![Links: Charlie Theel Digs into High Society, Tom Felber Burns Bridges, and Hong Kong Suspends Trading in CMON Limited](https://cf.geekdo-images.com/jhQR8xulduR5O23Oqd20Yg__thumb/img/7Ntybw-Md5T0jnRbGQ4fKtYRGKg=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic88784.jpg)
—"A distributor agreement with transaction value of approximately US$1.5 million"
—"The rationale and substance of the significant increase in the prepayment balances as at 31 December 2019"
—"Other information as required by the auditors for their audit procedures on certain audit issues including 'going concern'"
Head to the ICv2 article for more details.
[Updated April 11, 2020 to add:] After I had scheduled this post for publication, CMON Limited posted a response to speculation about its financial well-being. Here's an excerpt:
"Going concern" is a highly technical accounting term referring to a situation where net current liabilities are greater than net current assets. This happens for CMON from time to time since we record funds received from Kickstarter as both a liability and an asset - the money is an asset we received from our backers, but it is also a liability we owe to them that is not fulfilled until we ship our products. Since we use the funds to pay for molds, production and development of those products, and some of these are considered "Non-Current assets", the asset column goes down as we use the money to fulfill the development of the game. Once we ship the game, the project goes back into the black because we can take the liability for the Kickstarter funds off the books.
The tricky part is when this crosses a financial reporting year, which happens often for Kickstarter projects, and if that happens it automatically triggers this technical nomenclature, and if you review our prospectus you will see we have reported this in the past.
This accounting treatment has nothing to do with the underlying strength of the company or our ability to make games and deliver them to you. Please rest assured that despite the current state of the world, CMON is and will be in the business of making great games for many years to come.
• On TechLink, Troy Carter writes about the U.S. Navy's patent application for a new board game going public. Here's an excerpt from the article:
The game requires four players, one player is the state or counterinsurgent player, who is also the regional power and occupying government force. The other three are rebel groups working to build their combat power and influence.
It's played on a board that may seem familiar to many gamers and starts with a revolution.
• To pull an old review into today's light, I want to highlight Charlie Theel's write-up of High Society, a 1995 design from Reiner Knizia that has been released in multiple versions over the past two decades, including the 2018 edition from Osprey Games shown at right. I only recently ran across this article, and it's a fabulous look at a simple game that hides a lot in plain sight. An excerpt:
What really matters is the theme at the heart of High Society. This is a piece of game design that's morose in its perspective. It's unabashedly critical of consumerism and by proxy, Western culture.
To "win" at this game one needs to adopt the conflicted worldview that actual wealth is not tied to financial responsibility, but to shedding money in favor of appearing affluent. But be careful and don't spend too much or you'll end up on the street and eating out of a dumpster. These two ideals clash ruthlessly and on the surface don't make philosophical sense within the terms the game lays out. This is with purpose.
You need to be the best at living a certain lifestyle and maintaining proper optics. It's all about keeping up with the Joneses and the rot at the center of our society. The game's not even subtle in its warped position and the rules it forces us to operate under. On one hand it's intensely clever, and on the other it's inherently horrific.
Deconstructing that win condition of having the best "stuff" and how this dovetails with the auction is at the heart of truly understanding this game.
• Tom Felber, former head of the Spiel des Jahres jury, has ended his game-reviewing blog on Swiss website Watson, with his final column taking a scorched earth to game publishers, game reviewers, and game players.
More generally, he states that the current COVID-19 situation makes it impossible for him to test games the way that he prefers to test them. He has about five hundred subscribers on a mailing list, and they were invited to sign up for test sessions of random games:
Because every participant is actively involved in shaping a game, the end result as a game critic is not to find out whether a game is good for me and my friends, but above all for whom and for which target groups it could be suitable....
That's why I don't think much of bloggers and influencers who judge games based on a "first impression" or who only try games with two players that are actually made for four or five. Many who publish on the Internet about board games always try their games with the same three or four noses, which of course have their firm preferences.