With the growth of the RPG lines has Fantasy Flight Games considered using a US or Canadian printer?

Some advantages would be a cheaper shipping cost. Better ability to track the shipments. A quicker turnaround from print to the distributors. These things would lead to happier customers which is a good thing.

The print cost would be higher, but with the larger print runs this may be more practical to do now that the lines have grown to a point where they are at now.

Any reason NOT to give the Reds my money makes me happy.

Seriously? People still call the Chinese "The Reds"? They're as capitalist as everyone else nowadays, pretty much. They're just authoritarian, not Communists, despite what they and other people say.

I work in the print industry, and I know when printing high volume that the prices offered by china and india including the shipping is far lower then the prices offered by "western" companies.

FFG is still a commercial organisation, which presumably owes the same duty to its shareholders to make a profit as any other other company. As such, I would imagine they're prepared to risk the occasional bout of printing-delay-induced Nerd Rage in order to keep costs down and profits up... And one couldn't really blame them for that.

I really do not look at it as “Nerd Rage” as much as I do not getting the products to distributors and customers as fast as possible. It seems for big hard cover books it takes FFG a very long time to get the product to customers. DC Heroes which entered the print cycle later than Deathwatch is already in distribution. Amazon even has it now. They are making a profit right now on their product. FFG is not.

I think they (FFG) use the current printer due to the fact that much of their board games and pieces are produced there. They were not really a big RPG company until they took on the 40k license. It has grown to the point to where they have 3 line developers now for it. I do not think they thought there would be such growth. There are many RPG companies that do use US or Canadian printers so the price points cannot be that bad. I would guess they like to make money too. I think the current print structure is due to past relationships more than a price point. That is why I asked the original question.

Ps I have a copy of the game already. I was at Gen Con. Even have the GM screen so it is less about me raging than a curiosity question. The copies I do have ordered are extras. I will say that stores and distributers are very anxious to get the book and vague and sliding release dates does not help sales. A US or Canadian printer would allow FFG to have better knowledge of when they are going to get their product.

Sorry, Dave2, I didn't mean to make it sound as if I was directing my "Nerd Rage" comment at you personally, and upon re-reading my post, I admit it looks like that's what I meant, apologies. I myself suffered from tremendous Nerd Rage last year with the whole Rogue Trader CE, as I ended up waiting much longer for it than I'd bargained for!

For me though, if it was a choice between (getting the products late + cheaper books+company in profit and continuing to publish) vs (getting products on time+ more expensive books+ company may go into liquidation through being unprofitable), I'd stick with the former.

I've kind of learned to chill out with release schedules, seeing them more as kind of statements of intent than anything I would expect to hold them to...

Eh, not sure I buy the "China Cheap, Money Good" argument 100% anymore.

Green Ronin prints in Canada.

Mongoose prints in the USA of all places.

Last time I checked, both were doing fairly well as RPG companies go, without the mythical pitchfork wielding shareholders lynching anyone.

FFG prints enough books at this point, I'm sure they could get better prices then they could originally.

The release schedules don't bother me really, I'd just be interested to see some studies on missed sales due to interest peaking before the slow boat from China gets here.

Oh no problem. I did not take offense to the Nerd Rage thing. I do know there is allot of that that goes on in the forums. I was in the same boat as everyone last year waiting for Rogue Trader.

I was just lucky enough to go to Gen Con this year. I will say that I stood in line for 2hours to get book first day. The 2nd day went by the booth and they still had plenty of books. So I learned a lesson about standing in lines. Ohh well was my the first Gen Con.

On a positive note Into the Storm has shipped to me from FRP games so that seems to be making its way through the system. I picked up a copy of that at Gen con too, and it is a very nice book.

Yeah Millandson, that actually is pretty sad.

Lord Kruge said:

Both Green Ronin and Mongoose are prodigious RPG book producers, and maybe they can get better rates. FFG is relatively new to RPG books in comparison to these 2.

Also it may be that Both Mongoose and Green Ronin have the attitude "if it ain't broke..." and are happy with the service they get from their printers.

Moving printers is a hard affair especially once you have built up a great rapport and business partnership, these printers know your expectations, and perform to meet them.

China/India are cheaper still then any western printer when you are talking bulk print. though tbh I am sure the last FFG book I bought was printed in canada.

I do think that FFG has a relationship with its printing partners. As the posts have indicated that they have printed books in Canada I am curious as to why the core books are coming from China. In and of its self there is nothing wrong with having them come from there. But, it does seem that the distribution channel is very slow. This seems to be the same problem they had last time with Rogue Trader. I was just wondering why not use the Canadian printer. It is much faster and easier for them to track. I would agree that they were not a very big RPG company in the beginning but they are now. So with the growth maybe it is time to shift the printing of the RPG books from China to Canada. I know that distributers as well as local RPG shops are getting angry calls about where the product is. This could be lessened to a degree if they could track it better than it is on the boat.

In their defense I will say that it has not been 6 weeks yet. It has been 5 I believe. But, the point I am making with the Canadian printer is how much faster the process would be. Just look at DC Adventure. It went to the print cycle later and is in wide spread circulation as of a couple of weeks ago. Amazon even has it.

Dave2 said:

I'd say: what is a few weeks in comparison to how long all of this has been in the making?

Alex

The two concepts are unrelated but will answer the question anyway.

A quicker distribution system would lead to happier distributes, stores, and customers.