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Just saw this on Facebook

Battlefront hasn't given the money from the kickstarter to Dust Studios - it appears lawyers are now involved and the word 'fraud' is being bandied around. There is an email posted on the campaign comments from Dust Studios. A raging gak storm has now taken hold as people realise their money has been spent on rock and roll and drugs.

In a nutshell, Battlefront took the money and skipped out on Dust Studios and all of the Kickstarter backers. Now lawyers are involved and there are a lot of PISSED backers. I truly hope the outcome is Battlefront's bankruptcy and dismantling.

Can anyone (Backers?) confirm this?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/duststudio/dust-operation-babylon/comments

This article gives a good recap of the events
http://www.somethingswrong.sg/2015/02/dust-operation-babylon-kickstarter.html

I find it rather hard to believe that a company like Battlefront would do something like this.

I don't know lots of angry post on Facebook and the Kickstarter comment page flying around

Not a whole lot to go on if you ask me. I mean, who was the one who first posted this? Someone from Studio Dust? Or someone of the "he said, she said, so this is the story" variety?

 BrookM wrote:
Not a whole lot to go on if you ask me. I mean, who was the one who first posted this? Someone from Studio Dust? Or someone of the "he said, she said, so this is the story" variety?

Original comment that outed Battlefront over this came via Paolo himself.

Link? Or a quote of the post? I'd love to see this.

Oh my... did not see this coming.

Oh dear. Lets hope they can fix this!

Call me a doomsayer, but when the project switched hands from FFG to BF, I had a gut feeling the game wouldn't last. It's AT-43 all over again.

The information provided in KS comments paints a bleak picture indeed.

First sign of trouble:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=844267578947811&id=268690999838808

This was posted to the Kickstarter comment section:

"Well Ladies and Gentlemen. I wrote to Dust Studios about the situation and the answer I received is not very encouraging. This is the letter just as I copied it from my email.

nfo@dustgame.com (info@dustgame.com) Add to contacts 12:48 AM
To: darkurth_2000@msn.com
info@dustgame.com
Hi Jeff,

What is happening is mostly unfortunate. We are truly sorry for that.
Dust Studio is only the manufacturer of the Babylon KS as you might already know.
We are suffering the same stress here, we have been producing all the models but we are not getting paid by Battlefront.
The only thing that we can do to protect our interests is to hold on the products until we get paid.
This of course means that we keep you waiting for them.
At the same time l want to suggest you to check with your Credit Card Company (I assume you paid by CC) .
They should be able to get your money back to you.
l suggest this because we are afraid to be victims of the same attempt of fraud here.
Our lawyers are working on the case, there will be an announcement as soon as they are ready.

Best regards,
Dust Studio"

Not to mention that threads over at dust-tactics.com forums are being locked with no response, and a handful of "all is well" updates are being posted to the main page.

Oh dear.

Maybe BF are sitting on the money until April for tax reasons!

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.

I'd wait and see what's going on perhaps the Dust guys aren't holding up their part of the contract or something

I'd fail to see why such a large and successful company as battlefront would actually do this and compromise their entire business

Who knows,

Maybe Battlefront is actually in trouble behind the scenes and the cash is (at least temporarily gone).. perhaps a big outstanding tax bill?

perhaps Dust promised to mop up all the old FFG stock (which has got to be killing BF in terms of selling kits) but instead it's ended up at the discounters

Maybe Dust Studios has not done something relating to the handover of the IP from FFG to BF

or the stuff they've produced so far does not meet the standards BF want (but since it's been made Dust expect to be paid anyway)

Perhaps one or the other is trying to change financial arrangements (BF wants a higher distributor diacount?, Dust wants lower discount or more royalties) after the fact and both are playing hard ball

but whatever happens I suspect it's going to kill both companies and associated brands

Oh, FFS!

So glad I don't do Kickstarters, but seriously disappointed in this.

I hope this can be resolved without the destruction of the brand.

Saw mention of this over the past weekend. Digging through things at that time, it seemed as though BF had not yet received all of Wave 1 with the ships having fairly recently arrived in NZ/Aus and likely just this week clearing customs and arriving at warehouses. There also seemed to be some mention of certain items for Wave 1 having shortfalls which were then on back-order, so it could be that they're trying to get one big order in rather than tons of little ones.

However, having tried to source FoW miniatures, it could be that the the person in charge of this sort of thing at BF isn't particularly good at their job. I had a store I ordered from bump up one of the blisters I ordered because after two weeks of specifically ordering the single vehicle he did not receive it in his order. In the end he gave me a different, more expensive blister that included that vehicle as well, which was awesome on that store's part but kind of an epic fail by BF. We're also discussing a company that did a 50% sale of dice and tokens and didn't remove items that weren't actually available at all from the store and allowed people to order them.

What this points to is that BF's internal logistics are insanely bad, and this could be an outgrowth of that simple business failing rather than anything malevolent. That said, pending more information it's always good to keep malice as an option just in case there's something going on. Just offering other plausible theories is all, and Hanlon's razor and all that.

I backed this and am still yet to receive any product. How I understand the situation:

The Babylon KS was a pre-order system. The vast majority of the designs (sans 2 units that were unlocked) were produced ahead of time in fact most were iirc on display at Gencon the year previous. Dust Models already had production supposedly in full swing pre-launch and BF were left to run the KS. Their combined commitment was an extremely fast turnaround once the KS closed with shipping (totally inclusive) scheduled for the end of August last year. Initially their were questions as The Warstore was advertising pre-orders cheaper than the KS and some backers became unhappy with the "packaged structure" of their locked in "early bird" pledges. This resulted in cheaper pricing and a commitment that would allow backers to substitute basically the included printed rule type items/gaming aids for credit once the manager was available. They also implemented a system whereby retail stores would be able to participate outside of the KS mechanic and this would contribute to the stretch goal unlocks.

A survey was sent out after close to gauge what the core aspect of peoples pledges were as a modified Pledge Manager was needed for the swap mechanic. However, the initial August deadline pretty much expired before the Manager went live and there were further problems as backers filled them out incorrectly, probably due to language differences and dodgy "swaps". Like most other KS there was also an option to add more to your pledge which obviously put numbers required further out of whack.

At some point later it was decided to "wave" out the shipments and this is where it started to get even sketchier. Why would this be needed if BF had accurate quotas from the manager and DM had been producing for months? It has become clear there was a massive difference between what was shipped and what was actually required. Its a proven fact that EU,US and NZ backers are no longer receiving Babylon items in their orders and this is my expectation as well considering our shipment was left till last. Was this because DM couldn't keep up with production or because BF have supplied incorrect manager data that fell way short? Maybe it wasn't supplied in a timely manner..... Which begs the question why even bother shipping such vastly incomplete orders? There's now no commitment to a "wave 2" shipment date nor whether this will settle ALL outstanding issues considering especially BF apparently haven't told DM what's exactly required. Do they even know? Who's picking the orders and collecting the data on "out of stock" items? DM have now publicly stated as well they will not release any more product until they are paid. Is this outstanding payment meaning BF never transferred funds? So many unanswered questions....

My gut feeling on all this is that BF are mostly to blame compounded by an obvious difficulty communicating with backers and Dust Models themselves.
-The amount of time it took to organise the Pledge Manager threw shipping estimates out the window .Most likely it was due to the swap mechanic that was introduced.
-They refuse to stick to their commitment of weekly updates to advise how this is being resolved. In past weeks they have logged on, obviously not been happy with the complaints/messages from concerned backers and decided to take the easy way out. One update post Christmas was completely dismissive of the situation (arrogant...).
-They refuse to answer emails regarding mis-picks, missing items and general concerns how this will be resolved. There's also been "buck passing" as to who is responsible ie "we don't want to know about it".
-They do not reply to concerns on their forums and have chosen to "lock out" threads rather than respond.
-Dust Models, their partner in this, has publicly outed them on more than one occasion regarding production targets and monies owed. This is BF's latest update and only communicated response to the growing issue.:

We'd love to be able to give you an update about Wave 2 this week, but unfortunately there's nothing concrete we can tell you yet. We understand the delays are making some people nervous, but please try not to worry. This drawn-out process, with the uncertainty that it entails, is not what any of us wanted, but we'll get there in the end - nobody is going to be left in the lurch.

Well feth. I've been told my pledge was cancelled at my request due to the long delay, but I knew something was up since it's been 2 months and I have yet to receive a refund. Every time I email they keep kicking the can down the road and say it will happen "soon."

Just hope I can get my $200 back before this devolves into a legal gak-storm.

This sucks for Dust Studios, but they screwed around for a long time with the change from FFG to BF, and then BF just seemed to sit on things and communicate about as little as they could get away with.

The drama grows: Paolo Parente requesting invoices of Kickstarter backers from the backers themselves so they can figure out what to produce. Apparently Battlefront didn't even provide them with this info in the first place! Wow.

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202410724509159&id=1824834735&set=gm.10152731165138918&ref=tn_tnmn

This is the same Battlefront that makes FoW? Hands out free rulebooks when they release a new edition? That one?

Seems a bit extreme that one side is saying Battlefront has "spent on rock and roll and drugs", hoping for their dismantling, and throwing up a whole hashtag campaign against Battlefront.

It's in Battlefront's best interest to address this issue to the public as soon as possible, and then maybe people could make a more informed decision.

Yes, the same one.

It's actually owned by some rich Russian that came from a big family fishery business.

So, I can't see why they would do something like this. Battlefront is not actually hurting for money, neither the owner or the company.

They have a factory in Malaysia, for example, and have just started making a lot of injection plastic, which requires a lot of money up front for the steel molds.

That said, there are still plenty of either shady, grey area, or straight illegal but hard to spot reasons why a company might hold onto the money even if they didn't need it.

There may be some part of the contract that allows BF to do this, and they're making a cut throat business decision.

On the other hand, Dust Studios isn't really that well known of a quantity, they could be responsible for not fulfilling some contractual aspect and were hoping to just gloss over it. Meanwhile BF has to stay quiet so they can build a legal case. There may be some leftover obligations to FF that they didn't disclose and BF had to pay for.

If you have to run a kickstarter for something it usually means you're not really flush with the money needed to release a big game in the first place. After FT failed with two different publishers/distributors, you have to wonder how much they have in the bank.

Whew, I'm glad I'm only missing the Sisters and the free upgrade pack. My army deal and the two heavy walkers I ordered have been with me for a while already, so I'm not totally screwed if this was a less then honest affair.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
This is the same Battlefront that makes FoW? Hands out free rulebooks when they release a new edition? That one?

I don't know if they've done that in a couple of editions, though I might be wrong. They're also the guys who apparently feel that they "created the IP" that is WWII gaming.

Google the following:
If Flames Of War is not creating our own IP I dont know what is and I know that Pete, Phil, Wayne, Evan and the guys would disagree as they have spent the last ten years of their lives dedicated to creating a hobby that is the heart of our business and completely unique

Yes they did the free rulebook deal with the latest edition, assuming that you had the hardback of the previous one. I think if you had the smaller, free one from the previous (second) edition then you would have had to buy the hardback this time round.

Also did some very good, half-price deals with a lot of the campaign books over the past 6 months.

 katfude wrote:
The drama grows: Paolo Parente requesting invoices of Kickstarter backers from the backers themselves so they can figure out what to produce. Apparently Battlefront didn't even provide them with this info in the first place! Wow.

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202410724509159&id=1824834735&set=gm.10152731165138918&ref=tn_tnmn

Thank you very much for posting this as I seldom go on Facebook.

What a mess. It always amazes me how long it takes companies to address PR nightmares like this. I hope whoever is responsible gets the appropriate share of the blame. My gut tells me it is Battlefront. But we'll see how the cards fall.

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?

 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.

This smells like a contract dispute.

Admittedly, I know basically nothing about the situation, but from what I read here it has a lot of contract dispute hallmarks.

And, well, sucks for backers. Good luck getting your credit card company to give you a charge back. Backers are literally getting what they paid for, which isn't a finished product with guaranteed delivery.