ICv2 recently sat down with WizKids Executive Vice President Joe Hauck to talk about the two major issues of the day for WizKids.  In Part 1 of this two-parter, we talk about the reaction to the retooling of the company's flagship HeroClix line (see 'WizKids Retools HeroClix').  In Part 2, we talk about the status of the company's new exclusive distribution deal with Diamond/Alliance.

What was the response to your revamped HeroClix line?

Well it was very positive.  The boards for the fans were very abuzz with positive thoughts.  Everybody was a little apprehensive, because people fear change, and they were expecting us to do a 2.0 re-launch where everything was different.  As people got closer to the date and understood those changes and how they worked, they were much more comfortable with what the outcome is going to be.

Specifically, one of the things that really resonated with them was the addition of the character cards, which was one of the biggest controversies, because everyone was saying, 'Oh my gosh, it's going to be just like HorrorClix!  Everything I know is going to be different now!'  What people saw was that we were able to get the descriptions of character powers so much more crisply and firmly within the universe, as well as bring in comic book covers and texts from the comic book world.  It really made it a lot closer to the comic book consumer.

We were able to see that result just in the increase in distribution of stores into the comic book channel.  We were able to look at data last year on Sinister and on Supernova from Diamond Comics to see all the stores that had been carrying HeroClix before through them, and there was a huge increase in the number of products.  They were just picking up onesie twosies of product with their comic books, because they thought it was closer to the comic books.

What was the percent increase?

Off the top of my head, I believe it was like a 30% increase. It was significant.

You had a DC starter and a Marvel expansion. How did those releases compare to the previous releases of those types?

With the DC starter, there's this whole perception that DC never sells as well as Marvel.  I think we're going to prove this year that it's been a function of the timing of the sets rather than the properties themselves.

I think the first clue we have of that is the Legion of Super Heroes Starter game, which is selling exactly on par as the X-Men Starter that we released last year.  From that perspective, we're seeing that these are very similar when you're putting it out at the right time and you have the right content.  Because if you remember, that X-Men Starter game was a whole new paradigm in packaging for us, with the open plastic cover -- so you can actually see all the characters, and a very nice diorama setting.  You had great sales of that versus other HeroClix starters previously.  This is the first time that we've got a DC one in that exact same configuration.  With that configuration, we're seeing tremendous sales.  I think we're going to be able to prove with that and the launch of Justice League this summer that people are very interested in DC, and the gap is much smaller than retailers originally perceived.

The fact that the DC set is selling as well as X-Men is a sign that's doing well. How about the sales of the Avengers set versus the most recent Marvel set?

If you compare it year to year, if you compare it to Sinister, it's significantly higher, and we're certainly not done selling the set.  One of the good things that we're starting to see from the Alliance and Diamond deal is the tails of our expansions are fatter and longer than they used to be.  There was a perception before that what I needed to do was take product in, turn it as fast as I can, then put your hands up and say 'Alright I'm done!  And I didn't get stuck with anything, so that's a good thing and I'm going to move onto the next day.'  That was the impetus for us doing the deal in the first place, this fact that we were seeing this alarming trend of 'I ordered x cases and they all sold through, so that's a great day for you guys.'

'Well great, I read on the forums that more consumers are looking at the product, are you going to buy any more?'  And retailers would think, 'Oh, well I can't suffer that risk -- what happens if I don't sell it?'  So with Alliance and Diamond being the only ones out there to actually be selling the product into retail, what's happening is they are taking inventory risks, they are making sure they're stocked, they're stocking onesies twosies for people.  So we're seeing a lot longer purchasing period on our expansions than what we had a year ago.

Already, we're roughly 20% over what we sold in for Sinister last year.  At the rate we're selling, we're going to probably end up being 40-50% over what we sold on Sinister last year.  When you look at Supernova, that's a little bit of a difficult case, because that was when we were first trying to turn around the brand.  Lax Chandra and I had just been there since May.  We came in and made some emergency changes, we put it out, we purposely short-sold it, because we weren't sure what the changes would do.  It did sell more than Sinister, but it was short-printed in the sense that there was more demand out there that could have taken it.  In terms of absolutes, it is above where Supernova is already after its full life cycle, which took three months to filter all out there, and we're only at two months of Avengers.

For Part 2, Click Here!