Ain't no drama like Eklund drama

Maybe this is just a shady sales tactic. Eklund might hang onto the remaining games and re-sell them with next edition rulebooks.

Sagrilarus wrote: May 1st would be an interesting day to drive out to Funagain's warehouse with an empty minivan.

Wait a sec, I have relatives there and they have several full size vans... I can make a ton of cash on unwanted board games!

barrowdown wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote: May 1st would be an interesting day to drive out to Funagain's warehouse with an empty minivan.

Wait a sec, I have relatives there and they have several full size vans... I can make a ton of cash on unwanted board games!

I was considering one of each, but I'm a small thinker.

Remember -- those games are unwanted at their "perceived value". I wouldn't be surprised if there are customers that perceive them as valuable at less than their perceived value.

Sagrilarus wrote:

barrowdown wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote: May 1st would be an interesting day to drive out to Funagain's warehouse with an empty minivan.

Wait a sec, I have relatives there and they have several full size vans... I can make a ton of cash on unwanted board games!

I was considering one of each, but I'm a small thinker.

Remember -- those games are unwanted at their "perceived value". I wouldn't be surprised if there are customers that perceive them as valuable at less than their perceived value.

I don't think the games are unwanted by customers - these were just released.

I think the big issue here is that Eklund was screwed by Ship Naked and lost a lot of money getting these games out to backers. He mentioned in a recent newsletter that they had to dial back plans for this year and were postponing a release or two due to money lost from shipping woes.

I imagine they're strapped for cash and he doesn't want to spend X more dollars shipping a ton of product back to his home and trying to find a place to warehouse it (and then ship it out himself).

I’m sure he could throw out all the copies of Lords of the Renaissance to make room in his garage.

Michael Barnes wrote: I’m sure he could throw out all the copies of Lords of the Renaissance to make room in his garage.

Baaaaaaaaaad man.

Why anyone still uses Ship Naked (or Game Salute) is beyond me...they are not well run. Aren't they the ones that fucked over Petersen Games with the first Cthulhu Wars KS?

Sagrilarus wrote: I'll be curious to know how long "perceived value" remains a part of the boardgame industry lingo.

As long as there are idiots on BGG.

Gary Sax wrote: I am tempted by Bios but I just don't have that kind of money right now. What a super weird situation, though. I mean, I guess I believe it but it's so weird how this shit comes up with Eklund games.

It's like the invisible hand just keeps flipping him off.

cdennett wrote: Why anyone still uses Ship Naked (or Game Salute) is beyond me...they are not well run. Aren't they the ones that fucked over Petersen Games with the first Cthulhu Wars KS?

I don't know about the first wave of Cthulu Wars, but Shit Naked has a spotty track record, and that's putting it kindly. I think people use them because frankly they don't know any better. For whatever reason, KS principals feel compelled to use a "game industry" fulfillment option when in reality most boardgames would be candidates for any number of third party fulfillment services - its not like expertise in shipping oversize or perishable product for instance.

This is an interesting comment:

www.boardgamegeek.com/article/28681552#28681552

Either Sierra Madre is changing their name to Ion, or perhaps Phil has realized like Wallace that he's better off leaving the business aspect to someone else and the Sierra Madre brand will be sold via Ion , whoever owns that.

Needless to say, I'm going to be sitting on the sidelines for any new preorder campaigns from SMG...

I've always come out of pre-orders unscathed, although the only pre-orders I did were JC (I guess I was lucky), and Pax Ren stuff. Both of those were through the SMG site. I even got the now-mythical Pax Ren expansion deck. The madness has certainly increased as he's scaled up to meet his new demand, however.

Sitting out for a while will be pretty easy, there's not much in the pipeline I really want. Pax Emancipation is a pass until the early adopters get a look at it. Pax Transhumanity sounds interesting but is still just vapor.

Sort of a shame, it was nice to get mysterious square packages from Deutsche Post and remember "oh yeah, I ordered that a while ago!"

Not Sure wrote: I've always come out of pre-orders unscathed, although the only pre-orders I did were JC (I guess I was lucky), and Pax Ren stuff. Both of those were through the SMG site. I even got the now-mythical Pax Ren expansion deck. The madness has certainly increased as he's scaled up to meet his new demand, however.

Sitting out for a while will be pretty easy, there's not much in the pipeline I really want. Pax Emancipation is a pass until the early adopters get a look at it. Pax Transhumanity sounds interesting but is still just vapor.

Sort of a shame, it was nice to get mysterious square packages from Deutsche Post and remember "oh yeah, I ordered that a while ago!"

I've never gotten burned by SMG, so far he's just delivered stuff late - and there are far worse offenders out there in that category. Other than HIGH FRONTIER 3rd edition, he's been pretty close to on time in terms of meeting timelines actually . Again, better than most. The current KS for new editions of NEANDERTHAL and GREENLAND aren't of any interest since both games are low on the interest scale. Esp when he keeps games to a reasonable footprint and price point, like the PAX stuff, its about as low risk as it gets.

Yeah, I've never had a problem but I'm going to hesitate until he gets some proven ships in with his new business structure.

Yeah, my "sort of a shame" was more a response to the SMG pipeline not having a lot in it that's appealing to me right now. My hesitation isn't so much a loss of faith as a lack of concern.

JC had a timing issue that wasn't great, but that was a poor choice of vendor. The three Pax games were generally delivered on time, and I bought all of those and any expansions direct from SMG. No problems there.

I think growth and poor delegation is causing the issues (like um, every business ever), and it's just serendipity that he can try to work that out now with some games I'm not tapping my foot waiting for.