Ravensburger, the company behind the popular Disney Lorcana trading card game, was the victim of an “extremely large” distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on November 20, the same day they opened pre-sales for Disney Lorcana: Rise of the Floodborn products on their website. Cards from Disney Lorcana: Rise of the Floodborn, the game’s second chapter, were released at specialty stores on November 17 and will become available at general retailers on December 1.
Ravensburger Confirms DDoS Attack That Impacted Disney Lorcana Pre-Sale
Ravensburger announced the attack via the official Disney Lorcana X account on Monday evening, also sharing word of the hit in the official Disney Lorcana Discord server. At the time of publishing, users attempting to access the company’s website are met with a graphic featuring the announcement.
The statement reads:
Today we at Ravensburger experienced an extremely large DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack which severely disrupted the launch of Disney Lorcana: Rise of the Floodborn. Our team has worked extremely hard to solve this problem over the course of the day, but unfortunately that has not been possible. As of now we are officially ending our website sales of Disney Lorcana: Rise of the Floodborn. While we are not able to offer more specific details at this time, we want to apologize to consumers who had a negative experience during our launch today – we truly appreciate your support and are committed to improving your experience of future launches.
Ravensburger
A DDoS attack is defined by Cloudflare, an IT service management company, as a “malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic.” The company likens it to a traffic jam on the highway.
The attack serves as an explanation for what was an extremely troublesome pre-sale launch of Disney Lorcana: Rise of the Floodborn products on the Ravensburger website. Sales were supposed to open at 10:30 a.m. ET on November 20, but the release was pushed to 11:30 a.m. ET just moments before the advertised launch time.
The company ultimately missed the 11:30 a.m. ET start time, citing a “technical difficulty.” An online queue finally opened at 1:05 p.m., with thousands of users promptly joining the line. The demand caused lengthy wait times and delayed website response.
Ravensburger ultimately paused the queue before reopening it without prior announcement.
Many users who entered the queue reported issues. Some had difficulty progressing through the line and were removed seemingly at random. Others shared word of making it through the queue only to have the website crash at checkout. There are even reports of users reaching checkout, receiving an error message that stated their order could not be processed, but having their payment method charged regardless.
Fans shared their experiences with the Disney Lorcana X account.
Several users were able to have their orders processed in the midst of the turmoil.
Ravensburger announced the DDoS attack at roughly 5:30 p.m. ET Monday evening, closing the pre-sale. The sale is still halted at the time of publishing.
The troublesome internet launch of Disney Lorcana: Rise of the Floodborn comes after Ravensburger struggled with the initial release of the game. There was an extremely limited stock of Disney Lorcana: The First Chapter products when the game was released in late August, leading to scarce shelves, price gouging, and an inflated resale market. Ravensburger promptly announced intentions to issue an identical reprint in late 2023 to increase supply.
Were you able to place an order for Disney Lorcana: Rise of the Floodborn products on the Ravensburger website on Monday? Let us know in the comments.
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