Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne explains why he won't carry the latest distributor exclusive.The headline is me being sarcastic, of course. I received an email from GTS Distribution last week announcing they had secured exclusive distribution rights to the long out of print card game Kittens in a Blender. This has been a highly requested card game ever since it went out of print a couple of years ago. Something just amuses people about the idea of tossing cute, big-eyed kittens into a blender. Probably the same sort of sensibilities that have made Cards Against Humanity such a big hit this year.
GTS Distribution sent out an email last week announcing that they had secured the exclusive distribution to the first print run of Kittens in a Blender, now from Redshift Games (which ran a Kickstarter to get the game back into production waaaay back in the spring of 2012). There was no indication as to when Kittens would re-release in the email. It necessitated a trip to the GTS Website to find we can expect it sometime next month.
Though I have heard good things about the company, I do very little business with GTS, maybe one order a year, as I find that my three main distributors, plus some orders placed directly with the manufacturer, suffice for the store's needs. I thought about upping my orders with GTS, just to have access to Kittens but have decided against it for the moment for the following reasons:
- It doesn't dominate the category. For all intents and purposes, WizKids and HeroClix form the collectable miniatures game category. Since Wizards of the Coast discontinued its Dungeons & Dragons miniatures line, nothing has challenged WizKids in this segment of the market and, for better or worse, if you want to carry WizKids, you have to deal with Alliance Game Distributors. Same thing in the strategic board game category. Though it doesn't dominate as it used to, Mayfair Games still outsells any other boardgame manufacturer I carry and Days of Wonder comes close. If I want to say I carry strategic board games, I really need an account with Alliance. Redshift Games, even with Kittens in a Blender, doesn’t come close to dominating a market segment.
- Customers aren't asking for it. Cards Against Humanity is a game that I view as an Amazon exclusive. Despite the demand, the company chooses to sell solely through Amazon. No problem with that, it is their game and their choice on how to sell it. However, we had enough customers coming in asking for the game that we chose to buy it through Amazon, paying the full price, marking it up and reselling it to our customers. Target has had a similar deal with Mayfair Games for the Star Trek Catan game for the past year. Again, their choice. In the last 6 months, I have only had one person ask for the Star Trek Catan game and they wanted to purchase it with their birthday discount. If we had customers asking for STC, I would have started using Target as a supplier for it as well. Would I have liked to stock it? Certainly. Am I bothered by the store’s inability to stock it? A bit, but not enough to modify our channels of distribution to carry it. That's how I currently look at KIAB. If I actively used my GTS account, sure I would stock it. As it is, demand currently doesn't justify it.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
