Dust Tactics Legal action from Dust studios against Battlefront?

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**warboss**

There has to be more going on behind the scenes. Battlefront may be greedy (owning from their start as IIRC ex-GW employees using that gold standard) in certain things but I really doubt they'd set up a kickstarter for a brand they just picked up only to defraud all those customers.

**warboss**

Crimson Devil wrote:
Normally, the first thing a lawyer tells their client is to keep quiet. So we may never know the real story of what happened. Does anyone know why DS stopped working with FFG?

My guess is that is has to do with their buyout/merger announced as well as them focusing more on internal properties as well as the biggest money maker they have (their Star Wars license). To be honest, I'm not sure FFG will end up renewing their 40k license when it comes up next as it seems like they're wrapping up all but one of the RPGs. In any case, I agree that BF is likely keeping quiet for their own benefit at the advice of their legal counsel and to the detriment of the players who paid them. Didn't they post a few months back that the Dust license is only a small portion of their total business and in effect they're doing it more as a labor of love or somesuch? They may have decided that it just isn't worth it after all with the terms that FFG apparently has to exclusively sell what they have in stock first before BF gets a crack at it.

**warboss**

I'm sure it is hard for Dust Studios to remain "professional" like Battlefront when the former has to shoulder all the costs of production and the latter has all the money collected. Also, this game is just (according to BF) just a drop in the bucket for them whereas it is the bread and butter of DS.

**warboss**

wildger wrote:
I have a very bad feeling about this. I simply hope that Dust will not end up with the same fate as AT-43.

With the way this is going, it probably won't end up far from it. The FFG sale last november at 75% off reminded me of AT-43 and ironically the fact that I've never used any of the AT-43 stuff they sold at that discount is why I didn't order any Dust stuff at the same. Dust probably won't completely go belly up but will likely turn into a direct order from the manufacturer boutique game like Heavy Gear that almost no one carries.

**warboss**

Twelvecarpileup wrote:
I went in on this with a friend... paid on Friday... two hours before all this stuff went down. Damn't.

Now if you're wondering why I'm paying now: I have been emailing them for six months begging for them to send me the invoice... I finally got it Thursday, paid it Friday.

I did two swaps. It took them six months to confirm two items being swapped.

Although to be fair, they only responded once every three months.

So yeah... not really going to take BF's side on this.

A lot of people are forgetting the months that BF would not post updates or respond to emails... this Kickstarter has been kind of a mess.

If you just paid right now, the funds are still in their account. Get your money back immediately whether through paypal or your credit card.

**warboss**

Shandara wrote:
Sining wrote:
Yeah. That's your attitude towards KS though, not everybody's.

It's the best way to treat them though. Rather than seeing KS as a store where you pre-order.

If that is how the majority of tabletop game KS were presented by creators as well as pledged on by the public, I suspect we'd have only a small handful that would crack the 6 figure mark.

**warboss**

Daston wrote:
This all sounds very strange.

My dealings with BF have been very good any issues I have had with FoW products have been dealt with quickly and professionally. I was just starting to warm to a company that cares about their community (after GW pretty much said piss off to everyone) and then they go do something like this!

Lets just hope they sort it out quickly and everyone moves on.

From almost all the reports about GW customer service (other than during the peak of "fine"cast issues) I've seen, they're top notch just like you're describing for BF. BF also takes their cues from GW in regards to how they bully retailers into not giving discounts as well as mandating their own models in events. As a newer company that IIRC was started by ex-GW employees, they're basically a snap shot of GW in the mid to late 1990's.

**warboss**

Shotgun wrote:
SeanDrake wrote:
I don't know, given how aggressively DS attacked this that's normally a sign of weakness.

There rousing the rabble when if it was a simple case of them being in the right they would have been rousing the lawyers.

There guessing that BF will cave to public pressure as a last gamble while burning there bridges.

There's no way Dust recovers from this they salted the earth and no other distrubitor is going to touch them. Also the amount of cheap stock ffg dropped will not help either. At best it's going to survive as a cult product.

This was my take as well. If you have a clear example of failure to honor a contract, you let your attorney's handle it and move forward. Instead you stick it out in social media hoping that public pressure will get you where legal avenues have failed? It certainly doesn't seem like that is how you would negotiate from strength.

I'd suspect that it is due to the relative lack of power. BF is the big dog and has the money whereas DS has had to shoulder the costs without apparent payment. Going public is "free" whereas depending on legal avenues isn't.

**warboss**

Duncan_Idaho wrote:

Going public first the way DS did in nearly 99% of all cases means that your legal position is quite shaky and that you try to sway the public your way to create pressure.

Can you post a link to proof of that? Otherwise, I'll lump it in with Abraham Lincoln's famous quote about 98% of everything posted on the internet being inaccurate. That number isn't close to what I've seen anecdotally which is likely as the same source as the one you used.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrookM wrote:
I'm curious as to whether or not Dust will survive. How many people have actually joined this "Dust Elites" club?

No idea but I suspect it'll become an order from Dust only niche game that almost no store will stock since they have to place a separate order.

**warboss**

If you read the kickstarter comments, folks are getting small partial orders with varying levels of stuff listed as out of stock (yet still available for sale on their site direct). Did the invoice state exactly what will be shipped and/or what wasn't or was it an invoice just for the order itself?

**warboss**

So battlefield ran that site? If so, I guess they're playing public hardball now beyond just keeping quiet and shipping nothing while not giving refunds.

**warboss**

CaulynDarr wrote:

Ok, looked up what a Factor bank was. It's a bank you sell your accounts receivable to(usually at a discount). So it looks like BF sent an invoice with orders for wave 9 to DS, who then sold that invoice to a factor bank for cash right away. I don't know if that is a standard thing companies do, but if maybe BF wasn't expecting that, I could see that as a cause for friction in their business relationship.

I suspect the bigger cause of friction would be BF receiving $200,000 worth of merchandise and promising to pay within 3 months only to still have an outstanding bill for the amount 7 months later... and then robbing peter to pay paul (breaking their word yet again via their kickstarter terms) and then not having enough yet again to pay for models. At least this time to their credit, DS didn't just fork over the models on a promise to pay but wants the money upfront.

**warboss**

This may even be Paulo's only choice. There is obviously a third party (the Chinese guy whose name escapes me who is listed as the head of the Studio that makes the minis). Do we know if Paulo licensed the name to the company or if he is the owner? If the former, he has no power beyond pleading to make the factory owner produce the minis for free for a company that has repeatedly not wanted to pay for what they "buy". Going public may be the only thing he can do to try and salvage his game's reputation. Battlefront has said that dust sales are a minor concern to them in the big picture and who knows what % of production dust is for the factory that makes them. Paulo's image and his creation is shouldering the biggest risk in all of this so I can't fault him for doing what he can inbetween a rock and a hard place.

**warboss**

BrookM wrote:
Dust is dead. Makes me wonder how long the roleplaying game by Modipus will last before it vanishes.

Maybe that's what the two folks on the cover are contemplating as they stare off into the distance...

**warboss**

BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Besides, the backstory is horribly unrealistic. I mean Nazi Gorillas? That's just stupid. Gorillas are noble animals with pure hearts; only chimpanzees and baboons would fight for the nazis.

Clearly, you've never seen any of the Planet of the Apes movies... or you ARE one of those damn dirty gorilla apes typing with your stinkin' paws!?!

**warboss**

Vertrucio wrote:
And let's be very honest here. The world won't mourn the loss of Dust, because Dust was never really a unique thing to begin with. It's a game made of tired pulp WWII tropes.

I don't know about that. For me at least, it was the best realized pulp scifi WW2 universe in tabletop gaming both in art and models. Gear Krieg was the first I encountered almost 20 years ago and then there was incursion and one other one nicely done one whose name escapes me at the moment (the one with the Pauli-Girl meets Gestapo cover girl).

**warboss**

Theophony wrote:
warboss wrote:
Vertrucio wrote:
And let's be very honest here. The world won't mourn the loss of Dust, because Dust was never really a unique thing to begin with. It's a game made of tired pulp WWII tropes.

I don't know about that. For me at least, it was the best realized pulp scifi WW2 universe in tabletop gaming both in art and models. Gear Krieg was the first I encountered almost 20 years ago and then there was incursion and one other one nicely done one whose name escapes me at the moment (the one with the Pauli-Girl meets Gestapo cover girl).

Tannhauser?

Yup, that's the one I was thinking of whose name was on the tip of my tongue (or fingers in this case).

BrookM wrote:Tannhauser had WWI as its backdrop.

That I didn't know. I guess it would be a better example of tired world war pulp if it at first glance didn't strike me as the OTHER world war.

**warboss**

If we use Palladium games as the gold standard of uniqueness, we've got a long way to go. You can play a whale who learned how to fly fish in Rifts.

**warboss**

Shotgun wrote:
warboss wrote:
If we use Palladium games as the gold standard of uniqueness, we've got a long way to go. You can play a whale who learned how to fly fish in Rifts.

But do they make a model for it?

Nope, you'd have to scratch build it from an aquarium model kitbashed with scifi weapons (like the ubiquitous underwater dorsal laser seen frequently on shark characters). I had hopes that Dina Walker would cover this niche in her excellent series of kickstarters but that hasn't happened yet. I guess you could independently get a 4th grader to sculpt it out of play doe but I'd rather pay someone else to get a child to do that professionally. Fingers crossed!

**warboss**

The two companies need to just forget about the freebies until AFTER battlefront pays for wave 2 and DS ships it out to them. BF never should have used almost half the money to pay outstanding debts against the KS terms according to the contract posted. If they want to duke it out regarding the freebies, do so without screwing the customers out of the stuff that is paid for and not in contention. Both companies are playing hardball and always have been without much thought for the folks that pledged. In the end, each of the 5,000 individual KS contracts are with Battlefront USA and not the chinese DS so they're ultimately on the hook.

**warboss**

BrookM wrote:
Could Dust Studios finally be going the way of Rackham?

Is that the gaming industry equivalent of a scarlet letter?

**warboss**

BrookM wrote:
Just like Jean, Paolo is an idea guy, not a chap to put in charge.

Apparently he isn't.

**warboss**

nkelsch wrote:
Has anyone seen this? Is this relevant?
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/were-millers-director-tackling-adaptation-778963?mobile_redirect=false

If a Hollywood movie is being made, seems like that is relevant to a monetary dispute over 200kish dollars.

(or am I confusing the brands?)

Same brand but it sounds like it has nothing to do with battlefront beyond the same licensor. He likely kept the movie and novel rights to himself independent of the tabletop game ones. I would however have expected battlefront to know that such a deal was in the works though and if that were the case I'm sure they'd be hoping for a bump in sales once it came out or even possibly was announced. A popular movie drives tabletop game sales (see GW's LOTR trilogy minis bump and subsequent slump after the movies were done).

**warboss**

KalashnikovMarine wrote:
http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=4814

So this certainly doesn't sound like a gaming company that's on shaking financial grounds. Major expansions for all their lines, and two lines that players have been screaming for since the dawn of time.

Why are they talking about the "new" open fire having plastic firefly and stug models in 2015? I thought they've had that for a while.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=354

Did they redesign the sprues even though the set just came out early/mid 2014?

Also, I don't recall the exact date of paulo first informing the community of secret issues with this kickstarter (this thread starts on 1/30/2015) but that state of the union post doesn't mention DUST. It seems like they had written off DUST from their 2015 plans well before Paulo spilled the beans. The date on the post is "Last Updated On Monday, January 01, 0001 by James at Battlefront". I assume the 0001 is a typo but it does call into question the rest of the date; generally, these types of posts happen in early january though.

**warboss**

Ghaz wrote:
warboss wrote:
Why are they talking about the "new" open fire having plastic firefly and stug models in 2015? I thought they've had that for a while.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=354

Did they redesign the sprues even though the set just came out early/mid 2014?

Yes, they're using the new plastic Sherman V and the new plastic StuG G instead of the old pre-CAD sculpts that were originally in the set.

You might also want to check your dates. The current edition of Flames of War (v 3) was released in 2011, not 2014.

While I appreciate you trying to answer my question, you might also want to recheck my post. I was referring to the open fire starter set by name that came out last year and never once mentioned the edition of the rules.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Krinsath wrote:

That's the Flames of War State of the Union, so not mentioning Dust is of no surprise. Battlefront has many brands that are segmented off from each other, such as none of the board games they move being mentioned either (and the board games sell MORE than FoW if BF's statements and focus in marketing at covnentions is to be taken as indicative). That's a simple case of "This is the Flames of War site, so we're going to talk about Flames of War" and has nothing to do with Dust.

The timing is simply late, as he talks about products already released in the past tense properly. The rest of things you're seeing is colored by your mistaken belief that BF has a fully staffed tech group who's making sure things actually are correct on their website and being diligent. Spoiler alert: they don't. That'd be a basic operations thing, so of course they're kind of bad at it.

The Open Fire vehicles in the original set circa 2012 were terrible. They were hand-sculpted models that they tried to turn into plastic with pretty lackluster results. The StuGs are passable, but the Shermans are awful and require gap-filling and far too much energy to assemble. If that was your exposure to BF plastics, you'd buy nothing but PSC from that point forward; they're that bad. The re-package includes those new kits from 2014 which are categorically superior (they switched to CAD models in the interim). They're also doing a slew of 2-tank boxes, which in another show of "really?" are the same price for 3x2-box tanks as it is for a 5-tank box (based on the WarStore's pre-order page). I'm assuming those 2-tank boxes are limited or missing something like decals, but again that's one of those head-scratching "WTF?" kind of things.

Seriously, remembering Hanlon's Razor is VERY important when dealing with BF.

Thanks for the clarification. I was looking at it from a GW and FFG standpoint where all the brands are under a single url and not segmented and compartmentalized. I would argue though that it is not written in the past tense. The start the "state of the union" with Nachtjager which IIRC came out this year

We started the year with a new Late-war book, Nachtjäger, released in mid February,

so clearly referring to 2015 (as the preamble to the state of the union indicates)

Spoiler:

and follow that up with

The end of March sees our updated version of Open Fire! hit the shelves.

which is not past tense. They segway directly from mid february commentary to end of march but apparently switched the year somewhere in between. If that is unfortunately the level of detail that Battlefront devotes to their flagship line's state of the union post, it's no wonder they might have issues with things like paying bills on time, contracts, and getting stuff out the door and onto shelves consistently.

**warboss**

Ghaz wrote:
And again, Open Fire did not come out last year. It was released for the third edition of the game that came out in 2011 and the latest that Open Fire would have been released was 2012.

EDIT: Here's a link to an Open Fire unboxing on YouTube from 2012, two years before you said it was released.

We're all referring to the updated open fire that was released last year which you seem to be completely unaware of.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=3543

The post and all the unboxing videos from the community are from summer of 2014. That is the open fire version we're (battlefront, myself, krisanth, etc) talking about.

**warboss**

Duncan_Idaho wrote:
Tell me about burning bridges with local distributors... the KS was exactly this.

For Battlefront, Dust Studios, or both?

**warboss**

Battlefront should just pay for the rest of the wave 2 items not in dispute that pledgers deserve and not a penny more and Dust should ship them since they'll already made... and then the two of them could fight it out for the freebies that we all know no one will ever get at this point.

**warboss**

My local store is as well but they boat a truckload (literally) when FFG had their 75% off sale and they're passing on the savings at least partly. Ironically, the super sale has actually created a small game scene amongst the bolt action crowd where none existed previously for Dust.

**warboss**

You sold your stuff for the most part a while back, right? I ask only because I vaguely remember posting in that thread that I thought (incorrectly) that 15mm Dust would be coming out soon. Unfortunately, the actual future was even dimmer than that prediction.