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 discusses publisher enforcement of reseller policies  and Ravensburger's new online sales policy.

One thing I have always found annoying is when companies say they take violations of street date and MAP violations seriously, but never show any evidence of it.  Legend Story Studios publishes a list of retail stores that have been suspended, for unnamed reasons, from selling the company’s Flesh and Blood TCG and participating in organized play events, which indicates the company takes seriously violations of its posted rules by retailers selling the game.  Meanwhile, some companies (such as Wizards of the Coast, The Pokemon Company International and Konami) say they take MAP seriously and enforce their policies regarding breaking street dates and violating MAP, but stores that report violations never see any apparent results from any reports made.

Wizards of the Coast has stated a number of times that the company welcomes reports of street date violations, but does not comment on them.  And, over at Asmodee NA, they state specifically in its MAP policy (Section 2:10) that:

"ANA refuses to engage in any communication with Resellers regarding whether a competing Reseller’s advertised pricing behavior is consistent with the ANA MAP Policy.  ANA assumes sole responsibility for monitoring and enforcing the MAP Policy and will not discuss such activities with any Reseller, except for the limited purposes of discussing an individual Reseller’s own advertised pricing behavior or penalties relating to the same."

I have been told by Asmodee representatives that they do take MAP violations seriously and have even pulled their products off Amazon when Amazon violated the company’s posted MAP on a product.  Also, other retailers have been told by Asmodee representatives that they get so many MAP violations reported that it is impossible to keep up with them, and unless a violation is especially flagrant, they will let it go.

I know from personal experience that Wizards of the Coast does check on reports of violations, since we got a call some years ago regarding a social media post the wording of which violated the terms of our agreement with the WPN.  I remember feeling both chastised and bemused that the company was so on top of things as to notice the questionable wording of our post.

I always felt that another store that had recently opened had seen our post and taken the opportunity to report us to WotC.  We have not had any reprimands from the company in over a decade though.  I just wish companies would go further than saying "we take these reports very seriously," and show us some evidence of it.

Meanwhile, Ravensburger, in the category of "better late than never" has announced an "Authorized Reseller Program."  The key features of the program, which does not apply to Disney Lorcana, are as follows [Note: corrected to note that the policy does not include Disney Lorcana, October 27 - ed.]:

1.  Authorized resellers may only sell to end users, not to others who plan to resell.
    
2.  Authorized resellers may sell through their own ecommerce website, provided they submit an Authorized Reseller Website Disclosure Form to Ravensburger. Resellers may not sell through a third-party platform, such as eBay and Amazon, without written permission from Ravensburger.

That indicates that Ravensburger is taking protection of its property moderately seriously.

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.