like these its usually its 2 years of dev work up front before you can release any product, and thats true with Kickstarter as well. The problem is that the economics and expectations of kickstarter (you have to offer a lot of value to backers and operate on slim margins) means that your first wave of releases via kickstarter are usually much larger than they would be if you went direct-to-retail, the downside of this is that you're developing all that content in one big batch and that chews up all your bandwidth, leaving you no room to work on the crucial follow-on waves in an organic rolling fashion. Ideally you would want to release a new product every 2-3 months at maximum, but instead with Kickstarter you're basically dumping everything out at once after 2 years of work, sometimes you deliver rewards in waves and that second wave comes after another year or so in a best case scenario, but after that you're basically stuck in a rut where you have no additional product forthcoming for at least 1-2 years post-delivery as you haven't really had the bandwidth to support and develop that until this point, but a lot can happen in that timeframe to suck the wind out of your products sales.
And that doesn't even get into the retail dynamics of all this - lifestyle games for the most part live and die by the amount of shelf space they occupy in retail stores where people will purchase and play with them. Oftentimes retailers are reluctant to stock kickstarter product on shelves as usually you will find that the majority of people who would buy that product have already done so directly from the publisher via kickstarter and late pledges, etc. Very few kickstarters really leave anything for retailers to sell, most of the time its the same product that everyone already has more than enough of, which causes the product to languish . If retailers can't sell what they have, they aren't going to order more of it from you, no matter what new stuff you might be putting out. Oftentimes they will also move this product into bargain bins after some time just to get it out the door and try to recoup some of the losses. Seeing these products at a steep discount is often an indicator to potential newcomers to the games community that its not a well-supported game, etc. which costs you sales as a result, and likewise often pisses off your existing customers who may have paid more for the products during the kickstarter campaign than it costs once those products hit clearance.
It's unfortunate that you need a good business sense as well as good game design for a game (or any creative idea) to be on the market. I don't see much overlap between the two, meaning that we could have *much* more creativity available to us than we have now.
It can be challenging for a small team to do both things simultaneously, usually the passion thats driving the creative aspect of the design is at odds with what makes good sense form a business perspective and reconciling the two may often feel like a violation of artistic integrity. I think part of Games Workshops success (for example) has been the result of the decoupling of the creative aspect of the business from the actual management of the business and its operations (as much as we may complain about the practices that have resulted from that), whereas other companies like Privateer Press have struggled because they have failed to perform that same decoupling and allow business decisions to be informed and driven by those creative passions rather than cold hard logical analysis of the market, etc. I think its pretty telling that if you look at the "bout us" section of most kickstarters you usually see lots of people with titles like "game designer", "developer", "illustrator", "concept artist", etc. but rarely do you ever see "operations manager" or "accountant" or "market analyst", etc. As an aspiring designer/creator myself, I think the thing that other creators need more than anything else is to hire someone that is empowered to tell them "no", which is a pretty scary thing for someone working on something like this to think about. In my own case, for right now I don't need to as I'm too small an operation and too limited in scope to actually get myself into any trouble, but if I achieve some of my early growth goals, etc. and can shift towards working on some of my "grail" projects, I have the foresight to know that I would very quickly run the business into the ground making bad business decisions for the sake of living up to my ideals of artistic integrity and goals/desires.
