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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.

Apparently Battlefront was just negging to get DUST's custo,ers interested.

Look, y'all can think what you like, but we are up to page 10 in this thread now, and I have seen multiple posts in this thread alone questioning whether Dust, as a product, will survive this debacle.

That is demonstrable harm. It is happening. It is happening as we speak.

I also don't buy that going public is Paulo's only choice. If it is, it would mean that he has no proper legal recourse. If he's got no proper legal recourse, it likely means that the current circumstances are properly bound within the terms of a contract that, ostensibly, Paulo agreed to.

What, Dust can't hire a lawyer? This isn't a situation in which an indigent party is being manhandled by a powerful entity in contravention of justice. Presumably, Dust is a sophisticated entity.

My company gets taken for a ride all of the time by large corporations. You think it legitimately takes a fortune 500 company nine months to pay a bill? It sucks, sure. It hurts, definitely. But it hurts a heck of a lot less than not having the work.

Contractors, of all stripes, get used for interest-free loans all of the time. And that's a situation in which you have legal recourse if you wished to exercise it. But being pissy about getting paid in a timely fashion is often much more trouble than it's worth. And that's even when you can be pissy about it in private.

Paulo is selling a narrative. He is. He's angry and he is doing what he can to hurt Battlefront. For example, what productive reason was there for taking down one of the web addresses that allows customers to access the game's website?

Being vindictive is bad for business. And at the very least Paulo is becoming more of an industry pariah every day. I sure as heck wouldn't do business with him at this point. It doesn't matter if he's right or if he's wrong. This is not how I would want someone in a business relationship with me to behave. Because there's no telling whether this individual will do this exact same thing when he thinks he's in the right, even if he isn't. So this behavior is now always on the table whenever anyone contemplates going into any kind of business relationship with Dust Studios.

Most companies would keep their business to themselves, and argue it out, or get lawyers. Arguing with the people you are doing business with in public doesn't help you out. "Going tot he public" is generally done when you want to hurt the other party, or build a case of public opinion. Especially when you aren't on firm ground.

I expect that what's happened is that a situation, or several situations, have occurred that weren't forseen or spelled out in the contrac. Bills have to be paid, but who is paying for what, and does the money come out of the kickstarter, or does one side eat the costs.

Then one side gets mad, goes to the public, and we get embellished tales that dont tell the total story.

DS and BF are kind of like a married couple who should get a divorce but decide to have a kid instead to save the marriage. Then, big surprise, the kid(Operation Babylon) just makes things worse. Finally, DS decides to bad mouth BF to all their mutual friends to help win the nasty custody battle("Battlefield made me co-sign on that jet ski he wrecked even though I totally didn't want to").

 mikhaila wrote:
Then one side gets mad, goes to the public, and we get embellished tales that dont tell the total story.

You're not on FB or other social media, are you? OMG, drama!

 mikhaila wrote:
Most companies would keep their business to themselves, and argue it out, or get lawyers. Arguing with the people you are doing business with in public doesn't help you out. "Going tot he public" is generally done when you want to hurt the other party, or build a case of public opinion. Especially when you aren't on firm ground.

I expect that what's happened is that a situation, or several situations, have occurred that weren't forseen or spelled out in the contrac. Bills have to be paid, but who is paying for what, and does the money come out of the kickstarter, or does one side eat the costs.

Then one side gets mad, goes to the public, and we get embellished tales that dont tell the total story.

I can't exalt this post enough.

"There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying."
- Robert Evans (2002)

I believe that about sums it up.

I suspect Dusts reluctance to get lawyers involved may well be because the Battlefront 'company' in the US is probably the one where litigation would happen,

but from the sound of it there are no real assets there (as soon as they come in they go out to the main New Zealand company)

so even a win in court would not equal any money, BF would let the US entity die and start a new one with 'new' management

result no money for Dust, legal fees to pay, no KS product delivery. The public bust up is probably the best they can do if they want to act now, rather than just keep negociating behind the scenes

(but as Ghaz says as to the actual facts of the whole thing "There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying."
- Robert Evans (2002)

I believe that about sums it up. )

Dust is getting hurt by failure of the KS more than by DS coming forward with this.

BF, which apparently needed the KS to pay off debt, is withholding money.

Going through lawyers can potentially take years.
Meanwhile, the Dust brand is getting hammered by silence.
What is DS supposed to do?

Is it unprofessional to take your case to public opinion? Sure.
Is it unprofessional to not pay money you owe to your business partners?

Which are you going to refuse to do business with in the future:

1)the guy who's IP is turning to dust (see what I did there) for non-deliverance of goods and who has come out with what is happening (if, for nothing else, so that the investors know why their stuff isn't being delivered)

2) the "gaming giant" that can't pay its bills without misleadingly running KS to sell other products and then refuses to honor its financial obligations to its partner?

Having worked in the industry I know one thing about Paolo, he's an arteest, and one thing about those guys is they are a pain in the donkey to work with, because they will throw big ol'snit fits about everything, even contracts they signed, and renege at random if they feel they've been slighted.

There's a lot of accusations being tossed around this thread without a shred of evidence besides the one Paolo's pushing to support his narrative. If he actually has such evidence he'd be taking it to court, he's pushing it to us because he doesn't ACTUALLY have anything, releasing material like those payment slips that had full bank information and everything? That can straight up damage you in court. There's a reason the first thing any smart lawyer will do as soon as you retain them is to tell you to shut up.

Personally I've felt the Dust IP was a bad acquisition for Battlefront that they shouldn't have taken on from the start. Better to have let it die when FFG dumped it.

What court would he sue in that he could get money out of?

Regardless of if Paolo is an 'arteest' or whether he should have hired a lawyer or etc, the fact is BF still needs to pay Dust for the freebies offered during the KS, which is the main point of contention it seems.

Sining wrote:
Regardless of if Paolo is an 'arteest' or whether he should have hired a lawyer or etc, the fact is BF still needs to pay Dust for the freebies offered during the KS, which is the main point of contention it seems.

But do they really? And how much? All we have is the initial contract that doesn't include the updates with the cost of stretch goal unlocked items. BF is claiming that Paolo made promises during the Kickstarter that DS is not honoring. Possibly a promise to split costs on the freebies. Something DS is reluctant to do now that there's a funding shortfall even on the initial items.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Personally I've felt the Dust IP was a bad acquisition for Battlefront that they shouldn't have taken on from the start. Better to have let it die when FFG dumped it.

Saying FFG "dumped" it is a pretty large stretch.

 cincydooley wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Personally I've felt the Dust IP was a bad acquisition for Battlefront that they shouldn't have taken on from the start. Better to have let it die when FFG dumped it.

Saying FFG "dumped" it is a pretty large stretch.

I'd go on to add pretty much everything from that post is a stretch.

 CaulynDarr wrote:

Sining wrote:
Regardless of if Paolo is an 'arteest' or whether he should have hired a lawyer or etc, the fact is BF still needs to pay Dust for the freebies offered during the KS, which is the main point of contention it seems.

But do they really? And how much? All we have is the initial contract that doesn't include the updates with the cost of stretch goal unlocked items. BF is claiming that Paolo made promises during the Kickstarter that DS is not honoring. Possibly a promise to split costs on the freebies. Something DS is reluctant to do now that there's a funding shortfall even on the initial items.

When did BF claim this? All I saw was that they're trying to negotiate and mediate. Also,do you have any evidence for your later accusations? Because I'm not seeing how splitting costs would affect them at all if theres a funding shortfall. Let's make it very clear, the contract pretty much stated that BF was to pay DS purely as a manufacturer. There was nothing about profit-sharing in it at all. Whether the KS got 400k or 1 million or 2 million, DS would still get the same amount as the manufacturer. So who is that funding shortfall likely to affect? DS or BF? Who was originally supposed to keep the profits for the KS?

Seriously, if DS wanted to renege, there are much easier ways to do so, including just running the KS themselves.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:


There's a lot of accusations being tossed around this thread without a shred of evidence besides the one Paolo's pushing to support his narrative.

Actually, I've shared my personal dealings with BF in this thread multiple times. I sent emails to their customer service in August, September, November, December and January without a single response. I finally was able to contact someone at Battlefront by tracking a staff member down on their forum. I sent numerous emails from November to February getting my Kickstarter cancelled and refunded. They cancelled without issue, but while other were finally getting shipments sent, I still was not refunded. So I spent several months being out both money and product, and would go several weeks on end without getting a response to basic questions and followups based on guarantees provided by them. Finally I had to threaten legal action, at which point I was receiving multiple emails per day from them to get my refund processed, and immediate replies to my emails and a refund was issued in under 24 hours.

Based on my personal experience, Battlefront is the most unprofessional and shady company I have ever interacted with. They failed to deliver on every promise they offered in the Kickstarter. They took 6 months to work out a pledge manager for 1500 orders that could have been done manually in a fraction of that time. They then lied about the status of the Kickstarter on multiple occasions after the pledge manager was sent, and continue to not provide any meaningful updates to backers, and the only reason any response is being given at all is due to Paolo going public.

So I would say being involved in this for nearly a year, that there is a mound of evidence to support Paolo's version of things, as it lines up very closely to what I have dealt with from them for months before Paolo ever went public. Battlefront took the money to pay previous debts, plain and simple. And now they are trying to weasel out of their obligations to their backers.

My own experience with BF in the UK over the I'll fated Bastogne Church was terrible.

Product was a year late and so bad they recalled the first ones to then have their own staff try to reprint them, after having the money for a year.

BF believes they can do no wrong and are too big to fail, I mystified why as hardly any store near new me stocks them anymore and no one at several places I go to plays their stuff....

Sining wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:


But do they really? And how much? All we have is the initial contract that doesn't include the updates with the cost of stretch goal unlocked items. BF is claiming that Paolo made promises during the Kickstarter that DS is not honoring. Possibly a promise to split costs on the freebies. Something DS is reluctant to do now that there's a funding shortfall even on the initial items.

When did BF claim this? All I saw was that they're trying to negotiate and mediate. Also,do you have any evidence for your later accusations? Because I'm not seeing how splitting costs would affect them at all if theres a funding shortfall. Let's make it very clear, the contract pretty much stated that BF was to pay DS purely as a manufacturer. There was nothing about profit-sharing in it at all. Whether the KS got 400k or 1 million or 2 million, DS would still get the same amount as the manufacturer. So who is that funding shortfall likely to affect? DS or BF? Who was originally supposed to keep the profits for the KS?

Seriously, if DS wanted to renege, there are much easier ways to do so, including just running the KS themselves.

It would be this line from update 98:

However, at this time we are still seeking meaningful dialogue with Dust Studio’s majority shareholder, William Yau, regarding commitments that Paolo made during the Kickstarter Campaign.

I was making an assumption that the promises were about the freebies, but I think there is ample evidence to support this. Both sides have mentioned it as a point of contention, and the contract indicates a process for amending the deal to cover items added during the Kickstarter. As bad as we might think of BF, I don't see them adding things to the KS without a cost structure in place. At least one freebie was listed as included in the cost of the base pledge package in the contract, so it's not out of the realm of possibilities that other freebies would be covered in the same way.

I don't think BF has been acting all that great here, but I don't believe that we are getting the whole story from Paolo. I think there are details from when the campaign was running and that have to do with that initial 200K debt to the factor bank that seem missing.

Seriously the whole KS was a stupid idea to begin with. Expecting their first KS to turn enough profit to pay for itself while starting 200K in the hole was a long shot at best.

I can just see the court room now.

Mr. Yau - Battlefront owes us money per the contract.
BF- but Paolo said they would pay for part of the price of the add ons
Judge- Whos Paolo? He's not listed as a party on the contract, therefore has no negotiating rights with you.
BF- sound of papers rustling.


But then as others point out there would be no money worked out as BF could just close the U.S. office where the lawsuit would get filed.

 CaulynDarr wrote:

Sining wrote:

 CaulynDarr wrote:


But do they really? And how much? All we have is the initial contract that doesn't include the updates with the cost of stretch goal unlocked items. BF is claiming that Paolo made promises during the Kickstarter that DS is not honoring. Possibly a promise to split costs on the freebies. Something DS is reluctant to do now that there's a funding shortfall even on the initial items.

When did BF claim this? All I saw was that they're trying to negotiate and mediate. Also,do you have any evidence for your later accusations? Because I'm not seeing how splitting costs would affect them at all if theres a funding shortfall. Let's make it very clear, the contract pretty much stated that BF was to pay DS purely as a manufacturer. There was nothing about profit-sharing in it at all. Whether the KS got 400k or 1 million or 2 million, DS would still get the same amount as the manufacturer. So who is that funding shortfall likely to affect? DS or BF? Who was originally supposed to keep the profits for the KS?

Seriously, if DS wanted to renege, there are much easier ways to do so, including just running the KS themselves.

It would be this line from update 98:

However, at this time we are still seeking meaningful dialogue with Dust Studio’s majority shareholder, William Yau, regarding commitments that Paolo made during the Kickstarter Campaign.

I was making an assumption that the promises were about the freebies, but I think there is ample evidence to support this. Both sides have mentioned it as a point of contention, and the contract indicates a process for amending the deal to cover items added during the Kickstarter. As bad as we might think of BF, I don't see them adding things to the KS without a cost structure in place. At least one freebie was listed as included in the cost of the base pledge package in the contract, so it's not out of the realm of possibilities that other freebies would be covered in the same way.

I don't think BF has been acting all that great here, but I don't believe that we are getting the whole story from Paolo. I think there are details from when the campaign was running and that have to do with that initial 200K debt to the factor bank that seem missing.

Seriously the whole KS was a stupid idea to begin with. Expecting their first KS to turn enough profit to pay for itself while starting 200K in the hole was a long shot at best.

A lot of things aren't out of the realm of possibilities yet. Although I'm not sure what you mean by 200k debt to the factor bank that seems to be missing? I thought that payment was part of the 400+ they paid DS

Sining wrote:

A lot of things aren't out of the realm of possibilities yet. Although I'm not sure what you mean by 200k debt to the factor bank that seems to be missing? I thought that payment was part of the 400+ they paid DS

I meant in terms of details in how that came about. There's got to be more details to that story than just Battlefront being all, "Derp, Derp, just not going to pay of this money to a major international bank and tank our credit score, derp."

? I think they've paid that off already. It's supposedly one of the first things they've paid off

Sining wrote:
A lot of things aren't out of the realm of possibilities yet. Although I'm not sure what you mean by 200k debt to the factor bank that seems to be missing? I thought that payment was part of the 400+ they paid DS

The word "missing" in his statement would seem to refer to the facts surrounding that particular situation, and not to the payment itself. Stated another way "There is information as regards the original plan for the KS and the bank payment that have not been disclosed."

For example, Paolo claims BF violated their agreement by paying the bank. Is this true? Or did Mr. Yau (i.e. - Paolo's boss and superior in the company hierarchy based on job title) decide to prioritize that differently since DS was on the hook for that loan once the funding amount became known? What was the agreement regarding freebies in the campaign, if there was to be one? What was said as regards getting BF to get FFG off the hook in the beginning (i.e. - were there inducements and offers from DS to get BF to pick up the tab in the first place)?

These are all rather key points of information to the situation which seem to be absent from the public record. That's not shocking, as those details AND what we do know wouldn't normally be publicly known. However, there is nothing up that is out of the realm of being believable, and as you point out there's many more things besides. Hence why it's unwise to take Paolo's take on the narrative as gospel truth and believe the fault is wholly Battlefront's. The truth likely lies somewhere in between, and it's unlikely the public will ever truly hear how close it is to the middle or even BF's point of view. Heck, Paolo might be completely right, but we're still not real likely to know about it.

Saying that neither side is particularly covering themselves in glory is pretty safe though.

Eventually one side or the other is going to take this to court.

The fact that DS posted on the interweb makes me think that they have the weaker case, and that this may well lead to damages being claimed against them in addition to the actual matters of the conflict.

Battlefront has claimed that they want independent arbitration.

Litigation is expensive - arbitration can be inexpensive. (Greg Stafford once acted as arbitrator between R. Talsorian and Games Designer's Workshop.)

If DS is avoiding having an independent party act as arbitrator....

It could just be that Paolo is too emotionally invested in the conflict - but, really, taking this to arbitration is quite workable, and avoids a lot of the expense of full out litigation.

The Auld Grump

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
There's a lot of accusations being tossed around this thread without a shred of evidence

For example, everything you posted.

Not to call anyone out in particular, but I think people watch too many TV court shows.

DS does have legal representation.

They've stated they've tried mediation, which so far hasn't worked.

This is a case where the wrong move is to be quiet about it.

Going public doesn't mean "emotional". Paolo has been communicative and open, but not slanderous. BF also hasn't been slanderous (communicative on the other hand...). Both have been firm with subtle jabs but no slander. To my knowledge nothing has been said that would ruin either side in a legal proceeding.

On the other hand fans/backers on both sides have been very emotional and slanderous.

Going public doesn't necessarily mean they are "standing on weaker" ground, it means they are more motivated to get this resolved. As a manufacturer DS is working with time frames (they produce other things too). As holder of the IP and being named on the Kickstarter, the longer it draws out, the more damaging it is to their IP.

Battlefront on the other hand has had no motivation to move forward. They're just the distributor. They received the money and paid off the bank that was chasing them. Because of the complexity of the Kickstarter, I'm sure doing work on it causes them to lose money, so where's the motivation?

DS going public and calling them out has motivated BF and has been getting results. They've posted more updates in the last few weeks then they have in the last few months. BF has finally pushed out the Australian shipments. BF's shipping dept. has contacted DS about shipping out the remainder of wave 1 products (Premium Axis Army Boxes) that have been sitting in the warehouse gathering dust.

Chicken little crying out the end of Dust isn't evidence of "demonstrable harm". It's just people being dramatic.

carboncopy wrote:

DS going public and calling them out has motivated BF and has been getting results. They've posted more updates in the last few weeks then they have in the last few months. BF has finally pushed out the Australian shipments. BF's shipping dept. has contacted DS about shipping out the remainder of wave 1 products (Premium Axis Army Boxes) that have been sitting in the warehouse gathering dust.
.

Agree with the majority of what you posted but this quoted statement is maybe a little off.
Backers have been reporting BF to Kickstarter over not being honest and transparent with their communication which also wasn't being delivered in a timely fashion. This is a KS requirement regardless of whether the KS is a success or failure. So possibly heat has been generated elsewhere in addition to Paolo's public comments.
Secondly the OZ/NZ shipments were already in progress before this hit the fan, having left HK either late Nov or early December. This was addressed pre-Xmas by BF maybe on the 18th December? They were unfortunately loaded and sent well after the EU and US probably why we're receiving less as the fountain had already run dry. Also afaik they aren't responsible for the dispatch from DS and are definitely not directly involved with the distro here.
And relating to this, thirdly, Axis PAAB's aren't they only Babylon items missing from this Wave shipment as backers who have received shipments without any minis can testify to. This is a result of BF not supplying the correct Purchase Order data to DS which Paolo mentioned specifically in his last comment. Simple math between the total backer count and BF data shows it was short by nearly 250 odd backers, not counting the LGS orders that would have also been submitted. Paolo again mentions BF was still trying to clear this in January...

Regardless who is right or wrong, there's now a whole bunch of folks who're now not going to touch any Dust product with a bargepole. And the longer this goes on, the more people will be in that camp.