The Networks creator dispels discontinuation reports, promises wide availability from February

The designer of TV-themed strategy card game The Networks has suppressed fears that the game has been discontinued.

Writing on his blog, Gil Hova blamed Amazon’s management of third-party sellers for incorrectly reporting the title, which only launched earlier this year, as “discontinued by the manufacturer”.

According to Hova, the ‘Fulfilled by Amazon’ (‘FBA’) service means that any third-party seller can incorrectly change the status of a product to ‘discontinued’, but only that same seller can correct the information – suggesting that a retailer mistakenly marked The Networks as going out of print, leading to player fears over the future of the game.

“After Bad Medicine, I swore to not use Amazon FBA to fulfil any more Kickstarters,” Hova wrote. “I was lucky to discover Funagain just before I fulfilled The Networks, and they helped me keep my promise. At the same time, I figured I would try to use Amazon FBA to at least move some stock of my game.

“But I’m likely going cold turkey with Amazon FBA from here on in. It’s just too difficult to deal with, and too much work. I’d rather spend my time building relationships with distributors and publishers than have to do all the screaming into the void that a relationship with Amazon FBA requires.”

As for the future of the game, Hova announced that a new print run would arrive in February, which would also allow the game to enter wider distribution, hopefully making it easier to pick up.

“I’ve reached out to retailers who may have made the change to my Amazon FBA listing to ask that they remove the misleading information,” he concluded. “In the meantime, please know that Amazon is not a reliable source for breaking game news."