u/DeviantDoc

TLDR: After 10+ months of waiting, MMF isn’t able to provide all of the promised prizes. 

During spring of 2025 MMF hosted, besides others, this painting competition:

https://www.myminifactory.com/competition/warmachine-painting-competition-307

In July 2025 the winners of the „Warmachine Painting Competition“ hosted by My Mini Factory were announced: 

https://www.myminifactory.com/blog/warmachine-painting-competition-winners-announced

I was blown way winning one of the four categories, diorama and placing second in the single, not 3D printed miniature category. 

After a few days the current community manager reached out to me, congratulating and asking me to confirm my credentials, address and T Shirt size. 

The prizepool was quite large and I have passed much of it on, using it in competitions hosted by our painting club, „Pigment Pirates Hamburg“ and to friends who are new in the hobby. The main attraction was the Halot X1 16K 3D printer. 

Getting hold of this prizes was and still is, a nightmare. 

Weeks after receiving the first communication, there was no follow up whatsoever. So I contacted MMF again, as well as Steamforged Games. Steamforged reacted promptly, apologizing, and sending out the two boxes I had won within a week. 

I received some mails from MMF, albeit only after getting back to them at least every two to four weeks. 

Nothing happened. I tried to contact the higher ups in the corporate structure of MMF and they were incredibly difficult to get a hold of. They either didn’t care or my mails and messages on twitter, MMF and Facebook never reached them.

One of the managers answered, but told me he was basically no longer involved with the running of MMF on a daily basis. He seemed genuinely trying to help and promised to „get me printing“ before christmas. 

That surely didn’t happen. 

I received the rest of the prizes late December, if I remember correctly. Might have been the start of January. 

The explanations ranged from summer vacation of staff, to skiing vacation of staff, to christmas vacation of staff to the Chinese new year. More on that later. 

After the first six months had passed I tried contacting Creality and PioCreat directly, while still trying to get hold of anyone in the higher echelons of MMF. 

I got in touch with a representative of PioCreat who had been very sorry. Everyone was always very sorry. They told me they had never received the information by MMF in the first place and that they needed me to fill in a from again that I had filled and filed months ago.  I did that and they received all the information needed. They told me they would be right on it after the Chinese new year. 

After that, there was no more stock of the Halot X1 in the European warehouse, restock was expected to come back May 2026.

Nothing happened and the printer was nowhere to be seen. 

The contact email address at PioCreat seemed to be terminated, as follow up messages did not go through and communication on Facebook wasn’t answered anymore. 

During this time, the contact person at MMF had changed. The new contact was better at communication and I got a few more tidbits of info. 

I was told that PioCreat didn’t honor their end of the deal and went back on their word to provide those printers to the prize pool. Of course I can’t verify this. Now MMF were out to source new printer partners, sponsors or go and buy and ship the printers themselves. 

Until today this didn’t happen either, as the one in charge doesn’t have the call on necessary funds and those in charge of the funds, well, I don’t know what they do. 

During the 10+ months until today I was in communication with other winners of this competition and they are all in the same boat. 

I think 10+ months is plenty of time to acquire and ship a 3D printer.

What a strange thing for a multimillion dollar company to do. Or so naive me thinks. MMF has the funds to acquire 100% of Thingiverse but not enough to purchase and ship a handful of consumer grade 3D printers? It’s not like we are talking top shelf Heygears or Formlabs printers.

Anyways, I was so tired of constantly, month after month, being led around in circles that I decided to write and post a „Letter before Action“ which is required to enforce legal claims on the price before the County Small Claims Court in the UK. 

Additionally I initiated a formal complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA**)** regarding a breach of the CAP Code (Section 8: Promotional Marketing), specifically relating to the failure to award prizes fairly and without causing unnecessary disappointment.

Thus far I refrained from complaining to the ECC as I am not sure about their jurisdiction after Brexit. 

I am blown away at how badly the resolution of this competition has been handled and what amount of patience is required by contestants. 

I have won other competitions in the past and nothing even came close to this level of incompetence or carelessness. 

Archvillain Games was always a blast to deal with, super fast and highly organized. Same goes for Ameralabs, OnePageRules and Parabellum. 

If I myself would work like this in my line of work, people would die. 

A consumer level 3D printer has a lifespan of a few years on the market, before it gets phased out and spare parts get harder to get, especially the screens. So the longer you wait, the less usable time remains. At this point I wouldn’t even bother unpacking it anymore, just selling it off directly. 

All of this soured this competition a lot. I can’t think of myself ever entering a competition hosted by MMF again in the future and I can’t recommend this to anyone else. 

You either need the patience of a saint or have to not care about the prizes at all. 

TLDR: After 10+ months of waiting, MMF isn’t able to provide all of the promised prizes. 

During spring of 2025 MMF hosted, besides others, this painting competition:

https://www.myminifactory.com/competition/warmachine-painting-competition-307

In July 2025 the winners of the „Warmachine Painting Competition“ hosted by My Mini Factory were announced: 

https://www.myminifactory.com/blog/warmachine-painting-competition-winners-announced

I was blown way winning one of the four categories, diorama and placing second in the single, not 3D printed miniature category. 

After a few days the current community manager reached out to me, congratulating and asking me to confirm my credentials, address and T Shirt size. 

The prizepool was quite large and I have passed much of it on, using it in competitions hosted by our painting club, „Pigment Pirates Hamburg“ and to friends who are new in the hobby. The main attraction was the Halot X1 16K 3D printer. 

Getting hold of this prizes was and still is, a nightmare. 

Weeks after receiving the first communication, there was no follow up whatsoever. So I contacted MMF again, as well as Steamforged Games. Steamforged reacted promptly, apologizing, and sending out the two boxes I had won within a week. 

I received some mails from MMF, albeit only after getting back to them at least every two to four weeks. 

Nothing happened. I tried to contact the higher ups in the corporate structure of MMF and they were incredibly difficult to get a hold of. They either didn’t care or my mails and messages on twitter, MMF and Facebook never reached them.

One of the managers answered, but told me he was basically no longer involved with the running of MMF on a daily basis. He seemed genuinely trying to help and promised to „get me printing“ before christmas. 

That surely didn’t happen. 

I received the rest of the prizes late December, if I remember correctly. Might have been the start of January. 

The explanations ranged from summer vacation of staff, to skiing vacation of staff, to christmas vacation of staff to the Chinese new year. More on that later. 

After the first six months had passed I tried contacting Creality and PioCreat directly, while still trying to get hold of anyone in the higher echelons of MMF. 

I got in touch with a representative of PioCreat who had been very sorry. Everyone was always very sorry. They told me they had never received the information by MMF in the first place and that they needed me to fill in a from again that I had filled and filed months ago.  I did that and they received all the information needed. They told me they would be right on it after the Chinese new year. 

After that, there was no more stock of the Halot X1 in the European warehouse, restock was expected to come back May 2026.

Nothing happened and the printer was nowhere to be seen. 

The contact email address at PioCreat seemed to be terminated, as follow up messages did not go through and communication on Facebook wasn’t answered anymore. 

During this time, the contact person at MMF had changed. The new contact was better at communication and I got a few more tidbits of info. 

I was told that PioCreat didn’t honor their end of the deal and went back on their word to provide those printers to the prize pool. Of course I can’t verify this. Now MMF were out to source new printer partners, sponsors or go and buy and ship the printers themselves. 

Until today this didn’t happen either, as the one in charge doesn’t have the call on necessary funds and those in charge of the funds, well, I don’t know what they do. 

During the 10+ months until today I was in communication with other winners of this competition and they are all in the same boat. 

I think 10+ months is plenty of time to acquire and ship a 3D printer.

What a strange thing for a multimillion dollar company to do. Or so naive me thinks. MMF has the funds to acquire 100% of Thingiverse but not enough to purchase and ship a handful of consumer grade 3D printers? It’s not like we are talking top shelf Heygears or Formlabs printers.

Anyways, I was so tired of constantly, month after month, being led around in circles that I decided to write and post a „Letter before Action“ which is required to enforce legal claims on the price before the County Small Claims Court in the UK. 

Additionally I initiated a formal complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA**)** regarding a breach of the CAP Code (Section 8: Promotional Marketing), specifically relating to the failure to award prizes fairly and without causing unnecessary disappointment.

Thus far I refrained from complaining to the ECC as I am not sure about their jurisdiction after Brexit. 

I am blown away at how badly the resolution of this competition has been handled and what amount of patience is required by contestants. 

I have won other competitions in the past and nothing even came close to this level of incompetence or carelessness. 

Archvillain Games was always a blast to deal with, super fast and highly organized. Same goes for Ameralabs, OnePageRules and Parabellum. 

If I myself would work like this in my line of work, people would die. 

A consumer level 3D printer has a lifespan of a few years on the market, before it gets phased out and spare parts get harder to get, especially the screens. So the longer you wait, the less usable time remains. At this point I wouldn’t even bother unpacking it anymore, just selling it off directly. 

All of this soured this competition a lot. I can’t think of myself ever entering a competition hosted by MMF again in the future and I can’t recommend this to anyone else. 

You either need the patience of a saint or have to not care about the prizes at all.