seem to have less than what they announced they would have a couple of years back when they stated in their con they intent to be more publisher friendly some I know they published are not in their catafalque, so maybe out of print?
https://cmon.com/products
They were in a worse position after Q3 last year and turned it around and these figures don't include the $3.4 million for Zombicide 2nd edition which was Q4. Also their webstore was down for a good portion of the summer and there were teething problems with the Asmodee distribution agreement that delayed several retail releases. They did sell off a lot of stock cheap to Miniature Market. during the same period.
Also ASOIAF is getting a 1.5 update although it's not yet clear if that means a new rulebook or just pdf updates but it's described as a major update.
Zombicide2nd Edition PM is live. I must be getting accustomed to CMON shipping when $50 popped up I thought “that’s not as bad as I expected” and it is within the $30 - $54 quoted.
PM is taking a lot longer than expected trying to get all the old KS stuff sorted as to no. available, weight, dimensions & locations theyre at in the US & China etc
(not exactly a surprise)
going to take a couple more weeks (I read this as maybe after Xmas?)
DaveC wrote: Zombicide2nd Edition PM is live. I must be getting accustomed to CMON shipping when $50 popped up I thought “that’s not as bad as I expected” and it is within the $30 - $54 quoted.
Glad I pledged $1, then. $30 to CA.
Miniatures look great, but MM's BF sale started, and you can get two CMON expansions for less than $30. Round 3 around Thanksgiving, so I hear...
PM is taking a lot longer than expected trying to get all the old KS stuff sorted as to no. available, weight, dimensions & locations theyre at in the US & China etc
(not exactly a surprise)
going to take a couple more weeks (I read this as maybe after Xmas?)
This is for the best honestly. I don't think CMoN thought there would be the demand for this and not spending the time to get it right will just make it an absolute mess on launch.
Well they fixed the pledge manager so the password reset thing actually works. Was able to log in and get everything sorted. Only +$11 over my pledge due to shipping.
And my TMNT stuff just arrived. Bebop and Rocksteady are huge.
the zombies (or, more appropriately, ghouls) have also been reworked to fit a more Night of the Living Dead feel. Zombicide players will recognize the Walkers and Fatties from previous games, however, they will now have to deal with new threats in the form of Breakers and Ghoul Relatives. Yes, Runners and Abominations have been removed from the game! But players shouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief yet. Breakers can, as the name suggests, break through the barricades that the survivors have created. What was once thought a safe haven will no longer be once a Breaker ghoul has its way. Meanwhile, Ghoul Relatives represent characters that the survivors had once known in life. Their appearance will cause mental anguish to the survivors. It’s not easy to have to shoot someone you’ve known and loved. The addition of these two new ghouls will pose different, and arguably more dangerous, types of threats. Using old tactics will not be feasible in these new games. Forget what you know about Zombicide’s main antagonists.
"For anyone that isn't familiar with the classic 1968 film directed by the late George Romero, Night of the Living Dead never uses the word "zombie," referring to the shuffling, virus-infected living dead as "ghouls" (which is more appropriate, given their hunger for human flesh). The association with zombies largely came from the sequel, Dawn of the Dead (1978), which used "zombie" in place of "ghoul" and which was distributed internationally under the title Zombi"
"Perhaps Romero changed the name because he discovered the word "zombie" in the interim. Ghouls were quite popular across the western world for centuries, or at least since Grimm's fairy tales. But zombies are from Haitian voodoo, and were largely unknown to the public at the time. Of course, everybody's heard of them today, but that's because of the movies.
"(Before zombies) Ghouls (derived, as you point out, from the Arabic ghūl, mostly through the 1,001 Nights and William Beckford's oriental fantasy Vathek) were defined almost exclusively by their association with the dead and their consumption of the same"
Not particularly interested in this. I am curious to see if they've kept any of the odd elements from the movie though, like the zombies' photosensitivity or the fact that they used weapons.
It's based in an IP that's older than most gamers in the market. It might be older than your Dad. It's based on the Zombicide IP, but there are enough rules changes (no Runners, no Abominations) that it might as well be another dice-chucking zombie-killing game. The game has some compatible mechanics, but nobody's complained that Zombicide was missing Breakers and Relatives, so I don't see beyond FOMO why they should have this game. I'm not even sure you can incorporate Breakers and Relatives into mainstream Zombicide. The former assumes you're playing with barriers, and the latter requires you to flip over your Survivor card to its weaker side, and only Night has barriers and weaker Survivor versions.
Also, CMON releases revised versions of their games, anyway. If any mechanics in Night are worth porting over to the main game, you'll see it in a future standalone expansion -- which you're still under no obligation to buy.
If I were making a "cash grab" from Zombicide, it would be to make a standalone expansion of Black Plague, given how much money Green Horde received. It wouldn't be with a licensed IP that required the game through development hell to create. CMON's reputation of milking its successful franchises is definitely true, but cut them some slack for offering less popular games, like Wacky Races, The Grizzled, and now Night of the Living Dead.
Pretty skimpy on the offering for the price. Really weak offering really.
10 extra figures are all the ‘extras’?
So, if I count the shipping cost, I’m paying $4 a model for those extras.
If I count the conversion rate, this will cost me $172 CAD. That’s far too much for what’s there.
The day it costs me $200 for a base game and half an expansion is the day I stop buying board games. That day isn’t far off....
Well, remember the source material. They're already stretching it with zombies based on briefly seen ghouls (even if iconic), and two (or more) sculpts for each character. Even then, the second one is the Zombicide version, which, of course, was not in the movie.
You *are* better off waiting for a sale for the base game, but that's always been the case for Zombicide and KS in general.
I guess they could have added expansions based on the sequels, but dunno if that would be worth the risk and additional game development time and costs.
Gonna spoil the movie for you, but If you watch it and expect the woman to arm herself with double katanas, or the little girl to be slaughtering zombies with that chainsaw, you're gonna be mighty disappointed...
Probably a licensing issue. I have seen several KS projects...and normal gaming and non-gaming products, rushed out to meet a contractual deadline. Usually with worse results.
It's based in an IP that's older than most gamers in the market. It might be older than your Dad. It's based on the Zombicide IP, but there are enough rules changes (no Runners, no Abominations) that it might as well be another dice-chucking zombie-killing game. The game has some compatible mechanics, but nobody's complained that Zombicide was missing Breakers and Relatives, so I don't see beyond FOMO why they should have this game. I'm not even sure you can incorporate Breakers and Relatives into mainstream Zombicide. The former assumes you're playing with barriers, and the latter requires you to flip over your Survivor card to its weaker side, and only Night has barriers and weaker Survivor versions.
Also, CMON releases revised versions of their games, anyway. If any mechanics in Night are worth porting over to the main game, you'll see it in a future standalone expansion -- which you're still under no obligation to buy.
If I were making a "cash grab" from Zombicide, it would be to make a standalone expansion of Black Plague, given how much money Green Horde received. It wouldn't be with a licensed IP that required the game through development hell to create. CMON's reputation of milking its successful franchises is definitely true, but cut them some slack for offering less popular games, like Wacky Races, The Grizzled, and now Night of the Living Dead.
Thanks, and, yes... You proved my point. It is a cash grab, and you pointed out my thoughts, almost to a T. I mean, it is nice that they came out with the OG standard of zombie movies, but not even worth a thought or a game. Just should have done the regular Zombicide treatment, and make the character packs. Something this weaksauce really needed a Kickstarter? C'MON!
As for the game itself, I actually find it attractive how contained this one is. I came into Zombicide after a bunch of expansions, so always felt like I was missing out on cool stuff in a much larger game than my derpy box; I missed the Black Plague KS, the version I actually wanted to play; and Green Horde had left me behind, since I was still sad about missing Black Plague and also didn't want SO MUCH ZOMBICIDE STUFF which all of these KS brought with them. To that end, for Invaders I only added Dark Side on to a buddy's pledge, and if it weren't for the hellish shipping and that I'll be able to pick NotLD up on discount from MM in a couple years, I'd be pretty enthused with this one as a nice, standalone, introduce-my-nongamers boxed game.
(TL;DR - Only the 1968 copy of the film is public domain. Romero/Image Ten had always maintained the rights to the images and likeness of the principal cast members too, making it near impossible for anyone else to bootleg for profit. The 2016 restoration is considered a new work by the Copyright Office, and therefore not in the public domain.)
Speculation is that it's a Zombicide tie-in to Monolith's Beyond Monolith game system. IIRC, Monolith announced tie-ins with Zombicide and Cthulhu Wars.
EDIT: Whoops! Wrong about that. "Spin Master Games and CMON are proud to present Marvel United, our next Kickstarter campaign - stay tuned to our channels for more information!
Element really seem to get the short end of the stick from CMON/ Asmodee. My go to for ASOIAF is Zatu games as they let you pre order and then deliver upon release, as invariably stock levels on release are low and quickly sell out to go AWOL for months. In the UK the Nights Watch starter has not been available for 10+ months odd.
Element really seem to get the short end of the stick from CMON/ Asmodee. My go to for ASOIAF is Zatu games as they let you pre order and then deliver upon release, as invariably stock levels on release are low and quickly sell out to go AWOL for months. In the UK the Nights Watch starter has not been available for 10+ months odd.
With Zatu just make sure you don’t order more than one different order item together. I have been having issues with having two separate preorder items, one was delayed so their policy is what until they have all stock in. By the time the second item was in stock they had sold out of the first item (they didn’t hold back my preordered stock). So in a limbo where I need two in demand items to be in stock at the same time before they will send me my order. It’s worth paying extra for postage by ordering each item individually just to make sure you actually get the order.
Aeneades wrote: With Zatu just make sure you don’t order more than one different order item together. I have been having issues with having two separate preorder items, one was delayed so their policy is what until they have all stock in. By the time the second item was in stock they had sold out of the first item (they didn’t hold back my preordered stock). So in a limbo where I need two in demand items to be in stock at the same time before they will send me my order. It’s worth paying extra for postage by ordering each item individually just to make sure you actually get the order.
Ahh good advice but just ordered some stuff plus the Targaryian Set - ah well - crossed fingers
Same. There's a pretty big market for it and this probably will reach a broader appeal for these types of games then what they've had in the past (assuming a SDE, AQ style game).
Quite the license for CMoN to grab and Spin Master is a pretty large company that has some licenses for TMNT, Star Wars, My Little Pony, Mickey Mouse.
Aeneades wrote: With Zatu just make sure you don’t order more than one different order item together. I have been having issues with having two separate preorder items, one was delayed so their policy is what until they have all stock in. By the time the second item was in stock they had sold out of the first item (they didn’t hold back my preordered stock). So in a limbo where I need two in demand items to be in stock at the same time before they will send me my order. It’s worth paying extra for postage by ordering each item individually just to make sure you actually get the order.
Ahh good advice but just ordered some stuff plus the Targaryian Set - ah well - crossed fingers
Very good point Aeneades, sorry for not mentioning that earlier Mr Morden. I ordered the Baratheon and Targaryen starters in separate orders for just that reason.
Monkeysloth wrote: Same. There's a pretty big market for it and this probably will reach a broader appeal for these types of games then what they've had in the past (assuming a SDE, AQ style game).
Quite the license for CMoN to grab and Spin Master is a pretty large company that has some licenses for TMNT, Star Wars, My Little Pony, Mickey Mouse.
looking at their facebook Spinmaster seem to have a bunch of Marvel games coming, so I wonder if they've got the licence and are effectively subcontracting the game to CMON who provide the minis expertise
That's my thought as well. Looking at Spinmaster games they're pretty much party and kids games. Teaming up with CMoN is good for them for trying to enter more complex games and open up CMoN to a potential new audience.
Just seen that Spin Master also took over the DC comics Toy and Game licence from Mattel and started to reveal them this week. I wouldn’t be surprised if they launched a DC version in the future.
It reminds me of the Funko Strategy Game.
The success of Funko could be the entire reason for this, and an attempt to capture a larger, mainstream market share for CMON.
And a larger hobby market share for SpinMaster.
Nobody does. It's one of life's great mysteries. That and the next Song of Ice and Fire book's release date. And perhaps the biggest mystery of them all... magnets.
Personally, I prefer Funko's Rock Candy line. Easy to find an inexpensive collectible, but better looking. Doesn't hurt that they're female characters.
Gonna pass as well. $150+ for the Car Wars KS, and a friend has the FFG Marvel card game. Spent enough during the holidays...!
Timeliness. They have product for people to buy in that window when they're super excited about something before that excitement is replaced by something else. In an era dominated by meme of the week attention spans, Funko will sell you a small reminder of that one random character from that episode you care about while you still care about it.
I don't own any, but I get the appeal from years of wanting a toy of something and seeing one released a year later when I no longer have that compulsion.
Element really seem to get the short end of the stick from CMON/ Asmodee. My go to for ASOIAF is Zatu games as they let you pre order and then deliver upon release, as invariably stock levels on release are low and quickly sell out to go AWOL for months. In the UK the Nights Watch starter has not been available for 10+ months odd.
CMON/Asmodee really need to get their distribution levels sorted out. ASoIaF might not survive too long outside of the American land mass if people can't buy into the game. Here in Ireland it is as rare as hen's teeth.
Element really seem to get the short end of the stick from CMON/ Asmodee. My go to for ASOIAF is Zatu games as they let you pre order and then deliver upon release, as invariably stock levels on release are low and quickly sell out to go AWOL for months. In the UK the Nights Watch starter has not been available for 10+ months odd.
CMON/Asmodee really need to get their distribution levels sorted out. ASoIaF might not survive too long outside of the American land mass if people can't buy into the game. Here in Ireland it is as rare as hen's teeth.
All the UK/EU retailers have similar issues seemingly, the core KS stuff tends to be in stock but individual units and the newer faction starter boxes have a limited wave then drop off a cliff for months. Baratheons are basically sold out now along with Night's Watch and expect the same for Targaryens when they hit. Free Folk seem to be a bit easier to get hold of purely because they're less popular as a faction. Goblin Gaming and Wayland are in the same boat as Element.
Asmodee's distribution has been a nonsense over here since day 1 and it would be a huge shame for logistical issues to stop what is a very good tabletop wargame with brand recognition from getting traction because players get frustrated at not being able to collect/field what they want without proxy models. The only bonus Europe got was part of another example of the ineptness of their distribution when they somehow managed to accidentally release the 2 Stormcrow boxes to retail months before they were scheduled to.
Targaryen starter pushed back 10 days in Europe due to shipping issues which is fair enough but they have also announced that they don’t have enough stock to fulfil orders so proportionate allocation will take place and they have no rough date for when a second wave will ship (based upon Greataxe, Blackguard and Nightswatch starter experience it won’t be any time soon).
Aeneades wrote: Targaryen starter pushed back 10 days in Europe due to shipping issues which is fair enough but they have also announced that they don’t have enough stock to fulfil orders so proportionate allocation will take place and they have no rough date for when a second wave will ship (based upon Greataxe, Blackguard and Nightswatch starter experience it won’t be any time soon).
I reckon we'll have Wind's of Winter in our hands long before EU/UK get decent distribution levels. Hopefully this doesn't kill the game off, as it is still in its infancy and not being able to get hold of things really makes it hard to promote.
That is awful. I'm sure it is complicated, but from my vantage point it just seems like someone needs to say "ship more boxes to Europe" to their factory.
Adeptus Doritos wrote: How do you need to kickstart a game with the IP owned by the second largest entertainment company in the world?
I'm sure CMON will drop support for the game in 2 years, that's their trend.
They don't need the money from Kickstarter they need the marketing. Having a boardgame on KSer gives you reach to potential customers, even retail ones, that you cannot get for tabletop any other way.
It's a new year, Survivors! We know that most of you have played the Zombicide scenarios in your rulebooks many times, and maybe you're looking for new challenges. Well, then we have news for you! Starting today, we will post weekly brand-new scenarios for Zombicides across all eras for you and your friends to take on! We'll alternate different lines, so everyone can look forward to some great new content for their favorite versions.
Timeliness. They have product for people to buy in that window when they're super excited about something before that excitement is replaced by something else. In an era dominated by meme of the week attention spans, Funko will sell you a small reminder of that one random character from that episode you care about while you still care about it.
I don't own any, but I get the appeal from years of wanting a toy of something and seeing one released a year later when I no longer have that compulsion.
Well, we saw with Baby Yoda, who Lucas/Disney didn't reveal to anyone, prior to the show's premiere, that it takes about 6/7 Months for Funko to bring a product to market. Since the first episode premiered, they announced that it will take till Late May 2020 for Baby Yoda toys to hit retail. And you know they're putting everything they can into getting those produced.
Funko Pops (specifically their 'Pop!' line), are actually considered their own class of toy also, so they don't have to get into negotiations over licenses with other toy producers to make something from a property. Whereas Hasbro, for instance, would (theoretically) fight with Mattel, or Neca over rights to produce Star Wars action figures, Funko has no one who can contest them on Pops! (yes, they still have to pay for the license, but that's about it) The license for action figures (and most licensed properties) has gotten a lot more vague, in the last decade, so now multiple companies can do figures of one property, if there's a variety of size ranges, and other qualifications. But the Funko Pop thing is still kind of amazing.
> some non KS customer outreach, will wonders never cease (I wonder if zombicide sales are down?)
My guess is that these weren't included in Zombicide products (eg. created after the product release, created for a product that never materialized, planned for release with a product but culled for some reason) they've playtested these scenarios, but they're for 1st edition, so won't make it into a paid product. Many gamers will (wrongfully) declare dead an edition when a new one comes out, and Zombicide 2nd edition has been KS. Yet plenty of Zombicide 1st edtiion is in stock, so these scenarios are a way to still support it.
Adeptus Doritos wrote: How do you need to kickstart a game with the IP owned by the second largest entertainment company in the world?
I'm sure CMON will drop support for the game in 2 years, that's their trend.
They don't need the money from Kickstarter they need the marketing. Having a boardgame on KSer gives you reach to potential customers, even retail ones, that you cannot get for tabletop any other way.
Riiiight.
I'm not saying this is a lie, but it doesn't sound like entirely the truth.
Also, anyone who throws money at CMON hoping for long-term support may as well be pitching it into a trash fire. The trash fire will last longer.
Adeptus Doritos wrote: How do you need to kickstart a game with the IP owned by the second largest entertainment company in the world?
I'm sure CMON will drop support for the game in 2 years, that's their trend.
They don't need the money from Kickstarter they need the marketing. Having a boardgame on KSer gives you reach to potential customers, even retail ones, that you cannot get for tabletop any other way.
Riiiight.
I'm not saying this is a lie, but it doesn't sound like entirely the truth.
Just look at Youtube for example. So many channels, including BoW, will give lots of coverage to KSer campaigns but may only give a brief mention to a retail release. There was such a swing towards people wanting to back games, for deals, on KSer years ago that a large faction of social media and youtube for Boardgames noticed the excitement and used that to get views via coverage. As long as people can make more money off of promoting KSers then retail (and I suspect a lot of them get paid as part of the KSer marketing) you're going to see a larger marketing effort for something on KSer then something in retail.
Sure the BGG crowed may not care that much but they're a small fraction of people that actually buy games.
Now as to the KSer money. Spinmasters has the cash to make the game so they don't need it. But KSer is still good as it allows you to gauge interest in a product before you manufacture it and I'm sure that would be something that would allow smart people with degrees to figure out how much to produce for retail. So using KSer would also help them potentially save money if no one backs (nothing lost on production, or if it barely funds they may not produce anything outside of what's needed to fulfill.
Time to wrap this fether up. So the PM is the usual nightmare of "erm... what's already included in my pledge?" because "all applicable stretch goals"
I've pledged for "Presidential", and want to get the backwards-compatable sets, all the extra gameplay stuff, rules and models, but none of the RPG stuff or dice.
I removed the dice, RPG stuff and Washington ZC from the below list, as I know I don't want those (and ZC is explicitly included) but some advice would be welcomed on the other crap.
Azazelx wrote: Time to wrap this fether up. So the PM is the usual nightmare of "erm... what's already included in my pledge?" because "all applicable stretch goals"
I've pledged for "Presidential", and want to get the backwards-compatable sets, all the extra gameplay stuff, rules and models, but none of the RPG stuff or dice.
I removed the dice, RPG stuff and Washington ZC from the below list, as I know I don't want those (and ZC is explicitly included) but some advice would be welcomed on the other crap.
Urban Legends Abominations - adds 4 new Abominations minimal extra gameplay value slightly tweaked Abomb rules can be skipped unless you like the sculpts
Danny Trejo Set adds an extra survivor, walker and Abomb again minimal extra gameplay but it’s Danny Trejo so why not!
Tiles Set extra set from core box not needed unless you plan to make your own custom scenarios
Extra Players Upgrade Set not needed unless you plan to run more than 6 players and there will probably be other opportunities to get these bits in later sets/expansions
Zombies & Companions Upgrade Kit a must if you have any of the older seasons (TCM, RM) or expansions as it’s 2nd edition cards for these.
3D Cars upgrades 2D tokens unnecessary
Zombie Soldiers Set extra set of soldiers from Fort Hendrix fairly useless on their own and not necessary for Fort Hendrix as adding extra zombies makes the game easier (avoids/ slows extra activations)
Daily Zombie Spawn Set you already get 1 full set with your pledge
Fort Hendrix full expansion - extra tiles extra gameplay zombie shooters
Chronicles Survivor Set - 13 extra survivors adds as much extra gameplay as any other survivors would.
Too bad I have to go in with a full pledge just to get the Travel Version. I already have Black Plague, Wolfsurg and Green Horde and they rarely hit the table as it is.
Myrthe wrote: Too bad I have to go in with a full pledge just to get the Travel Version. I already have Black Plague, Wolfsurg and Green Horde and they rarely hit the table as it is.
I would think you could get someone with a pledge to get the travel version for you.
Or, get the base pledge and sell it on ebay. I would think with the KS content you would t least get your money back.
1. Later today we will start to send invitations to the Pledge Manager system to all backers that have a Priority Access to the Vault, meaning backers with a Rising Sun, Green Horde, or HATE Pledges, or any combination of the 3 Pledges. $1 Time Vault backers that have previously backed a CMON Campaign will receive the invitations as well. Please note that the Time Vault will not be taking any orders just yet! The invitations will be sent merely to assure that all backers have their login and password set up and ready for when the Pledge Manager becomes live and no hindrances will get between you and the goods. Backers that receive the invitations will have until the end of the weekend to test and set up their logins in the system.
Please remember that in order to benefit from Priority Access with your $1 Time Vault pledge you need to make sure you're using the same e-mail address in this pledge as you used on the previous pledge.
2. On Monday, January 20th, at 11 AM EST the Pledge Manager will be officially open to all backers with a Priority Access.
3. On Wednesday, January 22nd, the Pledge Manager will officially open to all backers with a $1 Time Vault Pledge who are first time backers of a CMON campaign. Unfortunately we can't predict the exact time the invitations will arrive to everyone, but they should start to be sent around 11:30 am EST and take a couple of hours to reach all backers.
Chronicles Survivor Set - 13 extra survivors adds as much extra gameplay as any other survivors would.
You're a damn superstar, mate!
One final question - isn't/wasn't there some sort of other backwards (or forwards?)-compatable add-on between V1 and V2 that was initially announced and then later included in some of the pledges? Presumably presidential, but it's always best to check....
Chronicles Survivor Set - 13 extra survivors adds as much extra gameplay as any other survivors would.
You're a damn superstar, mate!
One final question - isn't/wasn't there some sort of other backwards (or forwards?)-compatable add-on between V1 and V2 that was initially announced and then later included in some of the pledges? Presumably presidential, but it's always best to check....
Yeah the older survivor cards updates were originally for the Nostaligic pledge but they added them to other pledge levels as well (update #1)
The zombie cards in Nostalgic pledge are the ones in the 2nd edition box so you already get them all you have to buy to update the rest of the old stuff is the $8 pack.
Whelp the Time Machine experience wasn't totally horrible but there was a hiccup as on item I had, Hildi, sold out while I was trying to confirm my pledge and I didn't realize and had to reconfirm again to move on and was worried I'd loose other things.
I got a Ragnarok pledge for Blood Rage which I believe contains the Wild Boar clan -- as the clan box was sold out by the time I got the page loaded at 1 min after launch. I seam to remember CMoN employee confirming that was everything from the first KSer base pledge except the core game. Got the art book too
Does CMoN allow you add more to your pledge once you've paid? Might got back and see what else is there for other things once the swarm has died down. Edit -- looks like you can but people on KSer are saying they're loosing their paid items when they do (others said they didn't). Think I'll wait for this to clear up as I don't have anything else on my to buy -- just wanted to browse.
Yeah, I'd recommend NOT unlocking your pledge just to look around. I did and it wasn't letting me keep the items I had paid for already. It looks like it's getting sorted out, but definitely not worth the added stress unless you forgot something on your must have list.
Yeah, I grabbed the Rising Sun stuff I wanted and closed out - I would have browsed around for more but was too paranoid to unlock. Probably just as well.
Tim the Biovore wrote:Eesh, bit of a mess. CMON responded and have temporarily closed the pledge manager to sort things out.
Not sure what that means for people who lost items after unlocking.
Glad I got in and out with the things I wanted early on
Seams like it might be a UI error as some people were reporting that if they went back after clearing cache their missing stuff was there. Best to get it sorted though. Also, again, shows how dumb KSer exclusives are.
Gallahad wrote:I got a Hand of the King and another Sarissa tribe!
Thankfully I didn't unlock despite wanting to. I spent more than I should have, but I was basically panic buying.
Awesome. Seams like we both got what we were looking for. I spent a bit more two. Bought some duplicates of the monsters from Blood Rage as CMoN had said months ago they had lots of those. Now I'm not quite sure I should have as they should be in the core pledge I got but I bought them just to be certain in case they weren't.
I was surprised how quickly some stuff went but then again some of the older KSer things I was looking at probably had way less stock then the newer items.
3d terrain makes ASoIaF miserable to play, but without it the game can indeed aesthetically look kind of board-gamey and bland.
But I am also salty that despite being a huge community builder for the game, and a big fan, that if I happen to miss launch day for a new unit, it is sold out for months and months.
Good luck being a competitive player and trying to track down Neutral Heroes 2, for example.
Guess this is the downside to plastic and not owning the factory like GW does. Something sells out you have to schedule time with the Chinese factory (which is probably booked full months ahead) then wait 6+ weeks for it arrive by ship once it is manufactured. Contrast to metal/resin/restic which you can do yourself.
Monkeysloth wrote: Guess this is the downside to plastic and not owning the factory like GW does. Something sells out you have to schedule time with the Chinese factory (which is probably booked full months ahead) then wait 6+ weeks for it arrive by ship once it is manufactured. Contrast to metal/resin/restic which you can do yourself.
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote: 3d terrain makes ASoIaF miserable to play, but without it the game can indeed aesthetically look kind of board-gamey and bland.
But I am also salty that despite being a huge community builder for the game, and a big fan, that if I happen to miss launch day for a new unit, it is sold out for months and months.
Good luck being a competitive player and trying to track down Neutral Heroes 2, for example.
Yeah, I don't think they have done any reprints of any units to date.
Distribution is awful. Thankfully as a FreeFolk player I can basically always find what I want because it is such a tricky faction to play.
I'm still sad I can't get any of those plastic corpse piles or Weirwood trees.
Apparently, Asmodee have today confirmed to stores that a second print of Umber Great Axes and Black Guard will hit the EU at the end of March. These are units that were short stocked in the UK so that some stores received very limited stock of them. Hopefully they actually release enough stock this time and we can finally get the units.
Reading through the timemachine comments I understand people being upset with what's going on but there were 11k backers. no way more then 5-10% of them were going to get everything they wanted as most people backed for the same 3 games. I think when CMoN saw how many pledges they got for the $1 access pledge (almost 10k backers) they should have killed the KSer and though of a better way and that's from someone who got the one thing I wanted. They clearly could have reprinted KSer exclusives for many of the high demand stuff. Screw the Ebay sellers complaining about that concept. The same group tried to get Monolith to remove old KSer exclusive stuff from BtM as it would devalue what they had and Monolith told them they weren't going to do that. Best thing about that campaign
Well, on top of this was the "unlock" feature of the PM that didn't tell customers who paid (?) that the items they thought they purchased went back into the general pool of available items.
I'll stick to Gloomhaven. The game's a nice change from dice-chucking, the creator doesn't believe in KSE's, and, ironically, I've made good use of my CMON Massive Darkness KS and Black Plague miniatures to bling up this game!
The unlock wasn't supposed to do that, they even stated that it wouldn't -- which is why they took it down. Clearly it's a bigger mess then expected as it's almost 12 hours later and they don't have it back up.
They updated the Timemachine backers that the unlock issue isn't reproducible and probably just a caused by heavy traffic (which is possible and what I originally thought it was before they broke it down). If you're someone who did unlock and noticed anything missing they said to contact support (https://support.cmon.com/hc/en-us) and they'll check to see if anything is missing but in their general checks they didn't see any loss of paid items.
On Wednesday, 22nd, at 9 am EST the Pledge Manager will be reopened to all backers with a Priority Access.
Due to the delay of the Priority Access, all $1 Time Vault backers who are first time backers of a CMON campaign, will be given access to the Pledge Manager system starting on Friday, 24th, at 7 am EST, a little before 48h to compensate the 2 hours that the system was open on Monday for the Priority Access backers.
CMON
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Set on your calendar: Marvel United will hit Kickstarter on February 11th, 3 pm EST!
If you would like to be notified once that happens, visit https://cmon.co/marvel-united . Also, and stay tuned to our social media for more information.
PM for Zc NoTLD is out. CMON having a laugh with the shipping $37.93 on an $80 game. Looks like this will the first Zc game I pass on, glad I only put a dollar in until the shipping was finalised.
For the Marvel United Kickstarter backers, we will start right away with not one, but THREE exclusives already added to base pledge! So let’s meet the first of them…
REAL NAME: Clinton Francis Barton / ALIAS: Hawkeye
Trained at an early age in the art of archery, Barton became one of the world's most elite marksmen and put his sharpshooting skills to work as the heroic Hawkeye.
Marvel United is coming to Kickstarter on February 11th 3 pm EST! You can sign up to be notified when that happens here: https://cmon.co/marvel-united
parakuribo wrote: Looking at the pic, I now think I have a good idea why they're unloading all that KS stuff and why they're charging $15 for shipping.
I'm not sure I follow, but I'm intrigued. Can you explain more?
parakuribo wrote: Looking at the pic, I now think I have a good idea why they're unloading all that KS stuff and why they're charging $15 for shipping.
I'm not sure I follow, but I'm intrigued. Can you explain more?
I'm confused as well. The reason for the timemachine was to clear out all that old stuff sitting in a warehouse that they couldn't sell in retail as they were KSer exclusive or due to them closing down their own webstore (which I'm sure their Asmodee contract dictated).
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
kind of looks like the chibis (cool as they are) are pretty much superfluous
Not really. The cards they're on look like locations with some type of event card maybe. So those are randomly drawn and then you place your character on where they're currently at. There's no traditional board for sure but you need some kind of character token from the looks of it.
I'd show you an example of my theory.....but Disney would shut this site down the secound I posted a pic from Rich Duck Adventures Starring Duck Who's Named After a CXXXXXX DXXXXXX* Character .
*EDIT: Looks like the authour, his likeness and 100% of his works just became trademarks of Disney too....
timetowaste85 wrote: Wow. Way to give the finger to Alaska, Hawaii and Africa there!
Getting stuff across oceans is expensive, and delivery gets more expensive the worse the infrastructure is. I'm surprised they even ship to Africa at all.
Just looked at this because I got a email about it.
There is currently a staggering 17 KS exclusive heroes/villains - and a WHOLE expansion that is also marked KS exclusive. If I had any interest in this at all that alone would kill it. Why with something with as potentially broad a reach as a Marvel game (currently the most popular movies in the world for a good decade now) and literally dump half of it in the garbage for anyone who might have been interested but missed the Kickstarter,
Schmapdi wrote: Just looked at this because I got a email about it.
There is currently a staggering 17 KS exclusive heroes/villains - and a WHOLE expansion that is also marked KS exclusive. If I had any interest in this at all that alone would kill it. Why with something with as potentially broad a reach as a Marvel game (currently the most popular movies in the world for a good decade now) and literally dump half of it in the garbage for anyone who might have been interested but missed the Kickstarter,
Think of it as fodder for the next Time Machine Kickstarter by CMON...
What’s next for CMON on Kickstarter? Well, we think you already know.
Ever since it was announced last GenCon, fans have been eagerly awaiting the next installment in the legendary saga that began with Blood Rage and continued with Rising Sun. The same creative team, including game design by Eric Lang, art by Adrian Smith, and sculpts by Mike McVey, are proud to bring you ANKH: Gods of Egypt, coming soon to Kickstarter!
The gods that rule over Egypt can no longer share the devotion of the people. One by one, the gods must fall into oblivion, until only one will remain. Spread your forces across the land, build monuments to establish your dominion, reshape the land to your advantage, gain followers to increase your powers and get the support of powerful guardians. As the sands soak the blood in conflicts decided by both strength and cunning, each god will use their unique power to climb to the top of the devotion ladder. Will you be the one to achieve life eternal?
It is also interesting to notice that this week marks the anniversaries of the Blood Rage and Rising Sun campaigns, which launched on March 2nd 2015 and March 7th 2017, respectively. A fitting celebration!
I'll be honest, the video didn't wow me. It looks like another "big giant guys that you'll never use in another game plus 10 copies of a single minion sculpt" kind of game.
I'm sure the gameplay will be good, but I don't have a regular enough gaming group to get as much enjoyment from good games as I get from good miniatures. Hopefully it will deliver on both! (Pretty confident it will)
They're really pissing off the Time Machine people as no confirmed deliveries have happened on that outside of 2-3 in New Zealand in the past month nor are they updating it outside of saying (shipping is happening everyone!) weeks ago.
Since they don't have a web store anymore I figure they don't have a warehouse team and this is another mess like their online store closing sale which took months to deliver.
Still. I love the Eric Lang area control games but might skip due to how indifferent CMoN is treating backers now days
CMON seems to be determined to burn any good will they have from their customers at every opportunity.
Time Machine fulfillment is leaving a lot to be desired.
That being said, after the months of silence, when they do deliver it is a good game with good miniatures. You just have to know what you are getting.
Both the game and the miniatures for Song of Ice and Fire are really outstanding for example. You just have to preorder everything you want months in advance to have any chance of getting it, which can be frustrating, as stock sells out lighting fast and they don't seem to be in any hurry to do reprints.
@Gallahad, sadly, that has been true of pretty much every CMON game. My personal favorites are Blood Rage, Dark Age, HATE and Smog, but I also have a soft spot for Rivet Wars.
Aside from Blood Rage, the rest is just not available, and Time Machine means that I finally get a copy of HATE...whenever the hell they ship.
What is going on with Rivet Wars? Here is the UPDATE.
Is RW dead? No, since Super Robot Punch owns Rivet Wars we can make or release any RW product we choose. Right now, CMoN is not going to publish future RW products, so we would need to find a new publishing partner to continue to release RW in a box, with minis, printed manuals etc. If anyone has contacts, suggestions or is a publisher, maybe we can find a new home for Rivet Wars.
For now though we’d like to give folks a chance to get the miniatures and rules that they’ve been asking for. Let’s get the Ruska, Ottoman, and maybe some ships...into the fight!
Miniatures - I’m uploading the 3D files to Shapeways. In this way you can pick models you’re interested in and have Shapeways print and send them to you. This has some drawbacks but it gets the models out there and it’s a la carte so if you want to get a Rusk KV-12 tank and only the tank, that’s all you have to order. I’m not sure how fast these will come online, but all the base Ruska units are up there now.
Rules/Stats - We have a lot of rules and stats for the new models. There are also some exciting additions to the rules like Line of Sight and Cover. Really simple but effective and it adds more tactics to the game. This was to be part of the Ruska Ottoman campaign. I’ll compile the stats and rules and release them in digital form as PDFs. This will allow anyone to download the information and get using the new rules and minis.
Other stuff - I’ve been working on a video game version of Rivet Wars. Right now it’s looking pretty great and could hopefully tie in to the board game and some new ideas. Just another way to Get in the Fight!
So what happened with CMoN? For years we’ve been discussing the expansions for Rivet Wars but at this time RW does not fit into CMoN’s publishing plans. They are a great team and made Rivet Wars a reality and I’d love to work with them again if the chance ever presented itself.
Right now I hope this allows folks to get their hands on some of the Ruska, Ottoman and rules that we have planned for and created. A lot of time and work went into these new factions and we want to see people enjoying them. Hopefully we’ll learn a bit as people explore this new content and this may lead to a future release or kickstarter or something else. Thank you all for your support and interest and for getting in the fight!
"CMON Expo is the few days each year that our diehard fans can come to Atlanta to meet, discuss, play CMON all weekend long. It lets our fans take a glimpse into all the exciting projects we’ve been working on and spend the entire weekend with us. This kind of celebration is part of our DNA since the company first started.
This year, we had a very difficult decision to make. The Coronavirus pandemic is spreading at an alarming rate, and most governments are asking their citizens to refrain from big public gatherings. With a heavy heart, CMON has decided, for the safety of our employees, our guests and our attendees, to cancel CMON Expo 2020.
We look forward to see you again soon. In the meantime stay safe and happy gaming!"
Most of the expansion content for Rivet Wars is on sale very cheap at minature market (including stuff that had apparently sold out during the last CMON firesale) so if you've got and enjoyed the base game it's worth checking out
(especially if your in the US and can access free shipping)
This is Anubis, the God of death, embalming, and tombs. Some of Anubis' main roles were guiding the souls to the underworld, and weighing their hearts against the truth, in the form of an ostrich feather. Only hearts lighter than a feather would ascend.
Ankh: Gods of Egypt is coming soon to Kickstarter! Stay tuned.
Now on to the Egyptian mythology lesson before the launching of Ankh.
This god radiates light wherever it goes. Who is this?
I hope they delay the launch of this for a month or two. It’s harder to justify a pledge for a board game when people are shanking each other for toilet paper.
I would only back for a dollar right now if it's before June. Even with the possibility of stimulas checks I won't be spending money on games for the forceable future. I've got plenty and need to make sure other needs are taken care of first.
ANKH: GODS OF EGYPT HITS KICKSTARTER ON APRIL 14TH Apr 01, 2020 A Note to All Our Backers, Supporters and Fans,
We are thrilled to finally be launching Ankh: Gods of Egypt. It’s a game years in the making, and we’ve pulled out all the stops to make this campaign our best and most exciting yet. We also want to acknowledge what a difficult period of time it is for many people around the world. Choosing to postpone or not was a tough decision, but based on all the factors, including the many messages we received on social media, we decided to move forward with the campaign as planned. We don’t know when the world will go back to normal but debuting a game so many have been waiting for so long feels like the correct path forward. To that end, we will be keeping the pledge manager open as long after the campaign as possible to accommodate those who would like extra time to finalize their pledges.
Also know that we will continue to release as much exciting, time-filling content as we can through our website and social media. So far, the reaction to new Zombicide and Massive Darkness scenarios, the new Beta Game Modes for A Song of Ice and Fire: Tabletop Miniature Game (which you can fin here under Public Playtest Files), and the full XenoShyft game in Print and Play has been amazing, and our goal is to keep you entertained during this difficult time.
Thank you all for joining us on our latest adventure,
The Entire CMON Team
I wish they were more specific about how long they're prepared to leave the PM open, 'as long as we can' could fit the supershort period they've had with the recent Marvel game (probably not, but you never know), but I'm sure i'll give my token $1 to buy in and see
Alpharius wrote: Damn I love the sculpts for this game - and actually this game too!
I'm still surprised CMON hasn't just sold the IP off already!
CMON doesn't own the rivet wars IP, the creator of it does. He was trying to shop around to a new publisher to reboot the game a year or two ago but it seems there was no interest.
Dang, I'm probably going to have to miss out on Ankh given current economic climate. I just can't justify the likely $300 it will take to buy in given potential unemployment looming on the horizon.
Been saving up for it, but now I'll just keep that in the rainy day fund.
Alpharius wrote: Damn I love the sculpts for this game - and actually this game too!
I'm still surprised CMON hasn't just sold the IP off already!
CMON doesn't own the rivet wars IP, the creator of it does. He was trying to shop around to a new publisher to reboot the game a year or two ago but it seems there was no interest.
That's even more depressing then - dammit!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gallahad wrote: Dang, I'm probably going to have to miss out on Ankh given current economic climate. I just can't justify the likely $300 it will take to buy in given potential unemployment looming on the horizon.
Been saving up for it, but now I'll just keep that in the rainy day fund.
You think this one will have a $300 'all in' price?
Alpharius wrote: Damn I love the sculpts for this game - and actually this game too!
I'm still surprised CMON hasn't just sold the IP off already!
CMON doesn't own the rivet wars IP, the creator of it does. He was trying to shop around to a new publisher to reboot the game a year or two ago but it seems there was no interest.
That's even more depressing then - dammit!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gallahad wrote: Dang, I'm probably going to have to miss out on Ankh given current economic climate. I just can't justify the likely $300 it will take to buy in given potential unemployment looming on the horizon. Been saving up for it, but now I'll just keep that in the rainy day fund.
You think this one will have a $300 'all in' price?
Ouch.
Rising Sun was only $150 for all in (this doesn't include art book, playmat and similar things) so $300 seams high. But at the same time I'm sure CMoN will find ways to charge more for this ala Zobmicide 2.0 as it steams like CMoN from 3 years ago is long dead. I'd expect a minimum of $200 with a $120 starting price with maybe all gameplay elements going for $250 before you have extras like art books and the playmat. But $250 doesn't seam very likely but you never know.
Oof. Right while the Aussie dollar is at a ten year low to the US dollar. This won't be pretty, but I've been waiting for it too long. Barring the potential for a third installment of Medieval Zombicide, it'll likely be my last CMON Kickstarter.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Will there be any chance to pledge a dollar and then up it to the Sweet Spot pledge level in the pledge manager?
That's almost always the case, no? I've seen nothing to indicate otherwise.
CMON is HQ'ed in Singapore, hardest hit outside of China by the virus. I haven't kept up with how Singapore has fared, though.
China *says* they're recovering, but I've read articles reporting anything from re-infections, to re-locking down cities, to local civil unrest.
OTOH, CMON is a retail-level company, so it's not like a delays on their KS projects will affect them vs, say, a one-man operation. How many outstanding KS projects does CMON have?
I'm not a Eurogamer (and have at least two CMON KS I haven't started painting yet), so won't be backing. Frostgrave's the only other KS game I'd buy, and I can wait for retail, since we're only halfway through GH.
Up until a couple weeks ago Singapore was doing fine and was in the same category as South Korea in having really quick acting and very strict policies in place to combat the virus, haven't kept up with it since then so not sure how it might have changed...
BUT Im pretty sure that CMON is HQ'd in Hong Kong, rather than Singapore, which is another case entirely.
Dang -- only one staff member to prevent shipping. ):
It was one of the warehouse workers. Due to the possibility that the others working there could have been infected and that Covid-19 can stay on objects for several days they needed to suspend for at least 2 weeks.
probably just typical late submission nonsense (plus a smattering of global pandemic to slow everything down) like their KS updates, but worth considering when Ahkh launches
Hmm, that is very interesting. Whatever CMON is paying Asmodee they should get a refund. I don't think a single ASOIAF release has been on time since they started using Asmodee.
Gallahad wrote: Hmm, that is very interesting. Whatever CMON is paying Asmodee they should get a refund. I don't think a single ASOIAF release has been on time since they started using Asmodee.
Don't worry! They've doubled down and as of June Asmodee is direct distributor of the entire game... they swear everything will be fine going forward. I mean... when has Asmodee ever disappointed?
*sigh*
I would sell this game to literally any other publisher, as long as they left Mike Shinall in charge. Literally anyone would do a better job distributing this game.
Gallahad wrote: Hmm, that is very interesting. Whatever CMON is paying Asmodee they should get a refund. I don't think a single ASOIAF release has been on time since they started using Asmodee.
Don't worry! They've doubled down and as of June Asmodee is direct distributor of the entire game... they swear everything will be fine going forward. I mean... when has Asmodee ever disappointed?
*sigh*
I would sell this game to literally any other publisher, as long as they left Mike Shinall in charge. Literally anyone would do a better job distributing this game.
Honestly at even this hint of trouble for CMON I felt a burning need to go panic buy a bunch of ASOIAF stuff. Best game I've played in ages and the distribution issues are throttling it in the crib.
Honestly I don't think I'd be too worried. CMoN's games have a very high value and I would suspect whoever buys them (probably only Asmodee, Matel or Hazbro could I would think) would keep them going as well as take over KSer delivery. Maybe I'm just being a bit naive but it would be such bad press for them not too -- especially on the KSer front and probably open them up to lawsuits for Attorney Generals wanting to go after the big kickstarter fish.
As informed on the last update (update#16) we were interrupting the warehouse operations until April 14th as a safety measure since recently one of our staff members had close contact with a family member that tested positive for COVID-19.
We’re glad to inform that during this period our staff member continued to not present any symptoms and that assembly, packing, and shipment of the Time Machine products should resume on Tuesday, April 14th, as estimated. However,we have been informed that a few countries are shutting down completely and that their shipping services are temporarily closed. According to the information provided to us so far, the list of countries include Brunei, Malaysia, India, Philippines, and Taiwan.UK is also interrupting all shipments until the situation improves and other European countries are also under restrictions.
Considering the current situation we’re in, and the sheer amount of European pledges we have, looking to optimize the shipping process, to prevent additional custom fees and taxes for the backers, and to reduce risks of shipmentsbouncing back or being held at postal offices, we have decided to assemble and separate European pledges to be shipped in bulk to our European hub, which will then take care of the deliveries in the safest possible way directly to your homes once situationis back to normal. For our European backers this means that it will take a little longer to have pledges arriving to you, however, once deliveries start they should be fast paced, instead of spread across multiple weeks. Plus, since they will be mailed internally,backers should face no further custom fees. Deliveries for the Americas, Australia, Africa, and Asia will continue to be shipped as they’re assembled.
We once again apologize for all the hiccups and delays with this project.
See you back in the future!
Time machine update, actually good news for those in the EU who haven't had a dispatch yet as you'll miss out on the taxes you'd otherwise have paid, but don't expect things to go quickly
(and i'm not sure what they're talking about on the UK interrupting shipments of stuff from the USA, if we are nobody here has been told about it, but that's not impossible, especially if it's specific to whatever shipping service CMON was using, not everything)
Gallahad wrote: Hmm, that is very interesting. Whatever CMON is paying Asmodee they should get a refund. I don't think a single ASOIAF release has been on time since they started using Asmodee.
Don't worry! They've doubled down and as of June Asmodee is direct distributor of the entire game... they swear everything will be fine going forward. I mean... when has Asmodee ever disappointed?
*sigh*
I would sell this game to literally any other publisher, as long as they left Mike Shinall in charge. Literally anyone would do a better job distributing this game.
Honestly at even this hint of trouble for CMON I felt a burning need to go panic buy a bunch of ASOIAF stuff. Best game I've played in ages and the distribution issues are throttling it in the crib.
I would concur, but from day one my wife and I bought two of every release, even if some of them like Bolton Blackguards cost a fortune due to resellers.
One of my true favorites ever... and consistently the most frustrating products to find/buy in my entire history of gaming.
probably just typical late submission nonsense (plus a smattering of global pandemic to slow everything down) like their KS updates, but worth considering when Ahkh launches
This article references that one, but makes it sound pretty serious:
""Going concern" is a highly technical accounting term referring to a situation where net current liabilities are greater than net current assets. This happens for CMON from time to time since we record funds received from Kickstarter as both a liability and an asset - the money is an asset we received from our backers, but it is also a liability we owe to them that is not fulfilled until we ship our products. Since we use the funds to pay for molds, production and development of those products, and some of these are considered "Non-Current assets”, the asset column goes down as we use the money to fulfill the development of the game. Once we ship the game, the project goes back into the black because we can take the liability for the Kickstarter funds off the books.
This is highly misleading, and in my opinion, irresponsible.
A Going Concern issue is not explicitly about the difference between current-assets and current-liabilities. It is about the company's ability to operate over the 12 months following the end of the accounting period.
Yes, current-assets and current-liabilities are very important in determining whether a company can continue operating. However, CMON's article assume that CPA firms can not take mold cost into account and bifurcate the true cost of the KS.
Essentially, they are assuming the CPA firm's hand are tied. This is not the case. A Going Concern issue is the CPA firm's doubt [with the current evidence that the firm has] of whether CMON can continue operating. . . . . . It is a gross simplification to say it is simply an equation.
CMON usually accepts $1 pledges, so you can always go that route. Some on the BGG thread thought there wasn't enough information to make a decision, and a $1 pledge allows you to wait until the PM opens for more information to be released and for you to make up your mind.
Is Bob Davis someone we should know? While the audit results are concerning what's his expertise where he can state what he did as factual not not just another arm chair internet expert who doesn't actually know anything?
Not sure, but news that CMON’s constant Kickstarter shell game, combined with their continued inability to properly distribute their products with any regularity, has gotten them in trouble?
Maybe a bit late to ask, but are these audit issues normal for CMoN? If they've got money troubles, how long has that been a thing, and what effect has it had on the company?
There's a lot we don't know and a lot of people, on the BGG thread, deciding they do know but the only statement that's just honest on what's going on is basically the Audit has said that the stock value that CMoN trades at and what the company is actually worth don't match. We don't know why. CMoN has said it's because of how debt with Kickstarters work. Some people don't believe that.
As to your question about Darkage. Most likely the main two reasons are (assumptions on my part): 1) I didn't sell very well compared to other things so they could spend that money on products that would bring in more money 2) Asmodee taking over CMoN's distribution and the closing down of the CMoN warehouse left the product with no viable way to get to consumers as Asmodee probably didn't want to distribute it and with CMoN not having their own sales channel anymore stopped producing it.
As somebody who analyses companies' creditworthiness for a living, this doesn't look great. However, the range of outcomes is wide and even after the share price has basically halved year-to-date, the company still had a market cap of about ~US$17m. It looks like the last quoted share price was on 31 March however, which does not bode well as the trading will probably gap downwards if/when re-opened.
I took a look at the figures and in all honesty, based on the last year's trading, the company looks under-valued - it spat out HKD76m in EBITDA 9M19 if you can believe the numbers, and with HKD85m of debt - it effectively has an EV multiple of 2.7x - very low for a publicly traded company.
On review, provided the P&L figures are legit, the most likely cause of the Going Concern opinion is the short-term/on-demand debt position - which if not refinanced or committed for more than a year, poses a problem for CMON. However, there seems to be a decent equity buffer for lenders so I don't really foresee a refinancing issue being a deal-breaker.
Thank you for that analysis. If you were a betting man, would you bet CMON will be around in a year without a receiver?
Wow straight to the punchy questions!! To be honest, I'd need to review their last audits in detail to have a firm view in order to take a position (which would take a few hours to do properly). Gut feel, yes I think they would be around. The Sep-2019 9mo YTD figures actually look pretty good, although historic audited results are very lumpy - generally 1 good year followed by 1 bad year - presumably due to timing issues around big releases. For the record, FY18 was a bad year, so you'd hope FY19 would be a good one, however looking back they have a track record of generating positive Cash from operations but then swing well into the red every year after capex and acquisitions. So I'm not sure how this can be sustainable as typically you'd look for a business to be trading at a cash surplus in most years to be viable.
Okay screw it you tempted me to look at the 2018 audits... the debt disclosures are not great (appears to me as quite amateur and some typos) but looks like they have about US$5m of bank loans which they took out in Singapore, together with $3.3m of trade loans. However of this debt $3.8m was due in 2019 which may be why they didn't get the clean audit.
What people may be interested in if you are owed a game/money by CMON is that the bank debt is heavily secured (over mortgages and the bank deposits), so your unsecured claim would likely get zero in a wind-up scenario.
All in all I strongly suspect the going concern attestation from the auditors is in relation to the short term debt maturities of the company and inability to refinance/extend these.
It wouldn't surprise me if the move from one stock exchange to another has had consequences in terms of what has to be reported, and exactly what format it has to be done in,
so a company that is a bit sloppy in their paperwork anyway (which CMON certainly is seeing how they respond to stuff on KS) could easily get caught out by an auditor applying the rules properly and on time when the actual end of the day issue is not disasterous (like having some debt that needs to be refinanced if they plan to keep it as debt even though they could pay it off if they had to)
Can't decide if I'm happy or not about no add-ons or higher tiers for this one. While I really appreciate $100 one size fits all kickstarters ... I also earmarked a lot of funds to go hard on Ankh, and I appear to have just gone as hard as I can already
Boss Salvage wrote: Can't decide if I'm happy or not about no add-ons or higher tiers for this one. While I really appreciate $100 one size fits all kickstarters ... I also earmarked a lot of funds to go hard on Ankh, and I appear to have just gone as hard as I can already
ya. They always have at least another $50 for some expansion then other addons. At 20 days you won't see any of that appear for at least 5 days I think.
I'm in at $1
If I have my timemachine stuff by the time this ends I'll probably up to the full.
Ahhhh gotcha. Also weird, I've not done a KS where heretofore unknown options appear later on, but I can see the appeal from a momentum boost / keep people involved standpoint.
Boss Salvage wrote: Ahhhh gotcha. Also weird, I've not done a KS where heretofore unknown options appear later on, but I can see the appeal from a momentum boost / keep people involved standpoint.
It use to be more common years ago but CMoN is one of the few that still does it. Reaper does too.
Theophony wrote: With the financials being held, I’ll wait for retail.
I'm in the same boat - do not trust CMON right now/already have a KS outstanding with them.
Will not back.
They probably held back on this one knowing there were so many people wanting it that they would overlook the financial side, either that or they were hoping the marvel KS would have gone nuts and pulled them out. Either way I stayed safe with just the $1 spend on Zombicide second edition.
I’m still out about $100 from the old New Wave Games fiasco, I’d almost gotten over it .
A bit, but a lot of those making nasty comments I recognise as those who always back the CMON games, and always moan about them/claim they'll never back again
there are a number of worried regulars who wouldn't normaly be speaking this way too so there is an impact but I don't think it's huge
(especially compared to job/income problems due to covid or shipping costs)
I absolutely LOVE Egyptian myths and would love to back this, but even at $1 now and planning to up in the PM, I am not sure we'd have enough clarity at that point in time to trust that we know enough to commit...
Alpharius wrote: Is CMON taking any heat over this in the ANKH comments section?
I haven't seen any, but haven't been following closely. With 14K backers and only 25 comment per page refresh, I guess you'd have to refresh a bit.
However, on other funded CMON KS comments, you can see a little discussion, but nothing on the level of the accountant comments on BGG or Reddit. At least one backer thinks CMON's response is sufficient, but an accountant (?) on BGG disagreed.
I hope this gets resolved within a few months, by the time the PM closes. No company would want to have audit issues open that long.
*****
EDIT: Well, Rathpex posted this in the Living Dead comments.
Rathpex
about 22 hours ago
Thanks, I dont back much on kickstarter. I do know a lot about creditors both secured and unsecured.
Further, I have worked as an external auditor for a big 4 accounting firm and I know the severity of a going concern issue being raised.
You just need to look a little further to see how bad the cash situation must be over at CMON; there is a massive demand for the ASOIAF miniatures game but there is no stock globally. It beggers the question if they can afford to do more production.
If their disagreement with the auditors is so bad that the auditors will not remove the going concern issue - this means there is slim chance of this game or any of their other games to be funded without some type of a bailout.
I have seen their media response, if this was truly the case the auditors would be able to point to this as being fact and used to address their going concern issue.
There is more afoot here than their media statement says....
Still not really any useful info to be honest. Since the audit doesn't state what the problem is, which from what I read is uncommon, and CMoN not having release Q4 2019 yet we don't know the full picture.
I think the Reddit comments I posted the other day is still the most realistic explication and really the only one that tries to explain what's going on.
CMoN reports KSers as debt until fulfilled. They had a big loan due end of 2019 (3.8 million) but we don't know the status of it and that could cause the concern. Usually if you don't have enough money to pay the loan you can get a second loan to pay that off, not uncommon for companies, or renegotiate terms. However due to CMoNs debt ratio banks may be wary of giving them another line of credit.
CMoN currently has 6 unfulfilled KSers and an 7th running plus TimeMachine (which wouldn't be debt). That's a lot of projects, debt, that they're carrying right now -- probably more then they ever have. Now that I think about it this can also explain why the did the TimeMachine KSer when they did as since all the product is in their warehouses then it doesn't count as a liability until delivered and counts as direct sales which would lower the debt ratio down and might help with a loan or was quick cash to make the renegotiated loan payment. Until we see their end of financial year reports though this is just baseless speculation like the various other sites.
Now should you back? CMoN fanboys will say it's not a big deal. People that hate KSer or CMoN for whatever reason say no. A lot of the talking heads on Reddit and BGG have some leg in the game due to their bias. But the only real correct answer for a KSer is never back if you cannot afford to loose the money or think you could which has come up in this thread before by others. I personally am willing to put that $1 down and see how things are around the time of the PM closing. I really hope they don't go down, I would like Anhk as well as Trudavang which I backed heavily but I am wary about it and since I can wait 2 months to see if I should spend $200 with shipping I can wait.
The scary parts to me are they did the time machine AND sold off a ton of stock to miniature market all in a short time to get cash. Now they have less stuff on hand to balance the debt with. I’m sure with the Coronavirus slowing shipping that they were hoping some of their already paid for product which is still in the debt category would get shipped and give them extra stock to sell its made it a bit harder to stay level.
I wonder if projects that were KS only (like Hate) were because they could not afford to buy extras beyond what was required to fill orders, or if it was just a marketing gimmick.
One good thing we will probably see is Dark Age and Wrath of Kings will probably get sold off if they are truly hurting for money.
I'm not sure why, but the minis just aren't really grabbing me on this one.
The high dose of anthropomorphic stuff plus even the basic guys looking super fancy just sort of mutes my interest.
Theophony wrote: The scary parts to me are they did the time machine AND sold off a ton of stock to miniature market all in a short time to get cash. Now they have less stuff on hand to balance the debt with. I’m sure with the Coronavirus slowing shipping that they were hoping some of their already paid for product which is still in the debt category would get shipped and give them extra stock to sell its made it a bit harder to stay level.
I wonder if projects that were KS only (like Hate) were because they could not afford to buy extras beyond what was required to fill orders, or if it was just a marketing gimmick.
One good thing we will probably see is Dark Age and Wrath of Kings will probably get sold off if they are truly hurting for money.
I forgot about the MM sales. Ya. Though both are also probably trying to clear out their warehouse so they don't have to keep paying for it as that's an expensive cost. Combined with the money needs.
Gallahad wrote: I'm not sure why, but the minis just aren't really grabbing me on this one. The high dose of anthropomorphic stuff plus even the basic guys looking super fancy just sort of mutes my interest.
The anthro doesn't bother me much, but I understand all the detail and such. really make these minis much of of a time sink to paint.
One good thing we will probably see is Dark Age and Wrath of Kings will probably get sold off if they are truly hurting for money.
I don't want them to go under completely, as they owe a lot of people a lot of things, and I have 2 Kickstarters outstanding with them too...
...but if they could feel threatened enough to let Dark Age and Wrath of Kings go to someone who will 'do them right'?
That would be a good thing!
Wrath of Kings maybe but isn't Dark Age David Doust's baby? I know someone that's high up in the company created it and has talked about how much the game means to them. Probably hard to justify spending on it though as a public company with shareholders expecting higher returns.
Alpharius wrote: Is CMON taking any heat over this in the ANKH comments section?
Some discussion in Marvel United, thought not more than here, BGG, or Reddit.
I missed this part from Keith Lane: "CMON just announced on April 2 and April 3 that TWO of their independent directors, both of whom were on the audit committee, resigned."
frch0603 : "This is not an internal audit, it is an audit by an external auditor, they would not suspend their stock and issue a going concern report by themselves. The 455k loss you reference was part of 2019 reportings, not 2018. 2018 saw CMON lose 41% of profit per the article you linked. This is definitely an issue that needs immediate addressing. The auditors would have given them a chance to explain, clarify, rectify any problems before taking such actions."
Wow... they have seven still unfulfilled kickstarters at the moment? I know that is basically their business model (introduce through crowdfunding, sell through stores later) but that seems like alot. Were most/some/all of them delayed even before Covid? I don't have any finance background so can't comment on the particulars of that but, as someone who fancies himself a gaming consumer advocate, just reading this thread sounds worriesome. The only thing that could make it worse would be if the same people involved had a history of starting some sort of online store or company and leaving customers high and dry with no notice...
warboss wrote: Wow... they have seven still unfulfilled kickstarters at the moment? I know that is basically their business model (introduce through crowdfunding, sell through stores later) but that seems like alot. Were most/some/all of them delayed even before Covid? I don't have any finance background so can't comment on the particulars of that but, as someone who fancies himself a gaming consumer advocate, just reading this thread sounds worriesome. The only thing that could make it worse would be if the same people involved had a history of starting some sort of online store or company and leaving customers high and dry with no notice...
I see what you did there...
...and it is not a comforting reminder!
Though there would possibly be more, and greater, ramifications if history repeated itself here.
So, I’m no Daniel Jackson, but it bothers me that they have an Egyptian Sphinx explicitly named the Androsphinx, but she’s a she, and also likes to tell (Greek?) riddles.
I just hope we don’t have to answer the riddle “What has 0 of your dollars in the morning, 100 of your dollars plus shipping at noon, and no money or product at night time?”
Theophony wrote: Is it time to contact my credit card company and ask them to get the refund started?
For what KSer?
Most likely no unless its been a recent KSer an then you might be in the window to get a refund from CMoN themselves.
Most of their stuff is supposed to fullfil this year and 2 are in progress I believe (TIme Machine finally started up again and people in US and Canada are getting their things). I'm still of the mind if they have issues they won't go under but get bought be someone, other game company or investment firm, and operate as noraml. CMoN is a big company in a tiny market and I'm sure there would be interest in them.
BobtheInquisitor wrote:So, I’m no Daniel Jackson, but it bothers me that they have an Egyptian Sphinx explicitly named the Androsphinx, but she’s a she, and also likes to tell (Greek?) riddles.
Modern gender theory expressed as a game mechanic social construct? Or more likely just ignorance of the etymology/mythology.
Theophony wrote:Is it time to contact my credit card company and ask them to get the refund started?
Only if you want to create the situation you're dreading. You won't get the money back from them directly... ever. At best, assuming you're inside the window and restrictions that your CC company may or may not have regarding crowdfunding, you'll just be contributing a snowball to the avalanche that is cutting off yet another source of funding that they may need to fulfill the pledges as the CC company tries to get it out of other people's purchases/transactions with them for current product. Unless you're fast approaching a hard cut off to protect yourself AND the project is significantly late even before Covid, I wouldn't personally... and I'm a glass half empty/who the feth drank my water?!? pessimist.
BobtheInquisitor wrote:So, I’m no Daniel Jackson, but it bothers me that they have an Egyptian Sphinx explicitly named the Androsphinx, but she’s a she, and also likes to tell (Greek?) riddles.
Modern gender theory expressed as a game mechanic social construct? Or more likely just ignorance of the etymology/mythology.
I mean, I knew it wasn’t going to be thematically accurate when I saw the wings, but Adrian Smith going to Adrian Smith, and the monster was too cool not to want. Adding the Andro prefix when “Sphinx” worked just fine, and then going out of their way to mention riddles...it’s just such a self-own of ignorance. Like, I’d be fine with it if I thought they did it on purpose to demonstrate their unique and coherent spin on a mythological setting and not a campaign built on “finally, Egyptian mythology plastic miniatures”.
AduroT wrote: I don’t understand what’s wrong with the sphinx or the references you’re making.
I'm just going off of what Inquisitor Bob 's post above said and didn't watch the videos nor read the updates but the type of sphinx that asks riddles in classical mythology is the Greek female version whereas this one is obviously the Egyptian male version. That's just a guess on my part though.
AduroT wrote: I don’t understand what’s wrong with the sphinx or the references you’re making.
Just an embarrassing mistake on CMON’s part. Andro means “man”. Androsphinx means Mansphinx. According to the blurb in the latest update, Mansphinx is a she, and also the Greek type of Sphinx instead of the Egyptian kind, about as similar as either Sphinx is to the Lammasu, the “Babylonian Sphinx” as some call it. It would be like making a gothic horror game and then having Dracula’s vampires hop everywhere stealing chi from Buddhists.
I mean, if this were a different company, like Kingdom Death or On the Lamb, I would think they were making a cheeky statement. CMON doesn’t pay that much attention to detail and makes minis that are a different kind of cheeky, so I guess we’re just lucky the Mansphinx doesn’t have pasties and a big, ol’ thong booty.
Guess it's a D&D monster that's a male sphinx only based off what google tells me. Andro is a prefix meaning male from greek according to Wiktionary. Though it also means human as it's the andro in android.
So bob is pointing out it's a female sphinx with a male prefix, though could be human prefix too and not furry enough for him. I guess in D&D the males don't do riddles thus the annoyance. I can't find anything online with cursory searches saying Androsphixs were anything in actual Greek or Egyptian mythology.
It's not like CMON hasn't made some strange slips ups before...
Pretty sure I cringed then, too.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I seem to recall a mod-intensive digression about Orientalism in the Rising Sun thread. Comparatively, this is just small potatoes.
Honestly I think Kotahi is pretty cool. I can understand the annoyance for this the sphinx but a fake Wikipedia page causing a character is pretty sweet.
Young bloke in New Zealand edited the Wikipedia page for Japanese mythological creatures to include his mate Kotahi as "a spirit monkey that is very hairy and get engulfed in rage". Despite being a dead link, it was somehow picked up by someone at CMON as a genuine entry and Kotahi the monkey spirit was drawn up and added to the Kickstarter.
Wasn't picked up until a year later when someone tried to dig up just what it was supposed to be, since nothing of that name exists in Japanese folklore. Gets in contact with the guy, confirms it was a prank, passes that on to CMON who admit they fell for it, and sent a copy of the game and the exclusives to both Kotahi and his mate.
Young bloke in New Zealand edited the Wikipedia page for Japanese mythological creatures to include his mate Kotahi as "a spirit monkey that is very hairy and get engulfed in rage". Despite being a dead link, it was somehow picked up by someone at CMON as a genuine entry and Kotahi the monkey spirit was drawn up and added to the Kickstarter.
Wasn't picked up until a year later when someone tried to dig up just what it was supposed to be, since nothing of that name exists in Japanese folklore. Gets in contact with the guy, confirms it was a prank, passes that on to CMON who admit they fell for it, and sent a copy of the game and the exclusives to both Kotahi and his mate.
It’s pretty sad when the research for a game supposedly based on a real world mythology, begins and ends with searching Wikipedia.
Tim the Biovore wrote: Wasn't picked up until a year later when someone tried to dig up just what it was supposed to be, since nothing of that name exists in Japanese folklore. Gets in contact with the guy, confirms it was a prank, passes that on to CMON who admit they fell for it, and sent a copy of the game and the exclusives to both Kotahi and his mate.
That was hilarious. IIRC, one of the provinces (?) on the map was named after a city, not a province. Sorta like saying Arizona, Utah, and Las Vegas.
Maybe CMON's research team consists of that guy who makes t-shirts with American words on them for foreign markets.
Three areas are modern day cities. Nagato, Edo and Kyoto. Nagato was the old name a province where I lived for a bit, now called Yamaguchi. I'm not aware of there ever being an Edo or Kyoto province but I haven't really read up on Japanese history for years and they did change names/size several times so it's possible. I did some quick googling as I was curious but didn't see anything.
However there is a Kyoto prefecture which is the modern version of the province (which are no longer used).
So I'd say it looks like they got 2 wrong but they're also easily argued as being important enough to make their own areas of the board as when the game was set Edo was the government capital and Kyoto was the spiritual one. I could see how that would be purposefully done.
I remember on the Blood Rage map they made one of the regions named Angrboda. She was the jotun hag that Loki had his 3 kids with, Hel, Fenris and the World Serpent. I thought that was a weird thing to name the region that.
The new expansion looks pretty sweet. Horus and Set are especially badass looking. I would have preferred ibis-headed Thoth, but can live with the mini as is. Of course, I don’t trust CMON enough to throw money at them now, so hopefully the expansion makes it to retail.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an overwhelming urge to watch some Stargate SG1.
I really like this new add on set, think the models are better then the core. The KSer exclusve got and fighters are also really cool. It's looking like we won't get multiple poses though which is sad.
I was anticipating a Dynasty Invasion sized expansion, but it's even bigger than I expected. Definitely second that these are better sculpts than the core five (not that I have a problem with any of those, though Isis is a bit awkward with so much strapped on her arms). Set is a stand out, which is particularly nice because I'd been hoping he'd appear.
All the more reason to hope CMON don't go under in the meantime
Funds are not coming in fast (despite the number of backer being high)
the world situation, warnings about CMONs finances, lots of outstanding projects (and maybe some awkwardness at billing this as 'Egyptian' but having their own take on a lot of stuff rather than going down the traditional egyptina route) have all meant lots of $1 pledges
this big expansions is intended to get some more commitment & cash out of people now (without quite admitting there is a problem like they had to do with Trudvang)
That expansion does look very good. I'm still holding strong and waiting for retail (with a $1 pledge just in case). That big expansion will make it to retail (my guess).
The sculpts for this are all so cool, but they look very time consuming to paint with so much detail and doodads everywhere. Many of them definitely look like figurines rather than miniatures, if that makes sense (very static poses), which is what puts me off many of the core box pieces.
Conversely, I'm both thrilled at the new expansion and continue to be all in. Maybe I'm just asking to be burned, but frankly the numbers involved are still pretty low even at $150 + shipping
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: this big expansions is intended to get some more commitment & cash out of people now (without quite admitting there is a problem like they had to do with Trudvang)
Mm, definitely feels that way. Wonder if all five were always intended to be one expansion, or if some were planned stretch goals that they had to scuttle now that they know it won't perform as well?
Certainly can't blame the $1 pledges for playing it safe. I'm in it because I'm a sucker for completing sets, and figure this will probably be my last Kickstarter anyway, so I'd like to see it as complete as possible, but there's definitely quite a lot working against it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gallahad wrote: That big expansion will make it to retail (my guess).
If the core game makes it, this will too (other than the plastic cat tokens)
Boss Salvage wrote: Conversely, I'm both thrilled at the new expansion and continue to be all in. Maybe I'm just asking to be burned, but frankly the numbers involved are still pretty low even at $150 + shipping
I Want To Believe™, but I also can't really see myself (potentially) rolling down my window and (possibly) letting $150+ just fly away...
Horus is surprisingly the stand out for me. I would've assumed Set would've been. I think it's the pose. My same issue with Anubis- both of them awkwardly leaning on stuff instead of just standing around looking like bad dudes.
I probably hold out unless they have a super impressive Sobek. That'll be my downfall...
I hope the plastic obelisks will be widely available. Between those and the temple tokens, I’ll finally be able to convert a fleet of Ha’tak* for BFG/DFC.
*The Stargate ships, not to be confused with Hatach, the biblical eunuch.
I took a look at their filings, and here are my thoughts/comments, with attempts to simplify this for people with little or no knowledge of accounting.
Revenue had been growing dramatically up through 2017
2017 - $30 million
2018 - $28 million
2019 - $25 million (very approx and is based on their last report (unaudited) of $19 million through Q3, annualized)
Long term assets have trended up, which includes the value they put on their IP (intellectual property). One could reasonably conclude that a significant portion of the company's value/equity is sitting on the balance sheet, reflected the book value of it's game development and assets purchased to support them. The question arises, is that value reasonable?
If they are keeping the costs of earlier games on their books as intangible assets, an investor would expect those to have revenue from the rights/reprints that is at least as much as the annual amortization. I.E. total revenue should have current year titles' revenue, plus a component on existing IP that covers or exceeds the amortization.
As of Y/E (Year-end) 2018, they reported intangibles of $13 mil, plus a further $12 mil of physical assets (property, plant, equipment) for a total of $25mil. Doing a little guesswork, they recorded $1.6 amort and $1.7 depr through Qtr3 of 2019. That implies a useful life of the IP of approx 6 years, and slightly less for physical assets, which I'm guessing are a mix of various useful life assets.
So back to the question, are those values reasonable? If they are, their business model works. If they're not, it blows up and they eventually run out of money. For high growth companies, they answer is sometimes yes, then no. Which is to say, while they're growing, the model looks reasonable, lenders or financiers will give them cash, etc.. If sales flatten or drop, the values they held on the balance sheet don't produce enough to cover ongoing operations.
I don't know the details here, but I find the audit issues very concerning, and personally wouldn't front them money on a kickstarter unless I was doing so as a show of support rather than a game purchase. Be interesting to check back on this over the coming months.
In the linked article, some auditor and accountant comments:
Metroid 1402 : Apr 13
As an auditor (not CMON's), I can speak to this a bit. What they said in their explanation makes sense, but it's still cause for concern. Like what they said, it's a going concern when their current assets can't cover their current liabilities. Current assets include: cash, accounts receivable, and inventory (among others). What that means is that their obligations are greater than their cash, money owed to them, and their stock of inventory, all combined, is. So even when kickstarters start actually giving them cash, it won't change their current asset ratio because it will just reduce their accounts receivable. In fact, once they start shipping out the products, it won't help their current assets out at all. They'll reduce their liabilities, and increase their revenue (which is not the same as cash). It may improve their retained earnings, but the company will still be poor in terms of current assets.
My guess, and this is just a guess, is that a lot of their money is going to their molds, which would be considered a fixed asset (not a current asset). If that's the case, then they're losing money on the first printings and would only be making money on subsequent printings.
Also, to Phil--prepaids don't effect the balance sheet at all. You're simply reducing cash and increasing prepaids, both of which are assets on the balance sheet.
Stephen Ogrady : Apr 11
Not quite Phil. Red is in Income Statements, not Balance sheets unless Assets are less than Debt plus equity. The issue here is likely that a vendor (such as Asmodee) decided they wanted their money up front for their distribution business activities because they were not getting paid timely, ending up as prepaid expense asset not realizeable until a future period. This could be an indication of deeper cash crisis, which may or may not be manageable.
I would not conclude the company could shut down from this small bit of information, as the cash crisis would have to be severe...like running out completely with no means of attaining more. And this next kickstarter will inject about $3-4M, so some issues may play out to stabilize the (presumably) crisis. The real key to CMON future is cost containment and stringent project management.
I share these viewpoints as a retired accountant and previous CFO.
Myself, I'm always ambivalent on a company's self-reported intangible assets, not that they're avoidable when investing, particularly with tech stocks. Given CMON"s "fire and forget" model, I can't see their average IP lasting as long as six years. Six years is one less year for Zombicide: Black Plague, and six years ago Arcadia Quest was published. But Masmorra, The Others, Rum and Bones 2nd, Massive Darkness, Godfather, Wrath of Kings, World of Smog, and their direct-to-retail titles, I can't see lasting 1-4 years longer. (Despite all hope, Wrath of Kings is no longer supported and can be found at clearance prices on Miniature Market. Rise of Moloch was not released retail and I still have to paint my set because the miniatures are awesome. I want a copy of Wacky Racers.)
Still, while $150 might be hard to commit, $1 isn't. Academic discussion is interesting and educational. Waiting for the PM still gives CMON a few months to provide an explanation to their backers.
CMON is likely to lose at least roughly two months worth of retail sales due to lockdown. If you already owe people a lot, that can be pretty destabilizing.
It is worth noting that CMON is doing their accounting as though they owe KS backers something... Which they don't in some technical sense because you're funding a project with zero protection, not buying something.
It is worth noting that CMON is doing their accounting as though they owe KS backers something... Which they don't in some technical sense because you're funding a project with zero protection, not buying something.
Well, yes and no, it seems to me. (I'm not an accountant/financial guy -- just trying to absorb the information they are offering here.) It's true, kickstarter funds would not be a liability in the strictest sense of the word, since they don't obligate eventual payment.... unless a firm wants to put the funded product on the market. Which CMON has to do, does it not, both to continue earning revenue and continue growth? Once the product is put on the market, kickstarter funds do become an obligation and a stricter liability. Failure to deliver would eventually undermine the prospect of future KS offerings. At which point, CMON's business model breaks down.
I wouldn't call myself a CMON fanboy, but all my instincts tell me it's a lot of hand-wringing over what will prove to be nothing. Their explanation came across as un-panicked, the potential red flags are all very vague for supposedly being concerns that'll tank the company inside a year, and being the internet, even for experts it isn't much fun for your take to just boringly state that there's probably nothing to see here, when you can magnify unlikely concerns into something more interesting, because they do have a greater than 0% chance of coming true after all.
CMON might eventually fold, but they're hardly acting like a company desperate to get their head above water. I'm in on a $1 for Ankh, I just don't know that I want it, or will really play it/make use of the minis in other games.
It is worth noting that CMON is doing their accounting as though they owe KS backers something... Which they don't in some technical sense because you're funding a project with zero protection, not buying something.
Well, yes and no, it seems to me. (I'm not an accountant/financial guy -- just trying to absorb the information they are offering here.) It's true, kickstarter funds would not be a liability in the strictest sense of the word, since they don't obligate eventual payment.... unless a firm wants to put the funded product on the market. Which CMON has to do, does it not, both to continue earning revenue and continue growth? Once the product is put on the market, kickstarter funds do become an obligation and a stricter liability. Failure to deliver would eventually undermine the prospect of future KS offerings. At which point, CMON's business model breaks down.
100% this. I'm getting pretty sick of iterations of "[x company] (technically) doesn't own [y consumers] anything." While there might be technical truth to these claims, hobby (i.e. luxury in the general sense) companies' futures rely on customers who are willing to pay: everything that undermines that relationship, whether it's making a product customers feel was poorly designed, charging something customers feel is unreasonable, or disappearing with their money, whether or not they're legal obligations in the strict sense doesn't mean they're not necessary for sustaining their business.
I've put $100 in. I've backed three CMON KS and been very very happy with the results. For me that's more important than technical accounting issues.
All that said I am fully expecting the breakdown of the entire economic system sooner or later anyway, what with yer covids, yer ecological crisis, yer climate crisis, and all the rest. So I figure that sooner or later it all comes tumbling down and probably I miss out on around $300 to $500 worth of Kickstarters, but I am hedging my bets by spending at least as much on tinned beans and bottles of single malt whisky.
Quite impressed that Adrian Smith turned Medjed from a Gondola into the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth.
And the long anticipated playmat is a welcome edition, but blimey, not sure if it being bigger than the Blood Rage version is necessarily a good thing. Not by too much, thankfully, but getting closer to the point of impracticality (with my table, at least, YMMV)
Tim the Biovore wrote: And the long anticipated playmat is a welcome edition, but blimey, not sure if it being bigger than the Blood Rage version is necessarily a good thing. Not by too much, thankfully, but getting closer to the point of impracticality (with my table, at least, YMMV)
Yea, I didn't auto-add $30 because I need to measure my tables first
New Guardians expansion is quite a mixed bag. Ammit and Shezmu are great sculpts, but the other three are quite poor.
Pazuzu is particularly egregious, because you'd think if they were going to the trouble to add a mythological figure from a different culture, the least they could do to justify it is Rule of Cool.
Am-Heh would be fine if not for those mawed tentacles. As much as I admire him as an artist, I really do tire of Adrian Smith's defaulting to adding mouths and tentacles and mouthed tentacles to things (I'll look the other way with the snakes in Ammit's mouth on the quality of the rest of her)
For $45 the Pharaoh expansion Optional Buy, available in both English and French (estimated to later hit retail at a $50 SRP), introduces a whole new dimension to Ankh: Gods of Egypt. This expansion brings the divine struggle closer to the world of men, and one man in particular: the Pharaoh of all Egypt! The gods will do well to send their priests into the royal palace in order to influence the affairs of the kingdom, manipulating the different offices in order to gain political advantage and steer the Pharaoh towards recognizing the ultimate divinity of the one true god. Your struggle may be divine, but if you fail to enforce your dominance over the human sphere of affairs, all that awaits you is oblivion.
Plus lots more about how it changes the game, looks like around political micromanagement and stuff. Hard pass from me on account of no gods
Depends what we compare it to, no? Could well be overpriced from a more general perspective, but Rising Sun's Dynasty Invasion was $50.
Of course, the main difference there is that Dynasty Invasion was the one gameplay addon in that campaign, and the Kami Unbound and additional monster expansions were included in the pledge, so Ankh definitely does end up being significantly more expensive by making all of them add-ons.
Dynasty Invasion also did double time, I guess, adding not just new Clans to play (which the Pantheon expansion does here) but also including their own unique gods mechanic comparable to the Kami Unbound expansion (free equivalent to the Pharaohs), so the $50 there covered the same as $95 here, with the extra $45 just covering cosmetic game pieces (albeit very nice ones).
Guardians expansion I'd personally just call straight up overpriced, given the second rate sculpts it contains plus Ammit as a sweetener.
From the start of the campaign you have clamored for him. As crocodile after crocodile went by, with Apep and then Ammit, you held out hope that the true Crocodile god would eventually show up. Well, your prayers have been answered, the lord of the Nile is upon us!
OH LAWD HE COMING
Once again we undertake the taunting task of unlocking a whole new Kickstarter Exclusive god. It takes a lot of components to bring a new god into Ankh: Gods of Egypt, so this endeavor will take us a few Stretch Goal to fully accomplish. Can we do this in this last week of the campaign? Stir the waters and let's bring the great crocodile into the fight for immortality!
We begin by summoning the might of the Nile himself, the great Sobek!
'Bout $180k to get there, but the bump from that Pharaoh expansion hasn't really hit yet, plus days left.
This campaign is getting dangerously close to “better to ask forgiveness” territory for me. If CMON didn’t have those financial red flags, it would be cinched already.
I’m somewhat surprised CMON included the Exorcist 2 homage Pazuzu but no ballet hippos and caped crocs? I am disappoint.
Those priest figures are cool, but it is another expansion I'll wait until retail for.
I do have to say, CMON really seems to be producing something pretty luxury. There are a lot of plastic tokens and unique sculpts in this one. I can't comment on the gameplay, but it seems suitably crunchy. I feel like this is really just Eric Lang being given carte blanche, which is no bad thing.
The game is just starting to look very lavish/premium.
Forgive me if this is a stupidly obvious question, but as I've never backed a Kickstarter before, what risks are there to backing one of these? I really want to go all-in on this thing as they seem to have knocked it out of the park with these sculpts overall, but would it be foolish to do so?
Hard to say. The risk is always that you may not get any rewards from the creator. Only risk what you're willing to lose.
Until the audit, I would have said that you'd receive whatever you pledged for from CMON. Obviously, many backers still think so. I still think CMON is less risky than any First Created project.
Safest is to pledge $1 and wait for more information.
ced1106 wrote: Hard to say. The risk is always that you may not get any rewards from the creator. Only risk what you're willing to lose.
Until the audit, I would have said that you'd receive whatever you pledged for from CMON. Obviously, many backers still think so. I still think CMON is less risky than any First Created project.
Safest is to pledge $1 and wait for more information.
I'm still of the mindset that if CMoN really is in some horrible hidden finacial state that whoever buys them will still deliver on the KSers they hadn't finished. CMoN is a pretty big independent and it would cause a lot of bad press and really hurt whoever bought them's reputation with the boardgame community to do otherwise.
ced1106 wrote: Hard to say. The risk is always that you may not get any rewards from the creator. Only risk what you're willing to lose.
Until the audit, I would have said that you'd receive whatever you pledged for from CMON. Obviously, many backers still think so. I still think CMON is less risky than any First Created project.
Safest is to pledge $1 and wait for more information.
I'm still of the mindset that if CMoN really is in some horrible hidden finacial state that whoever buys them will still deliver on the KSers they hadn't finished. CMoN is a pretty big independent and it would cause a lot of bad press and really hurt whoever bought them's reputation with the boardgame community to do otherwise.
Don’t forget big names. All the names they brought together to be the core of the company have a lot ridding on its survival. If they do go out of business and don’t fulfill then anything they do later will be tarnished by their reputation. Not something good to have in a niche market.
I feel like backing the base game is the sweet spot right now. Lots of lovely KS-exclusive add-ons, but not a huge financial risk.
I find from a gameplay perspective that the base games in this series offer enough, anyway. None of the add-ons for Blood Rage actually made the game more fun, other than maybe the 5th player one. I've not bothered using any of the add-ons for Rising Sun yet because although it's also a great game, it's already a little more complex and time-consuming than BR. So I have a couple of boxes of RS add-ons that mostly sit on the shelf.
ZergSmasher wrote: Forgive me if this is a stupidly obvious question, but as I've never backed a Kickstarter before, what risks are there to backing one of these? I really want to go all-in on this thing as they seem to have knocked it out of the park with these sculpts overall, but would it be foolish to do so?
If you're not prepared to lose in a few years every single dollar you're pledging with no realistic recourse then you shouldn't pledge. That's general kickstarter advice though. By the time a kickstarter fails, you're generally outside of the year or so at best window most credit cards give you to dispute and it'll cost more money to file initially file a lawsuit than you'll ever get back if the company decides not to fulfill. The vast majority of the time your local and state governments will do nothing at all other than asking them for clarification as to what happens and taking their response at face value and that's only if alot of people in that state file complaints.
Now, with regards to CMON specifically, they've successfully completed many campaigns as frankly that is their core business model (at least in regards to bringing new product initially to market) but recently they've had *PRE-COVID* financial issues detailed earlier in this thread that were apparently only released because they're a publicly traded (?) company. Will that affect their ability to fulfill this and their multiple other still in various stages of production campaigns? Your guess is as good as mine and anyone else's. Additionally, we have no idea how the current pandemic will or won't affect them. My advice as someone who has admittedly never backed a CMON project but who has been burned by another company's big kickstarter as my first crowdfunding campaign is to punt. Pledge a single dollar and then drag it out until they close the pledge manager 6+ months from now as IIRC from posts in CMON threads they usually let you up your pledge level there. Wait and see whether their multiple other projects start sliding further and further back before deciding. As always with internet opinions,
Oh so I can pledge $1 and increase it later? I'm assuming I'll have more information or something later, like do they give updates on the status of KS projects or something? As I said before, this would be my first KS.
Also the main reason I'd be doing this is for the models; the game looks okay but I absolutely love the miniatures, especially the gods.
They tend to put out updates on all their projects. Theoretically, we should have a better idea about their capacity to deliver before the pledge manager closes. Besides maybe Reaper, CMON has been the most consistent and reliable tabletop/miniature KS company.
Automatically Appended Next Post: ...Of course, they are all cold hearted jerks who created CMON from the ashes of a previous company that lost a lot of customers’ money, so you should take the worst interpretation of their actions as the most likely to be true when you consider the risk of going all-in.
...Of course, they are all cold hearted jerks who created CMON from the ashes of a previous company that lost a lot of customers’ money, so you should take the worst interpretation of their actions as the most likely to be true when you consider the risk of going all-in.
Yeah, there is that. I alluded to it earlier in the thread but it deserves a mention every once in a while. CMON really did seem like they changed their ways since the implosion of newwave's gaming webstore and we, in all fairness, haven't seen anything yet to the contrary. It's just the risk of history repeating itself rather than any actual evidence that it's happening though but important to know nonetheless when someone is literally asking about the potential risks.
ZergSmasher wrote: Oh so I can pledge $1 and increase it later? I'm assuming I'll have more information or something later, like do they give updates on the status of KS projects or something?
Yep! Pledge $1. I doubt CMON will say anything that doesn't portray them favorably. I would still say check on the links to BGG and other sites I posted earlier, and filter for statements made by accountants and auditors.
To be fair, or at least consistent, the audit concerns for CMON are only known because CMON is publicly traded. Most creators are private, so would be able to hide the problem from the public. (What was the reason CMON went public, anyway?)
Next KS will be CMON comics volume 1 but will also include new minis and rules for their various games
I think they need to hold off and deliver on some of the outstanding KS launching KS after KS isn’t helping with the perception that they need money and a comics KS with a few minis that were probably already designed is a fairly low investment higher return for them.
The Comics announcement has me guessing the Rising Sun one didn't sell well enough for the publisher and the line was dropped and CMoN decided to go to their old standby which is FOMO.
Speaking of FOMO my Timemachine pledge finally arrived and I have my long sought after Ragnarok pack for Bloodrage.
It's too bad they went with another little girl character for Death May Die. There is already one in the core box. Would have been fun to see a Boy Scout or something to balance out the genders of playable child characters.
The Zombicide Invader guy looks good and chunky, which will make him look much better than all the other Invader sculpts.
Well the Starcadia Quest one sold well enough for them to put out a graphic novel/single volume compilation
they were fun, but 3 issues of a comic don't lend themselves to any sort of complex story, and i'm guessing these will have even less space to play with
interesting that they're doing these all by themselves without an comics partner..... is it because they want all of the pie, or because the partners just don't see any margin in it?
Probably both. Doubt there's a very high margin on comics and CMoN isn't using them to market something as opposed to trying to tap into existing players so it makes more sense to sell themselves as why have the partner and comic shops take a cut? The comic label probably didn't really sell enough to justify making more or offered CMoN a deal for the second round that was less favorable due to sales that could have been good but not as good as they were hoping.
Cynical me says they do it because they do not have enouph content (or want to invest) for even a minor expansion and they cannot at their level make a KS for just "a few minis" without creating panic, while they can mask it as a comic KS with a few minis as a "bonus" to the backers, in this case they do not care for a comic division or distribution.
PsychoticStorm wrote: Cynical me says they do it because they do not have enouph content (or want to invest) for even a minor expansion and they cannot at their level make a KS for just "a few minis" without creating panic, while they can mask it as a comic KS with a few minis as a "bonus" to the backers, in this case they do not care for a comic division or distribution.
I think you're partly right PsychticStorm.
We know they have some financial issues and need other ways to bring in money that don't have a long turn around and would count as debt and the comics would be a good way to do that by slapping in some game content that's went unused during the original KSer. Oddly though having plastic minis attached to this would do just that so I wonder if they're going to be resin to do a quick turnaround.
I got word that my time machine order has shipped, so they should be moving that one out of the liabilities column before too long.
That does make me more likely to put more than a dollar into Ankh.
We love CMON Expo, and were very sorry to have to cancel it this year. We love the chance to interact with our friends and fans, discuss current and future projects, play together...
So we decided to create a con experience like we have never done before. We introduce you to CMON Virtual Expo!
Our Virtual Expo will be held at the CMON Expo Facebook page, so make sure to follow it if you don't want to miss anything!
Panels, contests, painting, prizes, announcements, and lots of surprises! Check this space or over at the CMON Expo page for more exciting updates as the final schedule is revealed this week!
Dang, a year too late as they've now sold off all the KS bits and pieces they had left over via the Time Machine that people outside the US would normally not be able to get.
but still interesting to see what they've got coming up (and whether we hear anything about that audit being resolved)
I've been trying without any success to preorder some of those unsullied swordmasters. I tried the FLGS, I've tried various online retailers and I can't even put in a pre-order anywhere...
In other news, I'm happy to see Baratheon get some releases that will hopefully make them more competitive. Rose Knights look awesome.
It is too bad the Bloody Mummers Zhorse riders don't have engraved stripes to make painting them easier, but at least they are pretty characterful
Nostromodamus wrote: I’d be happier if they made their current product line actually available.
Yeah, they are really struggling to keep up with demand.
They are also apparently really struggling with basic logistics as well!
I didn't watch the open day, but supposedly there is some changes coming to distribution (I think Asmodee is dropping Alliance and going to self distribution??? Shinall is supposed to have said something about it during the virtual panels.)
I have had interest in this game for so long, but Im shocked at CMON's apparent incompetence, to the point that I kinda just forget about them for months at a time. How can you run a miniatures game and not have pictures for half your units on your website??? Why does it take a year and a half for models you show off to come out? How can you have such a shortage of these relatively cheap miniatures? I enjoy the game from the few times Ive played it but damn, get it together. Stuff like this really cements GW as being THE miniatures company regardless of any bullgak they do from time to time.
CMON’s assets and flaws aside, GW is unique in the industry in that they control their entire development and production cycle. Nearly everyone else has to outsource significant portions of that cycle, making them very vulnerable to disruption at various stages for various reasons. Many of these companies, whose products we enjoy, are really just developers, who control no portion of the production after they develop a new game. It’s amazing the industry churns on as well as it does.
Pretty much this. CMoN has to have everything manufactured in China which means estimating demand, reserving factory time (that has to be done many months in advance), shipping things across the world and if they underestimate start over again. That non-plastics or GW really don't have to deal with. I wouldn't be surprised to hear it take 4 or more months to get something reprinted and shipped then off to the distributors.
Privateer Press had the opposite problem CMoN had when they did some HIPS kits that ended up not moving and they sat on them for years due to lack of demand. To companies having stock you can't sell is worse then no stock to sell.
I'd be very sceptical that Asdmodee moving to self distribution rather than using Alliance will make any difference,
after all they don't use Alliance in the EU/UK and the ASoIF is pretty much unavailable over here other than maybe half a dozen boxes that turn up 3 or 4 months late after every release cycle (even major stores that have been promised stock almost always end up shorted or with nothing)
AduroT wrote: Did I miss a resolution to that late audit thing or is that still an ongoing issue?
Nope still ongoing, but buying something that is in stock at a retailer is much different risk profile than funding a Kickstarter that is two years from delivering. Also less risky to preorder something that is ostensibly only a month or two from release and likely already on a boat somewhere.
How odd, were the Unsullied Swordsmen and Zorse Riders previewed? They have been available in the UK for at least a month. To the point that I have already painted up the Unsullied.
ListenToMeWarriors wrote: How odd, were the Unsullied Swordsmen and Zorse Riders previewed? They have been available in the UK for at least a month. To the point that I have already painted up the Unsullied.
Ahh missed that! Might have to get some then to join my Dothraki on the waiting to give to my painter pile (mountain)
Gallahad wrote: I've been trying without any success to preorder some of those unsullied swordmasters. I tried the FLGS, I've tried various online retailers and I can't even put in a pre-order anywhere...
In other news, I'm happy to see Baratheon get some releases that will hopefully make them more competitive. Rose Knights look awesome.
It is too bad the Bloody Mummers Zhorse riders don't have engraved stripes to make painting them easier, but at least they are pretty characterful
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