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 looks at looks at the Bloomburrow prerelease, D&D Player's Handbook Gold foiling, and a proposes a Local Game Store Day.
A lot has happened over the course of the last week, so let's break it down by point:
Bloomburrow. Wizards of the Coast released
Magic: The Gathering’s - Bloomburrow this past weekend and it sold far better than we expected. Coupled with Eventlink not crashing during the prerelease events and slightly increased numbers for prereleases, I count the weekend as a success. I did hear of a few stores having problems with the software, but they were pretty scattered; not enough to indicate major problems with the system as we have seen in the past.
However, as I write this on Saturday of prerelease weekend, sales have really tapered off and we have sold very little sealed product today. I have heard from several customers that the onslaught of
Magic releases this year, especially
Modern Horizons 3, left their
Magic budgets tapped out. They do have a valid point as WotC has, by my count, released or will release eight sets in 9 months. That is a lot of cards for the player base to absorb and does not include the all the
Secret Lair sets that came or are coming out.
WotC does point out that not all sets are for every player, and that is a valid point. However, since the game is built around collecting and trading cards, expecting players to not want to acquire as many of the cards as possible is disingenuous, at best. All
Universes Beyond sets, though smaller than a standard release, still features a number of new cards most players want. Even
Bloomburrow has at least one card, Three Tree City, that will likely become a staple in many Tribal decks.
I have heard customers debating if they can juggle a car payment enough to purchase a few more packs of
Magic. Happily, the flood of
Magic tapers off after
Duskmourn: House of Horror releases (see "
Meh Releases and a Welcome Return") with only
Magic Foundations arriving in the Q4 2024.Hopefully, that will give
Magic players a chance to catch their breath and prepare their budgets for 2025.
Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Player’s Handbook. Although the three book display stand (see "
WotC Plans P.O.P. Display") is much of an incentive to encourage stores to purchase 30 copies of the
2024 D&D Player’s Handbook (I would much rather have received a cardboard floor display stand with that amount purchased), WotC has announced that first printings of the
2024 Player’s Handbook will have the 50th Anniversary logo embossed in gold foil on both the standard and alternative covers. Not sure if WotC will do the same for the first printings of the
2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide and
2025 Monster Manual, but will certainly be nice if it does.
DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) Day and a Local Game Store Day? This took place the previous weekend (Saturday, July 20). We've participated in the event every year since its inception (see "
UPS Strike? Maybe"), and see increased foot traffic and above average sales on the day. Since we are the only store for at least 100 miles that participates, we have
DCC players drive in from not only Southern Illinois but from Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri to visit. It makes me wish we had more national events like this in the industry. Currently in the hobby game industry, there are Free RPG Day and
DCC Day. Add in the comic industry and you have Free Comic Book Day,
Batman Day, Halloween Comic Fest and Local Comic Shop Day. Boardgaming’s International TableTop day went away with the TableTop streaming series but another national day, maybe a Local Game Store Day, focusing on gaming would give stores another national event to use to drive traffic?
Comments? Send them to
castleperilousgames@gmail.com.
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.
