The availability of Exodus and Wild Fun West

It's been almost one month since we have launched Exodus and Wild Fun West and I know that there are many people who are waiting impatiently for the games to reach the local stores.

Part of our work in Essen was to find new or better distribution channels and expand the network of stores carrying our games and we are now able to present 'touchable' results. First of all, most of our distribution partners from last year have agreed to continue working with us, so you can expect to see the two new games in the same hobby stores where Warriors & Traders is/was present.

I guess that the most important news is that we have reached an agreement for distribution in Germany with one of the most respected and appreciated distribution companies in the hobby world, Heidelberger Spieleverlag. They have agree to carry all of our board games and they're already available for retailers in the German speaking world and beyond.

The other good news is for our fans and customers in Asia. BoardM has taken Wild Fun West for retail and distribution in Korea and Swan Panasia has taken even more copies for distribution in Taiwan and the Greater China region.

Our work of widening the distribution network for Exodus and Wild Fun West are still ongoing, being our main focus for the rest of the year. We are not neglecting Warriors & Traders either and we're trying to get it in more stores around the world. We're hoping that by the end of next week we can bring more good news about the availability of our games.

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More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: Agni, Alexandra, Andrei and Vlad 

About production quality in Exodus

There's an elephant in the room... people noticed that there are some quality issues with Exodus and we feel it is our responsibility not to remain silent and to explain what is NSKN doing to address this issue.

Production

I will have to start by bringing some light on the less know part of game publishing, the negotiation and selection of the manufacturing company for the mass production. 

Since Exodus is part of our second generation of games, we looked everywhere in the world for manufacturing companies with experience in board games. There are only a few countries which have tradition in this industry, so we got offers from Germany, Poland, China and US. After a first screening we kept contact with 5 of these companies and we negotiated separately with each of them. We did our best to keep the production in Europe, where we would have had more control over the whole process, including the quality, but due to the enormous amount of components in Exodus (9 punch-boards, 300+ wooden tokens, 48 space ships, 7 play-mats, etc) we could not find any offer that would allow us to keep the retail price below 80 USD (65 EUR).

After careful consideration which included calling references from Europe and US, we chose a manufacturing company in China which produced all the parts (except the plastic space ships, bought from a third party) and assembled them in the boxes.

Quality check and reported problems

Before the mass production started, we received one sample of digital print with all the graphics of the game and we were very happy because everything was looking awesome. After the mass printing and before overseas shipping and paying the second half of the production cost, we received another sample, this time "straight from the assembly line" (the quote is from their sales representative). This very copy is the one that we played early in October, we took it to Spiel Essen and played it roughly 15 times during the four days of the fair, them we played some more back in Romania and a lot more during Lucca Comics & Games and the game is still in good shape. So, in my opinion, it passed almost all the quality checks.

We had an Indiegogo funding project which was successful (thanks again, guys!) and most of the game boxes we sent to the backers have already arrived. The first reaction of most people was about the rather poor quality of the laminated components and there have been very specific comments saying exactly what is wrong with the games. We opened some random games ourselves just to check and see that some of the games share the same problems that people reported mostly on BoardGameGeek.

First, we addressed the problem and offered replacements to those who found damaged components in their boxes. Having a list of the problems and complaints at hand, we contacted the manufacturing company and asked for a joint solution for the quality issues. That happened already a week ago. Yesterday we sent a similar complaint letter, documented this time with pictures, to the management of the same company, hoping for a positive answer.

The answer or the lack of it and what's next

Sadly, at the time when I am pressing "Publish" there is still no relevant answer to any of the emails concerning the printing quality from the responsible party. There won't be any replacements from them, no financial support, not even the acknowledgement of their fault .

The reality is that we're alone in this and it will be only up to us to make it up to those who bought game boxes which are not in the best shape. We don't have any means of putting pressure on a company which is 5000 miles away and the most we can do is stop working with them.

Right now, the only thing we can do is to focus on customer service and try to solve the issues on a case by case basis. We can also hope that the game play will be good enough to compensate for the 'holes' in the quality and judging by the little feedback we've got this is happening. We're not looking for excuses, we're merely attempting an explanation for this situation which could very easily damage our reputation and put us in a hall of (what's the opposite of fame?).

I am still optimistic and I believe that NSKN will find understanding in this amazing community which will help us move past these issues and keep climbing the ladder. We  have a lot of new, innovative ideas and we want to continue to put fun, interesting games on your gaming tables.

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More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: Agni, Alexandra, Andrei and Vlad 

Essen & Lucca - conclusions

During the past 30 days we have been to two major events in the gaming world, two of the largest fairs in Europe - Spiel '12 Essen in Germany and Lucca Comics & Games in Italy. We've already described what happened in pictures and shared our thoughts as the events were unfolding, now it's time to draw conclusions.

What best characterizes and is common to both fairs is the huge number of people that attended. There were more than a quarter million visitors all together in both shows and many of them passed by our booth and saw our games. The hard question is what did we learn and what did we gain from this.

Let's look at the good news first. in spite of a the bizarre (to say the least) positioning of the NSKN booth in Essen, in a hall designed largely for everything but board games, our impact in the social media was much larger than last year, the number of views, comments and shares exceeded our most optimistic expectations. We have the same positive feeling about our business meeting during the two fairs. We had the opportunity to meet many fellow publishers, distribution companies, reviewers and more. The overall awareness of NSKN in the hobby business has increased over the past 12 months from 'completely unknown' to 'small publisher'. Most of the businesses which are failing do so in their first year of existence. Surviving on a very competitive market and returning for a second year to Essen put us on the map of the board games world as a publisher who not only made it with their first game - Warriors & Traders - but managed to expand and bring two new, different games to the market. I am talking about Exodus and Wild Fun West, of course. 

In terms of direct sales, the fairs in the autumn of 2012 were somewhat less profitable that last year. I think the whole industry in breeding a little bit of crisis air. The people are more careful on what they're spending their money, everyone takes time to make decisions and spend an average of 40 euros per game, so people tend to go for already established games which made a big buzz on the market, a status gained only after a few years, and sometimes also with a tempting discount. But even these games have sold less than in past few years. After a private discussion with one of the major distributors in Europe I understood that the whole industry in rearranging and adapting to a new reality

Lucca Comics & Games is a 'special dish'. Although we expected to have Exodus as our headliner, Warriors & Traders made an amazing impression and sold out quickly. Exodus caught up slowly and ended up our best-selling game in Lucca, but the overall sales were below our artificially set expectations. For a country where almost everyone plays localized games, being in Italy without games in Italian is a great risk. Any international presence is an exotic one and although we had a great time, for the next years we have to either come prepared with Italian editions or to skip an otherwise great event. This is something to consider for the future because with the exception of a few countries where English is an unofficial second language, it is a leap into the unknown for small publishers to go without localized games.

Overall, the two fairs have been a unique experience. We still have a long road to becoming an established, recognized publishing house acknowledged as such by  a majority of people, we need to re-evaluate our strategy and keep bringing entertaining games to the world.

__________________

More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: Agni, Alexandra, Andrei and Vlad 

Exodus for Jack Vasel Memorial Fund

As some of you most probably already heard the annual Jack Vasel Memorial Fund started their auction on the Board Game Geek. The auction is running till November 18th, 2012.

I will let you read the words of the founders of Jack Vasel Memorial Fund, to understand better what is it about and for:

"One tragic event and two acts of generosity brought the BGG community together: the result was the Jack Vasel Memorial Fund. In January 2011, Cate Pfeifer (Cate108) posted an auction for Tom Vasel and his family to help with the unfortunate loss of his son, Jack. The generosity of the BGG community was amazing. Tom was touched and wanted to pay the kindness forward so he created the Jack Vasel Memorial Fund. He used some of the money that BGGers donated and spent to build this fund. The fund is a not-for-profit with a simple goal: raising and distributing funds to help gamers in their hour of need."

We would like to encourage you to support the auction in any way you can. If you cannot bid, simply spread the word, share the link or just give a "thumb up". Every participation counts!

We, NSKN,  have donated the brand new Exodus: Proxima Centauri from the personal collection of Agnieszka. Personally we count on your generosity as the goal here is to be the biggest spenders possible.

Let's spread some love and hope, for those who lost it...
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More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: Agni, Alexandra, Andrei and Vlad 

The challenges of a start-up (1)

NSKN is a publisher of board games and, therefore, a company. We started more than 1 year ago and from time to time we are trying to draw the line and see exactly where we stand. Now is not one of those moments, it's just the beginning of a new week, with new thoughts, most of them of how crazy life is when you are self employed. So, this post is less about board games and more about what are the challenges of starting up a company and bringing it to either success or bankruptcy.

Well, the path to bankruptcy is quite simple, paved with poor management decisions, bad cash flow management, lack of people skills, not knowing how to sell. And you don't even need all these ingredients, usually one or two of them are enough to take you down that road.

The way to success is far more complicated. Not making any bad decisions does not necessarily mean you made good decisions. Not making mistakes is not the same with doing the right thing. One year of hard, successful work can be cancelled in a split second by a really bad decision.

I guess that the major challenge for any start-up company is to survive past its first year and a half, maybe two years, when the money and the reputation have piled up high enough to counterbalance one major poor decision. The initial plan, no matter how good, will have to be adapted to the changes of the market, to the new technologies and the ever changing demands of the customers.

Moving from general and abstract thoughts to practical challenges, in my opinion the biggest "hill to climb" is cash-flow management. Those who were involved in managing a business know that the government is very willing to take and not so happy to give back (e.g. VAT return, income tax), so the lack of knowledge of the (ever-changing) laws combined to high receivable may lead to a short in the cash-flow which may lead to... I don't really want to say the word, but you know what I mean.


The second big challenge is to stay up to date with the customers. The life cycle of a product (in the case of NSKN this is Warriors & Traders) is different for similar (not identical) products. How long a board game lasts on the market depends on many factors. I can count the notoriety of the publisher, the overall quality of the game-play, the investments in marketing to keep the interest alive and these are just the most important criteria. Of course, having good cash-flow may help deal with the marketing part, but for the first two aspects (notoriety and quality) there is not much a publisher can do after releasing a game. The same principle also apply outside the board games world.


I will talk about challenges number three, four and five in my next post. Stay tuned!