Star Realms Creators In Hot Water. What's going on with Wize Wizard Games?

0:00 Hoy there YouTube. I'm back again today for another episode of Bower Rides the News where I take a look at something happening in the tabletop gaming world. Put it in my eyeholes and your eyeholes at the same time and we talk about it. And right now late breaking story on Reddit. CMDR Nemo posted 16 hours ago. Wise Wizard Games recent crowdfunding projects and updates detailing financial hardship. For anyone who has put in money for projects by Wise Wizard Games, myself included, it looks like we got a pretty bleak update. I contributed to the Robot Quest Arena and Star Realms campaigns and haven't been getting updates for a while. Heck, I didn't even realize both were wise wizard games. I packed these games because there are already existing games and other campaigns have been fulfilled in the past. Yeah, you feel a lot more safe with that sort of thing.

0:50 Today, both campaigns issued an update for Star Realms. Hi backers. As you know from previous updates, Wise Wizard Games has been dealing with significant financial challenges. We've been working to make changes to cut cost and increase revenues to enable us to stay in business and fulfill this and our other outstanding crowdfunding campaigns. Fulfilling all of our backers is our ultimate goal. We won't be doing any new physical crowdfunding campaigns until we finish delivery on our outstanding campaigns. To raise funds, we will focus on immediate deliverables like sales on some of our great games and digital products. These sales will help us to fulfill this campaign. So, we greatly appreciate your support and understanding. We are now beginning to fulfill deluxe colonial backers in small batches starting in the United States of America. This process will take a while as we balance maintaining operations, fulfilling this campaign, and moving forward on our other outstanding projects. I'm sorry. I deeply regret these delays. I promise to keep working to get every backer fulfilled. And yes, we'll show you that in a little bit. But the the robot one was like $1 point something million dollars and the Star Realms one was a chunk of change, too.

1:58 Now for Robot Quest Arena. Sorry for the delays. We will keep working. Hi backers. Wise Wizard Games has been dealing with significant financial challenges. We have been working to make changes to cut cost and increase revenue to enable us to stay in business and fulfill this and our other outstanding crowdfunding campaigns. Fulfilling all of our backers is our ultimate goal. We won't be doing any new physical crowdfunding campaigns until we finish delivery on our outstanding campaigns. To raise funds, we will focus on immediate deliverables like sales on some of our great games and digital products. These sales will help us to fulfill this campaign. So, we greatly appreciate your support and understanding. I'm sorry. I deeply regret these delays. I promise to keep working to get every backer fulfilled. Thank you, Rob. In my opinion, this does not look good at all, and I have a feeling that this will be hundreds of dollars down the drain. Yes, I understand the risk, and I felt that them having successful campaigns made it a relatively safe bet, but it is still sucks. What's worse is I have a feeling that they they started having these financial issues before the Trump tariffs went into effect and that it just amplified their financial issues.

2:58 All scuttlebutt by the way. I'm really hopeful they could get out of this hole, but at this point I just don't see that happening. Thoughts. All right, let's see what the fine people of Reddit had to say. Purple secret. Man, I back Star Realms 2 and this whole thing feels like watching a car crash in slow motion. They've been radio silent for months and now suddenly small batches sound like code for we're broke but trying to look professional about it. It also sounds to me like yeah we got some for conventions so we can get some cash uh potentially like that like cash on hand and if they are indeed sending out small batches it's basically a lottery at this point may the odds be ever in our favor. It's really rough to see one of the great companies of modern deck building games fall so hard like this. Yeah, it's like this sucks. Like if you were back a gamer back then like there was a moment when you got introduced to Star Realms and it was like this in like there was just this tuck box. It was like a 100 card tuck box. It looked like what is this? And it's like you said like all right yeah let's do this and it's like it just kind of blew you away because there were this was right after Dominion had came out. There wasn't like this there was a whole bunch of deck building games flooding out but this one just it's good. Uh it was a big thing. I backed the Hero Realms Dungeons expansion years ago at this point. And it's still nowhere close to being finished. Ooh. It's honestly upsetting that they continued to launch new crowdfunding and products since then without finishing what they collected money on. 10 years ago, I was singing their praises and now I tell all my friends to avoid them at all costs. I wish I'd researched more into how the previous campaigns performed. I'm sorry

4:28 your hero realm still hasn't been fulfilled. It sounds like they were using money from future campaigns to subsidize older campaigns. And this is something that's been the downfall of a lot of publishers. like this type of poop should be absolutely illegal if it isn't already uh if it already isn't like how public agencies can't spend money earmarked for operations from a capital budget. Well, if there was some kind of investment fund that uh okay with the next one, the Hero Realms Dungeons campaign being turned into a we're both working on a digital version of the original game and also we keep play testing and revising every single aspect aspect of the expansion that you paid for two years ago is the most mismanaged project I've backed. Do a campaign for a digital game or do a campaign for an 80% completed project. Never ever take funding for one project and start diverting that money towards something that takes a lot more time and work to develop. Yeah, the play testing excuse was a load of lies. It's like 100 guards, right? Oh. Uh they've had a series of bad campaigns delivered but poorly received leading up to this. Rise of Empire had practically zero new ideas and the campaign was just unlockable mechanisms that already existed in prior Stars products. Fulfillment was estimated July 2023, but was delayed by over a year. The sad thing is something like the Colonial Collection isn't even a new design. They allegedly had pre-production proofs when the campaign page launched in 2023. Had they have been had they been able to stay on their own created timeline and fulfill in November 2024, they could have avoided any tariff mess. This is a company that quite frankly should have known better

5:59 by now how to run a campaign. and they continued to coast by on reputation in the face of glaring issues, campaign after campaign, until it crashed down. So, it all crashed down. The sad part about Rise of Empire was that it was just so close to being really good. The stickers and goals were a great start to a legacy system. They just needed more of them and maybe one more mechanic for later in the campaign. So, they're talking about one of the games that just didn't hit the mark. Honestly, that sounds like fraud. Yeah. Uh oh, that's a different thing. I never understood how you mess up a business model where you get money before you even produce any physical product. Yeah. Yeah. It's because you have all the expansions and all the playmats and all the dice and all the minis and all the stuff that everybody wants now. And there's a lot of room for error. Yeah, I'm on Hero Realms. Also, Robot Quest Arena bot battles was so ridiculously over overpriced. I find it hard to believe they are in money troubles.

6:56 There's no reason to crowdfund anymore in most cases these detail. So that's not looking great. Now I did look up some other stuff. Uh this one is a previous Board Game Geek post. Uh and we'll get to the date. Yeah. So November 7th, 2025. So roughly uh eight months ago, six months ago. So WWG Hero Realms Dungeon Kickstarter controversy because they they alluded to the Hero Realms Dungeon controversy. This will get us a more clear picture of that. On November 4th, 2025, Robert Oh, this is from Douglas Moore on board Game Beat by the way. Love BG. On November 4th, 2025, Robert Doerty, the CEO of Wise Wizard Games, formerly known as White Wizard Games, which will be referred to as WWG from this point on, released an update on their Hero Realms Dungeon Kickstarter that contains concerning information for backers. Uh, excuse me, that contain concerning information and news for backers. The update outlines how WWG is going through a restructuring wherein many of their staff members will be laid off. The update goes on to inform backers that Dennis, who has been in charge of communications and logistics up to this point, have been laid off as well. There are additional promises of further communications and claims that testing will be completed.

8:07 However, noticeably, there are no timelines. During this update, Robert claims that he and the leadership team are no longer receiving money. In the weeks leading up to this update, WWG made posts on their personal website advertising that they were sending five of their team members, including Robert, to Essence Spiel. That's expensive. And they had a booth at the convention. Since then, they had made indications that they will be sending a team to man a booth at PAX unplugged in Philadelphia later this month. For a company who is making efforts to save money through staff layoffs, this is a strange move. I think the Pax one is less strange just because of how heavy they go in the video game stuff. And yeah, but the Essence Spiel one, that's just super expensive. Uh, this coupled with comments made by Dennis, who is formerly in charge of communications for the Stars Deluxe Colonial Collection, seemed to indicate that WWG is simultaneously letting go of full-time employees and attending major industry events in the same 30-day period. Dennis exact quote is, "I am a full-time employee, so I will be leaving the company along with everyone else next week as part of the restructuring."

9:13 Wow. Um, Dennis comments along with various comments and discrepancies from previous updates, which will be listed below, paint a pretty clear picture of what is going on with WWG. Hero Realms Dungeons was funded between January 4th of 2023 and February 15th, 2023 with an estimated delivery of February 2024, one year. The campaign raised over $1 million. As of November 7th, 2025, the product is still in digital testing with no end in sight. This leads to one of the main instances where information was withheld or obuscated in order to assuage backers fears. Shipping for this project was charged to backers upon completion of their backer kit, which for many backers was in December of 2023. Robert claims that this was due to an error on his part. However, there is no indication or proof presented that is the case. From this point until March 2025, communication and updates were somewhat regular with clear indications that progress towards printing was being made. In March 2025, it became clear that there were many issues facing the production of this game, including balancing from level 1 through 24 for the character decks. According to the timeline released during this update, the game would have files sent to the printer in miday. The games would be completed in the factory in mid- August, would be trans transited overseas from August to September, shipped to backers in October, and would see retail release in late November. These self-imposed timelines have not been followed, and the product is still supposedly in digital testing as of November to 4th.

10:44 On April 29th, 2025, Robert states that while they were planning to print in China, they would potentially print elsewhere. Since this statement, no indication of shipping has been made. This statement seemed to clearly indicate that the product was potentially being delayed due to tariff costs despite clear indications after this that the game is in fact not ready for production. Robert's next update did not come until June 29th, 2025 despite many backers reaching out and demanding information on the state of the game. Robert's update claims that print and play files have been prepared for backers despite these games existing a digital card game that has been used for play testing for months. This means that the art assets, text assets, and formatting already exist. Creating physical cards should be as easy as transferring assets from one form to another. No additional details were made clear to backers at this point. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Another update followed shortly after on July 8th, 2025, indicating again that tariffs need to stabilize before printing can happen.

11:43 Despite this, he indicates that files are still not ready for printing, meaning that the issue is not tariffs, but the company's lack of progress on the game. Robert indicates here that the next group of cards will be made available in a couple of weeks, but they did not come. Robert takes time during this update to acknowledge that many backers are angry about the fact that digital testing for the game has gone on for years despite indications in the campaign itself that the game was almost finished. Shortly before this update was made, Wise Wizard Games started another crowdfunding campaign on Gamefound for another digital game. Despite indications that the next group of files would be made available in a couple of weeks, the next group of cards did not become available until August 23rd, 2025. This update had information about the cards being sent, but noticeably lack the images and detail of previous updates featuring similar information.

12:30 During this update, Robert indicates that tariffs are not currently delaying the campaign for the first time despite having multiple updates previously which contradict this information. Additionally, during this time period, Dennis made several comments indicating that there would be no movement until tariffs stabilized. The next update did not come until October 20, 2025, so August, so September, so two months, wherein Robert provided an extremely brief update with no timelines and no additional information aside from a group of promo cards, many of which had already been posted on the Kickstarter page or as images in previous updates. This update was met with almost universal outrage and frustration for backers with over 150 comments made by backers. Dennis pleaded with backers to keep conversations civil, but backers were very frustrated with the lack of detailed information and again the lack of clear timelines. In March 7th, in March, 7 months earlier, Robert had indicated the goal was to have the game to backers by this point, but the game was still in testing. And what's more, it was indicated that the PVE dungeon adventure was being tested internally.

13:32 This coupled with the update three weeks later indicating that the team had been laid off suggest that play testing has stopped. Yeah, those two things coinciding is not good. The most recent update has already acred 12 I love that word. Acred 120 comments from backers expressing frustration with people demanding refunds from the company and information on when the game will be completed. backer trust is at an all-time low based upon the general cander of comments made in both updates in the Kickstarter's main backer page with some comparing it to Mythic and Sean who both ran into financial problems due to mismanagement. Despite these concerns, there have been no comments from Robert regarding these concerns and no indication that production is anywhere in sight. Clearly, Robert has repeatedly changed the information provided since March 2025 to suit individual updates with information provided contradicting previously made statements look bad. This lack of clear communication and continued focus on paywalled play testing in an application suggests that there are other issues at play here. Robert indicates that costs have risen since the project was funded.

14:40 However, the game is not ready to print, so this information is irrelevant as production costs fluctuate frequently, as do global shipping costs, which were charged in late 2023. While finances for Wise Wizard Games cannot be determined, it is probable to smise that Wise Wizard Games has simply spent the money for this Kickstarter on production of the digital version of the game and that no physical product is forthcoming due to a lack of finances. In the campaign description, Wise Wizard Game clearly states in the refund policy that if for any reason we are unable to fulfill any part of your order, i.e. add-ons, we will give you a full refund for what we weren't able to fulfill. Based on the statement along with the information deted above, Wise Wizards Games needs to be held accountable for their failure to deliver on this Kickstarter. Uh, thank you for the the detailed and superb analysis of the situation. It's important that everyone who might consider backing Wise Wizard Games campaign reads this. I think that's very important as well. As backers, we have now learned that one, Wise Wizard Games is being mismanaged and now real people, i.e. former employees are suffering.

15:41 Two, Robert Doherty communicates dishonestly and updates are misleading at best. Three, their much touted excuse Wise Wizard Games has so far always delivered is no longer valid as the company is now in serious trouble. And four, with Dennis firing, Robert has once again confirmed that communication with Beckers has zero priority. Oh boy. And that's that's that's why Wizards games like that's and that sucks. But they do have an ace up their sleeve potentially which is this draconusate TCG. This is an ongoing story. But let's see because this is like a a trading card game which has the potential to blow up or something. And I guess they're releasing the digital version like very very soon. Uh April 7th, Draconus 8 is live in the Apple and Google Play stores. free digital pack.

16:31 So like this is launching like this is they're hoping this is going to be a slam dunk. This is probably why they're going to PAX once again which is why I don't think the PAX one is nearly so odd. The the the the other one not great. But let's see what the comment section. Let's see if people these people are excited like this is what's going to bring Wise Wiz games back or they have no idea what's going on. Can we get an update on the physical pledges? They did in the second half of the new update physical printing scale test. Our printers have successfully made prototypes of individual cards and now it's time to do a scale test to make sure the factory. So, uh, so cool. I am happy again. Can we get an update on the physical pledge? Hi all. So, this is not out yet, the physical stuff. So, they're really hoping that the digital stuff is, but lots of comments. Love the game, but this is my last backing for Wise Versus Game. Next time if there's one, I'll get the game when in game store. It's also by position time to bring gaming production back to North America. USA would be nice. Mexico's more more realistic honestly. Um, this is my last wise game. Full stop. They did not reply to our questions and requests. See my comment below asking for extra digital packs. They only reply to those interested in the app. Uh, yeah. Like it looks like this digital is like the big swing. And if that swing doesn't hit, then Wise Wizards games is is the the do like that domino is not going to stop falling unless this TCG hits. So hopefully, fingers crossed, go download it if you want to see Wise Wizard Games succeed.

17:57 If you want to see me succeed, then consider checking out my upcoming Kickstarter where you can buy a Kickstarter critique for 30 bucks. And if you sign up early, you can buy BOGO, buy one get one. Uh, also if you ever want to see a news story covered in the board game world or a Kickstarter covered in the Kickstarter critique, which I do every weekday at 1:30 pm Eastern Standard Time, please be sure to leave that in the comments down below. Also, if you want to like this video, hype this video, do any of that stuff, that helps me out an awful lot. May 11th, the Kickstarter. Have yourself a good one. Sorry, I hate to shill it. Hi, I forgot how to exit out of here. And bye-bye.