Post originally by Shannon Appelcline at 2004-09-08 11:45:02
Converted from Phorums BB System

I knew I'd get some disagreement on my complaints about distribution.

As for the claims that they couldn't charge enough:

Last year RGG put out Carcassonne: King & Scout, which was a 12 tile expansion for Carcassonne, definitely smaller than the Puerto Rico Expansion. It went through normal retail chains for $5.

This year Days of Wonder is putting out the Mystery Train Expansion for Ticket to Ride, an 8-10 card expansion. They're making it available through: a convention, local retailers, a gaming magazine, and their web site for the cost of postage.

I think either choice was much more fair to their customers. Likewise, RGG could have choosen to make it available to online retailers (as Days of Wonder did with some of their M'44 promos) or through purchases at their web site directly. Instead they choose to support "convention retailers", which was a demographic that's going to cut out most of their customers & fans.

I mean, if they really wanted to support convention retailers, they could have said, "If you want the first release of the PRE in 2004, you must buy at a convention, but we'll have it available at our web site in late 2004 if you can't make it to a convention.", and then all the early adopters would have gone to conventions, but everyone could have still gotten the product.

Shannon