I just received an e-mail from a retailer I pre-orderred some books from. He indicates that FanPro is not going to honour their pre-order commitments on the Shadowrun 4th ed Special Edition book and will either sell them exclusivly at cons and events, or use them as "incentives" for large orders made by retailers. Can anyone confirm this?

If this is the case, is there anywhere I might be able to order one?

Who's your retailer? I got the same mail today.

I've PM:ed Adam to ask if this is FanPro changing or if it's the distributor/retailer doing something...

FanPro advertised through the distributor channel that retailers were allowed to order 1 Special Edition for every 12 regular edition copies that they ordered. It sounds like a number of retailers failed to read the ordering instructions, and just ordered Special Editions. When their distributors told them they'd need to order X number of regulars in order to receive the specials, they sent out nasty e-mails.

Same deal for me here too. I preordered on ebay. I would really like to know what the deal is because now it looks like I'll only be getting a normal copy.

here's what my vendor told me

I am writing concerning a problem that has arisen with your Shadowrun Limted Edition auction. My distributor received *repeated* verbal confirmations from FanPro concerning my preorder. FanPro sold some copies of this book at Gen Con. To make a long story short, FanPro has decided that they will not honor their preorder commitments, and will instead sell copies of the book at retail price at various game conventions. They *may* also offer some books as incentives for large purchases of the normal edition, but that is unclear. Even if they do, I would not be able to fill my pre-orders.
At this juncture, we have two options:
1-I can sell you a normal copy of this book for each preorder you made at my price ($19.00 each).
2-I can give you a full refund on your auction.
I am very sorry for this chain of events. I have also been a victim (I will lose over $100 in eBay fees and risk negative feedback). Please let me know how you would like me to proceed in resolving this issue.


This is crap. I preorderd in plenty of time

Then we have the same seller, which means that it's a problem with him or his distributor and not a FanPro problem...

We picked the wrong place to buy from.

L.D. when did you pre order yours? I preordered off ebay around the beginning of August.

Mid-august.

plenty of time

Yeah, just a note... eBay auction "stores"? Not the most reliable of sources.

I haven't heard anything about a change regarding FanPro's selling of the books. The plan the entire time has been that X copies went to Gen Con, X copies went to Battlecorp, X copies went to Studio 2, and X copies went to the distributors for retail sales. The only change in this was that Battlecorp (And possibly Studio2) ended up with most of the extra copies that did make it to Gen Con.

If there was any sorta change, Adam may know and can shed some light, but I don't think there was one.

My guess? Distributors assumed they could get a larger stock than they could, then turned around and allowed retailers to order as many as they wanted. This happens all the time with gaming retail, with Distributors not being able to meet demands. Magic: The Gathering used to regularly have this porblem the first couple weeks that a new set was available. The game shops would order a dozen cases, and only get 2 or 3. Mage Knight and Mech Warrior ran into similar problems.

Plus, I seem to remember several complaints in the same vein back when SR3 came out, with stores promising LE's and not being able to get them. With online stores a hell of a lot more prevelant now, and often being a lot less careful about their orders and stock situations (at least, it seems that way), the problem is just compounded.

Bull

I even tried my local brick and mortar local gaming store and they never responded to me.

So possibly everyone got left out on this deal.

I got the same message from my retailer a few weeks ago, but i've since been told that they have been promised a copy and if it arrives as promised its mine. keeping my fingers crossed. I do think the limited edition thing is turning into a bit of a fiasco

I know that online stored (and specially eBay-ones might not be all that reliable), but sometimes you don't have a choice...

It would be appreciated it you could sell more books to Battlecorp though. They had sold out when I tried to order and Studio 2 wants 85$ for shipping alone to Europe. I don't really have 130$ to spend on one book and it's not really fair against buyers outside of the US.

Same here L.D. Same message, same issue.

I don't have a paypal account, or a credit card for that matter, so the Battlecorps order is out for me...

Well shit, looks like the common gamer is screwed out of the LE's again.

Been playing SR for 12 years, and never had a Limited. I would have probably beaten someone to near death for a Limited SR3 that I wouldnt have to put in a binder with sheet protectors in two months.

Here I guess I thought I had a chance at a classy looking limited without that janky cover, even though I couldn't spend the huge amount of money to head to Indiana.

Unless FanPro is looking to make an appearance in Colorado with some LE's, I don't think I'll ever even see one with my own eyes.

Not my department, guys.

Who's department is it?

I bought mine on ebay over a week ago, I picked it up the same night after a 3 hour drive too. The upside is I got my book....the Downside is It cost me over $200.

And your fucking point being?

It would be great! Thanks for helping out.

He bought it from someone who was at Gen Con for a ridiculous price that many people are unable to afford. And he posts about it in a thread where people are trying to figure out why they're not getting their pre-ordered copies...

I know you can buy stuff at eBay and actually receive it.

I'm disappointed but i'm not going to worry about it. If my ebay seller makes good on the Regular copy and a copy of Liber Mechanika for Iron Kingdoms (d20), i guess i won't feel too bad.


Truthfully i didn't hold out too much hope to get one anyway.

Seems, it was my seller too

so then with all of us having the same seller his volume should've been high enough to rate a couple of LE's.

Sounds like fanpro screwed his distributor and they screwed this guy.

So he sould order...
Hmm what about forcing him to order 60 regualrs so we could get our LEs? Send the trolls in...

That would be nice...

guys, i hate to tell ya this, but it sounds like your seller didnt read the distribution agreement. I remember a few weeks ago reading about the 12 regs to get 1 LE book, so i think thats wht happened based on

I agree. Unfortunately for you all, I suspect that the seller on ebay didn't do their homework and is now trying to pass the buck for their mistake making it sound like FanPro is the bad guy when, really, the seller probably just screwed up. Can you get your money back?

Like i said before i didn't hold out too much hope for one anyhow.

This is the first time I pay full price for a product before it´s available. Local gamestores usually charge nothing or less than 5 bucks for pre-ordering were I live. Payment is made when the game is picked up.

Well, as there was absolutley no Fanpro pressence that I could find in the dealer room @ Dragon*Con (something that pissed me off greatly) when I walked through, I may reconsider converting my gaming group to SR4 if the above is true.

If LE's are only sold at Cons, then yes, until they run out, they should attend the big cons. D*Con say close to 2000 people this year and took up 3 hotels, it's fairly easy to call it the largest Sci-fi fantasy Convention in the Southeast and not get scoffed at.

Frag, I'm still waiting on my copy of the standard edition. I ordered back in July

Another way FanPro could solve this whole fiasco would be to simply print out another 1000 of the LE. Its not like they won't sell them and it would still keep them as a Limited Edition. How many non-LE copies will be printed?

So what would they call it? The NQSLAEPE, Not Quite So Limited As Earlier Planned Edition?

It would still be a limited edition. How many copies of the main rulebook are they planning on printing? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? There should be some sort of figures from how many SR3s were printed. I'm here in Boise, Idaho (Salish Sidhe) and I know the local store owner sold over 300 copies at least. And of that entire run he only received 1 copy of the LE through the distributor (and that was grabbed by a store employee). I would have loved to go to GenCon so I could get one. Heck I've even pushed a bid up to 300 dollars on Ebay for a 3rd edition LE and still got outbid. If Boise can sell 300 copies of a book I would have to hope that the total number sold worldwide would have to be pretty high. A print run of 2000 LEs would still be a very "Limited Edition" and look at how far it would go to appeasing those of us hard core fans of the game? At this point (being skunked out of both 3rd and 4th edition LE's) I'm getting a pretty bad taste on how Fanpro (and previously FASA) wants to handle us longtime fans.

>>I just received an e-mail from a retailer I pre-orderred some books from. He indicates that FanPro is not going to honour their pre-order commitments on the Shadowrun 4th ed Special Edition book and will either sell them exclusivly at cons and events, or use them as "incentives" for large orders made by retailers. Can anyone confirm this?<<

Whomever this eBay auctioneer is, he either doesn't know what he's talking about, his distributor wasn't up front with him, or he's lying because he screwed up and wants to cover his ass. I suspect the latter.

Aside from the copies we set aside to sell at GenCon or direct to customers online, or to give away as prizes, FanPro sold all of the rest of the LEs as pre-orders to distributors. There were special terms that distributors had to adhere to in order to order the LE (ie, buy a dozen+ of the regular SR4s)--it's possible that some distributors were not clear with their customers, but we have no control over that. These terms were given to distributors in March (at GAMA) and we took pre-orders right up until the deadline (end of July, IIRC)--in fact, we even extended the deadline and continued to take LE pre-orders for a longer period, as a number of distributors came to us *after* the deadline and asked to increase their orders. We were, of course, careful not to oversell.

All of those books are now on their way to our warehouse, and will be sent out to distributors soon (as soon as I have a confirmed street release date, I'll post it on the website).

So, sorry to say guys, but you did indeed order from the wrong place. I suggest you leave that seller some negative feedback.

Also--I'm aware of the outrageous overseas shipping charges on the S2P site, and I've asked them to correct it. They're working on it.

Finally -- we did (briefly) consider doing another LE print run, but we ruled it out. We said 1,000 from the beginning, and each copy says #X of 1000, and we're not going to go back on that now. It is a *limited edition* after all.

Thanks Rob.