is it possible Decipher could get the license back?

Darksbane wrote
"Speaking of LotR Has anyone noticed a VERY BIG drop in intrest for that game? Most of the forums I go to for it are completely dead, which is strange considering a brand new expansion just came out."


Well if ebay is any judge... the cards are definately in demand. The prices collectors are willing to spend on cards, especially foils, is amazing considering the size of the foil sets. In addition, online dealers are definately picking up what appears to be large quantities of Mines of Moria. The pricing on singles as well as their availabitily at places like the Rendevous Point and the Card Table (among others) seems to be inline with what was done for Premier. In addition, there seems to be quite a bit of interest in the new game internationally. The one drawback for Decipher is the fact that the new game is based on a 3 year movie window.

Now if you consider the history of Jedi Knights... the second expansion was a joke with respect to what was made available. Dealers were already bailing out after Premier. They were burned in a big way by what many of them thought was going to be a big hit.

You might want to take some solice in that, perhaps it's a good sign for your new TCG. If dealers don't buy tons of the first expansion... they won't get burned in a big way. If the cards sell... they'll reorder.

Restrainingbolt

 

Lord of the Rings is waning.. hmmmm, interesting. Especially in lieu of this official report from Decipher:

Now just in...the April 2002 issue of Comics & Games Retailer magazine,
hot off the presses, reports that The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game
is the number one game (a query of retailers for the month of January),
displacing Magic: The Gathering for only the second time in history.
Also, in the mag, "retailers report increasing sales every month since
the game released in November."

Better still, the magazine reports that Decipher has overtaken Wizards of
the Coast by capturing 40% of the manufacturer's piece share of
retailers' best selling trading card games; Wotc has 36.59%! Whatever
that gobbledy-gook means...it means that we're in the top slots for both
categories.

An exerpt from the magazine from a retailer...

Positive Surprises: The Lord of the Rings trading card game. We didn't
order it initially, but sales have been phenomenal. It has been almost
impossible to keep it in stock longer than three days at a time...

Negative Surprises: Lord of the Rings TCG. Because of this game my Magic
sales have declined. Most of my avid Magic players have switched to Lord
of the Rings.

 

"There is no way you can accuse Warren with spin-doctoring without equally accusing Lucas Licensing."

Oh sure they are both very guilty. I just see everyone saying "man D was going to do such cool stuff but LL wouldn't let them" Bah! That whole press release was just D's way to try to undermine the position of LL and WotC in the fans eyes while also trying to take everyones minds off the fact that they pumped out sets like no tomorrow and lied about new sets in 2002 to milk the property/fans for everything they were worth, and it worked. And hey I didn't mind so many sets in one year (I loved it) but you have to admit that they were hardly "thinking of the fans" as they try to claim.

"And what would Decipher hsve to gain anyway. the license was already lost a year ago. "

Really not much, which is sad. The whole press release was wrote just to spite Lucas. I mean come on "*sob* we didn't even make any money off of SW, we did it for the children" ROTFLMAO that is the biggest pile of crap I had ever seen.

"Even LL revealed in the past that they wanted more expansions faster and whatnot."

yeah around the time that D was releasing 1 set per year. IMHO D needed to put out at least 2 sets per year (if not 3) and that is one reason why I saw so many people lose interest in the game, lack of new content.

" They let Decipher kill themselves so that they could make their move at least appear legit in the eyes of the casual gamer/fan. "

What were they going to do, hold D's hand and show them how to market a game? D did this to themselves by taking it easy when they should have been trying harder to promote the game and gain its market share. D was happy with 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or even 5th place for SW in the CCG market, well it appears Lucas wasn't and when someone said they could do it better I don't blame them from a business standpoint for going with someone with initiative.

 

"Lord of the Rings is waning.. hmmmm, interesting. Especially in lieu of this official report from Decipher:


Now just in...the April 2002 issue of Comics & Games Retailer magazine,
hot off the presses, reports that The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game
is the number one game (a query of retailers for the month of January),
displacing Magic: The Gathering for only the second time in history.
"

Well thats good to hear. I was getting worried because my local shops didn't even order any MoM (even though the premier set sold out alot), and like I said the messageboards I frequent (which are not the D message boards) have been totally dead.

 

I think it is obvious Jedi Knights was a last ditch effort by Decipher to appease LFL and address all of the criticisms. Think about what you read in Decipher's press release, WOTC's press release, and LFL's form letter to fans. Now think about some of the features of JK. Accessible main character cards. Gameplay at just the right level of depth. "League play". A playmat (shudder!). Decipher even managed to get a cross-promotion for the game ... remember the promo card in the last SW Trilogy box set? ... something Holland complains about in his press release.

Unfortunately, JK bombed, for several reasons IMO. Leauge play never took off. The computer art didn't exactly turn any heads. It was too hard to collect -- too gimicky -- with regular cards, "stereoscopic" cards, silver foils and gold foils. And SW card players already had two CCGs to choose from; they didn't exactly need a third.

Oh, and that promo card in the trilogy box set? Worthless, since they changed the whole game after that card was printed. Decipher shot themselves in the foot on that one.

 

Exactly, too little too late. They knew they were in trouble for awhile and they just couldn't pull it out. JK was a great game but they just screwed it up by having it super dependent on rares and a stupid amount of collectability

 

Jedi Knights is a great game. I agree fully. Though I don't stand copmpletely with your vierw that it depended on rares. The original four themes don't need an excess of rares to play, you get good hero cards in the starters.

BTW, in the past I refered to the TCG as "Jedi Knights with Dice" This doesn't mean that I think Jedi Kniughts (and therefor the TCG suck), it means that I don't think the TCG is very original.

 

"The original four themes don't need an excess of rares to play, you get good hero cards in the starters."

I disagree, the fixed heroes suck and any deck which isn't running the rare ones usually got clobbered.

 

So I am the only person who got the "rare" versions as premiums in my starters.

 

Yeay one copy. What good is that? Why even bother running one copy unless of course you are running 5 Thats No Moon (a rare card) to speed along card drawing. It was good of them to give the rares in a starter but the rest of the game was hugely dependent on rares also. Thats No Moon being a great example. HALF of the cards in each set were rare, which is even strange for a CCG (making it much harder to get the cards you want). IMHO it delt a horrible blow to the CCG when most collectors even thought it was stupid hard to get just one set (not counting steroscopic sets, first day issue, or silver/gold stamped versions).

 

It is true: Jedi Knights was a game that required a lot of rares--especially rare heroes--to win. This is something that frustrated me a bit. In its defense, it was a cool game--pretty much taking some of the best mechanics of Star Wars, Young Jedi, and Star Trek and putting it all in one game.

Anyway, I think Decipher figured the rarity issue be balanced either by a) the player becoming a collector and buying lots of product (hence the reason the sets were relatively small) or b) the player choosing one (maybe two) Hero(es) and trading any other Hero-related stuff to get the Hero stuff they needed (make sense?--kinda like in Trek where most players have between one and three affiliations of choice).

 

I guess I didn't play enough to realise the dependance on rares

I think cost was the worst factor. I went to my retailers, cash in hand, ready to buy JK, when I saw the cost. I went home with a box of UL Dagobah instead.

On the other hand, LotR has been very reasonable.

 

Exactly! Now imagine spending that much and not even being able to get enough rares out of 2 boxes to put together good light and dark decks. It was very frustrating and it became the first CCG I decided to stop getting because it was so expensive.