We did not make our early Apr 13 release date for Total War. We held off making an announcement about this until now because there was still a good chance that we could get the game out this month, even if late, and we were working hard to make that occur. But it is now apparent that the game\u2019s release will be delayed into May 13. However, our determination to get the game out has not changed; and we are confident that we will recover from this setback.<\/p>\n
So what happened?<\/p>\n
The Fire Sale was going well and we reached our overall goal of raising the money need to finish the printing of the game and most of the money needed to ship it. Things were going so well that we had started to tell callers that the Total War pre-pub would be ending very soon. We planned to continue the rest of the sale right up to the release date so as to allow everyone the opportunity to bundle things to ship with their copy of Total War.<\/p>\n
Then a setback occurred: We were hit with a hefty supplemental bill for the cleanup from the fire that we had not expected at all. Paying this meant we had to delay some of the final printing. Still, by the end of March we had partially recovered. We had renegotiated our contract with UPS such that our shipping costs with them went down overall (the increased shipping volume from the fire sale really helped here), and we found a way to lower our shipping costs through the Post Office by using Priority Mail Regional Rate Boxes, one of which is a nice fit for Total War (before the recent postal increase these boxes could only be used in a narrow area around Colorado, whereas now they can be used anywhere in US — although the post office certainly doesn\u2019t advertise this). We had also started changeover to a lower-cost credit card processing service and a lower-cost toll-free number provider. The fire sale continued to progress well.<\/p>\n
In late March, one of our local printers installed a raft of new printing equipment that lower print costs for some things a bit (due to higher speed of machines) and that has the potential to make possible a number of future projects many of our customers have asked for. These could include small print runs of the currently out-of-print Second Front, War in the Desert, and\/or a March to Victory add-on to Over There where the countersheets are done locally on a high-end laser cutter-engraver machine. Just a potential right now; but the printer is doing test runs for us; and we\u2019ll be talking more about this in future posts.<\/p>\n
We have had a series of meetings with our secured investors who have veto authority over anything we do until they are repaid. We laid out a number of options on how to proceed. They agreed we should spend more money on advertising, expanding the fire sale mailing from the current mailing list so that it can go out to many more of the names in a database we purchased from another game company. They also were enthusiastic about the potential for doing laser-cut counters and urged us pursue this as a back-up plan to the fire sale if necessary (subject to a detailed cost analysis before money is committed). We also talked about releasing the rules\/charts electronically but they would not agree to this as they see it negatively impacting sales.<\/p>\n
We will be using the time while the Fire Sale continues to:<\/p>\n
1) Put out an email\/print mailing to everyone who has Total War on order that will list the shipping address you have on file, any special instructions attached to your order, and your order sequence number. This mailing will ask you to confirm the information (and doing so will move up your order sequence number if your address was last verified over six months ago), and will give you one last opportunity to access the Fire Sale (with any order going out in a bundle with your Total War). This will go out next week to all 1200 pre-pubs, so if you haven\u2019t received your confirmation notice by Monday, 29Apr13 then be sure let us know.<\/p>\n
2) Compile\/print a multi-page survey that will ship with all copies of Total War. This survey will ask detailed questions about what you want to see from HMS next, and over the short term (rest of year) and the long-term. This will be a major opportunity for you to influence the future of Europa, Glory, and The Great War..<\/p>\n
For the current and final version of the Fire Sale see the HMSFireSaleFinal\u00a0link under the HMS News – July 18, 20<\/p>\n