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Marie Claude is currently working on 2 large trophy swords for them for their Gencon painting contest so you know our money is being well spent

She's making 2 more of these - sword from last year.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
What was their GenCon presence like? Some of us have never been.

I was morbidly looking forward to their models for this year, especially the Relic Knight ones.

I'm like thiiiiiiiiiiis close to actually ordering one if it's reasonably priced.

They had 8 to 10 booths last year and the year before, which works out to $25k? Lots of staff, hotel, flights, booth fixtures etc, plus shipping inventory to the show. I'd guesstimate maybe $50k to $75k to attend the show - I'd be surprised if they made that back in sales, so it's definitely a cost center. And they attended multiple shows a year up till 2017. Say, 6 shows a year, $30k average attendance, works out to at least $180k. And they've been doing this since at least 2014, so look at blowing over half a million flying people around to basically party at cons.

This company has always struck me as a bit of a cargo cult, copying what successful companies are doing without really understanding they're copying the symptoms of success, and not the actual causes. For example, a large convention presence is an indication there's a great demand for games and engagement with the company - a large con presence doesn't create it.

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
They obviously blew the cash from this so somehow multiple smaller, delivered, KS are going to fund production of the biggest one. That's math deserving of a politician.......

This sounds very much like a "Ponzi-scheme", though it might not be intentionally fraudulent and more caused by mismanagement. Simply pay back some of the backers to keep the faith of most of the community to make them buy further stuff without refunding/providing some customers.

Ninja Divison announces they will use a partner shell company to launch a new KS for miniatures while still not full-filling past KS's miniature obligations.

https://ninjadivision.com/info/news/article/super-dungeon-novel-series-by-future-house-publishing

Poor Future House Publishing. I wouldn't be surprised if FHP was completely innocent in wanting to kickstart a Super Dungeon novel series, but having the SDE label on a Kickstarter right now is bad news.


To be fair, they have started sending out Starfinder miniatures (they're delivering in waves). I'm not sure if everyone has received their stuff for wave 1 there, but we know that at least some have.

I agree that they seem to be aping the symptoms of success quite a bit. Now, to be fair, Super Dungeon Explore was a big hit- it was CMON's biggest game back in the day (although it is clear that other CMON games have surpassed it at this point).

They shouldn't have gotten themselves in a fix where they can't afford to deliver their Kickstarters, but a lot of their statements make me think that they're actually trying to get themselves out of it.

I certainly hope that some of their other endeavors are successful enough to pay for their mistakes. It did work for Kingdom Death.

nkelsch wrote:
Ninja Divison announces they will use a partner shell company to launch a new KS for miniatures while still not full-filling past KS's miniature obligations.

https://ninjadivision.com/info/news/article/super-dungeon-novel-series-by-future-house-publishing

Even a cursory look would have shown this isn't a shell company but a genuine independent entity

now whether they're smart to bolt LE minis onto their book KS with Sodapop making them?

I think it's a mistake as there clearly is a bottleneck in resin production (capacity or cash?) and will no doubt end up dragging on longer than expected, but that's down to them

As of Nov. 2018, the KS is dead, as confirmed by SPM/ND's response to an Attorney General inquiry:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Iu7HOs3mkd6GCve9LqHT_9Q5rdghW5xY/view?fbclid=IwAR1SrieVM5rhAhunIeGZwzPbJFhZoeCjdqba4p4MZ5v9-Sif819MYxQHXQ8

Based on this, the rational conclusion is that there will be no rewards, no refunds, nothing.

At this point, one may imagine that SPM/ND will be trying to pull a Maelstrom -> Miece trick, or else washing their hands like Kevin did with Robotech RPG Tactics.

If I had funds outstanding, I would strongly consider writing to my AG and pushing for fraud charges to be filed, based on SPM misrepresenting the facts of the situation and denying me my ability to seek the refunds that they had promised. While you won't be able to get the money back, you can certainly push for jail time.

Wait. Maelstrom became Mierce? I thought they became CMON..?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Wait. Maelstrom became Mierce? I thought they became CMON..?

There's a more detaled thread gets into the whole thing behind:
* Maelstrom Games
* Simple Games
* Wayland Games
* Mierce Miniatures
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/615473.page


CMoN appears to have been aboveboard as far as a I can tell.

CMON was New Wave Games and have their own dodgy past. David Doust is connected to both. So they aren’t whiter than white but have rebuilt their reputation to the point most people don’t know or have forgotten about New Waves dodgy dealings.

On Topic there’s no way ND/SPM is digging themselves out of that $750,000 hole. It’s much as they’ve acknowledged they can’t raise that money without new sales but they’ve burnt their core support through the KS so can’t generate sales from them.

The only realistic options are they sell up but a new buyer is under no obligation to fulfil the KS or the manufacturer does Arcade on credit but how much would subsequent sales of that raise? Probably not enough to put a dent in the $750k and they’d have to fulfil KS backers orders for that if it’s been produced to meet KS terms of service.

I see those toxic backers are still getting some of the blame. I’d say it’s a very small vocal minority. No one should ever be subjected to intimidation or threats but it’s not the backers who mismanaged this.

They’ve badly mismanaged this Id hate to see anyone lose their home but the directors need to be struck off and barred from acting as directors for a number of years as they can’t manage their finances or company.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


At this point, one may imagine that SPM/ND will be trying to pull a Maelstrom -> Miece trick, or else washing their hands like Kevin did with Robotech RPG Tactics.

Or try a Megacon/Myth scenario, where they 'sell' the IP to a new company, who fulfills the KS and then has a shiny new retail IP. I suspect if backers got their pledges, the SDE IP would still hold value. It seems to have worked for MYTH (the delivery of all the paper components so people can begin playing went over REALLY well...)

 odinsgrandson wrote:

I agree that they seem to be aping the symptoms of success quite a bit. Now, to be fair, Super Dungeon Explore was a big hit- it was CMON's biggest game back in the day (although it is clear that other CMON games have surpassed it at this point).

Sodapop has always been a company of great artists and ideas that don't really know how to translate that into a gameplay experience. Their games have never been strong enough to build up a reputation to keep people invested in their products beyond the initial pitch. It's kind of a shame on that, because Justin Gibbs gave them just the kind of guy they needed. I've actually been rather impressed with Relic Knights 2.0 (didn't back it, but someone who did convinced me to finally build by 1.0 stuff and give it a try). Sadly, without him even if 2.0 sees release, I can't see that ship staying on course for long or doing anything to make up for the first edition's abysmal reputation, particularly after this.

Pretty bummed about SDE. Saved off the beta stuff which is worth playing at least for the same reason I mentioned above. Disappointed. Not really surprised. Just.... disappointed.

 LunarSol wrote:
It's kind of a shame on that, because Justin Gibbs gave them just the kind of guy they needed.

Agree. Justin was a huge asset, and I hope he can stick with the industry as I think he would make a good designer for someone else. The problem is... if you kept Justin... What was the point of Deke? Deke's track record was abysmal with rules, basic probabilities and balance and he didn't take feedback. Kinda hard to replace the head rules guy when he is an owner of the company.

If someone hears of a project or company Justin moves to, please share it here. I would really like to watch his future projects.

well, in all fairness, we all know that KS is not a 100% guaranteed thing to happend, you support an idea that MAY be turned into reality.
if you want 100% guaranteed, dont buy non released games/gaming products.

we only assumed that it was 100% guaranteed cuz the 2 prev games was.

However, you get no other collateral for your interest free loan. So it is a pre order site, regardless of the advertising.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:
However, you get no other collateral for your interest free loan. So it is a pre order site, regardless of the advertising.

then you have completely misunderstood KS.
you give some random folks you money and HOPE you get something in return. THAT is kickstarter.
your biggest chanse of getting the money back is if the ks dont meet the goals. trying to get your money back after a project hits the goal and still cant deliver, is pointless.

think i have done about 14 KS. 2 of them are a complete no show(included sde:l) 7 of them was delayed/heavily delayed(2 months to over 1 year), rest was whitin 1 month of guessed delivery date.


this legends ks will never happend, simple as that. there is no cash to create the huge numbers of models we wished for.

 LunarSol wrote:

Sodapop has always been a company of great artists and ideas that don't really know how to translate that into a gameplay experience. Their games have never been strong enough to build up a reputation to keep people invested in their products beyond the initial pitch. It's kind of a shame on that, because Justin Gibbs gave them just the kind of guy they needed. I've actually been rather impressed with Relic Knights 2.0 (didn't back it, but someone who did convinced me to finally build by 1.0 stuff and give it a try). Sadly, without him even if 2.0 sees release, I can't see that ship staying on course for long or doing anything to make up for the first edition's abysmal reputation, particularly after this.

Considering the KS has had radio silence for the last three months, I'm not holding my breath on that. According to the August update, the starter set was ready, but they haven't dispatched them because [footage not found].

I suspect the company might be going under before too long, I just hope at least some of the product I paid for gets out the door before then, or someone else picks it up.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:

 Maniac_nmt wrote:
However, you get no other collateral for your interest free loan. So it is a pre order site, regardless of the advertising.

then you have completely misunderstood KS.
you give some random folks you money and HOPE you get something in return. THAT is kickstarter.
your biggest chanse of getting the money back is if the ks dont meet the goals. trying to get your money back after a project hits the goal and still cant deliver, is pointless.

think i have done about 14 KS. 2 of them are a complete no show(included sde:l) 7 of them was delayed/heavily delayed(2 months to over 1 year), rest was whitin 1 month of guessed delivery date.


this legends ks will never happend, simple as that. there is no cash to create the huge numbers of models we wished for.

I haven't misunderstood Kickstarter at all. Under any other 'loan' scenario, you get collateral. The bank requires you to show you can financially support a loan, they make you pay interest on said loan, or have you put items up as collateral. A venture capitalist gets stake in the company, have said company put up assets as collateral, gets rights to the idea if it falters, or other similar things.

Kickstarter is essentially, in function, ebay without the buyer protections. They get their money up front as a percentage of the kickstarter and then tell you 'you're on your own'. If it were truly 'help fund folks', why are they getting their money upfront and then abandoning ship?

This is why firms offer a discount or stretch goals. This is to entice you to give them your money by offering 'collateral'. However, short of external litigation when such a project does not deliver, there is no recourse. I've backed about 30 kickstarters in some fashion or another. At no point should I ever expect them to fail without the person running the kickstarter to have to pony something up. Otherwise I could just give random people on the street money and eliminate the middle man. Since kickstarter offers no other means of obtaining said collateral for my portion of the donation, it is, at the end of the day, a pre-order site.

A story for y’all.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article225610455.html

Therein lies a cautionary tale. Something I need to do with Titanomachina is create a print-and-play/MVP version, as I think part of what's killing a lot of these games even after a successful kickstarter is the cost of the all the components.

There's something for the cost of product; however, mostly, it's SPM being generally incompetent at managing. In terms of physical product, Legends was basically the same scope as Forgotten King, which they did an adequate job of delivering. That's why it got as much funding as FK did.

Where SPM fell apart was not actually doing any of the work that they were supposed to do, and then deciding to scrap all of the pre-KS work in favor of a series of "clean sheet" designs from their in-house "designer" who obviously doesn't know gak about designing games, holding delivery hostage because he can't design his way out of a wet paper bag. This because their "manager" won't ship product that isn't "perfect". Led by "executives" who have no real clue why their product was even purchased in the first place (it's the cute minis, stupid!).

Basically, total incompetence at every level.7

Then, when they hit a few snags, everything fell apart. Had they shipped anything at all, a Wave 1 a la Robotech, it would be far more excusable.

I was not even that interested in the Legends part of the KS. I just wanted the new version of the SDE (and the figures, naturally).

I wouldn't even mind if they scrapped the Legends and just delivered the SDE, Arcade and Pets boxes that are supposedly done and waiting for money to print them...

But yes, it's all gone...

 Col Hammer wrote:
I was not even that interested in the Legends part of the KS. I just wanted the new version of the SDE (and the figures, naturally).

Pretty much. Nobody was really pledging for Legends. Most just wanted the minis. Result is that nobody was happy.

I posted tht same article in dakka disc and I was directed here.

Looks like I have some reading to do.

The image that Dark Severance posted there though, should raise a bitter, vengeful smile from anyone stung by the Prodos Aliens vs Predator debacle... Seems someone is out a considerable sum...

Oh noes, Prodos is owed something they won’t get without resorting to legal action?

Welcome to the fething club.

*sniff*, *sniff*... smells like Karma to me!

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
The image that Dark Severance posted there though, should raise a bitter, vengeful smile from anyone stung by the Prodos Aliens vs Predator debacle... Seems someone is out a considerable sum...

Oh, hey, a new facebook page to join.

 Nostromodamus wrote:
Oh noes, Prodos is owed something they won’t get without resorting to legal action?

Welcome to the fething club.

*"Archon"

Didn't you see that they changed their name?

It turns out Archon got stung with a tax bill in Poland for the stock they are sitting on for ND/SPM that they haven’t been paid for which has put them under some financial pressure as well so they are now pursuing ND/SPM because of this which is why this has come out now.