Hey !
So I will admit that in the recent past, I only come to you with a newsletter when there is a big announcement. I don't know if that's because I've had more big announcements to share recently, or I haven't been able to write as many newsletters as I'd like (I blame Frosthaven). It's probably a bit of both, I suppose, but with that said, I've got a pretty
big announcement here that I need to lead off with.
I mean, in terms of announcements go, this is the big one. Sure, there was Frosthaven and all that, but it really seems like we've been talking about a web store for much longer than we have been talking about Frosthaven.
And it's finally here! Well, kind of. If you live in the US, at least. At this point, we've cleared all the US hurdles, but there are still international hurdles to clear, so the store is open for US orders, and international orders will open in January.
So let's talk about these delays a bit - not to throw excuses at you, but just to offer a small explanation of how we got to where we are. First of all, obviously COVID was a factor in the delay. We were planning on launching the store before the Frosthaven Kickstarter launched back at the beginning of the year, but then our fulfillment center went on hiatus, throwing a
big wrench in that. Even after they opened up again, we were then deep into wave 1 fulfillment and just didn't have the bandwidth.
But that wasn't the end of wrenches the Kickstarter would throw our way. If you hadn't heard, it was wildly successful, which, let's just say, taught us a lot about US and international taxes. Oh, that sounded more ominous than I intended. We're not in any trouble or anything, but we now understand how to do things right, and doing things right takes more time than expected.
And that's especially true when Brexit is around the corner. We thought we would be safe for the time being just registering for VAT in the UK, with the expectation that our EU registration would be ready in time for the split, but Shopify is a little overzealous in that regard, and they are already expecting a separate EU VAT number, so we have to wait for that.
And all this is to say, we are just a small team trying to do big things in the right way, which sometimes take more time than expected. And we decided for now, the best way forward was a phased approach (US now, international later) to try and satisfy as many customers as possible, so we can at least make some holidays happier.
Here is one last link to the webstore, for those interested. Just so I'm clear here, we overhauled the entire website, and it is beautiful and worth checking out, even if you don't have any interest in all the merch.
In other news, at this stage in the pandemic, things have devolved into me playing asynchronous board games online. You know asynchronous games, right? Where I take a move and then spend four hours studying the board state until you take your move?
Seriously, I'm not even playing that many games, and still, the amount of brain power and attention I am investing into them is not healthy. Just now I just got a notification for my Castles of Burgundy game, and had to go see what my opponent did before finishing this paragraph.
But the big ones are Terra Mystica, where I am playing a very intense prototype game of the new Innovations version with a bunch of prominent people in that community. It is fascinating and stressful. And then I've also had an ongoing chain of Through the Ages games for the past few months, none of which I have
lost.
And I don't say that to brag, but if you ever have the chance to play Through the Ages over and over with the same group of people and win every time, you will notice a certain meta begins to develop, where they really get tired of you winning. People stop offering you pacts. They attack you every opportunity they get. Even when you're
behind, they expect you to find some way to come back and win (which I admittedly do). One of my friends characterized me as the Patriots, which my wife was very amused by.
The problem is that there is nowhere to go but down. When everyone expects you to win, you can either meet their expectations or fail. Crap, I just did the thing again where I may not actually be talking about the thing I'm talking about. Probably best not to dwell on it. I'll just say that I sympathize with the Patriots, at least a little bit.
And with that, I must bid you farewell and go take my turn in Terra Mystica. Please stay safe, and I'll talk to you later!
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