I'm just curious if S2P really does still have LE's in stock. According to the website they do, but surely that isn't right? Or is it?

In case someone didn't want to follow the link to eBay Pre-Order rules, here they are (see below). The guts of the policy is that pre-orders have to ship within 30 days of ordering. Ouch.

"Pre-sale listings are those that describe items for sale that are not in the control or possession of the seller at the time of the listing. These listings generally consist of items that are sold in advance of a delivery date to the public."

"eBay permits Pre-sale listings only on a limited basis. The seller must guarantee that the item will be available for shipping within 30 days from the date of purchase (i.e., the day the listing ends or the date the item is purchased from a store front listing). The seller must also clearly indicate within the listing the fact that the item is a pre-sale item with a delivery date that indicates the item will be shipped by the 30th day from the end date of the listing. Additionally, this text must be no less than the default font size of the eBay Sell-Your-Item form. Currently, the default font size is HTML font size 3."

"Violations of this policy may result in a range of actions, including:
- Listing cancellation
- Limits on account privileges
- Account suspension
- Forfeit of eBay fees on cancelled listings
- Loss of PowerSeller status"

Well I was just informed that I won't be getting a LE. After going through this same thing with the 3rd edition LE, I figured I'd plan ahead this time. The first week of August I headed down to my FLGS and prepaid/preordered for a LE.

Now that its almost time for the FLGS to actually get them in I was informed that "According to Alliance West (game distributor) Fanpro is requiring that the store has to order 24 copies of the regular book to get 1 LE". Realizing that this isn't the same thing we were told here I went to the areas other FLGS just to check into this. The other FLGS doesn't order through Alliance they order through 3 other distributors and they confirmed it. Guess I won't be getting a LE.

On the plus side now I have 50 bux in credit at my FLGS. Guess I'll have to watch for something else to get. hmmmm Army Transport time?

Working for a german game store I can say that the offer from FanPro for the LE was 1 for 12 regulars. It might be different for the US, but I doubt it.

We didn't take them up on it so I can't comment on that. But given how rare the LE is that is certainly possible.

I can only relate to you what my former roommate, who worked at my FLGS, said on the subject: namely, that there were only three distributors for RPGs in the United States. (I assume that they also control most of the international sales, although I'm not sure.)

While a company can control their printers, they cannot control the distributors, who are the link to the local stores. As I understand it, the distributors prefer to save on shipping costs whenever possible, so they wait until they've got several different batches of product in their main warehouse before sending to the local distribution centers. In other words, even if the Shadowrun stuff comes in on time, they wait for other products to arrive-- and those could have later release dates, as well as simply arriving late. For example: let's say Shadowrun arrives on the 10th. The D&D book is due on the 14th, so they wait until then before prepping the order. But then, the Green Ronin book which was also due on the 14th gets delayed to the 16th-- so the shipment is delayed yet again.

To complicate matters, they only recieve products at their main warehouse, which could be anywhere. So, even if the book is printed in Florida, it needs to be first shipped to a center in, say, Montana before it can be sorted, packaged and shipped out.

And even then, that's only to the local centers, and "local" can mean anywhere in your time zone. (So, our hypothetical product from Florida gets shipped to Maine for local distribution.) The products then need to be unpacked, sorted, and repacked; and to make matters worse, sometimes they don't get enough to fill all their orders at once. (I think that's because the printers don't always finish a run at once; I'm given to understand that they print and ship the run in stages.) Because sending a new product to some places and not others would create a loss of sales, they have to wait until they can fill all the orders before they can ship.

Add to this the shipping times, turnaround times, and miscellaneous snafus, you can see why it takes quite a while for a product to arrive at your FLGS. Heck, the best one in Seattle still hasn't gotten a copy yet-- and Wizkids, who *owns* Shadowrun, is based here. (Side note: when Wizkids had a retail store here, Jordan Wiseman told me they had to wait on the distributors before they could put *their own product* on the shelves. Apparently, if they didn't order through them, they'd lose their ordering power on all the other merchandise, due to some sort of contractual obligation. I could get WizKids products faster through eBay!)

Suffice to say, the situation is pretty complicated. And I'm probably missing a lot of it-- this is mostly secondhand. I'm sure the people here who are actually in the industry will be glad to correct any errors/fill in any blanks.

My sources confirm exactly what Cain's saying. Plus they indicate the situation isn't one limited to one distributor (so you'd have the option of changing to a better one) but that its widespread. The fact is the RPG industry doesn't move enough in terms of bulk for RPG distributors to overhaul the system and provide "better" service. The reality is there aren't alternatives. If you were to apply something like the three strike system and move to another company you'd be facing a slightly different but ultimately similar reality.

That being said, of course this is a simplified view (and even though its one that applies to the situation at hand -SR4 shipping - it's admittedly incomplete) and the blame doesn't reside entirely with distributors. There are problems at all stages of the system: FLGS who don't preorder or pay distributors on time and so get their stuff in even later than the expected date (and of course they're not going to tell their clients they're at fault), problems with the printers and binders, and of course problems with the publisher itself which range from layout and artwork to writers handing in late drafts.

Shadowrun4 LE seems a little overrated anyway. The reg ed is available from Amazon for $23.09 where as you're stuck paying retail for the LE. Is the 16 pages of fiction and the foil stamp really worth $27? And then when 5th ed comes out...

As a gamebook probably not, as a collector's item for hardcore fans, yes. The BABY still pops up once in a while on eBay for quite hefty sums. I don't expect SR4 LE to go for anything like that (at least for a while), but if the line continues for a few years, expect the LE to become popular as a collector's item down the line.

What is the BABY?

That's just a copout. Most of the time the WOTC products get on the shelves when they are supposed to. At least in my city. That's just typical "no one is responsible especially not us" pass-the-buck crap. Exactly what you would expect to hear.

If that was true there then FLGS would only get shipments once a year...lol.

You're right, Bull. I was combining the two for some unfathomable reason.

...

*siiiigh* still not shipping?

Random thoughts:

1. Lots of stuff moves through the Gulf Coast, partiularly New Orleans.

Does anybody know if any points along the SR4 supply chain had hubs in the area?

2. If you're in Europe, expecting the English version...Add 4 weeks minimum.

If your keep missing your deadline, it seems logical to me to push your deadline back so you can actually hit it. If you know your supply chain has problems, try to compensate for that with the date you set.

The book was supposed to be out in August and probably won't be out until October. That makes it hard on a retailer that actually believes release dates.

Yeah well Topps isn't known for pulling hasbro's stunt of buying up companies in every stage of the production process for their products... from raw materials to distributors (they haven't tried to do the Games workshop thing of opening their own FLGSes everywhere... yet)

Actually, Wizards did try to open up their own chain of stores. The venture failed.

hasbro policy failed them... well a little

on the other hand name a non hasbro game company that owns te lumber mills and paper mills for their product

A friend of mine is the general manager for a chain of FGS and here is what he had to say about the SR LE. He had gotten 50 preorders for the LE from costumers and then was told after the fact that there was a limited number of LE's available and that he could only purchase 1 LE for every 10 Regular edition books. Needess to say he was not very happy with with since he had already recieved payment for the LE's from his costumers. Now he runs a big chain of stores and has a very high profile in the biz. He told the distributer that he wanted all of his preorders and that he would "NOT" purchase any regular SR's over what he "HAD" to purchase.

I have a feeling that Fanpro could not print a large number of LE's because of the cost of printing them. So when demand for the book was higher than they could match they told their distributers that sorry we only have this many. Deal with it. There is most likely more preorders than books. Which is a shame really. Fanpro is missing out on a lot of business and pissing off the customer.

Well I'm gonna put out my opinion here.

First off, the LE is worth the price easily, for the collector. For the average Joe? Probably not, but that's not who its marked to or produced for. The LE is for us hardcore collectors, not for someone who just wants the book.

Anyways, on the whole subject of the release date and such.

Theres been a couple of comparisons to other smaller and larger companies. And some have discounted them by saying 'hey well they missed their original street date'. While that may be true, atleast they updated their customers. Has anyone heard word one from Fanpro regarding when we might actualy see this book? If you have please please point me to where they have officialy announced to the world, and not just here because announcing here is stupid and not reaching the most people in their fan/customer base.

I've lost my confidence for the most part in Fanpro with their recent debacles. Considering when most companies release something at GenCon the product is very soon after available in stores I'd say Fanpro droped the ball and then punted it away. Then combine that with telling the customers one day for the release of the PDF, and then not telling its customers untill the day AFTER it was supposed to be released that it wasn't going to be released the day before and hey probably wasn't going to be released till next week. And then ofcourse it wasn't released till the week after. And now ofcourse we're nearing the end of september and what do we have? No book. No book even in sight. No release date. No communication from Fanpro officialy regarding when this book is actualy going to be available to the public. Much less a release date for any of the other books that were promised to be out 'shortly after' SR4. Lets not forget the SR3 -> SR4 conversion rules that were supposed to be published on the website when the book came out that we have yet to see or hear about since they were announced.

Shift the blame all you want. Blame the distributers. Blame the weather. Blame all of that. And you're still left with Fanpro not informing its customers and generaly displaying a attitude of wanton disregard for its customers. And please, don't give me the "Hey they post here" crap. This is not the entirety of their customer base. This is also not even close to the proper method of communicating with their customer base. Virtualy everyone I know who plays shadowrun, that I've talked to and talk to online, and such does not come here because of all the idiots. That ofcourse excludes the few individuals I am talking with here in regards to certain projects and rules clarifications. But in general? Most of the shadowrun community doesn't come here. I would even venture to say not even half do. Some of the customers don't even know about this place.

Poor communications, sure. Nuf said.

Need improvement, sure. Nuf said.

How about a little pure speculation, now, regarding ship dates for the actual book. Rob Boyle's request for errata suggestions to be turned in by Sunday Sept 18 should be telling. A release seems imminent. If this is the case, then it would seem that in order to produce a printed product devoid of significant errata they have delayed printing of the main (non-LE) book. Just reading tea leaves here, of course. If this is the case, then I applaud them. If it's case, however, they should also mention it. =)

Honestly, I just want an LE because it doesn't have that horrid cover

The Limited Edition had a print run of 1000 copies. Since the LE was announced way back, the terms for ordering them were made quite clear to retailers/distributors ... 1 LE for every 12 regular SR4 core books. That has not changed at all in the intervening time.

Beat ya!

aka they're paying to have that # 1-1000 printed in their book

I disagree Shadow Prophet.

WW LE's typically were nice hardbound editions. Content otherwise unchanged.

With 1 order for 12 restriction, the vast majority of collectors were never given the opportunity to purchase one. Considering a full 20% of the run were at GenCon and no where else.