A Wild Year For TCGs. | Game Retail Ramblings Ep. 28

[@Velomirny]

The core design of Star Wars Unlimited is amazing. Hope they get more powerful cards in future expansions. I’d definitely last, our local is having a blast.

[@alex7ink]

Same! It always gets so much hate from non players which is weird

[@thehikingcucumber3410]

SWU is absolutely solid! Love this game! Game is so exciting now with the Boba Ban.

[@thehikingcucumber3410]

I’m having a blast playing Star Wars Unlimited. I’m all in on this game. I’ll ride it out till the end.

[@MadTownHobby]

Thank you for the insights! The number of "ok" card games out there right now is staggering.

[@traviss9612]

Agreed. Any of them by themselves and the business isn't great. But a bunch of them together and they have nice communities without the pressure and spend for some of the bigger games. I'll sell whatever people want to buy regarding CCG's.

[@GTheWhiteBean]

Altered is super fun. Give it a try peeps.

[@traviss9612]

Altered is a very fun game.

[@7itemstone]

I’m so glad to see a real retailer point out everything wrong with yugioh in a video like this, hope Konami sees this. Great stuff 💯🎴🤌🏼

[@traviss9612]

Konami has done a solid job in terms of numbers this year for events. There's a ton of people playing the game. More than I can remember in quite a while it's just in a tough spot given the time span it's been around. If you look what Magic is doing to try and save it's game I think it would be nice if Konami took a similar look to see if there was value in trying the same.

[@Techpriest]

Store owner here and I had a couple questions: - Magic obviously has one of the best revenues, but how does it pan out in net versus gross? - Do you think older stores do better with Magic while newer stores should focus on newer properties? I ask as we saw SWU outsell Magic in our location but we have done a lot to grow the SWU community since the start. - Would these ranks change for more generalist stores versus card game focused stores? - Would they change for stores that focus more on casual audiences and less on singles sales?

[@traviss9612]

I do a good amount of consultation work and my answer to all of the above is a bit of a throw away but "it depends". There's lots of variables, too many to try and answer all of those really good questions accurately. I'll do my best to simplify where I can. For your first question, the only thing that matters in business is net. I now a store this year that is going to do 180 million in sales and they are hoping for a 1% profit. My net is much higher than that but everyone is different in terms of what they want in their business. Second question is that Magic players will play at the location they find most desirable to play. Now older stores that have built longstanding communities have a leg up but what I have seen is a new store can come into a market and disrupt it by providing things to those customers that the older store isn't. Better stock, better pricing, cleaner store, bigger play space, better events, more supplies. There's a ton of ways to do it. Regarding SWU outselling Magic the first set did that for everyone. We were coming off of Karlov which didn't sell well and Set 1 was on fire. Third question I have no idea. I feel generalist stores typically have to have passionate employees in each category for them to carry their weight and typically that comes with a big store footprint. Again everything depends on the market, the stores and the store in particular. For your fourth question optimally you would do both. I don't look at casual customers as customers that don't buy singles it's quite the opposite. They tend to buy more singles than competitive players for a number of reasons. People assume because of the size of our store that we are really competitive store. We may have people playing more tuned decks than a random store but that's less about our players being competitive players and more about the meta we have in store and the expertise we provide those players at our counter. If you are interested in consultation feel free to send me an email at travis at millenniumgames dot com

[@Peeweez0]

I really hope Equinox sees this video as it is exactly what I'm worried for about Altered. The prices and enthusiasm for Altered is night and day in North America vs. Europe

[@traviss9612]

I agree completely.

[@gavkenny]

They really need Pax-U to be a success I think

[@Mycatz]

Great video. Did a really good job of breaking it all down. I hope Star Wars unlimited fixes their issues. It’s been really fun and got a good local community. Lorcana I was excited for but swu is just more fun imo. Always wanted to play flesh and blood wish we had more local players. But I’ve been playing blitz with my brother. It’s fun. Learned about grand archive I bought a bunch of intro decks. Been learning with my brother. I like it. Really hoping it catches on. Kinda been getting back into magic. Finished a standard deck. Played a 4 foundation pre releases. I just wish wizards of the coast could become an independent game and leave hasbro.

[@djeh1usa577]

100% perfect analysis of the TCG market. YGO does not know where to go. powercreep....and if ALtered does not launch the marketplace asap, it's doomed in the US. period

[@traviss9612]

Thanks so much. Let's hope for everyone they get that marketplace up.

[@mohwe1007]

always great to hear from ya Travis also @CrushCards i see y'all with the editing. Top Notch as always

[@MillenniumGamesTube]

Thanks mohwe 🥺❤️

[@ChaosJim]

2025: Chicken Wing + Game Store Collab

[@traviss9612]

Love it

[@noahhayslip9270]

I’m a BIG fan of union arena

[@traviss9612]

We'll see how it goes. I'm happy thus far with the performance of the game in my store.

[@Kai-jn7pn]

Video needs timestamps

[@MrRayRockstar]

Are people playing Sorcery, or are they just collecting and investing?

[@geek593]

Bushiroad wasting Shadowverse will never not annoy me. That game is excellent but no one knows it exists.

[@TheKaijudist]

I played set 1 and 2 but quit when the horse girl set came out. Doo doo. Embarrassing

[@ImDoneItsOver]

Elestrals!