Valley Games Update Hot

Eagle? Hmmm... I hope they know what they're doing.

--Mike L.

I think this is good news... I don't know about Eagle Games but Valley Games getting someone to handle the production so they can handle the creative side is a Good Idea.

There seems to be ALOT of complaints over VG being tied to FRED?FUNAGAIN/ EAGLE GAMES, on BGG. Thoughts?

There are a lot of complaints about everything on BGG.

People are shitting themselves about FRED/Funagain. What is the problem? I mean in all seriousness, what are they upset about? Production problems? Games too expensive...?

Both production problems and cost. FRED games have had some missprint problems, which is always magnified (at BGG) by their fixed-discount pricing.

But FRED will only be taking preorders and then fulfilling them for Valley Games. The announcement doesn't say that FRED or Eagle Games will be involved in production. Kevin has already said on BGG that the prices of their games won't be affected by this move, so concerns about fixed-discount pricing are bogus, too.

Rio Grande Games has published plenty of games with misprints -- some of them serious -- over the years, but they are widely adored anyway. Do FRED games really have a worse track record? I doubt it.

The complainers are just complaining. That's what they do.

I looked into it as well Juniper. It looks like they're mostly upset that Through the Ages was 60 bucks, which they found too expensive, and that they deal in it exclusively. They think TTA doesn't have the parts to deserve 60 bucks.

Except for the part where printed cards are an incredibly expensive part of production, and Through the Ages has like half a million of them.

Oh well. Whatever. It doesn't worry me. Still probably good on the whole to get some of the non-design stuff out of Valley's hands so they can get games out.

Not validating their complaints, just summarizing what I'm sure will amount to 2,000 pages of whining into 2 sentences. I'm just excited to see Valley Games resurface.

I was still hoping it'd be GMT, myself.

--Mike L.

@gary sax: I agree with you on their original titles. I'd prefer that VG does actually concern itself with design/production on the reprints. The Hannibal reprint was more than I could have ever expected but, now, well, I want to see Titan and the rest of 'em come up to *that* standard.

Eek...Fred hasn't been very impressive so far and there is the problem that they're really not a "mainstream" distributor regardless of what they say. The spectre of their association with Funagain remains, and I know that's bothered a couple of retailers (who wants to buy product from another retailer?). And it also puts their products outside of stores that don't have an account with Fred.

When you've got 4-5 distributor accounts, it sucks to deal with yet another one, and it also sucks because you're put in a position where you can't just order a couple of copies of TITAN on your next order with Alliance, but you have to order $250-$300 of Fred products to get a couple of copies of TITAN. Columbia Games, god bless 'em, had this problem. I could only buy direct from them since they didn't sell to distributors so I'd have to order $300 minimum from them...so when my one copy of HAMMER OF THE SCOTS sold, I couldn't restock it until I did a full $300 order with them again.

So with this announcment I'm more worried about availability than production issues (the RRT expansion is very well done with no problems whatsoever).

But I guess the availability can only get better, right?

Michael, Valley Games announced that they'd be using FRED for fulfillment of preorders only. They'll still be using the same distributors they've always used for the retail channel.

Ah, OK, reading it more closely I see that now. That makes sense then, since they didn't seem to have trouble with getting stuff to distributors. Odd arrangement, overall, but I think it'll pan out.

I'm about to go preorder one now myself.

It should be a win-win since it only involves pre-orders. It's double exposure for both companies, VG gets someone else to handle something that's probably a hassle anyway, and I'm sure Fred gets a nice cut of the action. There's too many pessimistic people out there.

BillN

The Valley Games online store is finally up and running! Apparently there are a handful of C&C: Ancients dice sets left that they dug up. I just ordered mine.

They look like they are going to be selling some Titan figurines too. $30 for one of each in six colors. That's too much for me, but they look pretty sweet.

Preorder it and you get the bastards for free. Nothing will ever replace the spiked D6 Titan marker. That is one of the absolute greatest pieces ever in the history of gaming.

Never heard of it. Spiked D6 Titan marker? Sounds cool. Didn't see any pix at Chez Geek, either. Anyone have shots of this?

Joel, it looks like you got the last sets of C&C dice. They're now citing a "restock date of June 2008" for the dice, which leads me to think they're reprinting. I went ahead and ordered 3 sets (along with my copy of Titan) on the hope that they will, indeed, be bringing them back.

Those pics I saw of Titan today look AMAZING. Equally as beautiful as Hannibal turned out to be, it appears.