Hello everyone,
I’m reaching out to our trading card game (TCG) community with an important message that I hope resonates with as many of you as possible. About two years ago, I stood before a room of players to explain some of the challenges we face as a store. Unfortunately, some of the feedback then was that it sounded like I was accusing people of not spending enough. That was never the intent, and it’s certainly not the intent now.
The purpose of this message is to be transparent—about how things work, the challenges we’re facing, and what the future could look like if we don’t find ways to improve. While this is partially a call to action, it’s also an effort to keep you informed about the reality of running a small business in the TCG space.
Upcoming Preorder Deadlines
We have some critical preorder deadlines coming up this Saturday:
Magic: The Gathering – Innistrad Remastered
Union Arena sets:
Black Clover
Sword Art Online
Bleach Vol. 2
Preorders are a key way to secure your products and help ensure that we can maintain allocations and stock levels for the community.
The State of Our TCGs
Currently, the key TCGs at our store are Magic: The Gathering, Disney Lorcana, One Piece, Union Arena, and Pokémon. Each of these games plays an important role in our ecosystem, but there are unique challenges with each:
One Piece: While we face some challenges with distribution, we are incredibly grateful to everyone who shows up weekly to support the product we are able to get. Your attendance and enthusiasm for the game are vital, and we couldn’t do this without you. Moving forward, our goal is to grow One Piece—and all our TCGs—to the point where we’re consistently able to ask for multiple cases of each new release. Reaching this level of demand will help ensure better allocations and availability for everyone.
Magic: The Gathering: As our anchor product, Magic remains the most important for maintaining our overall sales metrics with our primary distributor. A strong showing for Magic preorders and attendance is crucial to ensuring we can continue supporting it at the highest level.
Disney Lorcana, Union Arena, and Pokémon: Weekly participation and preorders for these games are also key to their success. As with One Piece and Magic: The Gathering, we need to get to a point where we’re ordering multiple cases of each set to keep the momentum going.
Why Attendance and Preorders Matter
Both attendance and preorders are essential for maintaining the availability of these games:
Attendance: Weekly participation keeps the community alive and thriving. Thank you to everyone who makes the time to come out and support these games—it truly makes a difference. Your commitment is what helps us justify continuing to invest in these products.
Preorders: Preordering is one of the strongest signals of demand. Higher preorder numbers allow us to justify ordering more, which strengthens our position with distributors and increases the likelihood of receiving full allocations.
We are deeply grateful to those who show up every week to play and support these games, but we also need to focus on improving preorder numbers. Consistently preordering and supporting all these products—whether it’s One Piece, Magic: The Gathering, or Union Arena—is how we can grow to the point where larger orders become the norm.
The Competitive Landscape
We also face tough competition, particularly from stores that operate in ways we can’t and won’t emulate. These competitors may rely on questionable practices or use TCGs as loss leaders, which isn’t a sustainable model for us. Instead, we focus on providing:
Expert Knowledge: We deeply understand and care about the products we sell.
Community: We strive to foster a welcoming and less toxic environment. While no place is perfect, we’re committed to continuous improvement.
Looking Ahead
As we approach upcoming releases, it’s clear that our current level of support for these games is unsustainable without change. If we don’t see improvement in sales and preorders, we’ll have to reassess how we support certain games—or if we can continue supporting them at all.
How You Can Help
We hope that everyone can rally together to improve our sales metrics. Preorders are essential, and we encourage you to preorder as much of a product as possible. Sometimes allocations mean you won’t get everything you order, but other times you will. That’s just how this system works, and your preorders directly impact what we can stock moving forward.
Thank you again for your attendance, support, and passion for these games. Together, we can navigate these challenges and continue to grow a store and community you’re proud to be part of.
Sincerely,
Lance Nuckolls
CEO, Curiosity Video Games and More
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