Late last year I was elected to have my design go into the pre-order phase. However, up until PatchTogether v.3.0 the page where you could pre-order the design (http://www.patchtogether.com/store/dluggon-207.html) was working. Now, it just gives me a "not found" page.

Clicking on See All under Open Preorder on the homepage or Preorders from the dropdown navigation just shows me designs that have already gone into production.

This is a bug, right? You guys haven't chosen to cancel all pre-order designs that have not yet reached the pre-order quota, have you?

We have removed Dluggon from our store because it has only received 14 preorders since last Sept. The minimal production quantity is now 50 and it is unlikely it will generate enough preorder at this stage. We are also going to give future On Demand design a total of 30 days in the store. If no sufficient preorder is received within the time period, it will be removed from our store.

You should establish that rule for future orders rather than existing ones, because this is incredibly unfair, especially when other designers got away with extended pre-ordering. Getting my design accepted was one of the best things to ever happen to me, and now you've suddenly denied this dream.

I'm sorry, but unless we can work something out, I can no longer use your services. I will be withdrawing my artwork from this website.

Thanks for nothing.

Oh, I had no idea you guys changed these policies! Was it ever posted anywhere on the site? Such a major change, I feel like the community should know about it

If you guys are going to do this you should give a count down to when the design will not longer be available. A lot of people hum and haw whether or not they want to buy something. When they decide they want it and its gone its a lost opportunity. Not everyone is an impulse buyer so telling them on the design itself that they have limited time to think about it would be a good idea.
To me 30 days does seem a little short. I know most people can't come on line for a few weeks at a time depending on how busy their work schedules are, how their internet connection are working and in some cases if they are on vacation. Even 50 days give you a chance of trying to sell 1 toy a day compared to 2 toys a day. For lesser know artist (like me) this would be harder to fill the orders even if it was the best toy idea ever.
So in the end I'm really agreeing with samotage. There needs to be a way of letting the community know in the preorder/on demand section that they have limited time to get a certain item.

Yeah, they like to change their rules on the fly all the time. I had 28 pre-orders for my toy, when the minimum was 20. I'd already met the requirements, but they decided to change the min. to 30. I met 30, Now it's 50. Notice that in the FAQ section, it still says 20. If PT is going to arbitrarily decide what they make, they should say that from the get go.