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 shares some thoughts on the Magic the Gathering: Universes Beyond – Final Fantasy launch.
Thanks to the release of Magic: The Gathering – Universes Beyond: Final Fantasy, hundreds of stores posted that they saw their best sales ever; however, as I mentioned last week, I did have a few problems with the release (see “Tariffs and a ‘Final Fantasy’ Weekend“). Here are three things I would like to see addressed, though based on past experience I would bet two of them will not be:
1.
2. Packing slip with directions. This is one I have asked for before and as with #1, I doubt I will see any change. With every new release, Wizards of the Coast, and, to a lesser extent, Konami and The Pokemon Company send us a boxful of promotional materials to use promoting that set. Pokemon sends us dice sets, stickers, promotional cards, and activity cards, but sends no indication as to how they want us to use them. Similarly, Wizards of the Coast sends us a box filled with assorted promo cards, posters, pins, and this time dice and dice bags, with the list of items in the kit and their assorted uses posted on the WotC website. For pity’s sake, put a list in the box that we can use when we open it to see what we are supposed to get and how WotC wants us to use it. If that is not feasible, then how about putting a slip of paper with a QR code printed on it taking us to the page listing the items?
3. Promo dice and bags and Chocobo Racing. Related to #2, Final Fantasy is likely a one-off with Universes Beyond, but why provide a limited edition die and bag to promote the set, advertise it as available at your local brick-and-mortar game store during prerelease, and not provide enough of them to satisfy demand during the prerelease event of the hottest Magic set in years? From what I have read, most stores got two sets of 10 dice each and a pack of five dice bags with directions to give out the dice to people attending pre-release and the bags to those attending two or more. At the least, stores should receive one die for each kit received and bags equal to a quarter of the kits. Similarly, the Chocobo Racing promotion is a nice idea, but we need enough product available to host the drafts. Given how fast product is selling, I am loath to set aside product in order to host the drafts. Use these promotions on sets that are not sure-fire sellers, not one using one of the hottest IPs out there.
Comments? Are you able to get product? Were you able to use the promotional product effectively? 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.
Source: ICV2
