Am I Going Mad

[Matt W]

I now have far more PG than I will probably ever play and am starting to see that the multiple editions of the same product as repackaging (e.g. Airborne, Edelweiss and to some extent Heroes/Red Warriors) as old news. I found this previous level of repackaging to be unsustainable and insulting (e.g. the reprinting of the Iron Curtain, within Hammer, a nice value to new purchasers but to those of us who have the spiral bound edition kind of an insult to have to "buy" them again).

The more recent production problems including dark maps, counter of the month adventures and truly gawd-awful proofing and editing indeed lend themselves to the idea that capturing a second or third printing is a good idea. The good thing about print on demand is that edits to the product are easy and the latest printed version will always have the chance to be the best version ever completed. The downside is that it can generate an attitude that doesn't care so much about the first one out the door since "we can always fix that later". As noted above, that can teach your customers to wait until the bugs are out of the product. Teach too many of them and no one will buy the product, regardless of how good it could eventually be, as everyone is waiting for someone else to be the guinea pig.

Gotta say that I am leaning towards delaying future purchases. I did not buy the Saipan replacement maps. In 10 years I may rue that decision (as age takes my body down that slippery slope). for the future, though, I don't think that I want to end up with a bunch of first editions that have less play value than those that follow along.

If, as suggested, AVP was to provide upgraded material when production errors occur (like they did with Cone of Fire operational maps) that would be a very different thing. I would even be happy with the text material being available via the web (SPW/Decision Games had a requirement to fax or scan your product information to get a key to get the new version of the game specific rules to protect their copyright) but physical component problems like unplayable, dark maps need to be replaced at no cost to the original purchaser.