Entire retail stock of Cul-De-Sac Conquest stuck at sea as result of Hanjin bankruptcy

The impact of Korean shipping firm Hanjin’s bankruptcy continues to spread throughout the tabletop industry, with crowdfunded start-up Atheris Games the latest company to suffer a blow.

The company raised $20,000 for Cul-de-Sac Conquest on Kickstarter late last year, and successfully delivered its copies for backers earlier in September.

However, the firm’s entire print run of the game aimed at retailers has been among the stock left floating in the ocean by Hanjin’s inability to pay port fees and allow its ships to dock at their destinations.

This has caused a particular problem for Atheris, who posted an update to their Kickstarter page explaining: “We had to take out a high-interest loan to fund the final manufacturing and shipping the games and now we won't have nearly enough to fund at least our first month's payment because we have no inventory to sell.

“The unfortunate thing is we specifically asked the manufacturer if our games were on those ships as we didn't want to take out a loan and pay well before we ever received the product and the owner assured us that Cul-De-Sac was not on Hanjin ships. We also made sure that he understood the situation we were in financially.”

Because of the financial trouble Atheris could be in if its stock of Cul-de-Sac fails to make it onto shelves, the company said that it may also be forced to cancel its next game, Supernatural Socks, as it would be unable to create a pre-production copy of the game to utilise in a follow-up crowdfunding campaign.

Atheris called for backers’ help in considering ways that the company could recover some of the lost money and pay the first instalments of its loans.

“Our store makes some money, but not nearly enough – it was always intended mainly to sell our own games and we don't have any copies to sell,” it explained.

“We really appreciate any ideas that our backers can provide. We absolutely love this business! We are so grateful that we were able to make our dreams a reality with Cul-De-Sac and want to continue making games for years to come.”