In light of the unnecessary and bizarre global trade pressures, we made the decision to refine Far Away: Corporate Espionage while we wait for the chaos to subside. We decided this before the partial policy reversal, but we already started making extra content and we want to finish that. The game could always use more playtesting too, so we’ll take advantage of the extra weeks to ensure the best product possible.
This all leaves the open question of when we’ll ship. To help answer that, it’s helpful to understand the scope of remaining work. Here is the breakdown of what’s still pending.
Add additional creatures and complete QA.
Start base game manufacturing process (China).
Miniature design.
Start miniature manufacturing process (US).
Swag design.
Start swag manufacturing process (US).
Freight shipment of the base game.
Arrival of all goods at CPG HQ.
Fulfillment.
We’ll still update the PNP until we start production, so please check out the FA:CE page and check out the content.
We’ll include an FAQ here for all the production related questions. Please leave a comments if you have something unanswered.
Why isn’t there a set start time on your schedule?
Our greatest fear right now is starting Chinese production and getting games stranded there due to an inability (or unwillingness) to pay the tariffs.
Can’t you raise prices to account for tariffs?
We technically could, but it’s a bad idea for a couple reasons. First, we already raised the funds on Gamefound. We can charge more to release the games, but we’d trigger an option to have people eligible for refunds. We suspect non-US backers would strongly oppose this increase and opt-out of support, thus removing our ability to pay for any part of the game. Second, if this tariff situation is ended quickly by someone folding after their poorly veiled bluff, then we’d be saddled with a game with an arbitrarily high sales price. As we’ve previously written about, we need a longer-term strategy for game sales.
I’m outside of the US, why should I care about any of this?
Fundamentally, there are not a lot of games that need to end up outside the US, as has been the case for all of CPG’s games. If the only part of the campaign was the expansion, it’d also be less of an issue. However, all the copies of the base Far Away are in the US (as will be the miniatures too). There’s not a logical way to ship the different pieces of the order from different parts of the world – it would be expensive, challenging at a small scale, and add a lot of fulfillment complexity.
Why do you have to make the games in China?
There isn’t another option. The only factories outside of China either require higher minimums than are feasible (Cardimundi) or are so expensive that it is cheaper to pay the tariffs (GameCrafter). Board games are an industry built on the backbone of cheap labor.