(KS) Ninja Division/Soda Pop out of money for Super Dungeon Explore: Legends

[jamesedwardsParticipant 1101xp 0]

Hi @ratzinger and sorry you lost that much! I recently lost around $100 in the Panzerfaust failure on Kickstarter — so far less and not the sort of money that hurts me.

 

I don’t know the ins and outs of what happened with any particular situation, but I do know that these are micro to small businesses that run more on passion than business skill. I’ve seen similar things happen in my professional life, and sometimes seen the human face of it where an owner is just overwhelmed with the problem and makes some poor and illogical choices. That includes trying to keep it all going when they should really just pack it all up, declare bankruptcy, and move on with their lives.

[odinsgrandsonParticipant 4288xp 1]

I lost about $450 on Super Dungeon Legends, Way of the Fighter miniatures and Relic Knights (I did not back Starfinder). The lion’s share of that was from Super Dungeon Legends (I was all in, I’m a big SDE fan).

I think it is strange that people are still talking like refunds are a thing that is or was possible. No, you wouldn’t have received a refund had they been more up front about their financial problems. The money that they don’t have to fulfill their project is the same money that they don’t have to refund you- so that option HAD to go away when it became publicly known that they were out of gas.

So if they had announced ages ago that they wouldn’t be able to fulfill, they still wouldn’t refund you the money, because they didn’t have it back then either.

Personally, I don’t think it is appropriate to call them thieves. From every accounting of the numbers, it seems like they’ve lost a LOT of money on this project- enough to sink their company forever. We know that the owners are currently unpaid- we do not know how long that has been the case.

I’m quite upset that unless a miracle investor shows up, one of my favorite games is dead. I’m also upset that they screwed up so much with money that belonged to me and other backers. Also, I believe that it is quite terrible that they worked out a deal with Archon without securing the funds they’d need to pay them. That is spreading their financial issues to others- and I do not think it is ok.

John Cadice continues to be unrelentingly optimistic that there’s a chance to pull this out. I’m not convinced it could happen, but I’d be overjoyed if he did pull it off.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

There’s an update on the Starfinder Kickstarter Page.

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/325468910/starfinder-masterclass-miniatures/posts/2420184

[limburger 21673xp 0]

@onlyonepinman : that same update was posted on all three of the kickstarters I backed.

@odinsgrandson one has to wonder what made Archon accept this deal though. Then again … they probably thought that ND was a reliable business.

I think the “they iz filthy thieves” people underestimate how often small businesses have problems as a result of a history of bad decisions. Most manage to survive because their one goose with the golden eggs is still active.
TV shows like ‘the profit’ and related shows that save failing businesses do show this with a remarkable frequency.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 2]

@limburger I think people also often overestimate the size of some of these companies too.  So many people criticise Mantic for constantly using Kickstarter claiming they should be big enough now that they don’t have to use it.  If you have seen Mantic’s HQ you would realise they really aren’t a big company.  I think quite often the sizes of the budgets they’re working with that we see from Kickstarters actually create a false illusion that these companies are a lot bigger than they are.

That said, it looks to me as though Ninja Division have suffered from a serious inability to plan and estimate.  Every single Kickstarter they have run has made a loss which means they probably weren’t costing properly at the start of each project leaving them to rely on profits from sales to try and make up the difference.

[limburger 21673xp 0]

@onlyonepinman : definitely a failure to plan and estimate.

You’d think that for a flagship / primary line they would have been able to stick to their budget & deadline.
OTOH … a ‘version 2’ of any project does have the tendency for feature creep as you imagine all the goodies you can add.

The irony is that Starfinder appears to be the one project that was somewhat within budget and on target.

[odinsgrandsonParticipant 4288xp 0]

You are mistaken. Starfinder is not “within budget and on target.” It has spent the entirety of its budget, and they just don’t have the funds to increase the budget enough to get it out.

I do wonder about the other ND projects that aren’t listed here. The Forgotten King, Ninja All Stars and Rail Raiders Infinite.

[limburger 21673xp 0]

@odindsgrandson : ‘on budget/target’ compared to their other projects and the fact that it involves ‘new technology’ (according to them).

The charts are hard to read.,

SF : got 500k, spent 500k, needs 750.   That’s 50% over budget.
RK got 400k, spent 600k, needs 1000k which is 150% over
SDE got 1100k, spent 1400k, needs 2000k which is 80% over estimate.

Way of the fighter is impossible to estimate due to the scale.It is however the only one that is almost complete (the miniatures are ‘missing’, but not essential to the game.)

SuperDungeon is an existing IP. The fact that it went over budget at all should have scared them.
And it probably did … which is why they’re in deep doo doo right now.

I suspect ‘Railraiders’ isn’t mentioned, because that has been completed (at least I got my pledge)

@onlyonepinman : I’d say people always overestimate the size of companies.
Big flashy websites tend to make that even more difficult.
That’s the problem with on-line presence. You get no sense of scale, unless the website is has a design like a MySpace page a company of 2 employees looks as good as one having thousands.

[maledrakhParticipant 11996xp 0]

I would like to know if there are any ownership ties or other such connections between soda pop and ninja division.

I seem to notice that companies go the “licenced IP” route with the IP being owned by another company with the same owner(s). (e.g. stellar licensing / sans detour for the confrontation license) and that this de facto functions both as a way to both keep the IP safe from bankruptcy in case it all goes belly up, and a way to siphon off some of that sweet kickstarter cash in “licencing fees” that effectively gets payed to oneself.

Anybody have any info if this might be the case here as well?

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

@limburger if the people involved can’t cost things properly then they won’t be able to do so regardless of whether a project is their flagship product or not.

When looking at the costs and how close they are to budget you have to look at the red bar and the difference between that and the green bar.  Even Starfinder looks like it is costing 50% more to complete than they raised.

[odinsgrandsonParticipant 4288xp 1]

Meledrakh- Soda Pop Minaitures is owned by the same three blokes that own Ninja Division. They started the second company in order to fulfill separate functions.

I have seen “licensing fees” paid from Kickstarters with completely original IPs quite a lot, so I’m really not sure to what extent it is people paying themselves- it is just as likely that they’re paying someone else.

For example, I know that the original Relic Knights game designer was Kevin Clark (not part of Ninja Division- he is also responsible for some game designs for CMON and Privateer Press- I know that Privateer Press pays royalties to their outside game designers, so ND probably paid him for the RK Kickstarter). License fees may also represent payments to artists or writers. Hell, you have to pay a “licensing fees” for the font you’re using on a published book.

In any case, even if the licensing fees does represent the payment to the three owners (and some of it may) we can all see that it was far from enough to sink/save any of these campaigns.

From the AG letter, we have learned that the three owners are currently in worse financial positions than they were in before (owners were moving into smaller homes to try and save the business).

While some disagree, I feel quite strongly that the three owners would have gained a great deal more financially had they delivered on their Kickstarters, and had very little to gain from sinking them.

[soulsorcererParticipant 1079xp 1]

@ratzinger  Sorry mate, you accepted the risk with backing. Just because you ignored it does not make it go away. KS is simply not a pre-order platform.

I think nearly all company´s on KS are not big enough to handle larger projects on their own. But even then a successful KS does not mean that you made it. Even CMON stumbles if something like ASOIAF fails in retail.

Since there is a lot of product with Archon I would also go with the mismanagement theory. Malice would have gone a much easier route then they do right now.

This is speculation on my end..maybe the success with SDE made them overconfident. Instead of sticking to the plan…and for the worst get a mediocre/bad game out with KS…they thought they could do better (rules/quality ect.) and the cost for those good intentions went out of hand. Maybe they thought they could rely on the steady income of SDE to pull that off…but it did not work out as planned. So not only did they not have the financial security they thought they would have…but also lots of unfinished business on hand. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Now they hope to find someone willing to invest in their IPs…nothing more makes sense with only 4 people left. So…let´s hope they succeed with that!

 

[odinsgrandsonParticipant 4288xp 1]

SDE definitely made them overconfident. I mean, they meant for it to be a silly little side project (Relic Knights was the line they clearly thought was going to be their flagship). Then SDE (with Zombicide) brought CMON and SPM to prominence, and spearheaded the miniatures board game renaissance that we live in now.

I don’t think they have any idea what they did right on that project, and similarly don’t know what they did wrong that made Relic Knights, Ninja All Stars or Rail Raiders Infinite not do the same.

I get the feeling they thought that their audience would follow them into those games.

[limburger 21673xp 1]

It’s something that happens to a lot of companies …

success is probably even deadlier than failure, because it makes you believe that you knew what you were doing when you didn’t.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 2]

@soulsorcerer that’s perhaps a little harsh considering he has lost a lot of money, I think anyone who loses money on an investment is entitled to feel some anger and disappointment.

That said I think people do need to view Kickstarter in very different terms, as you say it’s not a pre-order system it’s a funding generation tool.  When you make a pledge on kickstarter, officially you are not pre-ordering anything, you are making an investment in someone else’s business and you have to accept a level of risk that you might see zero return on that money.  Irrespective of what Kickstarter’s terms of service might state, if a business goes bankrupt, then you as a backer will be unlikely to get anything in return and kickstarter will be powerless to change that.  Even the courts in the country in which the business operates will be unable to change that – if the company has no money and does not have the means to complete the work then no court decision will change that.  It’s also important to understand that legal consequences is not the same as ciminal prosecutions.  The only reason that there would be any criminal prosecutions as a result of business bankruptcy is if there was evidence of financial misconduct beyond  mis-management of the business.  So for example fraud.  However I do not believe that this is the case for the majority of failed kickstarters and certainly not Ninja Division (I reserve the right to be wrong, this opinion is based only on the information I have to hand).  Ninja Division have clearly done some work on the projects but have gone massively over budget on all of them.  Unless you think that they have taken the money and been living a celebrity lifestyle whilst doing absolutely nothing on the kickstarter projects, I don’t see how anyone would come to the conclusion that Ninja Division have committed fraud.

@ratzinger I completely understand how angry you must feel about the failure of Ninja Division;  it totally sucks.  However, what exactly do you think should happen to the owners of Ninja Division?  Should they be prosecuted and if so what for?  And if people are to be prosecuted for owning businesses that go bankrupt and fail to pay creditors, who on earth is going to take the risk on starting their own business in the future?  At the moment starting a business is already a risky proposition – you have to invest your own time and money and could very well end up with nothing – but the rewards for success are great in that you can earn a lot of money and you are always your own boss.  But if you also add to the already substantial risk that not only will someone starting a business potentially lose all the money they pump into it but that they will also go to prison or get a criminal record if they fail, nobody in their right mind is going to chance it.  So I am not going to tell you that you shouldn’t be angry, bitter or disappointed – honestly I completely understand how you feel because I have also lost money on kickstarters.  But as angry as you are you have to accept that kickstarters are a risk and that unfortunately, there isn’t anything that you can do now;  unless someone invests significantly in Ninja Division, your investment is lost.

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