Your Game Experience Matters to Us: 
A Letter from Paverson Games & Panda Game Manufacturing

We wanted to share an important update regarding Luthier.

Paverson Games and Panda Game Manufacturing both pride ourselves on producing high-quality games—with components that not only look and feel great on the table but are also highly functional. To achieve this, every project we take on goes through multiple rounds of sampling and careful revisions—often right down to the smallest detail.

Unfortunately, after seeing some of the first copies of Luthier land in the UK and hearing from a few backers, we’ve discovered inconsistencies with some of the wood worker chips found in copies of the game. Some of this is tied to the stain effect used on these pieces to give them character and age, while some of this is the nature of wood itself with its natural imperfections and variations. Although a very small number of production errors is not unusual, we feel the number of copies affected is too high. After reviewing this issue together, we’ve agreed that the current version of the chips do not meet the high standards to which both Paverson and Panda hold ourselves, especially when we consider that these components are featured in Luthier's unique gameplay mechanic of hidden-bidding worker placement.

While this is a huge disappointment to us, we care deeply about your experience at the table.  When something’s not right, we believe in making it right—properly. So, we are currently re-manufacturing replacement worker chips for all copies of Luthier’s first print run. We believe this will ensure that all copies will meet the quality you (and we!) expect. We will continue to use wood for these components, as while a synthetic material might be less prone to variation, we believe wood is more in keeping with the setting and theme of the game. We will also be switching from stain to paint, which we believe will better cover wood imperfections while keeping the color more consistent. Our quality control team is taking extra care to inspect for any errors as well, building on our experience from the initial round of manufacturing.

To get these to you as quickly as possible, the new chips will be airfreighted directly to our six distribution hubs around the world. This will allow us to include them with remaining pledge shipments and retail orders, as well as start sending out replacements with minimal delay. All of this will be done at no cost to you, and we ask for your patience with any small delays caused by this adjustment. For our foreign language friends, these chips will already be in your copy of the game, as they are being manufactured and assembled now.

If you already have your copy of Luthier (we’re looking at you, UK, AUS, & NZ backers!) and you feel the worker chips in your game are affecting gameplay quality, please fill out our parts replacement form - we’ll make sure a new set is sent your way as soon as they’re ready.

We truly appreciate your understanding and support—it means the world to us. If you have any questions about this situation or need help getting your replacement chips beyond filling out the form above, don’t hesitate to contact us at support@paversongames.com

Thanks again for being part of the Paverson & Panda community. We’re on it—and we’ll keep you updated every step of the way!

Warm regards,

               
Dave Beck, Owner                   Brent Kinney, General Manager
Paverson Games                       Panda Game Manufacturing

Find a PDF of the press release here (or a text only version here)

Written by David Beck

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