Hello,

Just a quick question from some of the veterans here on the forums.. from your experience what is an average time from when a new product announced to its release?

I am asking because we may wait for the Unlimited Power book to come out...

Thank you

Well, BEFORE 2017 the average (across 25 books) was ~136.53 days, with a low time of 92 days and a high time of 253.

However, for books announced or released in 2017 and onward (currently 8 books), the average time is ~230.25 days and rising, with a low time of 139 days and a high time of 377+ days.

My current best guess is that Unlimited Power will be released around mid-April, although there are scenarios where it might not be out until May. Absolute bare minimum, it's not out until March 15, although that is almost impossibly unlikely.

...and you have no idea how much it hurts me to have to say that ...

and the reason for the delay is shipping related. a Shipment was diverted. We think this was related to a certain shipping company that went belly up and had ships in transit when it did so. So several books needed reprinted and reshipped. In theory several books should be on their way to FFG as all indication is they were all on the same boat as they all went to on the boat at the same time. However we have only gotten Dawn of Rebellion so far. Absol is a little annoyed because they should have set the next book as shipping. but did not for some reason...

So what you're saying is we need to find the boat with the books on them?

11 hours ago, Daeglan said:

and the reason for the delay is shipping related. a Shipment was diverted. We think this was related to a certain shipping company that went belly up and had ships in transit when it did so. So several books needed reprinted and reshipped...

That is still conjecture. Perhaps likely but still conjecture since fantasy flight games never disclosed what happened to Ghosts of Dathomir and the reprints that were with it.

11 hours ago, Daeglan said:

... In theory several books should be on their way to FFG as all indication is they were all on the same boat as they all went to on the boat at the same time. However we have only gotten Dawn of Rebellion so far. Absol is a little annoyed because they should have set the next book as shipping. but did not for some reason...

The Ghosts of Dathomir delay should not be what is delaying things now since, at least in theory, the cause of the delay over GoD is long past and the 3 books currently waiting for release went to on the boat well after GoD was released.

Exactly. FFG has reprinted pretty much the entire line of books (almost all Edge, Age, and Force books) and gotten the reprints to shelves in the time between Ghosts of Dathomir 's release and now. Even if the three books we're still waiting on were not even started on the print process until after Ghost 's release, the fact that almost all the other books have been reprinted in that same time shows that they could have released the other books by now.

The reason they haven't still remains unexplained, but the longer time goes on, the "shipping issue" reasoning breaks down further and further. It worked perfectly fine until the reprints started hitting shelves in waves. Then it stopped working.

Contacted by pre-order supplier in the UK - they have no news on this release date

Yeah, delays now are probably about juggling a bunch of new product arriving more or less at once, and not wanting to exceed the distributors', retailers', and customers' ability and desire to stock and buy.

And also teasing and taunting us.

(My players would really like Fully Operational right now, though; they have a task for which FO might provide better solutions, but we don't know.)

Just had an email from my UK distributor saying they now have a release date of December.....

As of yesterday, Esdevium, the UK distributor for FFG and part of Asmodee had no release date for it, they also don't have release dates for anything that far out so no idea where that's coming from.

Edit: They can be pretty left hand/right hand of late, telling stores 'we've got no idea when X will be back in stock' and then having it on the updated availability stock list the next day.

5 hours ago, Random Bystander said:

Just had an email from my UK distributor saying they now have a release date of December.....

Oh...oh no. I just had a terrible realization...

So, Dawn of Rebellion released in Q1. Based on someone's e-mail from a retailer in the Fully Operational thread (might have been you, as well), and one in the 30th Anniversary Edition forum indicating it's being targeted for Q1 this year, it appears that FFG seems to have recently settled on release dates for a bunch of books, and FO is being targeted for some time in Q2. Now this one saying Unlimited Power is being targeted for Q4?

What if...What if FFG has changed tack and is releasing one book per quarter from here on out? Fully Operational would be released in Q2 (probably May), Cyphers and Masks would be Q3 (August?), which would mean... Unlimited Power not out until Q4...?

That would probably mean Knights of Fate wouldn't be released until Q1 2019...I...I don't think I could make it...

please no, don't delay Unlimited Power any longer. I am wanting to use that material in my own game and if we have to wait until Q4 our game might be done or moving onto the next phase by then.... I hope this is them informing distributors they don't know the release date and not a settlement on a Q4 Release date. That is a long time for books. Especially if they are already printed and ready to go. Why would FFG keep books in warehouse for months on end when they could improve their quarterly sales now. The only reason to delay a launch other than production/shipping issues is to hit a release window and avoid competing with your own products, and I've never heard of a product being delayed from release for over 6 months once production is done.

4 hours ago, Absol197 said:

Oh...oh no. I just had a terrible realization...

So, Dawn of Rebellion released in Q1. Based on someone's e-mail from a retailer in the Fully Operational thread (might have been you, as well), and one in the 30th Anniversary Edition forum indicating it's being targeted for Q1 this year, it appears that FFG seems to have recently settled on release dates for a bunch of books, and FO is being targeted for some time in Q2. Now this one saying Unlimited Power is being targeted for Q4?

What if...What if FFG has changed tack and is releasing one book per quarter from here on out? Fully Operational would be released in Q2 (probably May), Cyphers and Masks would be Q3 (August?), which would mean... Unlimited Power not out until Q4...?

That would probably mean Knights of Fate wouldn't be released until Q1 2019...I...I don't think I could make it...

That’s terrible business, though. Then they are sitting on books, already paid for, now paying more to warehouse them, and not getting money back by selling them. That’s an excellent way to get in more financial trouble (lowering profit margins, which probably aren’t terrific), and is practically shouting for Mr. Murphy to demonstrate his law (oh, the warehouse sprung a leak in a Midwest summer thunderstorm? Oops!). Plus I think there are negative tax implications, too.

Unless the books are not actually printed, or they are on a boat making a leisurely tour of the Seven Seas, or stashed in some nation Asmodee does business in that gives tax breaks for sitting on inventory.

Eurazeo owns most of Asmodee, right? And is publicly traded? How are you at reading financial reports, @Absol197 ?

1 minute ago, coyote6 said:

That’s terrible business, though. Then they are sitting on books, already paid for, now paying more to warehouse them, and not getting money back by selling them. That’s an excellent way to get in more financial trouble (lowering profit margins, which probably aren’t terrific), and is practically shouting for Mr. Murphy to demonstrate his law (oh, the warehouse sprung a leak in a Midwest summer thunderstorm? Oops!). Plus I think there are negative tax implications, too.

Unless the books are not actually printed, or they are on a boat making a leisurely tour of the Seven Seas, or stashed in some nation Asmodee does business in that gives tax breaks for sitting on inventory.

Eurazeo owns most of Asmodee, right? And is publicly traded? How are you at reading financial reports, @Absol197 ?

Eh? I mean, I'm a licensed Limited Securities Principal, so I'm probably better than the business layman, but my background is more in investment rather than business. I could take a bash at it, but I'd rather not. But if someone were to find me the data, I might peruse...

Unless ordered by darth maus...? Wait till the season finale of rebels, wait till the premier of solo... wait till the announcement of star wars: XXX XXX (almost did one set but realized it would be taken wrong for a family movie)

10 hours ago, coyote6 said:

That’s terrible business, though. Then they are sitting on books, already paid for, now paying more to warehouse them, and not getting money back by selling them. That’s an excellent way to get in more financial trouble (lowering profit margins, which probably aren’t terrific), and is practically shouting for Mr. Murphy to demonstrate his law (oh, the warehouse sprung a leak in a Midwest summer thunderstorm? Oops!). Plus I think there are negative tax implications, too.

Unless the books are not actually printed, or they are on a boat making a leisurely tour of the Seven Seas, or stashed in some nation Asmodee does business in that gives tax breaks for sitting on inventory.

Eurazeo owns most of Asmodee, right? And is publicly traded? How are you at reading financial reports, @Absol197 ?

Printing is done at the last possible moment that still allows for the release schedule to be met. There should never be more than one unreleased book in the warehouses when releases are staggered, and that one should be sent to retailers in a matter of days (and only that long because it takes time to handle shipping out those books again).

12 hours ago, coyote6 said:

Eurazeo owns most of Asmodee, right? And is publicly traded? How are you at reading financial reports

Not a full statement but 2016 Asmodee had revenue of 377million and EBITDA of 65 million, both up sizeable amounts from 2015. Unless something's significantly changed, they're absolutely not in any financial difficulties.

https://www.eurazeo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Eurazeo-FY2016-results3.pdf

5 hours ago, Evilref said:

Not a full statement but 2016 Asmodee had revenue of 377million and EBITDA of 65 million, both up sizeable amounts from 2015. Unless something's significantly changed, they're absolutely not in any financial difficulties.

https://www.eurazeo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Eurazeo-FY2016-results3.pdf

But the health of Asmodee itself doesn't directly correlate to the health of FFG. Parent companies often allow subsidiaries to operate basically independently, with their own budgets, earnings, and expenses. Heck, even within an individual company, each department's budget is often segregated. So Asmodee doing well doesn't means that FFG isn't currently needing to tighten the metaphorical belt.

7 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

Printing is done at the last possible moment that still allows for the release schedule to be met. There should never be more than one unreleased book in the warehouses when releases are staggered, and that one should be sent to retailers in a matter of days (and only that long because it takes time to handle shipping out those books again).

I agree, that's the most sensible business strategy. So with that in mind, and our current data, there are a few possibilities:

1) FFG is making an exception to the rule because they don't want these books to compete with one of their other major products scheduled for a release in the near future;
2) The books are actually On the Boat (and perhaps separate boats), and still haven't arrived yet (somehow; maybe FFG expected the conflict and hired a slower service? But they wouldn't be able to capitalize on an entire ship, would they? Unless the ship is making multiple port stops and they finagled it for their stop to be last? Or the books being loaded into the shipping container counts as "On the Boat," but they didn't actually get out to sea until several weeks/months after that?);
3) For these products (and possibly others), FFG isn't using the Upcoming page statuses literally, but as a sort of completion bar, showing that movement is happening, but not necessarily which exact step the products are currently in.

35 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

I agree, that's the most sensible business strategy. So with that in mind, and our current data, there are a few possibilities:

1) FFG is making an exception to the rule because they don't want these books to compete with one of their other major products scheduled for a release in the near future;
2) The books are actually On the Boat (and perhaps separate boats), and still haven't arrived yet (somehow; maybe FFG expected the conflict and hired a slower service? But they wouldn't be able to capitalize on an entire ship, would they? Unless the ship is making multiple port stops and they finagled it for their stop to be last? Or the books being loaded into the shipping container counts as "On the Boat," but they didn't actually get out to sea until several weeks/months after that?);
3) For these products (and possibly others), FFG isn't using the Upcoming page statuses literally, but as a sort of completion bar, showing that movement is happening, but not necessarily which exact step the products are currently in.

There’s an “In Stores Now” category on the “Upcoming” page. Logically that makes no sense, so my faith in that page is minimal anyway. Had to get that off my chest.

To be completely honest, the whole Upcoming page feels like it’s largely automated. Somebody enters a bunch of projected dates when they get started with a new product, the page code changes the status every time a date is reached and whenever delays happen it’s a coin toss whether someone gets around to manually fixing the status. I could be way off base here, but my gut says keeping that page accurate is not on anyone’s “definitely gotta get this done” list.

The Upcoming page has no status between "On the Boat" and "Shipping Now", probably because that's the way it normally goes. Ergo, they have no "In the Warehouse" intermediate step, which certainly appears to be what's happening in these cases.

After all, they've posted a March 22 date for Star Wars Legion, and it is still listed as On The Boat. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't post a street date for a big product if there was any real risk of not meeting that date; if Legion is literally still on a boat, then it would have to be offloaded, pass through customs, and get on a train or truck to get to Minnesota. There are a lot of opportunities for things to go awry in that chain of events. Ergo, I suspect that they have Legion in their hands, and are just taking the time to get all their launch events, organized play, and such set up for a big launch. It also seems like it would be weird for a bunch of stuff to all go On The Boat the same day, but arrive weeks and months apart, not when it's all going from one point A to one point B.

Oh, Pablo Hidalgo tweeted a photo of his copy of the 30th anniversary SWRPG a few weeks ago. That might very well have been an air-shipped proof copy, but there was photographic evidence that someone has a copy of that product in hand.

8 hours ago, coyote6 said:

The Upcoming page has no status between "On the Boat" and "Shipping Now", probably because that's the way it normally goes. Ergo, they have no "In the Warehouse" intermediate step, which certainly appears to be what's happening in these cases.

There is no intermediate step, or at least there shouldn’t be. As soon as stuff arrives in the warehouse, the process to ship it out to retailers should begin. Stuff sitting in inventory is not making money, and warehouse space costs money.

Wait wait wait wait.

Have we even had any update yet? I'm getting alarmed now.

49 minutes ago, Luahk said:

Wait wait wait wait.

Have we even had any update yet? I'm getting alarmed now.

No. Other than the announcement article and the changes in production status, we have not received any information regarding Unlimited Power .

My book supplier updated me this weekend, they have been told that the release of Unlimited power will be December (at least, they know what FFG are like)

They did say they are occasionally released earlier, but not to hold out to much hope!