Here’s the deal: Visit your local game store on August 11th-15th and buy a copy of Shadowrun, Fourth Edition, 20th Anniversary Edition or Dawn of the Artifacts: Dusk — both of these books have a street date of August 11th, so your FLGS should have them on the shelves that day (assuming they’re in the USA — international stores may be later than that. Sorry, guys!).

After you’ve bought your books, take at least two pictures of yourself at the store, with those books — one with the store clerk/owner/manager (Ask first, of course) and then one of you in front of the store itself, with their sign clearly visible.

Mail those pictures to info@shadowrun4.com with the subject line “I bought Shadowrun!� by August 18th with your name and the name/address/email address of your local store. Please include a note if you don’t want us to publish your pictures on our blog.

We’ll be picking a random Shadowrun fan from the submissions and be awarding them a secret prize!

http://www.shadowrun4.com/wordpress/2009/0...-store-contest/

I'm awfully tempted. Even assuming I don't have a chance of winning the prize (and I take the pessimistic view of such lotteries), it will A. support the people who make Shadowrun and enable them to make more great things happen in my life, B. convince my local game store that Shadowrun products are commercially valuable so they stock a greater variety of them, and C. give me a great chance of either meeting new SR players in my area or convincing people that this is a game with a thriving community behind it that they should try. So I really should, shouldn't I?

Well, no promises, but I will say that if I win the secret prize, y'all'll hear about it (though not necessary WHAT the prize was).

I'm guessing that as is usual with such contests, employees are not eligible, right? So I can enter, seeing as I'm not an employee?

I too am very tempted, but there are several factors I must take into account;

1) I may not have the cash for either of them by then. Financial constraints. I still have to travel into NYC to pick up my books (truly, I do love going to The Compleat Strategist when I can), but I have to factor in train-fare.
2) Would just the pictures do, without having to purchase the books? Again, I have to point out that I may not have the cash for either in such short a time.
3) Few books actually are available on their release dates. I give them usually a month's leeway. I don't pre-order (usually because something comes up, I can't pick up the book(s) and they get sold to someone else until I can get another chance).

Nope, sorry.

Adam, I've seen people get sued hardcore for trying to set up cute little contests out of the goodness of their hearts. Your contest doesn't have the 15 pages of legal disclaimer you need to CYA. Be careful...

That's the week on our normal in store game. I'm so telling everyone about this.

Edit:

Threw up a link on the store forums. We only play every other week, but we had eight people show up last week. Shadowrun has been a hit and I hope they bought some stock to move next week.

Oh well.

I'm totally buying a copy of SR4A when I get back from vacation.

The joy of "only" being a freelancer

Lars

1) My local game stores are horrible about stocking shadowrun at all, and I end up buying my books on Amazon.com

2) I like to wait for the 2nd or 3rd printing to avoid some of the erratta's. Of course, with the anniversary ed. it pretty much is an Eratta. so that might be ok.

3) It's my b-day on the 31st, so the wife might get mad if i buy myself somethin the week or two before

but good luck to all!

And this is one of the reasons for doing this contest -- the more we can drive gamers to their store right when a new book comes out, the more those game stores are going to sit up and take notice of Shadowrun, and stock it better.

That's why we use Street Dates, also. So we can announce the solid street date and then have fans call and visit their stores to ask them to pre-order the titles for them.

'raginfragin livin in the UK...

Anything on a Street Date for overseas by the way? This is one of the books I would quite like to have a hardcopy of, not just a PDF.

It should only take a week or two for the books to make it to the UK. Keep an eye on Leisure Games website --http://www.leisuregames.com/acatalog/NewReleases.html -- as they're always on the ball for getting new releases.

/me pulls the old "a friend of mine" routine.

A friend of mine has a local gamestore who does not like something, that frankly I do not understand, about how Shadowrun releases are done now. They will only work with pre-orders. He says that until two years ago they carried the best selection of shadowrun books in the area. If my friend could get the game store to talk to Catalyst, who could I direct them to?

As for me, I order all my SR books through Catalyst. I hope that way the most money goes to Catalyst. Besides, my local gamestore does not offer space for RPGs, only for CCGs and other collectible drek. On top of that, they took down the bulletin board . You know, the looking for a game board. It just hurt when they did that.

BlueMax
/who now organizes groups locally
//even ones he does not play in.

I'm a little confused, are you saying that you local store either:

a) Says Catalyst/the store's distributor will only deal with them if they pre-order, or
b) Will only order Shadowrun books if a fan pre-orders them, or
c) something else?

Whatever way, have your store get in touch with us -- http://catalystgamelabs.com/contact/ -- and explain the situation, and if there's some sort of misunderstanding or miscommunication going on, we'll see about sorting it out [bearing in mind that next week is Gen Con and we won't be "in the office," please!]

If it's situation B, well, again, this is why we push our fans to get in touch with their local stores before the Street Date and pre-order. Concentrated demand early in the release cycle is good for the stores [sales, woot!, accurate pre-ordering == not having excess stock on the shelves], good for gamers [more Shadowrun fans in the store on a given day, more networking/gaming chances], and good for us [sales, woot!, plus early information on how well titles are selling, not just TO stores, but FROM stores.]

Cool. Anything I can do to help support my FLGS.

Ouch, My FLGS just opened last month and though they make a killing on the CCG and miniatures games, they have fully embraced traditional pen and paper games and have specifically started hosting games in store. In fact it's odd to stop by and not have a game going on right there. We run Shadowrun every other Thursday and I've been trying to get them to stock more books. This looks like a great opportunity to for everyone involved.

I went to my local game store earlier today to try to get SR4A, only to find out that they think they might, possibly, be getting the book next week.
Also that even then they can only get in a very limited quantity, with very little chance of being able to order any more.

I understand the Limited Edition is meant to be limited, but I hadn't thought the 20th anniversary core book was as well.

Which leads me to wonder: is the entire 20th anniversary edition meant to be a limited run? or was their distributor given faulty information about the product, which they then passed on to the store?

So, while I won't be able to enter the contest for a chance to win a mystery prize, at least I didn't walk away empty handed, I did find a My Little Cthulhu at the store.

I was at my FLGS last week (Firday, the 7th?) and they had a 20th aniversery SR4 on display already. They stock SR pretty well, but I guess they missed the memo on the street date.

The 20th anniversary edition (not the LE) will be the future printing for the core rulebook as well. When it sells out, it will be reprinted. There is still some in stock and it will be reprinted. Fear not, young one.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.
I thought that was the case, I guess their distributor just got confused with the different versions and passed on faulty information to the store.

Tried to pick up Dawn at the FLGS the other day, but no dice. They're not getting new Shadowrun stuff until next week, apparently, so no photo entry for me.

Talked with the owner of my FLGS and he's going to try his best to get me a copy of Dawn of the Artifacts tomorrow. He's placing the order in about 30 minutes.

/e crosses fingers

Picking up both today. Too lazy for the contest as I'll be going there straight from work.

PS:I don't have a cell phone.

Are the design standards also shifting? Are future source/core books going to use the same interior style?

Same here. I doubt I can get away with buying one of their copies of Emergence, then taping a printout of the cover from Dusk PDF to it and entering.

Refresh my memory, please---what's the difference between the Limted Edition and the 'regular' edition of SR4a?

I do not think a complete list of the differences has been published...... I may however be mistaken.

Ohh, I know one. The Limited Edition has no street date.

BlueMax

No, but from some of Adam's comments in the official blog posts, the books will be individually numbered (something like "This copy is #n of 2000") and have a special cover which will likely be leatherette.

And while it hasn't been said, one can speculate that the leatherette cover will likely be foil stamped as well, as the previous two limited edition core rulebooks were.

If by interior style, you mean full color, then we have more full color books on the schedule (Seattle 2072 got the full color treatment). I can't say if, or when, all the SR books will move to being full color...

I think I'll just get the regular version, then. If things go my way by then.

I for one wanna just say I'm suuuuper pleased with how the SR4a printing turned out. The pages are nice and glossy, the color is vivid, and the cloth bookmark is a totally swank touch. More printings like this, please!

I kinda meant the use of things like the wheel-of-fortune infoboxes vs. the drop-shadowed pseudo-AR boxes. The streaked outer page backgrounds of SR4A vs. the matrix-y strips along the top and bottom. The new typography and the middle-of-the-page section heads, the new chart styles and such.

Damn my local book store won't have the books till Monday maybe! I guess I'm hooped.

I have decided to extend contest entries: as long as they come to me timestamped no later than the end of Tuesday the 18th, all is good.

I got my copy of Dawn of the Artifacts: Dusk last night. The pictures I took aren't too bad. The in-store picture was nice and clear. The outdoor picture, not so much but you can tell it's me holding that book.

Read through the book last night. Sounds like it'll be an interesting adventure series. It gave just enough hints that I am now curious about the rest of the adventure arc. I also was about ready to come here and go ape s*** over the intro until I got to the end of it and found that it was a game. I had to laugh at that.

My FLGS never got them. :/ Ah well...

ya did better than us, we never got a FLGS!

So what's the latest word on this contest?

I'm looking forward to seeing a page with a bunch of folks holding SR4A...

And Dusk, of course. Not it's fault it got lumped in with such an iconic release.

I missed out on the contest. I'm going to try to pick up Dusk on the 17th, but I was able to find SR4a on Ebay....& I saved about $9 on the cover price. Plus the guy is providing free shipping. it will take a while to get to me from Idaho.

But I'll still see of I can get some good pictures. I got a new SD-card for my disital camera and I'll take it with me to get some good shots of The Compleat Strategist, my FLGS.

Going through the entries is on my weekend TODO list.

I'll still see if I can get the pictures anyway. It will be easier and a lot more fun than my disasterous Wild Cards tour last year.

For want of an extra $9, your awesome FLGS was spurned.

Let us not forget the teachings of Weird Pete, "Support you Local Game Store!"

Sign--

Wacky

Adam & Wacky;

I'm not spurning my FLGS, I plan to pick up Dusk on 9/17.
AND I tell anyone who asks me where they can get great games to go to The Compleat Strategist.

And NO, I don't order RPG books through my FLCS anymore, because by the time they get my order in, the book is already at The Strat, and after the distributor didn't ship two of my orders, I gave up.

If I were spurning it, they would have to have had royally screwed me over on a sale (which they never have) and I would be telling people to AVOID The Strat with all due dilligence.

The Strat is the closest gaming store to me that I know of. I like going there. The staff is freindly, very kind and they are always willing to help with any questions I have.

I'm NOT spurning my FLGS. The Ebay bid was an offer I couldn't refuse, and the person buying it for me, MY FATHER, just made it an early X-Mas gift. I had planned to repay him for the costs, but I must still have some small amount of favor left with him that I didn't know about. I had thought I had pretty much burned all my Good Karma with him recently.

That $9 I saved will enable me to get into NYC to get Dusk.

If I have offended anyone with this diatribe, I appologise.

Updated and bumped.

Got the SR4a book today. My Q&D review is HERE.

So have the results been tallied?

Sign--

Wacky