Weekly Store Update: 4 July

Happy Birthday USA! We celebrate Independence Day with family, barbeque, fireworks, and most of all, fun! Hopefully you get a chance to enjoy the long weekend! Don't forget our Game Giveaway closes Friday, 9 July and our long awaited Old-School Essentials books arrived. There's other news too, why not click to check it out?

INTRO

Hello, my name is Eric. Wendy and I are the owners and operators of Stone Valley Games. If you're new to the newsletter let me show you around a bit. This top portion holds our shop news and down below are the restocks, new items, and preorders we laid in last week. So, if you want to see what's happening hang on, but if you want to get to the goodies just jump on down and see what we've done!  

GAME GIVEAWAY

Top News, time is quickly running out as our Game Giveaway closes this Friday, the 9th. CLICK HERE to be whisked away to the sign-in page. There's the extremely fun gladiator fighting game in the 1 to 2 player Hoplomachus: Origins by Chip Theory Games, so you know the components are amazing and we're also giving away a copy of Under Falling Skies Jigsaw Puzzle. That Jigsaw Puzzle is not available in stores, so it's a real rarity that could adorn your game room! Make sure to sign up, and Good Luck!

SIGNIFICANT SLOWDOWN

It's a widespread conversation now, but I just wanted to drop our two cents into the bucket too. As the world is in different levels of flux returning from COVID, it is fair to say that the export arm of Chinese shipping is beyond the breaking point. Any kind of timeline for games originating in China have been smashed as the prices and positioning for container space have gone beyond any kind of normalcy. I'm sure, especially if you back crowdfunded games like Kickstarter, you've seen the producers reaching back out and asking for more money, or for more time. You know what though, if the items are in China, and already in some kind of storage, I guarantee those storage fees are tiny compared to trying to wedge into the glutted shipping situation. Why not hunker down for four to six months and let the storm pass? Personally, I would rather wait and have the game release at a closer to planned price than ask for more money or take a hit to the profit line. People, for the most part, will understand. It takes very little time to talk to folks, tell them what's going on, demonstrate that they are part of the solution. You know...communication. From what we're seeing safely from our foxhole is a lot of confusion, and very little clarity. I will just say that news - be it bad or good - should be shared so people can adjust plans.

SOME PRICE INCREASES

We try to get these to you as soon as we can, but sometimes the publisher will just slip them to us and we only have time to react.

We have received word from Eagle-Gryphon Games that they are raising prices. We carry a few of the impacted titles; namely Vinhos and Rococo which will undergo a price increase on 1 August. So, we'll move those prices then, basically they will increase by $10. 

Asmodee also increased the price of many of their games, and these went into effect on 1 July. Here is a list of the impacted titles we carry:

CAN'T FEED, NO MATTER HOW HUNGRY

I have been gushing about the exceptional support we've been receiving from an organization called WP Tech Support. Trust me when I say WordPress is not the most user friendly of solutions, but it is very powerful. After all the changes and plugins I have added and removed from the webstore, things started impacting each other in unexpected ways. Well, they have been fixing up a lot of things, and I mean a lot. In doing so, however, they kicked over a significant problem with our feed. That's why you haven't seen our newsletter hit your inbox on Sunday at 11 CET over the last few weeks. It's frustrating. I just love getting into a rhythm, and the newsletter released week after week, month after month, right at that date and time. Then, suddenly, it didn't. I was doing all the same things, but the system was hanging up releasing the newsletter. The devs have been working on this singular issue for a few weeks now, and have disable and reenabled almost every aspect of our webstore looking for the problem. I know they'll find it, but I'm just letting you all know that if you see something not quite right, they're still hunting through the code looking for the culprit. You'll know that part is green-lit once the newsletter is back on track. Thanks for your patience and understanding!

THE WRAP UP

Okay, enough news for this week, it's time to get back to the barbeque! Below are the Restocks, New Items, and Preorders added to the shop last week. You can click on the item to learn more, and many of the products have review and gameplay videos so you can see the game in action. If you're visiting our page and you'd like to keep up with our giveaways, sales, new products, and articles like this one just create an account here. Once created you will be subscribed to our newsletter and become enrolled in our loyalty system, instantly earning 50 Stones that you can use on your very first order. A Stone? One Stone is equivalent to One Cent. That doesn't sound like much, but you earn 2 Stones for every dollar spent and 5 for each product review, so though it may seem small, those savings add up fast! Redeem your Stones upon checkout, and they can save you up to 10% off your cart total. Loyalty Matters!