Good article, Eric, but I think our positions on the issue differ slightly.  I agree 100% that production schedules will be affected by things that just ‘happen’, and that anyone complaining bitterly because the game they’ve been looking forward to was delayed due to a production problem needs to just chillax, dude, and go play something else.

Movies, books, computer games - just about anything related to the entertainment industry will get delayed now and then.  It’s just part of the process.

But where I think legitimate complaints can be levied is where publishers play a little fast and loose with what I’ll call the “General Public’s Common Sense” - which isn’t the best name in the world but it’ll have to do.  GPCS isn’t always correct, but generally we tend to have some pretty set views as a group:

- Games should cost between 25 and 50 bucks, expansions half that depending on size, smaller mini expansions even less.

- Dice or Card games should cost about half a big box game at most.

- Box size should be big enough to be comfortable, but not too big.

- Extra room in a box is ok if there are expansions coming.

- Boxes should be somewhat standard sized.

When a publisher does something that is outside this envelope, they hear about it.

Why?  Not necessarily because people love to cast stones (although every industry has its share of those and I know of some in the games world that qualify too), but because we tend to invest emotionally in our hobby.  We want to see DoW, Mayfair, RGG, etc. succeed and continue to be able to produce the games we love.  We don’t want them to go under, we want them to thrive.  And so when a choice is made that is perceived to be outside the comfort zone, the hue and cry ensues…

pk

You seem to be conflating a couple things here.

There are legitimate gripes, and there is whining. People whine when they don’t get what they want. That’s part of the background noise that most of us learn to ignore.

But when publishers take payment in advance, and then can’t deliver in something resembling the time frame they promised, the heat level goes up dramatically, as Valley Games and Z-Man have discovered. You’re not going to be able to convince me that people who complain about this don’t have a point. The publishers did take our money and make a delivery commitment when they did.

The whole BattleLore thing is different again. I think this is just frustration not with these specific new products as much as with the whole line. Players have put up with, and paid for, some fairly lame and overpriced BatteLore products in the belief that Days of Wonder had some sort of grand vision that was going to pan out at some point. Now it turns out that they didn’t and it hasn’t, the fans are frustrated that the line has over-promised and under-delivered for so long, and the recent announcements are more of the last straw than gratuitous whining. I am entirely sympathetic to these complaints; I think Days of Wonder has dropped the ball on BatteLore.

Clearly, publishers can win. They do so by publishing quality games, not promising what they can’t deliver, and being honest with their customers. The furore over Mayfair’s policies has died down because in general Mayfair delivers good products and doesn’t make a habit of making promises. Rio Grande has taken some heat over the Race for the Galaxy expansion, somewhat justifiably in light of the “next month”, “next month”, “next month” release dates, but it’s a fraction of what Valley Games took for the same sort of thing, because Rio Grande didn’t take your money back in January.

It’s not just the boardgame industry.  Microsoft was praised before the Vista was release by opening the doors and showing all of the technology they were working on that migth make it into Vista.  When the feature set was finalized, they were roasted for “underdelivering”.  Now they have been completely silent on what will be in Windows 7 and they are getting roasted for that.

BUT, some of the complaints have gotten good results.  The cover of Municipium looks alot better has a result.  Through the Ages has gotten better components (but still not worth $70, IMHO).

The complaints about the upcoming Arabian Nights gameboard yielded childish responses from both sides.

I don’t know what the answer is.  Feedback can be useful, but too often it goes too far.

"Rio Grande has taken some heat over the Race for the Galaxy expansion, somewhat justifiably in light of the “next month”, “next month”, “next month” release dates...”

To be fair, Rio Grande has had a fluid schedule for years, with games regularly being pushed out past their announced due dates.  This is nothing new.

Good article, Eric, which nicely summarizes the Catch 22 publishers face every day.  And I disagree with some of the comments that have been made about schedules.  Crap happens whether you accept money ahead of time or not.  Some things are just out of your control, which is why so many publishers today aren’t announcing publication dates ahead of time.  It’s tougher when you have to preorder, because people naturally want to know when the item will be ready.  In the case of Agricola, Z-Man never set a hard date, but they did suggest a likely one and caught some grief when that slipped.  However, I don’t see where this is a greater crime than when there is a delay on a normal production; just because you have the money in hand doesn’t mean that you can make sure the outside world doesn’t interfere with your schedule.

But there are some crimes that aren’t so easy to excuse.  Valley Games’ main mistake, other than obviously biting off more than they could chew, was in accepting preorders for games, and then selling those games at Essen and NOT to the people whose funds allowed those games to be produced.  I understand the pickle they had gotten themselves in, but they lost an incredible amount of goodwill and credibility with that move.  Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do the right thing; if you can’t for financial reasons, you have every right to be blasted.  Hopefully, those early errors are behind them, although I’m sure there are many who will never trust the company again.

And Patrick, I recognize the value of gamer’s common sense, but sometimes we’re slow to pick up on a changing environment.  For example, many factors have combined recently to cause game prices to rise significantly, most of them quite legitimate.  This hasn’t stopped some from complaining when prices don’t match the ones they paid two years ago.  Some prices truly are out of line and should keep people from pulling the trigger on the product.  But sometimes the rules of the game change and folks aren’t always as quick to pick that up as they might be.

People are such whiners. (I do it as well occasionally, of course.)

There are really two problems:

1) Making games is a lot of work. Selling, marketing and maintaining a game company is even more work. Valley worked out the first part, and continues to screw up massively on the second part.

Most game companies deal with shipping issues, broken pieces, preorders, and such quite well. Valley...left behind a string of unhappy customers who had to whine on BGG repeatedly to get preorder bonuses.

In *MY* case, Valley seemed entirely happy not to refund money for a misshipment after half a dozen requests with no reply...so that I could hate them forever. I told them this, and they seemed to be ok with that.  I will never play another of their games. Period.

2) Making games is a lot of work. Most of this work is done on contract on shoestrings budgets.

Even once a game is finalized, the art, layout, correction, supply lines for pieces, and shipping details add a psychotically random factor to due dates.

It probably takes about 10 months from writing checks to putting a game on shelves. Those random factors cause a date to vary by about 6 months either way.

I believe game customers have been massively spoiled by movie and videogame release dates. The money involved is of course several orders of magnitude higher, but the final production mechanisms are also highly refined. Your videogame comes in a stock case, burned DVD from a duplicator, and manual inserts. Very little variation.

Each boardgame is a custom project from start to finish--which is why the whole Treefrog thing sounds like such a brilliant idea.

Customer feedback is always a good thing. It’s called “whining” only by those who don’t share your specific problems, just as the term “rules lawyer” is thrown out when someone disagrees with your interpretations. It’s only a problem when publishers/designers don’t listen. I don’t really care if they think they have a great result, or if they claim to be experts in the respective field. If I don’t like something, I will say so. Obviously they have to weigh many factors (cost, time, spectrum of public opinion), but when I feel the response is “screw you"--or worse, silence--then they have lost a customer.

Games I have not bought because of publisher/desigher/artist failure:

Through the Ages
Age of Steam
War of the Ring
Hannibal
Die Macher
Municipium
Railroad Tycoon
Age of Empires
Battle Line
Descent
Hollywood Blockbuster

And after all that complaints, non English speakers, like myself, will take on publishers because their mother language is not in the official rules book…

I think the article is not meant to look in detail the whinings and complaints of boardgamers and trying to disprove them entirely.

What we have here is an attempt to look from the publisher side of things and HOPEFULLY remind boardgamers there is such thing as EMPATHY.

There is none nowadays and everything is more business-like. There is less camaderie but more demands. This is becoming less a dream job/industry and more of a stressful one.

Great article, Eric!

The thing that gets me is how hate-filled people’s responses are, how personally they take things that are obviously not personal (e.g. shipping delays, not pre-order refunds).  The furor over Zev’s animeeple choices, and how people feel that Zev is out to screw them specifically, is just mind-boggling!  Where’s people’s sense of perspective anymore?

Good article. Hopefully people will realize that no matter what a publisher does, some people just won’t be happy. Instead of complaining, moaning, etc, folks should just look at the product and decide if it is worth the price to THEM.

I recently played Factory Fun and decided I wanted a copy of my own. A few weeks later, Cwali then announced they could put together some slightly damaged copies for 30 euros. After shippinig and paypal fees, I was looking a price just shy of 80 USD. While I really wanted the game, that was $15-$20 more than I felt it was worth to me. Did I bitch? Nope just decided that I’d have to pass.

Days of Wonder can’t force anyone to buy a product, if some BattleLore expansion is more expensive than you want to pay, just don’t buy it. Is FRED distribution pricing Through the Ages too high? Then don’t buy it.

It’s fine to voice opinions to publishers to let them know what you want, just be polite about it and realize they are balancing many factors and sometimes they just can’t please you.

Sorry, but not a good article. It is completely one-sided, lamenting the problems of game companies, while giving no credence to legitimate customer complaints and concerns regarding their business practices, and takes the rantings of what are often very vocal, but very small numbers of players and generalizes to the entire population.

Unfortunately, I guess I’ll sound like I’m trying to be on the publisher (and/or Eric’s) side of things here, but the thing that started this article off (Days of Wonder’s Monday announcement) hit me far differently than those griping about it.

I guess some might find a map plus a figure to be expensive at $18, but I just can’t see it personally.  I figure one figure might retail for $5-$6 (taking production and development into account there), leaving about $12 for a big paper map.  That may be a tad on the high side, but very much in the common range for a product of that type.  Anyone who knows the RPG industry would recognize a good, large map will run well over $10.  Taken together, those who’ve not already bought (which I have) a spare BattleLore board have an inexpensive way to start playing Epic battles.

In the same way, I found the Memoir ‘44 announcement to be amazingly consumer-friendly.  Those of us wanting to play Overlord scenarios no longer need to pony up the large amount of cash just for a second copy of the basic Memoir ‘44 game!

Perhaps I’m just jaded by what I see in the miniatures and collectible card markets, but in terms of pricing structures and customer concern I feel that the boardgame hobby as a whole seems to be FAR more responsive and caring about their customers.

"- Dice or Card games should cost about half a big box game at most. “

I think this is one of the GPCS that is not correct.

I once read an interview of someone at Days of Wonder. He claimed that is takes just as much effort/money to develop a small box game as a large box game. However customers expect the price of a game to be proportional to its size. Because of this, Days of Wonder found they made more profit per amount invested on large box games than small box games. Therefore they stopped developing new small box games.

This is an example of a company hearing complaints about a practice (small box games are too expensive). Deciding that it was impractical to to fix the practice (can’t reduce the development cost of small box games). Therefore it discontinued the practice instead.

Sounds like several publishers may take a similar approach to anouncing expected release date.

>> Valley Games’ main mistake, other than obviously biting off more than they could chew, was in accepting preorders for games, and then selling those games at Essen and NOT to the people whose funds allowed those games to be produced.<<<

Meanwhile Z-Man took some heat at the WBC last week for not having Agricola to sell at the convention even though it was “out”. And I assume they’ll get the same type of comments at Gencon.

Now the real issue was that all the copies of Agricola that were printed were already spoken for. But what to do? Have product to sell but get heat from the preorders who haven’t got theirs yet, or honor the preorders but lose who knows how many sales at a big con?

And note that the wargame companies got slammed for doing things like P500 or not selling to discounters. Now the Euro companies are starting to imitate the wargame companies, and the war game companies have largely gotten better. For example, it’s been a while since GMT took more than 3 months between when they took your $$$ and when you got your game.

"But what to do? Have product to sell but get heat from the preorders who haven’t got theirs yet, or honor the preorders but lose who knows how many sales at a big con?”

That’s an easy one.  You honor the commitments you’ve made.  The folks who would have bought at WBC and Gencon probably will wind up buying eventually.  And if not, you still have your integrity and will have done the right thing.  The good will such a policy inspires probably is worth more in the long run than the loss of a few sales, but even if it’s not, you should do what you said you’d do.

Knowing Zev, I would have been very surprised if he had done anything else.  I’m sure he got a little heat at WBC, but I haven’t heard too much about it on other forums.  Instead, all anyone is talking about is the game and the comments are almost overwhelmingly positive.  How foolish would it have been to spoil that with a shortsighted “take the money and run” policy!  Compare this relative lack of controversy with the hue and cry when Valley decided they had to sell at Essen last year.

I don’t want to be too hard on the Valley guys.  They were in a very tight spot, mostly of their own making, and probably figured they had to do what they did to keep the company afloat.  So while I don’t agree with their decision, I can understand it.  My only point was, in that case, the criticism of the company was justified.  Complaints about Z-Man not selling at a con instead of honoring their commitment to their preorders, on the other hand, are exactly the kind of silly no-win comments Eric’s article is talking about.

"The complaints about the upcoming Arabian Nights gameboard yielded childish responses from both sides.”

Hey, come on, I really object to that. If you read the thread started after I posted preview art of the game, you’ll see I have maintained a cheerful face’ in all my responses despite a barrage of feedback based on some people’s personal aesthetics. I have spent hours re-working aspects of the game in response to feedback, and yet some people still aren’t happy because I don’t make the game look like they want it to look.

Budgets are low in game design, and I have spent many, many hours of my own time making this game look and work as good as I can.

Give me a break. One thing I’ve learnt, is that people get too personal with their feedback, and I won’t be posting art previews anymore except to get feedback on specific game mechanics. I don’t have to post art previews.

After spending endless hours working with clients, trying to keep a whole bunch of gamers happy is like having a client committee made up of fifty members. It really is impossible to keep everyone happy.

(PS You Americans don’t know how lucky you have it - prices double by the time they get to Australia and our exchange rate is pretty close these days.)

It’s a wonder we have so many publishers out there trying to give us the games we want.  It is a tough business.  I believe that if people understood how small most of the hobby game publishers are, they would cut them some more slack.  Seriously--publishers don’t screw up on purpose. 

IMO much of the problem is from hobby gamers who are secretly game “haters"--looking for any excuse to announce loudly and in public any perceived mistakes.  They are simply trying to establish a reputation of being insightful, but they only get the reputation of being whiners.

That Battlelore map sounds pretty cool.

“If a publisher goes after an online knock-off of one of its products, players complain about losing free access to a game; if a publisher doesn’t do so, it risks having its trademark diluted. “

I haven’t run into the trademark knock-off scenario, unless you are referring to the Age of Steam debacle.

Of course you can’t make everyone happy, but you can try to make more people happy than others.

If you give a release date, try to stick to it (we all know there are problems and delays, but having a game pushed back 4+ months?).

Don’t do price fixing, it hurts everyone. If someone is going to buy a board game online, they are going to get it online even if they can find it in a store for relatively the same price. Not many people have board gaming stores near them.

Basically all the problems above can be solved or minimized with proper planning. I mean Z-Man has a very good reputation for having great games that are well made. The only complaints I’ve heard about Z-Man stuff is delays and some quality issues that are either resolved with replacements or in future printings.

""The complaints about the upcoming Arabian Nights gameboard yielded childish responses from both sides.”

Hey, come on, I really object to that.
“

You posted a picture of the map while giving everyone “the finger”.  Calling that “childish” is charitable.

Note that I wasn’t commenting on who was wrong or right.  Your customer is Z-Man games.  If Zev is happy with the result, then you have done an excellent job.

I have learned to be patient, so I have no problem with exciting games being delayed. I’d rather have time to get excited about them, than the game arriving before having heard about it.

"You posted a picture of the map while giving everyone “the finger”.  Calling that “childish” is charitable.”

Don’t have much of a sense of humour do you Rob? Everyone else got the joke.

"Everyone else got the joke.”

Yes, and that joke was childish.  I don’t see how you can object to that statement.

If I want a game I put it on order, and it arrives when it does.  The local game store is great about getting what I need and I have never had much of a problem.  Sure I want a copy of pandemic...and agricola...but I will get them soon enough.

I am so far behind with all the games that I have readily available to me at this point - I won’t be complaining about developer output EVER.  To add, I wouldn’t want a quality game to be rushed to the shelves to appease the gaming community.

I can sort of agree with the pre-order gripe - If you throw money in the pot to make it happen and you are promised a game by a certain time...it should be reasonable close to that. (within a month or two...understanding that making it happen can often be problematic.)

I was ready to tear into this article upon reading the title… thinking that here we go with the free pass for the publisher’s again. But in reading the article...Eric is right.

Of course, I think there are exceptions to every rule, and some publisher’s should be held accountable for some of the crazier stuff. 

But it’s the old 80/20 rule that we are talking about.  Eric is spot on with addressing the 80% of consumer compliants, where there is really no basis for complaint. 

GREAT article.

I believe that a basic rule of thumb might be:

1. If you haven’t actually bought a product, stop whining. If you don’t like the way a company is doing things, don’t buy their stuff.

2. Once you’ve actually paid for something, the company has some level of responsibility to provide what you’ve paid for in decent shape. (Warped board, mold, and missing bits...)

That seems entirely clear cut.

Until you sink into the murky depths of the world of pre-orders. At this point, you have paid for something---but what exactly you’ve paid for is often a bit vague. Sometimes a lot vague.

Sane reasons to preorder are:
1. A preorder bonus.
2. On a pledge program to help the game get made.
3. To get a game from a tiny, exclusive run.

Bad reasons to preorder are:
1. To get the game earlier than everyone else.

Meh. I buy games.

Flah. I wait until they come out.

Bleh. I have fun when I get them.

End of story.

Oh yes; and thanks for not being afraid to “go there” Eric.

Good stuff.

Great article, Eric, and well said.

Come over for beer and a game next time you’re in Sydney Rob, you sound like a real fun guy! ;)

Well put, Eric.

Wow, this is one of the best articles I’ve ever read on BGN.  Excellent work!