Daniel McAbee of The Tangled Web in Spartanburg, South Carolina didn't like chain outlets getting the new Yu-Yu Hakusho CCG before he did:

Let's talk about responsibility.  More precisely, let's talk about the lack of responsibility shown by many manufacturers concerning the release of their products. 

This past Saturday (Sept. 9), I was initially pleased to see my customers drooling over their Yu-Yu Hakusho cards.  Upon further inspection, I noticed that these were not the demo decks that we had been handing out and demonstrating for the last month.  These were minty-fresh starters and boosters bought at the same stores where Pokemon Sandstorm boosters were sitting on the shelves. (thanks, Nintendo)

This is certainly not the first time that my mass-market competitors have sold product ahead of the noted release date, heck; it is not even unusual anymore.  What did surprise me was how easily I had been tricked into promoting and marketing Yu-Yu Hakusho for Score completely at my expense.  The Tangled Web is an Anime-heavy store so the Yu-Yu Hakusho CCG fell squarely into an established Otaku customer base.  We were looking forward to dot hack, Yu-Yu Hakusho and Initial D as the future of CCG's for our hardcore anime crowd. 

You see, I wrongly assumed that because Score had made such a big push to make demo decks available to the specialty market, they understood that his game had NO chance to grow anywhere else.  I wrongly assumed that Score had learned from mismarketing, and late-releasing DragonBall Z, not to ignore the specialty gaming market. 

Adding insult to injury, I called my distributor early Monday, Sept. 15, to find out when we could expect to receive our Yu-Yu.  He informed me the Score had only sent them one case of 1st edition starters and one case of 1st edition boosters.  They received so little product that they decided to lock it up and not put out ANY of it until Score responded to their calls.  I have just found out that it will be Monday, September 22, before their UNLIMITED product shows up; 12 days after they went on sale everywhere else. 

Score has built their last game on my back.  All of my DBZ starters and boosters were just priced at half off for clearance and when they are gone, there will be no more.  Yu-Yu Hakusho will not be sold or played here.  Let's see if Target, EB, or Game Stop will let them plop down in the floor and play in their stores because their games just became unwelcome at The Tangled Web.  I understand that I alone am not going to put a dent in Scores sales for this game nationwide, but I will put a major ding in it locally.

The opinions expressed in this Talk Back article are solely those of the writer, and do not reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.