https://www.boardgameprices.com/articles/boarders-tabletop-game-studio-defrauds-thousands-in-kickstarter-scandal
Singapore and Malaysia based company Boarders Tabletop Game Studio has been the principal Southeast Asian distributor for several major board game Kickstarter projects, including Anachrony and Gloomhaven. In recent years, the company had provided a service where it would make group pledges for Kickstarter projects, helping its customers save money on shipping costs.
But alarm bells started ringing for many of Boarders customers a few months ago when the shipping information given by game publishers stopped lining up with Boarder’s deliveries, and dozens of emails and chat messages began going unanswered.
What was happening to their games?
Grand Theft Cardboard
In a dramatic Kickstarter update on March 27th, Petrichor publisher Mighty Boards posted that:
“We have some unfortunate news to share on this matter. Boarders Tabletop Cafe received the packages with the games, however they have stopped contact with us immediately after picking up the package. We have been trying to reach them through various means, however it seems that it is unlikely that we will get to them, and we are considering this cargo (along with our downpayment for fulfillment) as stolen by Boarders Tabletop Cafe. […] This is quite a tough nut for us, we have lost almost 20,000 USD in market value to this event.”
Not playing by the rules
Mighty Boards were not the only ones. Boarders customers reaching out to publishers found that in many cases, those companies had never received payment from Boarders despite taking money from their customers for those projects, thus constituting fraud.
An incomplete list of publishers who have confirmed they did not receive payment from Boarders include:
-Thunderworks Games (Roll Player)
-Roxley Games (Brass)
-Ape Games (Moa)
-Splotter Games (Food Chain Magnate)
-Awaken Realms (Lords of Hellas)
-Mindclash Games (Cerebria)
-Victory Point Games (Darkest Night)
-Petersen Games (Cthulhu Wars)
In several cases, these publishers noted that Boarders was not their Asian Kickstarter distributor and thus had no right to charge customers for pledges.