Clap Your Hands and BELIEVE that there will be an Up Front!!

[bayonetbrant]

Well this is going to be interesting

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/06/11/the-ftcs-first-crowdfunding-enforcement-is-over-a-failed-board-game-on-kickstarter/

Crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter have helped launch a lot of nerdy gaming success stories. Politically incorrect party game "Cards Against Humanity" was an early success story that went on to form a sort of mini-empire. Cooperative survival game series "Zombicide" is now fulfilling orders to supporters of its third separate campaign. And one of the most funded projects of all time is a card game called "Exploding Kittens" that was co-created by a popular Web comic artist and is expected to ship later this summer.

But in its first ever enforcement action against a crowdfunded project, the Federal Trade Commission went after a board game project gone wrong.

When "The Doom That Came to Atlantic City" hit Kickstarter in May 2012, it looked like a solid investment. Players would take the role of the Great Old Ones, the otherworldly villains of popular horror writer H.P. Lovecraft's mythos, as they wreaked havoc on Atlantic City on a board that closely resembled Monopoly.

It was the brainchild of illustrator Lee Moyer and experienced game designer Keith Baker. Paul Komoda, a sculptor with a long association with the late surrealist artist and special effects guru H.R. Giger, also committed to designing figurines for the game -- and special pewter versions for backers who committed higher amounts to the project.

The campaign initially asked for $35,000, with a $50 pledge to secure a base copy of the game and extra tiers of rewards ranging up to $2,500. After some excited write-ups, it ended up overshooting that goal, raising $122,874 from more than 1,200 people for an average of nearly $100 per backer.

But the company that was supposed to make the game, the Forking Path, never delivered. "After paying to form the company, for the miniature statues, moving back to Portland, getting software licenses and hiring artists to do things like rule book design and art conforming the money was approaching a point of no return," said Erik Chevalier, the man behind the Forking Path, in a June 2013 Kickstarter post announcing the game's cancellation. "My hope now is to eventually refund everyone fully."

more at the link

[Cyrano]

Curious to hear what the remedies will be.

Given that this is almost certainly a corporation, and given that that corporation is almost certainly insolvent, I imagine the FTC would have to prove some sort of criminal intent/conspiracy to bring any real retribution to those meriting it.  And, if they do, well, then, interstate commerce involves one in federal crimes which comes with much more interesting punishments and sentencing guidelines.

I didn't spot a link to the complaint.  Anyone seen it, perchance?

Best,

Jim
"Cyrano"
:/7)

[bayonetbrant]

I think that if someone could show the tap-dancing of "rights" between the companies and how the money was shifted where it seemed to be moved to avoid being litigated say, they might have a case that the company claiming rights to Up Front knew what they were doing was wrong and that they didn't have the rights to the game.

[Cyrano]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/06/feds-take-first-action-against-a-failed-kickstarter-with-112k-judgment/

Judgment with no payment.

Don't quite understand the point of the exercise.

Jim

[bayonetbrant]

I saw this on BGG.  Made me chuckle

Yup, if the dried corpse of Up Front can teach us anything is that KS projects with a whiff of new corpse smell most likely will rot on you before delivery.