Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne talks about the Magic: The Gathering – Reality Fracture product shortages.
For a company that has been doing this for as long as it has, Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro sure is having supply chain problems lately (see “Wizards Announces More ‘Magic the Gathering – Reality Fracture’ Product Delays“). First Wizards announced that, due to a drought in Panama, Reality Fracture Play Boosters, while not completely delayed, may be in short supply for a few weeks, rather like Hobbit Play Boosters have been. Now, we have a follow up announcement from Wizards that “Collector Boosters, Reality Fracture Commander Decks, and Foundations Commander Decks are partially delayed, and availability may be tight through release. Bundles are delayed and may arrive after release” and that stores can expect to see the Reality Fracture Secret Lair Bundles to arrive after the scheduled October 23 release date. Reality Fracture Play Boosters and Pre-release Kits, as well as most Collector Booster boxes are still scheduled to arrive this week.
When did this become so hard? For decades Wizards has reliably landed its products on the scheduled release date like clockwork. While most other companies in the industry would put out approximate release dates or even release months, Wizards could post its release schedule in December or January for the following year and stores would reliably expect to see product arrive for the shelves on those dates and distributors would have shelf stock for restocks for the first couple of weeks after pre-release. Currently, Dungeons & Dragons books still arrive on time pretty reliably but, as I have commented before, new release Magic: The Gathering product now sells out almost immediately and may take months to restock (see “The Hobbit Pre-release Shortages and RIP Michael Mirth“). My major distributors have been out of almost all Magic product with the shelves even wiped of less popular sets such as Outlaws of Thunder Junction, Murders at Karlov Manor and even Aetherdrift. A restock of Lorwyn Eclipsed recently arrived and one of my distributors tells me we should see a restock of The Lord of the Rings Play Boosters within the next week or so, as Wizards ordered a reprint of that set months ago. The Hobbit Play Boosters are supposed to come back into stock in early October, we hope and there is still no word as to when we might see a restock of Edge of Eternities.
I certainly am not privy to the decisions made within Wizards, only looking at the outcomes. What started as a yearly release of a Universes Beyond set with a total of four sets releasing during the year has morphed into six, no seven if you count this year’s Mystery Boosters, three in-universe and three Universes Beyond. That is a lot of releases for the company to co-ordinate, especially when Wizards has to deal with securing the licensing and approval for the intellectual properties from which the Universes Beyond sets come but I do not foresee the market for Magic cards, or Pokémon to sustain itself at this level indefinitely.
Speaking of Pokémon, the places selling the Pokémon TCG:30th Celebration sets are getting even more divergent from the tabletop game channel with reports of people getting Pokémon at Buc-ees, Ace Hardware, Staples, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Cracker Barrel… and some of our local big box route drivers are complaining because of the collectors following them from location to location to grab product. Disturbing times.
Comments? Are you getting enough Magic: The Gathering – Reality Fracture? Send them to castleperilousgames@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
Source: ICv2
