Final Frontier Games shuts down with three unfulfilled crowdfunding projects worth almost $1.4m, says CMON failing to pay for localisation was “final nail”

Merchants Cove and Coloma publisher Final Frontier Games is shutting down with three crowdfunding projects worth nearly $1.4m still unfulfilled – and claims that CMON failing to pay for an agreed Chinese localisation of one title was the “final nail” in its coffin.

The Macedonia-based company, which has been publishing games since 2016, revealed it had been in dire financial straits for five years after taking on huge unexpected costs around delivering its first Merchants Cove campaign at the height of the pandemic, with spiking shipping leading to a unplanned bill of more than $350,000.

That expense erased all of the profits from the $600,000 Kickstarter campaign, leading Final Frontier to decide to siphon funds from its other projects to get the game to backers and keep its business running.

Final Frontier has since raised more than $2.1m across six crowdfunding campaigns – with the most successful – Merchants Cove: Master Craft – collecting over $700,000 from more than 8,100 backers.

That project and two others – a Kickstarter for The Sixth Realm and a Gamefound campaign for an expansion and reprint of Coloma – remain undelivered despite funding with $1.39m. Merchants Cove was already running more than 18 months behind its initial expected delivery date.

Final Frontier said in a series of updates to those project backers today, “We can’t ask extra money from you in order for this project to be delivered, because we are not sure your money will be safe, especially in the event we are forced to file for bankruptcy.

“We have accounts to settle with our warehouses, we have a huge loan that the bank will try to collect, we are in no position to take money from you even if you wanted to.”

It added, “We will work on finding partners that might be interested in some of our IPs, or to buy out the whole company and that way work on solutions for you receiving the games from our outstanding projects, but this will take time.”

Final Frontier claims in the update that the “final nail” for the business was due to crowdfunded board game major CMON, which it says has not paid for a “fairly large” order for a Chinese localisation of Merchant’s Cove.

It said that like almost all of its localisation contracts, CMON had initially agreed to pay 50% before production and the remainder after that process is complete. But it claims CMON later requested a change of terms to a 100% payment when the completed games were ready to be picked up.

It said, “We agreed. This is CMON, we were so proud that we would be working with one of the giants in the industry… we were building trust and we saw them as a huge long term partner that will help in our growth.

“Our hands have been tied, because technically there is no timeline when they can pick up the games. They can pick up the games in two years from now and there’s nothing we can do about it. On the contrary we will probably be hit with storage fees for their games.

The update continued, “We waited until the last day to receive the money from them, when it was possible to deliver this campaign with their funds. That day has officially passed.

“The fact that they haven’t replied to multiple emails sent to multiple people including to one of the owners of the company, tells us that we won’t be seeing that money any time soon.

“While this amount may be ‘peanuts’ for them, it has created a cascading domino effect on us.”

BoardGameWire has contacted CMON to ask for comment on the situation, and will update this piece with their response if we receive one.

CMON has been facing its own financial issues this year, and in mid-March warned that it could face losses of more than $2m for its business activity across 2024, saying the rising cost of living had eaten into its revenues from tabletop game sales.

Two weeks later the company revealed it was likely to miss its stock exchange deadline for publishing its annual financial results, saying its finance department is currently understaffed.

It added that the delay was also partly due to being in the process of taking legal advice, after two new shareholders due to invest about $1.39m into the business had failed to hand over the money for their stakes.

CMON is still yet to publish the annual report, which was due before the end of March, and has had its shares suspended from trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Final Frontier added in its update, “We cannot understate the gravity of the situation and the suddenness of the fall of the company.

“We are emotionally devastated, sad, we are hurting, we are angry and there is a big hole in our hearts that will take a long time to overcome, if ever.”

It continued to backers, “We know that you are angry, we know that you are hurt, we know that your first instinct may be to lash out at us in the comments section, messages, emails.

“And you will have every right, but we ask that before you do, remember that there are human beings on the other side of the screen that will be reading this, gamers like you that did their best and that are emotionally and financially devastated.

“We lost everything we built in the past ten years. Our company, which was a labor of love, our employees, our jobs and what probably hurts the most, we lost you.

“Words cannot express how sorry we feel for this. We hope that we will find some kind of a solution for you to receive your rewards.”