Architects of War/Alien Dungeon closed shop?

[Davros]

    To All Interested Parties:

     To anyone who plays Alls Quiet on The Martian Front, the company who produces the game has closed up shop or temporarily shut down.  They had a big sale of all their merchandise posted the following message to anyone who goes to their website:

Work in Progress

We are making every effort to create the best possible shopping experience for you Please visit us soon.

[von Lucky]

Their Facebook page is still up, and someone has already flagged that their website is down:
https://www.facebook.com/Architects-of-War-114179151945582/

[Davros]

  Okay thank you, I saw a thread on TMP about their website.

[wolivant]

Hope it's a temporary thing, although I do have my kickstarter boxes still unopened.

Wonder if the orders were complete now... hmm!

Wolt

[wolivant]

Still no news on fb of an change or indeed the web being down...

Anyone got any news (not gossip or guesswork) on this?

Ta

Wolt

[Quendil]

There Forum, Website and the Alien Dungeon Facebook page is down.  I had some missing parts from an order and the stockist has been chasing them up for the past week with no Joy. Also Clive contacted Rendra who where the UK distributor for the Kickstarter and got this email back

"Hi Clive
Sorry to hear that but we are in the same boat, I have emailed but they have not replied, they used to distribute our products but we have not sent anything for at least two months (as they have outstanding unpaid invoices). We sent out the All Quiet products in the early days - the products were received by us boxed we would label the boxes and we would post them on but have not done this for a long time so I have no idea of the situation. I have tried several times to call them but it appears that the phone number I have is no longer in service. It is a sad situation, hopefully they sort out any issues and at least you guys who backed the Kickstarter will receive the balance of your orders, albeit it will not be passed through us.
Kindest Regards and good wishes for Christmas and the New Year
Joan"


It does not sound good and I think most people now think they have gone under after weeks of no contact.

[Ray Rivers]

Well... I can still bring up their Facebook page and the website and store are in maintenance modes.

So we are in a kinda suspended animation at the moment.

Having said that, almost certainly something is going on and them going out of business is obviously not a wild conclusion. Anybody following the AQotMF kickstarter I think understands that probably they really blew it on shipping costs. Their recent sales spam was a pretty obvious gambit to gain liquidity.

It is difficult to know what is going on at this stage, of course. While they may have filed for bankruptcy, they also could be looking at possible IP buyers or trying to arrange additional financing. So for example, if they could get a preliminary agreement to sell the IP to someone, they may be able to use that as collateral for additional financing. Dunno much about how that all works to be quite frank.

The pity is that the minis are actually quite good and that may be their saving grace which allows them to get back to market, whether it is with Alien Dungeon or some other manufacturer.

As with a lot of kickstarters, patience is not just a virtue, it is a necessity.

[Quendil]

Well... I can still bring up their Facebook page and the website and store are in maintenance modes.

So we are in a kinda suspended animation at the moment.

Having said that, almost certainly something is going on and them going out of business is obviously not a wild conclusion. Anybody following the AQotMF kickstarter I think understands that probably they really blew it on shipping costs. Their recent sales spam was a pretty obvious gambit to gain liquidity.

It is difficult to know what is going on at this stage, of course. While they may have filed for bankruptcy, they also could be looking at possible IP buyers or trying to arrange additional financing. So for example, if they could get a preliminary agreement to sell the IP to someone, they may be able to use that as collateral for additional financing. Dunno much about how that all works to be quite frank.

The pity is that the minis are actually quite good and that may be their saving grace which allows them to get back to market, whether it is with Alien Dungeon or some other manufacturer.

As with a lot of kickstarters, patience is not just a virtue, it is a necessity.

The Architects of war Facebook page is still there bit their main page was Alien Dungeon and they have pulled it from Facebook.

Unfortunately its not just the kickstarter as a lot of people ordered stuff in their recent sales and are now rightly worried about getting their stuff

[grant]

People should be filing with PayPal of talking to their credit card companies as soon as possible if they have unfulfilled orders

I thought the whole thing looked cool, but it wasn't my bag. It would be a shame to see the All Quiet project die though.

[Quendil]

Hopefully someone will buy the rights like Ray suggested and its too good just to die.

[Rhoderic]

Hopefully someone will buy the rights like Ray suggested and its too good just to die.

If it happens, I wouldn't be half surprised if the buyer turns out to be Rebel Miniatures. It's kind of what they do.

But I'm aware, of course, that it's very early days for me to be speculating about stuff like that.

[Frank Frey]

Blaine Pardoe's blog post gives details on the latest on AoW/AD. It can be accessed at:
https://blainepardoe.wordpress.com

It doesn't look good to say the least. I've also read a report that their house is in foreclosure which would indicate a financial collapse of catastrophic proportions.

Frank Frey

[Quendil]

From the Facebook group

There is a foreclosure pending for the previous aow/ad office location.
go here

casesearch.courts.state.md.us/casesearch/

Case #13C15104463

[Ray Rivers]

Well....

I believe most of us are fairly familiar with a business going bust because it could not generate revenues (the most common reason for business failure). For example, you set up a shop, buy all your stock, open the door and people just don't come to buy stuff. Eventually, the overhead costs (electricity, rent, garbage, etc.) exceed the not only expected revenues but also the owner's personal financial reserves. The owner either tries to sell off everything to recoup as much as he can or sell it to someone else to work.

This was not Alien Dungeon's problem and is one of those few times when a business goes broke because it was "too successful."

An example of business being "too successful" goes like this: A guy has an idea for a certain product... "X". He sets up his business plan based on a calculation of how much product he expects to sell. Based on the calculation, he rents out a suitably sized building, buys his machinery and hires workers. When his product goes to market, it is wildly popular and the guy receives more orders than he can fill. To meet these orders he must expand rapidly and during this expansion he fails to keep costs under control and the next thing you know, he is selling at a loss. Eventually, if he can't get his costs under control, he goes broke and out of business.

This is what I believe happened to AD.

If I was faced with this problem, I would of course, file for bankruptcy. At the same time, I would try to figure out how I could produce the product in the future for a profit. If I am unable to come up with a suitable business plan which I could present to a bank for financing, I would then be looking at someone to buy me out at the best price.

If it is true that a bank is foreclosing on the guy's house, it is pretty obvious that he has blown through every single asset he has available to try to make his business work. Coming up with a business plan that a bank would finance would seem fairly remote, especially because he lacks collateral. Having said that, it is not unheard of for a bank to finance this kind of business... given that the guy has been able to identify and rectify the major problem areas and have a really excellent way to solve them.

Nevertheless, it is most likely this business will be bought by someone else.

We'll just have to wait and see...

[nicknorthstar]

I disagree with the last post.

AoW resin terrain, Uncivil War and Fanticide were all unsuccessful, so Ernie certainly set up shop and nobody came. I know, I've still got 100 copies of Fanticide in my warehouse no ones buying.

I suspect you were talking about All Quiet. But, it wasn't that it was too successful. Like a number of people doing Kickstarters, Ernie didn't do his maths right and found all manner of costs he hadn't accounted for. He admitted it afterwards when it was too late. 'Never do a Kickstarter Nick' was his advice to me I recall.

I'm not sure what the real problem was, but I've heard down the grapevine very large sums of money are owed.