Martin Wallace bitchslapped?

MattLoter wrote:

Ryan B. wrote:

Days of Wonder is probably the best model of how a highly effective, well run business can carve out a successful niche in a boutique industry. The attention to detail is phenomenal. The company has a well defined integration plan and take pains to execute their overall business model, including logistics, marketing and distribution effectively. That's why, despite not liking any of their recent games, I still draw inspiration from Days of Wonder as THE model to start a boardgame business.

Their "business model" seems to be: *^*& out a couple overpriced expansions for TTR and M:44, totally *^*& up the expansions and blow tons of potential on the one other property they put out that year, disappoint everyone... Profit!

I actually like a lot of what they put out, but holy $%^$, they sure do make it hard.

Actually, I couldn't agree with you more about the endless expansions of TTR and M44. As I stated, I'm not fond of what they are doing on the games front either. But many people ARE happy. At least happy enough to buy.

Because they are privately held, you aren't going to get essential financials from them like the Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement, Balance Sheet. Without those, all we can really do is guess at what how they are doing from a financial standpoint. If people are buying those games, however, the Income Statement should be impacted favorably. As long as they manage account receivables well, then the Cash Flow Statement I could presume to be healthy. I don't think they would keep putting out the expansions, if they weren't making a profit from somewhere. Just from that standpoint, I could conclude they are probably well-run from a financial standpoint, if I am being simplistic about it. I also think they do a good at staying out of the fray of the whims of BGG and properly controlling information on their releases. They make mistakes, sure... but nothing that I think is going to hurt them long-term.

But their game selection/strategy as of recent? Yes, they do make it hard to be a fan. Although, with Battlelore, the decision to know when to get out is something that they have to be given credit for, in my book. I thought it was proactive and smart. Too often companies get out when it is far too late...

One final point: profit IS what should make the company "go around" in the end. It's these companies that do it for the "love" of the hobby, without a proper regard for the bottom line, is why so many of them wind up going out of business.

---

Even so, I don't want to hijack the thread and turn it into a referendum on Days of Wonder. Going back to Fred and Martin Wallace... I just spent time reading the correspondence between Martin and FRED. While being in the very distinct minority I'm sure, I actually optimistic that a zone of possible agreement exists... if handled properly.

Ryan B. wrote:

Going back to Fred and Martin Wallace... I just spent time reading the correspondence between Martin and FRED. While being in the very distinct minority I'm sure, I actually optimistic that a zone of possible agreement exists... if handled properly.

I suspect you're right from a theoretical standpoint. However, I suspect there's way too much dumb already in the air on this one to be able to wratchet down the emotion to a level where "proper handling" could even be possible. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but I just don't see it.

Off-topic: On the DOW front, did you see the public meltdown DOW president Eric Whatshisnuts had with one of his most public evangelists a while back [that Brian "ColtsFan" guy, though I got the impression that he wasn't the first to receive that sort of thing]?. Regardless of their goof-ball expansion approach, they already have at least a little history of getting sucked deep into the BGG maelstrom. It's like M44 and TTR's overwhelming success drove them out of the cottage industry side of the biz by the power of huge cash inflows alone yet the company still seems pretty personality, rather than business-sense, driven. (Of course, without public release of all that supporting documentation you mention above, there's no real way to gauge any of that other than observation and guesswork.)

Got a link to that Dog?

Brian Coltsfan has a rather inflated image of his own worth so I can imagine him, at some stage, taking umbrage that the game company dare question his opinion of their games. He has already made himself the BGG expert on Arkham Horror (as well as the DoW games) and then did the same with BSG within a couple of weeks of buying the game (and this was 4 months after everyone else bought the game and with never having seen the show).

I like Coltsfan. I would spoon him.

Mr Skeletor wrote:

I like Coltsfan. I would spoon him.

That is high praise.

Mr Skeletor wrote:

Got a link to that Dog?

The response was the "Open Letter to DOW" that Brian wrote a while back. I'll see if I can dig it up. Not sure if the original thread still exists as it was one of those "shitstorm in a shotglass"-generators that BGG is generally none to thrilled with--and Brian took some flak for posting it from the community, so even he might have killed it just to reduce the noise generation.


Edit: Ah ha; here it is: An Open Letter to DOW-From a Fanboy


Edit2: Tom, I hear ya on Brian's attitude/public persona. Part of that is that he's one of those "community elder" types to whom BGG folks seem to give extra weight; it's hard for that not to bleed into the posts sometimes. I do like the guy though, and there was no doubt that at least up until that thread, he was really tied in with DOW as a playtester and evangelist. The thread I link above is a response to a very weird semi-private (I think) exchange that he took public. That kind of move is a little too "look at me!" for my taste, but if there's even a grain of truth to the original (and I have no reason to not believe Brian; even if you discount significantly for any spin or exaggeration, it's still fairly high on the WTF-o-meter). And, I gotta say, of all of BGG's self-professed "experts" on FFG games, I'd rather it be him than DDJ, who competes for the same title...

Dogmatix wrote:

Mr Skeletor wrote:

Got a link to that Dog?

The response was the "Open Letter to DOW" that Brian wrote a while back. I'll see if I can dig it up. Not sure if the original thread still exists as it was one of those "shitstorm in a shotglass"-generators that BGG is generally none to thrilled with--and Brian took some flak for posting it from the community, so even he might have killed it just to reduce the noise generation.


Edit: Ah ha; here it is: An Open Letter to DOW-From a Fanboy


Edit2: Tom, I hear ya on Brian's attitude/public persona. Part of that is that he's one of those "community elder" types to whom BGG folks seem to give extra weight; it's hard for that not to bleed into the posts sometimes. I do like the guy though, and there was no doubt that at least up until that thread, he was really tied in with DOW as a playtester and evangelist. The thread I link above is a response to a very weird semi-private (I think) exchange that he took public. That kind of move is a little too "look at me!" for my taste, but if there's even a grain of truth to the original (and I have no reason to not believe Brian; even if you discount significantly for any spin or exaggeration, it's still fairly high on the WTF-o-meter). And, I gotta say, of all of BGG's self-professed "experts" on FFG games, I'd rather it be him than DDJ, who competes for the same title...

Dogmatix,

I had not and would be very surprised by comments from Eric Hautemont on a public forum like BGG. I briefly went through the thread. But I could not find any comments from Eric. Can you show me?

Ryan B.

Juniper wrote:

FRED says that they have incontrovertible evidence that Wallace signed the contract that they claim he signed.

Here are FRED's words:

As Glenn Drover has clearly demonstrated, these missing pages certainly and unequivocally were part of the original contract, delivered to Wallace on March 4, 2005 and Martin Wallace equally clearly “signed up to the clauses in those two pages” on March 7, 2005 in spite of his July 23, 2009 false accusations and assertions to the contrary.

What FRED actually has is an email exchange between Drover and Wallace. On March 4, 2005, Drover sent a contract to Wallace in the form of a file attachment. Drover reports that this contract is identical to the one that was attached to the legal complaint that was filed against Wallace by FRED on July 20, 2009.

On March 7, 2005, Wallace replied:

Have signed agreement and asked friend to fax it to you - don't have fax myself. Let me know if you have rceived it. If there is any chance of the money being paid int my account this week that would be useful.

FRED seems to think that this email exchange is just as good as a properly signed and complete contract. I'm not qualified to speculate as to whether that's true.

FOLLOWUP:

I asked a contract lawyer, and she confirmed that it is true. According to her, a dated file containing the text of the contract, along with faxes of the "signing pages," will usually be sufficient, at least in Canada and the US. Of course, it's preferable to keep everything bound together in hard copy.

Dogmatix wrote:

Edit: Ah ha; here it is: An Open Letter to DOW-From a Fanboy

Oh that one - that's over a year ago. I was having my 2 cents worth in their as well, and on the DoW M44 forum. He actually had a very good point on the crap that DoW was putting out - but, in the end it was really just their marketing strategy to try and hit a big a mass market as poss instead of the (very small number of) dedicated fanboy gamers.
I didn't think it was that big a stink - a couple of some real brown-nose fanboys on the M44 forum got upset with him and he wandered away from M44, but there's been a lot messier shit over there.

Ryan B. wrote:

Dogmatix,

I had not and would be very surprised by comments from Eric Hautemont on a public forum like BGG. I briefly went through the thread. But I could not find any comments from Eric. Can you show me?

Ryan B.

Near the bottom of page 7:

ColtsFan76 wrote:

Well, expect no response from DOW. I received a call from Eric who has taken it all personally and felt I staged this whole thing to coincide when he was in an airport (my reaction was based on the release of info not his flight schedule).

I have been asked to not email the company any longer and that I am no friend of DOW. I was also asked to stop purchasing their products.

Ryan B. wrote:

I had not and would be very surprised by comments from Eric Hautemont on a public forum like BGG. I briefly went through the thread. But I could not find any comments from Eric. Can you show me? Ryan B.

Ryan: Sorry man. Fuzzy braincells remembered reading the comments in that thread or a related one. It was actually Brian posting about it, not an actual statement by Eric. Sorry man; didn't mean to overstate (severely) the case but it was simply filed in my head under "bizarro game publisher and consumer activities".

Dogmatix wrote:

Ryan B. wrote:

I had not and would be very surprised by comments from Eric Hautemont on a public forum like BGG. I briefly went through the thread. But I could not find any comments from Eric. Can you show me? Ryan B.

Ryan: Sorry man. Fuzzy braincells remembered reading the comments in that thread or a related one. It was actually Brian posting about it, not an actual statement by Eric. Sorry man; didn't mean to overstate (severely) the case but it was simply filed in my head under "bizarro game publisher and consumer activities".

That's such a huge file drawer I don't even have room for them anymore.

One person involved in the original postings whose name is not familiar to many is Rick Soued. He is an avid gamer who probably set up a lot of the base business structure behind Funagain and FRED, and is of course an investor in both. (There is a note that he is the one currently existing link between the two companies.)

Rick is a combination of an incredibly nice guy who is remarkable at keeping track of details, contracts, promises and documentation. Anything he is posting is probably completely true, was triple checked, and he is nice enough that he completely and deeply regrets the state of the current feud.

I also kind of want to see Rick and Dan Baden in a game of KKK/Who's the Boss. I bet Dan loses badly.

This thread is getting so long, it reminds me of that scene in that Airplane movie where all the passengers were lining up to slap the hysterical woman.