Also don't forget something like Confrontation which had a market already has a lot of its own marketing done for it by the fanbase for free. Kickstarters are massively about marketing so a new miniature range often has to invest quite a lot of money in pre-release marketing in order to get awareness out there for them to then jumpstart actual funding. It's why you can sometimes see what look like really neat projects gather in very little actual money because the people running the KS haven't invested enough or in the right way with regard to the marketing.
Confrontation doesn't even need pre-production or production examples because so many backing it are already aware of its existence and the news spreads fast through the existing fanbase and hangers on etc...
Essentially it feeds itself with very little input from the designers - scarily the fanbase for it appears so keen that even very very bad marketing moves are not sending up any warning signs to some - then again we've still got the last day or so to see what happens. A lot of people back a KS and then don't pay any attention till the last few days.
One also has to remember that some pay very little attention to forums so unless the KS comments are rife with complaints and problems then many might not even be aware of the issues being raised.
ced1106 wrote: Well, now I'm confused at how the companies owned or once owned by Piotr are related. Not that it's *my* responsibility for clarifying it all.
Missing avatar
Drew about 3 hours ago
@Wunderlich- ok, that makes it sound like the opposite from what I understood.
The "Liquidator" can be one of the partners of the company, or one of the managers, or some other legal representative who assumes the duty of liquidating assets and paying creditors.
That means that it is customary for the liquidator to be someone who is involved with the company- and possibly involved with the other two companies that the same owner owns (it could even be one of the owners).
(this is VERY different from the way it works in the US).
The French wikipedia page about "liquidateur" draws a different picture. To become an official "liquidateur" (someone a court can assign to manage the assets of a company to try and pay back as much debt as possible), you need to pass an exam followed by a 3 year training program (and you can only take the exam after a bachelor).
Apparently the total number of people who can be "liquidateur" is regulated, and it's pretty difficult to become one.
The content of the wikipedia page is basically everything I know about that stuff, so I might be completely wrong, but it's getting harder and harder to understand the company structure.
Also, it is confirmed that you will not be able to add the "celebration box" pledge or item after the KS ends in the pledge manager - despite what the pledge level says.
Also, it is confirmed that you will not be able to add the "celebration box" pledge or item after the KS ends in the pledge manager - despite what the pledge level says.
They are now saying you cant add add-ons in the PM?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mysterio wrote: If it passes the 48 hour mark funded, it will fund, unfortunately.
(Unless KS changed this?)
In the last 48hrs it can de-fund until its original funding goal before KS steps in and disallows pledges to be dropped if it takes it below the funding goal, the only way to drop your pledge then is to message KS directly and plead your case.
They are now saying you cant add add-ons in the PM?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mysterio wrote: If it passes the 48 hour mark funded, it will fund, unfortunately.
(Unless KS changed this?)
In the last 48hrs it can de-fund until its original funding goal before KS steps in and disallows pledges to be dropped if it takes it below the funding goal, the only way to drop your pledge then is to message KS directly and plead your case.
They've stated that you can have add ons to your pledge via the pledge manager, but that the Celebration Box can not be added nor pledged for in the pledge manager.
One thing you are able to do here is upgrade from PVC celebration box level to Resin all in pledge post campaign in the Pledge manager. Might be of interest to those who don't care for PVC quality sculpts and don't have the money for the resin version now.
They are now saying you cant add add-ons in the PM?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mysterio wrote: If it passes the 48 hour mark funded, it will fund, unfortunately.
(Unless KS changed this?)
In the last 48hrs it can de-fund until its original funding goal before KS steps in and disallows pledges to be dropped if it takes it below the funding goal, the only way to drop your pledge then is to message KS directly and plead your case.
They've stated that you can have add ons to your pledge via the pledge manager, but that the Celebration Box can not be added nor pledged for in the pledge manager.
Ok thanks
reguarding dropping in the last 24hrs someone linked the ToU about it!
"You can change or cancel your pledge at any time before the project’s funding deadline (with one exception). You can increase, decrease, or cancel your pledge at any time during the campaign, with one exception. During the last 24 hours of the campaign, you can’t decrease or cancel your pledge without contacting customer support first — if that action would drop the project below its funding goal. Once the project has been funded, you can only cancel or change your pledge by making special arrangements directly with the creator."
So it sounds like it can go all the way down and then there's a block where you have to apply to get past the funding goal and then thereafter it can keep going down. So if there's a mass-retreat from the KS with good reasoning then KS likely will honour it.
So it would likely only pause things and might even make them worse as everyone would suddenly complain in the comments until KS approved the applications.
Kickstarter added that defunding protection because trolls use to create dummy accounts, fund a project then back out with only a few minutes left in the campaign.
I got the 48 hours left reminder from KS and went to have a look at the first page of the comments. Wow. Mostly very disgruntled people. And one dude who is angry that the people who have raised awareness of the issues with this KS are actually terrorists associated with evil recasters from the Ukraine.
At this point, with that ^ much back-sliding, the biggest Red Flag of all might be that they are NOT canceling this, regrouping and relaunching at a later date.
This has the feel of a "cash grab now, consequences are for later (and consequences be damned!)" campaign...
At this point, with that ^ much back-sliding, the biggest Red Flag of all might be that they are NOT canceling this, regrouping and relaunching at a later date.
This has the feel of a "cash grab now, consequences are for later (and consequences be damned!)" campaign...
Thats my thinking, they seem desperate to get money at any cost!
Out of morbid curiosity I perused the KS comments today, and supposedly one of the collaborators (Joss) will be sharing photos tonight of a resin cast, and hinted at having images of one painted by Angel Giraldez. Interesting timing, if it indeed happens.
Yeah, that's one of the Resurrection minis that Angel was painting. As Duncan said
Automatically Appended Next Post: I jumped ship a while ago. It looks like this will fund, just barely and I wish good luck to all the guys with the balls to go down with the ship. I hope it stays afloat for your sakes. I'd hate to see a repeat of Spartan
Davidian wrote: Yeah, that's one of the Resurrection minis that Angel was painting. As Duncan said
Automatically Appended Next Post: I jumped ship a while ago. It looks like this will fund, just barely and I wish good luck to all the guys with the balls to go down with the ship. I hope it stays afloat for your sakes. I'd hate to see a repeat of Spartan
Spartan was slightly different - their campaign had many renderings of the actual models and they had solid products on the market. So on that score most backing that had no issue with the quality of miniature that would be produced. Consumer wise with Spartan the issue was more that the company wasn't organised/big enough to support all the different lines they released; so the company jumped one to the next which could leave a whole game without updates for a long while. Couple that to marketing that was hit and miss (lots of missed release/news dates and projects hinted at which never appeared) and it was no surprise tha they started to bleed customers. Though these appeared to be all issues of background finance problems which ended their first KS and stopped the second being a reality. Spartan were honest but I think out of their depth.
SD on the other hand seem less than honest considering all the question dodging; the lack of any actual pre-production or production examples of anything that's to be produced and the fact that having bled money the whole time they've not paused and relaunched. Any other KS would have pulled the plug; waited, found enough investment to get at least 1 preproduction model design and casting up for display and then relaunched (heck if they answered most of the questions they could relaunch and easily fund within a day).
It's odd behaviour from them that the more it goes on the more it just screams that they are going to take the cash and run; or produce a dirt cheap product with a tiny portion of the cash and either run or plough it into another product.
The other option is that they are totally inept, which isn't impossible. Owning a licence/IP doesn't make anyone a businessman overnight so they could just be people who are totally out of their depth and so far so that they can't actually see the problems even when they are pointed out by multiple sources.
I really hope it goes well, that all these worries are unfounded. KS is a great resource for companies wanting to expand or come to the market. At the same time each failure hurts and harms the whole process for further games .
You know, pulling in 350k Euro isn't a bad haul considering they only have to infrequently update with pictures of artwork or background fluff etc. for a few months after the KS closes, then follow up with updates about how somebody fell sick, grandma died, costs more than anticipated etc. for another six months or so before finally declaring "with heavy hearts" the insolvency of the company in one or two years.
Looks like it will come in around 400k. I real respectable amount for how little effort there was in this. Hopefully something good comes out of this but I'm not very optimistic.
I don't think I've ever seen another campaign shoot up so high and then pretty much be negative almost every other day, and still fund. Even the last day when it's usually one of the best for other campaigns. I hope they are able to pull it off and deliver.
ced1106 wrote: Now SD/Stellar has slapped an IP violation against the Signum KS, by the Cadwallon folks who used to (ahem) do recasts of Confrontation.
Original post by Sarouan.
Thanks for funding Stellar's legal bills, backers!
It's more than that. Stellar Licensing and Consulting is the one behind the DMCA claim
So yeah, doubts about revenge for the Confrontation Classic KS are certainly reinforced, now.
That is proper low and spiteful but not too surprising when SD collaborators was spouting LOS guys were deliberately trying to sink SD's KS rather than admit SD havent a clue in what they are doing
Whilst I support the motion of preventing recasting, in fairness Cadwallion did shut down their sale of Confrontation miniatures and their own line is a totally separate game. SD might be able to get them on retrospective recasting (which isn't a bad thing) but using KS money to take out legal action like that sounds very suspect.
Heck maybe they somehow hope to get a huge amount of money out of CD and use that for their future funding (highly unlikely as I doubt the recasting made serious money and if that company comes under enough pressure the recaster might be able to put the company through administration - though that might result in a loss of machines for production.
It's tricky as on the one hand recasters shouldn't be supported as typically they only harm the industry; whilst on the other if SD are using Kickstarter funds for this then it seriously puts big question marks over their background finances and any potential actual power to achieve what they've set out too - esp as legal cases across international boundaries can be very slow and difficult - and thus also expensive.
The cynic in me thinks maybe they kew about cadwallons project. (no way it didn't come up during negotiations between the two companies.) and decieded "hey, if we wait and then sue them, We can settle for possession of their existing stock and moulds! then we can tell our backers they'll all be getting lovely resin casts without having to do the work!"
I like that little swipe near the end "We have stages of development for our models from ideas and concepts to 3d or sculptures."
I read it as "well at least we actually have something to show for our campaign!
I hope they get back up and running, This feels needlessly cruel and petty on the part of SD.
The only thing I think they have any ground to stand on is in cases where Cadwallon sell figures based on old Confrontation artwork, that were never actually sculpted.
I know they've sold a few pieces before that Legendarion's sculpted based on preexisting artwork, but never had any actual figures in Rackham's catalog before. Maybe that's where they're taking issue?
Thinking about that more though, wouldn't the issue be more with sculptors like Legendarion rather than Cadwallon? Legendarion wasn't running a KS campaign for a rival game though...
Anyone remember when Cadwallon stopped selling Confrontation recasts? I feel like it was a while before their campaign started. I could be wrong though.
This is simply ridiculous. Going after Cadwallon for the recasts is one thing, stopping their Kickstarter is another.
IP lawsuits are incredibly difficult to resolve and in this case I doubt they have the grounds if Cadwallon rescultped his own miniatures. The fact they might look similar to confrontation ones is not enough to stop them. Not to mention that with Cadwallon being in Russia, there is very little chance of getting money from them.
However, Cadwallon should stop using the protected names on their shop and products. Whereas IP on miniatures is almost impossible to enforce, brands, logos and names are easier to protect.
astrilux wrote: Not to mention that with Cadwallon being in Russia...
Somebody should call Putin. This joke may very well become even worse.
But seriously, it is reminding me of the GW versus Chapterhouse, part two. GW claimed copyright on halberds and pauldrons, now we are about to see the copyright on giant towering werewolves! I can see SD winning small skirmishes like obstructing a kickstarter or two, but they are likely to be damaged so much more if they go for a more court-side action.
They're probably just doing it just to stall the KS and hopefully cost Cad funding, rather than to get any actual gain out of it. SD has very little chance of making anything stick but if they believe they are a bigger company with more funds then they can try these types of tactics to bleed Cad of money until they have to relent, even if they have no real ground to stand on.
Has it been said by SD anywhere that they are going to use funds from the Confrontation kickstarter to pay for legal fees? I would like to know because I am a backer, but I have not found this anywhere which leads me to believe it is just wild speculation. As for the claims about showing off figures, SD said that they have all the originals and the kickstarter would be used to make plastic molds. They said they had not started on those because they wanted to see how many of the figures would be unlocked so they could do mold layouts with efficiency. .LoS was warned that all of this would happen, but they forged ahead anyway, seems to me that their backers should be mad at them.
It has not been stated anywhere that SD will use the KS funds for legal fees, nor will there ever be an official post about it even if it was true that they were going to use the KS funds for it.
I dont understand the logic that backers should be mad at the LoS-team. There is nothing as far as I really can see that is an IP-infringement from the LoS current project. If they do have any ties to a site that recasts Confrontation figures outside of the kickstarter doesn't matter as it is only what is on offer on the Kickstarter page that actually bear any merit to the claim. This is just an attempt to damage them, which they likely will accomplish, but to what price? The SD/Stellar team is taking an equal beating from this petty behaviour.
Skaorn wrote: They're probably just doing it just to stall the KS and hopefully cost Cad funding, rather than to get any actual gain out of it. SD has very little chance of making anything stick but if they believe they are a bigger company with more funds then they can try these types of tactics to bleed Cad of money until they have to relent, even if they have no real ground to stand on.
This is most likely their goal but if LoS get a decent lawyer they can easily sue them back for unfair competition and obstruction to a business activity (not sure about the exact legal term in English).
Whereas an IP lawsuit is hard to win and I doubt they will pursue, obstruction to someone else's activity is much easier to prove. LoS had 100k$ and they lost them all.
SD has a solid claim on the sale of the recast figures, but I am not sure how will they be able to prove how much money they lost due to that. However, they just shot themselves in the foot, since now LoS can claim damages too.
Depending on the incorporation of the various legal entities they might end up paying LoS without getting a dime on the recast figures.
Smellingsalts wrote: As for the claims about showing off figures, SD said that they have all the originals and the kickstarter would be used to make plastic molds. They said they had not started on those because they wanted to see how many of the figures would be unlocked so they could do mold layouts with efficiency. .LoS was warned that all of this would happen, but they forged ahead anyway, seems to me that their backers should be mad at them.
FIY the figures in LoS kickstarter were sculpted by a Russian sculptor (Legendarion as far as I recall), so SD has no rights over them.
As for SD claiming to do the mold layout efficiently...well...let's just say that it is a very poor excuse to run a project without any real effort. C'mon, they show miniatures with a mix square and round bases on their KS page. It takes a few minutes to replace the bases in Photoshop so that they are coherent in the project page. They did not even bother to do that!
Smellingsalts wrote: As for the claims about showing off figures, SD said that they have all the originals and the kickstarter would be used to make plastic molds. They said they had not started on those because they wanted to see how many of the figures would be unlocked so they could do mold layouts with efficiency.
They don't have all the originals.
'd even doubt they have the range of resin masters to cover the ?250? or so miniatures unlocked in the KS.
Smellingsalts wrote: As for the claims about showing off figures, SD said that they have all the originals and the kickstarter would be used to make plastic molds. They said they had not started on those because they wanted to see how many of the figures would be unlocked so they could do mold layouts with efficiency.
They don't have all the originals.
'd even doubt they have the range of resin masters to cover the ?250? or so miniatures unlocked in the KS.
They should buy the ones they are missing on Cadwallon.com
@Astrilux: It then becomes a case of "is it worth it to us" to counter sue. SD might be right in thinking that they have the financial upper hand. They at least seemed pretty confident they didn't need all the money they bled in the KS. For all we know Cad might have a lot of capital tied up in producing their models that all the legal fees from two suits might be too much. I doubt SD could pull the old sue them until they run out of money though.
Eh, probably easier to not include whatever art, sculpts, and fluff that are the most contentious for IP. Signum has their own miniatures that are not as close to Confrontation material and it's not hard to rewrite background material. The LoS game itself is an entirely different game system, anyway. Maybe Signum has some sentimental or emotional ties to "their" Confrontation worldbuilding but it's not like modelers care about the background than they do the quality of the miniatures. I also haven't read backers complaining that LoS isn't based on the Confrontation ruleset.
Undeniably, there is a close line. But seriously, can anyone show anything from the LOS campaign that is a direct violation of any copyright? Not "this is similar" or "this is the influence/inspiration", but a direct violation of the copyright. If not, it will be hard to prove the IP-infringement. It would be like anyone doing any barbarian would be a violation towards the Conan-ip, just because they sort-of look the same. Is it morally or ethically right? Probably not, but that is beside the point.
grefven wrote: Undeniably, there is a close line. But seriously, can anyone show anything from the LOS campaign that is a direct violation of any copyright? Not "this is similar" or "this is the influence/inspiration", but a direct violation of the copyright. If not, it will be hard to prove the IP-infringement. It would be like anyone doing any barbarian would be a violation towards the Conan-ip, just because they sort-of look the same. Is it morally or ethically right? Probably not, but that is beside the point.
For the United States, IP rulings handed down by judges are historically inconsistent, and, if the IP blogs by American lawyers I've read are correct, a judge will consider the IP challenge *as a whole*. Thus, if someone has a barbarian, no, the Howard estate doesn't have a case. BUT if there's a barbarian... and there's half naked lady with a spear... and there's a half naked dark skinned guy... and there's a magic-using guy in a cloak... and there's an ape-man... and there're some Indian-like bad guys... *then* there might be a case. CM and I have been discussing exactly this on the BGG forums, and he's noted that much of the LoS fluff (eg. Wolfen, guilds) have similarities to Confrontation. LoS's game system is definitely *not* similar to Confrontation, and Signum has added their own background, so, IMO, all Signum has to do is get rid of these background similarities to Confrontation. Of course, I'm only familiar with the United States, so French and EU IP law may behave differently (ie. Stellar may not be able to protect Confrontation against LoS outside of French and EU jurisdiction).
But, since you're in Sweden, you should know more about EU IP court cases than I do. So link me to any EU IP articles of interest.
Honestly considering all the alternate Warhammer model companies out there (and considering that GW actually has resources to take people to court) and considering the Chapter House case I doubt that SD has a leg to stand on. At best they can delay the KS and mess up Cad's plans for a bit; but honestly they are unlikely to win; and that's before getting into the complex mess that is international crime (SD might only be able to get their practical reach to affect the French market).
Overall neither company is smelling of roses, Cad has been casting illegal recasts for years whilst SD has a very shoddy current status of information and viability (although thus far SD hasn't done anything illegal).
That said Cad did stop selling the Confrontation models and haven't restarted and instead are focusing on their own game. Could be that they've turned a corner and want to go legit now that Confrontation might be coming back.
Both have their downsides and in a way we shouldn't want to reward a recasting company (although this is one of the rare cases where the recaster appears to want to actually engage with the market directly as opposed to just recast and cream off the profit)
Skaorn wrote: @Astrilux: It then becomes a case of "is it worth it to us" to counter sue. SD might be right in thinking that they have the financial upper hand. They at least seemed pretty confident they didn't need all the money they bled in the KS. For all we know Cad might have a lot of capital tied up in producing their models that all the legal fees from two suits might be too much. I doubt SD could pull the old sue them until they run out of money though.
I had my share of experience with lawyers and IP protection. The first issue is to establish jurisdiction. It might be US for LoS and France for Stellar. In Europe it is not trivial to establish copyright violation. Guilds and Big wolfmen and some vaguely familiar figures are not going to fly, IMHO. Another example is game design. The game mechanic is hardly protected and if you pay close attention you realize that many new games are based on the mechanics of older ones + a small new addition. Background is also hard to protect. The stories and settings of many novels, comics and so on are VERY similar. Names can be protected but I doubt this is the issue with LoS.
On the other hand, Stellar blocked LoS kickstarter, which is an objective and quantifiable damage. This part of the story at least is clear.
Anyway, without the details there is no way we can figure out how this mess will evolve.
Smellingsalts wrote: As for the claims about showing off figures, SD said that they have all the originals and the kickstarter would be used to make plastic molds. They said they had not started on those because they wanted to see how many of the figures would be unlocked so they could do mold layouts with efficiency.
They don't have all the originals.
'd even doubt they have the range of resin masters to cover the ?250? or so miniatures unlocked in the KS.
Doesn't matter if they don't have the originals when they aren't going to be making anything of quality anyways lol.
"A little announcement that we would like to make in the light of the current situation.
In the last month we were closely following Confrontation’s KickStarter campaign.
As much as everyone else we were happy that Confrontation is finally getting resurrected.
When “Steller-Licensing?” has acquired licensing and announced that they will “resurrecting” Confrontation universe , we were really happy and couldn’t wait to see what a new company will bring in on the table for all the die heart fans around the world as well all new players that it will attract.
A dream come true.
Our overwhelming happiness was overturned as soon as <SANS-DETOUR> has launched their KickStarters campaign, it became very clear to us that they are not interested in reviving this amazing universe.
Since we didn’t want to harm their campaign in any way, we decided to postpone our comments. But, now since their campaign has ended, we cannot help but express our educated opinion.
When their campaign launched, we were among the first supporters that rushed in to back the project. However after looking through their pledge page, where they were promising unbelievably huge variety of miniatures at a suspiciously low price, we decided to look into this a little bit closer, only to find some photos with a cleverly placed “fine print” at the bottom that says “not contractual pictures”.. no examples of real miniatures or even a whiff of promised that they can deliver anything that they promised.
It’s at this point in time we became concerned and decided not to back this project.
As a miniature manufacturer with more then a decade of experience, we know that its almost impossible to produce such a huge variety of miniatures at such a low price without a great scarifies to the quality and the detail of the miniatures.
Even if they somehow able to fulfil their orders in time, it will most likely leave us the die heart fans empty hearted and disappointed.
We really hope that “Steeler Licensing” will change the direction they are heading. We understand that its a business, but for many of us, we take our hobbies seriously and hate to see such a great game go down in history just because “someone wanted grab a quick buck”."
New update with cards for the "email before the campaign" bonus minis.
All those years and I immediately remember why I hated this meaningless icons on these cards back then. But I think instead of having easy to recognize icons one had to invent these very „creative“ icons. And with the new cards one gets even more icons! Who needs text...
I couldn't tell you what any of the icons even look like on a Confrontaton card, but I still recall from top to bottom it went: Movement, Initiative, Attack-Strength, Defence-Resilience, Aim, Courage (or Fear), Discipline.
The icons are not new, they are a design version from C4.
Interesting that they do not really proofread the text or the et in the copyright section would have not gone unnoticed. Also why is it only on one card and not the others. Then why is it only for Stellar and not SD.
And someone can´t really use a camera, that weapon in front is fuzzy. The whole thing looks quickly tinkered.
Because that confirms only Stellar holds the rights, and not SD. Meaning only Christophe Ammaratti is the one having the keys to them - meaning that if something bad happens between him and Piotr, that would be the end of Confrontation's future under SD's direction.
I really don't want to be overly negative, but I feel the cards looks like some kind of fan-art made rather then official products. The miniatures looks too copy pasted in on the background.
I think it's fair at this point to be a little negative. It's fairly obvious that the "team" at Sans Detour did not plan to have to release cards and did them shortly before they were requested. Multiple abilities are missing from them, and the design of them indeed looks unprofessional and fan made. Also - the rules for the new Gargoyles are very interesting. For a 26 point mini, you can get a fierce and possessed fast flyer. Yes, it has ephemeral, but in a more competitive environment I would expect to see them in every Acheron list. Either way, the decisions being made by Sans Detour don't seem all that well thought out and I do think they need to be called on it when it happens.
well I wont mince my words. The new cards look like dog-egg! Especially when presented next to the old ones. \Why not just use the classic layout with the classic stats and classic special rules layout like... you know... Classic Confrontation?
Davidian wrote: well I wont mince my words. The new cards look like dog-egg! Especially when presented next to the old ones. \Why not just use the classic layout with the classic stats and classic special rules layout like... you know... Classic Confrontation?
Their reason for the card redesign is to remove the Rackham logo and branding and add their own, which makes sense. Doing much else for the classic cards (which is for a game they aren't changing, hasn't been updated in 10 years, and will never be officially updated by Sans Detour) seems misguided and honestly, a waste of time. The only reason they seem to be doing this is to save money on printing cards - with this they can print a single run of cards to distribute worldwide and avoid translation as much as possible.
Duncan_Idaho wrote: Interestingly they promised quite some translation, well good thing they never really said what exactly was going to be translated.
I think we already know one thing that will almost certainly be translated - backer's pledges into backer's angry tears of frustration!
As far as I can tell it’s identical. The takedown managed to lose them a significant number of backers and funds though due to people becoming spooked which I suspect was the main intention of hem initiating the takedown.
Also, in the comments of the update, Joss (project manager) confirmed that no plastic production will be shown before the close of the pledge manager (October 15).
"Still I can already say for sure that we won't be able to show plastic samples before october 15th."
Honestly just showing resin is a major step for this campaign considering how they showed nothing much during the whole campaign. The lack of any plastic before the pledge manager closes is a worry though - again sends up that red flag that their plastic casting might not be up to standard.
parakuribo wrote: Just heard of this. Is the original game any good? When will they release it online?
The original game is great. I still play it to this day and we have what is probably the largest group in the United States playing it regularly in the DC metro area. Rules are available online, and there is a link on the KS campaign page to the rulebook.
Received this on 6th of September, might be relevant to this -
Translated from French -
"Price Smashed on the entire stock! from 0.50 to 15 € on a majority of games.
We acquired some of the assets of the websites Ludikbazar and Ludibay.net, including the stock that has more than 70,000 products on 100 pallets !!!!
Given the importance and diversity of the stock, so far only one sales address:
Teaches STPI 150 rue du 8 Mai 1945, 69100 VILLEURBANNE on 7 and 8 September 2018 and 14 and 15 September from 10am to 20h (other dates to come)
Sales will take place in successive waves depending on the open pallets. First come, first served! On the treasures of LUDIK
The payments will be made directly by credit card via Paypal, Paypal or Cash. Checks are only accepted for associations or professionals.
We will not respond to any details about the stock, or the company Ludikbay SAS of which we are TOTALLY INDEPENDENT.
You are an association, a club, a professional with a purchasing capacity superior to 100 Games, we invite you by return email to contact us for any purchase of big or half big."
That's from WayofGamers.fr. No idea how they are linked in all this, but apparently they are TOTALLY INDEPENDANT of the old Ludikbazaar, and thus Sans Detour as well. However, if they are actually linked, this looks like a money raising venture to gain some extra capital. If not, then it's just a company which snagged Ludik's old stock and is liquidating it.
How in the hell Ludik Bazaar got stuck with 70,000 stock items I will never know. That's some really bad inventory management right there.
I think Ludik ran a bit like miniature market in that they grabbed up stuff from dead companies (like Confrontation), so having a ton of (not very saleable) stock is pretty plausible,
and unless space gets short there's no reason to dump it even if it's not selling (hence why miniature market is only just now deciding to dump the last of it's AT-43 and arcane legion stuff)
Actually stock can be costly to keep just hanging around, especially if they are keeping it in a site that is both secure and can keep the stock in good condition.
Unless they've basically got an empty warehouse or barn that has no rent to pay, then the rent costs are going to cost them; plus if its stock they can't easily shift or sell then its a continual money drain. It's why you sometimes see big companies just throw away old stock, because it will cost them to store it and cost them to have staff sort and sell it; so its just more cost effective to throw it away.
Looks like they've had a history with Ludik in some manner. Maybe this stock acquisition was because Ludik owed them back pay for work done? This was in their about us section:
Created in 2003, SMART TRADING DIFFUSION was first distributor of multimedia products: Video games, Accessories, Computer products, Board games, ... via Cmoinscher.fr (an internal site), many e-commerce sites: Cdiscount , Allociné, Ludikbazar, Pixmania, ... but also in supermarkets Carrefour, Leclerc, Intermarché, ..
For more than 3 years, SMART TRADING DIFFUSION has been involved in business consulting, particularly in the Administrative and Financial Department, and more specifically in the gaming universe, including crowdfunding operations (Editions SANS-DETOUR, Ludikbazar , Ludibay).
Finally, SMART TRADING DIFFUSION, has been involved in the production of 3D illustrations for Editions SANS-DETOUR: The call of Cthulhu V7 Limited Edition AMMIRATI, intervenes in the production of a Web Series and a comic that are in progress of development.
First and foremost we wanted to thank you for your record participation in the first wave of destocking the last two weekends.
With this very great success we renew the operation on
Friday 21st & Saturday 22nd September, from 10am to 8pm
Friday 28 & Saturday 29 September from noon to 8 pm
Always at 150 rue du 8 MAY 1945, 69100 VILLEURBANNE
On the menu thousands of products at 1 € or less (Blisters of figures, Accessories for board games, Boosters of playing cards, Card protectors, Collectible figurines, Games, ...
But also many references found and added Star Wars, Helldorado, Dystopian War, Confrontation, Anima, ... at prices shattered!
Limited edition treasures have been found on the Role Playing Game, ...
Accepted methods of payment are Paypal, Cash and for professionals only checks"
Nothing too out of the ordinary here, just the follow through. Does seem that they have had a previous relationship with Sans Detour before though. Too bad I don't live anywhere near where they are as being able to pick up some bargains would be great.
Ludik IIRC had loads of individual codes since they also sold not only confrontation blisters but also the minis individual parts. I havent checked them in years though.
Last month Joss from Sans detours drop by Vraiforum, asking the longt-time Conf community there for their opinions on the most representative spells for each faction so he could factor them in to the rules for Resurrection.
Anyhoo, he dropped these nugget of info last week:
"- The rules are finalized. No options (spells, miracles ...)
- The first beta tests will begin soon.
- We will then open the Field Test (generalized beta tests) in preview to the backers of the Celbration Box of Confrontation Classic as we announced,
- Then in a more general way during the next year.
- Finally we will make the rules of Resurrection available when the KS Confrontation Classic is delivered so that the backers can test the new rules with the figures contained in the Box."
"Well... Angel will be painted first casts in resin of the original sculpts.
The us of the word "Master" is a bit confusing, even for us sometimes so let's not use it anymore ^^
They are resin casts."
This is not the common understanding of what a "master" model is, and he admits that he is confused by its use. These are pretty basic terms for miniature games and between this and some other issues - like changing the ability names (Living Dead becomes Undead, Hard Boiled becomes Tough) while not writing a new rulebook - does not instill confidence in me that this game will go over well.
not that I don't still think this is going to come to a messy end (at least for the plastics),
but writing rules is basically something that can be done 'free' by them in whatever spare time they have (although they're probably drawing on the KS cash as salary by now),
unlike making minis, especially plastic ones which cost money
Following the progress of the project is hilarious. Sans Detour cannot settle on terminology for these miniatures, as shown in the following conversations:
Amazing that "master" is confusing to them. It's not like some kind of commonly used term or anything... Doesn't inspire any confidence, really. Of course, there were many other warning signs for me, which is why I didn't back this one. Hope it works out for those that did, though.
It's not just that "master" is confusing them. It's that they had this pointed out and clarified, then said they wouldn't use the term again, only to use it again within a month. They know what they are doing, and they are choosing to promote a more interesting product than they are delivering.
Statement about Éditions Sans-Détour Posted by Michael O'Brien on December 08, 2018
Éditions Sans-Détour (ESD) has long been a valued Chaosium licensee, releasing a range of beautifully produced Call of Cthulhu materials in French.
ESD's license for Call of Cthulhu expired in September this year. It is with regret that we announce that Chaosium shall not be renewing ESD's license for any products. ESD's permission to use our trademarks, logos and all related intellectual property has been withdrawn.
As fans of Call of Cthulhu, you deserve to know our reasons why sadly we cannot continue this relationship.
In a nutshell: ESD has not paid Chaosium any royalties on any of its sales since late 2016.
Chaosium has patiently tried to work with ESD during this time; however, to date we have not even received any sales data for the past two years, let alone any payments on outstanding royalties. (Not even on crowdfunding projects like Les Masques de Nyarlahotep et Le Jour de la Béte, which are straightforward to calculate and pay).
Last month Chaosium made it clear to ESD that the license had expired and would not be renewed. ESD were advised they are in cardinal breach of its previous license - nb this would have been grounds for immediate termination of the license, if it had not already expired.
Chaosium does not want ESD’s failures to perform its contractual duties to result in you the fans not getting product you already paid for on ESD’s crowdfunding campaigns.
We are willing to work with ESD to enable it to fulfill its crowdfunding obligations to you. However, at a minimum ESD needs to pay Chaosium the royalties it owes under its licenses. Unfortunately, to date, we have received nothing - not even from crowdfunding campaigns completed in 2017.
EDS's failure to comply with the terms of our license agreement leaves Chaosium no choice but to proceed to take legal advice on avenues to settle the substantial debt owed. As Éditions Sans-Détour has long been a valued part of the Call of Cthulhu family, we are saddened that we have been unable to resolve these matters in a constructive manner.
Going forward, Chaosium has a new licensee for Call of Cthulhu in French. A formal announcement will be made shortly.
Michael O'Brien
Head of Licensing
Vice President - Chaosium Inc.
www.chaosium.com
HaleysRedComet
about 2 months ago
I agree and want to post my screed here about it again:
So, let's think about this. I, and I believe most people here, want the return of Confrontation. CMON dropped the ball on this when they held the rights. They teased Phoenix edition through a different project and never delivered on that, and now SD holds the IP rights and plans to bring the game back via Resurrection. So far, so good, I think. We got a company who is actually doing some work to bring the brand back. Awesome.
OK, so back in early 2017 SD announces that Classic and Ressurection will be something they are working on, and at some point Classic will be a Kickstarter project. Awesome. I'm jazzed about this, I love this game and the minis and can't wait to see how SD does with it. Then... not a lot happens. As the project draws closer there is a poll for characters to be included with the pledge, actually pretty cool. Get the community involved, good idea. But then...
Mostly silence from SD. People, in general, don't get responses to questions on the FB. One thread in particular had a ton of pretty basic questions - what's the pledge structure, etc... - but the only question that was answered was someone asking for SD's Twitter account. So, we know SD is seeing these questions but ignoring them. I'm not saying I was expecting detailed answers, but a simple "Wait and see" or "This is the basic idea" would have been nice. This would be a trend that SD continues to this day - they mostly don't respond to social media inquiries.
Anyway, the KS launches and funds in 2 hours. It raises about 650K Euro. Awesome. But then... people start asking questions and looking closer at things. The minis will be PVC with ABS weapons, similar to what Wrath of Kings does. Personally, this doesn't make too much sense to me, as my metal Confrontation minis tended to have stability issues with ankles more than anything else. But, this is the project SD wants to do. So, we will have PVC and ABS. The issue of quality comes up again and again. It's answered, but because a prototype isn't shown people don't believe it. We are told to trust SD, many backers do because they've delivered on their RPG projects before. SD posts and update saying they can be trusted because they've made products before. OK.
So, we are 3 days from the end of the project and it is down to about 461K Euro right now. That's nearly 200K lost and about 66% of what it was at the height of funding. What happened? Here's where I am going to get really critical: Sans Detour barely worked on this project.
The project launched with over a year of planning able to go into it. What we saw was pictures of the old Rackham minis - the same ones used in their catalog and on the mini's cards. There's even art used in a few situations instead of miniature images. That's weird. Not a single model was ever cast by SD. They're offering a resin pledge, people thought maybe SD made some of those minis. Nope, I confirmed that they were leftover from old Rackham. SD then doubles down on this and states that they are unable to produce a mini they have made, that it is cost prohibitive. I have never seen a single miniature company using KS that has said this. So then people start asking to see how they will scan the masters into a computer, as SD stated they will do this to make molds. Nope, again. So we are left to conclude that Sans Detour has not done -any- work prior to the KS campaign to show people what they plan to produce. They said they've made calls to factories. That seems like it is enough for some people.
Then, we get into the weird grey area of how business ownership and partner companies. In an update, Sans Detour stated they would use Ludik (with whom they share an owner and address) for logistics on this project. They stated that, if Ludik were to go under, they wold simply switch to a different company. So, in a comment, it was disclosed that Ludik is now controlled by a liquidator. I don't know how this wasn't known before, it's a huge red flag. Then, we also find out that Stellar Licensing, the company who owns the IP, only owns the Confrontation IP as their single asset and is owned by the financial Director of SD. Again, kind of weird.
So - in the year leading up to this project, the only prep work done was to photoshop existing images together, make a choice of minis featured, and contact factories. That is, observably, the only work done by SD leading up to what they hoped (looking at the stretch goals) would be a million Euro+ project.
This brings us to the current situation. Sans Detour, the account, is barely involved with getting information out. Instead, Joss - the project manager - has his own account and comments, while other collaborators - who are friends of the project and not SD employees - also give official information. The collaborators get all their info from SD directly, so if they don't have the answer to a question and want to answer it, they have to ask someone. Fine so far. But - we have seen that some of the collaborators have berated and ignored people who have questions or concerns about the project. It's also apparent that there is no native English speaker who works on this project, which sometimes causes misunderstandings. It's a small issue, but for a company to launch a large project in English without a native speaker seems like a mistake.
It also came out that SD was not able to produce game play videos of the game they are pitching, which was a request frequently asked of them. I asked a collaborator about this and was told that there are only 2 players around their office and they had no time to record. I don't see how, in the year they had to prepare for this, they couldn't run through a game and take pictures or record. That doesn't add up to me, and makes me think this project wasn't taken seriously by SD from the start.
It would appear that SD thought it could put together a project for a game that hasn't been produced in about 10 years and expect that people would be willing to buy a 300 Euro box of minis without even seeing how they might look in the material they will receive them in. Next to no prep work was done, and SD seems to be happy with the fact that it passed it's goal at all despite the fact that it lost 1/3 of it's funding so far. SD plans to launch a new edition of Confrontation next year sometime. No one has seen any work that has gone into that so far, so we are left to conclude that as much effort will go into that project as went into their current one. Which is to say - not much at all.
Honestly I at least hoped backers would get their models in the quality showed ; it sounds like SD is going from bad to worse, although some of it might not be them it sounds like their house of cards is crumbling away. Their two resin companies closing doors/not trading with them in quick succession isn't good though in theory they can secure another - however the talk about them not paying royalties is very worrying to say the least. Holding back on such payments is clearly not ethical business practice and, as shown by the licence not being renewed, a very short term view of things.
Of course this speaks greatly to them not having much finances to work things; which fits with the lack of any preview of models, masters or anything that they had for the Confrontation KS.
I just hope SD doesn't try another KS - though with the amount of bad news they've now got against them I'd be shocked if they could carry one off and have it fund at all.
It's probably going to be about the only time I can actually look at an official licence holder in this market and an illegal recaster (the Ukrainian company) and actually end up in a situation where the recaster is coming off more professional and successful and where I feel more trusting in them. Not to mention that the recasting firm stopped recasting and is now casting and running their own game.
Yeah, I hope the backers don't get screwed but I'm not holding my breath. This kickstarter had more red flags than any I saw since the Heroquest 25th anniversary board game... and that years late example wasn't exactly turning out great last I checked either.
warboss wrote: Yeah, I hope the backers don't get screwed but I'm not holding my breath. This kickstarter had more red flags than any I saw since the Heroquest 25th anniversary board game... and that years late example wasn't exactly turning out great last I checked either.
Thing is if it had been any other start up company doing a brand new line of models the red flags would have worked. The problem is this is an established name so that already gives it some street credibility even though the company behind it is pretty much new and hasn't got a glowing track record.
I've seen other KS run FAR better in the early days and still come unstuck in a big way (Drake a Dragon Wargame burned 2 KS and a hefty chunk of cash and yet they had masters, moulds, models, artwork - everything).
This one looks like its running on a wing and a prayer, esp since its tied to a former KS which is linked to a licence for which the company hasn't paid any royalties for in 2 years. That to me says that their finance problems are VERY deep. Sadly it might even be that the best one can hope for is that another company buys into it; but even then why front-load a company with bad KS and a huge reputation loss before its got anything for the shelf.
Heck Wayland Games (under Warcradle Games) bought out Spartan Games and its taken a year or more and they still haven't put anything new in production in that time frame. And that was a formerly functional company, imagine the mess of taking over a KS campaign or two if the owning company goes into administration.
(note WC have produced limited ranges of classic models as they've been mould testing the original material; however they also decided to revamp the range so they've been a bit slower although they are beta testing rules right now and have several masters seen in the wild so there is progress - its just to show that taking over a dead/near dead company is rarely simple)
At some point surely people start thinking before backing ? Reading the main statement , once legal action begins to get that royalty money then SD are going to struggle to pay fur anything, in all likelihood they don’t have the money which means administration. The campaign over promised and over extended.
This has red flags all over the place. Hopefully backers get something but realistically , probably not. Been in a KS where similar happened and the new company that bought the dead one just washed its hands of backers and then wondered why the game died slowly.
Despite not doing much with Dystopian Wars yet, Wayland/ Warcradle have been pumping out new Wild West Exodus releases pretty regularly, another game that they acquired from a company that was slowly running it into the ground.
That's in addition to bringing the back catalog up to speed as well as starting up a line of themed terrain as well.
In spite of our efforts, the two successive defections of the partners who were taking care of the production of our resin Collector’s Choice will not allow us to get you these models in time for Christmas as we had planned to.
We have received the first part of Hysterical Games’ production and we’re waiting for the now rapidly forthcoming second part.
As soon as we receive this second part, we’ll proceed to a first wave of shipping for those of you who had ordered these models.
For models which were originally supposed to be produced by GRX, we’ve set up a collaboration with a new partner, who has assured us that they’ll be able to produce what was missing in a few weeks’ time. We don’t have the exact date for the completion of this production, but as soon as this information is known to us, we’ll pass it along to you. Once completed, we’ll proceed to a second wave of shipping in order to complete these orders.
We’re clearly aware that many among you were hoping to get these magnificent pieces to be able to gift them for Christmas, and we’re saddened that this can’t be the case. In order to allow you to still mark the occasion for the holidays, however, Olivier has prepared small festive cards to announce the arrival of these collection models (downloadable here)
To finish, these collection models will also be added, in early 2019, to the Sans Détour online store. You’ll thus be able to preorder them and they will be shipped once the order of all backers who have chosen the “2018” option have been delivered.
We wish you all happy end of the year holidays, and will return early 2019 with news about Confrontation Classic and Confrontation Resurrection!
Basically, no shipping for the collector resins for Christmas, because well you know, what happened to Hysterical Games.
Also, Sans détour will put on "pre-order" sale the collector resins on their shop online for early 2019...but they assure those who will order that way won't have their stuff before the backers who pledged for them.
Sounds like they're desperatly trying to get more money quickly...
And to be honest, seeing that they are in trouble not only with Chaosium but also another Ulule crowdfunding project "Aventures", where the author Mahyar is asking them to pay for author rights and Sans détour accuse him of not delivering a contract and thus freezing the project...now it looks like it will go to justice as well.
As I recall Hysterical Games is/has shut down. There was some kind of cash-flow issue for them...I do not know if it was their KS projects or the SD deal that led to it, as I am no longer actively watching their communications. I hope that SD can find a solution for all of their customers and backers...it would be a shame for Confrontation to suffer another death...
It seems like there are a lot of "haters" on this thread. First it was "Sans Detours is going to screw the people from the kickstarter and not follow through" , then it was "the rules can't be written in time", now it's "they don't know miniatures terminology." From what I can see they are moving right along. I can't wait to hear the next iteration of hater complaints. It will probably be "Well, you got tons of minis, but they weren't personally painted by Angel, so they screwed you."
Not haters, just a lot of people who have seen how projects play out and who see past the cheerleading on the KS comments. As it stands, no backer has anything and they appear to be the target of legal action to recover money they do not have. In Europe that usually results in a company having to close and a third party has to sell assets of that company , often at less than market value, and even if the company as a whole was sold then the new company would have zero obligation towards backers.
Smellingsalts - it wasn't haters it is people pointing out glaring flaws/problems/errors and lack of communication from the KS organisers. Basically there were warning signs and key questions that the organisers did not answer.
These threw into question the validity of their ability to organise and run the KS. I've seen several KS which were presented far better and run far better and they still failed utterly to deliver on product.
Another issue is that KS has been used many times now by companies trying to cover debts. So instead of investing into the new product they are instead partly investing KS funds into that; but then also trying to fund a previous project/cover previous debt. This sets up a nasty cycle, esp when the company isn't drawing income from a regular stream of sales.
Because the company often has no way to resolve its cash flow problem without starting another KS. This keeps loading them with fresh problems over and over. sometimes it can work in the short term, but many times all it does is stretch out the problem for another year and then they collapse.
SD are now really showing problems with several previous KS rights owners now seeking financial compensation from them for unpaid royalties and the company being taken to court. This is REALLY unhealthy for a company and is a sign that they are in a very bad position. We can cross our fingers and hope they fix things ,but even if they do the worse sign is that its very likely that this will be a one hit wonder and Confrontation Resurrection won't come around at all.
It just seems that SD are in a terrible financial mess that they are not going to dig themselves out of.
TwilightSparkles wrote: Not haters, just a lot of people who have seen how projects play out and who see past the cheerleading on the KS comments. As it stands, no backer has anything and they appear to be the target of legal action to recover money they do not have. In Europe that usually results in a company having to close and a third party has to sell assets of that company , often at less than market value, and even if the company as a whole was sold then the new company would have zero obligation towards backers.
I thought if a company was sold as a whole the debts get transferred to, only if they sold the IPs then the debt wont transfer
TwilightSparkles wrote: Not haters, just a lot of people who have seen how projects play out and who see past the cheerleading on the KS comments. As it stands, no backer has anything and they appear to be the target of legal action to recover money they do not have. In Europe that usually results in a company having to close and a third party has to sell assets of that company , often at less than market value, and even if the company as a whole was sold then the new company would have zero obligation towards backers.
I thought if a company was sold as a whole the debts get transferred to, only if they sold the IPs then the debt wont transfer
It depends how the company is sold. If the company is sold as a functional entity they debts would get sent along with it. However if the company goes into administration then there is still a chance to pick up the components of the company without any of the debt. However administration is messy and many companies that liquidate can find that things go missing. Machines and items get taken home by workers; staff try to hide things to restart again etc.... Plus what you buy might appear without any order or sanity so you could get a load of moulds, quite literally as a pile of moulds that you'd have to sort through to find out just what they are - from master moulds through to those that were tests or failures.
So it can be a huge undertaking just to sort things out. Plus iwth administration its less likely that you'd get the building too, since unless the company directly owned its factory and buildings, those would have defaulted back to their rental owners. So you could well end up with all the bits of a company being shipped to you with no building, warehouse, factory etc... So its not a light undertaking.
And that's before the risk that another bidder on the items outbids you on components. So you can find out that franchises die because one person owns the moulds; another the IP rights; another the designs; another the artwork and the administration company ends up holding onto a load of back end software and such because that didn't sell and that stuff might even just be dumped and totally lost.
Basically it can be a frightful mess; plus even if you don't have to honour the debt that black sky is still over the company even if you relaunch
Smellingsalts wrote: It seems like there are a lot of "haters" on this thread. First it was "Sans Detours is going to screw the people from the kickstarter and not follow through" , then it was "the rules can't be written in time", now it's "they don't know miniatures terminology." From what I can see they are moving right along. I can't wait to hear the next iteration of hater complaints. It will probably be "Well, you got tons of minis, but they weren't personally painted by Angel, so they screwed you."
I do hope all will be well, and I would love to be able to pick up a lot of these miniatures at retail too.
And I would love it if Confrontation return to the gaming scene.
However, with all that being said, it is a bit early for you to be taking this victory lap!
TwilightSparkles wrote: Not haters, just a lot of people who have seen how projects play out and who see past the cheerleading on the KS comments. As it stands, no backer has anything and they appear to be the target of legal action to recover money they do not have. In Europe that usually results in a company having to close and a third party has to sell assets of that company , often at less than market value, and even if the company as a whole was sold then the new company would have zero obligation towards backers.
I thought if a company was sold as a whole the debts get transferred to, only if they sold the IPs then the debt wont transfer
It depends how the company is sold. If the company is sold as a functional entity they debts would get sent along with it. However if the company goes into administration then there is still a chance to pick up the components of the company without any of the debt. However administration is messy and many companies that liquidate can find that things go missing. Machines and items get taken home by workers; staff try to hide things to restart again etc.... Plus what you buy might appear without any order or sanity so you could get a load of moulds, quite literally as a pile of moulds that you'd have to sort through to find out just what they are - from master moulds through to those that were tests or failures.
So it can be a huge undertaking just to sort things out. Plus iwth administration its less likely that you'd get the building too, since unless the company directly owned its factory and buildings, those would have defaulted back to their rental owners. So you could well end up with all the bits of a company being shipped to you with no building, warehouse, factory etc... So its not a light undertaking.
And that's before the risk that another bidder on the items outbids you on components. So you can find out that franchises die because one person owns the moulds; another the IP rights; another the designs; another the artwork and the administration company ends up holding onto a load of back end software and such because that didn't sell and that stuff might even just be dumped and totally lost.
Basically it can be a frightful mess; plus even if you don't have to honour the debt that black sky is still over the company even if you relaunch
Ah thanks, yes i remember when Spartan Games went into administration(the admin report was really bad on that, backers had the option to be informed and i opted in) and when Hawk Games both sold their IP, i heard it was a nightmare figuring out all the molds etc.
The Myth IP was recently sold to Ulysses NA IIRC and like you say there is a big black cloud over that from the KS and it will be interesting to see how it plays out, hopefully for the good.
Even if SD goes bankrupt, it doesn't mean that the IP will be sold, as it's stellar licensing that owns it (a company owned by the financial director of SD if I recall correctly).
With Prodos, they transferred not only the assets but the staff to Archon, leaving debts, such as AvP, behind. Valley Games tried a similar shell game with the Up Front and D-Day Dice (?) assets.
As for "haters", if a hater is someone who doesn't pledge €299 only to show nothing for it, I and my wallet will happily become a "hater". GameZone's even showing less triage than S-D and that's after five years!
The money's gone, debts are still owed, and, iirc, S-D's owner's other company, Ludik Bazar, is being liquidated. We're not just seeing red flags. We're into Doppler shift territory.
Stellar does have the rights to Confrontation and I have seen an IP return after a disastrous KS. Up Front backers never received product, but it was offered by WotC on DriveThruRPG.
Yeah, if SD closes all they lose is the debt owed to other companies and any obligation to fulfill the Kickstarter.
The IP isn't with SD so they can do something with it later. They may well be able to produce some resins and sell them, and transfer the moulds to a new company when SD goes down (doing the old selling it for a dollar to the new company as they slide into closure).
I think the Kickstarter is pretty dead, but I think it's been dead from the beginning and the prospect of backers getting stuff was always vanishingly small.
Honestly I'm not sure if SD can pull the whole "fold company and transfer assets" trick much more. At the very least it will (or at least should) sink future expansion plans, but its also likely skirting the law* and should things make it to court they might have dug themselves a huge nest of problems.
*If it were as simple as SD makes out to just bankrupt a company and lose debt and move assets over to another new company then all the big firms would be doing it!
> So in short has anything been ressurected yet? Anyone got any miniature, game… something?
Maybe give it five or ten years before Confrontation resurfaces again? I dunno. Anyone else have any anecdotes of IP's that crashed and burned yet came back again??
I've already mentioned Up Front. We'll see in April what happens to Myth. Myth, however, is not going through the same "hate" as Confrontation is now, and doesn't have the SD taint like Confrontation has.
> *If it were as simple as SD makes out to just bankrupt a company and lose debt and move assets over to another new company then all the big firms would be doing it!
Well Confrontation has sort of kicked around for a while. Coolminis (or whatever they are called) picked up at least part of the licence to sell for a while, however their prices were exceptionally high on the models. What I think did keep the game going in some form was the Ukranian recasting company that kept up a supply of models at a more regular market value.
Interestingly that company did stop printing when SD started their big confrontation push with this KS. However whilst the Ukranian has started making their own game and KS (which from what I gather is running pretty smoothly); SD is making a mess of things.
I think what keeps Confrontation going is that its got a pretty loyal home fanbase in France.
That Ukranian company, Legends of Signum, has been putting out regular releases of their own figures for the past few years.
Just finished building their new vampire guy the other day in fact. Posted it on Youtube. Go look.
They haven't done any actual recast Confrontation sculpts in some time. Just their own stuff. Some are very much in the design and spirit of Confrontation though...
Honestly I hope the Ukrainian just focuses on their own game. Drop all the recasting and just focus on their own product. Far healthier for the market to broaden it and remove legal issues.
Agree…I do keep getting constant news on FB about Legends of Signum minis and some of the sculpts actually look awesome. As for confrontation I get nothing so I assumed it was dead… actually I assume that it did not even resurrected in the first place.
Well, I get there are a lot of gun-shy people on this thread, but the fact that they put out a statement telling you what was up and where they are at in the process is enough for me, and the rest is just wild speculation. They are not going to be sued out of existence. Chaosium is not exactly a titan of industry. How Chaosium is still in the industry is what amazes me. Most companies don't want to sue someone out of existence, they just want to get paid. Chaosium has a much better chance of getting paid if Sans Detour is successful.
I don't think Chaosium will be looking to shut them down,
but they've been doing the ask nicely for their cash bit since 2016 and have clearly reached the end of the playing nice process
and if SD are in as fragile a shape as it appears they are (rather than just being actual crooks who aren't paying deliberately) and court mandated settlement is likely to be enough to sink them
> How Chaosium is still in the industry is what amazes me.
Bit OT, but Chaosium, under Charlie Krank, was not run well, and their 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu KS campaign (or was that 6th?) overpromised and underdelivered. Sandy Petersen, who originally designed the Call of Cthulhu RPG, along with Greg Stafford et al. took over management, and kept the company from going bankrupt.
> Chaosium has a much better chance of getting paid if Sans Detour is successful.
I remember reading something like this during the Palladium KS. Don't take action against such-and-such company or else they won't deliver product. Sounds like a hostage situation more than a promise to me.
My interpretation of the Chaosium statement is that, after these two years of not being paid royalties, Chaosium doesn't think SD will pay them at all unless they take some sort of action.
I don't think anyone, least of all backers, will see anything. Backers, without forcing any obligation from SD, are at the end of the queue, not that those ahead of them will necessarily receive anything.
I figure Stellar will still have the IP rights to Confrontation. But the people behind Stellar are the same as SD and Ludik Bazar. We *have* seen, with the RIFTS Savage Worlds KS, an example of a company with a good reputation on KS, namely Pinnacle Entertainment Group, successfully run a KS with a license from Palladium, a company which does not, so it's not impossible for Confrontation to come back. And, of course, it's always possible a company will license Confrontation and sell it direct to retail without this crowdfunding risk. But, as Legends of Signum and many videogames have shown, a "spiritual successor" that does away with associating itself with a particular company through licensing, is an option as well.
Haters have been posting statements from Chaosium, American licensors of the Call of Hatethulhu RPG, and Mahyar, whose French RPG, Aventures, translates to Hate in English.
Ulule.com is a French crowdfunding site promoting hate.
However, Chaosium has stated from the outset that we do not want ESD's failure to perform its contractual duties to result in Ulule backers not getting the product they have already paid for (although we ourselves have not been paid).
In the past weeks, ESD has finally replied back to us several times, only for communication to go dead again once we ask them to actually do something (e.g., pay past royalties, give us sales figures upon which royalties can be estimated, etc.).
We are understandably concerned that ESD lacks the funds to pay us even the royalties for just the 2017 Ulule.com campaign. We despair of having the two years of unpaid royalties on our work ever being repaid, even in part, by ESD.
Hence, we are taking this unilateral step to at least enable Éditions Sans-Détour to fulfil obligations to their Masks of Nyarlathotep/Day of the Beast Ulule.com backers:
Chaosium will unilaterally grant a license to Éditions Sans-Détour to fulfill the 2017 Ulule.com crowdfunding campaign. We do that despite our concerns that we will never see a cent of the not insubstantial royalties owed by ESD, by ESD’s repeated acts of bad faith, for their serious breach of contract, and copyright and trademark violations. We do that because we don’t want the fans to get punished for someone else’s deeds.
This license DOES NOT permit Éditions Sans-Détour to sell Masks of Nyarlathotep/Day of the Beast to game stores, distributors, or online. It ONLY allows ESD to fulfill the Ulule crowdfunding campaign to existing backers and nothing more. Nor does it waive ESD of its obligation to pay Chaosium the royalties owed. Chaosium reserves all rights to seek legal relief against ESD as specified under its (now-lapsed) contract with ESD.
We’ve tried to work with ESD to move past what is obviously a difficult period in their company’s finances, but not only have we not received any royalty payments for books sold since the end of 2016 - we haven’t even received sales data upon which royalties could be estimated. Our requests for this information have been ignored. As we originally noted, Éditions Sans-Détour has long been a valued part of the Call of Cthulhu family, and we are saddened that we have been unable to resolve these matters in a constructive manner.
"I have read the latest press release from the publisher SANS-DÉTOUR,
which does not hesitate to charge me with the project's" freeze ", to report information that could be covered by the confidentiality of the exchanges, and clearly defamatory, so I intend to assert my right of reply
here, which will be brief and very clear:
without payment of royalties since the fundraiser and after months to question my editor on this subject, I was forced to bring in my legal adviser, without any more success.
In addition, in the face of persistent silence, and in the absence of factual information on the fundraising, I could only take note of the suspension of the contract. SANS-DETOUR has been duly informed beforehand and repeatedly, as it should, by official means. To my great regret, the discussion is interrupted today. The expected answer to these questions belongs to SANS-DETOUR.
As for the allegations of SANS-DETOUR with regard to my rights as author, I leave it to the "legal" to take care of it. The termination of the project does not in any way result in the production of any license agreement.
This situation is a real heartbreak for me, the AVENTURES project being one of the most motivating and exciting of my career. If out of respect for the community invested in this project, informing is essential, this information must respect certain principles. "
I really don't see what could qualifies as "hate" in the posts you showed.
From what I understand, Chaosium didn't get paid any royalties since 2016, and argues that SD not giving them any sales figure is an act of bad faith. They consider SD isn't actively trying to solve this issue (no replies, not giving the information needed). I didn't see any post from SD saying otherwise, so it looks like it's true.
And Chaosium allowing SD to use their license for free for the Ulule campaign, just to help them get the product to the backers, shows good faith on their part. I really don't see how anyone could see that as a hate post…
The Mahyar/SD argument is a bit different. I didn't follow everything, but SD says they can't fulfill their engagement because Mahyar didn't provide the required license agreement. On the other side, Mahyar says he canceled the contract because he didn't get paid any royalties, but doesn't want to go into details for legal reasons.
At least one of them is misrepresenting the truth, but without any inside information I can't see which one does.
This argument is however relevant to the Confrontation kickstarter, because it reveals difficulties (both financial and in their professional relationships) that SD is having. They might not be at fault here (I really have no clue), but it does impact the company badly, and it is concerning for the KS's backers.
Also, these is two sides arguing, and fighting a legal battle, each giving their side of the story. I don't see how you automatically assign these as hate posts.
Smellingsalts wrote: It seems like there are a lot of "haters" on this thread. First it was "Sans Detours is going to screw the people from the kickstarter and not follow through" , then it was "the rules can't be written in time", now it's "they don't know miniatures terminology." From what I can see they are moving right along. I can't wait to hear the next iteration of hater complaints. It will probably be "Well, you got tons of minis, but they weren't personally painted by Angel, so they screwed you."
Folks, my post was a reference to Smellingsalt's post. I'm as realistic (et al) as the rest of you. In fact, I tracked down the original statements and posted them.
SD has shown pics of the resins from Hysterical Games. AFAIK, We don't know if Hysterical Games will ship the second shipment of resins.
As Sacredroach said, "As I recall Hysterical Games is/has shut down."
Keep it realistic!
GUSSuperbacker
10 days ago
So, finally some news.
First things first : there is one photo of the resin pieces, and all we can do is to hope that Hysterical Games will really shipped the second wave.
Secondly, we have no name for this mysterious new caster capable to complete the production in just some weeks.
Thirdly, the resin miniatures were supposed to be exclusive to this KS. Now, it will be avaibable on the SD store. It don't really bother me, but it would preferable to not talk about exclusivity first, and now it just make it look like SD is in a hurry for money...and that's not reassuring me.
At last, there is still no news about the plastic production, or at less the mold productions. Not a word about the difficulties SD is facing neither.
So, thanks for the news, it could be better and it could be worse too. I hope everybody will have their resins add-ons soon, and think it will be a good omen for us all.
So one of the things I have not seen talked about here is that the Sans Detour Facebook page shut down for a few days after the news of them not paying for IP. When they reopened, they put out a statement explaining that they had received some threats (which is bad, don't do that people). The other thing they mentioned was that Christophe Ammeriti was a target, but not an employee of SD. Which is weird, when he is listed on their site and on the Kickstarter for Confrontation as being part of the team and an employee.
Whilst resin is expensive in manhours its a lot cheaper to get started with the moulds. I wonder if SD will either run another KS to try and generate income for the plastic moulds or if they might even bypass and try to do the whole thing in resin instead.
Regardless they seem to have exceptional bad luck in companies closing down around them. Almost every associated company seems to suddenly wind up shutting doors and going into liquidation.
Poking around online he's got a variety of resume site profiles (eg linked in) and on some he mention positions in a mix of San Detour, Stellar Licencing and Ludicbay Group amongst others
so he's clearly involved but quite what hats he's officially wearing at the moment who knows (especially as I can't figure out when he last updated any of them)
it wouldn't be the first time a failing business has neglected to tell people directors have left, it could be he's (now) helping out in a capacity but not officially employed (or paid) any more
> Almost every associated company seems to suddenly wind up shutting doors and going into liquidation.
> Poking around online he's got a variety of resume site profiles (eg linked in) and on some he mention positions in a mix of San Detour, Stellar Licencing and Ludicbay Group amongst others
Just speculating, but...
Considering that SD and Ludik Bazar are closely associated, mebbe SD also somehow "closely" associated with these other companies that are shutting down. Alternately, SD's management could have chosen these companies that are shutting down through some common criteria (eg. lowest bidder). fwiw, I've seen hobby projects shut down because the supplier went out of business (eg. the printer was paid then went bankrupt), and, with SD not paying Chaosium for two years, it's also possible that they didn't pay their suppliers for work done, contributing to these companies closing their doors.
Again, who knows. Although it is another rule of mine when backing a KS to *try* (although usually it's not possible) to find out who the third party manufacturers et al. are in a KS project. If a supplier takes payment and doesn't deliver, the whole project can fall apart. Back realistically!!!
Just because I'm realistic I asked Footsore on their FB page if they're casting miniatures for Confrontation and this is what they said. :
Hello xxxxxx, what has happened with Hysterical Games is separate to us setting up our own resin casting. We havent picked up all their customers so as it currently stands Confrontation Miniatures are not one of our customers.
Yeah, I have no idea why anyone would think Footsore would take over responsibility for Hysterical's work, and Andy's sensible enough to not get involved with SD.
Some of Hysterical's customers have signed on with Footsore as Footsore were originally going to contract resins to Hysterical, but when Hysterical ceased trading Footsore created their own resins team.
Footsore don't have responsibility for fulfilling the minis side of the Confrontation kickstarter, that is SDs responsibility.
This thing had so many red flags, I'm actually surprised enough people backed to fund it....lots of wishful thinking.
Heck, I backed SDE: Forgotten King (which delivered just fine, game rules quality aside), and went into SDE Legends with confidence and look where that project ended up.
I've been burned twice now....The $350 I gave to Soda Pop/Ninja Division, just to see it fizzle and disappear...has really crushed my desire to back any games on Kickstarter anymore, even on seeming 'sure-things'. My buddy dumped 2K into Robotech: Tactics, and got a pretty lousy return on that investment...I'm more inclined to wait and see now, despite the lure of KS exclusives.
I hope the people who put their hard-earned cash and trust into SD for this KS don't get screwed...I kinda saw this happening and stayed away, despite my intense desire to see Confrontation resurrected.
Sedition Wars, the first Myth KS, and most Mantic KS have made me wary enough about being picky. Which is a shame as there’s a small group that play occasionally here even before the KS.
I left $1 in so I could watch it play out first hand.
* If you can wait for a boardgame to hit retail, the base game may appear on retail for 1/2 the price of a pledge plus shipping. Pretty obviously, if the game is MUST BE MINE don't do this. But, if the game isn't a must-have, you can wait.
* Particularly with Amazon selling games, holiday sales can be much better bargains than KS. You won't get all the goodies, but you'll also get retail games at a good price as well. Think of KS as the deluxe version, and retail sales as bargain-hunting.
* Miniatures are better for KS than retail boardgames. Unlike boardgames, miniatures at retail are often sold only at the manufacturer's site, where sales are not common, and you still pay shipping.
Despite my advocacy of and interest in KS, it turns out that I've only backed three projects in 2018, two miniatures and one boardgame. And the boardgame pledge was $25 and included free shipping.
If the royalties owed to Chaosium alone are over 100,000 Euros as posted in one of the links above they really are sunk
it's a big enough debt to make paying a lawyer (in a foreign country) to chase it for you, and with 400,000 Euros theoretically in the companies account from this KS there's at least some chance of recovering the cash. And once one debt actually reaches court a bunch of other creditors are likely to go for them too just to get their claims in in case San Detour goes bust because of it
Monkeysloth wrote: Wow, if it's really that high I'm surprised Chaosium really waited this long to even kill the license.
Honestly I think they were very trusting in SD, but also didn't want customers - ergo backers- to be left without. I think SD stopping all communications and also starting to look like they were going to go from fullfilling the KS to doing retail made Chaosium push the legal button. Basically it's one thing to ensure pre-paid customers are getting their product, but once SD are going into general retail as well then they are only adding customers all for their own profit and Chaosium has nothing.
Also if SD need to "steal" 100,000 then it speaks very poorly of their financial health in the background. Of course having several companies also close down and go bankrupt with close association also suggests that things are really bad. Whilst they might have some justifiable reasoning for this, they are burning bridges with their silence and unprofessional attitude and burning any potential sympathy or understanding. Right now its honestly looking like if SD so much as gets the resins out for Confrontation it will be a big achievement; plastics an insane one and I think we might as well all consider that Resurrection is a dead duck and won't appear (or if it does its going to be right off the back of another Kickstarter)
Just as a footnote, back in 2015, Chaosium itself had its own management and money problems, including issues with payment to their own writers, and was still (not) fulfilling its 7th edition Call of Cthulhu KS or Horror on the Orient Express KS.
Upon the death of one of the company shareholders, Lynn Varley (sp), some of the remaining shareholders acquired control of the company and forced the current President, Charlie Krank, to step down.
Also, SD owes Petersen Games "six figures" of Cthulhu Wars stuff.
Sandy Petersen, President of Petersen Games and VP of Chaosium:
Ludikbay and Sans Detour declared bankruptcy and did not pay off the debt they owed to both Chaosium and Petersen Games. It was in no way Chaosium's nor Petersen Games's desire to end our deal with Sans Detour.
In Petersen Games' case, they had accepted delivery of a huge amount of our product first, for which we were never paid. I believe at least some of that product (French edition Cthulhu Wars items) made its way to our backers, but like I said, Petersen Games wasn't paid. If I sound a little bitter, it's with reason.
Yeah, while plastics had some problems, I really liked them. The two Rackham games were also really fun, with the added bonus that both of them ran off the same core rules. I own four large armies for each, especially when things went on super-sale after the collapse.
I continue to play Confrontation with a group at my FLGS. We've gone through and made a few minor changes and have been able to hunt down enough of the miniatures to play for the last 2 years pretty consistently. Bringing back Confrontation doesn't look like it's what SD is going to do, but if you can - become the change you want to see and start up a group. It's awesome.
The Evo rules the Italian community produced were pretty damn good, and went a long way to balance the variius units in the game. They were even producing decent how to play videos, but stopped when the Conf Classic akS started.
This is disappointing news, though given the history of this much loved license it is less of a surprise than perhaps it should be.
I was hoping for a good reason to unbox my near complete metal collection and get them painted up, would have been great to have people to game with locally.
Wonder what new in box metal minis are going for these days.
There's no "Confrontation curse". Only bad managers dealing with the license and making bad decisions, that's all.
For the pre painted plastic, it was just too soon. If that launched nowadays, it would have been pretty much different, I'm sure. And yes, no matter what the people said at that time, the miniatures were still good material - I still have them at home and sometimes use them in other games.
As for the current Kickstarter, it seems like they are more working on Resurrection rules in the backside than the actual Classic miniatures - well, I guess I can't blame them, it's not like they can actually make the miniatures themselves, since SD has nothing to do that. So better work on what you can do, right ?
AegisGrimm wrote: Yeah, while plastics had some problems, I really liked them. The two Rackham games were also really fun, with the added bonus that both of them ran off the same core rules. I own four large armies for each, especially when things went on super-sale after the collapse.
Sometimes it seems like Confrontation is cursed.
where you ever able to acquire wamphyrs, ghouls or heavy centaurs of acheron? did they produce those?
AegisGrimm wrote: Yeah, while plastics had some problems, I really liked them. The two Rackham games were also really fun, with the added bonus that both of them ran off the same core rules. I own four large armies for each, especially when things went on super-sale after the collapse.
Sometimes it seems like Confrontation is cursed.
where you ever able to acquire wamphyrs, ghouls or heavy centaurs of acheron? did they produce those?
I'm almost sure they produced some PPP Wampyrs, because over the years I have seen them online including for sale on eBay. Not sure about the others.
The Wamphyrs (I think those are the winged ghouls?) came in the army box for the Ram. No Centaurs, ever- my buddy and I were going to use Chaos Knights with skeleton heads for that baroque Ram feel.
It's a shame everyone's having such a problem bringing Confrontation back to life, Aarklash is a cool place for fantasy gaming.
AegisGrimm wrote: The Wamphyrs (I think those are the winged ghouls?) came in the army box for the Ram. No Centaurs, ever- my buddy and I were going to use Chaos Knights with skeleton heads for that baroque Ram feel.
It's a shame everyone's having such a problem bringing Confrontation back to life, Aarklash is a cool place for fantasy gaming.
I got the gargoyles in the ram army box *(the one with the almighty crane commanding) yeah I love the RPG as well.
Regarding bringing Confrontation back - I am surprised the Hybrid game isn't brought up more. It was a miniature and tile based dungeon crawl before those really took off, and all the miniatures for it are compatible with any of the larger games. It doesn't require a large amount of miniatures, is a good platform for expansion, and with a good edit of the rules is a solid game. It's a good entry point to the miniature game, as getting a good variety of miniatures for it would also get you about enough to play Confrontation with as well.
I agree that the only curse Confrontation has is poor management. Unfortunately, it is what killed the game originally and has stifled attempts with it since then. Moving to PPP may have been a good choice for other brands, but the Confrontation brand was defined by high quality miniatures that painters drifted towards. People used them as RPG pieces and proxies for other games because you could buy single blisters for a reasonable price and get a detailed and character filled mini. Moving to PPP because of Heroclix's popularity missed the point that they were different markets.
I loved the prepainted minis. Though part of that was getting them at like $4 a box at miniature market. I still use them in rpgs, especially the wulfen models.
AegisGrimm wrote: The Wamphyrs (I think those are the winged ghouls?) came in the army box for the Ram. No Centaurs, ever- my buddy and I were going to use Chaos Knights with skeleton heads for that baroque Ram feel.
It's a shame everyone's having such a problem bringing Confrontation back to life, Aarklash is a cool place for fantasy gaming.
I got the gargoyles in the ram army box *(the one with the almighty crane commanding) yeah I love the RPG as well.
It was gargoyles in the army box, wamphyr were released in a unit box on their own.
The plastic minis are not that bad, especialy with the heavy discount they got after Rackham went down (but some have really minimal paint job, like the wolfen army box models).
I think what really killed the game was moving from a scirmish game to a mass battle game, it wasn't aimed at the existing player base.
"Sans Detour, unexpectedly went out of business last year (while owing us more than $150,000 in products we manufactured and shipped to them. The “net 30” model widely used in this industry, in which distributors pay publishers 30 days after receiving the goods can destroy small publishers like us. Our lawyer says we should not ever expect to be paid, even though we have a petition in a French court, and are on the list of creditors to be paid out of their assets). "
I haven't been following SD, but a quick look at their Facebook and website shows they're still active, and still taking orders…
Something's definitely not right (for a change).
Ced is that the right link? I skim read but it seems the only info in that is about shipping and packing and warehouse stuff - nothing about legal? Unless its buried alongside other comments in a shipping update or such?
Overread wrote: Ced is that the right link? I skim read but it seems the only info in that is about shipping and packing and warehouse stuff - nothing about legal? Unless its buried alongside other comments in a shipping update or such?
After a quick googling, I came up with this understanding of how things work:
When a company stops paying its creditors, it has to start an official procedure, and has up to 45 days to officially publish the fact that it's going out of business. The current legal status of a company can be obtained from "infogreffe" (link here for SD), but I don't know if a company going out of business will be clearly marked on the main page, or if you have to buy the summary document for 3€ to see if the information is there.
Also, every change to a company's status should be published on "Bodacc" (link here for SD). The last entry was Dec. 23 of last year, which was just a change to their official main address.
So either I didn't understand clearly how to check for bankruptcy (quite possible), or SD is not officially out of business. In which case, what's going on with Petersen Games? Their statement clearly states they have legal counseling, and are currently taking action. A company filing for bankruptcy and being actively sued by its creditors couldn't (shouldn't?) be able to keep selling stuff on its website.
It's all very confusing to me. Does someone have more info, or better understanding of how bankruptcy works in France?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and SD is going to open a platform to sell used books on their website.
They're about to loose the license to sell the Cthulhu books (at the end of the month), so many people are wondering if their plan is actually to pass leftover stock as used books, to circumvent the loss of the license. Obviously no one has any proof, but the timing makes one wonder (and it's pretty weird for a tiny publisher to start a used products platform, when things are so easy to sell on ebay, amazon or the big classifieds websites…).
I've seen it posted on some other sites that perhaps Peterson was mistaken about SD being out of business. It seems the guy that owns SD also owns (owned?) some other related businesses which are actually going out of business. But who knows for sure, since SD doesn't seem communicate well regardless....and has apparently created quite the tangled web for themselves.
Until SD declares itself bankrupt or is forced into it by another company, individual or the government it can keep trundling on no matter what it owes
Petersen sound as if they are looking in to forcing the issue by trying to recover what they are owed in court, which when SD fails to pay they could ask the court to make them bsnkrupt, and appoint an administrator to sieze assets to pay off all creditors
but that comes with at least 2 sets of problems,
time & money spent on lawyers in france which they basically know will not get them any money back SD's assets will be divided amongst all creditors with some getting paid out before others depending on the type of debt, so Petersen may basically know this is going to recover nothing if they do it, throwing more money away in the process
the debt will be on Petersens balance sheet as an 'asset' of some sort (although they'll be trying to write it off or write it down), but having it all disappear at once could cause them financial problems with their lenders
so it may be better to threaten from the sidelines rather than actively try and shut SD down (at some point somebody else like the French government may well do it for them if SD doesn't pay its taxes etc)
I'm sadly amused that the recasters have done a better job maintaining Confrontation's legacy, with Legend of Signum shipping. I wonder when they'll go back to producing old models.
I can't tell if this was just a scam from the start, or if the clowns at Sans Detour legit thought they could make that many molds on such a small budget. Also if they could churn out anything resembling a decent product without taking PVC shrinkage into account.
I don't think it was a scam but one where they were deluded and thought they could pull in something crazy like 5 million which would probably allow them to go and fix the digital scans and such to account for PVC shrinkage and for some reason decided to just not cancel when they brought in like 10% of what they wanted.
What they didn't realize is that there's not as large of a market for a 20 year old game that's been dead for 10 of those years that was never as popular as people make it out to be (and I have a lot of confrontation stuff).
Monkeysloth wrote:I don't think it was a scam but one where they were deluded and thought they could pull in something crazy like 5 million which would probably allow them to go and fix the digital scans and such to account for PVC shrinkage and for some reason decided to just not cancel when they brought in like 10% of what they wanted.
What they didn't realize is that there's not as large of a market for a 20 year old game that's been dead for 10 of those years that was never as popular as people make it out to be (and I have a lot of confrontation stuff).
I think they also hoped that they could get the money in with very little up front. And in fairness they got a lot considering how little they did put up (nothing on the plastic quality what so ever and product photos from older resin models). That there was a lot of drama around shows how strong the small core of confrontation players are in getting the dream back. It also didn't help that their whole campaign was for old models whilst they also announced that they were going to redesign everythign and make a totally new game based off Confrontation. So the KS was legacy only, nothing that would carry forward into the new game. Which is rather baffling that they'd go for plastics for a short term one sale product.
SD just makes a series of really odd choices and when one looks at how many subsidiary and linked companies have closed down attached to their company staff it kind of makes one wonder if they are just REALLY inept or scamming somewhere along the lines.
Bossk_Hogg wrote:I'm sadly amused that the recasters have done a better job maintaining Confrontation's legacy, with Legend of Signum shipping. I wonder when they'll go back to producing old models.
Honestly I hope the recasting company gives up with Confrontation and pushes ahead with their own game. It's a very rare situation to see a recaster go fully legit like this but it would be far better than them continuing to recast illegally. Far better for them to grow their own game. As noted above Confrontations market was decades ago and with no new main game to push it I can bet the market might well have been shrinking over the years. So forge ahead with their own game that they can market is far better.
Well to be fair to them they did contract production of the resins so the were (are) trying to produce at least that part of it
(at least part of which was to be done by the late Hysterical Games where i'd love to know if an SD not paying a bill on time was part of the reason they folded, or if it was unrelated)
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: Well to be fair to them they did contract production of the resins so the were (are) trying to produce at least that part of it
(at least part of which was to be done by the late Hysterical Games where i'd love to know if an SD not paying a bill on time was part of the reason they folded, or if it was unrelated)
The resins that went out looked to be just stuff that CMON had already done (and clearanced from not being able to sell it). I got the titan dragon at their last sale for like $50.
Monkeysloth is right - Confrontation had it's time. Many of the sculpts haven't aged well (dwarves, some orc, Alahan, etc), and the diehards likely have nearly everything. The stock was clearanced a TON. I got a 10 gallon tub of stuff I got from Miniature Market at 90% off. Add in years of recasters filling in holes in people's collections, and it seems like their fanboy enthusiasm ran rampant. I see the same thing where people want to fire up the foundries for Ral Partha stuff... no guys, there isnt an untapped market for old ass Dennis Mize or Sandra Garrity sculpts.
Monkeysloth wrote: If they had just stuck with doing resins only I think this whole thread would have a different tone.
If they had stuck with the resins it would have certainly made more sense to people.
It was just odd that a company would turn around and do plastics with not a single plastic sculpt to show for it and when those plastics were for a single print run for the KS only and then the company was also going to invest in more plastics for a new game with totally new sculpts. Even odder when they stated that the KS funds weren't going toward the new game so somehow they had all this money for a massive plastic investment for the new Confrontation, but not enough to get 1 plastic demo sculpted before their KS.
It just sent up so many warning lights for such a huge investment that they were then going to abandon.
Just a quick note about resins. They said they have completed the first wave of resins (and have some pictures that show some completed models) and would be shipping the week after the last update on Jan 20.
So far I have not seen any evidence of anyone receiving a single model. I've checked every spot on the internet I know that talks about Confrontation and no one has received a resin yet.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: Well to be fair to them they did contract production of the resins so the were (are) trying to produce at least that part of it
(at least part of which was to be done by the late Hysterical Games where i'd love to know if an SD not paying a bill on time was part of the reason they folded, or if it was unrelated)
The resins that went out looked to be just stuff that CMON had already done (and clearanced from not being able to sell it). I got the titan dragon at their last sale for like $50.
Monkeysloth is right - Confrontation had it's time. Many of the sculpts haven't aged well (dwarves, some orc, Alahan, etc), and the diehards likely have nearly everything. The stock was clearanced a TON. I got a 10 gallon tub of stuff I got from Miniature Market at 90% off. Add in years of recasters filling in holes in people's collections, and it seems like their fanboy enthusiasm ran rampant. I see the same thing where people want to fire up the foundries for Ral Partha stuff... no guys, there isnt an untapped market for old ass Dennis Mize or Sandra Garrity sculpts.
I would like to push back a little against the idea that Confrontation sculpts are outdated, or that there is no demand for them. Looking at what people like Angel Giraldez, Niko Deze, Ivan Radenkovic, Oliver Spaeth and others are doing with Confrontation in the last year shows how well the sculpts have held up, especially ones done in the last few years of the range. The sculptors included people like Aragorn Marks, Thomas David, and Benoît Cosse have all gone one to do some amazing things at other companies as well. There are definitely some sculpts that aren't the best, and I would say that most of them are towards Rackham's beginning, but to say that it's most of the range is incorrect.
Sculpts are aged? Just in the sense that they were produced a decade ago correct? Since the concept, execution and quality is par with most things outhere! IMO.
Now someone picks up a stinker from rackham first waves against the best of a recent release from someone elses ranges and claims all rackham minis are stinkers
Seriously I loved the minis and would love to see more of it ( and I think I just found one new company making some of that). SO yeah Rackham is dead and I think the way forward is other companies assimilate the concepts and then expand, change etc. I rather see that .
Conquest seems to owe a lot to Rackham. Yep there were too many red flags and it was also far to all or nothing for me. I'd have happily considered a skirmish force or two but they only sold about 15 which was just to much and then they had no proof thye could produce the models no real prototypes and no production expertise.
As I said above, some people are wondering if this new platform is just a way to circumvent the loss of the Cthulu license. By the end of the month, they won't be able to sell the books anymore, but will probably have some leftover stock. Passing them as "used" and selling them through their own platform could be a way to liquidate the stock.
No one knows for sure, but the timing is concerning, and it's very weird for a small publisher to open an online platform on their website when basically everyone uses the big classified websites or apps on their phones.
I don't like accusing people without any proof, but SD has done enough shady stuff that I think it's worth raising this concern.
It would also explain why the only update they've given in a while is about that stuff that no one was expecting/hoping for.
Updated information -- Les Informations de reprise
Posted by Joss (Collaborator)
Hello everyone,
For the past six months, the agenda and activity of Éditions Sans-détour have greatly changed. All of our energy has gone into the transition we’re currently undergoing and we’ve had to make important changes in order to continue operating, all while continuing to work on the Confrontation Classic project. We have to admit that we haven’t given enough of our time to this massive project, whether for project leadership or, more importantly, for communication.
We’d like to sincerely apologize to the community.
We’re taking back the management of this project firmly in hand, as it should be, with the goal of keeping you informed on a regular basis.
1- Let’s start with the resin Collector’s Choice models.
As we’ve already announced, De Tinnen Roos is Sans-Détour’s partner for the production of the Collector’s Choice resin models for Confrontation Classic. Since Hysterical Games closed down, we chose this production company for their good reputation. Thanks to them, we’re resuming the production of the Collector’s Choice.
We have the pleasure of revealing the first control castings made by DTR for the resin models of the Kickstarter which have also allowed us to check the quality and rework some parts as needed.
These first castings were made using a blue resin, but let’s reassure indigophobes right away, regular production will be made in a more traditional magnificent gray.
[spoiler][spoiler] (beware, bare breasts)
The schedule is as follows for these resins:
• May 13th to the 20th: production of the resin models, as agreed with De Tinnen Roos.
• Around May 25th: reception of the models at our warehouse.
• Starting on May 27th: beginning of the packaging for shipping.
• Starting on May 31st: Beginning of the shipping of resin models to the backers who have decided to receive them separately, or who have only these resin models in their pledge.
Some of the Skull Warriors have gotten some touch-ups and will be delivered to us with a few days of delays.
As for the Mid-Nor Hydra and the Cynwall Wyrm models, the size of some of the parts means slightly longer detail work so that these are of the best possible quality (example: the wings of the Wyrm)
Our team will visit the De Tinnen Roos workshop in the last week of May in order to check the process for these parts and validate the quality of the casts. Shipping for these models will thus be pushed back 2 or 3 weeks. We’ll let you know the expected delays once we’ve met with the De Tinnen Roos team.
Their team has also passed along a technical detail we’d like to share with you: At the beginning of the year, they’ve chosen to use a less fragile resin than the one they used to use. This upgrade has required a few technical changes and a bit of time to adjust to working with it. But in the end, the DTR team is up to date and able to produce quality models with a less brittle material!
2- Confrontation Classic
We’ll be strengthening the project team and dedicating additional human resources to management and communication. We’re re-examining multiple fabrication and delivery solutions. We’ll give you more complete information and a tentative schedule as soon as they are greenlit on our side.
3- Others Projects
As you know, the return of Confrontation is accompanied by the development of Confrontation Resurrection and other projects, such as the roleplaying game. We’ll also have new news we’ll be communicating with you on a regular basis about those.
Once again, we’re deeply sorry for the radio silence and we’ll do what’s needed to broadcast information in this space on a regular basis.
I would urge people to look at the update before this most recent one - which states that 4 resin miniatures were completely produced, in hand, and ready to ship. This update shows that they are actually not ready and are now being produced by another company.
not to mention they're looking at alternate production methods for the plastic which is a very bad sign as they should have known how they were going to make them right from the start
The plastic was always one of the big issues with this campaign; esp since it was to be used only to fillful this campaign without any intention of them being long term investments coupled to the fact that their new Confrontation games were to use totally new sculpts anyway.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they end up doing this run of resin, leaving it a few months and then telling backers the plastic has failed and converting all their orders to resin. Leaving people to question if that was their plan all along and the plastic was just to lure people who might otherwise avoid resin, in to pledging; or if they honestly had some huge missunderstandings as to the nature of plastic casting and what is possible.
Then again could be they've got a plastic casting method that will deliver, which would be great for all the backers!
Overread wrote: The plastic was always one of the big issues with this campaign; esp since it was to be used only to fillful this campaign without any intention of them being long term investments coupled to the fact that their new Confrontation games were to use totally new sculpts anyway.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they end up doing this run of resin, leaving it a few months and then telling backers the plastic has failed and converting all their orders to resin. Leaving people to question if that was their plan all along and the plastic was just to lure people who might otherwise avoid resin, in to pledging; or if they honestly had some huge missunderstandings as to the nature of plastic casting and what is possible.
Then again could be they've got a plastic casting method that will deliver, which would be great for all the backers!
I don't see a company circling the drain somehow coming up with funds to produce a crapton of figures in an even more expensive and labor intensive casting method.
Overread wrote: The plastic was always one of the big issues with this campaign; esp since it was to be used only to fillful this campaign without any intention of them being long term investments coupled to the fact that their new Confrontation games were to use totally new sculpts anyway.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they end up doing this run of resin, leaving it a few months and then telling backers the plastic has failed and converting all their orders to resin. Leaving people to question if that was their plan all along and the plastic was just to lure people who might otherwise avoid resin, in to pledging; or if they honestly had some huge missunderstandings as to the nature of plastic casting and what is possible.
Then again could be they've got a plastic casting method that will deliver, which would be great for all the backers!
I don't see a company circling the drain somehow coming up with funds to produce a crapton of figures in an even more expensive and labor intensive casting method.
True, but at the same time the high costs for resin/metal is in manhours whilst the high cost for plastic is a one time lump some on the moulds. So whilst resin might cost more in man-hours its a cost they can likely soak because its a smaller trickle of money rather htan a massive payment for typical moulds for injection moulding.
It's why startup and smaller companies often use resin and/or metal instead of plastic because whilst the raw resource and man hours are more costly; the cost to get started is drastically lower. It's also why many big KS use KS just to generate enough in a bulk order to be able to afford that initial outlay in plastic.
So I can well see SD limping on and doing a steady trickle of resin more so than suddenly finding the money for dozens of plastic moulds - heck even if they jam multiple models onto single moulds its still going to be a huge startup cost unless they come up with a different production method.
HaleysRedComet wrote: I would urge people to look at the update before this most recent one - which states that 4 resin miniatures were completely produced, in hand, and ready to ship. This update shows that they are actually not ready and are now being produced by another company.
While there's a lot to criticize SD for the reason for the company change is the other one went out of business. Not much they can do about that and we've known about it for months even though SD hasn't addressed it until now that I'm aware of. That's probably where the first 4 came from.
HaleysRedComet wrote: I would urge people to look at the update before this most recent one - which states that 4 resin miniatures were completely produced, in hand, and ready to ship. This update shows that they are actually not ready and are now being produced by another company.
While there's a lot to criticize SD for the reason for the company change is the other one went out of business. Not much they can do about that and we've known about it for months even though SD hasn't addressed it until now that I'm aware of. That's probably where the first 4 came from.
This is the issue I have from the last update:
"We’ve received all of the production from Hysterical Games (the Cynwall Wyrm, Belial, the Eclipsante Bust, and the Mid-Nor Hydra) and are currently preparing the models to be packaged (we need to remove the larger bits of resin flash from the castings first)."
This was obviously not true. They did not receive all the production from Hysterical, they were not preparing them for packaging. They would not need them to be produced by another company if this were in any way true - it was a lie.
Obviously they haven't started shipping but all their statement says is they got everything Hysterical finished and they're packaging those figures up. Not even if it was enough to cover all the backers that wanted resin of those 4 models. Nothing that said they were going to ship stuff out.
So saying that part was a lie is stretching and it's true SD isn't very truthful but that statement is not saying they're done with resin production and things will be shipping. Maybe elsewhere in that update they say they will ship but not in that sentence.
my buddy, a huge confron fan, got a bad feeling about this and cancelled his pledge the last day. I really hope this works out for all of you who supported.
Monkeysloth wrote: Obviously they haven't started shipping but all their statement says is they got everything Hysterical finished and they're packaging those figures up. Not even if it was enough to cover all the backers that wanted resin of those 4 models. Nothing that said they were going to ship stuff out.
So saying that part was a lie is stretching and it's true SD isn't very truthful but that statement is not saying they're done with resin production and things will be shipping. Maybe elsewhere in that update they say they will ship but not in that sentence.
I am quoting update #51 here:
"Our first wave of shipping will start next week so that you’ll be able to get these first pieces quickly. "
Honestly I'm willing to bet this was their plan all along, or if it wasn't then anyone on their team who has any sane idea of the cost of plastics knew it was going to fail.
Also they showed some metal castings, have they shown any plastic castings yet through the entire campaign?
Honestly not a shock, but at the same time better than I hoped! Shifting back to metal means backers might well get their models, sure not in the "right material" but at least in a material and from castings that should deliver the original quality of the models. So that is actually very pleasing to hear. Far better than the prolonged no delivery and increasing costs required to deliver plastics followed by it likely all failing or delivery of substandard plastics.
The switch to metal really throws me for a loop. It's what I would have wanted this whole time. So many issues I had with the project revolved around miniature quality and preserving it from the original casts, which now seems to be totally a non-issue. Granted, I haven't seen really good pics of their production so there could be some issues, but they're not altering masters to do this so that's good. However, they also stated they will not change their shipping charges because of this. The switch to metal will drastically increase their shipping costs, but I suppose moving to metal saves a lot of money on production as well.
I still don't necessarily trust Sans Detour with the license, they have shown themselves to be - at best - dishonest with their projects as recently as the update before this. I think their lack of understanding about the actual game of Confrontation is still something to worry about when looking further down the road at a new edition. I suppose we will have to see how this works for them and how the miniatures turn out, as well as if this is still something people want. Most of all - I really wish this was the plan from the beginning.
IIRC, they initially didn't want to do it in metal because of the shipping costs.
Isn't the box like 250 minis? Shipping that worldwide is very prohibitive. I really don't understand how that can work out.
HaleysRedComet wrote: The switch to metal really throws me for a loop. It's what I would have wanted this whole time. So many issues I had with the project revolved around miniature quality and preserving it from the original casts, which now seems to be totally a non-issue. Granted, I haven't seen really good pics of their production so there could be some issues, but they're not altering masters to do this so that's good. However, they also stated they will not change their shipping charges because of this. The switch to metal will drastically increase their shipping costs, but I suppose moving to metal saves a lot of money on production as well.
I still don't necessarily trust Sans Detour with the license, they have shown themselves to be - at best - dishonest with their projects as recently as the update before this. I think their lack of understanding about the actual game of Confrontation is still something to worry about when looking further down the road at a new edition. I suppose we will have to see how this works for them and how the miniatures turn out, as well as if this is still something people want. Most of all - I really wish this was the plan from the beginning.
The silly thing is if this was what they'd launched with at the very start they wouldn't have earned the huge red warning flags that were thrown up and they could have charged a fair rate for the shipping right then. So they'd likely have had WAY more people backing and earned way more money from the campaign and had reduced postage costs.
It was their idea of chasing plastic that was a huge warning flag to many with the values they were raising through the KS; as well as the fact that their overall plan was to abandon all the models at the end of the campaign for a new roster of designs for Resurrection which was a further huge warning when one considers the costs of plastic moulds.
HaleysRedComet wrote: The switch to metal really throws me for a loop. It's what I would have wanted this whole time. So many issues I had with the project revolved around miniature quality and preserving it from the original casts, which now seems to be totally a non-issue. Granted, I haven't seen really good pics of their production so there could be some issues, but they're not altering masters to do this so that's good. However, they also stated they will not change their shipping charges because of this. The switch to metal will drastically increase their shipping costs, but I suppose moving to metal saves a lot of money on production as well.
I still don't necessarily trust Sans Detour with the license, they have shown themselves to be - at best - dishonest with their projects as recently as the update before this. I think their lack of understanding about the actual game of Confrontation is still something to worry about when looking further down the road at a new edition. I suppose we will have to see how this works for them and how the miniatures turn out, as well as if this is still something people want. Most of all - I really wish this was the plan from the beginning.
The silly thing is if this was what they'd launched with at the very start they wouldn't have earned the huge red warning flags that were thrown up and they could have charged a fair rate for the shipping right then. So they'd likely have had WAY more people backing and earned way more money from the campaign and had reduced postage costs.
It was their idea of chasing plastic that was a huge warning flag to many with the values they were raising through the KS; as well as the fact that their overall plan was to abandon all the models at the end of the campaign for a new roster of designs for Resurrection which was a further huge warning when one considers the costs of plastic moulds.
All those issues still exist, which is still a problem. Does SD still plan to move ahead with plastic manufacturing for future projects? How much will this change effect people requesting refunds? Will they allow for people to jump on now that they moved to metal? What level of trust can backers have in SD's planning for future projects? How much will each box cost them to ship?
I am still not a fan of SD, but I cannot say that this is not what I would have wanted from the start.
Wow i did not back it because i did not want plastics. Now the say they switch to metal. 300euro for 178 miniatures, really good price. Oh and 75 minis in stretch goal if i understand correctly? So about 1 euro per miniature? Can that really be true? What cost the material for 1 metal miniature?
Too good to be true...?
If they actually deliver that i will be so jelous.
I would have backed at some level for metal, not because I prefer that over plastic (I don't) but because SD was clueless on plastic and threw so many red flags that wouldn't have been there with metal.
Of course you still have all their other sketchy behavior, like not paying licensing fees or for product they were shipped and sold to customers via their store front. But that all came out post KSer.
Well, considering they had an insanely large stock of the old confrontation figures that they never sold before going out of business, I wouldnt be surprised if they'll just unbox all the old figures and send them out.claiming to be new casts.
A double win, it's cheaper to do, and they get to pretend it's newly made and not part of the assets that might be at risk in the administration of Ludic Bazzar etc
well, let's try to break this down a bit. ballpark figures.
They totalled just over 400.000 euros in pledges. take away 10% for KS fees and such and you get a number around 360 000 euros. add to this an unkown amount in late pledges and pledge upgrades, Was there a pledge manager at all?
we are looking at about 250+ unique miniatures that all need to be cast somewhere between 1200-2000 copies of. say 1500 casts of each mini to make the numbers simple. Any way you look at it, 250 minis times 1500 copies gets 375.000 minis needing casting. Is there any chance in the world that each mini on average will cost significantly less than 1 euro to cast? In Europe? Presumably at EU-approved salaries? I really hope for their own sake that De Tinnen Ross require payment in advance of doing any work here.
They are making one mould per mini it seems. Many of these minis are in several parts, increasing the number of moulds needed. The examples in the pictures have 16 one piece minis, the other has 7 multipart minis per mould. How many times can a mould be run before needing replacement? I have no idea. More than resin, but significantly less than plastic. Anyway, if the moulds cost like 50 euro each to make, you still are looking at a bare minimum of 12500 just for one mould of each. Times this with how many moulds wear out casting 1500 minis.
So basically the wad is already blown before any talk of shipping costs. Which will be significant considering weight of a given parcel will approach 10 kilos.
Yes, there might be a large back stock of old Rackham castings that will mitigate the production costs, but that is purely speculation.
My ballpark numbers might also be off. But you get the idea here. so you might say I find this update slightly too good to be true.
They could always cast them in an insured warehouse and--
Oh no! Somebody threw a cigarette in the wastebin and now the whole place is on fire! It's a total loss! We definitely did not pack all the miniatures into a grandparent's garage and then fill the warehouse with empty boxes!
Maledrakh wrote: How many times can a mould be run before needing replacement? I have no idea. More than resin, but significantly less than plastic.
Up to a thousand or so, if they're looked after and the models aren't too savage on them. So most models aren't going to need multiple moulds, even if they start combining models - which would be the smart thing to do given that they have known production volumes required. Maximise the mould distribution to get as many casts out of as few moulds as possible without wearing out the moulds too far - potentially cuts the number of moulds they need by a factor of 10.
So you are getting more than 1200€ of minis for just 300€...mhm....and they will cover extra shipping costs that all those minis upgraded to metal will incur... ever heard about deal being too good to be true? xD
They must have sat down and done the calculations and seen its still do-able with the money they have...perhaps not at much profit, but if it keeps their reputation intact and allows them to move forward with the license for the new edition, then perhaps it will all be worth their while. That said, with it being delivered in waves by pledge number, I wouldn't wanna be someone in the #2000's lol.
anab0lic wrote: They must have sat down and done the calculations and seen its still do-able with the money they have...perhaps not at much profit, but if it keeps their reputation intact and allows them to move forward with the license for the new edition, then perhaps it will all be worth their while. That said, with it being delivered in waves by pledge number, I wouldn't wanna be someone in the #2000's lol.
Well, they didn't pay royalties on a license for years. They apparently lied about the advancement of their project (at some point the minis were cast and ready to ship, a while later that said they didn't have any ready and had to change the company doing the casting). They tried to do plastic minis without any knowledge of the process or any clue about the money required.
So it's not because it takes 5mins to see that the numbers don't add up that SD will acknowledge it and try something else. They're at best very bad with numbers and managing finances, at worst they're real crooks.
I also doubt they could afford to do a lot of work with very little or no profit. They had serious financial problems recently.
I think they realized they screwed up with the initial promise, that they were way over their head with the plastic stuff (hence the move to metal), and probably wish they could just cancel everything. But they probably don't have the cash to refund everyone anymore, which is why they keep stalling, hoping they'll find a way to fix everything, or that the company will somehow bounce back and be able to deliver something decent at a loss for them.
anab0lic wrote: They must have sat down and done the calculations and seen its still do-able with the money they have...perhaps not at much profit, but if it keeps their reputation intact and allows them to move forward with the license for the new edition, then perhaps it will all be worth their while. That said, with it being delivered in waves by pledge number, I wouldn't wanna be someone in the #2000's lol.
Well, they didn't pay royalties on a license for years. They apparently lied about the advancement of their project (at some point the minis were cast and ready to ship, a while later that said they didn't have any ready and had to change the company doing the casting). They tried to do plastic minis without any knowledge of the process or any clue about the money required.
So it's not because it takes 5mins to see that the numbers don't add up that SD will acknowledge it and try something else. They're at best very bad with numbers and managing finances, at worst they're real crooks.
I also doubt they could afford to do a lot of work with very little or no profit. They had serious financial problems recently.
I think they realized they screwed up with the initial promise, that they were way over their head with the plastic stuff (hence the move to metal), and probably wish they could just cancel everything. But they probably don't have the cash to refund everyone anymore, which is why they keep stalling, hoping they'll find a way to fix everything, or that the company will somehow bounce back and be able to deliver something decent at a loss for them.
I have pretty much the same opinion about this.
My prediction: they'll start the KS for their Confrontation Resurrection soon to cover costs for this Classic KS.
Honestly their plans are rather nuts - they ran a huge KS to generate huge amounts of money to one-time sell a bunch of classic sculpts for a game that has been dead for years. Then they were going to use their own money to relaunch the dead game with a brand new selection of sculpts in a brand new game setting all without touching the money from the kickstarter.
It's a very strange way to relaunch your company by taking a lions share of keen fans money to plough into what is basically a side project. Especially when large kickstarters make even established companies struggle to juggle regular and KS fullfillment and development.
In addition they appeared to have no idea how much plastic casting would cost; nor the realities of it, esp when they didn't even have masters of the models to work from. It was almost like a spur of the moment choice "hey lets go plastic".
Couple all that to sub-company liquidations, lack of paying royalties, lack of professional conduct and understanding of their own market segment (eg how to work with plastics). They just sound so many layers of odd.
If I were stuck in this position, I would do the following:
1) Focus on production and delivery for the French backers first. It will cost the least, generate goodwill locally, and possibly spark demand for more of the metals, which will begin to defray the cost to
2) Ship to the closest European backers next. Again, generate local goodwill, reduced shipping charges, and allows for the buildup of European focused tournaments and displays. This would also allow SD to take miniatures to local events and sell them.
3) Ship to international backers slowly as the funds allow. Yes, this will infuriate many, many people, but they may eventually get their product. And SD really need a win and a marketable product.
They actually have a good idea here with the metals, and had this been full metal from the start I would have probably kept my pledge. As it stands, they have a chance of further tarnishing their name internationally but producing a saleable product line. If they are intelligent, they will keep it in production. But that it is a pretty big if.
Shocking how many people seem to stay positive with this many red flags. Gets worse with every update, but people seem blinded by the perceived increase in quality.
It was near undoable before with plastic, now it's simply impossible, not tricky, not "if this" or "if that", what they have now promised is simply not doable at all..
First off, we’d like to thank all of you for the many comments we got over the past 48 hours on our various social media regarding the announcement of going fully metal for Confrontation miniatures.
We understand the issues and the importance of this change, as well as the new questions it raises. There’s only one judge and it’s you, the community of players, collectors, and other fans who allow our gaming world to thrive.
Reading your mails and messages, we’re quite happy to see the favorable response to this change. Of course, there will be no triumphant crowing before the start of shipping. We understand your vigilance and the need to have regular follow-up on production. We won’t disappoint you.
Now that production has begun, we’ve decided to return Confrontation Classic products to sale. This extra income will allow us to ensure the functioning and development of our miniature team which is working on Confrontation Resurrection.
● As we’ve pointed out in the previous news update, “the cost per miniature of each metal figure is much higher than in plastic”. In fact, we’re making almost no money on the boxes already sold during the Kickstarter. This is why we have to revise the cost upwards for the sale of the next batch of boxes and why every potential cancellations of the Celebration Box at the original cost won’t be reopened at the original price.
The new offer
● The metal Celebration box is now offered at a cost of 499 euros all taxes incl (roughly $562) for a duration of two months, until Wednesday July 31st 2019 at midnight. In order to ensure the smoothness of logistics, this offer is limited to 500 boxes.
After July 31st 2019 it will go up to 599 euros (roughly $674).
This single box contains 254 different metal miniatures, the value of which would be over 1200 euros (roughly $1350) if it was sold in stores.
We’re reopening the pledge manager (here's the link). The Metal Celebration Box, Gaming Selections and Collector’s Choice offers are once again available.
If you want to benefit from the new offers, know that our pledge manager is open to all, whether backer or newcomer.
Some of our add-ons aren’t yet available in a metal version. We’ll be offering these quite soon.
Thanks to all of you. And see you quite soon on Aarklash!
Yep, that means opening the pledge manager again. Those who pledged 1$ can now change their mind. But they don't get the advantage in comparison to those who pledge originally, who keep the bargain.
Honestly, it's more understandable that way. It's clear they're making this at a loss and will need to raise new funds to keep their promises. Question is : will people take the bait ?
It makes a lot of sense, but I wonder if their odd business practices and sudden loss of money (that was predicted) will have burned too many bridges to make serious money off the box. Esp when you consider that this is a big one-cost upgrade choice. It's not the same as tempting people with lots of minies and the price creeping up; its one big price.
Yes, great idea to give them even more money up front on only promises. I wouldn't touch this regarldess of how good the deal seems to be. Just wait until they hit retail! Or even better, go search the internet for the original Confrontation miniatures. You will get the exact same thing, only that you will be able to get the right now without having to risk of getting scammed out.
Im in at $1 and metal does interest me, but like you say with all the past red flags and now the sudden urge to sell celebration boxes at $500 doesnt give me much confidence they can actually pull it off with the money they have already and any future money given to them could be at risk and im not chancing it.
I was wondering why the company would decide to try and ship metals at a likely very substantial loss. It makes a lot more sense in the context of trying to get more people to buy in. I mean, it’s possible they want to make every backer whole again, but it’s also possible that this is a way to raise even more cash before disappearing into oblivion.
I hope the backers get their figures, but I know I wouldn’t be upping my pledge if I were a backer.
I almost think that opening this up to 'retail' is going to make things worse for the KS backers, after all 'retail' buyers will have credit card companies (or paypal if SD hasn't lost the company account yet) who can claw the money back for non delivery
(well if they aren't strung along for too long anyway)
So if the stuff gets made it's likely to go out to the 'retail' buyers before the KS backers
To be fair if you keep all correspondence both banks and Paypal will often resolve matters when its clear that the store has been stringing the customer along. Though sometimes you have to ask to be put through to a supervisor/manager/etc as its outside of regular protocol for the first line of communication.
There has to be money in the account for PayPal to refund otherwise you get the comical "Good news! We were able to recover $0.00 of your funds" email from them if the scammer empties it out regularly.
warboss wrote: There has to be money in the account for PayPal to refund otherwise you get the comical "Good news! We were able to recover $0.00 of your funds" email from them if the scammer empties it out regularly.
Actually, that's changed.
I have a business account for PayPal for when I accept commissions for buyer security.
In July, refunds will be given, even if you have no funds in your account. PayPal will now use any other payment method you have attached to your account to pay back any funds now owed to clients/buyers.
So even if the seller has no funds in their account, PayPal is now authorized to take it from bank accounts and credit cards attached to a sellers account. It's an extra layer of security for buyers, and if one doesn't accept these terms as a seller, you can't have a PayPal business account. AFAIK from what I have read regarding these new policy changes.
A few pictures from his topic here (more in the link) :
The Great Skull :
Part of the Chimera :
Quality seems good, though there is some molding lines to remove. He says package was very minimal, miniatures are protected for postage and each are in a bag with their name on it, but that's pretty much it.
Miniature Market also bought a lot of the celebration boxes too according to a Facebook post a while ago. That actually is a good thing as if they're able to produce the metal figures I might be able to buy some that I'm missing.
Monkeysloth wrote: Miniature Market also bought a lot of the celebration boxes too according to a Facebook post a while ago. That actually is a good thing as if they're able to produce the metal figures I might be able to buy some that I'm missing.
On the their kickstarter update, but it actually says RESERVED.
So does that mean MM actually gave them money upfront or not?
If not, it could be a PR move to make people pledge more money.
I really want the box and almost did. But at the same time I really don't want to get scammed on that much money. Dunno what to do...
Looking at the state the group appears to be in i'd be looking at MM and ordering from them even if the deal wasn;'t as good as direct via the KS 'late backer' option
I think the risk of a direct order is too high
although if you're making a direct credit card purchase you should be covered, but I'd make certain of the CC t&c for that before spending (how long can I wait before a non delivery claim, some cut off at 3 or 6 months, has to be a direct transaction as some disallow send via paypal etc)
This would be a total win for MM. If this happens as planned, and MM receives and breaks down all of the Celebration Boxes (which is what I fully expect to happen), I will happily buy a quantity of Drunes and probably some Dirz characters.
Even at $6-10 per standard figure, they stand to make a killing.
Miniature Market, the American online game store, has confirmed their reservation of 400 Metal Celebration Boxes. The confidence they’re giving us is a great boost for Confrontation Classic and is excellent news for players on the other side of the Atlantic. In addition, we’re also in contact with various European distributors in order to ensure the deployment of the game on all territories. We’ll keep you informed each time about any agreements made with each of these.
We’re quite happy with the confidence that Miniature Market is putting in the release of Confrontation Classic. Our teams are also even more motivated considering that more good news will soon be announced.
Confrontation Classic will not be sold in stores as a complete box, but in the form of factions. We’ll soon be offering those for sale, so that anyone can participate, no matter what their budget.
Hell, I'd probably pick some up myself if that's how things play out.
Problem is there's probably a lot of people out there who would gobble up all those Dirz models if that was the case. Gonna be some stiff competition hopefully!
Lemure wrote: Shocking how many people seem to stay positive with this many red flags. Gets worse with every update, but people seem blinded by the perceived increase in quality.
It was near undoable before with plastic, now it's simply impossible, not tricky, not "if this" or "if that", what they have now promised is simply not doable at all..
I disagree.
The plastic was completely undoable. The difference with metal is that they can deliver to some people this way. With plastic, they couldn't even get started.
It still requires that they bring in money that they clearly aren't bringing in.
Impressions from the people who played the Confrontation Resurrection beta at the Con in France last weekend, as copied from VraiForum (apologies for the dodgy Google Translate):
“According to the [Facebook] comments, Joss has recycled some of Alkemy's rules.
There is a story of "breaths" to perform actions and cumulative via different effects of the game on the same figure to activate several times, a bit like the "orders" of Infinity.
On the carets we can see a row of circles of Beige / Orange / Red colors that seem to correspond to a large number of PV and 3 states Light / Serious / Critical. The states on the lines seem staggered according to the figs, which would imply that the states are not calibrated on the same number of VPs following the figs: The big figs and / or the Possessed would have tendencies to resist the suffering and shifting states.
It would also imply that the weapons would inflict multiple damage, like at 40K?”
--
“I tested the beta of conf 'resurrection.
For me, the game looks like a cross between Alkemy and conf 'v3 or 3.5. It might be cool but I did not feel like the best of both was there.
I think they should not hesitate and put a big broomstick to confide and start from scratch: the basic game has more than 20 years and has undergone versions that took over the base. In short, I think the whole thing is old.
What I saw of the beta:
the +:
- alternating activation with direct combat,
- management of the breath (the action points),
- bluff system at the start with gasoline (even if the term is not top , why not) who will then be spread over the fighters,
- Wagered petrol points given to the opponent (what in multi player?). Basically, on a base 6 species each: in the first round I put 5 species, the opponent in bet 4; I have the choice in the first round to decide who starts. At the end of the round, I give my 5 essences to the opponent who gives me his 4: suddenly, I have one less for the bluff of the second round.
- "type" of fighter (warrior, marauder, priest, mystic, leader) allowing to obtain bonuses to bind (warrior +1 dice in charge, marauder +1/2 movement, etc ...): of course it is bonuses are limited and consumed with gasoline.
The -:
- Almost always as much carac 'on a fig: when a carac has been removed it is replaced by another ...
- heavy rolls of die: roll 3 dice and keep two. it's okay even if I'm not a fan.
In passive, we remove the highest result and we keep the others, in active we withdraw the lowest and we keep the others. What is active passive? That's it:
Active or passive are constant choices and have no connection with who is activated: yes, it would be too simple! So it is with the breath: if there is still some breath to the fighter we can choose an active or passive jet, otherwise we make a passive jet. The extra stuff, because it's not over: critics are noted on the die that is removed. And it is a second value that is written on the face of the die. As a result, the die 2 values per face: the number 1 to 6 and dots next to it. And to laugh even more, I happened to do 3 on two dice; one of the 3 had 2 critics and the other 1. So, a bit of trouble to understand the faces of the dice for me. I'm talking about dice of colors that changes with the level of health? The idea is good (even if it smells good Alkemy) but I do not
Hopefully they improve this beta, because in the current state, I feel more like taking my head with the dice rolled than anything else. When you see that most skirmish games show profiles with little carac ', simple resolutions of action and spices the game with the scenar', events, I do not understand the current direction of the beta that me seems to go to the gas plant 10/15 years ago. In short, I hope they will raise the bar and they improve their com 'who is nil to ch ... for the moment.
I did not see confrontation arena though.”
--
“For the breath, these are simply the action points of fig. On the demo (sessair / devoreur) the maxi was 2 breaths.
The rounds of colors are the pv.La colors allows to select the dice to throw (white / yellow / red)
The colors seemed to me to be distributed normally (1/3 life line for each), but maybe I'm wrong.
Possessed works a bit like before: in white and yellow state they take the white dice and in red state they take the yellow dice.
So yes, the weapons or rather the combatants, inflict several wounds: it depends on the number of criticism obtained, the strength value of the fighter and the armor value of the wounded.”
They've got all the metal moulds, the only issue will be paying staff wages, rent, rates and keeping the utilities going at their production site. Those are not small costs and many a KS has died because they've taken longer to produce than was estimated and run out of money to keep the company going. It's especially risky for any company when they do a KS without any prior retail outlet. Because then they've basically no way to earn until their product is on sale and they can't put it on sale until the KS deliveries are done (if they do it can backfire marketing wise in the extreme because now all those super keen KS backers are against the company).
Well, at least the metal casting company knows what they are doing. Looking great.
Still not convinced SD has the capacity to stay in business and deliver everything.
Hello everyone,
Here’s the news regarding the progress in our projects. We’re not giving you weekly updates like we wanted to, for the simple reason that things aren’t moving as quickly as we’d like them to. We have a number of active projects, and we’re making progress on all of them: Confrontation Classic, the resin models, the rules for Confrontation Resurrection, the ArenA project (revealed during the Octogones Convention by the authors, whom we thank), the Confrontation role-playing game, etc. In addition, there are the various publishing concerns of our business.
Trying to be everywhere meant we were getting nowhere. This is why we made the following announcement in September: Sans-Détour will reduce their book publishing activity in order to focus its energy and resources on the Confrontation project.
Priority to the metal Confrontation Classic models
We’ve hit some delays on launching production. We’re perfectly aware of the expectation on your end and we’d rather like to keep you informed. This delay is costing Sans-Détour operating costs, fees, salaries, etc. And we now have to work out expenses linked to fabrication (purchase of large quantities of metal for DTR, fabrication of the boxes, then, when the time comes, shipping, etc.), which clearly risks further stretching out the announced shipping delays. We will unfortunately not deliver for the end of this year, but all avenues are being explored so that you can get your first Classic models as soon as possible.
We’re also continuing the development of side projects, in order to not keep Confrontation Classic from having to bear all of Sans-Détour’s operating costs and so that we can keep moving forward.
As for the models themselves, we’re preparing the last few pieces, specifically the tabs under the feet (an aspect we actually hadn’t planned for!).
We are currently awaiting some metal models produced by DTR. They have been working hard on this !
Resin models
The production of the Wyrm and Hydra has been delayed, as their fabrication is a real technical challenge for De Tinnen Roos, who are more specialized in metal production. Actually, the risks of breakage and miscasts are high for some of the few delicate parts of these pieces. As soon as DTR has consolidated the design of these parts, they will send us a few resin castings, so that we can finish this first wave of shipping. We’ve made a few mistakes in a row and have suffered some blowback for this aspect of production and we’ve agreed with DTR to continue working on this specific production with other partners who are more experienced with it (we’ll share more details with you as soon as possible).
This delay is costing Sans-Détour operating costs, fees, salaries, etc. And we now have to work out expenses linked to fabrication (purchase of large quantities of metal for DTR, fabrication of the boxes, then, when the time comes, shipping, etc.), which clearly risks further stretching out the announced shipping delays. We will unfortunately not deliver for the end of this year, but all avenues are being explored so that you can get your first Classic models as soon as possible.
We’re also continuing the development of side projects, in order to not keep Confrontation Classic from having to bear all of Sans-Détour’s operating costs and so that we can keep moving forward.
I was under the impression that's what the Kickstarter money was for. It covers the costs, ideally including some extra for unforseen circumstances, of doing the things they told backers they would do. I know this particular Kickstarter was a mess with the amazing dream of producing plastic versions of these models, but now it sounds like they barely made any budget plans at all - "just get some free money and see what we can do with it". Also sounds like they're laying the groundwork for the quite potential moment down the road where they say: sorry, we're (supposedly) out of money, those things we shipped out so far are all we will be able to get done because of the X and Y we told you about earlier.
This delay is costing Sans-Détour operating costs, fees, salaries, etc. And we now have to work out expenses linked to fabrication (purchase of large quantities of metal for DTR, fabrication of the boxes, then, when the time comes, shipping, etc.), which clearly risks further stretching out the announced shipping delays. We will unfortunately not deliver for the end of this year, but all avenues are being explored so that you can get your first Classic models as soon as possible.
We’re also continuing the development of side projects, in order to not keep Confrontation Classic from having to bear all of Sans-Détour’s operating costs and so that we can keep moving forward.
I was under the impression that's what the Kickstarter money was for. It covers the costs, ideally including some extra for unforseen circumstances, of doing the things they told backers they would do. I know this particular Kickstarter was a mess with the amazing dream of producing plastic versions of these models, but now it sounds like they barely made any budget plans at all - "just get some free money and see what we can do with it". Also sounds like they're laying the groundwork for the quite potential moment down the road where they say: sorry, we're (supposedly) out of money, those things we shipped out so far are all we will be able to get done because of the X and Y we told you about earlier.
It's a story you read often with failed KS that the actual material and production machinery/development are often not the issue (barring this KS because SD appeared to not even have the most basic understanding of the price of plastics*); but the actual wages, rent and utilities of keeping the company going; esp when the company hasn't got other revenue streams and can't put its models into commercial release. The problem is its one thing to plan for a delay, but when that delay can turn from weeks into months very fast that's a big chunk of money.
SD though are in a special league all of their own because even after funding no one could foresee how they'd deliver. There's also the issue that their whole KS is a vanity casting project and not linked to the new game they want to release which is the new version of Confrontation with totally new sculpts. This raises huge problems because even if they get into choppy waters they, in theory, shouldn't want to put these models onto commercial sale. So the whole KS hasn't even got the back-up of producing and shipping in waves and then putting those waves on commercial sale to help overcome short term cashflow issues.
IT also raises the question how long they will support a KS which is essentially losing them money and has no future profits in it when they already want to make a totally different game and product line. Of course if the KS fails and they fail to deliver then they can kiss their marketing on the new game goodbye because they will burn so many critical bridges.
*Or they do and were using it as a false claim to try and get more money knowing that they'd switch over to metal in the end.
@Overread, I am amused in that they were so loud to trumpet the plastics...but that is why I only pledged 1 Euro. Confrontation, like Warmachine, should be metal. Had they gone forward with metal from the start, I know of several others who would have jumped in immediately...and probably dozens or hundreds of others were in the same situation. Now seeing how poorly they have managed...EVERYTHING...when they announced the metal upgrade (and for me, that is exactly what it is) I no longer had faith they could deliver even half of what they pledged. And with the Chaosium debacle, well, things still look grim.
Gloom and doom aside, I do hope I am horribly wrong. I hope that SD delivers, that all who pledged are satisfied, and that Confrontation remains a living, viable product line.
But as they say in 40k, "Hope is the denial of reality."
About the switch to metal, I asked Joss at Octogone (french gaming convention 1 week ago) if it was because they raised less money than planned during the KS.
What he answered me is that the plan before the KS was that SD would add funds for the production on top of what the KS would raise, but the delays of their others chtulu crowdfunding ate some of that money, and as they lost the licence when they received the books, they couldn't sell them which was another income loss.
And so without that additional money they had to switch to metal to reduce the production costs.
Samko wrote: About the switch to metal, I asked Joss at Octogone (french gaming convention 1 week ago) if it was because they raised less money than planned during the KS.
What he answered me is that the plan before the KS was that SD would add funds for the production on top of what the KS would raise, but the delays of their others chtulu crowdfunding ate some of that money, and as they lost the licence when they received the books, they couldn't sell them which was another income loss.
And so without that additional money they had to switch to metal to reduce the production costs.
Eh they knew they were going to lose that licence anyway as they'd not paid the royalties for using the licence. To say that their plan was to use profits from licence sales that they'd not paid for to support another product line (that was going to need a LOT of money for plastic moulds) actually sounds worse!
I hope these guys work it out, because it would suck for the backers if it doesn’t, and on a personal note I’d love to get my hands on one of the minis to see how they handle.
I’ve done some work with DTR in the past and they are great guys and I own and have owned a lot of the rackham range in the past.
Recently I built a few Ophidians and was reminded about how irritating rackham lead pewter or whatever it was, was. Bits snapped out of the box, no way the thin poles will hold up other elements etc.
If DTR can make the casts work in their harder metal, I’d love to pick up some of what I sold off.
There were a lot of red flags on this one so I didn’t back (still waiting for my conf rules from the old CMoN board game KS so I guess I’m wary every time someone tries to bring this gem of a universe back).
Still, seeing metal being poured gives some hope right? Just hope they can get enough cash together to finish the job.
En cette fin d'année, nous faisons un point sur nos divers projets.
Sans détour traverse une période très difficile. Notre société essaie de se restructurer et de lancer son activité.
Les premières actions seront l’arrêt de la vente directe et la fermeture prochaine de notre dépôt de Villeurbanne. A l'avenir, notre logistique sera entièrement sous traitée.
Il vous reste jusqu’au 31 décembre pour passer des commandes sur notre site en ligne. Nous continuons à livrer toutes les commandes.
Après cette date, nous retirerons la plupart des titres du catalogue.
Concernant nos autres licences et dossiers en cours, les fêtes et les grèves ne nous permettent pas d’avancer aussi vite que nous le souhaitons. Nos projets sont au ralenti, mais pas abandonnés. De nombreuses discussions sont en cours pour la relance de Sans Détour.
Les bureaux seront fermés du 23 décembre au 6 janvier.
Nous vous donnons rendez vous après les fêtes et notre déménagement pour plus d’informations.
Nous vous souhaitons de très belles fêtes de fin d'année.
Sans-Détour
Which gives in english :
"Hello everyone,
At the end of the year, we are taking stock of our various projects.
Sans Détour is going through a very difficult period. Our company is trying to restructure and launch its activity.
The first actions will be to stop direct selling and the immediate closure of our Villeurbanne depot. In the future, our logistics will be entirely outsourced.
You have until December 31 to place orders on our online site. We continue to deliver all orders.
After this date, we will remove most titles from the catalog.
Regarding our other licenses and pending files, end year holidays and strikes do not allow us to advance as quickly as we wish. Our projects are idling, but not abandoned. Many discussions are underway for the relaunch of Sans Détour.
The offices will be closed from December 23 to January 6.
We will meet you after the holidays and our move for more information.
We wish you a very happy holiday season.
Sans Détour"
It never smelled good before, now it becomes crappier.
I'm sad to see it happen, as I am with any company closing doors; but yeah this isn't a huge shock to me. Though shutting their store is a death-nail. Almost all the Ks I see fail tend to fail because of the end of cash to keep basic operations going; shutting down their store front is clearly going to shut off any income they might otherwise be getting in. That means running it on reserves only and if they are in a bad position where they can't hire one more staff member to cast fresh orders then that's a sign that things are really bad.
Who knows they might pull through; but I can't see them funding a whole new slew of Confrontation models for the Resurrection game if they are in this bad a financial position. Their best bet would honestly be to egt the KS models out and then scrap the idea of new models and just go into full production of the old models with a new game bolted onto them.
Everyone who backed their kickstarter got their rewards already, right? I'd hate to see all those dastardly doom and gloom naysayers proven right yet again with their warnings.
warboss wrote: Everyone who backed their kickstarter got their rewards already, right? I'd hate to see all those dastardly doom and gloom naysayers proven right yet again with their warnings.
warboss wrote: Everyone who backed their kickstarter got their rewards already, right? I'd hate to see all those dastardly doom and gloom naysayers proven right yet again with their warnings.
er - no.
i think those who ordered the whole range in metal may have had theirs but not sure.
fwiw, I found this comment about CMON and Confrontation:
Luke Wilson Moises Irizarry Well it did have a great chance to come out when CMON had it. They contacted me to redo the rules I brought two great guys in and we as a team proceeded to 'fix' everything that was wrong with Conf. And then without a word all of a sudden CMON without proper communication pulled out and gave it to some company called blackball games. Luckily I got to the dropbox first and pulled all our hard work so BB Games couldn't take it as theirs. Guess what, it never came out. It was a shame as we were ready to go with the agreed booklet for Gen Con that year!
Wrong move by CMON, but that history now!
Saying they are outsourcing logistics is a clear death knell. You cannot effectively outsource something like that unless you deal in big numbers, because ultimately you are paying someone to pay someone else rather than just directly paying someone.
My guess is when those doors closed on 23rd that was it.
Elbows wrote: Is there a short version or bullets of this whole debacle?
An offer seemed too good to be true, turned out it was.
Or slightly longer:
-company said they could produce all the Confrontation minis in plastic, had a huge KS -red flags sprung up like crazy as they couldn't pin down details or production, material, etc
-KS still funded
-company backslid because you can't make that many minis for the pledge price
-company said they'd make metals instead/in addition to try to stay afloat
-now the company is closing down without having produced anything
warboss wrote: Everyone who backed their kickstarter got their rewards already, right? I'd hate to see all those dastardly doom and gloom naysayers proven right yet again with their warnings.
er - no.
i think those who ordered the whole range in metal may have had theirs but not sure.
Yeah it sounds like they've tried and failed. Furthermore doesn't the parent company have a history of being attached to firms that go into liquidation and then die whilst the core of the company survives under a new name.
"outsourcing" to them might mean that they are opening/using another internal firm of their own (not on paper, but by association and likely the same or some of the same staff) and just sending them all the gear; leaving the company making the KS to hold very little in assets. If everything fails they bankrupt it; lose very little because its not holding very much and continue under a new flag.
Whilst that's all guesswork, I do recall in the eariler days of this thread that they had had several or at least one other company headed up close down in a sort of similar fashion.
If someone holds the keys to the financial mystery, this is this guy.
Unless there is a recent change; he is the financial director of Sans Détour. (his Linkedin profile does not mention this responsibility, but the site of Sans Détour yes).
So it is this man who should have signed checks to Chaosium, who also could have provided a sales statement for Chaosium.
But he is also a leader of Stellar Licensing and Consulting , the owner of Hong Kong-based Confrontation's intellectual property, and therefore, head of the company that needs to earn royalties for the Confrontation Classic's Kickstarter and the possible future Confrontation Resurrection.
The "team" page of Stellar Licensing unfortunately returns to an error 404: impossible to confirm it there, but on Linkedin it is clear.
Honestly, I would not want to be in the shoes of a man who may find himself in a position to choose between paying royalties to Chaosium and paying a return on investment for the Confrontation license (which must have been quite expensive).
Here again do not necessarily see malice. I believe there are strong business and friendship ties between these two men and that they seek to get out of trouble in one way or another rather than voluntarily shutting down the world. Only when you play the tightrope, the slightest accident of course can be fatal.
Another proof of this proximity, the company Way of Gamers / Smart Trading Limited, located at the same address as the warehouses of Sans Détour also belongs to Mr. Ammirati.Stock liquid that looks very much like that of Ludikbazar ...
While formerly Way of Gamers was known only for a site of collaborative work and crowdfunding for creators geeks to the uncertain success ( 1 only unfunded project ).
It is these appearances of conflicts of interest, combined with a certain amateurism, and the news of Chaosium leaving a doubt about the finances of Sans Détour that lend at this moment to all possible theories in the absence of answers to these questions :
-What was the actual financial situation of Sans Detour when launching the kickstarter of Confrontation Classic?
- If the little hands and the project manager were probably unaware of it: who knew about the dealings with Chaosium regarding the royalties?
- Has Stellar Licensing received her royalties?
- What exact role does Christophe Ammirati and his companies play in the partnership, what are the interests of each other?
- Will the current finances of Sans Détour and its concerns of rights allow you to deliver The Masks, and, while having lost this cash cow, especially, in the long term, to deliver the KS Confrontation Classic?
- Who will eventually take over the resin casts of Confrontation? Who is in charge of standard plastic production?
- Where is the production planning of the big figurines?
Regarding Ludikbay/Ludikbazaar - who were stated as "logistics contractor for Sans Detour" and share an owner (Stellar does not share the owner as far as I know, Christophe Ammirati is listed as the director) Joss, one of the SD employees said this in the comments yesterday:
"About Ludikbay : This company is closing... even if we wanted to use it for logistics (And we won't, because we have other contacts with worldwide Hubs who already deal with KS projects), we couldn't. Just because its activity is over and now controlled by a liquidator."
Christophe AMMIRATI, CFE (external), IFP (ORIAS registered), 22 years as a Financial Manager & Accountant / Auditor,
(this is his Sans Detour Profile)
So he licensed the property to a company he is the CFO of? So if this Kickstarter goes under and SD loses the licensing SD didn't really lose the licensing. Too many conflicts of interest here. Too many people with hands in the same pots in different companies.
warboss wrote: Everyone who backed their kickstarter got their rewards already, right? I'd hate to see all those dastardly doom and gloom naysayers proven right yet again with their warnings.
er - no.
i think those who ordered the whole range in metal may have had theirs but not sure.
Your sarcasm filter is set too high. Bazinga.
sorry - autism + non-verbal communication = misunderstandings at my end...
(no offense meant or taken btw!!)
ced1106 wrote: fwiw, I found this comment about CMON and Confrontation:
Luke Wilson Moises Irizarry Well it did have a great chance to come out when CMON had it. They contacted me to redo the rules I brought two great guys in and we as a team proceeded to 'fix' everything that was wrong with Conf. And then without a word all of a sudden CMON without proper communication pulled out and gave it to some company called blackball games. Luckily I got to the dropbox first and pulled all our hard work so BB Games couldn't take it as theirs. Guess what, it never came out. It was a shame as we were ready to go with the agreed booklet for Gen Con that year! Wrong move by CMON, but that history now!
I was a regular on the Dragon Painting forum (old confrontation fan forum) back when that happened and I remember Luke working on it. It was rather abrupt when they moved to Blackball and CMoN really hurt the game's chances there as the burned some bridges with the French community at the time as well. I was also at Gencon that year as they had annoced it as Confrontation Phoenix or something like that. I'm pretty sure the game is so sullied now there's no way anyone would give it a 3rd shot to revive.
Should probably add a bit more about what I remember. Luke was working on the unit cards as he had the more complete collection of unit/figure stats including unreleased stuff. We figured he was working on the rules but at the time he couldn't say outside of he was providing data and helping with what should be on the cards. It was billed, at first, being like a 3.75 version of the game but then CMoN switched to BB -- who had done the rules for Wrath of Kings -- and stated they were making a new game from scratch that wouldn't really resemble Confrontation of past. That's what got a lot of people soured on what CMoN was doing. That and them releasing resin packs, expensive ones too, of models that were very common to find originals of on ebay and complaining that the game wouldn't be viable as no one was buying their over priced resin of common figures.
-now the company is closing down without having produced anything
To be fair, they have produced a first wave in resin, and some backers who pledged for these very specific pieces got them.
But was that just to string people along and get new people hooked in (think they re-opened for new pledges at some point(s)?), or because they genuinely tried to get people what they paid for?
That's my biggest question in this debacle: are they incredibly incompetent (they should have known they didn't know what they were doing, did no research before setting pledge levels or making promises, had no realistic outlook on what or how to produce, in any material), or simply malicious? Leaning towards the latter, but wonder if that's because I'm a terrible cynic. Regardless, best to avoid these people and any (shell) companies they are associated with.
It's hard to say but the longer they go on doing the same things the more I think it leans toward malicious. As a company into the casting world they had to have had full understanding of the costs of doing plastics - even the most casual market inspection of that process would have given them rough prices to work with.
They also ran off with all the royalties from the Cuthulu Mythos release.
I think that they survive by finding niche products that have enough fanbase to turn profit, but not enough to start legal proceedings. Furthermore they seem to scatter a whole company between multiple smaller ones with only one or two of the core team in charge of them - so it doesn't always appear obvious to the outside casual consumer.
I'd honestly be surprised if they don't get the police after them at some point. You can't keep opening and closing sub-companies and bankrupting them whilst taking the money made and also hiding the assets (machines, moulds etc...) into other firms.
Makes me wonder what Miniature Market's investment in this was? Both companies announced some type of pre-order but I think people here were uncertain if any money changed hand. At the very least Miniature Market was allowing them to use their Gencon booth to show off the resins.
Also seams the were using money from one project to pay for another which is why they didn't pay Peterson games and others. They had to get the money for the Confrontation license some how.
Monkeysloth wrote: Also seams the were using money from one project to pay for another which is why they didn't pay Peterson games and others. They had to get the money for the Confrontation license some how.
I think this is probably happening more often on KS than some people realize. Yet it seems when a backer on KS raises a concern over this possibility, the white knights come out of the woodwork espousing how great the project creator/company has been with other (not necessarily KS) products, calling anyone that raises such concerns a "troll". And I'm not just referring to Sans Detour or this project. Some of the most heated portions from the horribleness known as the KS comments section, that I have seen, center on this conflict between concerned backers and the pie-in-the-sky white knights (fun fact: there are companies one can pay to openly and anonymously support a KS project in the comments).
> Makes me wonder what Miniature Market's investment in this was?
Yep. The update only says that MM "reserved" 500 boxes. What does *that* mean?? Typically, when a retailer takes a pre-order, the product has already been made. (Also, you'll see retailers pay suppliers *after* product is delivered.) So my guess is "not much".
> They had to get the money for the Confrontation license some how.
Well, Stellar owns the license, and San Detour is the licensee but both companies are, more or less, owned / operated by the same people. Or are you referring to how Stellar originally got the license from Rakham?
As for maliciousness vs. incompetence, aka. scam vs. mismanagement, I'm going to go with the latter. That's because, if a KS goes bankrupt, it's almost always because of mismanagement resulting in lack of funds. The usual culprits are delays that result in cost overruns and not enough funds from KS to pay for the project, including when a previously unrevealed investor pulls out.
If you want to see an actual KS scam, go search on the "Ice Age Miniatures" KS, which not only took backer money, but money from the game designer as well, and used pictures of the sculptor during the campaign (for free, which is common) then did not purchase the sculpts after the campaign was over.
Still, that being said, I've seen twice the company shell game, in which the owner of a company creates another company for the sole reason of transferring assets without liabilities. The first was during the Up Front KS with Rik Falch, and the second with Prodos / Archon, during the LOAD KS. Rik left the country or something (and got away with it), while Prodos made amends, after five years, with their Aliens vs. Predator backers, and continues to run KS projects.
-now the company is closing down without having produced anything
To be fair, they have produced a first wave in resin, and some backers who pledged for these very specific pieces got them.
But was that just to string people along and get new people hooked in (think they re-opened for new pledges at some point(s)?), or because they genuinely tried to get people what they paid for?
That's my biggest question in this debacle: are they incredibly incompetent (they should have known they didn't know what they were doing, did no research before setting pledge levels or making promises, had no realistic outlook on what or how to produce, in any material), or simply malicious? Leaning towards the latter, but wonder if that's because I'm a terrible cynic. Regardless, best to avoid these people and any (shell) companies they are associated with.
I'm pretty sure it was just to string people along. Wasn't it all just the stuff that CMON had already produced, tried to sell, and then clearanced? I got the titan dragon for like $30 during that sale, so maybe SD just picked up all they could in preparation for the scam lol.
As I suspected from the beginning, the Cadwallon recasters were more legit than this gak show. Hopefully they start selling again.
I asked Footsore on their 
[spoiler] (beware, bare breasts)
