Another gaming giant is changing up the way they sell and distribute their products, as changes to card games may start affecting tabletop gaming.
If you haven’t heard already, Wizards of the Coast is trying a new business strategy that cuts out the “middle man” in that industry.
As you know on the tabletop side of things, GW has recently upset the hobby world with increased Forge World prices and GW Exclusive products only sold at events, and now card gaming giant Wizards of the Coast is making similar yet potentially better moves as well.
Wizards of the Coast to GW: Hold My Beer
They recently announced they are cutting off direct sales to retailers, which is akin to Games Workshop refusing to supply product directly to gaming stores anymore.
Effective August 31, Wizards of the Coast will no longer offer direct sales to retailers in the U.S. and Canada as it shutters its Direct Sales Program.
WotC Announces an Experiment
WOTC announced that they’ll be trying a new “experiment” with its customers and it involves completely cutting out retail stores and potentially diverting product availability from their distributors (the only way stores can by Magic Booster Boxes now), to send move of it to Big Box Retailers.
Certain Magic SKUs will soon be available directly online from Amazon, Walmart, and Target in the U.S. The idea isn’t to divert customers into these channels. It’s to meet customers where they already are.
Not every player is lucky enough to have an LGS nearby. Thousands of players and fans first encounter our games in online environments. To make sure those first encounters are positive, we need to ensure we have a relationship with the channel.
Sounds great at first because things will naturally be cheaper (at least in the case of Amazon) and more readily available to anyone that can receive mail, or get to a local Target or Wal Mart right?
But there’s a bigger picture here. For about the last 20 years, WOTC would sell their cards to distributors, for stores to purchase into their venues or buy directly from Wizards themselves (or both in a lot of cases). Local Game Stores (LGS’s) would also have a Wizards sales rep assigned to them where they could buy cards and supplies as they needed to support their retail operations.
However, now WOTC has cut out their direct sales to games stores and are only selling directly to its distributors, and large sellers like Amazon, which now sells the same product for about $20 less than most gaming stores did this summer.
At first thought, this is fantastic. Magic players are able to get their hands on entire boxes of cards for a fraction of what they would have to pay at a Local Game Store. There might be a bigger issue developing here though, as a large portion of income from LGS’s come from card packs and hosting card game events- tabletop gaming (like Warhammer) is purely a supplement revenue stream.
By WotC cutting the direct sales to stores out of the picture, they have made a situation where Distribution is the only way for those stores to acquire the product, while now still having to compete with sellers like Amazon, who are already bypassing the “middle-man” of distribution and sourcing directly from WotC.
I think in 2018 we all know the effect Amazon selling has had on brick and mortar businesses here in America, and now Amazon, Wal Mart, and Target all have potentially gained a huge advantage over the LGS.
Exclusive Card Boxes sold Through Hasbro
As another way of cutting out the middle man, Hasbro (the owner of WotC) has also announced that players can buy exclusive boxes that will include extremely rare borderless Planeswalkers. 
These seven cards (plus an eighth that’s part of Guilds of Ravnica and won’t be previewed until next week) will be part of a special Guilds of Ravnica Mythic Edition that will only be purchasable through the Hasbro Toy Shop. The product will be a Draft-sized (24 pack) box of Guilds of Ravnica, with the twist that eight packs (they’ll be clearly marked) will each come with one of these planeswalker cards inside the pack (plus the normal rare or mythic rare card). You will know which packs have these special planeswalkers, so this can make for an exciting Draft experience. Or just crack the whole box. You do you.
Players will be able to grab these on October 3rd and will come with 24 packs costing $249. Sounds like a great deal.
You even get to order them ahead of the normal release date at your LGS, and you’re guaranteed these rare prints of Planeswalkers. Hasbro was clever in this regard because you’ll only be able to get the packs by ordering from their Website.
That means that there’s no distributor and no LGS to take a portion of the sales. They are pulling the customer directly to the source of the cards.
LGS’s Will Still Host Events
Even during this “cut off” of direct sales from WOTC, they’ll still be partnering with LGSs to run tournaments and Friday Night Magic events.
According to their latest post, however, WotC hasn’t even gotten their new play network or store locater in place for these changes. This may have a further impact on stores as they are already adjusting their supply chains to source product to sell at their in-store events.
We want the entire experience of engaging with our games to be as enjoyable as possible. For thousands upon thousands of players and fans, that’s through their local game store and we recognize and celebrate that. We’re more committed to that experience than ever.
As a part of that commitment, we’re moving forward with two important projects: a new in-store tournament software, and a new store and event locator.
Work has begun on both. Our Retailer Advisory Panel will be involved. More details to come, but, suffice to say, both are conceived with a holistic view of the customer experience in mind—from helping players find the right in-store events to rewarding WPN members for delivering them.
As it stands now, an LGS may have to compete with Amazon prices and sell those packs for even cheaper. Ultimately, it could result in the stores losing money to try and bring people in to buy packs.
However, if a store is doing things right by running great events and promoting a great community these changes may not affect a thriving gaming store as much as one that is already struggling.
At the end of the day, WotC has made it even easier for their customers to get their hands on the same product in a consistent predictable manner, at the largest level of retail outlets to date, without raising prices to the end user, and raising their own profits significantly.
That is something that Games Workshop has not yet fully mastered at all.
What do you think about all this? Do you think local shops will be able to survive to host events and sell cards in this new format, and how will it affect the availability of gaming tables for things such as Warhammer going forward?
Let us know in the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group.
About the Author: Rob Baer
