Dust Studio Ltd and Battlefront Miniatures Skirmish Over ‘Dust: Operation Babylon’

Dust Operation Babylon LogoAll was sunshine and roses between Paolo Parente’s Dust Studio Ltd and Battlefront Miniatures during 2014’s highly successful ($469,313) Kickstarter for the Dust release Operation Babylon. Operation Babylon was to ship to backers in two waves; one beginning in late December with a second to follow in early 2015. It now appears relations between the two companies broke down sometime in January as Parente took to social media to air grievances against Battlefront claiming the distributor hadn’t placed orders for the second wave of shipments nor made payments owed to Dust Studio – Battlefront was contracted to collect and distribute the project funds, design the proposed campaign book, package products, as well as organize and ship orders to backers and retailers.

Battlefront responded on the Kickstarter page saying they had approached Dust Studio requesting mediation of the contract. According to Battlefront, Dust Studios has refused the offer. Honestly, I’m not sure what there is to mediate since Battlefront signed a contract and should be under legal obligation to make good.

Also, many backers who have received orders from the first wave are claiming Battlefront shipped the wrong items as well as many models which were to be included are missing.

Currently Dust Studio is continuing to post new images and write ups for Operation Babylon models so it’s probably safe to say the line will make its way into gamers’ hands. What might be up in the air is how Dust products are distributed in the future. Since the Chinese New Year begins in a couple of days, and most things come to a screeching halt for two weeks in China, we probably won’t hear much about how all this will pan out until late in the month, early March, or possibly much later.

Sorry to say what looked like a perfect match between Dust Studio and Battlefront, after Parente moved the line from Fantasy Flight Games, might not turn out to be the best for both companies nor the gaming public in general.

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