On Product Configuration, Rarity Scheme, Printer, Organized Play, Distribution, More
Lazarus Rising Games team at NYCC booth, l-r: Art Director Shawn Sawyer, CEO & co-founder Joseph Gagnepain, associate Tyler Bertrand, co-founder & President Ronald Pozzi, and CTO Keith Bursack
We had a chance at New York Comic Con to talk to CEO and Co-founder Joseph Gagnepain, and President and Co-founder Ronald Pozzi of Lazarus Rising Games, the company that is bringing back the 90s TCG OverPower, with multiple IPs and high quality custom art (see “Revive ‘OverPower’“). They shared info on the product configuration, rarity scheme, organized play, distribution, their printer, and recent additions to the property and artist rosters.
The structure, for which we’re using the term anthology games, is that multiple properties, all running on a single game engine, bring in more players, all of whom can interact with each other. Games like UVS, Weiss Scharz, and Union Arena all operate on this structure, and you could even argue that Wizards of the Coast, with its Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond sets, is part of this group, although they also obviously have a very strong core property of their own. Lazarus Rising Games is bringing some unique concepts and substantial sales support to their new line, and we had lots of questions for the principals.
ICv2
: You’re up on Kickstarter now. Why don’t you start out by explaining the concept for the game.
Lazarus Rising President Ronald Pozzi: The concept of the game is that a lot of players have already invested a sizable amount in other CCGs, and we want to be the second CCG that they can pick up. And they need to see that we have a long term view in terms of our product rollouts. We have signed Edgar Rice Burroughs; we have signed Top Cow, the entire universe and all of their titles, and we just signed Skybound, so we’re going to have Invincible and The Walking Dead as a set as well.
We’re working and we already had meetings with Disney and Warner Brothers to work towards Marvel and back to DC. We’re also approaching other indie titles because there is so many characters that can work within our system, and we believe that there’s a lot of stories that we can tell.
Is the game product itself a deck and boosters?
Pozzi: The game is based on four starter decks: each expansion or each core set is going to have four starter decks. Each deck is going to be of a specific power, and then we’re going to have boosters.
Our booster pack model is different. You’re not going to be chasing any more for overpowered cards or game-breaking cards. All of the playable cards are going to be at the common and uncommon level, which means that if you collect between one to three booster boxes, you’re going to get 90 percent and higher of the entire core set run.
But if you want to have the rare cards, for which we hired Joe Jusko, Philip Tan, Mark Silvestri (who’s going to be making original artwork for the Top Cow series), Jim Cheung. We have, as well, some other very big names.
You’re going to be chasing the alternate art, but there are many ways that you can also collect that alternate art. You can collect it through the booster packs, or you can collect it by playing with the community.
Is there a retailer tier for the Kickstarter?
Pozzi: Yes, there’s three retailer tiers on the Kickstarter.
Do you plan to take this product to trade after the Kickstarter?
Pozzi: Yes.
What’s the schedule of the product launch after the Kickstarter?
Pozzi: We’ve been very fortunate that a lot of the people that are working with us really understand what we’re trying to do, and we managed to partner with Cartamundi.
Cartamundi only works with Magic, Pokémon, Lorcana, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and now they have us as well. We feel very fortunate, and we believe that we will be able to fulfill high quality product globally (we’re planning to do a global rollout in the next coming years as well).
When will the Kickstarter backers get their product?
Pozzi: We’re fortunate that Cartamundi has put a slot for us for production in January, February. Given market conditions and things have been going on, we put a delivery date at the end of September of 2025, but we’re aiming to deliver by April, May, at the earliest, March.
Then when will it hit trade?
Pozzi: Trade, it’s going to hit at the end of the summer of 2025.
Like Gen Con?
Pozzi: We’re hoping, yeah.
What are your plans for organized play for OverPower?
Lazarus Rising CEO Joseph Gagnepain: What’s great is we partnered up with Carde.io, which is a new company. If you’ve ever heard of Longshanks, Carde.io is a new one that’s just coming out that was made by a bunch of people like us with a game who recognized that there were holes in the organized play.
No one was really doing it the way that anyone thought was right. Carde.io has been a fantastic partner because they really hit on every single thing you want as a brick-and-mortar store to gather a community of players together. They’re designing a player network portal for us.
As soon as we do fulfillment, we’ll be able to have our judge program ready, with the online test. Judges can certify and be searched out by ZIP code so stores they don’t necessarily play at can find them to bring in as judges.
We’re going to have a store locator from day one. We have a player ambassador program, where anyone that wants to go in and teach the game has the ability to do so. Stores can find them. They can find the stores.
Then they’re also creating a store for us, where players can earn power points, in addition to the prizes we’re providing the stores, for them to earn for teaching the game. They can then go spend them on our site, for playmats, for hoodies, for all kinds of products that have to do with OverPower.
In addition to doing all that, they’re going to be running our ranking system. They’re going to be able to help us keep everything. If you really care about the competitive side, you’re going to be able to get that experience right from day one.
Is the store locator for retailers that back the Kickstarter backers? How will that work?
Gagnepain: It’s tied to running events. Anyone that wants to go in and play, if you live in a place, you can type in your ZIP code, put in how many mile radius you’re willing to travel, and it will tell you, on a calendar, every single store in that radius and when they’re holding events.
How’s your distribution going to work when you go to trade?
Gagnepain: We’re already talking to GTS and Southern Hobby. They’ve approached us. We plan on distributing through all the normal channels, GTS, Southern Hobby, Diamond, Alliance. We’re going to be doing that as soon as we get fulfillment done from the Kickstarter.
We actually didn’t plan on putting this set through distribution. We were going to do our bigger properties that we’re licensing through distribution, but they want us to put this set out through it, too. There’s a good chance you’re going to see the Edgar Rice Burroughs license stuff on your store shelves before we get to Top Cow and our other properties.
The million-dollar question is, given the current market conditions and the many, many, many TCGs in the business, what’s unique or differentiating about your product that’s going to make it successful in that marketplace?
Gagnepain: Three big things. From a business standpoint, we’ve innovated a new rarity model where every playable card in our game is common and uncommon.
The second point is we still have rares and ultra-rares; what we’ve done is we’ve hired some of the best artists in the business to make different versions of the existing cards.
Marc Silvestri is doing Top Cow art; Joe Jusko, who painted the ’92 Masterpieces for Marvel, he’s painting for our game; Jim Cheung; Jae Lee from “Batman/Superman;” Adam Kubert just agreed to do some pieces. The list goes on and on.
That’s where your collectability comes from. Stores can still have a singles market, which a lot of games don’t like that they do. We’re encouraging it. We want the brick-and-mortars to have big margins, to make a lot of money. If you’re a player and you don’t care about collecting, you can go out and buy the deck the guy just won the pro tour with for 20 bucks.
It’s a two-tier customer experience, player or collector?
Gagnepain: Absolutely. You can collect this game. Our promos that we’re doing at these events, the one we did at the last event for Cthulhu is already selling on the singles market for 150 bucks. There’s a ton of collectability in these alternative art skins that we’re doing with the artists.
The player has a chase. They can go get those huge Adam Kubert one-of-a-kind pieces. Or, if you’re somebody like me, as a kid, who was digging through his couch cushions for change to buy one pack, I’m going to be able to go buy a pack and get two characters in every pack with the playable cards for those characters.
The last one I’ll say is OverPower, really, the big thing about our game that’s different than every superhero game that I’ve ever played, it’s the only game where I feel like I actually get to control the characters.
There are so many people that’ll get a license for a big property like a Marvel, and the mechanic has nothing to do with what the characters do. It’s just a painted-on veneer. Our design team, from day one, designs everything around flavor and theme. Then we backwards design to make the mechanics balance to give the players the good experience. As Ron Peraza, who was the co-creator of the game originally, loves to say, “Every single person loves a character.”
Source: ICV2
