Reply To: Sad news about 4Ground going into Liquidation

[phaidknott 7023xp 1]

Well I’m still not sure what’s going on about all this. Someone had caught the Gazette article and asked if this meant they were going out of business on the 4Ground Facebook page. 4Ground replied that it had to do with some restructuring and there was nothing to be concerned about (Note Ben and 4Ground were still up at the St Helens Show (Phalanx) trading last week, so that doesn’t sound like everything is being wound up).

There was the move to the new website and the change in title to 4Ground Publishing, and I’m not sure if 4Ground are moving away from the MDF business and moving toward doing rules as their primary focus (hence Fabled Realms and the new 10mm SYW stuff being talked about).

I think it’s probably best to await news from the owners themselves and not conjecture as to what “may” be happening.

As a Fabled Realms backer (I did go crazy and pledge for over £400) it’s concerning, but 4Ground have done everything over and above board in sending out everything they could over a year ago (ie the MDF terrain they had already produced, the new MDF terrain for the game etc etc). The only hold up (before other come in here ranting) was the production of the 3D printed minis (which the backers voted to do given the option of those or continuing with PVC minis). They did expect a delay due to this and had forecast initially they were looking at March of this year to get them printed (so at the moment we are 3 months past that date (despite a few that still claim it’s over a year late as they like to cause drama and use the original KS completion date using the PVC minis).

As far as I know, the rules had been sent off to be edited, but not sure if they and the cards had gone to the printers yet. The minis, well we’re not sure.

Either way I feel that this will be a cause of great pain to Ben (he’s also been seriously ill over the last few months), but this is the nature of Kick Starters. They can make a great impact on a company, but it’s a risk to the company and to the backers (sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t). But I suppose I’ve got about £300 of $Ground MDF (at retail prices) so far, so I’m not totally left in the lurch if nothing else comes forwards.

But I do hope Ben and Cad and the family (it is a family owned business) can get through all this (and it is indeed just a restructuring legal thingy), and the Ben and Cad can bring to light the game that’s close to their hearts and is a real “vanity” project for them 🙂