Catalyst Game Labs recently completed a detailed financial review of the company. We learned that over the past several years the company has achieved dramatic growth in terms of demand, increased total revenues and strong sales with an increasing market share in the gaming industry, despite a lackluster economy. We are thrilled by that news and are eager to move forward with our upcoming original game Leviathans, along with our other new casual games. We also remain committed to plans for our beloved licensed games: Shadowrun, BattleTech, Eclipse Phase, and CthuluTech.

While we wish the review had only uncovered positive news, we also discovered our accounting procedures had not been updated as the company continued to grow. The result was that business funds had been co-mingled with the personal funds of one of the owners. We believe the missing funds were the result of bad habits that began alongside the creation of the company, which was initially a small hobby group. Upon further investigation, in which the owner has willingly participated, the owner in question now owes the company a significant balance and is working to help rectify the situation.

The current group of owners was presented with this information on Monday. Administrative organization for the company is under review, and accounting procedures have been restructured, to correct the situation and provide more stringent oversight. We feel the management team at Catalyst did the responsible thing by seeking this financial review and we will continue to restructure as needed. We are in discussions with our partners and freelancers to remedy any back payments that may also be due as a result of this review.

We are embarrassed that this situation did occur but we hope our eagerness to make these changes, along with our reputation for making great games, will encourage you to stand by us. We understand that for a few employees the news was too stressful and we wish them all the best in their new endeavors. However, the majority of the team remains and will continue to bring great entertainment to you all. We appreciate the support our friends, freelancers, and fans have provided us in the past and look forward to a successful future.

Speculation over Catalyst’s future will undoubtedly continue, with some seeing the press release as mere spin tactics, but some fans have been encouraged by the forthright company response and admission of problems. Gamers may want to keep watch for any news of the Shadowrun and BattleTech licenses lapsing and getting reeled in by Topps, or news of publisher changes for Cthulhutech (WildFire) or Eclipse Phase (Posthuman Studios) – any of which could be signs of more trouble at Catalyst.

Dumpshock forum post made by “Frank Trollman”:

[Editor's note: While the post below claims to have reliable sources, until this information is confirmed, it should be considered as rumor.]

OK, as you may well have been able to surmise from release schedules, Catalyst Game Labs is in a bit of a financial pickle, and it is somewhat unlikely that they will retain the license to make Shadowrun products. This is not because Shadowrun hasn’t been selling enough to cover expenses, but merely because a significant quantity of money is missing outright. Reliable sources put this figure at roughly $850,000. Which sounds like a lot, and it is. It is roughly 40% of Catalyst’s entire sales for last year, missing over a three year period. There will of course be lawsuits, and there are already people drawing up legal documents accusing Loren Coleman of having hired people to construct an extension on his house through the company as “freelance writers” and somehow reporting an estimated $100,000 of convention sales as $6,000. Whether that is actually true or not is – of course – a matter for the courts to decide. And decide they presumably will.

But what that means for Catalyst as a company is pretty bad. It costs several dollars to print a book even when the pdfs are finished and ready for publication. A print run of say, 50,000 books (like the print run of Runner Havens) would cost somewhere between $150,000 and $250,000 to print and ship to distributors. And while it eventually sold to distributors at ~$15 a book (a total take home of $750,000), it did so over a period of three years, during which time they were paying interest on loans and paying for storage, and advertisement and so on and so forth. A book like that isn’t actually taking home half a million in profits. Which is a bad thing, because it means that even if there was a complete book printed and ready to sell, even a total and rapid sell through would not pull the company out of the financial hole it is in – and the shortfall means that it does not have the cash on hand to start the ball rolling with a new major printing.

The tiny amount of drachmas that are left in the coffers are being used to print up tiny print runs of books that have sold through – another 3,000 books of Runner’s Companion for example (~$15,000 to start up, maybe $30-40k towards paying creditors if it sells out). There simply is not the startup cash to bring upcoming books like the SR4 sixth world almanac or corporate guide forward. The writing is there, but the printing costs are not. Beyond that, the freelancers have not been paid, and some of them are withholding copyright until they are – meaning that even a tiny print run of these new materials is simply not possible.

Many SR writers are quitting, have already quit, or have handed in notices contingent on demands which – word on the street – will not be met. And CGL does not even own Shadowrun, it leases the intellectual property from Topps. It seems unlikely that they will be able to make their licensing payment when the contract comes up for renewal – in a couple of months. At that time, CGL will cease being able to print Shadowrun or Battletech materials (they would presumably keep the license to Cthulhutech and Eclipse Phase for at least a little while longer, because those are separate contracts).

So what does this mean for the future of Shadowrun? It probably means that someone else will create a company and start making Shadowrun again. After all, freelancers work for very little, and a well selling book can bring in tens of thousands of dollars in profits. $850,000 of embezzlement is seemingly enough to sink the company (whoever ended up with the credsticks), but I must point out that there was indeed eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars to steal, so Shadowrun is not – as a concept – insoluble. And I also point out that something similar happened to Shadowrun before. Indeed, twice before, as both FanPro and FASA before it collapsed under the weight of people not paying debts and having bags with dollar bill signs vanish mysteriously in the middle of the night. It’s somewhat… poetic considering the subject matter of the game itself.

It is entirely probable indeed that when a new company comes to take the licence, many familiar faces will appear in the new company as if they had never left. Certainly back when FanPro collapsed back when I was working for the company, I simply started working for the new company as if nothing had changed. This happened back when FASA collapsed as well – those members of the team that were not extracted by Microsoft simply started turning in writing assignments to the new boss.

And yeah, I regularly go on shadowruns against Catalyst to find out what new releases are in store. Don’t you?

-Frank

Crafty Games press release follows:

Crafty Games Announces Spycraft Third Edition

Omaha, NE, March 16, 2010 – Crafty Games today announces that its award-winning OGL action and intrigue game, Spycraft, will see a Third Edition, powered by the acclaimed Mastercraft system and with a renewed focus on espionage, in Spring 2011.

“We’ve been considering the merits of a new edition for some time and with the incredible success of Fantasy Craft and the Mastercraft system the pieces just came together,” said Patrick Kapera, Crafty Games partner. “Updating Spycraft gives us the chance not only to synchronize rules across all our core games but also lets us bring the focus of the Spycraft brand back to espionage. We can still stretch the genre with dedicated supplements and — with products like Ten Thousand Bullets — other compatible Mastercraft core books, and this really frees us up to dig into the Great Game in ways that we’ve never done before. This time around you can expect a lot more tradecraft and as much real world intelligence detail as we can manage (without getting our offices raided, of course).”

“Third Edition will be all about customization,” said Crafty Games partner Alex Flagg. “You’ll be able to build your own home office and your GM will be able to create criminal masterminds, henchmen, and minions of all stripes, and place them at the head of any type of organization he can imagine. Super-science will be adjustable as well, letting you run a game with everything from completely realistic gear to over-the-top gadgets bordering on magic. And of course the Mastercraft system lets you tweak the rules to support any flavor of play you want as well, though we’ll be expanding the rules for the heightened lethality so popular in recent spy thrillers.”

Crafty Games plans to release a final series of Spycraft 2.0 products through the summer, including the last of its Saturday Morning Spycraft PDFs and new fiction and adventures set in the World on Fire. The final Spycraft 2.0 product will be World on Fire: Born of Ashes, a definitive guide to the setting’s heroic factions along with the grand finale to the setting’s huge story arc and a new campaign for those setting their sights on the Alliance of Evil Geniuses.

Read the Crafty Games Spring 2010 State of the Company here.

About CRAFTY GAMES
Crafty Games, LLC was founded in 2005 by the creative team behind the popular Spycraft, Stargate SG-1, and Spycraft 2.0 roleplaying games, and offers an array of critically acclaimed products in print and PDF. Its reputation for high-quality, engaging games has earned nominations for multiple EN World (“ENnie”) fan awards and the prestigious Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming. Crafty Games’ newest project, Fantasy Craft, is available now. Find out more at www.crafty-games.com

Iconica, a gorgeous indie card game being sold on Etsy. The linked post is subtitled “Not Just Another Pretty Face,” but frankly doesn’t make much of a case for that; the game seems like it might be a little samey and tough to learn, and the world-building seems pretty generic. But oh, that design. I’m also interested in Etsy as a venue for sales of actual independent games, as opposed to just crafts based on video games.

Deathwatch, the third core Warhammer 40K roleplaying game, has been announced. I only bring it up because I keep seeing threads about it and thinking, “that’s a bit harsh, it seems like the system has plenty of support and I don’t know why anyone would think it was dyi– OH WAIT”

Right, right, Christian, because you’re the one who gets to decide what names are tied to in people’s heads. Yyyyyeahnotreally. Any competent marketer will tell you that brands don’t move like that (and yes, for those of you who begin frothing and spitting as soon as the M word crosses your screens, BattleLore certainly is already a brand as well as the name of a game; Days of Wonder’s brilliant launch campaign saw to that). But once a brand is tied to something conceptually, if you try to change that link, you’re vulnerable to all sorts of emotional reactions from fans (should your brand be lucky enough to have fans), including one of the worst: betrayal. I hope FFG is ready to hear BattleLore fans complain bitterly about Westeros no matter how it differs, and to watch more hardcore gamers turn up their noses just because the name BattleLore is there.

Elsewhere in the linked mini-interview is an enlightening tidbit on why DoW sold BattleLore in the first place; look for it. As for Westeros, I’m interested to see it for what it is on its own terms, but… no release date.

Have a listen, tell us what you think, and let us know if any glitches turn up. We’ll be hard at work getting the OgreCave Audio Report back up to speed as well.

]]> http://ogrecave.com/2010/02/17/ogrecave-reviews-doctor-who-rpg/feed/ 0 http://ogrecave.com/2010/02/17/thunderstone-sells-out-for-alderac/ http://ogrecave.com/2010/02/17/thunderstone-sells-out-for-alderac/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:35:55 +0000 Lee Valentine http://ogrecave.com/?p=4022 Thunderstone has had strong sales for Alderac Entertainment Group. AEG is currently sold out of the product. They are planning another print run equalling the size of the first one. They also intend to print the game in 5 other languages shortly (via partners). Thunderstone: Wrath of the Elements, the first expansion for the game, should have an estimated launch in the second quarter of 2010. Check out our recent review of Thunderstone.