Yesterday the preorder for Viticulture World and the Wine Crate went live on the Stonemaier Games webstore. We were flooded with orders and enthusiasm, which meant a lot to me personally, as it was at this same time 9 years ago that Viticulture–my first published game–released to retailers.
US Store | Europe Store | Canada Store | Australia Store
Due to some special circumstances, the announcement and release process for Viticulture World and the Wine Crate ended up being quite different than what I originally imagined. However, due to the consistently inconsistent world of freight shipping, the preorder date was pushed back and remained uncertain until just a few days ago when the last few bits arrived at our fulfillment center in Canada (Hubtrotter).
This ended up being a great exercise in keeping the spotlight on Viticulture World for much longer than usual (i.e., stalling). I had already revealed everything about the expansion by the end of April, leaving me at least a full month to sporadically share content about the cooperative expansion. By the end of that time, over 5600 people had signed up for the launch notification, so today I thought I’d look back at the content I created and shared along the way to keep the spotlight bright.
Articles
I don’t use this blog to promote Stonemaier Games content; rather, the goal is to add value to my fellow creators. But if I can add something of value while talking about an upcoming product that’s on my mind, it’s a win-win.
I have a few articles related to Viticulture World; several in April (here and here) and one in May about all-in bundles vs an ala carte strategy. The latter resulted in us starting to implement a hybrid of the two strategies–soon with a single click you’ll be able to buy all products we offer for each of our brands.
Early Reviews
We sent advance review copies many months ago and featured those reviews during the April reveal. Normally I would wait closer to the preorder to send out additional review copies, but with a month to fill, I proceeded to send out a batch of around 40 early review copies.
Thanks to these amazing reviewers, I frequently updated the Viticulture Facebook page and the Viticulture World page on our website with new reviews, and throughout May I shared a variety of posts and reviews on Instagram (a process the media made easy by tagging @jameystegmaier on their posts).
Facebook, Instagram, and Board Game Geek
In addition to sharing reviews on these platforms, I also posted occasional tidbits on these platforms. Tim Chuon’s beautiful photography makes this easy. I tried to create posts that would add value in some way, like the packing guide for the Wine Crate:
E-Newsletters
We send a general newsletter every month, so in the May newsletter (and the Champion newsletter), I updated people on the status of Viticulture World, shared reviews and playthroughs, and featured a new image format I’ll use for future products that highlights how the expansion works:
Custom Wine Labels
A few of our creative shareholders made an interactive system for people to answer a few personality quiz questions and generate a custom wine label to share on Facebook and Discord. Here’s one I just created:
YouTube
Last, as I’ve done for a few products now, I filmed a video discussing many of the components we tested during the development and production process for Viticulture World, providing a sneak peek behind the scenes of the process. I scheduled this video for just a few days before the preorder so it would be fresh on peoples’ minds.
I also appreciate our sponsored channel, The Mill, for highlighting Viticulture World and the Wine Crate several times over the last month.
***
At long last, Viticulture World and the Wine Crate are finally available on the Stonemaier Games webstore (at a special preorder discount and all other Viticulture products on sale through June 4), with shipping happening throughout June from fulfillment centers in the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe. Huge thanks to designers Mihir Shah and Francesco Testini, artist Andrew Bosley, graphic designer Christine Santana, solo specialists Automa Factory, and all of the playtesters, proofreaders, and now customers for bringing this expansion to life!
What do you think about these methods for keeping the spotlight on a product between announcement and preorder? What would you like to see more of in the future?
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18 Comments on “Viticulture World and the Wine Crate: Stalling for the Preorder”
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It has been so long since I’ve pulled Viticulture out and I have (but never played Tuscany) but after getting the wine crate, i pulled everything out and i am so confused with all of my components. I have big glass beads and small glass beads, errata stickers, board update tiles for the first edition, hundreds of coins (obviously i bought extra), errata cards (duplicate i think) and i just don’t know what i should have (especially since there’s no compost list for Tuscany). Can you help?
Hi Darryl! It’s hard to know exactly what you have without pictures, other than emailing me with more specific details, I’d recommend looking at the Viticulture: Essential Edition and Tuscany: Essential Edition rules available on our website. They have a components list for the most current versions. Anything extra you have is from older editions and those can’t easily be sorted via comments on this page.
Was really looking forward to the wine crate. I just came to the site to purchase 6/6. But 4 days after, and it’s sold out?? I think some kind of warning- like, “Limited” or “Only 5000” might have been helpful. Some advance notice of some kind. Huge bummer and even bigger let-down that it “might” be made again in 2023 but not including the expansion. Sorry, I love your products, but I’m not a fan of the way this went down.
In general I love hearing things that did NOT make it into the expansion. As in, we tried X but failed on this and that so we removed it. Knowing the mistakes/things that did not work makes me more hyped for the things that passed the bar
I find that interesting too! We talked about such things in the design diaries and the Tales from Production video.
Oh, cool. I normally do no enjoy watching videos (I know I know, I am old school for preferring written text over videos :)
Glad to see the success of the expansion.
Will you write an article about the issues behind the underestimation for the printing of the Wine Crate? I have to be sincere, I went to the store, with the intention to buy both World and Crate, as the discount was until today (I was working during the week, and didn’t really have time to check), and was discouraged to see that it was not available.
I ended up not even signing in for the alert for restocking because of the message that the reprint wouldn’t include World in the package. I know it’s not completely logical, but I can imagine that multiple customers may have felt like this (and not signed in, giving you and the company an underestimate of the real demand for the product).
I thought it was an interesting reaction of my “consumer” mind, and you usually have good insights into consumer behavior, so I though about mentioning it in the blog.
Also the fact that you underprinted the Crate (which is a much better business decision than to overprinting it, in my mind) could reflect a shift in the mind of the consumers, that are more keen on spending more on fewer games? Or what other factors you think affected this higher than expected demand for it? Are kickstarter big boxes starting to move our expectations about the appropriate or acceptable size of a game box?
Very interesting.
Yannis: We made 5000 Wine Crates (for English copies of Viticulture World–there are others for non-English copies), which I think is a reasonable quantity for a big box product. We probably sent too many to Europe, where there are still plenty in the webstore. That’s probably the only thing I’d change in this instance, as we can always make more of anything.
I missed out on the Wine box with World expansion. Is there anyway I can still get it with the same deal?
Here’s what we say on the Wine Crate page of our webstore:
The Wine Crate is sold out for now, and we honestly don’t know when we’ll make more or if the reprint will include Viticulture World (which is still available by itself here). If you want the Wine Crate, please sign up for a back in stock notification and/or sign up to order for Gen Con pickup from Meeplesource here: https://www.meeplesource.com/gencon2022
I’m an instant Stonemaier buy on any new release. My thoughts are once you have the stock in the fulfilment centres and you have the most amount of control you can possibly can, then start the announcements and release system from there. I’d personally like to hear about it one week and be buying it the next week!
Thanks for sharing, Kerry! That was essentially what I was hoping to try with Viticulture World (originally).
Two points. Firstly, I’m sold on anything Stonemaier so regardless I was an in right from the get go. Secondly, if I’m going to try a new game, generally I’ve made my decision in a day or less. I think it was a good idea to pump all of that material out at the beginning as it “sold” those who may have just let it slide. Maybe? Anyway. Well done again Stonemaier team. Keep ‘em coming!
Thanks! I think I’ll continue to use the method we tested with Viticulture World (reveal the full rulebook on announcement day, followed by details each subsequent day about components/mechanisms). I’m glad that worked for you. :)
So happy to hear that Canada fulfillment centre was included. We are the Champions my friends!
I think you do this as well or better than anyone in the industry, including publishers with much larger staffs. Given your overall positivity and the generally inoffensive nature of your products, I think you are a case study for how to be successful on the Internet without having to sacrifice customer good will. Sacrificing in a macro sense I mean. There will always be mistakes and not every customer will react positively to everything you do. But if you focus on promotion in the same positive spirit as you do game design and development and minimize the impact of mistakes by owning and learning from them, the general trend should be positive and I think your results bear that out.
Did the longer delay cause any increase or decrease in day 1 pre-orders compared to expansion pre-orders for Tapestry?
We’re not quite at a compete Day 1 cycle yet, so I haven’t looked at the data from the 4 webstores, but currently it looks about the same.