Darkest Dungeon board game backers upset as Mythic withholds copies for more money

pcgamer.com:

Mythic Games launched a Kickstarter for a board game version of Darkest Dungeon in October 2020, and it was immediately, massively successful. It surpassed $1 million in backing in one day—more than tripling its initial $300,000 goal—and finishing with more than $5.6 million in total. Despite that remarkable achievement, creator Mythic Games now says that it's facing a serious financial shortfall, and is asking backers for more money.

The problem is that material costs have gone up, and shipping costs have gone way up, by an average of 600%, according to Mythic. The cause, of course, is two-fold: The Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

Mythic tried to ride it out, saying that it (along with most other «professional market players») assumed the situation was temporary because of the sudden resumption of shipping from China after a long halt forced by the pandemic. But instead of peaking, manufacturing and shipping costs continued to rise through 2021 and 2022, «to amounts we never imagined possible.»

«Today, the shipping costs to get these games to you are $3.1M, which is $1.4M more than the $1.7 million paid by backers,» Mythic said in a Kickstarter update. «On top of that, there was an additional $350,000 in manufacturing costs due to the increase in oil and raw materials. That's a total of $1.75 million in additional costs to be paid.»

Mythic said that it's been eating the rising costs on releases over the past couple of years, including its most recent release, Anastyr, another big Kickstarter success. But that's apparently no longer an option: «In order to ensure the sustainability of Mythic Games to deliver our outstanding games and to allow our teams to continue to develop games with passion and