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Hey again, backers!
Just a disclaimer, with US economic policy fluctuating so chaotically, keep in mind that what we discuss here could be subject to change.
Thank you all for your input in our last update regarding the tariffs. We appreciate your passionate response. We’ve read all the comments and we’re listening to what you’re saying. This is a tough situation for us to be in, but we have some ideas on how to make it all work.
At the time of posting this update, we’ve decided that we want to find a way to fulfill Wave 2A to US backers without having to charge anyone more. We understand the frustration many have with our delays on this project, and beyond that, we just don’t feel right about charging backers an extra fee to compensate for this.
Not only do we not feel right about charging backers more, we also have no idea what will happen between now and fulfillment. We could theoretically charge US backers, raise the money, and then the tariff could spike up to 200%, or 500%, or drop to 0%... No one really knows. The situation is simply too volatile and unpredictable for this to be an option.
We are working with both our factory and our fulfillment warehouses to temporarily store US orders in China (or somewhere) and fulfill all other regions . There’s really no reason to withhold all orders when the issue is just US tariffs on China.
The other annoying thing is that we can’t give you a timeframe on how long US orders will be on hold because this situation is changing every day. We’ll either need to wait things out until these tariffs ease up (we saw today that they might), find a legal strategy to exempt the deliveries, or find a new source of funds to deliver US orders with a 145% tax.
To be transparent, this tax would cost us about $400k for just US Wave 2A orders...
While we’re getting this sorted, we plan on releasing the full PDFs for this project available for free online so that if you’re so inclined, you can print-and-play at home while we find a solution to deliver the real thing. We plan on providing all our miniatures as downloadable STL files soon.
Lastly, we’re working on getting the fully scripted TTS mod up and running for all to play (for free).
This production run would cost us more to import into the US than it did to manufacture. That is just wild. To overcome this tremendous added expense and get these orders fulfilled, we'll need some cunning tactics, but also money.
Succubus Publishing is purely a crowdfunding company. We don't have a huge inventory of surplus product or a retail presence that provides us reliable revenue. The capital at our disposal has all been received through this campaign, it's subsequent preorders, and through our own webstore.
We did not budget for these tariffs. They were put into place with no warning and with no time for us to come up with a contingency plan. We'd started production before they existed. And to be honest, we can't afford to pay it. All of our capital is earmarked for production and fulfillment of this campaign.
What this means is that as we look for options to fulfill this Kickstarter to US customers, we will need to continue operating the company and continue to release products to keep the lights on.
We've received pushback on this in the past. Our only alternative would be to completely pause all operations until this clears up, (not a popular option in the comments last update) or slowly bleed out hoping things resolve themselves.
Aside from playtesting and final layout, this campaign has been done for months. Behind the scenes we've been working on new expansions for Middara, as well as new products.
We are getting ahead of design and development so that when we launch a new product, it's either ready to be shipped, or in the case of new crowdfunding launches, in playtesting phase before we go live.
We have three new smaller Middara expansions and multiple new crowdfunding projects in the works with a few already in the playtesting phase with groups on TTS. We’ve also been putting together an in-house resin production team (made in the USA). This will allow print-on-demand for new releases with a much better price and quicker turnaround than our old resin kits.
These new product launches were scheduled to be released around the waves of fulfillment for this Kickstarter. With these fulfillment dates hindered by forces out of our control, our entire plan was put into limbo.
In order to have any chance of getting through this, we need to move forward with our scheduled new releases, even with US Wave 2A and worldwide 2B orders in a state of fulfillment timeline uncertainty.
We love working with our current factory in China, but the reality is that if these tariffs stick, we can’t produce US versions of Middara there any more.
We are in conversation with a handful of promising board game manufacturers located all over the world that may allow us to manufacture future products without having to pay insane tariffs at the US port and significantly raise the MSRP for future products. As far as their ability to achieve the same quality as we require, we’re not sure yet.
We’ll keep you posted on progress here.
We’ve got to keep moving and keep creating. That’s why our designers and artists are not skipping a beat and are hard at work completing playtesting of Unintentional Malum: Act 2 & 3 and making new and fun stuff that we can only hope you’ll be interested in.
As far as our progress on the remainder of this campaign, we are on schedule to hit our goals of completing all playtesting by mid to late May. We are being forced to stay hyper-focused on the positives and are not allowing ourselves to get bogged down with things we can’t control.
Sadly, we have been hearing about more and more board game publishers throwing in the towel and filing for bankruptcy with unfulfilled campaigns under their name.
Succubus doesn’t want to be another casualty of our current times. We will do anything and everything we can to deliver the games you ordered. With the state of things right now, we’d like to be transparent and let you know: yes, we’re going to have to keep creating and releasing our new products on schedule, and yes, we’re now going to need to use that profit to fulfill this project under the current trade restrictions.
We just hope that you trust us enough to continue supporting our endeavors.
Talk soon.
