Oh no!  It’s Goa all over again!  Both excellent games, though.  :^)

"This is our first game (co-released with Rails of Europe), so if we miss, we tie up a lot of working capital, or even worse, go out of business—better to be short, then go to reprint if needed.”

So, after the first edition was greeted with enthusiasm that registed a 10 on the scale and promptly sold out its measly print run of 500 copies, they keep the rest of us waiting 14 months for another run and then make it too small again.  Wonderful.  In time, Through The Ages will be legendary for being considered a brilliant, awe-inspring game by everybody except its publishers, who seem unable to consider the possibility that a fair number of people might actually want to play it.

Does anyone know what the print run actually was?

I find it hard to believe that such a highly-anticipated game didn’t get a print run deserving of its buzz.

pk
-Now ever more glad he kept his 1st edition copy instead of selling and looking to buy 2E instead.

Now I’ll have some money to spend on other games.  What will be the reprint time estimate?

I just ‘preordered’ on Wednesday...so, this means I missed it and won’t actually get a copy until god knows when?

Funagain still says ‘preorder’…

Sigh…

Funagain says pre-order because they have not received their copies yet.  We are in Chicago and Funagain is in Ashland, so it takes several days for shipments to get to southern Oregon.  Please recognize that sold out at the publisher does not mean sold out at the retailer. 

We did not have many advance orders for this game, so we felt it was better to be conservative rather than be too aggressive.  We solicited retailers and international distributors for several months and we really didn’t get much commitment until just before and right after the game arrived.

Note that when I say advance order, I don’t mean pre-order.  We did not take anyone’s money in advance to help pay for the run, so all the capital expended is/was ours.  As such, I recommended that we be conservative with our print run.  I saw things go the other way with the company I used to work for when some partners would over-estimate the demand for a game and then sales wouldn’t meet expectations and this would leave a lot of inventory in storage (which costs even more money).

We will be going to reprint in the next few months, so we hope to minimize the downtime of product availability.

Keith

"We will be going to reprint in the next few months, so we hope to minimize the downtime of product availability.”

In writing!  There may yet be hope.

That’s good to read, Keith!  Here’s hoping there are no production problems on the next run (or any future run, for that matter)!

Keith, it’s far too easy (and common) for gaming companies to act like gamers and not like businesses.  It sounds as if you looked at this situation like a realistic businessman and made a prudent and conservative decision.  At any rate, none of us had a better perspective than FRED did and it wasn’t our money on the line.  So no worries; I’d rather FRED stay a viable publisher than go broke (again) by trying to satisfy demand that might not exist.

Now, if you could just do something about your company’s name…

Keith,

I understand the decision, and sorry if my post sound like a whiny rant…

I was just hoping to get the e-mail saying that it was shipping to my house when I read this instead. 

I understand your decision and will be waiting for the reprint!

Thanks,

Dave

Hi Larry and David,

Thanks for the kind words and understanding.  Dave, I do not know where you are located, but hopefully you do have access to a store that ordered the game.  To the best of my knowledge we were able to fulfill all of the pre-orders from stores that placed an order with us, so if you had an existing order with a retailer, I believe it was fulfilled.  If this is incorrect, please let me know (keith blume at gmail… and you know the rest).

FRED the Distributor or FTD seemed to be taken...:-)

I received two e-mails from Nick at Funagain.  The first said that TtA was about to reach Chicago, and the second said that I as a pre-orderer should have received an e-mail from FedEx with an ID number that was not yet active.

I have not yet received the FedEx e-mail.  Is anyone else in this same situation, or is it only I?

I have not received an e-mail either.  Then again, I only ordered earlier this week, so I might have missed the window on the first print run…

There was a 10 inch snowfall on Thursday in Chicago that slowed things down on Friday, so FedEx is probably a day behind.  I spoke with Nick on Friday.  Funagain was one of our customers who pre-ordered and they ordered heavy, so David you should be fine.

Keith

Keith,

Thanks for the note.  I did get my FedEx number by logging on to the Funagain website, and it estimates that my game should arrive on Tuesday!  Wooot!  I never got an e-mail from FedEx, but as long as the game arrives, it doesn’t matter.

Eric