CMON trading suspended after audit issues

I did a "sky is falling / what if I don't get my shit?" calculation:
I have $180 bucks of CMON stuff in the pipeline.

Some heroes for The Others (in route)
Night of the Living Dead Zombicide*
Zombicide 2nd edition upgrade**

*I'm done with Zombicide S1-3, and am ramping up to sell my stuff.
(WANNA BUY MY STUFF?!) However, I have a soft spot for the game. I just can't handle the sprawl. The idea of playing Zombicide under the NotLD banner is right up my alley. I'm a Western Pennsylvania, George Romero lovin', fanboy of Zeleinople undead - so I think this theoretical transition to a "one and done" Zombicide variant should be cool.

** I figured if I wanted to sell my 1st edition Zombicide stuff, it may be good bait to offer characters' 2nd edition cards. So I bought this upgrade thing, to sell? IDK what the fuck I was thinking.

And if I don't receive any of my pledges? I'll take it on the chin. So it goes.

Well, I'm still a huge Eric Lang fan. Even if CMON does go OTT with the plastic, I don't really care. In most cases, you get what you're paying for and what I've paid or traded for in terms of The Others, Blood Rage, and Rising Sun are some fantastic games. CMON's shady/risky business practices have zero to do with the quality of his designs, so I'll be disappointed if projects of his, like Ankh, are left in stasis or dissolved because of what's happening (if the company does fall apart.) It will also be pretty disappointing for a lot of people who work there, getting tossed into the street in what is something of a worst-case scenario, and those local shops who will take a hit because a lot of people attracted by the bling of CMON's game won't be as interested in making orders. (Presuming those shops survive this.)

And, yes, the reprint of Modern Art was a real upgrade in terms of modern visual appeal, too.

CMON APRIL 2020 UPDATE
Apr 11, 2020
Despite the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, it is business as usual at CMON (or as usual as possible given the lockdowns implemented in various locations globally). We have fulfilled (or are in the process of fulfilling) 37 Kickstarter projects to date with a spotless record and will continue to do so.

Some of you may have read about our public announcement where we have a legal requirement to report on any issues we face as a public company. We are aware that there are articles incorrectly attributing meaning to “going concern” that may not be wholly accurate.

"Going concern" is a highly technical accounting term referring to a situation where net current liabilities are greater than net current assets. This happens for CMON from time to time since we record funds received from Kickstarter as both a liability and an asset - the money is an asset we received from our backers, but it is also a liability we owe to them that is not fulfilled until we ship our products. Since we use the funds to pay for molds, production and development of those products, and some of these are considered "Non-Current assets”, the asset column goes down as we use the money to fulfill the development of the game. Once we ship the game, the project goes back into the black because we can take the liability for the Kickstarter funds off the books.

The tricky part is when this crosses a financial reporting year, which happens often for Kickstarter projects, and if that happens it automatically triggers this technical nomenclature, and if you review our prospectus you will see we have reported this in the past.

This accounting treatment has nothing to do with the underlying strength of the company or our ability to make games and deliver them to you. Please rest assured that despite the current state of the world, CMON is and will be in the business of making great games for many years to come.

On that note, here’s what’s happening with our current open projects:

Starcadia Quest – Fully shipped out to backers.

Blood Rage Digital – Physical rewards fulfilled. Digital game has finished Beta testing and a launch date will be announced soon.

Time Machine – Partially fulfilled. The lockdown has slowed down packing in the USA hub and delayed deliveries in Europe.

Munchkin Dungeon and Project Elite – On the way to fulfillment centers. We will face some delays in Europe as our fulfillment center is not considered an essential service and cannot operate until the lockdown is lifted

Marvel United, Bloodborne, Night of the Living Dead, Trudvang Legends, and Zombicide 2nd edition are in various stages of production as per schedule, please check the relevant project pages for the latest status updates.

Ha. Yeah. Sorry. This is bullshit. No CPA firm worth its salt cites a "going concern" problem because of an accounting technique. There's something else going on there.

Have you met CMON’s spokesperson?

Blaming it fiscal year end ? Um, no. Going concern looks forward, not just the year in question.

This shit is sketchy as anything. Reminds me of when they reported huge losses a year or two ago and people tried to justify it with handwaving.

I'm not necessarily hoping for CMON to fail because good lord that is a lot of outstanding pledges for folks to not get, but I won't shed a tear for the company if it dies. Pointing and laughing will happen, but that's a given.

Well, Ankh has pulled in half a million in it's first few hours, so they'll likely be OK for a while...

As long as they can run another ks or three to fund Ankh.

cdennett wrote: Well, Ankh has pulled in half a million in it's first few hours, so they'll likely be OK for a while...

That covers a consultant, at least a cheap one.

Threadomancy, but CMON released a profit warning the other day, detailing a $3.8m loss that they're taking in 2020: cmon-files.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/cmon_fil...profit_warning_e.pdf

They're suggesting that most of the impact was coming from the Covid shutdown, but there's still the question about the circumstances that began this thread and whether this is part of why they fired PWC and went in search of an auditor who would (presumably) give them a better picture. Some posters on BGG have stated that, over the past few months, CMON has apparently gone full bore into getting overdue KS projects out the door and to their customers. If they're taking this big a hit in 2020, that almost certainly means that they're kiting checks on KS (i.e. using money from new projects to complete old ones.) Considering that basically every project they do wildly exceeds its funding requirements, that's not unsustainable for the moment, but it certainly lends credence to PWC's "going concern" statement. So, again, keep that in mind if you decide to back their stuff.

Thank you for this, I was wondering what happened with this just the other day when we were talking about cmon bloat!

Yeah I had forgotten about this. Wasn't there another (smaller) company that got in hot water for Kickstarter Ponzi schemes? The name escapes me, but I thought their bad acting had created some sort of precedent that companies must fulfill already-funded projects before launching new ones. Wouldn't be surprised if CMON thought they were an exception.

I don't remember anyone getting in trouble, but I do remember a smaller publisher whose name is totally escaping me at the moment who launched a Kickstarter last year to basically fund the company sufficiently that they could get off the KS check kiting system. They openly admitted that they were using new projects to complete old ones and wanted to secure enough capital via KS to be able to get off that train. They eventually pulled the campaign when the response was, shall we say, poor.

I believe Monolith is the one you are referring to?

www.facebook.com/monolithedition/posts/2252673691504268

Yes. That's what I was thinking of. I may have misrepresented some of the details.

Jackwraith wrote: Yes. That's what I was thinking of. I may have misrepresented some of the details.

To swing from a $1.9m profit to $3.9m loss in one year seems like way more than the bad quarter they blamed or a shift in shipping dates.