Wanted to let everyone know that I just got an email from Team Convenant saying that FFG underproduced The Deep Gate and had to allocate product through their sole distributor. TC's order was cut by 70%, meaning they only received 30% of what they ordered. Luckily, I'm in the 30% and will be getting my book on Friday, according to tracking.
FFG seems really bad at gauging demand and producing adequately for many of their product lines. This is just another example.
1 hour ago, KrisWall said:Wanted to let everyone know that I just got an email from Team Convenant saying that FFG underproduced The Deep Gate and had to allocate product through their sole distributor. TC's order was cut by 70%, meaning they only received 30% of what they ordered. Luckily, I'm in the 30% and will be getting my book on Friday, according to tracking.
FFG seems really bad at gauging demand and producing adequately for many of their product lines. This is just another example.
I am also part of the 30%. Got my email a few days ago.
I will note FFGs is always very conservative when they first release something. Part of me thinks that its part risk mitigation and part wanting to create demand higher than supply which is a type of hype for a product. To put another way, I don't think its an accident that they come up with insufficient supply. My take away is that you need to manage that for new products.
I also think this is an easily-foreseen problem they should have been competent enough to handle. Every one of the previous four books has sold out within 24 hours, most of which were so long ago they could easily have adjusted the print run for this one. Unforced error. Poor communication also a belly flop. We should be able to expect better.
13 hours ago, jjvreed said:I also think this is an easily-foreseen problem they should have been competent enough to handle. Every one of the previous four books has sold out within 24 hours, most of which were so long ago they could easily have adjusted the print run for this one. Unforced error. Poor communication also a belly flop. We should be able to expect better.
This is how I feel. I'll give them a pass for the first and second books. They don't get the same pass for the third and fourth.
Also... I'd love to know what went wrong that the distributor took so many orders that they weren't able to fulfill. Was this an example of the distributor taking way too many orders, or was it an example of FFG screwing up production and under-supplying the distributor? Ultimately, FFG has chosen to work with a single distributor, so any distributor shenanigans fall on FFG's head.
18 hours ago, KrisWall said:FFG seems really bad at gauging demand and producing adequately for many of their product lines. This is just another example.
That's an understatement! The reprint of Hour of the Huntress came back into stock on their site yesterday (probably arriving in the same shipment as Deep Gate) so I put it in my shopping cart waiting for The Deep Gate to become available to order today but in less than 24 hours it's now showing as sold out and I suspect The Deep Gate will immediately switch from Pre-Order to Out Of Stock if what you're saying is true.
As an international customer who would have to pay over $35 postage for just one book, I can't avail of pre-orders since their policy is to only allow pre-orders of a single item at a time. I have to buy multiple items to make it worth my while. I was hoping to get Huntress, Deep Gate and the L5R book in the one order but their inability to gauge interest, especially on a reprint of what appears to be a fairly popular series, has left me empty handed yet again.
Also, it seems like a lot of international vendors won't take pre-orders for them any-more. I was at the UK Games Expo last weekend asking vendors if they had any copies of any of the AH:LCG books and none of them had any. When I asked if they'd be ordering more they said probably not. Many of them told me they took pre-orders for the books in the past but FFG didn't send them what they requested and they were left refunding customers and, more importantly, building a reputation for not being able to fulfill pre-orders, which would just send customers to another site to pre-order their games on. It really has left me wondering who makes these decisions. I work in a business and if someone repeatedly made decisions that left our company unable to meet demand then they'd have been fired!
Sorry for the ranty post, but it's bad enough trying to complete collections of old game components that have gone out of print, but it shouldn't be this difficult to throw money at a company to buy newly released items.
4 hours ago, tomihawk said:..it shouldn't be this difficult to throw money at a company to buy newly released items.
This is the core of the issue. I've successfully acquired the last three books and am expecting The Deep Gate to arrive today. The first three a ton of effort with orders from my FLGS unfulfilled and scouring eBay/Amazon for availability. This last one was from Team Covenant and I got lucky with 70% of their orders being unfulfilled. On average, I've spent about $25 each for a product that I should be able to EASILY buy at my local store on release date for $15. At least I don't have to deal with international issues.
I've apparently been very fortunate. The first book released on the first day of Arkham Nights, so that one was no problem to pick up at the FFG Games Center, and the rest I've been able to preorder at my FLGS, and they've only had trouble getting one of them, which I was able to snag at MiniatureMarket.com.
I just checked with my FLGS, and they somehow recieved their full order of the Deep Gate, so I'll have my copy later today.
I have been lucky as well. I got the first book at Arkham Nights, and the rest my FLGS has been able to get, except for the Roland Banks one, which somehow the order got zeroed out on it (which also zeroed their order for Black Stars arise), but I was able to pick it up online for a little less than retail.
As Jobu says above, FFG is rather notorious for underprinting things, especially new products. I don't like it better than anyone else, but I will offer a few points in their defense.
First, we generally know that FFG's lead time on printing products is many months long - it's very likely that these orders were all in place before Hour of the Huntress was released. It's really not likely that they could just double or triple an order after the first book hit.
Second, while we know FFG does this, we don't actually know WHY. If you want to assume the worst, then yeah, they're incompetent. But I don't actually believe that any more - NOBODY could do it as often as they do without learning from their mistakes. At the very least, it looks like it's an intentional decision on their part to limit excess stock. It's also possible that FFG just isn't that flush with cash, and they can't front that much to print that much even if they expect to sell it.
I'm sure someone will disagree with the last, but we really don't know for sure and it's not an unreasonable guess (last financial I can find shows Asmodee with great profits but also a lot of debt). It will really come down to whether you want to assume the worst or give them the benefit of the doubt. But really, it's not going to change anything. This is part of what FFG does, it's been this way for years, people have been complaining about it for years, and it's not going to change anything more today than it did five years ago when I first experienced it with X-wing.
Right, I'm expecting that most or all of the first wave (the first five books) had a lead order. That said, the've reprinted the first book, so I'm not as certain about that.
2 hours ago, Duciris said:Right, I'm expecting that most or all of the first wave (the first five books) had a lead order. That said, the've reprinted the first book, so I'm not as certain about that.
From observing production updates during a variety of Kickstarters, it's not quite that simple. Factories will book their capacity well in advance. Once Huntress did well they couldn't just say "Print us 3 times as many of the next ones".
Even if they could have increased the production run, they probably faced a choice between reprinting Hour of the Huntress or increasing the print runs on the next one. I can see an argument either way, but let's face it - they wouldn't win with the people griping no matter what they did. The topic would have been "Why are you putting out new books when we can't get the first one?" instead of "They still can't get this right!", but you'd have just as many people griping.
Maybe FFG hasn't figured out that the promos are selling the books? Some of the stories are fun and I am sure there will be both good and bad stories in the future, but I think its safe to say the promos for the Arkham LCG are creating the demand that FFG can't keep up with.
7 hours ago, C2K said:Maybe FFG hasn't figured out that the promos are selling the books? Some of the stories are fun and I am sure there will be both good and bad stories in the future, but I think its safe to say the promos for the Arkham LCG are creating the demand that FFG can't keep up with.
Why would the reason why they are selling well cause issues with FFG noticing that they are selling well and need to up supply in general?
Sure once you notice that you are selling 3x the amount you produce its natural to ask why they are selling well but that only happens after noticing that demand is exceeding supply. To put it another way the reason why something is selling well is not needed to notice it is selling well.
There are two other things:
I still think this is working as FFG designed.
I would still buy the books, albeit, in eBook version if not for the promos. The lack of supply sucks, and I don't know what the answer is. I can guarantee you that other than pre-orders my FLGS would not be carrying the books because they don't really do books (other than a few DM manuals). It's a small town and they carry a few niche boardgames, but mostly mini games and Magic. I'd have to use team covenant or go very far out of town to find a store that would be bothered to carry such a niche product.
I love them, but I'm still not convinced the demand is THAT high.
Edited by Soakman8 hours ago, C2K said:Maybe FFG hasn't figured out that the promos are selling the books? Some of the stories are fun and I am sure there will be both good and bad stories in the future, but I think its safe to say the promos for the Arkham LCG are creating the demand that FFG can't keep up with.
I mean, Hour of the Huntress was the first time they'd tried adding promos to their books (the pre-order promo of Marie in The Investigators of Arkham notwithstanding). They did a number of books years ago. I expect between digital versions and the limited interest, that they sold somewhere around expectations.
FFG's audience and the Arkham Files universe and number of games has significantly increased since then.
39 minutes ago, Jobu said:There are two other things:
- Silas may be a more popular character than Roland, Norman, Carolyn and Jenny. Jenny is pretty popular though.
- This is the first book they announced months in advance. That gave a much larger window for a pre orders and they weren't ready for it.
For number 1, I think that's why they chose to reprint Jenny. I think that they looked at the limited information they had and concluded that a possible reason the book did so well was the Jenny promos. They further assumed that it was because people liked Jenny. Then they erred on the side of caution and upped her number of copies, rather than pushing too hard on the whole set as its popularity was unproven.
I think a bulk of FFG's releases being too small is that they've been burned by other games and have had warehouses full of them that took years and sales to move. In those situations, it was a question of the game and proper channels (word-of-mouth, BGG, etc.) moving the game. Now, FFG is a brand - akin to Apple (within reason) - and putting their name on a project yields additional interest and sales that it didn't do 10 years ago.
I believe FFG is coming to terms with this and adjusting appropriately, but they haven't yet realized demand. When they released Destiny, it was the single largest production order they had ever done. Word-of-mouth hadn't caught up to it and the pre-order sales were almost non-existent. Team Covenant ordered more product than 4 of their 5 distributers. They were afraid they had their biggest flop ever on their hands. After it got into gamers' hands, however, they sold-out within the month. Then they more than doubled the reprint, but it took months to get stateside and people were losing their minds at the massive failure of FFG. I personally waited until I'd played it before getting into it. By the time I had, no one had product so I overpaid online.
I expect a better litmus test of their future Arkham Files book production will be the L5R book, The Sword and the Spirits, released last week. It too is coming with promos (a playset each of 2 full-bleed art cards related to the story). My copy came into my LFGS (I say local, they're an hour away) yesterday, along with my Silas book & Labyrinths (I'm hoping they'll have a spare copy so I can added it to the other and the one I got at Arkham Nights). I'm avoiding spoilers on the new cycle of L5R, which begins releasing at the end of the month, but I'll keep an eye out for any book demand news.
33 minutes ago, Soakman said:I would still buy the books, albeit, in eBook version if not for the promos. The lack of supply sucks, and I don't know what the answer is. I can guarantee you that other than pre-orders my FLGS would not be carrying the books because they don't really do books (other than a few DM manuals). It's a small town and they carry a few niche boardgames, but mostly mini games and Magic. I'd have to use team covenant or go very far out of town to find a store that would be bothered to carry such a niche product.
I love them, but I'm still not convinced the demand is THAT high.
I'd buy a second copy of every book if that copy were and audiobook. I don't really read (auditory- & kinesthetic-learner that I am), but I love books. If The Investigators of Arkham were on audiobook, I'd have read through the stories 6 times each already.
It's fair to assume that these books have a long lead time. In that sense, FFG should know EXACTLY how many books they have available to sell. They should have told their sole distributor EXACTLY how many books would be available to distribute. The distributor should know EXACTLY how many orders they could take before running out of stock.
So, we have a few issues.
This might actually be more of a distributor issue, compounded by FFG's under production issue.
Recess games in North Olmsted Ohio still has several copies and they're not marking them up (I see copies for over $40 on eBay already)
Edited by jjvreed
I have never tried any of the books, but my LFGS ordered The Deep Gate for me to try, so I picked it up over the weekend. Haven't read any of the book yet, but freaked out when I saw the promo.
I suspected the promo cards in these books would be full art or alternative art reprints of existing cards. To my surprise, this book included an investigator, with its mini card, and a specific curse for the character. This investigator has a really cool ability, that could make its attack and evade overpowered.
I will need to look into the previously released books to see if I want to pick them up based on the story and included cards.
1 hour ago, Redsavina said:I have never tried any of the books, but my LFGS ordered The Deep Gate for me to try, so I picked it up over the weekend. Haven't read any of the book yet, but freaked out when I saw the promo.
I suspected the promo cards in these books would be full art or alternative art reprints of existing cards. To my surprise, this book included an investigator, with its mini card, and a specific curse for the character. This investigator has a really cool ability, that could make its attack and evade overpowered.
I will need to look into the previously released books to see if I want to pick them up based on the story and included cards.
They are replacement cards, which mean they are meant to be used in place of the 'standard' version of that investigator if you choose. Some of them are previously released, and some of them are not. Just a heads up. What this means is that, theoretically, a different version of Silas will be released at some point in a Deluxe Expansion box.
Edited by Soakman1 hour ago, Redsavina said:This investigator has a really cool ability, that could make its attack and evade overpowered.
You may be misunderstanding Silas' ability. If you pull a skill card back to your hand it doesn't add to the test. So it's good for recovering skill cards on a test that ended up failing, or letting you overcommit for safety and get it back if it wouldn't be needed, but an Unexpected Courage in hand doesn't just become a permanent +2 to every test you make.
2 hours ago, Buhallin said:You may be misunderstanding Silas' ability. If you pull a skill card back to your hand it doesn't add to the test. So it's good for recovering skill cards on a test that ended up failing, or letting you overcommit for safety and get it back if it wouldn't be needed, but an Unexpected Courage in hand doesn't just become a permanent +2 to every test you make.
Oh, yep, upon further investigation, your insight is correct. The card is pulled back during Skill Test Step 3, which is before the added skill card is counted towards the skill total. Still an excellent way to, as you have said, overcommit and then pull something back that isnt needed. The eldritch sign effect is pretty strong though, allowing you to apply a skill card from your discard pile to the current test, then after it resolves, add it to your hand, where you can play it again on a future skill test.