Sad news about 4Ground going into Liquidation

[suetoniuspaullinusMember 12198xp 1]

@limburger

Exactly this.

At this point I really don’t care much if I have lost or will lose a hundred quid of disposable income or not. Ben & Co have provided so much joy and priceless entertainment over the last years I only want them to be alright.

 

[limburger 21708xp 0]

@ghent99 I know it’s not really possible to compare kickstarters, but the ones that fail (after funding) do tend to share certain aspects. Or at least that has been my experience so far. To me that is all part of the (acceptable) risk when backing a kickstarter.

//—

 

[wesadie1969 2729xp 0]

Hopefully Big Ben is all good.

I think we have come to consider KS as a pre-order system when it’s really not.

As far as I’m concerned I’ve had great value out of the KS, had a great weekend with the missus over in Coleraine for the beta weekend and a hell of a lot of terrain already delivered.

Yeh it would be great to see the game out in the world and I’m sure that Ben and Cad will do their utmost to get it into our hands but that’s the risk you have to take as a KS backer.

[redvers 21054xp 1]

I guess we will find out what is happening in due course and if things are a little rocky, I hope that they are resolved quickly and that Ben et al can move forward and continue to deliver their excellent products. They are a truly friendly, enthusiastic and ground breaking company in our hobby. In the mean time, I hope that everyone at 4Ground are ok and being looked after – these sorts of things can be stressful and challenging times for all involved.

[ghent99 3589xp 0]

@limburger I agree I back to support things I think are fun and people I want to succeed.  I have been a backer of a few total failures and I agree they mostly follow a certain path.

My concern for the company is if they fail on the KS it will lead to other issues.  I hope they reorganize successfully and this is just a blip.  Many companies don’t succeed in the reorganization especially when there are other issues.  May Ben, Cad, and Big Ben succeed.

[nakchak 5539xp 4]

Much like @chaingun i am friends with them IRL,

Best not to speculate, and although ben’s email was a bit rambly, it does seem to suggest that tymeagain (the parent company, who do lots of stuff for english heritage amongst others) has taken over the ip of LotFR, other than the company name everything else is the same, same premises, same staff, same people.  I have no idea of the actual motivations behind this move, and even if i did it wouldnt be my place to speak on their behalf, but i will say this, Ben and Cad (and everyone else @ 4ground) are some of the most genuine enthusiastic people you could ever meet, and before anyone starts running around playing armchair CEO and speculating the sky is falling, sit tight and give them chance to communicate the state of play to everyone, as i know this will be one of the hardest things they will ever have had to do as a company and people, and this wouldnt be happening unless there is a very good reason.

Ultimately i believe this will be more of an issue of poor PR, with the end result being the same as when GW dropped citadel miniatures and they became branded as gamesworkshop, with the citadel brand being used for paints and tools…..

[mageParticipant 20596xp 0]

I hope it works out okay. From all the videos on BoW they seem like nice guys and I wish them success.

[limburger 21708xp 1]

These times of internet and kickstarters must be a nightmare for any sane dedicated PR person.
Responses to anything can be so mean and soulcrushing I’m glad I don’t have to deal with those types consumers/customers at all.

As such small companies like this one are even hit harder by any tiny mistakes in their attempt at communicating a very tough decision they had to make.

 

[phaidknott 7023xp 1]

Yup the comments section of any KS can be pretty venomous at times. Not sure “why” this is, is it the age of the keyboard warrior or just a sense of entitlement?

I suppose these days with so many KS schemes that people DO tend to treat it as a pre-order store and treat any delays/problems as “incompetence” rather than the process of experimentation throwing a spanner into the works (things like the Oculus Rift KS could have folded at many times during their KS and it was touch an go).

Backers need to act like adults, and remember there’s ALWAYS a risk with a KS (or any business decision when running a small company, it’s not just a KS that can give the owner sleepless nights). I had a friend who owned a small company, I found out he had been working for 6 months without drawing a wage from the company (they were living off his wife’s wage) because he didn’t want to fire anybody he had employed (he was more worried about their mortgages than his own). And I think most small business owners are like that, employees become family and friends.

Not reading any of this into the recent news from 4Ground (it was actually a note to backers and not sure it should have been posted as “4Ground in liquidation” in big letters across the forum when it might be just a restructuring, the way it’s been presented could make customers pause before making a purchase, when by the sounds of it you can buy the terrain with no issues and Ben and Family are still trading at shows (which is something you DON’T do if you are winding a company up). Again it’s best to wait and see….

But as a backer of many KS schemes I tend to go for the smaller ones that “try” to create something new (if this is a totally new product, or perhaps getting the ball rolling on someone starting a new company that means I can purchase more of their product later down the road). Too many of these KS schemes ARE operated as a pre-order store (the companies HAVE the money to develop and produce, and indeed have a large marketing budget for the KS itself), but are perhaps there to test the waters to see if the demand is there or not (after all running a KS scheme must be cheaper than employing a traditional market research company to see if there’s demand for your product (although “how” you would do that for Wargaming I’d never know :D)

But thee days KS schemes do have a “dark side”, it’s gone from the optimism of the early days like the first Wargaming KS I backed “Dreadball” where it was “Holy Heck were MAKING sooo much STUFF happen”, to numerous demands, complaints and statements I personally I would expect from a 5 year old in the sense of self entitlement and not any grown adult.

The internet can be a good thing, but it’s also made us all in a sense “keyboard warriors” and people just aren’t as polite using the thing as we used to be (and sometimes this attitude spills into real life situations as well).

 

 

[chaingunParticipant 1939xp 0]

@phaidknott said

<i>The internet can be a good thing, but it’s also made us all in a sense “keyboard warriors” and people just aren’t as polite using the thing as we used to be (and sometimes this attitude spills into real life situations as well).</i>

Very true, this happens on all forms of social media including these forums. That’s why I said to act as adults and let the guys be until they are ready to discuss the issue further.

[lupa15 11253xp 0]

I am really sad to see a company like 4Ground be brought down by an attempt at a Kickstarter. I have seen how enthusiastic and avid Big Ben and Cad were at serving everyday wargamers with quality products and rulesets.  As someone who was looking forward to seeing the World War Zero project come to fruition I would certainly love to see them come out of this whole debacle stronger and resurface with all backers of The Fabled Realms Kickstarter fulfilled.

[wkeyserParticipant 91xp 0]

It has been an interesting ride with what seems to have been mistake after mistake by 4Ground. However, the following are only my guesses on what went on based on the information (or lack of information) on the Kickstarter, lots of interviews on Beasts of War and other sites.

 

It started well and funding was achieved and it drew in about 107,000 pounds. But then the mistakes seem to have started. I think and this is only supposition, that the mistake that started all the problems was a pledge level that promised the gamers a Beta testing weekend where those that pledged would be able to play test the rules, with the figures. The problem seems to have been the date of this event, I believe that this set off the entire fiasco we are in now. As they got closer to the date they received figures from Chine which were not up to scratch and I can understand that. (However, I have had some amazing figures in plastic from chine, both the figures from Rising Sun and Nemesis are fantastic) Then they try to switch to Resin but cannot find anyone that can produce the figures in the time frame of the Beta Weekend, so they go with printed as that is in house and how hard can that be! They seem to have produced enough for the Beta weekend but now instead of switching back to Resin they go all in on the printing and lease a bunch of machines to finish the job. Now based on my guess with 437 backers I can only assume that the total number of figures must have been in the Thousands range, with 50+ number of original figures in the Kickstarter, the stretch goal figures alone that would have gone to most of those 437 backers is around 9,000 figures. So non-stop printing for a year!!!!  To compound the financial drain on themselves they started to send out the terrain in a couple of shipments again a crazy business decision with just an added cost burden to the company! These seems to me to be the fundamental problem with the Kickstarter itself, I am not aware of any financial problems they might have been having which would only have compounded these problem.

 

What is so frustrating is that they talk about a vote to do printed but then nothing when they change a fundamental mechanic in the rules, with the original mechanic shown in the early rules and all of the videos. Then they claim that a “number” of gamers at conventions thought this mechanic was too burdensome, however, no questions about this was asked of the 400 + backers of the game. Whom I assume many backed based on the videos and pdf of the rules.

 

Still this had promised, I guess (or hope) still does, to be a rather interesting and innovative miniature game for fantasy miniature with some great ideas behind the momentum rules and use of cards to enhance and give flavor to certain races and methods of combat with a great original idea of the use of dice in the game.

 

I still hope that we see the Rules, as to the figures although the 4 samples I received have the most incredible detail are rather boring with the same old same old look of orcs, elves, human (in faux medieval armor) goblins and all the other races we have a no lack of from dozens of manufactures.

This of course is all speculation and could all be wrong and completely off base but these are my assumptions and I am sticking with them as they fit my world view!!!!!

 

[mageParticipant 20596xp 0]

Not a commentary on 4ground, but it would seem kickstarter has become a bit of a poisoned chalice for some companies doing miniature games.

[sundancer 42979xp 1]

@mage agreed. I guess KS has grown to fast. Just look at all the Blood Bowl teams you can get. It feels like there is a new team every week. Plus the in  another thread mentioned “mandatory” miniatures for “simple” board games.  The market is saturated. Money and spare time are finite and we are now at the point where only “the strong” will survive. Sadly there will be casualties that I would rather not see. I hope 4G gets it’s legs back on the ground. I’d really like to see Big Ben again.

[phaidknott 7023xp 0]

@wkeyser Bit much to state that the casting medium/process was decided upon due to a Beta Testing weekend. From what I’ve heard it was due to the fact they were getting a sizable number of miscasts using normal resin and the PVC minis were “soft” and missing detail.

I’ve no idea on the costs of 3D printing, but I’m sure they looked into and felt it was feasible (and not because they were “rushing” things for a Beta weekend). After all they could have done 3D masters for the few people at the beta weekend and then switched back to a different medium for everyone else?

From the interviews here, they said the sculpts were difficult to cast and details were lost/missing. I think that was the reason they went for 3D printing.

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