I haven't played a lot of LCGs, my first LCG was ANR and I just got a Marvel Champions core set on Saturday. I remember going to my local game store and being able to just get the new ANR pack; no problem, I'd go on amazon and see the packs there too for the same price as my store or maybe 2 dollars higher (14.99 ). For some reason when it comes to Marvel Champions it looks like things sell out fast! My local game store that always has stuff was sold out already... I go to amazon and the packs are like 30 and 40.... what the heck is going on?!.... I'm not angry with Fantasy Flight or angry at all, I just can't believe that these packs are selling out and getting over priced like this. It just feels wrong to me.

Do you listen to the Team Covenant podcast? Their last few episodes were all about certainty in the industry and allocation in distribution. They come at it from a retailer's perspective, but their perspective is similar to ours since they don't get any advanced notice about product and suffer just as much as we do when stuff like this happens (maybe more so since they are a business and attempt to do subscription services around these products). In their discussions they come up with the only way FFG could fix this is if they overprinted or found a way to better gauge interest up front. Though TC goes into the obstacles they think companies like FFG might be facing in this regard, and I think their take is probably accurate:

1.) If you gauge interest in a product too early you generate buzz around it sometimes years in advance (if you wanna get ahead of production). When they talked to stegmaier games about it he said that is exactly why he left the kickstarter model. You then can lose that buzz as time goes on as players and retailers get annoyed at waiting for things. We saw this in the late 90s with Blizzard as TC brings up. We also see this all the time with Kickstarters. Every delay in products or distribution is magnified because your audience is taking notice when normally a product is invisible to them. It effectively works against the concept of certainty since those delays are probably generating just as much angst as the wait to reprint angst we get now. Usually in the traditional model a product is announced, it magically releases to retail soon after that, and the gap between the initial buzz and that initial purchase is minimized.

2.) Even if you knew interest in a game would be huge alot of game companies don't have the cash flow to do giant prints runs all in one go. That makes it an even bigger gamble since if they over print it could be financially disastrous for the company. We sometimes forget that FFG is not Hasbro. They are a bigger game company for sure, but a string of flops can take them down certainly. In old interviews Christian Peterson used to talk alot about gauging risk and evaluating if they could take a loss when they produced a lavish production like TI3 for example.

I think it is a tough nut to crack, but it seems like philosophizing about how to increase certainty in the game industry has become TC's focus. So the podcast is worth checking out if you haven't already. Their current hypothesis is FFG should be polling a subset of distributors and retailers to gauge interest. Then try and police them with NDAs and the threat of future non-support if they leak stuff (thus potentially damaging their marketing push). Though as TC points out the threats are sort of toothless, which may be why they didn't take the risk on leaking stuff in the past.

The answer is simple. Netrunner was never as popular as Marvel Champion so never had shortage problems.

12 hours ago, phillos said:

Do you listen to the Team Covenant podcast? Their last few episodes were all about certainty in the industry and allocation in distribution. They come at it from a retailer's perspective, but their perspective is similar to ours since they don't get any advanced notice about product and suffer just as much as we do when stuff like this happens (maybe more so since they are a business and attempt to do subscription services around these products). In their discussions they come up with the only way FFG could fix this is if they overprinted or found a way to better gauge interest up front. Though TC goes into the obstacles they think companies like FFG might be facing in this regard, and I think their take is probably accurate:

1.) If you gauge interest in a product too early you generate buzz around it sometimes years in advance (if you wanna get ahead of production). When they talked to stegmaier games about it he said that is exactly why he left the kickstarter model. You then can lose that buzz as time goes on as players and retailers get annoyed at waiting for things. We saw this in the late 90s with Blizzard as TC brings up. We also see this all the time with Kickstarters. Every delay in products or distribution is magnified because your audience is taking notice when normally a product is invisible to them. It effectively works against the concept of certainty since those delays are probably generating just as much angst as the wait to reprint angst we get now. Usually in the traditional model a product is announced, it magically releases to retail soon after that, and the gap between the initial buzz and that initial purchase is minimized.

2.) Even if you knew interest in a game would be huge alot of game companies don't have the cash flow to do giant prints runs all in one go. That makes it an even bigger gamble since if they over print it could be financially disastrous for the company. We sometimes forget that FFG is not Hasbro. They are a bigger game company for sure, but a string of flops can take them down certainly. In old interviews Christian Peterson used to talk alot about gauging risk and evaluating if they could take a loss when they produced a lavish production like TI3 for example.

I think it is a tough nut to crack, but it seems like philosophizing about how to increase certainty in the game industry has become TC's focus. So the podcast is worth checking out if you haven't already. Their current hypothesis is FFG should be polling a subset of distributors and retailers to gauge interest. Then try and police them with NDAs and the threat of future non-support if they leak stuff (thus potentially damaging their marketing push). Though as TC points out the threats are sort of toothless, which may be why they didn't take the risk on leaking stuff in the past.

I watch TC from time to time on youtube, but I missed that. Thanks for telling me, I need to check those eps out.

I totally agree that FFG should be polling to get interest in their products. When I wanted to buy a Marvel Champions Core set I didn't want to take a train ride to my LGS so I was looking for a store closer, I called my gamestop, they didn't have it but the retailer was just as excited about Marvel Champions as I was, he said he wants them to sell the game in his store (right now you can only order Marvel Champions Core online from the Gamestop website), he said they might start selling the packs in the store. Hopefully they'll do that. I tried getting into Star Wars Destiny but Gamestop never have packs in the store. They only have Yu Gi Oh and Pokemon (great games, I'm not trashing Yu Gi Oh or Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh was the first card battle game I ever played), so my interest in Star Wars Destiny went stale fast. Hunting for cards and packs or paying over price online is just not fun for me personally.

6 hours ago, vilainn6 said:

The answer is simple. Netrunner was never as popular as Marvel Champion so never had shortage problems.

If I'm not mistaken, ANR was the best selling LCG for a few years. It was a very popular game.

31 minutes ago, Kaijudo said:

If I'm not mistaken, ANR was the best selling LCG for a few years. It was a very popular game.

It was, for it's time. But Arkham and now Marvel are runaway hits that easily eclipse it. Arkham had similar issues early on.

1 hour ago, Radix2309 said:

It was, for it's time. But Arkham and now Marvel are runaway hits that easily eclipse it. Arkham had similar issues early on.

Ah so when I hear reviewers comparing Marvel Champions to Arkham and Lord of The Rings, they're talking about a Arkham card game, not the board game? I think I do remember hearing about a Arkham LCG right before they canceled ANR, maybe that's the game. I forgot there was a such a thing.

I'd say ANR was the first to get real attention. I remember seeing a few video game websites and other geek like sites talking about ANR.

I think the base principle when it comes to distribution problems is that, for the publisher, it's better to sell everything and run out, then it is to print too much and be unable to sell it.

In either case, I also think that FFG has learned some pretty tough lessons about "initial hype" and "long term success". Destiny and Runewars are two really good examples of products that seemed to be unparalleled smash hits if you were to gauge their success out of the gate, but both were effectively miserable failures in the long run.

Someone called Marvel Champions "runaway hit", I think that is a pretty premature call to make. I saw it being played like crazy for the first month pretty much everywhere, now suddenly it's completely dead. It completely ran out of steam in my local area. Now that is not some sort of evidence, but to me, your a success if you still have a strong following in year 5. Until then, your a maybe on your best day.

18 hours ago, Kaijudo said:

Ah so when I hear reviewers comparing Marvel Champions to Arkham and Lord of The Rings, they're talking about a Arkham card game, not the board game? I think I do remember hearing about a Arkham LCG right before they canceled ANR, maybe that's the game. I forgot there was a such a thing.

I'd say ANR was the first to get real attention. I remember seeing a few video game websites and other geek like sites talking about ANR.

ANR had the same issues at the beginning of its life. And, yes, it was every bit as popular as Marvel Champions. Its core set sold out quicker than MC's did. FFG is risk adverse. They do not want to overprint and warehouse stock, so they wait for preorders and try to get as close as possible and then immediately do a reprint run if the game is successful. It is very similar to what the comic book industry does right now.

What they don't do well is balance their retailer allocation. Now that Barnes & Noble gets a take on their products, local game stores are constantly getting allocated. That's not good business. Chasing the dollar to lose the backbone of their business and it will eventually catch up with them. They also print everything in China. Most other print to reprint consumer services try to have an outlet for production in North America. If Marvel wants a second printing of Hawkeye, they queue it up and it is done and ready for delivery in a month. FFG doesn't have that luxury. Depending on the time of the year and the latest politics/health of China and shipping unions, it could take months just to get a finished product into the US or EU. If they'd move production to North America all these problems would go away.

And, before anyone says that can't be done because of cost, again take a look at the comics industry. Marvel and DC print in Canada. Dark Horse in the US. A typical Dark Horse comic may have less than 40k single issues printed at $3.99 retail. If they can print that quality of product in the US, FFG could certainly do the same.

21 hours ago, gokubb said:

ANR had the same issues at the beginning of its life. And, yes, it was every bit as popular as Marvel Champions. Its core set sold out quicker than MC's did. FFG is risk adverse. They do not want to overprint and warehouse stock, so they wait for preorders and try to get as close as possible and then immediately do a reprint run if the game is successful. It is very similar to what the comic book industry does right now.

What they don't do well is balance their retailer allocation. Now that Barnes & Noble gets a take on their products, local game stores are constantly getting allocated. That's not good business. Chasing the dollar to lose the backbone of their business and it will eventually catch up with them. They also print everything in China. Most other print to reprint consumer services try to have an outlet for production in North America. If Marvel wants a second printing of Hawkeye, they queue it up and it is done and ready for delivery in a month. FFG doesn't have that luxury. Depending on the time of the year and the latest politics/health of China and shipping unions, it could take months just to get a finished product into the US or EU. If they'd move production to North America all these problems would go away.

And, before anyone says that can't be done because of cost, again take a look at the comics industry. Marvel and DC print in Canada. Dark Horse in the US. A typical Dark Horse comic may have less than 40k single issues printed at $3.99 retail. If they can print that quality of product in the US, FFG could certainly do the same.

It's funny you say that. I got my Marvel Core set from Barns and Nobles... Gamestop is another store near me that's suppose to have it too, but they never do, it's the same with Star Wars Destiny. It's like they give they give Gamestop a small amount. I think if they trusted Gamestop or of Gamestop trusted them they'll have a full stock of a few FFG products. It's crazy that we have to order online so much when we should just be able to walk into a Gamestop, Target, Comic Shop, Rite Aid, on Saturday afternoon, pick up a pack or two to enjoy with friends or with ourselves that same day.

Yeah this kinda stuff could be done a bit closer, I agree. It would help out so much and make the game available to everyone that wants to try it. Print and Play can be a thing too if they wanted to go that route.