J. Brian Cobos of Phoenix Games in Lynnwood, WA comments on the news of WizKids going exclusive through Diamond/Alliance (see 'WizKids Goes Exclusive'):

For my business, Alliance isn't necessarily the issue.  I have an Alliance account and can meet the minimums when I order from them.  However, I can get many products Alliance offers from local distributors (read: faster) for a better price than Alliance gives, even at their best rate.  With local availability, I don't have to carry as much inventory, since if I run low I can just hop out and pick up more, keeping valuable capital free to respond to any circumstance as it arises (going deeper on a product that does surprisingly better than anticipated, for instance).  I am lucky; I have two game distributors within a 15-minute drive and three more within a one day shipping window.  None of these are an Alliance warehouse.

Alliance is a tiered distributor, which means the more you buy the better the discount you receive.  But since I do most of my shopping from local distributors, I tend not to purchase enough to qualify me for their best rate (which is, in most instances, worse than my current price).  I generally use Alliance for special orders and specific manufacturers I can't get locally.

So now I am forced to choose -- pay more for WizKids products or snub my local distributors, who have championed my success, and buy all my products from Alliance so that I can qualify for the price that I already get elsewhere.  I don't believe I'll give my local guys the boot just so I can continue to carry (at my existing price) the products of a company that has, over the last couple of years, done everything they could to make selling their products as difficult as possible.  Perhaps, should I decide to continue carrying WizKids products, I'll increase prices on those products to reflect my increased cost.

From alienating the player base of every successful release they've had (right at the peak of its popularity with unpopular changes), to altering (I'm sorry -- 'clarifying') the details of their returnability program with distributors after the program had already commenced, to their most recent antics involving the DC Origins pre-release (posting the qualifications exclusively on their Website four days before Christmas festivities and making the deadline for submission just four days after Christmas), WizKids has shown itself to be a company desperately trying to fumble its way forward.

A note to WizKids: Many of your retailers are at their busiest during this time of year.  We may not get the opportunity to visit your Website everyday, or even during the nine days you had this window open!  While I'm at the WizKids Website at least one to two times a week, I wasn't that week.  I was occupied with assisting my customers with their last minute holiday purchases.  I guess that was my fault, putting my business first.  We had great success in hosting the Supernova pre-release and our player base is quite disappointed that it looks as though we won't get to do the DC Origins one as well.  Many of them are signaling that they are getting tired of jumping through the continuously moving hoops WizKids has set up and are contemplating leaving the game.  It's only going to take one or two more mis-steps to push them over the edge, just like it did to the MechWarrior and Pirates player base.

To our customers: I defended many of the WizKids decisions made these past couple of years as necessary for their overall health as they worked to increase their long term viability as a company experiencing declines in their collectible games markets.  Even as I found myself with stagnant inventory from games they either drove players from or never worked to establish a player base for in the first place (why couldn't I ever create even venue sponsored events through their Website for NASCAR Race Day?), I understood their need to protect their bottom line and do what was necessary to protect those who rely on WizKids for their paychecks.  But now I'm left to decide if I should continue to support the products of a company that has weighed the ramifications their decisions have on my bottom line, shrugged their shoulders, and said to themselves and to me -- 'meh...'

Competition in the marketplace is good for consumers.  WizKids -- I, the hobby and game store owner, am your consumer and I want competition back.  Otherwise, I may have to seriously consider a smaller, if any, future footprint for your products in my establishment.