In an effort to ensure that information posted by DPG in one place is repeated to affected parties outside of that one subject, I am cross-posting this from an update to the HoN-TacCG.
1. The kickstarter and the situation at the time.
The project was launched in October 2016, its delivery planned for June 2017.
With a delay of about one year, sprinkled with intermittent communication, it is time to plainly admit this enterprise has run a terrible course.
The reasons for the delay :
We underestimated how the sheer size of the Strategic Resupply Kickstarter would overstretch the capability of our structure, inevitably demanding way more time to finish than had been planned.
Alas, we made this error again during the Heroes of Normandie the Tactical Card Game Kickstarter. By now both productions were overlapping each other and as they needed to be dealt with simultaneously, more problems arose.
2. At the very beginning of the year 2017 a pack of trouble had already surfaced…
The funds raised by the Heroes of Normandie the Tactical Card Game Kickstarter weren’t sufficient to hire the desired number of people we needed to alleviate the workload. A decision had to be made which resulted in launching the Kickstarter for Age of Towers, a game by Guillaume Mazoyer, that had taken us 2 years to develop.
Was this the right decision? Not necessarily. Were other solutions possible? Certainly. We accept these choices regardless of the consequences.
The Age of Towers Kickstarter was successful, but as we were hoping for an even better result, too much gaming material was provided (again).
The second problem was the dispatch of Kharnage that was being handled as the Age of Towers Kickstarter took place. Upon opening the container in their depot, the American dispatcher finally discovered that they had managed to forget ALL the stuff in China.
The third problem was the exceptional complexity of the Strategic Resupply first wave dispatch. This demanded way more time than was planned for and cost an enormous amount of money.
The fact that Axel suffered severe health problems due to a ton of work constituted the fourth, but not the least, of the problems.
The development of Heroes of Normandie The Tactical Card Game had been finished since the end of July. Suddenly the project's progress was stopped dead in its tracks. The French factory, which had initially agreed to manufacture the game, withdrew after fully realising the quantity of products and items items that needed to be printed.
Apart from all that, Age of Towers suffered delay as well due to a nasty misunderstanding between the Chinese factory and us, causing a communications stop that lasted two whole months.
China had just signed the Paris Climate agreement and demanded that Chinese factories immediately complied with the new regulations. Hence our usual supplier was suddenly compelled to build an entirely new factory, which of course took a while.
A previously unexpected business opportunity presented itself at the end of 2016. Games Workshop, the brand known all over the world in the Games industry was quite interested to link their Warhammer 40,000 brand to our Heroes System Tactical Scale. For Yann and Clem, both passionate fans of this gaming universe, it was quite unbelievable to get this chance. Once more they had to make a decision, a very difficult one, given the already tough and complicated situation. Either they could pass up the occasion or throw this venture on top of all the other projects still pending and delayed. You are well aware of their final decision.
Was this a good solution? It didn't seem to be at first since all the projects would wind up at the same time in the factory somewhere between December and January.
Luckily, late November, Age of Towers was sent into production followed by Heroes of Black Reach.
In December, the same factory that was to manufacture Age of Towers sent us the best offer so far for Heroes of Normandie the Tactical Card Game.
This entailed an inevitable resizing of the printing files for cut-out purposes and such. This was finished in early February. All orders had been checked as well.
This situation was like an electric shock to Yann and Clem. Things simply could not go on like this. A proverbial wall loomed up right in front of us and we were about to slam into it.
Besides the assessment of this reality, we needed to find solutions that would allow us to keep going until Age of Towers and Heroes of Black Reach could be retailed.
3. Situation awareness and current situation.
DPG had several shortcomings in its organisation, planning management and calculation of profitability. For way too long, these aspects weren't sufficiently taken seriously, in spite of alarming warnings from Sandy and certain other people close to the crew.
Facing the faults in the project management, Yann and Clem have asked Sandy to become project manager. She is in charge of creating retro plannings, to point out what is feasible or not, given the different deadlines. She also calculates the profitability of each project.
There has been a thorough reorganisation affecting the information structure on the hard disks as well as the organisation of the projects. The first process sheets are now in use.
As a result Axel becomes production assistant and oversees the verification of the files.
This will not revolutionize everything immediately but it has definitely triggered important improvements that are still invisible to you for the time being.
4. A new Devil Pig Games
We are now 7 working at DPG, incuding 1 part-time trainee :
Yann : manager, game designer, in charge of production
Clem : game designer, editor, illustrator
Alexandre : art director, illustrator and graphic artist
Olivier : illustrator and graphic artist
Sandy : projects and events manager, in charge of logistics, sales, administration, finances
Axel : community manager, editor, production assistant, in charge of verifications
Raphaël : trainee community manager
CONCLUSION
We handled things poorly and made disputable choices.
It isn't all bad though. Despite all these difficulties we have always given it our best against all odds. Now we are on the brink of delivering 3 new projects within 3 months. Even though the company needed reorganisation, we remain a strong motivated team, ready to take on new challenges.
The next hurdle to take will be Heroes of Stalingrad and thanks to the new organisation, quite a big portion of the work has already been done during the past few weeks. We shall use a new Kickstarter format that is shorter (15 days), simpler (no add-ons), not so heavy (15 well-determined stretch-goals, no last minute). In short, we cease to promise you the moon.
Instead we are just as happy to offer you a surveyable, well-handled project!
Good news : Recently we received the first boxes of Age of Towers and the quality of these has filled us with delight.
Heroes of Black Reach should be arriving soon.
The Tactical Card Game is being manufactured as well, we are expecting the factory to send pictures very soon.
Yann, Clem and the whole Devil Pig Team
haut de page
