Apologizes for the radio silence… this past year has been pure insanity.
As you may know, I’ve been busy shipping the latest edition of Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age and it has been a challenge at times. First I lost my global fulfillment partner who raised minimums after I launched the campaign, so I had to handle everything myself. I then realized that Kickstarter didn't collect phone numbers for most of the international pledges, which made it impossible to generate FedEx labels. More, global shipping rates have increased up to 4X post-pandemic. I'd been making up the difference best I can, but it was slow going.
In the midst of all of that, just as I started shipping the Collector's Editions, the building where Supercade's offices and private museum had been located for the past fifteen years was sold, and then listed for sale again. The timing of this could not possibly be worse as I just had fulfillment at a point where it was manageable. I was negotiating with the new owner and agent to stay in the space until the books shipped, but my former partner forced me to leave with legal action. This of course was a huge setback, likely intentionally so.
And so I moved over 100 tons of games and history to temporary storage, which took over three months, and transferred the four pallets of books to a friend's warehouse in Burbank to continue fulfillment... and then, guess what, just as I got things organized over there that building was sold, too.
I seriously couldn't make this up.
So I had to move the books again to their new office and am finally settled and shipping, with books going out every day since.
Owing to the issues with international shipping and the insane rates to some regions I've decided to list the Collector's Edition in the Supercade online shop for sale as they become available. This is an awesome opportunity for customers who missed out on the Kickstarter campaign to get this signed and numbered limited edition. It really is cool.
But the silver lining of all of this drama is that I've decided to launch a public-facing museum in Los Angeles dedicated exclusively to the history, culture, and future of games.
This has been a long time coming and I'm grateful for the push to finally make it a reality and give the collection a permanent home that will live on beyond my time here. I have support from incredible industry sponsors and will be announcing some exhibitions planned for this summer to promote the new museum and raise additional funding.
If you aren't already on the mailing list, you can sign up here for updates or follow @supercademuseum on Instagram for behind-the-scenes access during development.
To pay tribute to all of you who continue to support my projects and reward you for getting your taxes done, I’ll be offering a 20% discount on apparel in the shop this month… use code APRIL20. In addition to the CE, I’ll also be dropping some exclusive new products soon so follow on Instagram for infos: @supercade71 :)
Thank you again to all of the backers and friends who continue to be supportive and shame the torch and pitchfork mob… I’m so grateful for everyone’s love and patience throughout this process.
Hoping the April showers bring many May flowers...
xoxo van