Weekly Store Update: 25 December

By Stone Valley | December 24, 2022 |

From all of us here at Stone Valley Games, we wish you a Merry Christmas! We hope you're enjoying the warmth of family and friends this frigid weekend. We do have some exciting news to help get things steamed up though, including the winner of the Oniverse Giveaway and... the details on our Year End Closeout Sale! It's going to be so very hot! We have more to share too, so why not step on in and check it all out!

INTRO

Welcome to our weekly newsletter! For our new readers I'm Eric, and Wendy and I run Stone Valley Games. This newsletter is our way to share both local and world-wide gaming news of interest that popped up last week. It also provides our subscribers, both local and remote, some information on the going's on around here so everyone feels like part of the action. At the bottom of this newsletter we show you the restocks, new items, and preorders added to the store last week. It's not too difficult to navigate, so let's get to it!

THE ONIVERSE GIVEAWAY WINNER

We teamed up with Meeple, Myself & I to share the Oniverse Giveaway! Quite a windfall, this giveaway included all six games in the Oniverse (as it's commonly known). The timing was extra perfect as the entire line of games has just been re-released after finding a new publishing house recently.

We have drawn the winner's name, but you'll have to tune into the Meeple, Myself & I podcast on December 26th to see who it is. You can find the podcast via any fine digital methodologies... we personally like it on Spotify. It's also the same podcast the Top 100 Reviewed Games reaches its ultimate conclusion! Jason does a wonderful job with this podcast, we're sure you'll enjoy!

ASMODEE SALE ON STEAM

Life is an interesting journey, with lots of ups and downs, like a rollercoaster, and occasional periods of relaxation and enjoying the sites, like a Farris wheel. There's cutbacks, go-backs and detours. Our relationship with Asmodee and digital games are among the interesting aspects of our retail journey.

Years ago, we were dead set against anything digital in or for our board games. At the same time, we were embroiled in the Fantasy Flight and Disney issues with our main distributor Alliance, so were no fans of Asmodee. Here, a few years later, Asmodee is our preferred distributor and digital is a wonderful feature of many of our favorite games. I also really enjoy the digital games when on business travel. The whole board game, easy solo able, with simplistic score keeping on one small digital device that's so easy to pack. Who would have thought?

We see similar journeys with the majority of our board gaming friends and customers as they work through their likes and dislikes. We watch their tastes in games and gaming groups change, trying new things occasionally while others stick to what they know, and they all have opinions on digital games too! I can say that through it all the adventure continues!

That's a relatively long-winded way to let you know that Asmodee has just kicked off a really nice sale on Steam. They have up to 80% off on some of their titles, and you can check it all out here.

In a personal note, while not an Asmodee title, the digital version of Scythe really helped me finally hone the nuances of that game. So...it was the original catalyst that propelled me in no longer being a hater of digital games 😀

DIE CUT STICKER UPDATE

We have several varieties of stickers. There's the circle, box label, rectangle, shiny, and die cut. We are continually tweaking the art, but generally our obelisk and color scheme has remained constant.

We have recently updated our box label to the seasonal sticker, which has been a hit even with the UPS drivers and USPS workers who noticed it right away. Side story...those folks have become an extended part of the business. I only wish the entire UPS and USPS channel was as wonderful as our local folks.

In any case, a die cut sticker can be any shape. In my original attempt I simply designed a shield and then slapped our store info on there. I liked it, it was simple and clear. However, it wasn't very...interesting. So, I asked our local artist to take a look at designing a die cut and just let him run with it. The before and after results are below.

As you can see, he generally kept the store name, obelisk, email address and color scheme, but then dropped some creativity on it. It is still simple, but so much more dynamic. It pops in all the best ways, and we couldn't be happier! So, we're going to retire the original die cut sticker in lieu of the fresh new version.

OUR YEAR END CLOSEOUT SALE

I felt a bit like Santa last week. Tiptoeing through the store and storage areas with my long list in hand, going through all the wonderful games and books, checking off game titles here and there. All the while furiously scribbling notes and drawing archaic symbols that only made sense to me. You may not know... but it is what I require to ensure we do the proper due diligence for our Year End Closeout Sale!

The concept of this sale is to simultaneously help clear inventory, so we don't carry it forward into 2023, and provide fantastic savings to our customers. I... I think we've got it cornered this year. Here are the details. We will have over 750 titles on sale, which is almost half of our entire inventory. The sale prices will range from 40 - 70+ percent, and some of these titles have never been presented here with these sale prices before. When the sale kicks off, after I load the sales prices throughout the store, I will upload a document that outlines all of the sale items. I will also have the sales list on the storefront so everyone can see it. So, you can browse through the store to see what's on special (the sales percentages will show the hot items) or check out the document to pinpoint something you may be looking for.

The sale is going to run from approximately 9 PM Central Time on Christmas, 25 December and close around noon on 28 December. This is kind of the same timeline I usually run the Black Friday sales event - just a month later. But, due to my surgery recovery we had to skip it this year. So, if this newsletter launches properly on Sunday...it starts tonight!!!!

A special note for our local customers. We STRONGLY recommend you place your orders online for curbside pickup (it's an option in the shipping methods as part of checkout) and then pick up here at the store once we send you a note that your order is ready. I know from sales events in the past we're going to be completely wrapped up in getting the orders processed, so will be fairly scattered if you do show up. However, we have an incentive for our local customers. If you place an order during the sale dates/times for curbside pickup, you will be automatically entered into a drawing for two games: Paladins of the West Kingdom and Sagani! This is for curbside pickup orders only! We will announce the winner of this local drawing in next week's newsletter.

While we anticipate an epic sales event, to make it even more amazing we would really appreciate you spreading the word far and wide. We want to make this our largest sales event ever! I am quite sure there will be something for every kind of gamer. Board games, card games, toys, and roleplaying games. Especially any Pathfinder players you know...we're ripping the lid off our entire line! So much more! It's going to be one for the ages!

THE WRAP UP

Okay, enough news for this week! 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!