This is the first time i'm witnessing such a professional and efficient handling by a kickstarter company. Not only now, but during the whole campaign. The communication and response level are top beyond high levels. I personally emailed them twice in different times and situations and responded within a day. And as you very correctly said, it's beyond their control. This is very important as most other kickstarters delay themselves in designing and proofing stages which are them to blame. I'm by no means a fanboy or such, but they did offered a good experience so far no matter the product is yet to be delivered. Great video.
Portal games prints everything they can in Poland to avoid typical Chinese problems. Not everyone knows this but China has incredible energy problems. Central gov can just switch power off to your printing house just because more energy is needed at car factory. Hence Delays. There are ample number of manufacturers that can produce game like this in Poland. How Ignacy Trzewiczek from Portal games said this: "if you print in China you can deduce around 1PLN from overall cost per box. Shipping cost included". 1PLN x number of copies (I guess around 100.000) So Archon thought they can save additional 100.000 PLN (around 30.000$) they gambled and lost. Maybe all those publishers will learn some day.
I'm afraid it's not that simple. I've no idea where he got those numbers from, but it's often twice or thrice as expensive to print in Poland than it is in China, just by looking at the cost of materials. We've already extensively looked at potential partners in Poland for our other games, but it's just too much. The cost of locally producing paper components is incredibly expensive. For those who have been following our company even before this campaign, we have our own in-house manufacturing facility in Piła, where we make world-class quality miniatures for our own projects and for other companies. Our CEO is a large proponent of doing everything in-house, but this unfortunately isn't possible for a project like a HoMM board game.
Also, I would like to know where you got this information as Portal Games themselves have said that publishers have no other choice but to use Chinese manufacturers, as if there are any plastic elements you can't go to any European publisher. Quite literally any board game nowadays has to have a plastic insert as it's the industry standard. Unfortunately, I can't post the link here as RU-vid will hide the comment.
@@szymon_archon3514 I'm looking at my shelf of 30+ games and counted which had plastic insert and I came up to 8, 4 of which I threw away (couldnt fit expansions in the box). Not going to argue as you are kickstarter company and I have total of 3 kickstarted games. I have minimal exposure to kickstarter (If I do I have mostly through my friend). Out of all my kickstarted game just 1 has plastic insert and plastic models (Blood Rage. By comparision: Barrage doesnt even have any plastic elements) Idk about production problems. I don't like ameritrash for this reason you pointed out: Its just looks, lots of plastic and minimal effort on actual game. If a game cant go around without plastic models, the game sucks.
FYI, Quartermaster Logistics in located in Orlando, FL. So if the games are offloaded on the West Coast they will most likely be sent by train to Orlando so QML can process and ship them to backers.
Archon has talked more about it since this video was published. It sounds like the ship will go through the Panama Canal, but there have been problems with the reservoir getting low there. Problems just seem to keep coming up.
I wonder, at my company, we order a standard shipping container from China all the time and they take about 2-3 months to arrive in North America. Perhaps they're not using the correct shipper. I wanted to wait until all the original factions (plus any add-ons) are produced to get an "H3 Complete" (no pun intended) set.
A European company making a product for the European market is losing money because they decided to manufacture their product on the other side of the Earth to avoid paying European wages. Deserved.
This has nothing to do with us trying avoid to pay "European wages". It's simply unfeasible for any company that isn't already massive to have their manufacturing based in any developed economy. It's a very simple feature of capitalism that more developed countries move away from agriculture/manufacturing and into the service sector. The only companies that can afford to manufacture a board game in Europe or the US usually have an absolutely massive market share as they don't do small printing runs like we and lots of other crowdfunding publishers do. Of course, this isn't to say that we have unwavering support for Chinese manufacturing. We actually have our own manufacturing facility in Poland, where we make some of the best miniatures on the planet, using our own technology which we spent many years developing. I recommend watching Goobertown Hobbies' video "How plastic miniatures are made" for more insight into what we actually do.
Or even the Americas. I know it is due to costing but these board game companies (in mass) need to find a way to get alternative sourcing. I do that with my current job and you can do it with effort. They would have to band together to get it accomplished as Europe/USA companies won't be competitive unless they get higher volumes. Fortunately, I got my game a few weeks ago and it has been great :). I was very impressed with Archon with this Kickstarter.
We already make some of the best models on the planet, but board gamers aren't interested in plastic model kits. Other than us, there isn't a single plastic manufacturer in Europe that would take a project like this.
@@Grigorii-j7z First we plan on delivering all pledges to backers, but the core game should be released to retail in June. We're also looking into how to release the rest of the game (and new expansions!), whether it be a second crowdfunding campaign or a slow release to retail.
I just hope they didn't ultimately go to negative... I mean they've done such an amazing job and any delays are excusable because they weren't their fault and I'm in no hurry. The game arrived just the other day and feels exactly what I hoped for. Despite the manual being a bit so-so in how it explains things and how it's laid out to be clear and easy to read... but hey, we managed... Yemeni rebels knew (or were told to) act in very precise way to hit global shipping very hard... it's not without thought.
No price increases here! We didn't ask for more money (aka ransom) even during the shipping crisis, so it's safe to say that this will remain true for this project :)
There's nothing professional about this. This is a board game there's plenty of local way to manufacture game in country. Both Europe and USA is dead seat on ordering anything in China over and over again.
You are wrong on so many levels in this assumption. Key factor is lack of good prices and tech required to print copies. KS are small runs less than 10k copies, so factories in europe/usa don't want to waste time on small runs like this. Then we go to minatures which is impossible to make good quality minatures in US/Europe. Best example i can give you are splotter games which are overpriced af due to local factory prices.
@@PentaHousenThe entire global trend to order everything in China instead of encouraging local production is suicidal and is currently capitalism's biggest failure.
@@arivald6677 Like i said until local factories don't stop looking at small print run as waste of money nobody will use them. Its not a failure, because thanks to small cost at China you can make profit on ks board games. Its not charity designers need money, factories need money. Anything below 50k is lost profit at local factory for non standard run. Tell me, will you buy hom3 for 300$ (no tax) with only minatures no extra stuff?
@@arivald6677It's what allows projects like this to even be made. No US/EU company would even touch a small run like this, never mind do it at a cost that would result in a retail pricepoint anyone would be willing to pay. Other hobbies like, say, RC/modeling are now accessible for $$/$$$ instead of $$$$, meaning kids and everyone else can take part, instead of them being filled with wealthy pensioners who could afford to drop several k on gear and gatekept everyone else. You have no idea how much more you'd have to pay for most things if they were all 'locally made' - the lowered cost of manufactured goods is what has offset the catastrophic drop in working and middle class earnings over the last few decades and allowed people to feel like they're not dirt poor. This Sinophobia you are exhibiting is the financial elites in your own countries who sucked all the wealth out of the working and middle class creating propaganda to redirect attention away from themselves and using your predisposition to racist bigotry for verisimilitude. Remember: every time the elites tell you "those people over there who aren't like you are the reason for your problems", check your wallet - their grubby hands are in it, taking your sh-t, and hoping you won't notice.
