It looks like Mythic Games and their Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game are the latest to fall to the “shipping is chaos, we need more money” or “give use more money if you want your stuff” trap, depending on which side of the comment gallery you’re sitting on:

Dear Backers,
This is a very important announcement, and we thank you for taking the time to read it thoroughly and to the end. Firstly, let us apologize for the late delivery of “Darkest Dungeon: The Board game”.

IN SUMMARY: Due to the unsustainable increase in costs (delivery, shipping, manufacturing), we are asking for your help: we need an additional contribution, depending on the content of your order, to bring the Darkest Dungeon board game to life.

Wave 1 ready to ship

As you may have seen in the latest development news, Wave 1 is fully printed and ready to be shipped (see update #110). Wave 1 is ENGLISH language ONLY and will contain the Core Boxes, the Crimson Court expansion as well as the majority of the Pledge Manager add-ons.

Wave 2, will include everything else, i.e. the remaining English expansions and add-ons as well as the foreign language versions of the complete game. Wave 2 file creation is currently being finalized and according to our schedules and the current schedules provided by the factory, we estimate that printing will start Q1 2023.

Current conditions, soaring shipping costs, subsidies

When we ended the Kickstarter campaign on November 6, 2020, the situation was nothing like it is today. COVID and then the war in Ukraine, led to a significant increase in costs not only of manufacturing but also, and especially, of shipping and delivery: The shipping costs have increased by an average of 600%. The costs of raw materials (paper, cardboard, plastic) have increased by at least 30%.

The graph below plots the evolution of container prices that Mythic Games paid on each of its games. These prices include the rental of the containers, but also insurance, handling, transferring from the factory to the port of departure, and from the port of arrival in the hub. They do not include the cost of shipping from the hub to your mailbox, the so-called “last mile shipping”, which has also increased considerably.

Up until our last project, Anastyr, Mythic Games fully funded the additional costs of shipping and manufacturing (what we call “subsidizing”), so that we didn’t pass them on to backers. Since 2020, we have subsidized over $1.2M. You can find the details in a recent Anastyr update.

Several indicators predicted a return to a less expensive situation at the beginning of this year, but the events in Ukraine and cost inflation (raw materials, oil …) have reshuffled the cards, with a sharp increase in “last mile shipping” especially in the U.S. where these costs have doubled, but also in Europe and the rest of the world.

Contribution for Darkest Dungeon

Today, the shipping costs to get these games to you are $3.1M, which is $1.4M more than the $1.7 million paid by backers. On top of that, there was an additional $350,000 in manufacturing costs due to the increase in oil and raw materials. That’s a total of $1.75 million in additional costs to be paid.

In order to ensure the sustainability of Mythic Games to deliver our outstanding games and to allow our teams to continue to develop games with passion and commitment, we have had to make the decision to no longer absorb all of the additional costs.

In agreement with Red Hook, the video game creator and publisher, our partner on Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game, we are asking for your help in contributing to these additional costs. Of course, we can’t ask you such a thing without contributing a lot ourselves. So Red Hook and Mythic Games will cover 50% of the additional costs, with Red Hook generously contributing $100,000 and Mythic Games contributing $775,000. We ask for your help to cover the balance. So, we propose a flat amount contribution per item, regardless of the country of delivery.

How will the contribution be administered?

We will email and reopen the Gamefound accounts of those backers that selected any ENGLISH product being delivered in Wave 1, This reopening will allow backers to pay their contribution based on what your pledge contains. You will see a new balance to pay that corresponds to the contribution we are asking you to make.

Here are the details of the additional costs for each item contribution amount and for each pledge level, AFTER subsidization from Mythic Games and Red Hook.

For example, if you took the core boxes , your contribution for Wave 1 will be $18.

If you took the core boxes, the Crimson Court expansion and the Darkest organizer, your contribution for the Wave 1 delivery will be $29.

Your game is printed, it’s yours, and it’s currently stored in China. If you are unable to pay this contribution immediately, we will store your game for as long as possible.

So you have the following choice:

1 – Pay your contribution by August 1st, and this contribution guarantees that your game will be on our first containers that leave the port in mid-August. To avoid soliciting those backers that have ENGLISH products ordered in Wave 2 a second time and requesting a second contribution for another small amount, we will be asking those backers to make their contribution for their Wave 2 content at the same time as the Wave 1 content.

2 – You prefer to wait, in which case your games will be stored in our factory and will be added to containers as payments are made.

When Darkest Dungeon Wave 1 is on its way, the English Wave 1 products will be available on our e-store, however, new buyers will only receive their e-store order after the Wave 1 backers pledges have been delivered. The e-store prices of the products will be higher than during the KS campaign, even including your additional contribution (see the FAQ).

Argyris Poungouras, Nick Niotis, Babis Giannios, Christophe Madura, Stéphane Gantiez, Jean-Jérôme Loubet, Sandra Tessières, Edgar Skomorowski and Arnaud Boudoiron, Leni Scheider, Anne Vetillard and all the team worked for 2 years on this project with Red Hook, highly motivated as they love the video game and wanted to ensure that its unique universe was fully reflected in the board game. We think we did just that! The developers and play testers are very happy with the result. You totally feel immersed in the universe with its superbly illustrated boards, the fantastic illustrations of Chris Bourassa and of course the magnificent miniatures that give form to the game’s unique protagonists. The feedback from our many playtesters shows that this game is just what they wanted from such an adaptation, fun around the table (even if some will laugh at your expense!), a dark and intense atmosphere, great replayability and a very strong attachment to your heroes, who will have to work hard to free the mansion and its surroundings from the ungodly monsters that have taken up residence.

We want to bring this game to you, and we are aware that what we are asking for is difficult, for you of course, but also for us, as we’ve been able to avoid asking for a contribution for over 2 years despite these substantial increases.

The FUTURE

This situation marks a turning point for Mythic Games. But we are already working to evolve and adapt to this new business landscape. We have started to research alternatives to our Kickstarter model by diversifying and offering retail versions of several of our games in stores.

We are also currently preparing more condensed games, with different and new content , which will allow us to reduce their physical size ,their price but also any associated shipping costs. We look forward to showing you what’s coming.

However, our primary goal is to deliver our remaining games and reduce the number of undelivered games before launching a new crowdfunding campaign.

We believe that players will continue to want games that are out of the ordinary and that offer a more immersive experience than most traditional games.

We thank you very much for your support over the years.

Leonidas Vesperini, Benoit Vogt, and the rest of the Mythic Games team

As for me, I don’t disagree with the shipping costs persay; that is a part of the risk of crowding (“never back with money you can’t afford to lose” ) but I feel the umbridge at the ransom like tone of “we have it and will hold it till you pay” when this is a second shopping fee on top of that already charged. I get what they are saying but they could have said it in a better way perhaps.