Tattered Fates available for pre-order at £11.87 released on the 26th March 2009!
Quite honestly I'll believe this when my S**t turns purple and I F*rt rainbow sherbert!
(This is a dig at Amazon not FFG)
Amazon (UK) at it again?
I think the whole problem with Amazon is that there primarily in the book trade. Where as FFG are in the games industry and the two through sharing similarities are very different. I used to work for a major chain of UK bookstores and while all of the major book distributor’s listed RRP prices on the invoices that arrived with there books, one games company we dealt with listed actual invoice cost. If you weren't paying attention when you where updating the database you could easily input the wrong one.
I have to admit though, I pre-ordered my copy of DOTDG from Amazon and it did arrive at the bargain price of £20! Although I suspect Amazon fulfilled all of there correctly priced orders first as it did take several weeks to arrive. I also rather cheekily pickup a copy of the MRB when it was first released for considerably less than its retail price. I have to admit to a sense of guilt over the entire thing though, although technically it's the companies own mistake which has cost them, there are plenty of smaller independent games shops struggling out there who could have done with my money. I've since decided to stop the bargin hunting and start to support them.
I must admit I've never used Amazon for DH stuff. I used to use BI's own online ordering service, which was excellent because it always got books to me a week in advance of the official release date (including DH itself). I haven't used FFG's online ordering service yet, as I'm a little wary of the constantly changing release dates.
To me what's important is getting the books on time and on schedule. I'm willing to pay more to guarantee the books and have some peace of mind. For example, I'd love to have Rogue Trader to take on holiday with me in September, but having seen how the timetable seems to move about for the release of the books, I doubt this will happen!
In many ways I'd rather have a conservative release schedule that is adhered to than an optimistic one that isn't. I'd rather be told a book is going to be in the shops on June 1st and be able to go and collect it physically from a shop then, than be told it'll be out on March 31st, then April 15th, then May 12th before it's finally released to US customers on May 28th, UK customers on June 8th and having to go around cancelling pre-orders with Amazon priced at $15, then $29.99 and then being told it's out of stock!
These days I tend to buy in person from Orc's Nest in London, which always gets a very good selection of new books in, I bought Creatures Anathema there on saturday and there's still loads of copies there now. Orc's Nest also has an online store, which I must admit I never use, but I've alwasy found them competent and approachable, so I imagine it's pretty good. If you're in the UK I'd be willing to bet you'll get an FFG book faster through Orc's Nest than Amazon. It may not be CHEAPER, but you'll get it with less hasle.