To meet extreme demand for Disney Lorcana, the new trading card game’s official Twitter account has released some new information about plans to reprint Disney Lorcana: The First Chapter — in addition to additional booster product arriving this October, 2023.
Disney Lorcana Attempting to Meet Demand with More Product
Disney Lorcana TCG fans, we want to share the steps we’ve been working on to get more product into the market to meet demand.
Our goal is for fans to be able to purchase and enjoy the Disney Lorcana TCG product at the suggested retail price, and we will continue to take steps to ensure a level of availability and quality that keeps the market healthy for both collectors and players.
Additional booster product will start arriving in North American local game stores in October. We are also reprinting Disney Lorcana: The First Chapter, which will be available starting in Q1 2024 in North America and Europe.
According to announcements from the above thread, additional booster product is coming to North American local game stores in October, while a reprinting of The First Chapter will begin availability in the first fiscal quarter of 2024 for North America and Europe.
Disney Lorcana officially launched in the U.S. Disney Parks & Resorts on Monday, August 28 — becoming available in the Downtown Disney District of California and Disney Springs of Florida. At Walt Disney World, starter decks sold out within the first hour of availability, and gift sets were in short supply, running extremely low around 7 p.m. ET that same day.
This game will also launch on shopDisney at midnight, September 1. The first day of September is additionally the official date Disney Lorcana will be available at big box stores, though some retailers have been selling the product early.
Difficult Choices for Local Stores & Mass Market Embargo Violations
Outside of the parks, Disney Lorcana stock allocation concerns have left Friendly Local Game Stores (FLGS) with challenging decisions to make ahead of the release.
One of our writers attended a FLGS Learn To Play release at Dragon Fire Games in Lynchburg, Virginia. The event was sold out, and the owner, Evan Garrett, decided to sell his entire stock allocation at MSRP, using a raffle drawing for event attendees to choose one additional item from his small allocation and up to 12 booster packs.
“I chose to sell [our Lorcana stock] at MSRP because I wanted to grow the community here for gameplay,” said Garrett.
Selling at the highest price point might create a short term benefit, but long-term it would prevent the people who want to play the game from playing the game, and if this game is to succeed, it needs players playing the game!
The high market values of the limited Lorcana stock have led other shops to go in a different direction. MSRP for a Gift Set, for example, is $29.99; as of the writing of this article, TCGPlayer.com has the market value of that same set for $61.50, more than double its MSRP.
Some FLGS owners have defended their decisions to price their Lorcana stock competitively with online resellers, citing that the shop making the money instead of the resellers keeps their brick and mortar doors open and provides a space in the long term for players to play. Still, others have broken down multipacks to sell individual boosters from within these sets to ensure players have enough cards to participate.
When Ravensburger chose to give the game first to local game shops August 18, it withheld Lorcana stock from mass markets such as Target, Walmart, and Best Buy; however, to hit shelves on September 1, shipments to these big box retailers have to arrive prior to that date so they may be stocked. Whether intentional or not, Florida, Idaho, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisiana have Disney Lorcana product for sale at big box stores.
Lorcana: The First Chapter starter decks and booster packs were spotted at a South Carolina Walmart store. The booster packs (MSRP $5.99) were being sold for $7, and the starter decks (MSRP $16.99) were being sold for $20 each.
In addition to releasing several days before the approved September 1 date, the image from BSquared24 on X above shows the gift set price below the product as $34.98 in Ruston, Louisiana. This is a markup from the MSRP of $29.99.
Do you think this strategy will help ease some of the supply issues buyers and sellers are facing? Let us know in the comments.
Learn to play this exciting new game with us in the video above, or, if you’re interested in following the narrative of the game, Ravensburger has released a teaser video for the story.
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