Miss your Arkham playthroughs so much, I've even gone back to rewatch them. Massive part of getting through the covid times. I know a campaign is probably too much commitment these days, but would be great to see you play the new scenario pack!
So agree, find myself re-watching the Arkham campaign playthroughs multiple times and hope dearly they keep making the boards for the investigators, and eventually get into some deck building and playthroughs of the latest campaigns.
An idea for possibly growing the channel beyond 57k: Since I've heard that the viewers drop off on the lives when the games start (I usually do), perhaps the discussion before the game can be turned into a video and posted as a "news" or "discussion" video. Not sure if it would help at all with how the UA-cam algorithim currently works, I think it should though.
@SurPatel-uz2fu Agreed. I have no evidence or industry knowledge that it works like that, but I'm just assuming that's the case. I'm sure when youtube first started the goal was to direct people to stuff they like, but I wouldn't be surprised if Googles main interest in youtube is the $$$.
Bros, your videos and podcasts are all must-view/ must watch. Listening to the turbulence of delivering physical products got me thinking of my favorite computer game: Football Manager. Every November, millions of people buy it from Steam and download it. Steam gets a few dollars. The government taxes a few dollars. The players get their game. Then, the developer gets paid and starts working on the March update. Digital games don't have any of the wacky problems of physical games. Start those Bros Bros playing Dune Imperium with the funky bunch videos. You'll get to 100K views by August. 🎉
The thing that really gets me about this whole thing is that they HAD to have known before a whole week had gone by that they couldn't fill those orders, right? Right?! There's no way that it took them 7 days to figure that out. Those 7 days were over a period of time where lots of preorders were being posted and, as Zach points out, people who ordered from Asmodee had a false sense of security ordering directly from the company and may not have placed orders from other vendors and subsequently missed out (esp. crappy for people who didn't get even a single box after the cancellations). I would understand some of this if this was their first game launch, but this is the same exact stuff that they pulled with their other games (which they promised not to repeat here). Set 1 & 2 are weird because they were likely sent to print at the same time (ie. reflected in the fact that they have similar allocation and taking production times into account) so we'll see how things are with Set 3 as that would be when their increased print runs should actually be reflected on release date. Still, they keep running into these unforced errors, like this where they put up product and then mass cancel - this whole thing could have been avoided in so many different ways and didn't even need to happen at all in the first place. The fact that people are rushing to defend this level of incompetence is mind boggling. I don't begrudge the people working on the game as they don't work in printing and it's not their fault. They've designed a great game and it's not being properly supported on a wider level through no fault of their own. But, the people jumping to defend the company in a larger sense which routinely pulls this stuff is just sad at this point - again, it's not like this is a one-off thing here.
16 mins into the "allocation debacle" discussion, and I'm gonna say it, this is done intentionally, I'm betting this "trend" of allocation ain't due to much anything else than greed. Not accusing them of lying, but I'm highly, highly suspicious of such huge corporations. I hope they bring out the truth, but I ain't expecting it, at all.
Yeah, some of it is. But allocation is highly dependent on printing quantity. Printing quantity = money to print and hold stock, and that is considered a risk from a business point of view. If it doesn't sell well, then you are left with a huge stock of illiquid cash in the form or paper trash. To assume that allocation is 99% greed is a little ignorant. There are real life business choices that have to be made and allocation is all downstream of those.
Totally off topic, but have I missed all the baby announcements lately?! I thought Steven's wife was pregnant? Or are both of you expecting soon!? The TC fam is growing!! Congratulations 🎉
The best boardgame cafe near me ( just over an hour away) is so so as a cafe, but charges a per person per hour table fee. It's a great place! They also host events to meet other gamers so you don't have to have people to go with, and when I've gone I've made it clear that I'm happy for strangers to join
I’m all for that Earthborne Rangers weekend!! Nice hike through nature. Play EBR and make friends. Drink wine with said new friends. Frigin sign me up!! Zach burying the headline with success of Warlord but ignoring that he owes Steven beer!! I LOVE that Steven just happens to have his “Board game Bros” attire at the ready just off camera. “I’m just going to get value out of the fish” - things you won’t hear on any other gaming stream. TC streams are all must watch viewing for any gamer. I hate that I miss the live streams, until, I start my commute home but commenting timely becomes difficult 😂. Best gaming content out there. Best deal in gaming when it comes to subscriptions. TC is... the very best!!!
Our group Siege of Lordswall sub is winging its way to the UK. With four RR enemies time to design a campaign system around the Lore of Argaia and a timeline from Great Cleansing to the Red Rains era. Mixing aspect decks thematicly.
Not being able to get product is the fastest way to kill my interest in a TCG. I played so much of the first set, but when I saw Preorders were sold out everywhere, I just have stopped playing. I mean if it recovers I might check it out again, but I am not going to play scalper prices when there are plenty of other great games out there for me to play, not TCGs but that means much more affordable :-)
Honestly, if Asmodee can continue to do this, and continue to get valuable data (measuring actual interest).. and they can get away with it. Why wouldn't they? People already expected this to happen and they seem to be using! ....for some INSANE reason.
After catching up on this livestream kate all I can say is......can I please, I mean please, live in a world designed by Zach? This current one is often upsetting and unnecessarily cruel.
I have no background in finance, business, economics etc. but I have an honest question... Why don't distributors just make people put their money whether their mouth is, if you say you want ten cases, put money down in advance, whether that be min 50% of full sale price or any other percentage up to 100% in advance? Steven mentioned something like this and that makes so much more sense...
My assumption is that distributors do not decide the quantity of product being printed. Limited quantities means stores cannot get all they ask for. Is TCG says they are printing only 50,000 boxes, that will get allocated based on historical considerations of store purchases and sales, roughly. If a small shop says they want 1000 cases of a collectors box, but they are only printing 10,000, they can't give them that qty and still give the other stores what they want as well.
Soul-less corporations and institutions becoming more inhuman the bigger they get--reminds me of this line from Catch-22, one of the most scathing satires of institutional malfeasance and incompetence ever written: "They have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."
I would not discount the theory that someone just accidentally released the pre-order or things weren't checked. To your later discussion: larger companies are different than small companies. I say this not to be a pessimist, but to actually give a structure or reason around "businesses become less human." That's an easy way to excuse or obscure the reality in that businesses don't become less human, their aims change as they become big and publicly traded. The aim is not to produce quality products, because the product is now the company, and the quality is how stable an investment it is.
At 50:15 you hit the nail on the head. These companies dont think it matters and I know this because I work in websites. They really do just want your email because it is an OKR for their subsidiary, and they don't invest in QA because it is expensive and they are the one place to get the goods. It is as stupid and simple as that.
@@teamcovenant Hahaha, yeah. I don't mean to be harsh to any company, either. The system we have just has some weird incentives in it that make things complicated.
I would guess, manufacturing problems, a clerical error (communication) or Asmodee sold more boxes to distribution because they offered to pay more... There is ZERO chance that their site oversold. Every e-commerce platform has an available quantity.
Man, really would love to see something like a weekly Arkham Report somehow changing our morning something about the game, such a cool idea for Earthborn Rangers.
I think you guys really undersold Ashes here. 1. The creator, Isaac Vega, created Ashes as an LCG with the intention of being an affordable card game because he grew up in a low income household. So Ashes is far more economical than many TCG's. 2. The Deck building Possibilities are incredible, getting to mix and match a huge variety of cards. 3. Because it's an LCG you can get every card in the game guaranteed, so if there's a card you really like you won't have to depend on random booster packs or worry about scalpers. 4. The artwork is incredible. Each card is an art piece unto itself, especially the Phoenixborn, allies and conjurations. 5. The Artwork is inclusive in a way that doesn't feel forced, and doesn't have the sexism and misogyny that is rampant in so many other card games (e.g. Warriors that are women, but for some reason have little to no armor, and are half naked.) 6. The Tactical feel of playing with Dice as the magic system. Not to mention the game mechanics and stuff you guys covered in stream
I have been burned so many times from FFG. But they seemed like they finally had their crap together. I got a case of the first set. Game is fun. I'm loving life. Then all of a sudden all my token and sleeves get pushed back (ordered in January, STILL do not have them). And now with this fiasco with set 2 I'm super bummed. I want to have faith in FFG (yes I know Asmodee is more the problem than FFG, but they are in it together). I want a SW game to succeed. But I just can't stick my head under a pillow with this one. Will the game continue? Sure. But I think this hurt the game badly. And we will see the effects trickle down over time. Until the game finally gets canceled. Sad. (And the inevitable $300 boxes for set 2 won't help either!)
My thought is maybe they are going to screw the players and hold back orders to let prices inflate to sell at a higher price?? Is that a thing they would do?
Man, as a person who bought into Destiny, and vowed to never do a TCG again ....and then got caught up in the hype of SWU ... I'm already losing interest. A group of friends and I placed a preorder with a store awhile ago, and I'm already in the same boat as Zach. I'm at the point of: If they can fulfill our group's order, great I'm in, lets go; if they can't I'm just selling out. With prices going insane, reprints taking 6+ months to happen, and that little completionism goblin in my brain, I'm not going to be spending over MSRP for boxes, and not going to spend $1000 to complete a collection after spending money on boxes. Yeah, that's how TCG's work, but I was hoping this was going to be better, as FFG said, than Destiny. Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice ... Asmodee, stop screwing over your customers.
People, please stop buying new TCGs until set 3. Box prices will stabilize and you can complete your backlog of playable singles. They make scarcity on purpose.
We hope so. Understanding the up and downsides of both the 3-tier distribution system and the direct sales model is good for anyone with interest in the industry. This was a particular notable case because of the size and stated goals of Asmodee and SWU.
It is relevant, because it is their channel and they have an interest in the market and news about current games. Paying attention to these kind of things help them know what to consider as business for the future, and for their audience to know what to expect them to cover. Also, this channel has always been more than "watching them play games"
Miss your Arkham playthroughs so much, I've even gone back to rewatch them. Massive part of getting through the covid times. I know a campaign is probably too much commitment these days, but would be great to see you play the new scenario pack!
So agree, find myself re-watching the Arkham campaign playthroughs multiple times and hope dearly they keep making the boards for the investigators, and eventually get into some deck building and playthroughs of the latest campaigns.
An idea for possibly growing the channel beyond 57k: Since I've heard that the viewers drop off on the lives when the games start (I usually do), perhaps the discussion before the game can be turned into a video and posted as a "news" or "discussion" video. Not sure if it would help at all with how the UA-cam algorithim currently works, I think it should though.
agreed, maybe split this into 2 videos. i always love the discussion, but rarely stay for the game.
I think they would need to allow youtube to put ads on the videos. UA-cam has no incentive to spread their content if it's not monetized.
@@JCB82787 If that's how it works then that sucks.
Additionally perhaps streaming on Twitch at the same time could help with possibly getting more subscribers?
@SurPatel-uz2fu Agreed. I have no evidence or industry knowledge that it works like that, but I'm just assuming that's the case. I'm sure when youtube first started the goal was to direct people to stuff they like, but I wouldn't be surprised if Googles main interest in youtube is the $$$.
Bros, your videos and podcasts are all must-view/ must watch. Listening to the turbulence of delivering physical products got me thinking of my favorite computer game: Football Manager. Every November, millions of people buy it from Steam and download it. Steam gets a few dollars. The government taxes a few dollars. The players get their game. Then, the developer gets paid and starts working on the March update. Digital games don't have any of the wacky problems of physical games. Start those Bros Bros playing Dune Imperium with the funky bunch videos. You'll get to 100K views by August. 🎉
The thing that really gets me about this whole thing is that they HAD to have known before a whole week had gone by that they couldn't fill those orders, right? Right?! There's no way that it took them 7 days to figure that out.
Those 7 days were over a period of time where lots of preorders were being posted and, as Zach points out, people who ordered from Asmodee had a false sense of security ordering directly from the company and may not have placed orders from other vendors and subsequently missed out (esp. crappy for people who didn't get even a single box after the cancellations). I would understand some of this if this was their first game launch, but this is the same exact stuff that they pulled with their other games (which they promised not to repeat here).
Set 1 & 2 are weird because they were likely sent to print at the same time (ie. reflected in the fact that they have similar allocation and taking production times into account) so we'll see how things are with Set 3 as that would be when their increased print runs should actually be reflected on release date. Still, they keep running into these unforced errors, like this where they put up product and then mass cancel - this whole thing could have been avoided in so many different ways and didn't even need to happen at all in the first place. The fact that people are rushing to defend this level of incompetence is mind boggling.
I don't begrudge the people working on the game as they don't work in printing and it's not their fault. They've designed a great game and it's not being properly supported on a wider level through no fault of their own. But, the people jumping to defend the company in a larger sense which routinely pulls this stuff is just sad at this point - again, it's not like this is a one-off thing here.
Nailed it. This is a big part of it.
Wish I caught this live, would have have loved to talk about this as someone who preorders on multiple stores and asmodee
16 mins into the "allocation debacle" discussion, and I'm gonna say it, this is done intentionally, I'm betting this "trend" of allocation ain't due to much anything else than greed. Not accusing them of lying, but I'm highly, highly suspicious of such huge corporations. I hope they bring out the truth, but I ain't expecting it, at all.
Artificial scarcity is a well known corporate tactic
Yeah, some of it is. But allocation is highly dependent on printing quantity. Printing quantity = money to print and hold stock, and that is considered a risk from a business point of view. If it doesn't sell well, then you are left with a huge stock of illiquid cash in the form or paper trash.
To assume that allocation is 99% greed is a little ignorant. There are real life business choices that have to be made and allocation is all downstream of those.
Cool ashes gameplay and I appreciate the discussions as always. Would love to see the new clash kit gameplay in the next few weeks!
Totally off topic, but have I missed all the baby announcements lately?! I thought Steven's wife was pregnant? Or are both of you expecting soon!? The TC fam is growing!! Congratulations 🎉
The best boardgame cafe near me ( just over an hour away) is so so as a cafe, but charges a per person per hour table fee. It's a great place! They also host events to meet other gamers so you don't have to have people to go with, and when I've gone I've made it clear that I'm happy for strangers to join
The cost of three hours at the boardgame space comes out to a bit more than a movie ticket, which seems pretty reasonable.
I’m all for that Earthborne Rangers weekend!!
Nice hike through nature.
Play EBR and make friends.
Drink wine with said new friends.
Frigin sign me up!!
Zach burying the headline with success of Warlord but ignoring that he owes Steven beer!!
I LOVE that Steven just happens to have his “Board game Bros” attire at the ready just off camera.
“I’m just going to get value out of the fish” - things you won’t hear on any other gaming stream.
TC streams are all must watch viewing for any gamer. I hate that I miss the live streams, until, I start my commute home but commenting timely becomes difficult 😂.
Best gaming content out there. Best deal in gaming when it comes to subscriptions.
TC is... the very best!!!
We have been missing you on the livestream, but love getting your comments on the VOD!
Our group Siege of Lordswall sub is winging its way to the UK.
With four RR enemies time to design a campaign system around the Lore of Argaia and a timeline from Great Cleansing to the Red Rains era. Mixing aspect decks thematicly.
Not being able to get product is the fastest way to kill my interest in a TCG. I played so much of the first set, but when I saw Preorders were sold out everywhere, I just have stopped playing. I mean if it recovers I might check it out again, but I am not going to play scalper prices when there are plenty of other great games out there for me to play, not TCGs but that means much more affordable :-)
Asmodee is the publisher. They can literally just print more. Why not? Its a pre-order. They have time.
The thumbnail says it all.
Honestly, if Asmodee can continue to do this, and continue to get valuable data (measuring actual interest).. and they can get away with it. Why wouldn't they?
People already expected this to happen and they seem to be using! ....for some INSANE reason.
After catching up on this livestream kate all I can say is......can I please, I mean please, live in a world designed by Zach? This current one is often upsetting and unnecessarily cruel.
We're working on it!
I have no background in finance, business, economics etc. but I have an honest question... Why don't distributors just make people put their money whether their mouth is, if you say you want ten cases, put money down in advance, whether that be min 50% of full sale price or any other percentage up to 100% in advance? Steven mentioned something like this and that makes so much more sense...
My assumption is that distributors do not decide the quantity of product being printed. Limited quantities means stores cannot get all they ask for.
Is TCG says they are printing only 50,000 boxes, that will get allocated based on historical considerations of store purchases and sales, roughly. If a small shop says they want 1000 cases of a collectors box, but they are only printing 10,000, they can't give them that qty and still give the other stores what they want as well.
Soul-less corporations and institutions becoming more inhuman the bigger they get--reminds me of this line from Catch-22, one of the most scathing satires of institutional malfeasance and incompetence ever written: "They have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."
Well, that has always been the rule of our reality..
I would not discount the theory that someone just accidentally released the pre-order or things weren't checked. To your later discussion: larger companies are different than small companies. I say this not to be a pessimist, but to actually give a structure or reason around "businesses become less human." That's an easy way to excuse or obscure the reality in that businesses don't become less human, their aims change as they become big and publicly traded. The aim is not to produce quality products, because the product is now the company, and the quality is how stable an investment it is.
At 50:15 you hit the nail on the head. These companies dont think it matters and I know this because I work in websites. They really do just want your email because it is an OKR for their subsidiary, and they don't invest in QA because it is expensive and they are the one place to get the goods. It is as stupid and simple as that.
Experience speaking here!
@@teamcovenant Hahaha, yeah. I don't mean to be harsh to any company, either. The system we have just has some weird incentives in it that make things complicated.
I would guess, manufacturing problems, a clerical error (communication) or Asmodee sold more boxes to distribution because they offered to pay more...
There is ZERO chance that their site oversold. Every e-commerce platform has an available quantity.
Man, really would love to see something like a weekly Arkham Report somehow changing our morning something about the game, such a cool idea for Earthborn Rangers.
LIVING card game!
Just got my ashes expansion in the mail this week!!
You think it's bad in the US.... here in AU, we don't even know how much is coming in to the country :D
When co-op vs Red Rains you can play your mains and sides in any order e.g player 2 side, player 1 main, player 1 side, player 2 main... etc
Yep, any order!
I think you guys really undersold Ashes here. 1. The creator, Isaac Vega, created Ashes as an LCG with the intention of being an affordable card game because he grew up in a low income household. So Ashes is far more economical than many TCG's. 2. The Deck building Possibilities are incredible, getting to mix and match a huge variety of cards. 3. Because it's an LCG you can get every card in the game guaranteed, so if there's a card you really like you won't have to depend on random booster packs or worry about scalpers. 4. The artwork is incredible. Each card is an art piece unto itself, especially the Phoenixborn, allies and conjurations. 5. The Artwork is inclusive in a way that doesn't feel forced, and doesn't have the sexism and misogyny that is rampant in so many other card games (e.g. Warriors that are women, but for some reason have little to no armor, and are half naked.) 6. The Tactical feel of playing with Dice as the magic system. Not to mention the game mechanics and stuff you guys covered in stream
To be fair, they've been covering Ashes since before its reboot, told that story, and interviewed Isaac.
Sad I missed the stream. This whole SWU thing sucks for everyone involved.
You guys rock
My wife makes and sells soap. She was able to set up inventory limits and backorders on her website by herself. There is no excuse for Asmodee.
She needs to go public. She'll lose her ability to manage inventory once shareholders are involved.
Team Covenant - Allocation Rethought
I have been burned so many times from FFG. But they seemed like they finally had their crap together. I got a case of the first set. Game is fun. I'm loving life. Then all of a sudden all my token and sleeves get pushed back (ordered in January, STILL do not have them). And now with this fiasco with set 2 I'm super bummed. I want to have faith in FFG (yes I know Asmodee is more the problem than FFG, but they are in it together). I want a SW game to succeed. But I just can't stick my head under a pillow with this one. Will the game continue? Sure. But I think this hurt the game badly. And we will see the effects trickle down over time. Until the game finally gets canceled. Sad. (And the inevitable $300 boxes for set 2 won't help either!)
Wait -
FFG is having problems with Star Wars? Get out. In other news - water is wet.
If i could sub twice i would.
We need more people like you!
Does anyone know if FAB is still working on PvE?
I wonder if some of their supply got stolen
My thought is maybe they are going to screw the players and hold back orders to let prices inflate to sell at a higher price?? Is that a thing they would do?
That's pretty unlikely. If it happened, everyone would be *seriously* up in arms.
@@teamcovenant yeah i would expect it to be unlikely. You were talking out Left field scenarios though. 😂 That would be horrible.
Man, as a person who bought into Destiny, and vowed to never do a TCG again ....and then got caught up in the hype of SWU ... I'm already losing interest. A group of friends and I placed a preorder with a store awhile ago, and I'm already in the same boat as Zach. I'm at the point of: If they can fulfill our group's order, great I'm in, lets go; if they can't I'm just selling out. With prices going insane, reprints taking 6+ months to happen, and that little completionism goblin in my brain, I'm not going to be spending over MSRP for boxes, and not going to spend $1000 to complete a collection after spending money on boxes. Yeah, that's how TCG's work, but I was hoping this was going to be better, as FFG said, than Destiny. Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice ... Asmodee, stop screwing over your customers.
People, please stop buying new TCGs until set 3. Box prices will stabilize and you can complete your backlog of playable singles. They make scarcity on purpose.
We're looking to change that. Had Sorcery at MSRP for 5 months for its first set!
Im all fir honesty, but guys, we simply just dont live in an honest world. Sad Facts
We've all got to push back against such a world at all times.
Oh i fight that fight. I apprecate all those who do as well.
Aa lot of bitching about a game you previously said you wouldn't support. It this really relevant for your audience at this point?
We hope so. Understanding the up and downsides of both the 3-tier distribution system and the direct sales model is good for anyone with interest in the industry.
This was a particular notable case because of the size and stated goals of Asmodee and SWU.
It is relevant, because it is their channel and they have an interest in the market and news about current games. Paying attention to these kind of things help them know what to consider as business for the future, and for their audience to know what to expect them to cover. Also, this channel has always been more than "watching them play games"