There's been talk recently of financial trouble at Megara Entertainment. The founder, Mikaël Louys, launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to pay company bills, noting that if the money wasn't raised then Megara would shut down at the end of February. The crowdfunding was cancelled today some way short of its target. Based on what Mikaël has said on Facebook and on the Megara site, that implies the company may now close unless a new investor comes along in the next few days.
Why this particularly matters to Fabled Lands players is that five hundred of you pledged for hardback copies of The Serpent King's Domain. I don't know what's going to happen about those. Were they ever printed? If so, at least one other games company based in Cannes has offered to take the stock and arrange to ship them to the backers, though they report that they haven't been able to get Mikaël on Skype yet to discuss it. And if the books weren't printed -- well, it seems that the Kickstarter money has gone, and that Megara now doesn't have the means to fulfil those orders.
Jamie and Paul Gresty and I signed a couple of hundred bookplates which we sent to Megara a while ago -- but if Megara has no funds left then presumably neither the hardbacks nor the bookplates will get sent to the backers. It's a bad situation.
I wish I had better news. I wish I had any news. Unfortunately Jamie and I don't even have access to backers' contact details, so we can't let them know if any solution is found. Michael J Ward, creator of Destiny Quest, has had to do some ducking and diving to get DQ4 to backers, I believe, so Fabled Lands wasn't the only project to get hurt by the fallout. If I'm able to find out more, or if I learn of any chance of a solution, you'll hear it right here.
But in the midst of all that, and despite the public slurs Mikaël has directed at me and Jamie, and the fact that I'm not at all thrilled to see he has put works by me and Jamie, Gary Chalk, Russ Nicholson and others on Megara's Patreon page without our permission, I'll say goodbye to Megara (if indeed it does close down at the end of the month) with some faint sadness. The gamebook world is tiny enough without a publishing company going out of business. And to give Mikaël his due, if he hadn't reached out to Fabled Lands LLP several years ago it's unlikely there would have been Kickstarters for The Way of the Tiger or Fabled Lands book 7. So it's a shame it all went sour, and it's particularly a blow for those backers who never got the books they pledged for, and for the creators whose work is being used on Megara's Patreon page -- but let's also remember the better times. C'est la vie.
With the last round of posts from Mikael I finally gave in to what I knew was true and just ordered book 7 from amazon. I'm happy to (and lucky enough to be able to) call the original payment an investment in getting the book written and produced. (also burned on DQ4, BTW). Please hurry up with book 8!!!
ReplyDeleteWe appreciate your backing, Tim -- and at least the funds that were owing to the artists and writer were all paid. I know that Jamie and Paul want to get on with a Kickstarter for book 8. Let's just hope the Megara experience hasn't put backers off.
DeleteThe Megara experience has certainly cooled my ardour. I sponsored a scene and was so looking forward to it. It's not the fault of Dave, Jamie, Paul or Russ though.
DeleteNot to say that I won't be interested, but spending hundreds of quid for a book you will never receive does leave a sour taste in the mouth.
At least I've got Way of the Tiger which I still need to have a go at. I tried Book 0 and actually used dice... and then died. But I enjoyed it.
And Mr Gresty's Thief of Memories is fun too.
Tim, go to the KS page for DQ4. There's a code there for backers to get a discount (and loot cards). The book IS available. I got mine. So, while Megara burned you, maybe this will take some of the singeing out.
Delete>>"Were they ever printed?"
ReplyDeleteI received my hardback copy of FL7 last year, which would suggest therefore that they were indeed printed, though what proportion were ever sent out, I have no idea.
Some were. I think that the ones with a big question mark over them are the ones that should have been signed.
DeleteThe books were probably set up as print on demand and then ordered in batches. I don't know why Megara would order only some of the copies needed, but clearly the Kickstarter money was spent on something otherwise they wouldn't be out of funds now. Are those other copies sitting in a room somewhere? No one will say.
DeleteIt's sad to read that (and how things worsened between Megara and authors like you).
ReplyDeleteI'm neither a businessman nor an economist, but I have never really believed in the model they offered (expensive collector gamebooks) and never bought some of them.
I think that a better model are PdF sales on sites like RpgNow; some manage to make money there, they don't become millionnaire, but they don't enter bankruptcy either.
Those public slurs against you and your colleagues are a shame.
Even if your French is low, it's interesting to look at :
http://www.la-taverne-des-aventuriers.com/t7571-megara-et-sa-gestion?highlight=M%E9gara
PDFs make a lot more sense to me, because all the money raised can be spent on the writing and artwork. I'm currently running a Kickstarter for Blood Sword book 5, but because it's a physical hardcover book, most of the money pledged by backers goes on printing, shipping, or KS fees.
DeleteAnd in the comments on the French forum, I read that, in 2015, Mégara had lost some of its printed paperbooks, because of... floods at Cannes.
Delete(some ask : hadn't they an insurance ? Why Cannes,there are less expensive locations in the region ?)
I don't even know why they needed an office. Most small games publishers operate on a remote-working basis. But then, I've given up trying to figure out what goes on in Mikael's mind, lol. However, I don't hate him the way he seems to hate me and Jamie.
DeleteFor my part, as I noted in the copy of an e-mail you received, I'm resigned to not getting the Hardback. I got the versions of FL7 that I wanted and use. I pledged to the KS mostly to make sure the book came into existence and it did.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure I can replicate your autograph, Dave. That could save me £20 on Bloodsword 5!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I came onto the blog around the time of the Fabled Lands debacle. I had the original books (never really having read them at the backend of the gamebook era). Having flogged them many years back and missed the Kickstarter, I've never felt positioned to comment on this. All I can say is, I can well understand why people are hacked off, but the comments from James and John are laudable. The book may not have happened without their contribution, that's so important. I've stopped contributing to Mirabilis for the time being, but would happily contribute again, purely because of your honesty throughout. Your none confrontational and relatively sympathetic view of Megara is commendable.
All that said, I'd have preferred Bloodsword 5a as a gamebook and I think you removed your own best quote from the blog. You want my opinion, pal.... or was it chum? Classic.
People usually get my opinion whether they want it or not, Andy :-)
DeleteI really don't know what to do about Mirabilis. The Patreon money (such as it is) goes to Leo, and there's little hope of getting him back to the comic now that he's busy on books for very young kids. So I don't blame you for stopping contributions and I think I'll advise everybody to do that and just post public updates whenever I can draw (well, "draw") a few new pages myself.
Your drawing is actually far better than you give yourself credit for, but as ever, it's all relative. A tricky one. I wonder if there's any mileage in funding you in a way that isn't bespoke to a particular output? Or in other words, had I known that you had broad plans to release a gamebook of any description(Can You Brexit) and polish up some old gamebooks (Spyte), I'd have happily contributed say, a tenner a month over the last few years and on-going. So contributing to you rather than a particular product. Tim's original point I suppose (I missed name checking him previously). I recognise Mirabilis is difficult to badge alongside anything else due to the art costs etc. With Bloodsword 5, I'll be buying the paperback also. Using golf parlance, the hardback's for show and the paperback's for dough! If you ever had any appetite to do another gamebook of any description, I'd be happy to fund it on a PDF only basis and then buy the paperback myself at a later stage. Having my name in the credits would be payback enough.
DeleteOn the subject of Tim's, books for young kids and graphic novels, I wonder if I could pick your brains for some advice? I was drawn into the Fantasy genre at a very young age, I largely credit this to a series of books called Tim And The Hidden People, which I read aged about 5 I would guess (1980 ish). I'm lining up reading material for my son and thought they would be perfect. However, the books (32 of them) are long out of print (there was seemingly a limited reprint, but in black and white and not great quality). Those few originals still attainable fetch Spyte type figures! It got me wondering, given the author (Sheila K.McCullagh) is unfortunately deceased, it might actually be less expensive seeking the rights to the works than pay the going prices and not be able to complete the collection in any case! That may be very naive on my behalf, as I've no idea whether they would be worth a few hundred quid, or tens of thousands. However, given several worlds collided above, I thought I'd at least ask the man who may be able to point me in the right direction!
Finally, I trust you saw Partridge is back on the screen? Very good, though not quite I'm Alan Partridge standard I thought.
That's really how Patreon ought to work. By tying it to specific projects it becomes commercial -- the creator has to pick the project they think will be easiest to pitch, which is rarely the same thing as the most interesting project. I'd back somebody like James Wallis to do anything he felt like doing, on the grounds that I know that way he'll come up with something really original.
DeleteIt looks as if the reprints of the Sheila McCullagh books might have been self-published ("McCullagh Press, a division of Siren Systems") but there's no Look Inside for them on Amazon so I can't find any contact details. It might be worth writing to the McCullagh family care of the original publishers. What are the rights likely to cost? It's a question of who else is interested -- whatever the market will bear, in other words.
Always good to see Alan Partridge back. I'm still hoping for another movie.
Agree re Patreon. They've missed the fact the clue's in their own title.
DeleteThanks, Dave. It would seem the original publisher was Nelson Thornes, now part of Oxford University Press. I also read somewhere else that Caxton Publishing own the IP for them. So I've a few lines of enquiry at last. Not that I'm a Harry Potter fan, but I'd be very surprised if JK Rowling didn't read them in the 70s.
My favourite bit of Alpha Papa was actually a trailer I saw at the cinema, not part of the film and I couldn't find it on the DVD extras. Partridge presses his face to a door window (camera shot from other side) and shouts "It's started!". I was the only person in the cinema laughing. Everyone else must have thought I was crackers (that or hadn't seen Alien 3). It's one of them I'm still not entirely sure I didn't dream it! I've also got Partridge to thank for introducing me to one of my now favourite songs (when playing air guitar to Gary Numan's Music For Chameleons in IAP Series 2).
Hi Dave. I just found your post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and concerns with Jamie and Paul.
ReplyDeleteI'm also one of the backers of the signed book, and I confess I'm sad as well. I'm not full-rage-anger (so easy to be angry nowadays on the internet) because I recall with optimist Arcana Agency, a KS also published with Megara.
I share your sadness, but I confess that I'm proud to be one of the initial backers of the project. Strangely, it was a dream on its own.
Without backers like you, Ikaros, Fabled Lands book 7 would never have happened. And we must acknowledge that without Mikael we might never have seen a Kickstarter for FL7. That's why I try never to respond to the insults he throws at me in public forums, however hurtful they may be.
DeleteAnd finally Megera goes belly up, and Mikael seems to blame everyone but himself. His apology doesnt seem very real either.
ReplyDeleteSad ending to a sad story, guess I am heading to the book depository and will have my book finally aftert all this time and paying a bit more.
The latest I heard is that he's setting up a new publishing venture. I'm guessing that, although he says it will "continue the work of Megara" that doesn't actually mean that any of the Kickstarter books will get sent out. Jamie and I did look into the cost of printing up hardbacks for all the KS backers ourselves, but apparently there are around 300 copies that were never sent and the cost would be at least $25 each. We just don't have the money. I'm sorry.
Delete