Sandy Petersen has Changed the Terms of Your Interest-Free Loan to Him

Pro tip: don't search Google for "mystery package"

From the BGG thread:

www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=901886511952573

www.linkedin.com/company/quimbleys
piki ventures - www.linkedin.com/in/david-m-evans
I can't get the FB link open, what is it about

EDIT: Nevermind, switching browsers and machines helped.

So, if that is their new partner, they seem to have sprung into existence last august, and the one guy identifiable is from aircraft business.

EDIT 2: this is their owner www.linkedin.com/in/thepaulhallett/ - who was apparently looking for a creative director with print experience two days ago.

So if this is accurate, Petersen games new partner is a very new company, and their principals have no / very limited experience if toy and game manufacturing.

Apparently, they found some people to create a new company, Quimbleys, with zero experience in the industry. That's the downside. The upside for everyone still involved is that they're not Sandy and Arthur. There has been some concern, based on random statements made, that instead of the usual gobs of plastic approach that is PG's, this new company might be a little more, uh, expedient in terms of production, which means that you might end up seeing pressed wooden figures (easier to tool for, I guess?) and/or standees created just to get the games into production.

Looks like they've got a few things going on along with H.C. Quimbley's Games.

Quimbley's Manufacturing
opencorporates.com/companies/us_ut/13852944-0142
Quimbley's Inc
opencorporates.com/companies/us_ut/13848492-0142
HCQ Management
opencorporates.com/companies/us_ut/13791302-0142

Call me crazy, but I look at my mountain of CW and find myself wondering how much space I'd save if everything were colored acrylic standees.

After the I heard about Lincoln throwing a tantrum with the Discord server, I decided to go pop my head back in there (I still had access, though I generally spend very little time on Discord). Unfortunately I could be misremembering (this may have come from BGG), but I think Lincoln hinted that they were considering a path where they would give you an option to get a different version of Hyperspace with "different components" sooner, IE. probably laser-cut standees, or wait for the mini version. Now, for a company that struggles mightily with logistics, this seems absolutely idiotic. But tell me Hyperspace is now going full-color acrylic standees only, I'd probably be fine with it...

As to the Mystery Box, I went ahead and threw my personal info at it. I just did a quick Google search and found my home address very easily, it's not like you're giving up that much. But yeah, I'm expecting basically an advertisement for this new company with some piece-together laser-cut somethingorother. Maybe a dice tower?

It looks like the new company is entirely new and the people involved have project management experience, but not game publishing experience.

Well, this past weekend Sandy posted on X/Twitter that he was asked to delete his account and was going to do it. So clearly the "new benefactor" doesn't take kindly to mild transphobia and other old-man-isms. Curiously, I looked and it's still there: x.com/SandyofCthulhu/status/1794093016660980178

Edit: can't get the Tweet to be inline, so you get a link

I think Sandy is still busy milking the sympathy for his unjust persecution.

Also someone is claiming a thread on BGG got removed about discord, but I can't remember which thread they're talking about. That seems a bit unlikely that someone in this saga would have enough weight to get BGG to start removing evidence...

The new partner/owner has stated something along the lines of not discriminating against anyone. They removed the politics section of the discord, which was the Petersens’ cesspit of shitty opinions.

The BGG thread in question was created by a sock puppet account used to attack the new owners. It had screenshots of some poorly worded posts from discord.
BGG probably removed it just because it was created by someone’s fake account, not for other reasons. They have deleted similar accounts/threads in the past.

Personally, I’m not sure yet, but it looks like the new partner/owners are doing some good things. They are attempting to establish some professionalism, they are putting the Petersens’ nonsense and erratic behavior to rest, they are trying to establish a path forward. Not everyone is going to be happy with their solutions and decisions, but like any bad situation a compromise is better than nothing.

I have been feeling less angry about all the bullshit of that garbage family and their handling of other people’s money. I started wanting to play with CW again. I think things are heading up for the customers still owed so much, which is all that matters.

I’ve been a very vocal detractor of theirs for a long time. I think it may be time to let that go and give the new guy a real chance.

A response from the new company:

"PG does still exist, but not as a distributor, only as a design house. Sandy and Arthur work for PG. Lincoln is an employee of the new company. PG is designing several new games for the new company, some of which are already in playtesting. Lincoln is working on a TCG for us as well, with Sandy's assistance. A sample card is included in the mystery package. Hopefully it'll be valuable some day, you should definitely hold onto it forever!

New company is setting up product manufacturing and distribution in the US, not only for PG products but for our own line of toys and games, and other licensed products.

All PG global inventory is now owned by new company, most of it has been consolidated in the new warehouse in Utah. OS4 fulfillment is ongoing, with Canada fulfillment starting hopefully next week, depending on arrival of 2 truckloads of shipping boxes.

New company is working to manufacture and fulfill KS products, but with the caveat that meeting all of PG's promises is economically silly and we don't want to make the same mistakes that led to their downfall.

Plastic manufacturing is going to take a little while to come online, and all of the existing production molds are essentially lost to us. PG was never shy on the size and quantity of plastics, and having all the necessary molds created is going to take some time. We are working through things, and discussing potential partnerships to get this done sooner.

Since plastic minis are a ways off, we are creating alternate minis to allow the game to be played sooner. We haven't discussed much about the alternate minis, but the community speculation is fun to watch, and what we are making is hopefully better than you think. Expect a video of the hyperspace prototype to drop about the time the mystery packages arrive."

There's a bit more about the mystery package and the "mysterious benefactor" and yadda yadda. But the thing that stands out is the part that I bolded. One of PG's major problems was that they kept switching factories, probably because Sandy and Arthur were difficult to work with and/or paid too slowly. That meant getting new dies tooled, which takes time and costs money. Now, this new company is saying basically the aame thing: They're probably printing standees because, somehow, PG managed to lose the most essential parts of plastic manufacturing AGAIN.

If they're manufacturing in US then I wish them nothing but the best. But why take over an underwater company with a ruined rep and then play games with this mystery stuff? They'd have been better off starting a brand new company, hiring Sandy as a designer, and skipping all his debts. I'm missing something here, I'm sure.

ChristopherMD wrote: If they're manufacturing in US then I wish them nothing but the best. But why take over an underwater company with a ruined rep and then play games with this mystery stuff? They'd have been better off starting a brand new company, hiring Sandy as a designer, and skipping all his debts. I'm missing something here, I'm sure.

Yeah, I'm with you. Do they just love Call of Cthulhu so much they want to bail out Sandy? Why not just buy whatever IP you want and contract PG to design stuff for you. And yes, it strongly implies they are planning on manufacturing the plastic minis themselves, which is BONKERS, especially if they're trying to do this in the US. Only miniature manufacturer I can think of in the US is Reaper, as I believe bought their own machines after the incredibly successful Bones crowdfunding, but they were pretty shit for minis. However, they seem to be located in Fort Worth and/or Denton, which is like a 45 minute drive from Sandy.

The irony of this all is that all of this is coming off as tone deaf as Petersen Games, it's like nothing changed. I half expect this new "Quimbly" character to show, then rip the mask off and it's been Arthur all along!

But this is the part I found interesting:

New company is working to manufacture and fulfill KS products, but with the caveat that meeting all of PG's promises is economically silly and we don't want to make the same mistakes that led to their downfall.

First time I've seen them admit that backers are not getting everything they paid for. Now, I don't think this is the wrong approach for the new company, but damn let's just slip this into the middle of a large post and then move on without clarifying. But you're gonna love that Mystery Package! Did you hear it comes with a single TCG card!

I'm "only" still on the hook for Hyperspace, and I'm going to have a tough decision if they offer a standee version over the minis. I mean, if they're doing color printed acrylic, I'd probably go with it and just walk away...

Jackwraith wrote: meeting all of PG's promises is economically silly

Unless you want to regain some shred of consumer trust. Nah, you're right. That's silly.

I think what they are saying is that it isn’t economically feasible .

Yeah, that's been the general tone. The reality is that PG overpromised and can't possibly deliver and these new guys are just acknowledging that. I think the only way they even approach regaining "consumer trust" is actually delivering the games. If that's with standees instead of minis (see: Cthulhu Wars Duel, which works perfectly fine for what it is; albeit always intended to be a much smaller package than the original or any of the sprawling projects they have in the stopped pipeline), then so be it. At least they'll be moving forward.