Heroquest remake by Hasbro - The BIG discussion thread

[Blayze]

I pity whichever admin minion--or minions--are having to run the Twitter account; the refusal to address the new expansion on-stream has resulted in them having to answer the same question repeatedly.

As for when we get our copies, well, I guess you could say winter is "around" autumn.

[Kurgan]

I HAVEN'T SEEN THIS MUCH CHAOS SINCE I STARTED CALLING IT DREAD, PURELY FOR LEGAL REASONS! THANKS GAMESWORKSHOP, THANKS FOR NOTHING!

[cornixt]

I'm really warming up to that guy.

[iKarith]

I guess I don't truly understand the "crowd funded" part. They claimed if they got $1 million they'd release it. They lack the money to produce this or be open with regular updates?

I thought Hasbro had a lot of money, I guess I misjudged them, unless they're having a small third party (understaffed?) company do it all for them and just distributing it after it's finished. Maybe they need to sell more GI Joe dolls and transformers puzzles in order to afford it?

If 3.6 million $ isn't enough to make a board game I'm not sure how much they really need... are they waiting until they have enough money to mass produce it at walmart before they can create the products to give to their backers?

I don't think lack of money is the problem right now. Everything is operating on shortages right now. It doesn't matter how much money you've got, if what you want right this minute is not available yet, it's not available. Hence all the scalping of … pretty much everything at this point.

If you have Christmas shopping to do, do it now. Things are gonna get more and more scarce as we head into the holidays. Everything is built on this system where you store neither finished products nor base components. You receive components and immediately put them together so that you have a finished product and you immediately ship it out.

Only shipments aren't bringing in base components. When they do, you put them together and they sit waiting to be shipped. And then they wait to be loaded into empty containers which aren't there because they're sitting in the Port of Los Angeles and elsewhere, full, on ships waiting to dock and be unloaded. Right now there's probably 120 ships waiting to dock and be unloaded. Typically … there'd be about 10-15.

Every single step of the manufacturing process is like that. Hasbro US is backed up because they're waiting for manufacturers in China. Manufacturers in China are waiting for materials. People who send materials are waiting for raw materials… All of it is received, shipped, and processed, and the whole world had this massive domino effect where everything is backed up, leading to everything else being backed up, in a giant snowball effect.

This isn't specific to Hasbro—I don't even know if I've accurately described the exact supply chain problems Hasbro is having right now, except that I know they're having them. And whether or not those problems are delaying this game from shipping, I really don't know.

One thing to keep in mind is that these delays aren't only affecting manufacturing, they're also affecting prototyping. If you want a product manufactured in China, there are sometimes several stages of prototyping, evaluation, and re-prototyping, until they get it right. It's many months to go from design files to prototyping and tooling manufacture and then delivery.

And it's likely the entire game isn't being manufactured all at once. Probably the plastics are being made here, the manuals there, and the boxes and box inserts still other places. Designing a product is not merely about getting the game designed. It's about getting it designed and then produced economically at a given scale that can expand later if needed.

All that to say … I don't think money is the problem. Logistics are, and Hasbro's not going to give you, me, or anyone a breakdown of what their logistics look like, who their partners are, and how it all works so that they can explain where the hold-up is.

For some of it, covid was a catalyst. But you can't just say "covid caused this" anymore, because the entire world's supply chain management philosophy was broken in 2021 and everyone's just trying to recover right now.

The just-in-time supply chain management philosophy originated with a Japanese car company—I want to say it was with Toyota. The thing is, when a world of imitators copied the idea, they got it wrong: Toyota(?)'s idea was that you do not waste time or money storing things that you can always obtain just as they're needed. You do store a stockpile of the parts that can become suddenly scarce if something happens in the market. Chips for example—if a disaster disrupts a chipmaker (as happens from time to time), your ability to get the chips that go in your cars may be reduced (possibly to nothing) for a time. That's happened before, so they were one of the very few car makers who weren't suddenly unable to make cars due to a chip shortage.

Unfortunately, it made demand for their cars (which they were able to produce) much greater because nobody else had chips, creating a different problem…

Or do they lack the line workers to put the stuff into the boxes and onto the trucks/boats/planes? Is it because of Covid? Then just say it's because of covid...

It would just be good to know what the problem actually is, rather than yeah sorry more info soon. I can't blame the actors saying those lines, but I do blame the PR department. Think of the message this sends to potential backers of future products. Hey, give us your money, it'll be delayed and you don't deserve an explanation though.

Lesson learned (?), from now I'll avoid backing such projects if this is business as usual. Dec 21st is the first day of winter.

I have never seen a crowdfunded project ship when they say it's going to ship. It happens, apparently, and with some frequency. Hasbro's usually the kind of company that can pull it off. They know what sort of logistics are involved, they have the contracts to make whatever they need, and they can generally predict the timelines and get the manufacturing capacity to make something happen when expected.

A delay measured in weeks should not be cause for alarm. If it is, I suggest avoiding crowdfunding all together.

The lack of responsiveness from the company is the part that's bugging people who know the drill for crowdfunded projects. "Prototyping took longer, and things are being manufactured now in factories." "We're having shipping issues, like everyone else is." Something like that would do wonders for me, but we haven't gotten it. (Of course, their worry is if they start saying these things, people will cancel. Which is totally not what they'll do if you keep saying nothing, right? *sigh* Corporations are dumb.

I HAVEN'T SEEN THIS MUCH CHAOS SINCE I STARTED CALLING IT DREAD, PURELY FOR LEGAL REASONS! THANKS GAMESWORKSHOP, THANKS FOR NOTHING!

Okay, that's actually funny. Point for Hasbro. Now would you people kindly answer the damned question? What's the hold-up?

[HispaZargon]

What an excellent analysis, iKarith! I think so in most of the terms.

[Blayze]

Was that an official Zargon quote? I can't see it.

Unfortunately, it made demand for their cars (which they were able to produce) much greater because nobody else had chips, creating a different problem…

The chip problem is even more messed up than that, because the same silicon used in computer chips is also used in vaccine vials.

[Kurgan]

No, but apparently my satirical imitation was so realistic, this time people took it as real, so I edited the header, sorry about that. I did another couple of imitations before and people seemed to like them.

SORRY ABOUT THAT GUYS! I WILL START HAND DELIVERING THESE SINCE THE MAGIC ISN'T WORKING, LET'S SEE, ANDREW ANDERSON...

The above explanations made it easier to imagine and understand what's probably going on, even if a little leveling with the customers should be in order.

My Halloween costume won't be arriving in time for the big day, but oh well, I have future plans...

[Leathaface79]

The Port of LA's issues is more than just COVID. California imposed a very strict regulation on trucks that forced a lot of trucks off the road (or at least they are now operating in other states). I build vehicles and we have to deliver our vehicles to Las Vegas and our California customers drive to Vegas to pick them up and take them into California because I cannot get a trucker (that is reasonably priced) to into Cali. Costs my customers a couple hundred bucks to make the trip, otherwise they are spending an extra $1500 and longer delays for the proper regulated truck to bring it to their doors. So if Hasbro is waiting on a shipping containers being brought into LA, then they will be delayed. Hopefully they are coming in via Baltimore or into Mexico first and then across the border through Arizona or Texas.

Everything is messed up right now, everything. Steel, plastics, foam, oil, rubber, vinyl. Everyday we are dealing with issued, my main seat supplier out of Chicago is taking 10 weeks to get me my order when normally it is a 3 week lead time, but they get their foam from China and their supplier is backed up.

But where I'm frustrated with Hasbro, is I am upfront with our customers. Our sales team is kept up to date with the latest information, our supply chain puts out ETA dates for products to arrive, our scheduling team will update our Vehicle Records with Planned Build and Completion dates and I have built each sales rep a custom report to pull out their customer's vehicles with planned completion dates and we send them out weekly. If dates change there is a reason code and a description field explaining the reason. You should keep your customers informed.

The September e-mail said they would "begin shipping your HeroQuest pledges in late October" and not to mention or reiterate that they were set to begin shipping this week during the PulseCon was a huge miss, if anything to get rid of speculation, and if they are not going to begin shipping this week then at PulseCon they should have said "We are sorry to inform everyone that due to Global delays in shipping and production, we are not able to begin shipping this upcoming week as previously stated, but we are committed to getting these shipped out as soon as possible and we should only be delayed X weeks."

Hopefully they will start shipping out this week as "Very Soon" statement from PulseCon means they are pretty much ready to ship, that is how I take "Very Soon". I've seen other people say February, me and those people have a very different definition of "Very Soon", which is why Hasbro should be talking and giving out status reports.

[Blayze]

Technically, they've given notice of delayed shipping with the Pulse site banner.

[Kurgan]

Right you are...

Due to COVID related circumstances beyond our control, shipping may be delayed. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience!

Still, this doesn't stop them giving info on HeroQuest, even if it would imply that it's being delayed like everything else.