Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Jaded Gamer Diary - More Daruma/Nightfall stuff.



Okay more interesting details on the Daruma / Nightfall / Sla Industries / Word Press drama going on around their, currently, failed CS1 Kickstarter.

First off we need to look at Daruma Productions LTD.  Founded August 19, 2015 by four people.  Those four people being Graham Wallace, Jared Earle, Dave Allsop and Mark Wallace.  It's important to note that all four of those people were part of the company from day one. 

Three of those people left, Graham Wallace on May 1, 2018, Jared and Dave both left on April 17, 2018. 

Then we need to look at Nightfall Games LTD.  Was incorporated on Feb 27, 2018 by Dave and Jared from up above.  Later Mark Rapson (June 22) and Christopher Shepperson (June 15) come on board as officers.  Also another officer came on board on June 15 but resigned on June 22, that officer being listed as Word Forge LTD. 

June 22 becomes an important date.  It's the day Word Forge resigned from Nightfall, the day Mark Rapson (who is one of three people in charge of Word Forge in the first place) joins Nightfall.  Also it's the day of the announcement that the Kickstarter had failed on the update section of said Kickstarter.  Something they neglected to tell Mark Wallace of Daruma was going to happen. 

It is at this day where those of Nightfall and Word Forge started the line of thinking that it was all Darumas fault for the failure of the Kickstarter but without mentioning that the two main people of Nightfall were part of Daruma for several years. Listed as Directors for the company no less. So they want it to appear that they had nothing to do with the collapse of the company even though they left well after everyone had knowledge of what was going on.

Then we get some creative control going on over at Nightfall with the 'Persons with significant control' section right now.  Dave and Jared both are listed as having more than 50 but less than 75 percent control.  Then Word Forge (who is majority controller of Word Press) having more than 25 but less than 50 percent control.  So somehow there is AT LEAST 125 percent of control split up. 

Daruma has gone down to nobody in control. 

Can't find any listing for a previous Nightfall company owned by any of the current Nightfall Games LTD members at any point.  So I'm assuming that the Sla Industries IP was owned by an individual throughout the years (Dave most likely). 

Also Nightfall is saying they terminated the license agreement with Daruma for Sla Industries.  But Nightfall didn't exist until Feb of this year. A license agreement of such a short duration is rather odd.

So in the end it really looks like Dave and Jared jumped ship when they knew things were heading down the drain.  Then worked out a deal with Word Press for them to take over the work on the game including letting them buy ownership into the newly formed Nightfall company.  Removed the stock from wherever Daruma had it stored and moved it to the Word Press warehouse.  Finally made the announcement on the Cannibal Sector One Kickstarter leaving the Mark Wallace holding the bag and trying to make themselves look as clean as possible. 

So if anyone says not to trust Mark Wallace over this how shambles kindly remind them that Jared and Dave are up to their necks in the fault as well. 

I'm sure I'll have more later.

2 comments:

  1. For clarity: Word Press (whoever that is) is nothing to do with this.
    When NFG was set up as a LIMITED company (prior to that it was just a company (of 3 people), the 2 people both had more than 25% hence have to be listed.
    When WFG and Shep joined the only one with more than 25%, but less than 50% was WFG. Hence it was stated as a major (but not majority) shareholder.
    WFG is a company, hence cannot be a Director. I (Mark Rapson) was appointed as a Director on WFGs behalf. Hence the swap from WFG to me.

    NFG has now completed the CS1 KS, and subsequently run the SLA 2nd Ed KS which will fulfil this year.

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    1. Word Press was probably a typo on my part, but seeing as this is an almost two year old blog post I'm not to worried about going back and fixing it.

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