It is the first year I was able to experience Adepticon for all four days, I was truly excited to get to see all of my friends and discover all of the goodies in the dealer room. I allotted my money for the different vendors that I knew were going to be there and planned a budget so I wouldn’t overspend (ha!). Part of that well thought out budget included $200.00 for CMoN. Previously I was turned off by their practices on Kickstarter so I’m kind of behind on the games they offer.
So imagine my surprise when I walked in and grabbed my goody bag and inside contained a full copy of the starter of A Song of Ice and Fire, sweet. A whole CMoN game right there to add to my collection, awesome! So I made my way to the booth with anticipation of picking up the core-set for Arcadia Quest or some other goodies, like Rising Sun and also seeing what cool con exclusive they have to give out for the various games that they make. Excitedly I approached their booth looked to the right… looked to the left and with a look of awe across my face I shook my head. Now, this was not a look of awe as you may imagine I was not taken back by all of their choices or beautiful display. It was a look of awe crap really all they have is one game, the game I just received for starter box for free, A Song of Ice and Fire. I’m sure you can imagine my confusion and disappointment, I mean this is CMoN. This is a company that has made dozens of games up to this point, represented at their booth with one game. This couldn’t be right.
So after the lines die down a bit I walked over and asked for directions to the real CMoN booth. My look of confusion was mirrored on their face as they informed me this was the only booth here but they sent me on my way with promises of more games coming in tomorrow. Friday I came back to get Arcadia Quest but it was not there. No Massive Darkness, no Rising Sun, no Zombicide. Seriously am I being punked, what’s going on? So I ask again and was informed that this is all they’re planning on having at this convention. So I threw them the last pitch, asking about any convention exclusives, figuring I could pick up some of the expansions for A Song and Fire and Ice to get them, but the answer to that question was also no as well.
My question to CMoN is: seriously, do you know how to run a business? Last time I checked supply and demand is not a unique concept to business and a major contributor to economic success. You create a product, make the product and you sell the product. CMoN already has a stigma for over utilizing Kickstarter and not supporting most games that they create and now they go to Adepticon, the largest wargaming and board game convention in the United States and really only bring one game line to sell. The convention is packed full of your target audience. But if you go to Gen Con, a convention that is larger, but with a much broader audience they bring everything and offer tons of different exclusives. So why is it that the largest wargaming convention which a lot of their board games fit into is not treated the same?
CMoN could have easily gotten $200 of my money that I had earmarked for them specifically at Adepticon, but there was no selection other than A Song Ice and Fire, a game I want to play The Night Watch in. Now my options are
- A) To buy it at Adepticon for full retail at 10% tax with no incentive.
- B) Wait and buy it at my FLGS for retail at only 7% tax.
- C) Buy it on Amazon and save a few bucks
I can tell you for sure it wasn’t A. In conclusion, you failed, You failed us the consumer who wants to buy your product and you failed yourself as a business by reducing the almost guaranteed profit (I mean you got the tables and the space there right?) by only bringing one option for your consumers. What if I hated Game of Thrones, you will make nothing off of me walking into your booth. With the rumors going around that you might be pulling out of the Crystal Brush because it’s not profitable, in all honesty the fact that is not profitable falls on your shoulders. We the consumer brought money to give you in exchange for merchandise and maybe some incentive. You delivered neither, you brought one game that people might be interested in, and didn’t even bring the games that are your bread-and-butter, the ones that you actually do support. I am just a recent customer of yours because I finally decided to give up my crusade of not wanting to support the pre-order model that utilize are good starters, but after this behavior I’m really rethinking that.