War of the Ring 'o Rosies, a Pocketful Full of Pre-Orders

WARNING: The below blog entry uses language and descriptive commentary that may not be suitable for children.

This is one of my favorite games, and with the expansion "Battles of the Third Age" it just can't be beat... In fact (little sneak peek here) this game is on my planned top 10 list of games in the very near future. It has won awards in 2004 and 2005 (Lucca Games Best of Show and Best Original Game as well as the International Gamers Award), it has been on the top 20 of Board Game Geek consistently since it first came out in 2004 (and at the time of this writing it is number 15).

Now here are some hard cold facts... On Board Game Geek there are 5,309 people listed as owning the game and 472 listed as wanting to purchase the game. Now we know for a fact that not everyone who owns it lists it as being owned, so the actual numbers are probably quite a bit higher, and with that being said, those nearly 6,000 people are only Board Game Geek users... The majority of ratings are an 8 or 9 out of 10, with over 650 people giving it a solid 10 out of 10... That is just unheard of folks!

Ok, so now that the facts are out of the way... when it comes to board games, we can honestly say "War of the Ring's shit don't stink"... So WHY in the name of all that is holy in Middle Earth, is Fantasy Flight/Phalanx Games limiting the production run of the upcomming deluxe edition to ONLY 250 PIECES with no way to pre-order... Like the Risk Black Ops special edition deal last year, this is a game that if you want to get a copy of it, you are going to be screwed... Even if only 1/3 of the people who voted it a 10 out of 10 on Board Game Geek want to buy a copy there won't be enough available for those people alone (and that is a very fair estimate, especially with the number of people who actively take part in the forum for this game there).

I guarantee... in fact, I'd be willing to be my left nut, that there will be plenty of game scalpers (I call them Game Ferengis - in reference to the ugly/greedy Star Trek aliens) on ebay that will be selling MULTIPLE copies of this game for 2-3 times retail price. It happened before with other games (can you say $400 for a copy of Risk Black Ops?) and it will happen again... Who in the hell is running things over at FFG to limit this game to 250 pieces??? WHY???  It makes no business sense in my mind. 

Ok, I see WHY they are doing it... they apparently want to give the 'true' fans a special bonus by making it a "limited" game, so the ones who get it can pat themselves on the back... well you know what? You have OVER 3,000 people alone on Board Game Geek who have rated this an 8 out of 10 OR HIGHER... Even if only 10% of those people want a copy, forgetting about the rest of the world, there WILL NOT BE NEARLY ENOUGH!!!

(Above is a prototype photo of the Deluxe edition on display at a convention... the game is rumored to have a full assortment of painted miniatures (from both the original game and the expansion - a handful are shown in this photo) as well as an all new (larger) illustrated map and a real wooden box painted to look like a large Middle-Earth book and more!)

It doesn't make sense to me for things be handled the way they are, the smart thing from a business point of view (in my opinion if it is worth anything) is for FFG to have a preorder on their website, they give people somewhere between 30 and 60 days to make their preorder, then they take THAT NUMBER (How many people have pre-ordered it) and they double it, then that is the production number they should shoot for. Everyone still gets their 'limited edition' hard-on and everone is happy they are not having to make some back alley crack-like deal to get a copy.

You know damn well that the games produced by Fantasy Flights games cost them less than half of what they sell them for to the end gamer... There is nothing wrong with that, it is smart business. I want FFG to make money so they make more cool games for me to buy, but the point of that statement is this...

If FFG puts up the preorder and they presell 1,000 of them (just a random number for this example). Then the money they generated from those 1,000 presales will actually PAY for 2,000+ copies of the game with no money out of pocket for FFG... the games arrive, they ship the 1,000 copies to the people who preorderd it, and they now have a warehouse with 1,000 copies of the game that are 100% paid for and pure profit for FFG as they sell... this is the stock that the dealers should have access too, gaming shops can order 2 or 3 for their stores, online dealers can grab a few to put in their online stores, and the Game Ferengis? Well fuck the Game Ferengis.... it is only moves like limiting this to 250 by Fantasy Flight that fuel their 'fuck-you-over-fire' anyways.

Ok, enough of my raving for now. I really hope Fantasy Flight reconsiders their plans for an extremely limited distribution on this game, it would be a disappointment if only a small handful of the loyal fans (both of LOTR and FFG fans, of which I am both) are able to get this while many are left with their hands held out asking "why?".