Lovely to see the acknowledgment of corporate corner cutting messing up delivery of books across the world.
But it's worse than that. Just received this from my FLGS.
We regret to inform you that Wizards of the Coast have significantly reduced the number of D&D 2024 Player’s Handbooks (Hobby Store Exclusive Cover) available to the Australia/New Zealand region.
Due to ongoing production and distribution issues on WOTC’s side, only just over 1000 copies were allocated to this entire region, meaning stores, including ours, have had their expected supply dramatically slashed.
While we accounted for our allocation to be less than originally promised to avoid disappointment for our customers, we’ve received less than 10% of our original allocation, which is far less than we anticipated.
Despite the clear demand, WOTC has confirmed they are not planning a reprint of the Hobby Store Exclusive Cover to address this shortfall.
Additionally, all 2024 Player’s Handbooks, including the standard edition, have been delayed by WOTC until October 18th.
We understand how frustrating this is to everyone....
As we source more of the Hobby Store exclusive covers, we will notify you all first.
This is an incredibly upsetting situation for everyone, and we thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through this.
If you're going to offer a product, the least you can do is deliver. Maybe this is what Hasbro/WotC mean when they're "all in" on digital.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DId you know? The DDB marketplace has REMOVED the option for purchasing one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters "a la carte". Now you ALWAYS have to buy the ENTIRE book instead.
Unhappy? UNSUBSCRIBE and Let them know your thoughts!
What is more likely? That there is some big conspiracy to try and push digital sales of a player handbook explicitly designed for paper play? Or that you have not been following the publishing industry for the past couple of years?
The reality? Publishing was hit extremely hard by Covid. Wood pulp was hit particularly hard by supply chain issues and publishing generally became more expensive. Wizards may be a big publisher by independent standards - and the biggest publisher in the table top gaming industry by several orders of magnitude - but they are still small fish against your big ticket publishing companies and have nowhere close to their power.
What does that mean? Things have been messed up, particularly in certain markets. They have had numerous issues with delivering books recently - and are having issues delivering the regular cover to the Australian and South Pacific marker. In order to make up for the production issues on the main book, something has to be sacrificed -that something is going to be the special editions which have a more limited distribution and likely higher production difficulty due to special treatments like the holographic cover.
Making sure you can meet production of the product and get as many books as possible into players’ hands, even if it means some players might have to settle for a different book, is hardly “corporate cost cutting” - it is a disappointing necessity of survival and product development in the current hell that is the publishing industry.
What is more likely? That there is some big conspiracy to try and push digital sales of a player handbook explicitly designed for paper play? Or that you have not been following the publishing industry for the past couple of years?
The reality? Publishing was hit extremely hard by Covid. Wood pulp was hit particularly hard by supply chain issues and publishing generally became more expensive. Wizards may be a big publisher by independent standards - and the biggest publisher in the table top gaming industry by several orders of magnitude - but they are still small fish against your big ticket publishing companies and have nowhere close to their power.
What does that mean? Things have been messed up, particularly in certain markets. They have had numerous issues with delivering books recently - and are having issues delivering the regular cover to the Australian and South Pacific marker. In order to make up for the production issues on the main book, something has to be sacrificed -that something is going to be the special editions which have a more limited distribution and likely higher production difficulty due to special treatments like the holographic cover.
Making sure you can meet production of the product and get as many books as possible into players’ hands, even if it means some players might have to settle for a different book, is hardly “corporate cost cutting” - it is a disappointing necessity of survival and product development in the current hell that is the publishing industry.
Every excuse made here were known issues before the books were promised/sold. Acting as if the people that were sold a bill of goods are to blame for their unhappiness is just victim blaming, and will only fan the flames. I remember when I thought WotC could do no wrong, but that was well before the started ruining this site and their reputation.
What is more likely? That there is some big conspiracy to try and push digital sales of a player handbook explicitly designed for paper play? Or that you have not been following the publishing industry for the past couple of years?
The reality? Publishing was hit extremely hard by Covid. Wood pulp was hit particularly hard by supply chain issues and publishing generally became more expensive. Wizards may be a big publisher by independent standards - and the biggest publisher in the table top gaming industry by several orders of magnitude - but they are still small fish against your big ticket publishing companies and have nowhere close to their power.
What does that mean? Things have been messed up, particularly in certain markets. They have had numerous issues with delivering books recently - and are having issues delivering the regular cover to the Australian and South Pacific marker. In order to make up for the production issues on the main book, something has to be sacrificed -that something is going to be the special editions which have a more limited distribution and likely higher production difficulty due to special treatments like the holographic cover.
Making sure you can meet production of the product and get as many books as possible into players’ hands, even if it means some players might have to settle for a different book, is hardly “corporate cost cutting” - it is a disappointing necessity of survival and product development in the current hell that is the publishing industry.
Every excuse made here were known issues before the books were promised/sold. Acting as if the people that were sold a bill of goods are to blame for their unhappiness is just victim blaming, and will only fan the flames. I remember when I thought WotC could do no wrong, but that was well before the started ruining this site and their reputation.
It's not victim blaming, it's shit happens. If a supply order fell through mid-production, it can be pretty hard to fill that gap in a timely fashion. I work AP and write up some procurement forms at a civil construction company, and I've seen the mess of scrambling it can create when an order of steel gets screwed up at the wrong time in the project. There's a lot of raw materials that you put an order in for months ahead of time because it's all snapped up as quickly as it's produced, which consequently means there's a whole queue of pending orders that have first claim on everything coming off the line if you suddenly find yourself in need of the product. Knowing there's a problem doesn't always mean an ideal solution can be found.
What is more likely? That there is some big conspiracy to try and push digital sales of a player handbook explicitly designed for paper play? Or that you have not been following the publishing industry for the past couple of years?
The reality? Publishing was hit extremely hard by Covid. Wood pulp was hit particularly hard by supply chain issues and publishing generally became more expensive. Wizards may be a big publisher by independent standards - and the biggest publisher in the table top gaming industry by several orders of magnitude - but they are still small fish against your big ticket publishing companies and have nowhere close to their power.
What does that mean? Things have been messed up, particularly in certain markets. They have had numerous issues with delivering books recently - and are having issues delivering the regular cover to the Australian and South Pacific marker. In order to make up for the production issues on the main book, something has to be sacrificed -that something is going to be the special editions which have a more limited distribution and likely higher production difficulty due to special treatments like the holographic cover.
Making sure you can meet production of the product and get as many books as possible into players’ hands, even if it means some players might have to settle for a different book, is hardly “corporate cost cutting” - it is a disappointing necessity of survival and product development in the current hell that is the publishing industry.
Every excuse made here were known issues before the books were promised/sold. Acting as if the people that were sold a bill of goods are to blame for their unhappiness is just victim blaming, and will only fan the flames. I remember when I thought WotC could do no wrong, but that was well before the started ruining this site and their reputation.
It's not victim blaming, it's shit happens. If a supply order fell through mid-production, it can be pretty hard to fill that gap in a timely fashion. I work AP and write up some procurement forms at a civil construction company, and I've seen the mess of scrambling it can create when an order of steel gets screwed up at the wrong time in the project. There's a lot of raw materials that you put an order in for months ahead of time because it's all snapped up as quickly as it's produced, which consequently means there's a whole queue of pending orders that have first claim on everything coming off the line if you suddenly find yourself in need of the product. Knowing there's a problem doesn't always mean an ideal solution can be found.
It is poor planning at best, and letting the wrong things/people drive the schedule. This has to be one of the saddest rollouts seen in the last decade by a company this big. The most memorable thing about D&D's 50th is how bad the PHB release was botched on all fronts from digital (character tools will be messed up for who knows how long) to print. But hey let's just tell the customers they should understand and just be happy!
What is more likely? That there is some big conspiracy to try and push digital sales of a player handbook explicitly designed for paper play? Or that you have not been following the publishing industry for the past couple of years?
The reality? Publishing was hit extremely hard by Covid. Wood pulp was hit particularly hard by supply chain issues and publishing generally became more expensive. Wizards may be a big publisher by independent standards - and the biggest publisher in the table top gaming industry by several orders of magnitude - but they are still small fish against your big ticket publishing companies and have nowhere close to their power.
What does that mean? Things have been messed up, particularly in certain markets. They have had numerous issues with delivering books recently - and are having issues delivering the regular cover to the Australian and South Pacific marker. In order to make up for the production issues on the main book, something has to be sacrificed -that something is going to be the special editions which have a more limited distribution and likely higher production difficulty due to special treatments like the holographic cover.
Making sure you can meet production of the product and get as many books as possible into players’ hands, even if it means some players might have to settle for a different book, is hardly “corporate cost cutting” - it is a disappointing necessity of survival and product development in the current hell that is the publishing industry.
Every excuse made here were known issues before the books were promised/sold. Acting as if the people that were sold a bill of goods are to blame for their unhappiness is just victim blaming, and will only fan the flames. I remember when I thought WotC could do no wrong, but that was well before the started ruining this site and their reputation.
It's not victim blaming, it's shit happens. If a supply order fell through mid-production, it can be pretty hard to fill that gap in a timely fashion. I work AP and write up some procurement forms at a civil construction company, and I've seen the mess of scrambling it can create when an order of steel gets screwed up at the wrong time in the project. There's a lot of raw materials that you put an order in for months ahead of time because it's all snapped up as quickly as it's produced, which consequently means there's a whole queue of pending orders that have first claim on everything coming off the line if you suddenly find yourself in need of the product. Knowing there's a problem doesn't always mean an ideal solution can be found.
It is poor planning at best, and letting the wrong things/people drive the schedule. This has to be one of the saddest rollouts seen in the last decade by a company this big. The most memorable thing about D&D's 50th is how bad the PHB release was botched on all fronts from digital (character tools will be messed up for who knows how long) to print. But hey let's just tell the customers they should understand and just be happy!
Right, because clearly Wizards should have been able to see the future and know if they were going to have an unexpected shortage and be unable to find the materials to make up the difference. Again, the at best is "shit happens"; something unforeseeable could easily have disrupted the production process badly enough that they couldn't get it back on track in a workable timeframe.
How do you know this is a shortage, there are plenty of reports it was poor manufacturing, a choice squarely in WotC's wheel house. A choice that they (should) have been learning to make for well over a decade. This is no black swan event, it was a gamble and they are losing. Clearly there is one thing driving things for D&D, and it is not happy customers.
Many posting in WotC's defense now are the same people saying how they have been doing this forever, and we just need to trust the process. Many are out of trust for WotC at this point.
I think the underpants gnomes are running the show.
They don't see their future profits in the physical book market, and it shows by this shoddy rollout. That's just reality.
Since your posts have devolved into groundless (and wrong) personal attacks, I was going to ignore you - but the above sentence is a commonly repeated claim by the conspiracists on this site and warrants a response, lest anyone who might be misled by this nonsense confuses your ramblings for fact.
For starters, while the physical rollout has been plagued by longstanding, industry-wide problems outside Wizards’ control, on the whole, it seems to be going well in most regions. Conversely, their digital rollout has bug-ridden disaster, entirely of Wizards’ own making. If one were inclined to make a conspiracy theory, it is easier to spin an (equally foolish) narrative that 5.24 is designed to kill digital in favor of paper than the other way around.
There also exists overwhelming evidence of Wizards’ commitment to physical play. This is the first player handbook in five decades to take the physical realities of pen and paper play into account, including notes in the character builder section to prevent you from having to use white out or leave eraser smudges due to choosing an option early which might change based on later factors. The PHB is full of art showing people playing at their tabletop. They heavily promoted the physical book, including with a physical play game store event. They have repeatedly talked about how much money physical products make them. Ever single decision maker talks about how they are in person players.
It is abundantly clear Wizards is committed to physical play throughout 5.24 (and almost certainly beyond as well). Anyone trying to push a contrary narrative is either not paying attention, angry and lashing out without engaging in even a base level of critical thinking, or purposefully engaging in misinformation to push a narrative.
They don't see their future profits in the physical book market, and it shows by this shoddy rollout. That's just reality.
Since your posts have devolved into groundless (and wrong) personal attacks, I was going to ignore you - but the above sentence is a commonly repeated claim by the conspiracists on this site and warrants a response, lest anyone who might be misled by this nonsense confuses your ramblings for fact.
For starters, while the physical rollout has been plagued by longstanding, industry-wide problems outside Wizards’ control, on the whole, it seems to be going well in most regions. Conversely, their digital rollout has bug-ridden disaster, entirely of Wizards’ own making. If one were inclined to make a conspiracy theory, it is easier to spin an (equally foolish) narrative that 5.24 is designed to kill digital in favor of paper than the other way around.
There also exists overwhelming evidence of Wizards’ commitment to physical play. This is the first player handbook in five decades to take the physical realities of pen and paper play into account, including notes in the character builder section to prevent you from having to use white out or leave eraser smudges due to choosing an option early which might change based on later factors. The PHB is full of art showing people playing at their tabletop. They heavily promoted the physical book, including with a physical play game store event. They have repeatedly talked about how much money physical products make them. Ever single decision maker talks about how they are in person players.
It is abundantly clear Wizards is committed to physical play throughout 5.24 (and almost certainly beyond as well). Anyone trying to push a contrary narrative is either not paying attention, angry and lashing out without engaging in even a base level of critical thinking, or purposefully engaging in misinformation to push a narrative.
Or people have just been paying attention to WotC's actions, and not the extremely limited lip service that is self contradicting on the rare occasions they say anything. In the places they are unable to control the narrative and players can speak freely WotC is not thought of very well and with every punishment and misstep they lose players. They may have the most, but the direction they are heading having the most players may not be enough. WotC has the most overhead too, and they need far more players than their nearest competition to meet the financial goals required for them to keep moving forward. Customer retention is going to hurt if they keep chasing customers off at every opportunity. They had plenty of time to get this rollout right, and it looks like what it is, something that was thrown together and rushed out with no consideration to how it was to work or would be received, just how much money it was going to make. The work speaks for it's self.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Lovely to see the acknowledgment of corporate corner cutting messing up delivery of books across the world.
But it's worse than that. Just received this from my FLGS.
Due to ongoing production and distribution issues on WOTC’s side, only just over 1000 copies were allocated to this entire region, meaning stores, including ours, have had their expected supply dramatically slashed.
If you're going to offer a product, the least you can do is deliver.
Maybe this is what Hasbro/WotC mean when they're "all in" on digital.
DId you know?
The DDB marketplace has REMOVED the option for purchasing one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters "a la carte".
Now you ALWAYS have to buy the ENTIRE book instead.
Unhappy? UNSUBSCRIBE and
Let them know your thoughts!
What is more likely? That there is some big conspiracy to try and push digital sales of a player handbook explicitly designed for paper play? Or that you have not been following the publishing industry for the past couple of years?
The reality? Publishing was hit extremely hard by Covid. Wood pulp was hit particularly hard by supply chain issues and publishing generally became more expensive. Wizards may be a big publisher by independent standards - and the biggest publisher in the table top gaming industry by several orders of magnitude - but they are still small fish against your big ticket publishing companies and have nowhere close to their power.
What does that mean? Things have been messed up, particularly in certain markets. They have had numerous issues with delivering books recently - and are having issues delivering the regular cover to the Australian and South Pacific marker. In order to make up for the production issues on the main book, something has to be sacrificed -that something is going to be the special editions which have a more limited distribution and likely higher production difficulty due to special treatments like the holographic cover.
Making sure you can meet production of the product and get as many books as possible into players’ hands, even if it means some players might have to settle for a different book, is hardly “corporate cost cutting” - it is a disappointing necessity of survival and product development in the current hell that is the publishing industry.
Every excuse made here were known issues before the books were promised/sold. Acting as if the people that were sold a bill of goods are to blame for their unhappiness is just victim blaming, and will only fan the flames. I remember when I thought WotC could do no wrong, but that was well before the started ruining this site and their reputation.
It's not victim blaming, it's shit happens. If a supply order fell through mid-production, it can be pretty hard to fill that gap in a timely fashion. I work AP and write up some procurement forms at a civil construction company, and I've seen the mess of scrambling it can create when an order of steel gets screwed up at the wrong time in the project. There's a lot of raw materials that you put an order in for months ahead of time because it's all snapped up as quickly as it's produced, which consequently means there's a whole queue of pending orders that have first claim on everything coming off the line if you suddenly find yourself in need of the product. Knowing there's a problem doesn't always mean an ideal solution can be found.
It is poor planning at best, and letting the wrong things/people drive the schedule. This has to be one of the saddest rollouts seen in the last decade by a company this big. The most memorable thing about D&D's 50th is how bad the PHB release was botched on all fronts from digital (character tools will be messed up for who knows how long) to print. But hey let's just tell the customers they should understand and just be happy!
Right, because clearly Wizards should have been able to see the future and know if they were going to have an unexpected shortage and be unable to find the materials to make up the difference. Again, the at best is "shit happens"; something unforeseeable could easily have disrupted the production process badly enough that they couldn't get it back on track in a workable timeframe.
How do you know this is a shortage, there are plenty of reports it was poor manufacturing, a choice squarely in WotC's wheel house. A choice that they (should) have been learning to make for well over a decade. This is no black swan event, it was a gamble and they are losing. Clearly there is one thing driving things for D&D, and it is not happy customers.
Many posting in WotC's defense now are the same people saying how they have been doing this forever, and we just need to trust the process. Many are out of trust for WotC at this point.
I think the underpants gnomes are running the show.
Since your posts have devolved into groundless (and wrong) personal attacks, I was going to ignore you - but the above sentence is a commonly repeated claim by the conspiracists on this site and warrants a response, lest anyone who might be misled by this nonsense confuses your ramblings for fact.
For starters, while the physical rollout has been plagued by longstanding, industry-wide problems outside Wizards’ control, on the whole, it seems to be going well in most regions. Conversely, their digital rollout has bug-ridden disaster, entirely of Wizards’ own making. If one were inclined to make a conspiracy theory, it is easier to spin an (equally foolish) narrative that 5.24 is designed to kill digital in favor of paper than the other way around.
There also exists overwhelming evidence of Wizards’ commitment to physical play. This is the first player handbook in five decades to take the physical realities of pen and paper play into account, including notes in the character builder section to prevent you from having to use white out or leave eraser smudges due to choosing an option early which might change based on later factors. The PHB is full of art showing people playing at their tabletop. They heavily promoted the physical book, including with a physical play game store event. They have repeatedly talked about how much money physical products make them. Ever single decision maker talks about how they are in person players.
It is abundantly clear Wizards is committed to physical play throughout 5.24 (and almost certainly beyond as well). Anyone trying to push a contrary narrative is either not paying attention, angry and lashing out without engaging in even a base level of critical thinking, or purposefully engaging in misinformation to push a narrative.
Or people have just been paying attention to WotC's actions, and not the extremely limited lip service that is self contradicting on the rare occasions they say anything. In the places they are unable to control the narrative and players can speak freely WotC is not thought of very well and with every punishment and misstep they lose players. They may have the most, but the direction they are heading having the most players may not be enough. WotC has the most overhead too, and they need far more players than their nearest competition to meet the financial goals required for them to keep moving forward. Customer retention is going to hurt if they keep chasing customers off at every opportunity. They had plenty of time to get this rollout right, and it looks like what it is, something that was thrown together and rushed out with no consideration to how it was to work or would be received, just how much money it was going to make. The work speaks for it's self.