Shipping in the Time of COVID-19 (i.e. Fulfilment Update)
about 4 years ago
– Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 01:08:42 AM
Dear backers,
It’s been a long road but we’re finally seeing the last stretch ahead of us. We’re happy to report that all the shipments to the USA, Canada and Australia are completely fulfilled at this point. European shippings are 90% fulfilled, mostly delivered or currently en route to their destination.
Sadly, there are some lingering problems with a few countries. Due to the current worldwide situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, some governments have dramatically slowed down or even completely blocked shipments towards their country for packages above a certain size (and the carton containing Alone is indeed quite big). These are the countries that are completely off limits for our fulfilment partners at this moment:
- France, Luxembourg (173 backers)
- Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru (11 backers)
- China, Hong Kong (2 backers)
- India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand (44 backers)
- Kuwait, New Caledonia, South Africa, Uzbekistan (4 backers)
This is unfortunately completely out of our control, and our hubs are holding on to the parcels (both the returned ones and those that were not shipped yet) until the situation in these countries normalizes. For France in particular we've seen many packages being returned to the sender, forcing us to immediately halt the operations until shipments will be open again.
Unfortunately we can’t do anything about this at this moment: we know you’d love to have your game as soon as possible, but we also understand that the governments around the world need to fight this pandemic with any means necessary. If you’re located in one of these countries, rest assured we’ll get your pledge to you as soon as it is allowed to resume shipments by your government.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to us via email at [email protected] if you are from one of the areas where fulfilment is supposed to be complete and you still didn’t receive your tracking code, or if you need any further assistance!
Sincerely,
the Horrible Team
Shipping update: fulfillment is starting in all missing regions (finally)!
about 4 years ago
– Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 03:08:31 AM
Dear backers,
after a few frustrating weeks for all of us, we can finally confirm that the shipping of Alone is finally starting in all missing regions! QML and Fulfillment Europe already started to send out tracking codes (and we've also seen some backers share the happy news in the comments), while VFI Asia has prepared all the packages and is also going to start shipping as soon as possible.
The tracking codes are being sent out in batches, so please keep in mind that the hubs are working at a diminished capacity because of the ongoing pandemic emergency, with less people working the process is slower that in usually is as you can easily imagine. If you didn't receive your tracking code just yet, you should only have to wait for a tiny bit more, it will arrive soon.
If you need any further assistance, don't hesitate to contact us either here or at the email address [email protected]!
Sincerely,
the Horrible team
Alone street date broken in Germany... and it's our fault.
about 4 years ago
– Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 01:30:54 AM
Dear backers,
we understand the Alone shipping situation is frustrating... for you all, of course, but for us too: we're constantly checking with our EU hub to understand when they'll finally be able to start the fullfillment, but our power to actually make things happen faster is close to zero unfortunately. We finally got to understand that the issue seems to lay in a part of the shipment, including some of the add-ons and stretch goals, that got delayed at the customs and was cleared much later than the rest, causing the whole process to slow down significantly. The good news is that the EU fulfillment should start — hopefully for real this time — next week. This also includes all the other countries served by Fulfillment Europe, as reported in our previous updates. The US shipments, instead, should start between the end of this week and the beginning of the next, and Asia should also start fulfilling next week.
The main reason we are writing this update today is much serious though: we received news that the street release date for Alone was broken in Germany... and the fault is ours. What happened is very simple: we forgot to notify our German partner about the delay of the fulfillment to our backers, and they respected the street date we previously gave to them, when according to the plan you should have all received your copies of Alone at this point. A simple email was all that it would have taken, but in the utter mayhem of the previous weeks... we forgot. We simply forgot. We are so, so sorry this has happened, especially because we are late compared to the initial plans for fulfillment, and even late for the new plan, and you still didn't receive your games yet. There is not much we can say other than this... we screwed up.
You may also be asking yourself how this was possible, if the games are still at the hub. Heidelbär Games, our German partner, is not based far from where the hub is, and their order does not include the parts of the shipment that were locked under customs more than the rest, so they simply went there to pick up their share of the games in person, with the instructions to keep them locked in their warehouse until we fulfilled the copies to our backers... and they kept their part of the deal, 100%. Again, it's our fault: we forgot to notify them about the delay. If we did, they would have not sent the games out.
We cannot go back in time and prevent this from happening. What we can do, instead, is to find some way to compensate our German backers for the disappointing mistake we did. We would like to offer each Alone backer from Germany to take advantage of one of these two alternative options:
- a free dowload code for the digital version of Dragon Castle for the Steam platform; this is the digital adaptation of a mahjong-inspired tabletop game that we released a few months ago (we're investigating the feasibility to offer download codes for other platforms, too; Steam gives developers the freedom to make as many download codes as they like, instead, so it's very easy to offer them)
-
free shipping if you make a pledge (or a late pledge) for our currently running Kickstarter campaign for Vampire: The Masquerade - Vendetta
We hope you'll accept our most sincere apologies, again. This should not have happened. It didn't happen in our previous Alone campaign, and we will make sure it will never happen again for any of our current or future Kickstarter campaigns. The two offers above are our way to give something back to you for the mistake we made, and we hope you'll accept them too.
Sincerely,
the Horrible team
AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO OUR ITALIAN BACKERS
about 4 years ago
– Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 11:08:18 PM
Dear backers,
the situation with the COVID-19 virus outbreak is getting more and more serious here in Italy (and to a lesser extent, in the EU in general). We've been all working from our homes for almost three weeks now. Our team is safe, as long as we follow the guidelines and avoid getting out of our homes as much as possible, but getting business done in general is painfully slower than it usually is in these days. Please bear with us :)
We didn't receive news regarding the start of the fulfillment of Alone from Fulfillment Europe, QML and VFI Asia, but this simply means the plan is still the same: fulfillment should start this week or, in any case, as soon as possible. We're sorry for this unexpected an prolonged wait without concrete news, but there is nothing we can do at this point and, given the international emergency situation, we hope you will understand :)
Please allow us to also share a direct message to our Italian backer, with instructions specific for our home country and our current situation and needs.
>>>START OF ITALIAN MESSAGE<<<
Cari amici,
sapete tutti com'è la situazione qui nello stivale... abbiamo già ricevuto comunicazione da alcuni backer con richieste di cambio indirizzo dell'ultimo secondo causa inaccessibilità del luogo di lavoro o simili, e per brevissimo tempo ancora, siamo in grado di accoglierle, specialmente per il nostro territorio e le sue esigenze attuali. Nello specifico, se avete inserito come indirizzo di consegna quello del vostro luogo di lavoro e vi trovate o potreste presto trovarvi impossibilitati ad accedervi del tutto, come sembra sempre più probabile, vi preghiamo di contattarci al più presto comunicando il vostro attuale indirizzo di residenza (quello in cui vi trovate ogni giorno). La circolazione delle merci è libera, ma dobbiamo essere sicuri che voi siate in grado di ricevere il pacco all'indirizzo specificato al nostro hub per la spedizione. Per semplificare le operazioni, vi preghiamo di inviare queste richieste il più possibile direttamente all'indirizzo email [email protected] (i messaggi diretti qui su kickstarter verranno comunque controllati con regolarità, ma ricevere tutte queste comunicazioni per email renderà la gestione del processo molto più facile da parte nostra). Grazie a tutti per la collaborazione, e un forte abbraccio rigorosamente virtuale, in rispetto delle distanze di sicurezza, da tutto il team di Horrible Guild! :)
>>>END OF ITALIAN MESSAGE<<<
Ok, sorry for the Italian parenthesis. In short, many offices here are closed or will be soon, and we may need to make a last second emergency batch update to Italian shipping addresses :)
One final news. We just launched another Kickstarter campaign. Our new project is Vampire: The Masquerade - Vendetta, an asymmetrical competitive card game of strategy, bluff, and deduction, designed by renowned game designers Charlie Cleveland (Subnautica) and Bruno Faidutti (Citadels) and set in a "World of Darkness" version of Chicago. You choose one of the vampire clans (Brujah, Gangrel, Malkavian, Nosferatu, Toreador, Tremere, Ventrue) at the beginning of the game and take the role of a scheming vampire of that clan: your goal will be to gain enough influence to seize control of the city and become its new Prince.
You were supposed to receive this news after you already received your copy of Alone. That unfortunately didn't happen, but will hopefully still happen soon enough. Despite this, we would be very grateful if you will decide to check our new campaign and, if you like what you see, support us in this new adventure, even in these difficult times!
We'll keep you posted about the fulfillment of Alone, of course, and if you are in one of the areas affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, take care and stay safe!
Sincerely,
the self-quarantined Horrible team :)
Shipment update, round 2
about 4 years ago
– Wed, Mar 04, 2020 at 01:41:06 PM
Dear backers,
the final shipping of Alone is proceeding slower than any other we've experienced before, for reasons not entirely clear even to us. Some of you already received their games, but most are still waiting. The good news in short is that everybody should be receiving their games very soon (as soon as next week in many cases). For a more detailed description of the current situation, read on :)
AUSTRALIA / NEW ZEALAND: Many backers from these regions have already received their games! If you didn't receive a tracking code yet, at this point, something may have gone wrong somewhere. If this is the case, contact us either here or at [email protected] and we'll assist you!
EUROPE / SOUTH AMERICA / ISRAEL / KUWAIT / SAUDI ARABIA / TURKEY / AFRICA: After a looooong wait for the completion of the custom inspections and a loooong time for the actual delivery from the port to the hub (both of which are quite unusual, compared to our previous experience, and likely due to the ongoing COVID-19 emergency which is spreading all over Europe), Fulfillment Europe is finally going to receive the games by early next week, and after they process everything and create a package for each backer (we have a lot of backers in the EU, and there are many SKUs in the Alone shipment), the fullfilment will finally start. If nothing goes wrong or takes an unexpectedly long time again, backers from these regions should start receiving their tracking code sometime next week.
CANADA, USA, PUERTO RICO: QML started receiving at least part of the games and extras and they are already processing the stock they received while they wait for the rest. Fulfillment very close to start also in this case, get ready to receive tracking codes soon!
ASIA: After being on hold for some time due to the COVID-19 emergency (which is even more serious in Asia than it is in Europe), the games are finally traveling towards VFI Asia, so fulfillment should be starting soon also in this case.
We're sorry this is taking longer than expected for many of you, but the increasing international effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus outbreak is seemingly making things more difficult (and slow) than they usually are. Hopefully, this is the last time we will need to give you an update of the situation before you start receiving your tracking codes!
Sincerely,
the Horrible team
