Tabletop Titans is looking kinda suspicious right now because of their pop-up terrain Kickstarter in relation to the Upzone one.
Upzone ran a pop-up terrain Kickstarter in November 2020, and they sent an expensive prototype set to Tabletop Titans (TTT). A year later Tabletop Titans launched their own pop-up terrain Kickstarter and that’s when things got a little weird.
Both companies have issued statements about the opposing Kickstarter campaigns that we are going to take close look at now.
A note from the Editor:
The issue isn’t with the idea of who owns the rights to a concept, or even the word ‘Cathedral’ as we mentioned several times in our recent podcast.
Our issue is with the lack of disclosure whether vague or not, that Tabletop Titans may have had an obligation to have disclosed the project to Upzone as ethical content creators who were looking to make the pivot from content creators to manufacturers.
We agree that there is plenty of room in this industry for similar products as long as they both provide value- which ultimately is up to the consumer.
Please take the time to read the statements by both parties thoroughly before you comment about this post.
It’s also worth noting that we have pledged the TTT Kickstarter and have sourced a set of the Upzone Terrain that we will compare for similarities (and to the terrain shown in TTT’s Kickstarter assets) when they are both available.
The Long War Episode 317: Tabletop Titans Vs. Upzone Pop-Up Terrain
If videos are your thing, we talked about this on our latest podcast below.
Upzone Pop-Up Terrain: Statement
Tabletop Titans were one of a very small handful of content creators we contacted and they expressed excitement and interest in Upzone and requested we send them a sample prototype copy. We then mailed them an early reviewer Sample Copy of our “Cathedral Zone” last year while we were running our campaign, for Upzone. And since then we never received our prototype back and never heard anything back from the Tabletop Titans team.
We really appreciate the exposure that the amazing content creators that did review our product gave us as it helped our campaign out a great deal. We’re a small indie company who work very hard to spread the word about our products, so all help is very appreciated. However, it is surprising and extremely upsetting to the Everything Epic team and Upzone’s designer to see such a similar project released from a group of people in the world that we trusted with one of our prototypes giving them access to a very early copy of the product we designed, developed, playtested, and promoted with our blood sweat and tears for a very long time.
We expected to see some competing products released after the success of our Kickstarter for Upzone Pop-Up Terrain and we welcome it! However, we are shocked and very disappointed that Tabletop Titans have chosen to emulate our product so closely, even name conventions such as their expansion “Cathedral Square”, which is extremely similar to our “Cathedral Zone” All the while having access to an actual copy of our product before release. While it is impossible to know whether they did start work on their product before our Kickstarter, they most certainly should have disclosed they were working on a very similar product before agreeing to review and promote our product Upzone and accept one of our very few costly sample copies, which we overnighted them during our Kickstarter campaign.
Once again, we, the Everything Epic team, thank each and every one of you for your support and look forward to getting the Upzone Pop-Up Terrain System into your hands as soon as possible!
Tabletop Titans Pop-Up Terrain: Statement
We’ve been seeing a lot of questions about Titans Terrain and Upzone and we wanted to address them as there seems to be some mixups.
- Upzone did contact Tabletop Titans about previewing their product and we did agree to do that. We decided to support their product because we thought it was cool and we wanted to see it succeed. Thats it.
- We had decided to make our own branded terrain around 2 years ago and looked at many ideas. We were inspired by some old D&D pop-up terrain to explore making our own pop-ups. We tried and created simple prototypes prior to the launch of Upzone.
- Titans Terrain was done as a hobby side project for fun. We worked on it slowly and we were not very serious about it or sure we would launch it until very recently. At the time we previewed Upzone, it seemed like a long shot that we would decide to make sell our own terrain. That is why we didn’t make a big deal about disclosing that we had explored this concept. There was no ill intent or desire to compete. We only wanted to help promote Upzone.
- We previewed Upzone once during a live battle report, we said how much we liked it and that people should back it. We then put it on a shelf and didn’t think about it again. Our own explorations in pop-ups were different and we didn’t feel compelled to take any ideas from Upzone during our explorations. Remember this was a creative art project for us, not a plan to take another teams ideas.
- When we decided we might want to make this for real, we hired contractors who were experts at paper engineering and digital art to make the final product. Neither of these people had ever seen or heard of upzone and their product did not factor at all into our final design.
- It has been pointed out that the name of our expansion pack and the title of Upzones terrain both have the word Cathedral in it. It was not our intention to have a similar name. We simply didn’t notice the similarity until someone told us after launch. Again we were not looking at Upzone at all during our process, so it wasn’t something we would have seen. We would have happily picked another name if we had known.
- We think pop-up terrain is the future of wargaming and we wanted to have fun creating something that we would want to use. We love Upzone and are sure they will continue to succeed. We also have our own ideas and we hope people like those too. We expect to see other teams make their own pop-up ideas and we welcome those. Our product was in no way based off of, or improved by Upzone when we promoted their product.
Breaking Down the Statements By Upzone & Tabletop Titans
While having some fundamental issues with the statement by Tabletop Titans, we do want to be clear about something. Just as Upzone stated above, at this time there is no way to be sure that Tabletop Titans started work on their project before Upzone. We will of course compare the two sets of terrain for similarities when they are available, but for right now all we have to go on is the statement from both sides.
One of the biggest problems with an over-the-top style defensive statement may be making specific claims without proving the necessary proof, as we are about to show you.
Starting with TTT:
2. We had decided to make our own branded terrain around 2 years ago and looked at many ideas. We were inspired by some old D&D pop-up terrain to explore making our own pop-ups. We tried and created simple prototypes prior to the launch of Upzone.
Producing electronically dated images or email chains with these prototypes in them would go a long way in making Tabletop Titans seem less suspicious in our opinion.
In regards to their timeline keep in mind they only launched on YouTube in Nov. 2018, their Twitter and Instagram platforms in Sept. and Nov. 2019 respectively. Meaning based on this timeline, they would have perhaps been creating this terrain project almost as soon as their channel started gaining a large social following, thus necessitating the social accounts a year after their YouTube Channel.
To us, this seems like a tall order for any content creator, much less a team of two?
3. Titans Terrain was done as a hobby side project for fun. We worked on it slowly and we were not very serious about it or sure we would launch it until very recently. At the time we previewed Upzone, it seemed like a long shot that we would decide to make sell our own terrain. That is why we didn’t make a big deal about disclosing that we had explored this concept. There was no ill intent or desire to compete. We only wanted to help promote Upzone.
By their own admittance, Table Top Titans indicated they were working on a similar project as Upzone when contacted by them. Therefore Table Top Titans may have had an obligation to disclose the project to Upzone as ethical content creators that care about their standing in the community.
Upzone should also have had some paperwork in place to prevent this conflict from happening and ensure the return of their prototype.
4. We previewed Upzone once during a live battle report, we said how much we liked it and that people should back it. We then put it on a shelf and didn’t think about it again. Our own explorations in pop-ups were different and we didn’t feel compelled to take any ideas from Upzone during our explorations. Remember this was a creative art project for us, not a plan to take another teams ideas.
This quickly goes from being a fun side hobby project in the previous statement to now a creative art project and then a full-on money-making venture below. Upzone did also indicate they expected their prototype back, why keep it? Especially since they said they just sat it on a shelf, TTT was apparently not using it.
This was an expensive creation as indicated by Upzone that could have been sent to someone else to review as well. Instead, you could make the argument that Upzone was thoroughly disrespected by TTT’s seemingly inconsiderate actions.
5. When we decided we might want to make this for real, we hired contractors who were experts at paper engineering and digital art to make the final product. Neither of these people had ever seen or heard of upzone and their product did not factor at all into our final design.
6. It has been pointed out that the name of our expansion pack and the title of Upzones terrain both have the word Cathedral in it. It was not our intention to have a similar name. We simply didn’t notice the similarity until someone told us after launch. Again we were not looking at Upzone at all during our process, so it wasn’t something we would have seen. We would have happily picked another name if we had known.
7. We think pop-up terrain is the future of wargaming and we wanted to have fun creating something that we would want to use. We love Upzone and are sure they will continue to succeed. We also have our own ideas and we hope people like those too. We expect to see other teams make their own pop-up ideas and we welcome those. Our product was in no way based off of, or improved by Upzone when we promoted their product.
We agree with this, as there is no restriction on the word cathedral or even pop-up terrain in general (unless the specific design itself was patented or patent-pending, which has not been indicated by Upzone).
When it comes to terrain, there are tons of things named cathedral something- especially for use with games of Warhammer in general. After the exposure of pop-up terrian from these Kickstarters, we expect to see quite a few product offerings like this in the future even!
That aside, overall the burden of proof for the statement TTT made about their Kickstarter has not been met in our opinion.
Looking at Both Projects: Deep Dive
The Upzone project had a lot of very close-up pictures of the terrain, really cool graphics, and really showed the terrain in action. Everything they released was extremely well documented and photographed.
They also put out a ton of hype for the project before it went live, as almost every Kickstarter does. You have to build the hype so people back the project and they did a great job of that. Also with how well the project did, they hit a ton of stretch goals.
When you look at the TTT project, they don’t have any closeups of the terrain, it’s much harder to see each piece, but they do show the size of everything very well.
A Social Media Blackout?
The strange thing about this project, they didn’t seem to do much on social media really before the launch of the Kickstarter. We did a search on Facebook and just turned up a few posts overall about it made the day of launch, but not a one on their official page. Instagram was pretty much the same as well, with one post the day of launch on their account.
There also seems to have been no pre-campaign landing page before launch that is a staple of most Kickstarter campaigns. Brands use this to collect emails of prospective pledges for Kickstarter to notify on the launch of the product among other things.
When running a project like this it’s just so strange to see no social media push to bring the project to the forefront. Unless the intent was to keep the project a secret until launch, then this lack of media attention makes complete sense.
Lack of Fellow Content Creator Review Copies or Access
The other thing to think about is, at the bottom of the Upzone project, they have multiple video reviews of their terrain. They also had a ton of pre-launch coverage on sites and social media platforms across the web (including ours).
Strangely the Tabletop Titans Kickstarter does not feature any other content creators at all on their Kickstarter (as of this writing).
Conclusion:
Did Tabletop Titans “steal” the Upzone pop-up design? At this time there is no way to accurately answer that question definitively until a physical comparison can be made of both products.
Our issue is with a potential lack of business ethics from Tabletop Titans who knew they were working on something similar in a manufacturer capacity while being content creators, who did not disclose this to Upzone.
The social media and content creator blackout are also a bit concerning to us. It is almost like they were actively trying to keep this project a secret until its launch, in an attempt to fund from their own email list of supporters before their project came into question.
If I was a brand, after this, I would think twice before I sent any project to TTT for promotion. Furthermore, if I was any other fellow content creator I would also think twice about showing them any of my gear, setup, workflow, or anything proprietary to my business.
It’s also worth mentioning that Upzone did not get any paperwork from TTT that prevented competition with them or even having to return the prototype in the first place, which is part of the problem as well.
Overall this whole issue could potentially have been avoided if standard business practices were followed by both parties. It is our opinion that the way Tabletop Top Titans conducted themselves from their interaction with Upzone, to the supposed pre-launch social media blackout, and their official statement is highly suspicious.
How do you feel about the whole pop-up terrain situation between Upzone and Tabletop Titans?
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About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures.
Rob also co-founded and currently hosts the Long War Podcast, which has over 350 episodes and focuses on tabletop miniatures gaming, specializing in Warhammer 40k. and spent six years writing for Bell of Lost Souls.
Every year, along with his co-hosts, he helps host the Long War 40k Doubles Tournament at Adepticon and the Long War 40k Doubles at Las Vegas Open, which attracts over 350 players from around the world.
Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including multiple first-place finishes in Warhammer 40k Grand Tournaments over the years and even winning 1st place at the Adepticon 40k Team Tournament.
With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. As a member of GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), he advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1980s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
