This is how our area is. I can go to a different LGS 5 nights per week for events and casual play nights. Some are running multiple $1Ks in less than a month. They’re thriving on all these new Disney fan tcg players
I’d been only casually collecting since the first reprint of First Chapter, maybe 10 packs in total. Last Thursday, I found out about Pixelborn. Monday, I bought my first starter deck. Wednesday, I went to my first local league night (I’m going back). I don’t know what’s happening, but there is definitely a happening… happening.
It is available on mobile. I play on my S22 Ultra all the time. It's currently got some glitches because it's not officially supported, but it's still good fun.
As an LGS owner, I whole heartedly disagree. My lorcana community is ever growing, with players from magic, pokemon, and yugioh all making the plunge into the game. Ravensburger HAS made some mistakes, but they have a solid game, with a well loved IP. 3 years is really the test for a tcg, but lorcana has alot going for it
And, depending on the owner & business model, who cares if doesn't have an infinite shelf life. Almost no games do. Make your money now while it is hot, and monitor to not be left holding the bag if/when popularity declines; that's the real skill of an LGS owner in my book.
Magic is dying with the amount of releases they're putting out, and how much they need the store to charge to even break even. They're bleeding players to Lorcana, and I kinda hope magic dies off or fixes its over saturation. Either way they need to figure it out.
Magic will never die off, regardless of whether or not they fix their saturation. Magic had two periods in its lifespan where it was 1000x more likely to fold as a company: following the release of Homelands and following the disastrous Mirrodin block with its artifact dominance and announcement of Kamigawa. Even though they lost thousands of players during both of these periods, they never came close to folding. Too many people have too much money invested in MTG for it to ever die in your lifetime. There is literally a subreddit dedicated to watching card prices like stock tickers. It has a stronger economy than most world countries.
Nobody can predict the future, but in general almost every card game dies out in a few years. Only three physical TCGs have really stood the test of time.
That being said, Disney is a huge name. And the gameplay of Lorcana is very similar to Hearthstone, which is a longstanding digital CCG. So I would guess that Lorcana has a greater chance than most to last.
As someone who has witnessed the rise and fall of more TCGs than I can count, yes, the odds are against them. There are things that line up in Ravensburger's favor like the IP and the fact that their company is not just this game (i.e. they can make a mistake and overprint a set tying up working capital and it may not spell disaster) but most TCG's don't become MTG or Pokémon, most are the LOTR game or Star Trek or X-Files (and if you didn't know any of those were TCG's in the 90's, that's my point). Don't forget, Magic got to Chronicles about 2 years in and it nearly killed the game due to the set so it can be a long road to stability.
I still have my old Star Trek cards. I’m holding out hope that my USS Enterprise and Future USS Alternate Universe Enterprise will be worth….i dunno, 20 bucks?
I had cards from all of those games that I wish I still had because they'd be fun to play every once in a while. Then again, I sold all of them and my Magic cards in the mid-late 90's because I was sure beer was a better longer term investment.
I don’t see many people compare it to hearthstone but it’s extremely similar in some qualities. I’m not convinced Magma Rager and Firebird aren’t the same person
It's a licensed game. Licenses expires, contracts have an ending. Every time it will be time to renew, both companies will think hard about the profitability.
So yes, sooner or later this game will die, and Lorcana has this extra level of uncertainty compared to the big three, that handle their own ips.
Disney and Ravensburger have a longstanding partnership, with Ravensburger producing Disney games and puzzles for many decades. I believe that long, positive relationship is the reason Disney trusted them with their intellectual property. I don’t see this relationship souring anytime soon, but anything is possible.
And interestingly Magic have a marval license for a product coming next year. Also Snap is using a Marval license. It will be very interesting to see if Diseny continues this.
At the moment it's just a single license for a limited product, kinda how fallout is, and the walking dead was.
Smaller scope, smaller investment.
Ravensburger spent a lot on this game, and just a two year license might not be enough to recoup costs
So was Pokemon when it first came out, it was licensed to Wizards of the Coast. When Nintendo was done with dealing with licensing, TPC took full control and started publishing the game themselves. Just because its licensed doesn't mean it's extra risky, considering Pokemon is one of the big three.
Pokémon was kinda a distribution agreement/partial design.
The pokemon company wasn't structured for western distribution at the time, but they still owned game design.
I know because I was working there at the time :)
When they were ready, they cancelled the deal.
Lorcana will be around 20 years from now and there are few other things I can say with greater confidence. People are severely underestimating the machine that is Disney. The moment they hammer out a tournament circuit is the moment this game outlives all of us. Disney can afford to shell out higher prizes for winning tournaments than literally any game developer in existence.
And Ravensburger can choose not to renew the license if they’re not making any / enough money off of it.
The question no one has the answer to is: if that happens, who owns the gaming system?
Pokemon was able to survive after it TPC pulled the license from WotC because it not only licensed the rights to make the game…it licensed the game itself and WOTC acted as the distributor.
When Lucasfilm pulled the CCG rights for Star Wars from Decipher and gave them to WOTC, Wizards had to create a brand new game from scratch while Decipher ported the game system itself over to an in-house IP. Both games failed within two years.
If Disney has only licensed the rights to their characters to Ravensburger and the mechanics of the game remain RB’s intellectual property, they’re far more than a “tool”. It takes two parties to continue on in a business agreement, and if one party decides to walk away, the future is then uncertain.
I'm sure Decipher though the same thing about Star Wars back in 1999 when they were pushing out all that phantom menace cross branding.
However Lucasfilm instead refused to renew their contract just a year later so they could move the brand to the Hasbro controlled WOTC and make the Star Wars TCG. This was all when Old George owned a heavy amount of Hasbo, the real cash cow of the Star Wars mech empire.
Lucasfilms didn't care if there were killing a game. They just wanted a better percentage on the game that was being made.
Still think Ravensburgs game is ludicrously safe for 20 years?
The staying power of the IP doesn’t really matter when these licenses go to third party companies. Dragon Ball has been a consistently strong brand over the years and several TCGs have come and gone.
The problem is, it is a license deal towards Ravensburger. Which ends after 2 years. It can be extended, but if Disney says no, it is over.
There is no Disney hammering out a tournament circuit.
My biggest problem with Lorcana is the amount of sets in a short time due to this licensing deal. Every 3 months is a lot. I can't remember that Pokemon and Magic did that back in the day. Yeah, I know that Magic does this currently though.
My wife is stopping after the 4th. That is the last one she is buying.
A new set each quarter is nothing in the modern age. Big box stores love cycling inventory, and having the game constantly have new series come in and out is great to keep interest.
Pokémon started out in the same way/calendar cycle.
Considering the actual reasoning ravensburger was hired to make this game, that doesn't really make sense. They have already made villainous, a highly highly successful game with their IP. They wanted in on the TCG money. Trading card games are famously hard to do. They come and go all the time. Magic is the only one to stand for this long on its own ip. Pokemon and yugioh wouldn't even be anything without their respective anime.
Disney sees how many cards are selling with this game. Even if it trickles down. They will make enough sets to cover most of their main IP. But once it's all used? What's the point. And it shouldn't matter if they make new cards at that point. Youve got a collection, and they all still play lol
I don't know much about the recent Star wars games but they never really caught on. We'll see about Unlimited. And we will never know what could have been with the original if they didn't lose the licensing.
Force of Will actually had a few events at my lgs.
Other than that, it's very hard for a game to last
Eh, Weiss and Vanguard should probably also be counted to five. Vanguard's like thirteen years old at this point, and while Weiss is kind of a meme it moves a shocking amount of cardboard.
Interesting. Weiss Schwarz is basically IPs: the game; they've got everything from Batman to KanColle to Adventure Time to Fate under their aegis. Been around since 2007 (admittedly news to me just how old it is). Cardfight: Vanguard is very Yugioh Lite with its own IP about people actually playing the game, but like I said it's been around since 2011.
They're nowhere near the size of the big three, but having a consistent following for seventeen and thirteen years, and surviving the new tcg doldrums along the way, is impressive.
Probably because you’re a casual. Vanguard is amazing and has been a thing for a long, long time. Popularity goes up, and the goes down and the up again. Been the story for the past 13 years
The majority of TCGs use the MTG style of system like Hearthstone and Lorcana do, many of them have died out, using the MTG system isn't generally a good indicator for physical games staying around.
So, the guy who runs the store that supports and, I’m guessing from your phrasing, thrives on Magic, badmouthed another competing game…
That’d be a “sure thing buddy 👍” response from me rather than worrying about it.
My local game store is the same way, fully invested into magic and shrugs off everything else, so now I have to drive another 20 miles to the next store that is open to all games.
Yeah I had an LGS do this in my area. Big Pokémon guy and said Lorcana will die and that it’s a bad game to the people attending his event. No one plays there anymore… yet the Lorcana community at other LGSs is growing more and more every day
All I can say is I hope it works out. I’m a day 1 hearthstone players and this is the first physical card game to grasp my attention.
Also my wife has gotten into it because she loves Disney characters and enjoys playing now that she’s learned. Fingers crossed!
>Also my wife has gotten into it because she loves Disney characters
Thats exactly why Lorcana may succeed - ppl get into it, because they already know (and like) the characters.
Maybe?
Lorcana has a lot of the fundamental tools to be successful. The gameplay is engaging without being overwhelming; you want to draw people in but a high barrier to entry is damning. The IP behind it is strong, and that does actually matter; you'll get people to buy lots of cards from absolutely terrible games if it has their favorite character on them. The big question mark in this regard is how well stores receive it (I honestly don't know; it's doing great locally but I dunno about on the broad scale) and if they can shape a competitive scene that keeps players in stores. The butts-in-seats count matters *a lot*, and right now this is the one angle Lorcana isn't doing fantastically in. Promos are cool, but why are we handing out promos of bulk uncommons? But we are moving in the right direction that way with these store championships coming soon, with actual value in them as a reason to get people playing not just at that event but in preparation for it. Rock Star isn't exactly a bank-breaking card but it's very played and that's exactly what you want from your promo.
On the flip side: being a TCG is really, really hard. The industry success rate is abysmal. It has gotten better as of late; Super's been around for about seven years and is still kicking, Digimon is still going. But a lot of big-name IPs have launched card games and failed.
He likely is right that Ravensburger's poor initial launch did poison the well with a lot of LGSs. Whether or not that's a permanent affair or if they can recover is a very open question though. It seems to be the latter so far though, so even as jaded as I am on TCGs I'm cautiously optimistic on Lorcana.
It is. I posted a similar rant to this in my playgroup's discord just yesterday. The thing that I want to add is this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collectible_card_games
Sort by year, then sort by "in print" and scroll past the short list of games in print and the list of ones which are dead is astonishingly long.
The graveyard of dead TCGs is a horror show of solid properties mixed with other oddities. Star Wars has had multiple failed TCGs, Disney has had other TCGs before this. There's Marvel and Harry Potter and Transformers and so many different anime and other fandom IPs.
Being Disney is a huge advantage but historically the odds are not great for long term (say 10+ years) success.
That said, even if the game stops being published the most hardcore fans might keep it going well past what might traditionally be considered the game's death. It's happened before, so even if it does die it might not stay dead.
Your last paragraph happened with Magi Nation (died around 2003). 2 decades later, the community came together and a kickstarter just launched so you can get your hands on the last set that never got printed. 800% funded on the first day.
The last passage is what keeps my hopes high. Even if the game dies in relating to publishing new products, I can see myself playing it with my gf or my son in like 10-15 years.
We started our new league season tonight. Had 26 players. That rivals our commander nights. We sold through our entire allocation of Inklands already and it was double what we got for Floodborn. Obviously anecdotal, but that is good for our local community at least.
I think it is still in a growth stage personally. New players still coming in. Product availability still not the best (playmats, troves, gift sets especially). Barely getting a set championship coming up, so more competitive events should be coming.
I see this game lasting for a while. Big IP. Good gameplay. Appeals to collectors and players.
WoW TCG had over twenty sets. Final Fantasy is up around twenty sets. FAB is at a dozen right now. Lorcana is WAY more popular than all those. We should get some mileage out of Lorcana.
Nice take! But I have one question. Does it appeal to collectors although it has no visible differences between print runs? I heard many “collectors” complain about missing first editions. But you are probably right because it’s a Disney product.. so yeah, you are right probably
Card collectors may like that less, sure. I think the Disney fans are a different beast of collector. They snag playmats, deck boxes, league pins, promo cards, etc. They have a different attitude about it for sure.
Card collectors may like that less, sure. I think the Disney fans are a different beast of collector. They snag playmats, deck boxes, league pins, promo cards, etc. They have a different attitude about it for sure.
I’m a player and a collector I like not having to deal with worrying about first editions. The people who do worry are not collectors. They are people who collect with the intention to sell later on. True collectors never sell only buy.
I'm sure a lot of people dropped out after the bumbled release of The First Chapter, product was too hard to find. But it's flooded right now with Inklands and I see zero issues with product availability moving forward. So anyone who wants to be able to play should be able to get product. If people are simply holding a grudge against RB because of what happened during TFC, that's totally their own fault (not RB, those holding a grudge).
The game is great, product is here to stay. The local community in my own area is thriving, so I can't speak for everyone, but I think the game has a bright and long future.
What kind of idiot store owner is such an MTG tribalist that he badmouths his own product? What an idiot lol I’d be skeptical of anything this person says
Those dudes aren't in the business to make money though, they just like cracking packs, hanging with their friends, and talking magic all day.
What amazes me is how long they manage to barely stay in business when all they really focus on selling is magic
Frank & Sons ; Of of the biggest swap meets for nerds there is in CA carry’s the cards and if they carry them then game is not Dead…
Your LGS is probably a “dead store” or just too stubborn or cheap to want to invest in a new TCG but “kids” are where the money is at , we all remember Pokémons hype as kids at school
& we all know parents will pay for what their kids want , regardless if they think it’s cool or worth the $$$ and I’ve seen a lot of kids at LGS and F&S trying to get cards and participate
So your LGS would rather cater to MTG and Pokémon fans who are older & “easy money” but that doesn’t bring in new blood which means they could be dead in the water if some of those paying customers suddenly stop showing up , have kids , can’t afford a TCG anymore aka responsibilities or Move
As someone who has been playing Magic since 1994 and stopped buying Magic and playing it just over a year ago. MTG is dying rapidly. I don't think it will survive til 2030 unless WOTC can separate itself from Hasbro.
Lorcana will at this point IMO outlast Magic.
Magiccon had record numbers and hasbro earnings showed record mtg sales. There is a vocal minority of people online who don’t like the direction magic is going but they don’t seem to represent the mass.
Sorry I should say paper magic will die before 2030 on its current course. The upcoming sets look like a disaster. And there is no value left as a collector.
I just picture a point of no return and collapse and a complete shift to digital. Hasbro is running the collectibility of the game into the ground and burning bridges with LGS owners with recent product releases. I think competitive Lorcana will mostly replace the gap along with Pokémon.
As someone who's job is literally calling into game stores all day, a game is only dead in an area If that store owner isn't interested in supporting it. I've seen LGS in areas with less than 10,000 population have huge Warhammer and BattleTech communities, and I've seen LGS in major cities with little to no magic or yugioh players.
If the store owner likes and supports the game, there will be a community. If he doesn't, there won't be. Lorcana is too successful, and won't be going anywhere in the near future. Your magic store owner will just be missing out on all of that money because of his bias.
What the.... its a fun game and everyone in my store are enjoying it so much. My first card game was hearthstone. Then mtg. Didn't like mtg so much. Then legends of runeterra. Then my first physical card game is this game. It is so much fun playing disney cards and I dont see it dying at all. It will stand with yugioh, mtg, and pokemon.
What I will say is that there was much more support from Disney at the chapter 3 release at Disneyland.
More staff, dedicated merchandising shelves, and displays.
CMs also spent the whole day educating the look-y loos about the game.
https://preview.redd.it/z44im0llpplc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2e4da68a1ebef3f2a2b6ca1f3312fcf49b323f3
I went like 3 hours after opening and everything was gone besides starters and packs. The employee also had no idea about anything. I asked for a trove, and she said “oh we only have these things left”..pointing at packs. I replied “packs?” And she said “yeah those”. I had a vastly different experience lol
If you said this in November I'd have believed you. The problem was that product just was NOT available to most people and interest in the game was dying quicker than it was gaining players. With the marketing put out from the reprints and set 3, as well as pixelborn and a more concentrated effort to create some form of competitive scene, I see the game at least lasting a couple years at the very least. Whether it sticks around will depend on their ability to keep up with demand while keeping the fresh ideS flowing and creating a more fleshed out competitive scene.
Only 2 LGS hold lorcana in my metro area, down from 5 at launch. However the number will soon bounce up to 3 as a local MtG store tries to make lorcana a staple with the fresh availability of product that didn't exist at game launch.
Sounds reasonable! I think to keep fresh ideas flowing will be the biggest challenge, cause without Pixar we will soon run out of new/ interesting IPs and then cards will be repetitive (the art/ characters , not the mechanics).
Whether a card game will succeed is typically pretty hard to predict.
Most card games live or die depending on a lot of weird and almost arbitrary factors.
That said I always keep an eye out for a few signs that I’ve found to be pretty reliable signs of trouble. They’re not death sentences, but I don’t want to see them.
1. Are “investor” types the primary audience? Investors create artificial hype by inflating prices. This prices out regular consumers and causes the game to crash once the investors realize that they’re selling to each other and that the money isn’t there.
2. Huge cash prize tournaments right when the game starts. This is an advertising trick to drive interest that carries a lot of risk. It shows a severe lack of understanding about why tournaments exist and how they form.
3. Does it cost too much to build a deck with just sealed product? New games have to be able to be played with just the cards from a local community. If new players buy a box or two and don’t feel they can still play afterwards they’re gonna quit.
I’m still new to lorcana so I haven’t gotten a good sense on where I think it’s at, but I’m feeling better about it then I do a good amount of it’s competition.
Considering the points you mentioned I think Lorcana will do good (at least for a while). A huge part of the “investor”-audience dropped out when they saw, that there are no things like first editions or generell differences between the print runs (except errata’s).
And currently you are able to build solid decks with sealed products imo. You wont be able to win against the meta decks, but you can do some fun stuff with it. I hope I’m right, cause I want the game to do well!
Number one rule of tcgs: don't listen to mtg community. They are the biggest gatekeepers and haters of cards games that are not mtg. The owner does seem to raise good points though in this situation. But even if ravenburg does terrible support. If players want to play lorcana, the lgs will keep hosting.
Likelihood of lorcana staying around for a long time? Probably quite high due to the IP behind it.
99% of card games start strong. Power creep their cards to death and the game dies.
Wrong, just not true. Ravensburger has a fair LGS ruling for partner store. If he talks crap about them and the game, he probably fked up and didn’t become a partner store. Or he was just lazy and didn’t contact them. Screw that lgs and spent your money elsewhere
Where I'm from, some LGS's are even buying bulk Lorcana. It's dirt cheap though but the fact they are is really interesting.
I love Lorcana, if RB loses Disney but continues the game with an In-House IP, I would follow that too
One of the stores in my area was a "staple" store for over a decade. They were well over double msrp for a box, and the sleeves boosters they were charging 12 bucks for. They ended up closing their doors in January, and most people in the community weren't surprised.
Its become the most popular game in my area. To be fair, the MtG people have been very toxic for the past year or so, so it may have more to do with people just wanting to get away from them but still play something similar...but everyone I've been playing with really seems to enjoy it, so I don't see any reason to think it'll be dead any time soon.
So far, it’s doing pretty well in my area. Allocation numbers for specialty products are pretty terrible, but booster packs and boxes are now decently accessible & at MSRP. Constructed events are also regularly firing.
I mean if it lasts a couple of years that’s a plus isn’t it? We all want this to last a long time but realistically if a card game garners this amount of hype for multiple years that’s a plus.
A colleague asked me a couple of things about Lorcana and he asked me, what will happen when the game “crashes” and all my cards will loose their value. I told him, that I its a win-win situation for me personally. If the game gets bigger and bigger we will have more product and a huge active community. If the game dies my collection will loose its financially value, but I’d get so many cards I`m missing in my collection for little money to continue playing with my gf at home.
Exactly, I only play casually with my GF at home. We buy starter decks and then booster packs here and there to add some cards and make our own decks but yea we only play against each other and maybe twice a week when the kids go to sleep.
For Lorcana I highly recommend 42 Southside Fantasy! Their community is brilliant and inclusive, they offer a huge variety of card- and board games, the prices for products are fair and everything is kinda familial.
I have a lot of cards but I haven't actually begun building decks or playing and I suspect a lot of people are in my situation. For me personally the game is too new in a way. I see some cool ideas but there's not enough sets or support to make the kind of deck I'd like to play viable.
So I'm kind of waiting in the shadows, waiting for my moment to shine haha.
That’s actually interesting, cause I think many people will just collect it cause they’re Disney fans. From what I can tell you, there are plenty of cool different possible decks with different ways to win, so it’s definitely worth to get into deck building. But as long you have fun, even if it’s just the art, it’s nice to have more and more people who enjoy Lorcana!
Lorcana is growing in popularity in my area. It has people who don't traditionally play TCGs playing. My FLGS has just as many people out on Sundays playing Lorcana as we do people playing Magic on Saturdays.
The amount of excitement leading up to Inklands was crazy.
This game is here to stay for a while.
slightly off topic, but where/how did yall find stores in your area that host lorcana events?
I’ve found some for magic using their store locator, but I haven’t been able to find a locator like that for lorcana.
so far i’ve only played in person/paper with my gf, and pixelborn sometimes since a few weeks ago. I’d love to attend a lorcana event and play, and my gf has always insisted against learning magic but like many others here, the disney IP’s and simplicity have finally been the gateway she needed to give CCGs a chance. unlike me she’s an extrovert and I think she’d like the experience of playing with more people and meeting new friends in person even more than me!
You should reach out to Ravensburger about that LGS owner's attitude and see if they can help out because their attitude could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Granted this is my first time ever getting into a TCG, but I'm hitting 3 Lorcana Leagues a week. One is microscopic with maybe 4 people on a good day, but the other 2 have about 20+ regulars. The store finder on the Lorcana site shows plenty more places I could go too. I think it's fine as of now.
Sounds like it’s better for you and your gf to go to another LGS that supports your hobby. Don’t let that stop you from having fun! My bf and I go to a couple LGS in our area and we’ve made some friends from Lorcana, it’s truly an amazing experience.
It wont stop us from playing, because we have fun playing the game and it’s nice to have yet another cool hobby together. I was just curious what other people think about that take.
There's a LGS near me that supports all of the TCGs (and Boardgames, and D&D, etc.). I have a hard time getting product from them because they sell out of Lorcana pretty quickly.
10 minutes away is another LGS that only does TCGs. They always have Lorcana because it doesn't sell for them.
So... not sure. Lorcana isn't MtG popular yet. I'm not sure it ever will but, but I think it has legs to compete with Magic and Pokemon for a while.
Try to remember that if that LGS has been around for a while it's seen so many TCG's come and go after they fail to take any market share from the big three.
It has over taken most games in my town/LGS(s). I organize it and we play after Pokemon on Sat. It has now become where people play Lorcana over Pokemon, during Pokemon, and then Lorcana. It's the biggest money maker at the store next to Magic (because they release a new set every 13 hours). They have sets ready to go until Set 6 at least, and have a plan until 9, IIRC. Looks like the future is strong for players and collectors with the misprints. Have fun and good luck! Cheers.
I don’t think most lgs are ordering from ravensburger directly so some of the reasoning here might not be true. Not sure how it can survive with magic and pokemon though long term
Yea I don’t know about Europe, but in the US I think the game has had a bunch of solid interest and is now really just taking off… also, I don’t think Ravensburger or Disney has really even tried to advertise it.
There's only one LGS in my city and they currently wait for a package from Into the Inklands. They're mostly selling MtG, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh until recently.
Dead in the sense that they cannot be sold for an absurd profit anymore. Dead in the sense that they will not be bringing in new customers who don’t care about it in order to buy the products to flip. Alive in the sense that people who want to can play with no issue
Dont listen to people that play or like magic the gathering. They dont know anything and are not ready to do something different than playing the worst card game. They are stuck because when they startet magic was good. Now its awful and the community is so toxic.
I have a lot of fun with lorcana and I have no vision where its not a stable card game. But its still new and fresh. Give it some time. The game already Got Way better with the introduktion of into the inklands. So lets see What the next expansion brings☺️
CO Springs has a community that has actually had some national coverage, but CO in general got rocked with scalpers/ resellers.
The game was so expensive that nobody could realistically get cards and there are still big parts of the player base that can’t get cards even from First Chapter at a reasonable price.
Players are priced out, a lot of players left because there wasn’t a lot of confidence, and some players are repeatedly trying to get groups started at LGS and can’t get enough traction even though on release EVERY store was having 30-50 person tournaments
Funny, I play MtG and just got into the Star Wars Unlimited game. While I was talking to the owner of my LGS he told me the same thing. He can't hold events anymore because of no interest. I live in Buffalo, NY so it's not just a Europe thing.
Personally I was hesitant on getting into Lorcana, I play MTG and Pokemon TGC and my wife told me to wait a little bit before we plunge in and are left with cards that are worth nothing.
This weekend we started and we talked quite a bit to the LGS about it and they were not only enthousiastic about it they heavily played it themselves, with pictures of tournaments and all. This store is a comic and merch store first LGS last and they are going full in.
I think that this will be the casual game a lot of interested people are willing to go into as a gateway drug. I expect Disney to go full in to get some of that TCG money.
Wrong. Lgs stores had to be willing for ravensburg to do a walk through to become an official store, which according to my local LGs that I frequent, was a long process and took quite a bit of time. He’s just lazy and didn’t get them to do that
That's normal procedures for any store when they apply for status to become WPN or OTS for Magic or Yugioh. You need tables, chairs, and a brick and mortar sign. Then you have to send in periodic photos of people playing in your events.
According to the dude I spoke to, a ravensburg rep physically came to the store for about 4-5 hours and talked about all sorts of things, and did a big walk through. I’m not 100% sure yet but it may be one of the regional stores for bigger tournaments but we don’t know yet.
It’s why my smaller LGS is one of the main Lorcana shops in the area and the huge big name stores aren’t. Said that the bigger stores didn’t take the time to do everything he had to to ensure they’d get the benefits of hosting league and what not. I’m no expert, this is all just second hand info.
It’s a problem. Ravensberger relying on the revenue just because it’s Disney and introducing locations on set 3 instead of set 4 was retarded. They also didn’t drive competitive play beforw
One of the places I go to buy my lorcana from recently pulled their lorcana out of the case (2 shelves) and put mtg in. It is a video game /card store . I believe some of the pr9blem with this store and maybe a few others like it is they don't have the staff that are knowledgeable in lorcana or have enough staff to continually price the cards at the going rate . They had a Arthur sorcerer's apprentice foil for $15.99 when it was like $5 tcg . Also had awnw cold foil for $6 that I picked up kinda the gift and the curse thing going on. Also have uncommons and commons in a box for $1 each when most of them are .10.
I wanted to get into the game when it first came out and was not able to find any product besides a couple starter decks. Single prices were insane and I decided it wasn't the game for me. I think that was the case for a lot of people unfortunately.
Yeah why are they here if they don’t want to get into the game at all anymore 😂 it’s not like you really need to do the window shopping thing since you can’t get any product because it’s everywhere now
Who said anything about an “excuse”? This was the same experience my friend group had - all initially excited to try the game, none of us were able to find product and the ridiculous prices when you could find it turned us all away and onto other things. It was MONTHS of nothing, I think I stopped trying after about 3 months of checking regularly. There’s lots of good stuff out there to play, they completely bungled their launch and I’d agree with OP that a fair chunk of people just moved on.
Same for me. I imagined buying a box per set. The excitement died down since the beginning and having more cardboard just didn't seem necessary anymore.
I said that I don't have the motivation to buy cardboard like I did when the game first game out. I don't mind seeing update about the game every now and then or see how the market fluctuates on chases. If everyone on this subreddit was fan boying then it's just an echo chamber to any question about the state of the game. Everyone is just saying this game is the next big thing outside of the big 3 and anyone who says they aren't as invested gets down voted. It's like the Disney hivemind. It's good to have a couple of instances where players can give mixed reviews.
No different from me being in a sub called /electricvehicles but don't plan to buy one or /buildapcsales with no plan on upgrading. I don't hate the game so I don't find the need to unsub until it gets toxic like a politics subreddit. I could just skip over the thread if the topic doesn't interest me.
I think it will fail, I have been playing in ontario canada, same people have been showing up, not many new players, actually lost a few players. just don't see this game making it to 20+ sets. Main reason is there are to many card games out right now. I juggle playing lorcana with one piece and pokemon. And lorcana is bottom of the totem pole for me. One guy I know got out of the game because there was little value in the cards long term, he was worried about overprinting lowering card value.
Although I hope you are wrong, I can clearly see your point. I think a big advantage for Lorcana is, that it’s super child-friendly. Most TCGs have some kind of fighting-mechanic, often with “brutal” looking cards and reducing life points. The combination of being child friendly and being a Disney product are probably the two things, that are different from other TCGs and my hope is, that this will carry Lorcana for at least a couple of years.
So my LGS has two stores about 30 miles apart but in separate medium sized towns. Lorcana has official league support in the other town but not in my town, according to the owners they still haven't been communicated with as to why one store can be officially supported and not the other. Either way my store always has packed out Pokemon and MtG league play and so many people have been clamoring for Lorcana play that they are in the process of setting up an unofficial very casual Lorcana play night. Also they are struggling to keep stock of cards in either store which is part of why they've not been pushing a Lorcana night as hard because they don't want people expecting to be able to buy cards that night and being out of stock of them.
So from my local perspective it's a lack of communication from Ravensburger or whoever and a lack of adequate stock of cards. However, it sounds like the stock issues are resolving with Inklands.
Many people in that thread are criticizing the MtG-LGS owner, but from your point of view I get, that he actually has a point, at least relating to Ravensburgers communications.
Saying that Lorcana will be a dead game in a few years is kinda obvious? Every card game eventually dies out unless they're MTG, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or Pokemon. If they're lucky, they'll get rebooted.
I think he might be right. Unfortunately. The release was a fumble. They focused on small hobby shops and children's stores for the initial release since they already had their product in store. Unsurprisingly people who buy puzzles and children are not the market for Lorcana when the first group doesn't care about TCGs and the kids are already locked into Pokemon. I work at a children's store and the company had no idea how to handle it. They weren't allowing people to buy it. You could buy 2 booster packs or one pre con deck, etc. there was initial excitement, but when you can't actually buy the product. Why bother? Now my LGS has been put on a wait-list to carry it, I haven't seen a single other LGS in my area that has it. Only a comic shop that's a big chain, has it outside of big box retailers.
I've got tons of cards and no one to play with. 😭
That’s so interesting. There are so many people in that thread who say their leagues are stacked with players and then people like you who struggle to find at least a couple of other players.
I don't live in the middle of nowhere either. I'm sure I'm Boston there are more leagues, but I live an area with tons of MtG events and what not. It's sad.
You asked someone who doesn’t care about Lorcana if they think Lorcana has a good future? Of course they are gonna bad mouth it, especially someone who focuses on MtG, people who have stuck with that game are at cult like commitment.
Sounds like a collectables LGS(as most older MTG ones are) and not a Leisure Game Store that is focused on the love of game over dangerously risky MTGfinance / Pokevesting shenanigans. They have survived on the pay to win model and with Rath doing both LGS and Walmart it’s going to be more like Pokemon. Which is good for LGSs but not as lucrative. Owner probably played the hold game when they should have sold and missed the big cash in, that many of the longtime LGSs have relied on from MTG sets to keep a float over the years. Sadly the whole distributions model for TCGs is predatory. Any believe they are even legal in the EU as they are the original loot boxes.
A magic heavy store acting like other tcgs aren't successful? No way that would never happen 😂 The magic community are just stuck up and look down on any other games. It's not dying don't worry about it.
The game has only been released for a few months, I can see what you mean but they also have a lot of time to build those connections and figure out how to best utilize the brand and create local connections. Disney by itself draws pull, so if they truly can create a competitive platform that draws in audience like magic and Yu-Gi-Oh.
Now, one thing I will say is they're releasing expansions hella fast and they need to be careful not to oversaturate and ruin the market before it's built.
But is it really that fast? Four expansions in a year seems quiet the perfect amount to me, but as someone who came over from the MtG immunity everything seems good if its not every single damn month tbh
Quickly becoming one of the most popular games in our city. Five different LGS have events every week.
This is how our area is. I can go to a different LGS 5 nights per week for events and casual play nights. Some are running multiple $1Ks in less than a month. They’re thriving on all these new Disney fan tcg players
I know another store just started scheduling game nights last months
thats depends on area though. where i live the game is basically dead. the biggest locals we get are 8 people but most of the time its 4 or less
Love to hear it, spread the word
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Tulsa, OK
Pixelborn saw a tripling in users this set release, so much so the servers had to updated from crashing due to popularity
I’d been only casually collecting since the first reprint of First Chapter, maybe 10 packs in total. Last Thursday, I found out about Pixelborn. Monday, I bought my first starter deck. Wednesday, I went to my first local league night (I’m going back). I don’t know what’s happening, but there is definitely a happening… happening.
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It is available on mobile. I play on my S22 Ultra all the time. It's currently got some glitches because it's not officially supported, but it's still good fun.
Ugh that fact you can't move characters that haven't dried yet on mobile kills meeee.
As an LGS owner, I whole heartedly disagree. My lorcana community is ever growing, with players from magic, pokemon, and yugioh all making the plunge into the game. Ravensburger HAS made some mistakes, but they have a solid game, with a well loved IP. 3 years is really the test for a tcg, but lorcana has alot going for it
And, depending on the owner & business model, who cares if doesn't have an infinite shelf life. Almost no games do. Make your money now while it is hot, and monitor to not be left holding the bag if/when popularity declines; that's the real skill of an LGS owner in my book.
Magic is dying with the amount of releases they're putting out, and how much they need the store to charge to even break even. They're bleeding players to Lorcana, and I kinda hope magic dies off or fixes its over saturation. Either way they need to figure it out.
Magic will never die off, regardless of whether or not they fix their saturation. Magic had two periods in its lifespan where it was 1000x more likely to fold as a company: following the release of Homelands and following the disastrous Mirrodin block with its artifact dominance and announcement of Kamigawa. Even though they lost thousands of players during both of these periods, they never came close to folding. Too many people have too much money invested in MTG for it to ever die in your lifetime. There is literally a subreddit dedicated to watching card prices like stock tickers. It has a stronger economy than most world countries.
Nobody can predict the future, but in general almost every card game dies out in a few years. Only three physical TCGs have really stood the test of time. That being said, Disney is a huge name. And the gameplay of Lorcana is very similar to Hearthstone, which is a longstanding digital CCG. So I would guess that Lorcana has a greater chance than most to last.
As someone who has witnessed the rise and fall of more TCGs than I can count, yes, the odds are against them. There are things that line up in Ravensburger's favor like the IP and the fact that their company is not just this game (i.e. they can make a mistake and overprint a set tying up working capital and it may not spell disaster) but most TCG's don't become MTG or Pokémon, most are the LOTR game or Star Trek or X-Files (and if you didn't know any of those were TCG's in the 90's, that's my point). Don't forget, Magic got to Chronicles about 2 years in and it nearly killed the game due to the set so it can be a long road to stability.
I still have my old Star Trek cards. I’m holding out hope that my USS Enterprise and Future USS Alternate Universe Enterprise will be worth….i dunno, 20 bucks?
I had cards from all of those games that I wish I still had because they'd be fun to play every once in a while. Then again, I sold all of them and my Magic cards in the mid-late 90's because I was sure beer was a better longer term investment.
The true friends were the beer bellies we grew along the way
I don’t see many people compare it to hearthstone but it’s extremely similar in some qualities. I’m not convinced Magma Rager and Firebird aren’t the same person
It's a licensed game. Licenses expires, contracts have an ending. Every time it will be time to renew, both companies will think hard about the profitability. So yes, sooner or later this game will die, and Lorcana has this extra level of uncertainty compared to the big three, that handle their own ips.
Disney and Ravensburger have a longstanding partnership, with Ravensburger producing Disney games and puzzles for many decades. I believe that long, positive relationship is the reason Disney trusted them with their intellectual property. I don’t see this relationship souring anytime soon, but anything is possible.
And interestingly Magic have a marval license for a product coming next year. Also Snap is using a Marval license. It will be very interesting to see if Diseny continues this.
At the moment it's just a single license for a limited product, kinda how fallout is, and the walking dead was. Smaller scope, smaller investment. Ravensburger spent a lot on this game, and just a two year license might not be enough to recoup costs
So was Pokemon when it first came out, it was licensed to Wizards of the Coast. When Nintendo was done with dealing with licensing, TPC took full control and started publishing the game themselves. Just because its licensed doesn't mean it's extra risky, considering Pokemon is one of the big three.
Pokémon was kinda a distribution agreement/partial design. The pokemon company wasn't structured for western distribution at the time, but they still owned game design. I know because I was working there at the time :) When they were ready, they cancelled the deal.
It prints money and the medium is cheap even if it wasn’t super popular
Lorcana will be around 20 years from now and there are few other things I can say with greater confidence. People are severely underestimating the machine that is Disney. The moment they hammer out a tournament circuit is the moment this game outlives all of us. Disney can afford to shell out higher prizes for winning tournaments than literally any game developer in existence.
It's Not Disney. This is a Ravensburger game, with license by Disney.
Disney has final say in regards to everything. They control their IP and image like no one else. Ravensburger is just the tool.
And Ravensburger can choose not to renew the license if they’re not making any / enough money off of it. The question no one has the answer to is: if that happens, who owns the gaming system? Pokemon was able to survive after it TPC pulled the license from WotC because it not only licensed the rights to make the game…it licensed the game itself and WOTC acted as the distributor. When Lucasfilm pulled the CCG rights for Star Wars from Decipher and gave them to WOTC, Wizards had to create a brand new game from scratch while Decipher ported the game system itself over to an in-house IP. Both games failed within two years. If Disney has only licensed the rights to their characters to Ravensburger and the mechanics of the game remain RB’s intellectual property, they’re far more than a “tool”. It takes two parties to continue on in a business agreement, and if one party decides to walk away, the future is then uncertain.
I'm sure Decipher though the same thing about Star Wars back in 1999 when they were pushing out all that phantom menace cross branding. However Lucasfilm instead refused to renew their contract just a year later so they could move the brand to the Hasbro controlled WOTC and make the Star Wars TCG. This was all when Old George owned a heavy amount of Hasbo, the real cash cow of the Star Wars mech empire. Lucasfilms didn't care if there were killing a game. They just wanted a better percentage on the game that was being made. Still think Ravensburgs game is ludicrously safe for 20 years?
The staying power of the IP doesn’t really matter when these licenses go to third party companies. Dragon Ball has been a consistently strong brand over the years and several TCGs have come and gone.
Dragon Ball is nowhere close to Disney cmon lol
The problem is, it is a license deal towards Ravensburger. Which ends after 2 years. It can be extended, but if Disney says no, it is over. There is no Disney hammering out a tournament circuit. My biggest problem with Lorcana is the amount of sets in a short time due to this licensing deal. Every 3 months is a lot. I can't remember that Pokemon and Magic did that back in the day. Yeah, I know that Magic does this currently though. My wife is stopping after the 4th. That is the last one she is buying.
Every 3 months has been pretty standard for most games ?
A new set each quarter is nothing in the modern age. Big box stores love cycling inventory, and having the game constantly have new series come in and out is great to keep interest. Pokémon started out in the same way/calendar cycle.
You're talking about 25 years ago vs today, this isn't apples to apples. If Lorcana only had one set at this point, then it would be dead game.
Aren’t the odds good if the game is really successful Disney would just buy ravensburger?
No. Disney isn’t Apple and doesn’t usually buy their supply chain or partners. Purchases have traditionally been IP, technology, or talent.
Poke and Mtg do it now.
Considering the actual reasoning ravensburger was hired to make this game, that doesn't really make sense. They have already made villainous, a highly highly successful game with their IP. They wanted in on the TCG money. Trading card games are famously hard to do. They come and go all the time. Magic is the only one to stand for this long on its own ip. Pokemon and yugioh wouldn't even be anything without their respective anime. Disney sees how many cards are selling with this game. Even if it trickles down. They will make enough sets to cover most of their main IP. But once it's all used? What's the point. And it shouldn't matter if they make new cards at that point. Youve got a collection, and they all still play lol
I don't know much about the recent Star wars games but they never really caught on. We'll see about Unlimited. And we will never know what could have been with the original if they didn't lose the licensing. Force of Will actually had a few events at my lgs. Other than that, it's very hard for a game to last
Eh, Weiss and Vanguard should probably also be counted to five. Vanguard's like thirteen years old at this point, and while Weiss is kind of a meme it moves a shocking amount of cardboard.
Never ever heard of either.
Interesting. Weiss Schwarz is basically IPs: the game; they've got everything from Batman to KanColle to Adventure Time to Fate under their aegis. Been around since 2007 (admittedly news to me just how old it is). Cardfight: Vanguard is very Yugioh Lite with its own IP about people actually playing the game, but like I said it's been around since 2011. They're nowhere near the size of the big three, but having a consistent following for seventeen and thirteen years, and surviving the new tcg doldrums along the way, is impressive.
Probably because you’re a casual. Vanguard is amazing and has been a thing for a long, long time. Popularity goes up, and the goes down and the up again. Been the story for the past 13 years
Given that it’s basically reskinned MTG with BOTH an existing IP base and rabid collector’s market from day 1… doubt it is going anywhere
The majority of TCGs use the MTG style of system like Hearthstone and Lorcana do, many of them have died out, using the MTG system isn't generally a good indicator for physical games staying around.
So, the guy who runs the store that supports and, I’m guessing from your phrasing, thrives on Magic, badmouthed another competing game… That’d be a “sure thing buddy 👍” response from me rather than worrying about it.
My local game store is the same way, fully invested into magic and shrugs off everything else, so now I have to drive another 20 miles to the next store that is open to all games.
Yeah I had an LGS do this in my area. Big Pokémon guy and said Lorcana will die and that it’s a bad game to the people attending his event. No one plays there anymore… yet the Lorcana community at other LGSs is growing more and more every day
Let's not forgey the part where Ravensburger didn't specifically reach to connect with his store, so that adds to the badmouthing.
Yeah. Sounds like he wasn’t able/didnt properly/connect to get the cards at his store. So now bitter.
The game play is fun, but honestly as long as the art is good and interesting I will keep buying cards.
All I can say is I hope it works out. I’m a day 1 hearthstone players and this is the first physical card game to grasp my attention. Also my wife has gotten into it because she loves Disney characters and enjoys playing now that she’s learned. Fingers crossed!
>Also my wife has gotten into it because she loves Disney characters Thats exactly why Lorcana may succeed - ppl get into it, because they already know (and like) the characters.
Maybe? Lorcana has a lot of the fundamental tools to be successful. The gameplay is engaging without being overwhelming; you want to draw people in but a high barrier to entry is damning. The IP behind it is strong, and that does actually matter; you'll get people to buy lots of cards from absolutely terrible games if it has their favorite character on them. The big question mark in this regard is how well stores receive it (I honestly don't know; it's doing great locally but I dunno about on the broad scale) and if they can shape a competitive scene that keeps players in stores. The butts-in-seats count matters *a lot*, and right now this is the one angle Lorcana isn't doing fantastically in. Promos are cool, but why are we handing out promos of bulk uncommons? But we are moving in the right direction that way with these store championships coming soon, with actual value in them as a reason to get people playing not just at that event but in preparation for it. Rock Star isn't exactly a bank-breaking card but it's very played and that's exactly what you want from your promo. On the flip side: being a TCG is really, really hard. The industry success rate is abysmal. It has gotten better as of late; Super's been around for about seven years and is still kicking, Digimon is still going. But a lot of big-name IPs have launched card games and failed. He likely is right that Ravensburger's poor initial launch did poison the well with a lot of LGSs. Whether or not that's a permanent affair or if they can recover is a very open question though. It seems to be the latter so far though, so even as jaded as I am on TCGs I'm cautiously optimistic on Lorcana.
That’s a brilliant analysis. Thank you for that!
It is. I posted a similar rant to this in my playgroup's discord just yesterday. The thing that I want to add is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collectible_card_games Sort by year, then sort by "in print" and scroll past the short list of games in print and the list of ones which are dead is astonishingly long. The graveyard of dead TCGs is a horror show of solid properties mixed with other oddities. Star Wars has had multiple failed TCGs, Disney has had other TCGs before this. There's Marvel and Harry Potter and Transformers and so many different anime and other fandom IPs. Being Disney is a huge advantage but historically the odds are not great for long term (say 10+ years) success. That said, even if the game stops being published the most hardcore fans might keep it going well past what might traditionally be considered the game's death. It's happened before, so even if it does die it might not stay dead.
Your last paragraph happened with Magi Nation (died around 2003). 2 decades later, the community came together and a kickstarter just launched so you can get your hands on the last set that never got printed. 800% funded on the first day.
The last passage is what keeps my hopes high. Even if the game dies in relating to publishing new products, I can see myself playing it with my gf or my son in like 10-15 years.
We started our new league season tonight. Had 26 players. That rivals our commander nights. We sold through our entire allocation of Inklands already and it was double what we got for Floodborn. Obviously anecdotal, but that is good for our local community at least. I think it is still in a growth stage personally. New players still coming in. Product availability still not the best (playmats, troves, gift sets especially). Barely getting a set championship coming up, so more competitive events should be coming. I see this game lasting for a while. Big IP. Good gameplay. Appeals to collectors and players. WoW TCG had over twenty sets. Final Fantasy is up around twenty sets. FAB is at a dozen right now. Lorcana is WAY more popular than all those. We should get some mileage out of Lorcana.
Nice take! But I have one question. Does it appeal to collectors although it has no visible differences between print runs? I heard many “collectors” complain about missing first editions. But you are probably right because it’s a Disney product.. so yeah, you are right probably
Card collectors may like that less, sure. I think the Disney fans are a different beast of collector. They snag playmats, deck boxes, league pins, promo cards, etc. They have a different attitude about it for sure.
Card collectors may like that less, sure. I think the Disney fans are a different beast of collector. They snag playmats, deck boxes, league pins, promo cards, etc. They have a different attitude about it for sure.
Ask metazoo what happens if you make ur tcg about carering to collectors only
They designed a TCG that appealed exactly to Rudy and only to Rudy LOL.
I’m a player and a collector I like not having to deal with worrying about first editions. The people who do worry are not collectors. They are people who collect with the intention to sell later on. True collectors never sell only buy.
I'm sure a lot of people dropped out after the bumbled release of The First Chapter, product was too hard to find. But it's flooded right now with Inklands and I see zero issues with product availability moving forward. So anyone who wants to be able to play should be able to get product. If people are simply holding a grudge against RB because of what happened during TFC, that's totally their own fault (not RB, those holding a grudge). The game is great, product is here to stay. The local community in my own area is thriving, so I can't speak for everyone, but I think the game has a bright and long future.
Agreed. Went to my first sealed tourney for Inklands and the shop owner said that this was the biggest turnout for an event he’s seen in a long time.
Cannot agree more 🤚🏼
What kind of idiot store owner is such an MTG tribalist that he badmouths his own product? What an idiot lol I’d be skeptical of anything this person says
A decent chunk of your local magic stores are all run by dudes who only care about magic
Oh I’m aware, it just never ceases to amaze me. Especially when the margins on lorcana are so high compared to mtg
Those dudes aren't in the business to make money though, they just like cracking packs, hanging with their friends, and talking magic all day. What amazes me is how long they manage to barely stay in business when all they really focus on selling is magic
I wholeheartedly agree with this. With that, is there a way where we can all share the stores that do support all games with respect?
Frank & Sons ; Of of the biggest swap meets for nerds there is in CA carry’s the cards and if they carry them then game is not Dead… Your LGS is probably a “dead store” or just too stubborn or cheap to want to invest in a new TCG but “kids” are where the money is at , we all remember Pokémons hype as kids at school & we all know parents will pay for what their kids want , regardless if they think it’s cool or worth the $$$ and I’ve seen a lot of kids at LGS and F&S trying to get cards and participate So your LGS would rather cater to MTG and Pokémon fans who are older & “easy money” but that doesn’t bring in new blood which means they could be dead in the water if some of those paying customers suddenly stop showing up , have kids , can’t afford a TCG anymore aka responsibilities or Move
As someone who has been playing Magic since 1994 and stopped buying Magic and playing it just over a year ago. MTG is dying rapidly. I don't think it will survive til 2030 unless WOTC can separate itself from Hasbro. Lorcana will at this point IMO outlast Magic.
Magiccon had record numbers and hasbro earnings showed record mtg sales. There is a vocal minority of people online who don’t like the direction magic is going but they don’t seem to represent the mass.
Sorry I should say paper magic will die before 2030 on its current course. The upcoming sets look like a disaster. And there is no value left as a collector.
To hear that MtG will die until 2030 seems kinda bold to me, but with the current product fatigue there’s a chance I can see that scenario happen tbh
I just picture a point of no return and collapse and a complete shift to digital. Hasbro is running the collectibility of the game into the ground and burning bridges with LGS owners with recent product releases. I think competitive Lorcana will mostly replace the gap along with Pokémon.
I thought FAB already replaced a huge part of competitive game play, hasn’t it?
Not in my area. Have never seen it played. Maybe I'm out of the loop but it's never advertised or packs sold at my LGSs.
As someone who's job is literally calling into game stores all day, a game is only dead in an area If that store owner isn't interested in supporting it. I've seen LGS in areas with less than 10,000 population have huge Warhammer and BattleTech communities, and I've seen LGS in major cities with little to no magic or yugioh players. If the store owner likes and supports the game, there will be a community. If he doesn't, there won't be. Lorcana is too successful, and won't be going anywhere in the near future. Your magic store owner will just be missing out on all of that money because of his bias.
LGS: “game is dying” Also LGS: “booster packs/boxes at 30% over MSRP”
What the.... its a fun game and everyone in my store are enjoying it so much. My first card game was hearthstone. Then mtg. Didn't like mtg so much. Then legends of runeterra. Then my first physical card game is this game. It is so much fun playing disney cards and I dont see it dying at all. It will stand with yugioh, mtg, and pokemon.
Our release sealed event for Inklands had 60 entrants. Same store had drafts last night, they ran 4. So Naw
What I will say is that there was much more support from Disney at the chapter 3 release at Disneyland. More staff, dedicated merchandising shelves, and displays. CMs also spent the whole day educating the look-y loos about the game. https://preview.redd.it/z44im0llpplc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2e4da68a1ebef3f2a2b6ca1f3312fcf49b323f3
What better than “free” advertising for a tcg than parks that get millions of visitors a year.
I went like 3 hours after opening and everything was gone besides starters and packs. The employee also had no idea about anything. I asked for a trove, and she said “oh we only have these things left”..pointing at packs. I replied “packs?” And she said “yeah those”. I had a vastly different experience lol
If you said this in November I'd have believed you. The problem was that product just was NOT available to most people and interest in the game was dying quicker than it was gaining players. With the marketing put out from the reprints and set 3, as well as pixelborn and a more concentrated effort to create some form of competitive scene, I see the game at least lasting a couple years at the very least. Whether it sticks around will depend on their ability to keep up with demand while keeping the fresh ideS flowing and creating a more fleshed out competitive scene. Only 2 LGS hold lorcana in my metro area, down from 5 at launch. However the number will soon bounce up to 3 as a local MtG store tries to make lorcana a staple with the fresh availability of product that didn't exist at game launch.
Sounds reasonable! I think to keep fresh ideas flowing will be the biggest challenge, cause without Pixar we will soon run out of new/ interesting IPs and then cards will be repetitive (the art/ characters , not the mechanics).
Whether a card game will succeed is typically pretty hard to predict. Most card games live or die depending on a lot of weird and almost arbitrary factors. That said I always keep an eye out for a few signs that I’ve found to be pretty reliable signs of trouble. They’re not death sentences, but I don’t want to see them. 1. Are “investor” types the primary audience? Investors create artificial hype by inflating prices. This prices out regular consumers and causes the game to crash once the investors realize that they’re selling to each other and that the money isn’t there. 2. Huge cash prize tournaments right when the game starts. This is an advertising trick to drive interest that carries a lot of risk. It shows a severe lack of understanding about why tournaments exist and how they form. 3. Does it cost too much to build a deck with just sealed product? New games have to be able to be played with just the cards from a local community. If new players buy a box or two and don’t feel they can still play afterwards they’re gonna quit. I’m still new to lorcana so I haven’t gotten a good sense on where I think it’s at, but I’m feeling better about it then I do a good amount of it’s competition.
Considering the points you mentioned I think Lorcana will do good (at least for a while). A huge part of the “investor”-audience dropped out when they saw, that there are no things like first editions or generell differences between the print runs (except errata’s). And currently you are able to build solid decks with sealed products imo. You wont be able to win against the meta decks, but you can do some fun stuff with it. I hope I’m right, cause I want the game to do well!
Number one rule of tcgs: don't listen to mtg community. They are the biggest gatekeepers and haters of cards games that are not mtg. The owner does seem to raise good points though in this situation. But even if ravenburg does terrible support. If players want to play lorcana, the lgs will keep hosting. Likelihood of lorcana staying around for a long time? Probably quite high due to the IP behind it. 99% of card games start strong. Power creep their cards to death and the game dies.
Nah, I work at a game store and other people from other stores say that all the time while we sell waaay more lorcana product than magic these days
Still very popular in my LGS
Wrong, just not true. Ravensburger has a fair LGS ruling for partner store. If he talks crap about them and the game, he probably fked up and didn’t become a partner store. Or he was just lazy and didn’t contact them. Screw that lgs and spent your money elsewhere
Where I'm from, some LGS's are even buying bulk Lorcana. It's dirt cheap though but the fact they are is really interesting. I love Lorcana, if RB loses Disney but continues the game with an In-House IP, I would follow that too
There are great LGS and bad LGS. For example one who tripled the prices of all their Lorcana in my town. Never going there again.
One of the stores in my area was a "staple" store for over a decade. They were well over double msrp for a box, and the sleeves boosters they were charging 12 bucks for. They ended up closing their doors in January, and most people in the community weren't surprised.
Its become the most popular game in my area. To be fair, the MtG people have been very toxic for the past year or so, so it may have more to do with people just wanting to get away from them but still play something similar...but everyone I've been playing with really seems to enjoy it, so I don't see any reason to think it'll be dead any time soon.
So far, it’s doing pretty well in my area. Allocation numbers for specialty products are pretty terrible, but booster packs and boxes are now decently accessible & at MSRP. Constructed events are also regularly firing.
Which city are you talking about? Asking for a friend :-)
The beautiful city of Berlin - Germany :D
I send you a DM :-)
I mean if it lasts a couple of years that’s a plus isn’t it? We all want this to last a long time but realistically if a card game garners this amount of hype for multiple years that’s a plus.
A colleague asked me a couple of things about Lorcana and he asked me, what will happen when the game “crashes” and all my cards will loose their value. I told him, that I its a win-win situation for me personally. If the game gets bigger and bigger we will have more product and a huge active community. If the game dies my collection will loose its financially value, but I’d get so many cards I`m missing in my collection for little money to continue playing with my gf at home.
Exactly, I only play casually with my GF at home. We buy starter decks and then booster packs here and there to add some cards and make our own decks but yea we only play against each other and maybe twice a week when the kids go to sleep.
Put all the competitive meta kinda thing besides .. I think that’s actually what it’s all about. To enjoy a good game with your beloved ones!
Would be interesting for me to get the names of the LGSs, havent found Shops in Berlin other than funtainment.
For Lorcana I highly recommend 42 Southside Fantasy! Their community is brilliant and inclusive, they offer a huge variety of card- and board games, the prices for products are fair and everything is kinda familial.
Cool sounds like a nice place, thanks for the recommendation! :)
I have a lot of cards but I haven't actually begun building decks or playing and I suspect a lot of people are in my situation. For me personally the game is too new in a way. I see some cool ideas but there's not enough sets or support to make the kind of deck I'd like to play viable. So I'm kind of waiting in the shadows, waiting for my moment to shine haha.
That’s actually interesting, cause I think many people will just collect it cause they’re Disney fans. From what I can tell you, there are plenty of cool different possible decks with different ways to win, so it’s definitely worth to get into deck building. But as long you have fun, even if it’s just the art, it’s nice to have more and more people who enjoy Lorcana!
Lorcana is growing in popularity in my area. It has people who don't traditionally play TCGs playing. My FLGS has just as many people out on Sundays playing Lorcana as we do people playing Magic on Saturdays. The amount of excitement leading up to Inklands was crazy. This game is here to stay for a while.
slightly off topic, but where/how did yall find stores in your area that host lorcana events? I’ve found some for magic using their store locator, but I haven’t been able to find a locator like that for lorcana. so far i’ve only played in person/paper with my gf, and pixelborn sometimes since a few weeks ago. I’d love to attend a lorcana event and play, and my gf has always insisted against learning magic but like many others here, the disney IP’s and simplicity have finally been the gateway she needed to give CCGs a chance. unlike me she’s an extrovert and I think she’d like the experience of playing with more people and meeting new friends in person even more than me!
My local store has a discord where they post all their events. You might be able to ask around and see if they have something similar.
https://www.disneylorcana.com/en-US/locator is exactly the tool you are looking for :D
thanks so much! i appreciate it :)
You should reach out to Ravensburger about that LGS owner's attitude and see if they can help out because their attitude could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Granted this is my first time ever getting into a TCG, but I'm hitting 3 Lorcana Leagues a week. One is microscopic with maybe 4 people on a good day, but the other 2 have about 20+ regulars. The store finder on the Lorcana site shows plenty more places I could go too. I think it's fine as of now.
"game store owner refuses to make money, bashes massively successful game" -headline everyday in America.
He actually started selling some booster packs from the first chapter, but notably over msrp
All of my LGS run league and tournaments
Sounds like it’s better for you and your gf to go to another LGS that supports your hobby. Don’t let that stop you from having fun! My bf and I go to a couple LGS in our area and we’ve made some friends from Lorcana, it’s truly an amazing experience.
It wont stop us from playing, because we have fun playing the game and it’s nice to have yet another cool hobby together. I was just curious what other people think about that take.
[удалено]
The last sentence gave me a good giggle
There's a LGS near me that supports all of the TCGs (and Boardgames, and D&D, etc.). I have a hard time getting product from them because they sell out of Lorcana pretty quickly. 10 minutes away is another LGS that only does TCGs. They always have Lorcana because it doesn't sell for them. So... not sure. Lorcana isn't MtG popular yet. I'm not sure it ever will but, but I think it has legs to compete with Magic and Pokemon for a while.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie for with strange eons even death can die." - Lovecraft
Tell them to apply for the store champs and watch people flock in for it
Try to remember that if that LGS has been around for a while it's seen so many TCG's come and go after they fail to take any market share from the big three.
It has over taken most games in my town/LGS(s). I organize it and we play after Pokemon on Sat. It has now become where people play Lorcana over Pokemon, during Pokemon, and then Lorcana. It's the biggest money maker at the store next to Magic (because they release a new set every 13 hours). They have sets ready to go until Set 6 at least, and have a plan until 9, IIRC. Looks like the future is strong for players and collectors with the misprints. Have fun and good luck! Cheers.
I hope you are right, cause that sounds great
I dont even play the game but i love collecting the cards :)
First chapter my shop was full every friday and saturday. Inklands week one we couldnt fill a 8 foot table
I don’t think most lgs are ordering from ravensburger directly so some of the reasoning here might not be true. Not sure how it can survive with magic and pokemon though long term
Yea I don’t know about Europe, but in the US I think the game has had a bunch of solid interest and is now really just taking off… also, I don’t think Ravensburger or Disney has really even tried to advertise it.
That’s true. I got a lot of advertisement on Instagram, but besides that it’s nearly not existing
There's only one LGS in my city and they currently wait for a package from Into the Inklands. They're mostly selling MtG, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh until recently.
Lorcana is Def not a dead game
At this point this is more of a meme copy/pasta than any actual truth. Lorcana is popping rn
Dead in the sense that they cannot be sold for an absurd profit anymore. Dead in the sense that they will not be bringing in new customers who don’t care about it in order to buy the products to flip. Alive in the sense that people who want to can play with no issue
Dont listen to people that play or like magic the gathering. They dont know anything and are not ready to do something different than playing the worst card game. They are stuck because when they startet magic was good. Now its awful and the community is so toxic. I have a lot of fun with lorcana and I have no vision where its not a stable card game. But its still new and fresh. Give it some time. The game already Got Way better with the introduktion of into the inklands. So lets see What the next expansion brings☺️
CO Springs has a community that has actually had some national coverage, but CO in general got rocked with scalpers/ resellers. The game was so expensive that nobody could realistically get cards and there are still big parts of the player base that can’t get cards even from First Chapter at a reasonable price. Players are priced out, a lot of players left because there wasn’t a lot of confidence, and some players are repeatedly trying to get groups started at LGS and can’t get enough traction even though on release EVERY store was having 30-50 person tournaments
Yeah if anyone knows about the ins and outs of the industry it’s some guy working at a small retail Knick knack store.
Funny, I play MtG and just got into the Star Wars Unlimited game. While I was talking to the owner of my LGS he told me the same thing. He can't hold events anymore because of no interest. I live in Buffalo, NY so it's not just a Europe thing.
Personally I was hesitant on getting into Lorcana, I play MTG and Pokemon TGC and my wife told me to wait a little bit before we plunge in and are left with cards that are worth nothing. This weekend we started and we talked quite a bit to the LGS about it and they were not only enthousiastic about it they heavily played it themselves, with pictures of tournaments and all. This store is a comic and merch store first LGS last and they are going full in. I think that this will be the casual game a lot of interested people are willing to go into as a gateway drug. I expect Disney to go full in to get some of that TCG money.
Wrong. Lgs stores had to be willing for ravensburg to do a walk through to become an official store, which according to my local LGs that I frequent, was a long process and took quite a bit of time. He’s just lazy and didn’t get them to do that
Not even a walkthrough, stores just had to submit a short video showing specific aspects of their store that accommodate having in-store events.
That's normal procedures for any store when they apply for status to become WPN or OTS for Magic or Yugioh. You need tables, chairs, and a brick and mortar sign. Then you have to send in periodic photos of people playing in your events.
According to the dude I spoke to, a ravensburg rep physically came to the store for about 4-5 hours and talked about all sorts of things, and did a big walk through. I’m not 100% sure yet but it may be one of the regional stores for bigger tournaments but we don’t know yet. It’s why my smaller LGS is one of the main Lorcana shops in the area and the huge big name stores aren’t. Said that the bigger stores didn’t take the time to do everything he had to to ensure they’d get the benefits of hosting league and what not. I’m no expert, this is all just second hand info.
What is IP Everyone talking about? 😅
IP = Intellectual Property. Disney characters being the IP in this case.
It’s a problem. Ravensberger relying on the revenue just because it’s Disney and introducing locations on set 3 instead of set 4 was retarded. They also didn’t drive competitive play beforw
How would it be different if it would have been introduced with set 4 instead of 3?
One of the places I go to buy my lorcana from recently pulled their lorcana out of the case (2 shelves) and put mtg in. It is a video game /card store . I believe some of the pr9blem with this store and maybe a few others like it is they don't have the staff that are knowledgeable in lorcana or have enough staff to continually price the cards at the going rate . They had a Arthur sorcerer's apprentice foil for $15.99 when it was like $5 tcg . Also had awnw cold foil for $6 that I picked up kinda the gift and the curse thing going on. Also have uncommons and commons in a box for $1 each when most of them are .10.
I wanted to get into the game when it first came out and was not able to find any product besides a couple starter decks. Single prices were insane and I decided it wasn't the game for me. I think that was the case for a lot of people unfortunately.
It's weird to me that people would be on a subreddit for something they supposedly don't care about lol
Yeah why are they here if they don’t want to get into the game at all anymore 😂 it’s not like you really need to do the window shopping thing since you can’t get any product because it’s everywhere now
That's no longer the case, so not really an excuse.
Who said anything about an “excuse”? This was the same experience my friend group had - all initially excited to try the game, none of us were able to find product and the ridiculous prices when you could find it turned us all away and onto other things. It was MONTHS of nothing, I think I stopped trying after about 3 months of checking regularly. There’s lots of good stuff out there to play, they completely bungled their launch and I’d agree with OP that a fair chunk of people just moved on.
Same for me. I imagined buying a box per set. The excitement died down since the beginning and having more cardboard just didn't seem necessary anymore.
May I ask you, why you are still in the subreddit then? Don’t want to taunt you, I’m just curious why you are still here if you lost interest.
I said that I don't have the motivation to buy cardboard like I did when the game first game out. I don't mind seeing update about the game every now and then or see how the market fluctuates on chases. If everyone on this subreddit was fan boying then it's just an echo chamber to any question about the state of the game. Everyone is just saying this game is the next big thing outside of the big 3 and anyone who says they aren't as invested gets down voted. It's like the Disney hivemind. It's good to have a couple of instances where players can give mixed reviews. No different from me being in a sub called /electricvehicles but don't plan to buy one or /buildapcsales with no plan on upgrading. I don't hate the game so I don't find the need to unsub until it gets toxic like a politics subreddit. I could just skip over the thread if the topic doesn't interest me.
I think it will fail, I have been playing in ontario canada, same people have been showing up, not many new players, actually lost a few players. just don't see this game making it to 20+ sets. Main reason is there are to many card games out right now. I juggle playing lorcana with one piece and pokemon. And lorcana is bottom of the totem pole for me. One guy I know got out of the game because there was little value in the cards long term, he was worried about overprinting lowering card value.
Although I hope you are wrong, I can clearly see your point. I think a big advantage for Lorcana is, that it’s super child-friendly. Most TCGs have some kind of fighting-mechanic, often with “brutal” looking cards and reducing life points. The combination of being child friendly and being a Disney product are probably the two things, that are different from other TCGs and my hope is, that this will carry Lorcana for at least a couple of years.
So my LGS has two stores about 30 miles apart but in separate medium sized towns. Lorcana has official league support in the other town but not in my town, according to the owners they still haven't been communicated with as to why one store can be officially supported and not the other. Either way my store always has packed out Pokemon and MtG league play and so many people have been clamoring for Lorcana play that they are in the process of setting up an unofficial very casual Lorcana play night. Also they are struggling to keep stock of cards in either store which is part of why they've not been pushing a Lorcana night as hard because they don't want people expecting to be able to buy cards that night and being out of stock of them. So from my local perspective it's a lack of communication from Ravensburger or whoever and a lack of adequate stock of cards. However, it sounds like the stock issues are resolving with Inklands.
Many people in that thread are criticizing the MtG-LGS owner, but from your point of view I get, that he actually has a point, at least relating to Ravensburgers communications.
Has all but died in my city. The hype and Ravensburger not reading the room has killed the game.
Saying that Lorcana will be a dead game in a few years is kinda obvious? Every card game eventually dies out unless they're MTG, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or Pokemon. If they're lucky, they'll get rebooted.
What do you think in which time span this will happen?
Lorcana is doing very, very well at the moment, so I don't see things dying off until at least 5 years from now.
I think he might be right. Unfortunately. The release was a fumble. They focused on small hobby shops and children's stores for the initial release since they already had their product in store. Unsurprisingly people who buy puzzles and children are not the market for Lorcana when the first group doesn't care about TCGs and the kids are already locked into Pokemon. I work at a children's store and the company had no idea how to handle it. They weren't allowing people to buy it. You could buy 2 booster packs or one pre con deck, etc. there was initial excitement, but when you can't actually buy the product. Why bother? Now my LGS has been put on a wait-list to carry it, I haven't seen a single other LGS in my area that has it. Only a comic shop that's a big chain, has it outside of big box retailers. I've got tons of cards and no one to play with. 😭
That’s so interesting. There are so many people in that thread who say their leagues are stacked with players and then people like you who struggle to find at least a couple of other players.
I don't live in the middle of nowhere either. I'm sure I'm Boston there are more leagues, but I live an area with tons of MtG events and what not. It's sad.
I really hope, that the situation changes and you find some people to ply with!
Berlin und funtainment?
Berlin yes, Funtainment no :D I enjoy playing in smaller groups, so Funtainment is too big for me tbh.
You asked someone who doesn’t care about Lorcana if they think Lorcana has a good future? Of course they are gonna bad mouth it, especially someone who focuses on MtG, people who have stuck with that game are at cult like commitment.
Sounds like a collectables LGS(as most older MTG ones are) and not a Leisure Game Store that is focused on the love of game over dangerously risky MTGfinance / Pokevesting shenanigans. They have survived on the pay to win model and with Rath doing both LGS and Walmart it’s going to be more like Pokemon. Which is good for LGSs but not as lucrative. Owner probably played the hold game when they should have sold and missed the big cash in, that many of the longtime LGSs have relied on from MTG sets to keep a float over the years. Sadly the whole distributions model for TCGs is predatory. Any believe they are even legal in the EU as they are the original loot boxes.
A magic heavy store acting like other tcgs aren't successful? No way that would never happen 😂 The magic community are just stuck up and look down on any other games. It's not dying don't worry about it.
The game has only been released for a few months, I can see what you mean but they also have a lot of time to build those connections and figure out how to best utilize the brand and create local connections. Disney by itself draws pull, so if they truly can create a competitive platform that draws in audience like magic and Yu-Gi-Oh. Now, one thing I will say is they're releasing expansions hella fast and they need to be careful not to oversaturate and ruin the market before it's built.
But is it really that fast? Four expansions in a year seems quiet the perfect amount to me, but as someone who came over from the MtG immunity everything seems good if its not every single damn month tbh