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From their own statement:

“Update to the Parts Replacement Program
As of February 18, 2020, if a game is purchased in the US that has damaged or missing components, please return to where you originally bought the game for assistance. For further information on this process and more, please see the contact information list and read our Parts Replacement FAQ (below).“

https://www.asmodeena.com/en/customer-service-faq/

Thoughts?

This would actually be the law regarding goods sold at retail in the UK , though they would need to amend it to state that a refund or like for like replacement at the point of return is an option as within the first six months having something missing or damaged would make the item “inherently faulty”.

Goods sold in the UK are considered the responsibility of the retailer not the manufacturer.

My guess is that they are fed up with putting time and effort in to dealing with people claiming for secondary purchases and what they consider minor defects so this is an attempt to stop the first and deter the second.

In reality it’s likely to do them no good when paired with what can only be seen as some of the worst production estimates in the industry. It is also probably an attempt to stop US buyers importing from outside the US as I’d guess that if you gave a US address then they’d not deal with you directly.

 TwilightSparkles wrote:
This would actually be the law regarding goods sold at retail in the UK , though they would need to amend it to state that a refund or like for like replacement at the point of return is an option as within the first six months having something missing or damaged would make the item “inherently faulty”.

Goods sold in the UK are considered the responsibility of the retailer not the manufacturer.

My guess is that they are fed up with putting time and effort in to dealing with people claiming for secondary purchases and what they consider minor defects so this is an attempt to stop the first and deter the second.

In reality it’s likely to do them no good when paired with what can only be seen as some of the worst production estimates in the industry. It is also probably an attempt to stop US buyers importing from outside the US as I’d guess that if you gave a US address then they’d not deal with you directly.

Your guess is incorrect. A lot of boardgames and, recently, FFG model kits(which were PVC models supplied with the parts cut off the sprue by-hand in the factory and put into little baggies) come with missing cards, tokens, or parts that are necessary to play the game. All the moreso since often FFG products provide the absolute bare miniumum number of tokens & dice for the system to function to encourage the purchase of supplementary products. Their parts replacement service was a way for them to make use of cheap Chinese manufacturing and stick with the bare minimum policy while also not pissing off customers.

It's being closed down because either Asmodee or FFG are being fattened up for sale by the vulture capitalist firm that bought them up a few years ago, so they're cutting every cost they can find that won't fatally undermine the core business in the next ~6-12 months while they find a buyer. The rumour going about the Legion community is the people who actually work at FFG are fething livid about this, since they worked hard to build a rep for solid customer service and that's now being tarnished, and in the longer term is going to cost them sales - restocks of FFG products can often take several months, so how often are people going to take back a product to their local store because it has some key component missing, only to be told their choices are to wait for however long it takes Asmodee to inform the retailer they don't have stock then take a refund, or wait however long it takes for more stock to arrive? Quite a few will likely say feth it and spend their money on something else in future.

I mean... even GW will pretty much replace anything.

This is not a way to engender good will amongst your customer base.

It's going to be tricky for retailers to deal with when they have nearly zero chance themselves of getting replacement parts or refunds from the distributor.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
It's going to be tricky for retailers to deal with when they have nearly zero chance themselves of getting replacement parts or refunds from the distributor.

Very much this. Putting the onus on retailers and distributors is a truly awful business move. Down these ways our distributor cant even get stock in a timely fashion (we are still waiting on 3/5 products from X-Wings latest release wave) and yet they are supposed to act as a parts replacement service as well? Yeah... nah. I really hope Asmodee gets sold very quickly and is taken over by someone who actually wants to run a board game company.

It's a crap policy and as much as I hate to say it, FFG is becoming worse than GW in a fair number of ways. This is just another one as this policy sticks it to the retailer. If I can say anything it is this that GW has been always overly excellent for customer service, top marks from me not even one dream of a complaint.

FFG, right down the poop shoot.

Last I heard our store’s policy is going to be a one for one swap with a replacement product if we have one on the shelf. If we don’t you have to wait until Asmodee sends us a new one. No other refunds. In theory Asmodee is supposed to send out a replacement product free of charge. Will have to see how reliable that ends up being.

Yes but in practice unless the FFG product in question sells tons in store this policy makes it a much larger pain in the butt for the store. Meaning many stores in which this is a small community need will just drop the products as the juice won't be worth the squeeze.

Needing to rely on distributors for replacements is about as reassuring as hoping I'm miracled one from up above, especially if its been out for awhile and/or its a hot seller.

Remember the misprints of the X-wing 2nd edition conversion kits? Imagine if the policy was in place then.

It just boils down to buyer beware with FFG. Which they should have done already as many of their games live on very short life spans.

 Yodhrin wrote:
It's being closed down because either Asmodee or FFG are being fattened up for sale by the vulture capitalist firm that bought them up a few years ago, so they're cutting every cost they can find that won't fatally undermine the core business in the next ~6-12 months while they find a buyer. The rumour going about the Legion community is the people who actually work at FFG are fething livid about this, since they worked hard to build a rep for solid customer service and that's now being tarnished, and in the longer term is going to cost them sales

Quoted and bolded for emphasis, because this kind of gak deserve more spotlight.
Thanks Yodhrin.

Stuff like this really hurts a brand. I don't exactly have rosy feelings towards Asmodee anyways.

Time to start digging into FFG and Asmodee. If you are a fan of any of their stuff, I'd stock up NOW if I were you.

The writing on the wall is not good.

Sadly, FFG managed to kill most of my interest in their products with Descent 2nd Edition. And the recent Arkham Horror reboot killed the rest.

The only thing I am interested in from Asmodee at this point is the CMON ASoIF products, and if Asmodee bites the wax tadpole, I am sure that CMON will find a new supplier.

Providing that CMON's factories can survive Covid-19...

 Grot 6 wrote:
Time to start digging into FFG and Asmodee. If you are a fan of any of their stuff, I'd stock up NOW if I were you.

The writing on the wall is not good.

They've already culled everything that's going to be game-wise I think, hence why the investment fund that owns them are starting to hack away at the underlying customer services and getting into "restructuring". They're trying to make them look like an attractive prospect for purchase by fluffing up margins, not stripping the company for parts, so there's no need to start panic-buying stuff yet.

The time to be concerned is in 6-12 months in the event they haven't managed to sell them yet, or if when they do sell them it's to an even more predatory investor group and they do decide to strip the company for parts. At that point, yeah, make sure you have everything you want from their back catalogue, and if you want a new product buy it immediately on release since there's no guarantee the situation will remain stable for the often months-long period it takes for FFG to do restocks.

AngryAngel80 wrote:
Yes but in practice unless the FFG product in question sells tons in store this policy makes it a much larger pain in the butt for the store. Meaning many stores in which this is a small community need will just drop the products as the juice won't be worth the squeeze.

Needing to rely on distributors for replacements is about as reassuring as hoping I'm miracled one from up above, especially if its been out for awhile and/or its a hot seller.

My understanding is we will go thru Asmodee themself, not a distributor.

Pretty lame to put the onus on the retailer for your own mistakes.

And it's a shame, FFG cust serv used to be awesome. I wrote them one time fully addmitting that we damaged a component during play and asked if we could buy a replacement, and they sent it out for free.

I understand people thinking this is crappy but it's pretty common in retail in general. So it's not like FFG invented this. I got something not to long ago I returned to amazon to get a replacement as it was bad. I didn't go through the manufacturer.

Problem is most game stores to have the stock/inventory management the big retail stores have so it could take months to get your replacement so I know why it's a dumb idea but it's just not uncommon in retail.

Respectfully, I’m unaware of any other hobby/game/ miniature maker that has this as a policy

I’ve gotten replacements from:

GW
PP
Wyrd
Hasbro
CB
KM
Restoration Games
War Cradle
And TT combat

 ingtaer wrote:

MarkNorfolk wrote:
It's going to be tricky for retailers to deal with when they have nearly zero chance themselves of getting replacement parts or refunds from the distributor.

Very much this. Putting the onus on retailers and distributors is a truly awful business move. Down these ways our distributor cant even get stock in a timely fashion (we are still waiting on 3/5 products from X-Wings latest release wave) and yet they are supposed to act as a parts replacement service as well? Yeah... nah. I really hope Asmodee gets sold very quickly and is taken over by someone who actually wants to run a board game company.

I hope that too, but realistically, it will be another investment firm that buys.

I'm not saying it's common in our hobby. It's common in retail in general. If I buy a new PS4 and it doesn't work out of the box I don't contact sony, I return it at the store I bought it at.

I have to agree with noexit1982, I have had replacements shipped from Kingdom Death, CMON, Wyrd, Red Box Games and Red Republic with no issues.

I work in the marine industry, and our vendors always state that we should contact the manufacturer with any issues.

For just about any normal business, the proper contact channel is to contact the POS, and they either refund you or get replacement from the producer. Gaming industry is unique in that a lot of it is tiny companies like Wyrd or PP that can afford to just send you cheap tin or plastic part replacement directly.

noexit1982 wrote:
Respectfully, I’m unaware of any other hobby/game/ miniature maker that has this as a policy

I’ve gotten replacements from:

Hasbro

Hasbro is odd with this, though. WOTC has a good replacement policy, but Hasbro itself for other properties is horrendous. If you want to deal with them directly, they want you to return the defective product at which point they will send you a replacement OR 1 or more products from the same line of equivalent value. At no point are you guaranteed to receive the product you're attempting to replace.

The title of this thread is disgustingly misleading. OP is a flagrant troll.

FFG has been known for its superb customer support, and my own experience with it is just amazing.

Sad to see Asmodee tear down every part of FFG, brick by brick. Doubt theyll be left in any significant order in ten more years if asmodee keeps devouring.

I had a recent situation with needing a replacement from GW. It all worked out, but I thought I should go through the retailer first too. And GW kind of steered me that way at first as well.

I was given the Sisters of Battle collector's box as a christmas gift that was purchased by a friend from an LGS. It was opened a couple weeks later when we did our gift exchange. The box was missing the cannoness sprue. My friend contacted the LGS who advised to contact GW direct for a replacement. I contacted GW customer support. They were very friendly and asked for pictures of what was included in the box, and for a pic of the code on the back of the box.

a couple days passed and then they responded saying I needed to contact the LGS that it was purchased from for a replacement. The LGS stated again that it was a limited release box and they were not able to get a replacement. I forwarded their e-mail to GW who responded right away that they would send me a replacement. Which they did.

In that same gift exchange I got ASoiaf Bolton Blackguards that did not come with the cards... though I did not bother looking to get those replaced since the cards are changing anyway, and I already had a units so had the cards,

This would go in line with FFG closing down their interactive division.

The whole world funding model being crap for lifestyle strikes again.

 oni wrote:
The title of this thread is disgustingly misleading. OP is a flagrant troll.

In what way is it misleading? I haven't seen anything here that indicates to me it's wrong.