Catalyst Games has just updated backers of the BattleTech: Mercenaries Kickstarter about their recent shipping charges fiasco.
It has been a bumpy road as of last week for Catalyst Games. They’ve been under fire for their recent shipping charge fiasco, where the shipping for the BattleTech: Mercenaries orders were much higher than anticipated. Combined with the release of this information right before a long Easter weekend, many people were ready to grab their pitchforks and torches.
Catalyst Game Labs Updates BattleTech Backers
For those who are also curious about the resolution of this issue, it can be found under Update # 85, 84 and 83 on Kickstarter.
After researching these shipping charges, we have discovered a couple of errors. First, there was an error in the upload of the shipping charges form that included the total amount of shipping, handling, and fees, instead of JUST shipping. Additionally, we identified that the Savannahs Battlemat listed the wrong dimensions (instead, with the dimensions of a BFM). Most backers receive the free Battlemat with their order, so this erroneously upped the shipping fees due to large box dimensions. Because this affects all Veteran and above backers, QML needs to re-work the entire shipping upload, which will take some time.
With a project this large and with this many backers, it’s no wonder the situation ended up exploding quickly. They’ve been pretty consistent with updates almost every week, if not several times a week. With this shipping issue, they’ve even made several posts in the last few days to reassure their backers!
Once both fixes are made, 95% of all orders are going to be under $150 for your total amount of shipping (with all backers seeing some sort of drop in their shipping charge). Those remaining we believe are non-continental US, the rest of the world (outside of hub centers) stores, and similar extremely large orders. (…)
We had genuinely hoped that this would be an easy process, and are deeply apologetic for the undue stress this has caused all of you. But rest assured that we are committed to getting shipping issues fixed. This is a monster project, and we are so grateful to all of you for your support.
If you look through the comments on their update page, you’ll find many of the same questions being asked. Most of these questions have been answered either in the updates, the comments, or the hour-long video where they discuss the shipping issues on the stream.
Despite the scale of this most recent issue, it seems as though Catalyst has acknowledged and owned up to this mistake. Many are speculating as to the various reasons behind the shipping issue, and this happening during a holiday weekend certainly didn’t help.
With projects as large in scale as this one, it’s going to take some time to adjust to issues like this, especially with multiple moving parts and companies involved. Understandably, this shipping charge fiasco has caused a lot of stress and frustration among backers of the BattleTech: Mercenaries Kickstarter.
However, Catalyst Games Lab has taken responsibility for their mistake and is actively working to rectify the issue. With their commitment to fixing the problem and providing regular updates to backers, it seems that they are doing their best to make things right
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What do you think about this response from Catalyst Games Lab in regards to the Shipping charges on their Kickstarter?
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About the Author: John Von Canon
John Von Canon
Job Title: Miniatures & Trading Card Games Writer
Socials: @AtogOrTwo
About John Von Cannon: Tabletop gaming since 2016; John joined the Spikey Bits team in 2023 and has since been covering new miniature products, trading card games, and RPGs.
He spends his evenings working at his local game store for the full hobby experience. So if you’re looking for niche and convoluted ways to sneak out a win in your next Commander game or a cool new hobby product for miniatures, he’s your guy.
