Where or when can I buy merchandise? T-shirts / posters / etc.?

[PyreLight]

While watching the Mech Con livestream, I saw the cool t-shirts that CGL was selling. I especially liked the brown one that Randall was wearing.

(I would love some posters as well of the incredible art that the artists have produced over the years, but alas, nothing is out there except rare pieces from the 90's on Ebay.)

But for some reason, Battletech does not have any official merchandise as far as I know. Is there some place that I do not know of? Does CGL intend to sell the cool t-shirts and merchandise that they sold at Mech Con for us plebs who couldn't afford to go to Vancouver? Are there any plans of creating merchandise on the online store?

Thanks in advance

[Lorcan Nagle]

CGL does produce merch in limited numbers, but sadly it only gets sold at cons the company attends.  I believe this is for logistical reasons.

[NeonKnight]

Well...*ahem-cough-erm-cough-cough*, if you were at Mech Con we (catalyst and it's agents) had T-Shirts for sale, as did PGI for it's Battletech Stuff as well.

And yes, there WILL be a Mech-Con 2018, and likely also be a MECHWARRIOR 5 RELEASE PARTY!

[Blackhorse 6]

That is a great answer but has nothing to do with the question.

PyreLight, like many of us, can't make it to whatever selective venue that is in fashion yearly.  As such we don't get many, if any, opportunities to buy merchandise that would be available at these events.  So, is there a plan to make more merchandise available to the rest of us?

Thanks,
Paul

[nckestrel]

There is no better answer any of us can give you.
If you want merchandise, the conventions CGL goes to (MechCon, GenCon, Origins. also some of the PAX conventions), or asking somebody that is going to the convention, have been the only way to get merchandise.
Other opportunities, like the CGL store dice sale, are few and far between. 

[Blackhorse 6]

Thanks for the answer, I thought as much but hoped for the moon!  8)

Paul

[RoundTop]

PAX East (Likely), PAX West, PAX Unplugged, Gen-Con, Origins, Emerauld City Comic Con, Mech-con are the ones that Catalyst gets to.

Even then, there are very limited supplies of the shirts, often selling out at GenCon (The one that most shirts are made for).

[PyreLight]

Well...*ahem-cough-erm-cough-cough*, if you were at Mech Con we (catalyst and it's agents) had T-Shirts for sale, as did PGI for it's Battletech Stuff as well.

And yes, there WILL be a Mech-Con 2018, and likely also be a MECHWARRIOR 5 RELEASE PARTY!

Unfortunately some of us don't have the funds to travel to Vancouver despite how amazing everyone at the convention are :(

Why aren't some of these t-shirts stored away somewhere along with the rest of the items (printed books for example) that CGL sells over the Internet? Why can't I order these items over the Internet and have them sent to where I live? 

[Pat Payne]

PAX East (Likely), PAX West, PAX Unplugged, Gen-Con, Origins, Emerauld City Comic Con, Mech-con are the ones that Catalyst gets to.

Even then, there are very limited supplies of the shirts, often selling out at GenCon (The one that most shirts are made for).

Any chance of CGL one day in the future getting down to the LAX cons (Orccon, Gamex, Gateway)?

[nckestrel]

Unfortunately some of us don't have the funds to travel to Vancouver despite how amazing everyone at the convention are :(

Why aren't some of these t-shirts stored away somewhere along with the rest of the items (printed books for example) that CGL sells over the Internet? Why can't I order these items over the Internet and have them sent to where I live?

Distribution, warehousing, shipping fees.  CGL deals with conventions all by itself, it can do what it wants.  The online store, your LFGS, etc, involves people outside of CGL's direct control and therefore CGL can't just do whatever it wants. Yes, that includes the CGL online store (at least last time anybody explained it to me).

I believe part of the new online store was the hope to make more items available (like the flash dice sale that happened a while back). I don't know why more of that hasn't happened. All I know is that it hasn't happened, same as everybody else can see.

Note: I don't have a thing to do with CGL's store, or any business decisions. Every once in a blue moon I ask what's up and somebody tells me something and I go "ok, got it." And I move on.  CGL wants to do more merchandise, making it fit their economics and everybody else's economics is a non-trivial challenge.   I'm not trying to convince you of anything, just trying to give whatever information I have.

[RoundTop]

Any chance of CGL one day in the future getting down to the LAX cons (Orccon, Gamex, Gateway)?

Never say never, however the costs involved are not small.

The only reason that PAX-West, ECCC, and MechCon are doable is that they are all Seattle/Vancouver.

Origins and Gen-con are industry cons (you can't avoid doing them), and PAX Unplugged is designed for board games.


To go to California requires:

a) Cost of travel for Catalyst staff (Incl. meals)
b) Cost of accomodation for staff
c) Cost of shipping product to the location
d) Booth fees (Has to be a big enough booth)
e) Agents to run demos. (This is a big issue)

So there are very few demo agents in California, so having 8 demo agents (a typical ECCC or PAX) is difficult.

Now, sell enough product to cover all of that (and I mean from the profit margin).  It is possible, but not guaranteed for any of those con's.

[SpudBot]

I don't think it's kosher to post a link, but there are sites like Redbubble where you can find (unofficial) Battletech-inspired art and t-shirts. 

[Lorcan Nagle]

I don't think it's kosher to post a link, but there are sites like Redbubble where you can find (unofficial) Battletech-inspired art and t-shirts. 

It is absolutely not kosher to post a link.

[Pat Payne]

Never say never, however the costs involved are not small.

No worries, never hurts to ask, but I kinda guessed that'd be the answer :) When all you have is a shoestring, lotsa travel can't be in the itinerary.

[NeonKnight]

No worries, never hurts to ask, but I kinda guessed that'd be the answer :) When all you have is a shoestring, lotsa travel can't be in the itinerary.

No, and that I understand. Yes it's cool to Live in Vancouver with the 3 Publishers of all things Battletech, and I certainly cannot afford to got to GenCon/PAX all the time either.

[RoundTop]

No, and that I understand. Yes it's cool to Live in Vancouver with the 3 Publishers of all things Battletech, and I certainly cannot afford to got to GenCon/PAX all the time either.

Only reason I can afford to do the cons I do is being a demo agent for CGL.

[Adrian Gideon]

PyreLight, we know that very, very few fans can make it to the various conventions.
There are fiscal reasons why we have non-game merch exclusively at cons. However, we’ve been looking into expanding what we sell through our online store to include such items. All I can say is that we’re aware of the demand, and hopefully someday soon you’ll be able to purchase such items from the CGL webstore.

Thanks.

[JadeHellbringer]

I continue my shouting at the top of my lungs for plush Urbanmechs.  ;D

[sadlerbw]

I continue my shouting at the top of my lungs for plush Urbanmechs.  ;D

Hmm...I may have to see if my wife can knit one. That would be kinda cool.

Also, for another example of merch not being easy, take a look at what HBS tried to do. They set up a crowd-funded style of site where they posted up a couple of notional products and let people pre-order them. If a certain minimum quantity were ordered, then the deal with through and the merch got made. If the quantity was not met, it didn’t and no one got charged. They tried it once or twice, and each time people complained that the prices and minimum quantities were too high. The HBS people ended up throwing some money in to get a couple of the items funded, but they stopped doing it after their second or third attempt. Why? Lack of interest at the prices/quantities they needed to get, and the amount of time that dealing with fulfillment was taking.

The trick is to be able to produce merch either on demand or in small quantities without paying crazy prices, preferably with someone else handling fulfillment. Of course on demand and small run goods are often expensive. Even harder than that is getting the license holder to agree to a cut of sales without guaranteed minimums so that you don’t need to sell 1000 of everything you make just to break even!

[Tymers Realm]

Let me chime in w/sadlerbw here on initial costs here. Now while what I'm talking about has no direct bearing to BT's merch, it should give a fair idea what the hassles are on the creator's side of things.

My GF goes custom printed t-shirts. Generally they are a variety of sayings and funny commentary. She has told me and others that for her to set up a new shirt design to sell costs her at least $200 in material for the first batch run. That covers the Screen(s), the material to etch the design onto the Screen(s), Ink(s), and a batch of 15-20 shirt blanks. That's not even including her time in working up the design on the computer or her labor in producing the shirts themselves.
Plus there's no guarantee she'll even recoup the cost back right away.

Even when she's done custom orders, there's not just the cost of each produced shirt, but separate art charges and so forth. And if she was making them for someone else to resell, that person would need to take all of those costs into consideration as well before they could determine what they would charge per shirt to even break even.

Just some things to think about...

[Adrian Gideon]

And that’s without licensing fees. In the weird world of BattleTech, sometimes multiple license fees.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

And that’s without licensing fees. In the weird world of BattleTech, sometimes multiple license fees.

Is that one of the reasons Catalyst doesn't license out to another t-shirt company like Offworld Designs?

[SteelRaven]

HBS tried a print-on-demand like setup for merch, only two of the four items got enough founding.

Merch production is expensive and you need to compete with all those fly by night t-shirt companies that blatantly rip off game art and custom apparel places. For right now, limited runs for cons and fan sites like No Guts, No Galaxy is probably the best way to go cash wise for both the property and the fans cash wise.

And lets not bring up Red Bubble, all of their licensed WoD shirts are comically overpriced.     

[I am Belch II]

Would love to get more shirts and posters .

[pheonixstorm]

Tons of unofficial BT stuff out there sadly.. Wonder how often Topps goes after those companies/sellers.

[Mattlov]

I continue my shouting at the top of my lungs for plush Urbanmechs.  ;D

I also will scream for these.

[PyreLight]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Much appreciated!

On a sidenote: I don't think the HBS crowdfunding initiative serves as a good example, since the whole thing was mismanaged: expensive items right during the Holidays, super-expensive shipping, items that aren't really popular or wanted (coasters and beer mugs :/), hardly any cool t-shirts or even inexpensive-to-produce art posters. The duration of the campaigns were super short as well and I hardly saw any form of marketing or buzz around the campaigns.

PyreLight, we know that very, very few fans can make it to the various conventions.
There are fiscal reasons why we have non-game merch exclusively at cons. However, we’ve been looking into expanding what we sell through our online store to include such items. All I can say is that we’re aware of the demand, and hopefully someday soon you’ll be able to purchase such items from the CGL webstore.

Thanks.

Thank you for the clarification. I hope to see something some day, the t-shirt that Randall was wearing was really cool.

[guardiandashi]

back in the day there used to be a number of items more available.

with that said I totally understand, the issues and frustrations from both sides.

I think we in general need to be patient a bit longer, Lets see if they can get the store issues all ironed out, then float an item or 3 beyond the obvious ones that seem to do well like just as an idea:
starter boxed sets that can actually stay in stock
possible expansion boxed sets (even if the first one is say just the minis from the starter set) hint :)

then add some reasonable margin items that sell reasonably well, such as dice, plushies, or tee shirts or even something like faction patches, or something like the old mech blueprints etc.

note I am just tossing out things that I remember liking and would be interested in

[Cubby]

I continue my shouting at the top of my lungs for plush Urbanmechs.  ;D

To be followed by the plushie Marauder that was out there awhile ago. Until my daughter can cuddle at night with her very own Mech, I have failed as a parent and a man.

[I am Belch II]

To be followed by the plushie Marauder that was out there awhile ago. Until my daughter can cuddle at night with her very own Mech, I have failed as a parent and a man.

I would love to give my wife a Stuffed Mad Cat/Timber Wolf.