BackerKit surverys - follow up
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 04:51:59 AM
Hi everyone, once again :)
I hope everyone is safe and well. I just wanted to update everyone in regards to the Kickstarter surveys...
Lost surveys:
Every backer should have received their survey via email by now. If you have not found it or received it, or if you want to revisit it, please follow this link and enter the email address attached to your Kickstarter account:
https://the-manhattan-project-energy-empire-cold-war-expan.backerkit.com
An update on VAT:
Backers from Switzerland and Turkey were incorrectly being charged VAT. We have now fixed this, but if you already paid VAT and you shouldn't have, we will contact you individually to refund that fee. A couple of backers from Denmark let us know about incorrect VAT charging and this has been fixed, too.
Shipping:
I've answered this on the campaign page, but if you haven't seen that, I wanted to say again that we are very sorry about having to charge for shipping. This is not to take advantage of anyone. All shipping fees are to be used on getting the games to you, we are not pocketing the money. We have subsidised the fees as much as possible. We are paying to print the expansion with our own money, but the costs to ship it around the world are now so high that we cannot swallow that cost :(
Contacting us:
If you have a specific problem, please remember that we don't have access to Kickstarter direct messages for this project. Please open a ticket with our support team here: http://support.grail-games.com Click on "Open A New Ticket" and just use the "give us feedback" option in the final pull-down menu.
Many thanks. Remember the pledge manager closes in a month and we will let you know in advance.
- David
Grail Games
BackerKit surveys are now being sent!
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Aug 10, 2021 at 01:13:11 AM
Hello again, backers!
It’s finally time for backers to submit their details into our pledge manager, and add-on more games if desired :D
Some backers will receive their pledge manager link in their email today, some tomorrow, and some the next day. It takes about 48 hours for everyone to receive the email.
The pledge manager will be live for 1 month. Once we have everyone’s details, etc., we will know how many copies of Cold War the factory will need to print and we will begin that process.
Apologies again for the time this has taken to get ready. Customer and sales details are highly protected by both Kickstarter and BackerKit so getting clearance for everything took quite a bit of time and paperwork, which is a good thing (for your security), and a bad thing (for speed).
But the time has now come!
Instructions on how to complete your BackerKit survey are listed below. If you’ve used BackerKit before this should be similar to what you’ve done in the past. But first some other notes...
About shipping costs:
We love the Manhattan Project series and admired James’ work. We want to see Cold War in your hands and continue the Minion story. However (you may not know), Grail did not receive any funds from the Kickstarter campaign, and we see that Minion Games had already charged backers for shipping. Shipping costs have gone up a lot since that time. We are also dealing with tricky logistics. Backers all over the world have pledged for Cold War AND other Manhattan Project titles (which are housed in one location in the US). For us to cover all shipping for the campaign will incur further costs of tens of thousands of dollars. All this means that we need to charge backers shipping again.
The shipping costs you will see in your BackerKit survey are as good as we can get them and we have subsidised them as much as we can. For example, a US backer receiving just the Cold War expansion will see an $8 outstanding balance when they log in to their survey. Backers in other countries will see other prices, all depending on your distance from the games and the cost of postage providers in your area.
This was not the original plan, but as we built the pledge manager and organised our fulfilment process for Cold War it became clear that this was a necessity. I know this is annoying and possibly a problem for backers, but we are doing the best we can. We want the games to be available and the expansion to be printed. We knew we would have to swallow the printing costs. If backers could pay for shipping that would obviously help us immensely.
And for backers in Europe: We have a legal requirement to charge VAT on all European orders. This will be shown as a tax at the end of your surveys in BackerKit.
About availability of titles
If you would like to add on extra Minion Games titles to your pledge, please note that availability is limited. We received what was left of Minion’s stock, but if something is not shown for you, it has sold out :( We are looking to reprint everything in the future, but for now we are focused on getting Cold War printed and posted. Note that some of the Manhattan Project games will return to retail after we know what backers take, but this will be in limited amounts and probably only in the US. There are not a lot of copies on hand (just enough to fulfil the pledge levels of this campaign, plus a little more).
Some backers may have been looking forward to adding on other Grail titles through this pledge manager but in the end it has been too difficult to do so. This is because all Minion Games stock is at one location in the US, yet Grail titles are not. This would mean more packages flying around the world and more shipping costs. It also makes the logistics really difficult as each item in BackerKit would need its own stock quantities, availability and shipping costs figured out for each backer, depending on where you live. We hope you may look out for Grail titles in the future, including our next Kickstarter (The Gardens, launching on August 24!)
How To...
To help you, here's a quick guide we made on how to complete your pledge manager…
You’re going to receive an email from Backerkit in the next two days with all the details. Please check the email address attached to your Kickstarter account for this email (and check all spam folders and so on, just in case).
1) Welcome Screen
This is where you’ll be able to select the country in which your game will ship, and switch your Pledge Level if you wish (if you backed at $1, for example).
Then click on “Get Started.”
> Add-ons
Once you’ve clicked through you can select any extra games you may like to add to your pledge (while stocks last).
Then click on “Next.”
> Shipping details
Next, you must fill in your shipping details. Please fill in all the details required in order for you to receive your game(s).
It is hard to confirm how long it will take us to print and fulfil Cold War. Currently there is a major international shipping problem (if you back a lot of Kickstarters you probably have heard all about this), centred around shipping container availability and port congestion. It is expected to last months more. We know we will have Cold War printed within a few months, but cannot promise at this stage when the games will land at a port on your continent. (You have the PnP files to enjoy in the meantime).
So, if you move house in the next 6 months and the BackerKit has closed, you will have to either contact us directly to edit your address, or organise a forwarding/holding service with your post office, or enter the details of a friend/family member who isn’t moving so you can pick up your package from them :)
Then all you have to do is click “Next” and confirm your pledge!
Late Pledge
If you know someone who would like to join in on the campaign but they are not a backer, there will be a “Late Pledge” option, but not for a couple of days (we want all original backers to get their survey emails first).
Closing of the Pledge Manager
The pledge manager will close on September 13th. This is so we can get to work printing the expansion. We will send out a reminder two days before it closes.
Thank you everyone once again for supporting us through this campaign.
If you’re having an issue, please open a support ticket with us at: https://support.grail-games.com/
In the meantime, play and stay safe and I will update everyone again soon.
- David
Grail Games
