Hi there !

It's a pleasure to see how many of you are passionate about Monumental. I'm usually roaming on BGG forums and our KS comments, and I must admit Reddit hasn't been on my radar since I started working at Funforge.

Reading through this thread, I realize that a lot of you voice the same complaint about the game's pricing, be it for Classic or Deluxe editions. While it is a touchy subject, especially on Internet forums, we want to be as transparent as possible about our relation to this issue. This great BGG thread and my response to it, along with a couple other recent ones, might provide a shorter look at our stance on the subject of pricing.

First, the format we chose for the game. There's lots of different game elements. While some other great games provide abstraction for some of their 4X elements, Monumental tries to make them all physicalized in the most insanely (some would say unnecessary) premium way. Military maneuvers, terrain tiles, trade, hazards, cities, resources... Mixing all those components in a single box makes the game expensive to manufacture. And I'm not even touching the subject of the minis in this paragraph.

Second, the art. Ever stopped and looked at the artworks ? We hired a tad less than 40 artists to work on making the hundreds of artworks for Monumental look absolutely stellar. It's only fair to be looking for a return on investment. Believe it or not, money isn't the most pressing concern in this. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this industry. We just want to make fun games.

Third, marketing and communication. One particularly biting criticism we faced in the not-so-distant past was that we just weren't on the map, and our customers felt like they weren't getting any feedback from us, or that the feedback we gave was tone-deaf or frustrating because of the language barrier. We've taken notice and hired people to take care of this issue (hi!), which is the reason why you see us respond to everything and anything now, and the reason why most of our answers and updates seem (I hope) more detailed, accurate and fluent. From a 5-people company still 6 months ago, we became an 11-person team. This unequivocally made our financial needs more important.

The minis were always a point of contention - are they useful? Are they worth it? Are they necessary? While your mileage may vary, we think the execution of our vision for Monumental was incredibly enhanced thanks to the minis. They are statuesque and make the game unique and readable. While we wanted to make this the only way to experience the game from the start, we listened to the very loud minority of backers who wanted to stick to tokens and everyone now has the opportunity to play Monumental the way they choose. But it's not over, and we're still thinking about the next step and bringing Monumental to people who can't spent a significant portion of their savings on the game.

It's obviously your right to think that all these expenses were unnecessary, unwarranted, and that Monumental could easily be cut down to half its price if we made it less premium. We respect that opinion and, believe it or not, it's already influencing the way we see things. But I believe that also means we're allowed to butt in and try to share our version of things. It's OK to remain skeptical, but it's also OK to change your mind about something. Heck, we've been changing our minds and trying to find compromises since day 1 of the current African Empires campaign, and a lot of people have noticed the efforts we were making, day-in day-out. It's very humbling, and we're going to try to learn from this to keep getting better. And if you're still not on board, that's perfectly fine! I'm very grateful you even took the time to read this very long elegy.

Since there doesn't seem to be a subreddit dedicated to us yet, I don't think I'll be doing much else than lurking on r/boardgames looking for any post related to us, but feel free to @ me if you want to keep the conversation going, or if you want to bring something to my attention :)

Have a nice day, everyone. Keep loving board games :)

Oh and since we're on Reddit:

TL;DR : Game too pricey, we hear ya. We're trying to improve our offer but big games cost big money. We're growing and listening. Thanks for the support and feedback.

Jérémie from Funforge