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Boardgame "Solar City" Kickstarter collapses after CEO steals all the money/product and flees country

Sun's Resting Place

Sun's Resting Place

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,165


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1689336268/solar-city-a-solarpunk-game/posts/2480259

Allthe plans are gone now. We know that at this point it will be difficult for you to believe anything we wrote, but the surprise was for us the same – the person we have known for almost a decade, which we considered our friend, not just a partner, cheated us all, leaving the company without means to continue functioning and with a mass of huge debts that will cost us not only our careers but also make our personal life very difficult.

In the case of BGCK - we have seen the basic products manufactured with our own eyes, but they have been stolen - although we are not sure at this point, because the case was carried out by the president himself. There was 400 copies of the basic product already produced and it vanished. Some – as you know – appeared in Finland. Some… we don't know where they are.
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I feel like for more and more kickstarters this kind of thing is going to keep on getting revealed. Or, even, have turned out to be the case but no one ever posted an update.
 
RocketDarkness

RocketDarkness

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,283
SoCal
This seems pretty crazy, since it looks like they had made it pretty damn far in the production process (fully fleshed out game mechanics, lots of hands-on impressions, etc). I feel terrible for the rest of the employees left to pick up the pieces, and of course, all the backers whose money was stolen.
 
Nepenthe

Nepenthe

When the music hits, you feel no pain.
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Oct 25, 2017
20,659
That is absolutely crushing. I hope the employees left with the mess are able to dig themselves from under the rubble.
 

Deleted member 24907

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Oct 29, 2017
5,354
I can't imagine putting in honest, hard work and months/years later it be revealed that my work was being used to prop up a scam. Holy fuck.
 
Gernau Morat Gurgeh

Gernau Morat Gurgeh

Member
Oct 31, 2017
10,037
Well that's miserable, both for the defrauded backers and the members of the company who were working on it in good faith. I wonder how much the fucker stole?
 
adj_noun

adj_noun

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
17,152
With a campaign grand total of sixtyeight grand, the emphasis may have been more on the running than the stealing.

edit wait

In the case of BGCK - we have seen the basic products manufactured with our own eyes, but they have been stolen - although we are not sure at this point, because the case was carried out by the president himself. There was 400 copies of the basic product already produced and it vanished.
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They think he stole their product?

Man.

edit2 oh durr it says so in the initial tweet
 
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Deleted member 18514

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Oct 27, 2017
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Not the first time. Radiant Games (IIRC) had their CEO bail out to Australia with $350k or thereabouts unaccounted for. They had "Upfront" and "Airborne in your Pocket" KS at the time. This was back in 2011 or 2013.

This is a HUGE issue for KS IMHO. There is really no protection against scamming other than individual discretion to NOT throw money at unproven devs. But even a couple fulfilled projects doesnt prevent a future one going bust due to stuff like this.
 

Deleted member 18502

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This is terrible news, again.

At this point, someone should kickstart a board game with the theme of grifting/ripping off people via kickstarter.
 
Mockerre

Mockerre

Story Director
Verified
Oct 30, 2017
630
These are the same guys who forged customs papers last year to lend credence to their product delay. The company has a history of shady behaviour. Wouldn't put much stock in anything they say, especially any sensationalist story like this.
 
Monkey Gland Sauce

Monkey Gland Sauce

Member
Oct 30, 2017
880
This is old, happened in Feb or early March so not sure why it took so long for kickstarter post. As far as I know, the rights reverted to the designers and they have teamed up with another company to fulfil the Polish crowdfunding, which was through a different service to Kickstarter. Not sure if an English version is still happening, though.
 
Kyuuji

Kyuuji

The Favonius Fox
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Nov 8, 2017
31,934
Dude fled the country for $68k lol?

Edit: Just saw it was $350k, which is more but even still.
 
Slayven

Slayven

Never read a comic in his life
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Oct 25, 2017
93,014
Damn, taking the already preoduced stock is some pissing in your face type shit
 

Books

Alt account
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Feb 4, 2019
2,180
So the CEO is going to try to make money selling the "limited edition" product.

Hopefully the workers were getting paid a salary the entire time.
 
Detective Loki

Detective Loki

Banned
Nov 30, 2018
2,078
Lmao and only took $60k

Edit: apparently $350k

Which is 1/4 of what people even retire with at 65.

Good luck guy lmao
 
OP
OP
Sun's Resting Place

Sun's Resting Place

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,165
exodus said:
This sounds farfetched.
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The reason this sounds more credible is because of this:

"There was 400 copies of the basic product already produced and it vanished. Some – as you know – appeared in Finland. Some… we don't know where they are. The shop in Finland refused to share any details and we suspect the copies were stolen during transport to our warehouse. "

It seems as if people actually saw product in Finland. I'd need to do more research into this scenario though.
 
Z-Beat

Z-Beat

One Winged Slayer
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Oct 25, 2017
31,831
He stole the board game too? Is there a board game black market that he's planning to sell it on?

And yeah, $350k is a stupid amount to pull this shit for.
 
chezzymann

chezzymann

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Oct 25, 2017
4,042
Very strange. Something seems odd. Even if he was the CEO usually they don't have that much control to just swipe the entire company like that with no one noticing.
 
Post Reply

Post Reply

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Aug 1, 2018
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This thread made me decide to go check in on the Project Phoenix Kickerstarter. 6 years later and the fuckers still haven't even started working on the game.
 

mrmoose

Member
Nov 13, 2017
21,144
jason10mm said:
Not the first time. Radiant Games (IIRC) had their CEO bail out to Australia with $350k or thereabouts unaccounted for. They had "Upfront" and "Airborne in your Pocket" KS at the time. This was back in 2011 or 2013.

This is a HUGE issue for KS IMHO. There is really no protection against scamming other than individual discretion to NOT throw money at unproven devs. But even a couple fulfilled projects doesnt prevent a future one going bust due to stuff like this.
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This isn't specific to kickstarter, though, basically if you preorder anything from an unknown company and pay up front, you can get screwed, unless I'm missing something.
 

Deleted member 14459

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No surprise here. They have for a long time had a shady reputation and were banned on the biggest polish crowdfund platform for failure to communicate and deliver on previous projects...
 

Books

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Solar City. Sol as in star. City dwellers are citizens. Star Citizen.
 

Deleted member 10234

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There's this from last year: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2047838/designer-solar-city-leave-publisher-after-it-revea
Marcin Senior Ropka, one of the designers of Solar City, announced this week that he is no longer an employee of Games Factory. His decision was based on a fact that company was lying to him and the backers about at least one of the previous crowdfunding campaigns in Poland.

The publisher has been stating for many months that the games (Polish edition of Raiders of The North expansions) were stuck at the Polish customs office, and even in one of the updates fabricated materials from customs agency. Eventually, due to the growing distrust, one of the backers asked the publisher of the original game (Garphill Games) if Games Factory even participated in the international print. It was then revealed that although the games were manufactured Games Factory has never paid the final bill and the games have been waiting in China for eight months to date.
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Based on that thread I wouldn't trust anything this company says.
 
ZackieChan

ZackieChan

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Oct 27, 2017
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Dio Over Heaven said:


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1689336268/solar-city-a-solarpunk-game/posts/2480259



I feel like for more and more kickstarters this kind of thing is going to keep on getting revealed. Or, even, have turned out to be the case but no one ever posted an update.
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This is extremely rare, actually, given the number of campaigns that are successful.
jason10mm said:
Not the first time. Radiant Games (IIRC) had their CEO bail out to Australia with $350k or thereabouts unaccounted for. They had "Upfront" and "Airborne in your Pocket" KS at the time. This was back in 2011 or 2013.

This is a HUGE issue for KS IMHO. There is really no protection against scamming other than individual discretion to NOT throw money at unproven devs. But even a couple fulfilled projects doesnt prevent a future one going bust due to stuff like this.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Again, it's very rare for something like this to happen. But it hurts all of the legitimate creators out there who built their businesses on Crowdfunding.
 

Deleted member 18514

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Oct 27, 2017
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mrmoose said:
This isn't specific to kickstarter, though, basically if you preorder anything from an unknown company and pay up front, you can get screwed, unless I'm missing something.
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KS fulfillment can take place far after the typical 1 year period you can dispute a credit card charge. Plus they take money upfront for a product not even in development which is fairly unusual for most pre-orders. The KS page also gives a sense of legitimacy not found in some adhoc website (even though there isn't really much difference).
 
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