October 2018 update
over 7 years ago – Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 07:48:01 PM

Dear backers,  

I wish to update you on the progress I made with the Airlines fulfillment. In short, some are good news and some less so.  

A lot of backers are still waiting for their copy of Airlines. I know it is long overdue, but you should know that this situation is definitely not by choice as I really really wish to end this saga and finally fulfill the great game I promised you.  

I wish to re-state the issue I am now facing - the airplane parts.  

My father and I designed a really cool looking interlocking/interchangeable airplane, where you can actually build your own airliner. As our design was tested over and over with 3D prints and mock-ups, we found a good manufacturer (who made some very good minis in the past) who could help make our dream come true. 

We did not launch this KS before we tested their capabilities and got a really nice prototype which we tested, thoroughly. Once we approve the plane parts, they made a very first batch to cover our Spiel pre-orders & our projected EU backers’ rewards.  

In Spiel 2016, 2 months before fulfillment should have started, we got our very first copies. We found many mistakes made by our printer -all Deluxe Editions were missing the BASIC deck of cards, which you cannot play the game without as is contains the core goal cards. 

It was bad. Really bad. We promised our backers who picked up the games there, to ship a new deck of cards directly. This printer did NOT follow through as we hoped, and this mishap already started a backlash (rightfully so) from our EU backers. Long story short - we made it and got this issue over with, as our partners shipped their decks as soon as we got them.

Sadly, it was not the BIGGEST problem we faced, the airplane parts they made (and that I paid for) were not made with hard/solid plastic (as they should have), and due to the cold condition of the air transport, the plane parts “curled”. Some were defected. Some were missing.  

I had to pay for a second batch to replace it and also pay again for the new shipment (and repackaging). This batch was better, but not as good as I wanted and not as you should expect to get. I requested to get a new set of plane parts, from my manufacturer, and I did not get them. They asked for more money, and I was already in a huge hole in my budget. Due to those struggles, the following year - 2017 - was the toughest year in my publishing career. I had to make some hard calculated decisions, so GEG can survive this blow and to rectify the situation with our backers.    

Just to make it clear, in 2017 we did not fund ANY game through KS. We did not sell a single copy of Airlines to our distributors, from a full print run we already paid for. Luckily, we had some good games from the years before, and those crucial sales pushed GEG back from over the edge, so to speak.  

In the meantime, I was having some personal issues, which should not have contributed or affected the situation, but they did. I know that most of these facts were already mentioned in my previous updates, so please bare with me as I think the full background might shed some light on the Airlines game situation.  

I came to a point at which I had to make a tough decision, to push through some mental barriers. I had to keep publishing new games. Some of those games, we already invested in. I could not wait. I couldn’t be passive, I had to act. For the sake of every backer, my team, my artists, my fans (the few I’ve still got) and my family. I understand that for some of you, it sounds off. It might agitate you to the point that it might not make any sense. But I needed to clear the balance, pay for yet another batch of plane parts and continue my quest to fulfill this project - as intended.  

So the good news are, we finally got some hope. A new set of planes, this time they are actually firm and not as frail.  

*Sorry for the low quality images.  

You can see the difference and how much better the structure is with this tail plane part. In the upcoming Spiel, I plan to meet up with the manufacturer and get a new batch of planes which will get a newly printed box and everything.  

Important! This would not have been happening if I had not published my new games. Some backers, and some unwanted followers tried to stain my reputation as a game designer and as a publisher by sending me mean messages, posting comments and hateful personal attacks over social media and other forums. They threatened me with a lawsuit, they threatened media members to boycott GEG (and some did) and tried to basically run me over. I say to them, good for you. As a creator, visionary and game enthusiastic, I cannot let them dictate the narrative of who I am or what I should do.  

I am here for the 99% of you who got my back (pun intended), backers I was fortunate enough to have in this group. I received some really emotional and uplifting personal messages from backers these past months, that brightened my day and filled me with many positive thoughts about the future. You are the reason why I made this game, and my quest is mainly (at this point for sure) for you.  

I know that the gaming community can understand, embrace and support indie publishers such of myself once more, so I can continue to design new cool games.  

I wish to continue my update with a couple of announcements (sorry to break this emotional outburst). Spiel 2018 This year, as in years before, we will demo our newest games. I wish to openly invite every backer to come over and see our new games, say “Hello” so I can have a chance to chat and thank you in person. GEG’s booth will be at Hall 1 D143  

New game from GEG - Steam Pirates  

I am really excited to announce on our new game, Steam Pirates. A really cool dice driven steampunk board game about - Pirates!  

I re-launched and we have only few our for the new KS page!!

Please visit our page and try to help us reach our funding goal or share the page with someone who might be interested in flying his own airship.  

http://kck.st/2Om00wj  

Last words I wish to thank all backers for their kind support and patience.  

I hope that with my next update (post Spiel) I will have even better news, so we can get this game to your table as soon as possible.  

With kind regards,  

Elad

July 2018 Update
over 7 years ago – Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 01:26:56 AM

Dear backers,  

If you have not read my last update, our small indie publishing company has had a really rough year. In short, we had a good month of June. We did a new KS project for one of our older game designs - City Council. The project was funded quickly and we managed to raise 400% of the designated funding goal to a total sum of almost $10,000. These funds will allow us to fulfill the new project in full + some cool new deluxe bits AND help GEG to get some much needed breathing room (which will aid us to finish the fulfillment phase of this project as well).  

Survey results:

After the short survey we sent last month we got your responses:  

• 30+ backers chose to get refunded.  
• 30+ backers chose to go with replacement rewards.  
• And 150+ backers chose to wait for the new plane pieces to arrive and for their game to be fulfilled as originally intended.  

I thank each and every backer who took the time to respond to the survey.  

What’s next?  

We will start shipping the replacement rewards to our US backers - expected fulfillment July 2018 (I already shipped your games to our fulfillment center).  

I will start contacting KS and the backers who requested a refund to work on a solution so those backers can get an official refund and we end our obligation to them.  

I contacted my plane pieces supplier and ordered a new batch for testing. I will update you once I get the new pieces (with photos). I am really hopeful we can get it right this time around. The date they set is the end of August 2018 - I will post an update in any case.  

New KS project  

As we have to keep making money to keep GEG running, I will post a new KS project for a long overdue small game I designed last year - “Dice & Dragons”. It is a very simple dice game with cool RPG elements. Again, I have to push games we already invested time and money on so we can get our investment back and finish this project to hopefully move forward with cool new games.  

I am truly thankful to the great KS community who are literally backing me and my games. Yours,  

Elad

Bitter Sweat Update - June 2018
almost 8 years ago – Sun, Jun 03, 2018 at 01:04:34 AM

Dear Backers and Fans of GEG,  

I did not post any updates the past few months as I have stumbled into a very big crisis which now I am willing (or more accurately - ready) to share with you.  

Tough Years  

As you may know GEG is a small indie publisher, which is basically run by me. A one man show keeping the act together for the past 7 years. The past two years were the most difficult ones I had in my short career as a publisher. There are many reasons why everything occurred, I will try to explain some: 

Airlines KS 

Even though we already fulfilled more than 15 crowdfunding projects, we failed almost half of our backers with this project. I missed all deadlines and I could not keep down the growing costs of the reprint and replacing parts. As of now - we got the games printed - but no worthy plane parts to place in those boxes (The plane parts we got are in a worse shape then the first bunch we got. So we cannot ship those parts to you as is. We need to fix them or find another manufacturer) . Again, there are many reasons why - but I take full responsibility for what has transpired so far. 

Online and retail market 

In the past years we managed to push and fund part of the games we publish using KS and some came from our own pockets. We rely on post market sales through distribution and retailers. Since 2016, our sales to the retail market have diminished each year. We could not sell some of our very 1st print runs. There are just too many games out there and each store (rightfully) is very picky. As the online marketplace grew, normal retailers are selling less games and they can show less support to indie publishers like GEG. 

Personal life 

I do not like to share much of my personal life but I will tell you some as you should understand how everything is affecting my work and by extension - you. I am married with 3 kids now. My youngest born just two years ago. Because of the rough times in GEG I could not take any income back to support my family and I had to rely on my wife’s salary. I chose to replace my wife and support her back by taking time off in her maternity leave, I was caring for our baby girl till she turned 1 years old. I got help and do not get it wrong, I cherish the time I was with her and seeing her grow was probably one of the biggest perks I got in life. However, this meant that I could only manage GEG from a distance and with much less availability on my part. 

Other Business endeavors 

As I felt the market change and as I had less available time to spend in GEG, I tried to find a better solution for publishing our next game and keeping GEG going. I do not wish to get into details but we got a nice deal for our latest card game “Edge of Humanity”, which was supposed to clear us out of the rough waters. In short, this deal never took place as it was broken off by the other party. GEG was left high and dry, with more debt and more unsold copies. 

Bottom line 

GEG is now almost out of the business. I tried to use every capital I had and tried to borrow money to pay off the bills that are growing each month. 

Is it time to give up? 

A thought that crossed my mind too many times and this is the main reason I went “silent” the past few months. I can’t share the frustration and how disappointed I am with the situation I am in right now. I always kept my word, or at least did my best to reconcile. After careful consideration, I came out with some solutions that can save GEG and eventually keep my obligation towards you - the backers who kept supporting me and my games every time I needed. 

1.Selling GEG designs 

I started to market my designs to other publishers. I hope by selling some good games we can fill back some of the cap we used to develop those games. 

2.Finding new Partners 

I am interested in finding new investors/partners who can join us by contributing funds to get some equity back in return. The cap will be used to pay off bills and go back to investing in game production.

3. Selling older games

GEG still has some games left in the warehouse, including some really cool expansions. The plan is to launch some new projects to sell off games exclusively on KS. We will get instant capital and free room in our warehouse (which will also lower the monthly costs). These projects will be short term and capped from our inventory. 

So what’s next? 

I already started to push all 3 of these solutions, and I hope we can raise back enough to re-produce the plane parts. I think that by now, some of you may not wish to have any part in Airlines, or anything to do with GEG, so I will offer these options (which will be possible after raising enough capital back):

• Getting your game late: Obviously, this is the preferred way to end this project. My only aim is to publish great games and I will feel even worse if you don't get what I carefully designed for almost 2 years.  Deadline: TBD 
• Getting another game as compensation: For those who cannot wait any longer - I will offer an instant solution. I will ship you a copy of “Edge of Humanity” or any other GEG game you would settle for as compensation. This will be offered INSTEAD of getting a refund or a copy of Airlines later on. Shipping will be free of charge in the US and we will charge international backers with shipping costs as stated in our KS page. Deadline: Immediate.
• Refund: The least preferred option, and let me tell you why. I must produce the games as I have my initial obligation anyway, so by choosing for refund you will leave me with an unsold paid copy and I will have to pay the 2nd time for a refund. This will hurt GEG the most and I would politely ask you not to choose this option if possible.Deadline: TBD.

I will send all backers who did not get their copy a link to a poll were you can choose between the options. I will respect any decision you make and honor it. 

Last words 

I know that I wasn’t the most transparent with you, and you have the right to criticize me for not communicating properly. I can only say on my behalf, that I could not post any news as I had to deal with some things internally first, and then to go and post something I can stand for. I appreciate all the kind support you gave me (not just money - I got some really heart filling messages). I know that the vast majority of our community is great and good at heart, so I hope we can pass this huge hurdle and move forward to a much brighter future.  

Best, 

Elad

October 2017 Update
over 8 years ago – Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 12:04:12 AM

Dear backers,

I wish to update you in this late October post with some more information.

Spiel 2017

I am just about leaving to Spiel 2017, the biggest board game convention. I packed with me spare parts for any backer who picked his copy last year and still missing some components from his limited edition. If you need anything, just pay us a visit (same place as last year) - Hall 1 D143.

North America fulfillment status (and the rest of the world)

I waited the most till I had to leave before writing this update, as I we still did not receive the main shipment into our US warehouse. 

I can report that it is coming very soon. To save crucial time, I would ask any backer who still did not received his copy to update his address on BackerKit (our fulfillment tool). If you have not changed your address since your last survey - please do not re-submit the same survey.

I hope that when I will get back home, I will have more good news. I am very excited to start the last fulfillment stage (though very late) and to finish getting every copy of Airlines to every backer around the globe.

I wish to thank very backer for their kind heart and patience as we were very late on our delivery.

Sorry for the delays (again!),

Elad

Airlines update - July 2017
over 8 years ago – Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 11:50:00 PM

Dear backers,  

While I was away for a personal leave in the past few months, I still followed up with the issues we had with the production of Airlines, and dealt with them; I can say now that the newly produced Deluxe game will be ready by the end of August.  At that point, we plan to ship it to our US warehouse so we can start our last fulfillment phase and complete this long awaited project.   

I thought on making a short and brief update, but many urged me to share what happened and how things gone wrong. But, I decided to update you on the truly important matters - and that's your game and how things are going with GEG.  

I am not likely to share personal or internal issues as some other creators might do - I am a very private person and I want to be true to myself and to my goal: Design new games for you to play and have fun.  

Through the recent struggles to keep everything on track, I decided not to follow with a new crowd-funding based project in the foreseeable future. KS and other social based gaming websites had turned into something that has a lot of positive for a small independent publisher such as GEG, but it also comes with a lot of negativity and exposure, which is affecting my personal productivity. The responsibility I took for providing games to hundreds of players around the world is a major concern for me - and might be too big, as I care to a fault.  

GEG will continue to grow and publish more games through our partnerships and the more traditional distribution opportunities.  

I know that most of you are dedicated fans of board gaming (and gaming in general) and I personally had the pleasure in creating games for you entertainment and enjoyment, and I thank you for backing up my games up until now - it has been a wonderful experience to create games that are enjoyed worldwide. The new path I am taking will keep me doing what I love to do - just with less burden and more creative freedom.  

I am truly sorry for the delays some of you suffered and that some of you got less than a perfect game; I hope that by mid October all backers will receive their pledges, and will play Airlines with their friends and family.  

Yours,  

Elad