Hello everyone!
I seek some deep information about WOTC distribution policy. I represent a certain community of MTG players. Our country has one distributor(which is in another country). We've been having some troubles with that distributor for a long time. Now we are starting to have even more problems. So I'm gathering all useful information about options to solve the case. Is there a legal way to change distributor? Is there an option to cooperate with several foreign distributors at the same time? How are areas determined for the countries? Are they somehow connected to the language?
Unfortunately for now WOTC Support Team and Hasbro representatives answered me that I need to contact the current distributor. I find it odd. I hate this distributor and they suggest that I should ask him about how the get him out of my country's market? Sounds insane to me.
It wouldn't be too good if I had to change the country of living in order to play MTG in a reasonable way.
The first problems were about delaying promo production. After prerelease events were delayed for a month or even two because of no product provided. Right now it's more about keeping rising the prices for no reason, and personally for me it has a political reason.
Well i guess it all depends on the contract that distributer has with wotc/hasbro. it is common practise to split markets regionally. i assume it will get pretty tough to intervene with existing contracts. perhaps you could tell wotc/hasbro about the issues you and the players you represent are facing. in case this is contrary to their policy there may be an option for them to void the contract. other than that i dont really see a way for you to get in between them. but perhaps you or someone else can apply for a distribution contract, just in case the existing contract runs out.
anyways it might be best to ask the distributer to fix the problems before taking any serious action, if you havent done already. afterall it is also in his interest to sell a larger quantity.
hope i was able to help you in one way or another.
We told WOTC/Hasbro about the issues and they didn't react at all. All the petitions, calls and other stuff didn't give any result. I think that we could apply a distribution contract, but I don't know the terms/rules. Maybe we won't be able to handle/follow them at the moment. I'm just curious about regions of markets. Geographically we could work with at least 4 distributors, but we are obligated to deal with one.
The distributor doesn't see any problems, he is totally cool with his current position as monopolist.
I guess he'll see the problem only after someone sets their office on fire.
he is totally cool with his current position as monopolist
why wouldnt he? like i said it is common practise for large companies to pair with regional distributers and split the market.afterall companies want to have steady partners guaranteeing a steady cash in-flow. the situation you have here seems pretty tense. the other four distributers most likely wont supply you (officially) for this is (almost certainly) against their distributer contract.
the only solution there seems to be (for now) is to friendly state your point to the distributer and perhaps offer him to help in adjusting to your market/country. if he, however, refuses/doesnt see your point, i doubt the situation will experience a relief anytime soon.
hate to say, but that really sucks for you and your fellow players. anyhow i hope it all turns out for the better.
PS: the delay you were talking about could possibly be due to customs and the pricing due to currency/tax issues - may not be totally your distributer's fault.
Well I hoped to discover something about those contracts. Aren't there any similar terms in such contracts for distributors? I just want to hear the answer, but everyone is silent. I wouldn't hope for this situation to solve in a positive way. If there is no way to move him a bit I guess it would be better to quit MTG for some time.
Right now the whole issue is about the politics. I don't want my country to be obligated to trade with an enemy. And he is not getting any of my money for sure.
can u tell me in what region / country u life in ?
when the hasbro/wotc has a contract with this distributor, it is not only he gets the monopol, he also has some duty's to fullfill in order to hold this monopol.
so if he doesnt fullfill his duty and if this happens over a long term in multiple cases, i am sure hasbro/wotc can terminate the contract and make a new contract with another distributor.
i think you need to prove some stamina here. just call hasbro/wizards every day and tell them you cant run your business, your players cant buy products because of the distributor. sooner or later they will react, cause if the distributor cant deliver products, hasbro/wizards doesnt make money too.
I live in Ukraine. Our distributor is in Russian Federation.
I'm not sure why are we in this region, but I guess it has something to do with the language.
Well I am going to contact them until I have all the answers I need.
I have no business at the moment. Right now I am just one player of many who is very unsatisfied by current situation.
At the bottom of the page there is a list of countries. Ukraine belongs to region "Russia & Russian speaking countries". But I find it to some sort of sub-region of European region.
However, the heading reads "Judge Regional Coordinators", so personally I wouldn't take it as a given that
this is also a map of WotC product distributors. And even if it is of 'some sort' I would still ask the question
if (some of) those regions are further split when it comes to product distribution, meaning some regions might
have several distributors, or that some distributors deliver to (parts of) several regions.
It is of interest to know what a Wotc distributor in fact is (who they are, names of companies).
Is 'wotc distributor' (sometimes) a company that also prints the cards ?
However, the heading reads "Judge Regional Coordinators", so personally I wouldn't take it as a given that
this is also a map of WotC product distributors. And even if it is of 'some sort' I would still ask the question
if (some of) those regions are further split when it comes to product distribution, meaning some regions might
have several distributors, or that some distributors deliver to (parts of) several regions.
It is of interest to know what a Wotc distributor in fact is (who they are, names of companies).
Is 'wotc distributor' (sometimes) a company that also prints the cards ?
Well I still seek the answers to these questions. As far as I remember the cards are printed by this company:http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Carta_Mundi. They seem to have much more plants now.
Im sure a significant part of your player base is eager to play (sanctioned) limited after a new set is released.
At end of prerelease put this suggestion forth to them;
Recollect (a part of) their cards except for money cards people want to keep.
As a TO you make new boosters from them, they don't need be random to you, just make them reasonable
without minding print runs (this does not take much time).
Run drafts/sealed and FNM (or what you want to call it), take a fee-X-players that is close to what you would
have made with an ordinary tournament.
When someone shows up to your tournaments without having contributed to the card pool, collect cards from them/take a
higher price from from them.
...you get the idea, and is able to make the adjustments that you see fit.
When you get product again you hand the cards back to them.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I seek some deep information about WOTC distribution policy. I represent a certain community of MTG players. Our country has one distributor(which is in another country). We've been having some troubles with that distributor for a long time. Now we are starting to have even more problems. So I'm gathering all useful information about options to solve the case. Is there a legal way to change distributor? Is there an option to cooperate with several foreign distributors at the same time? How are areas determined for the countries? Are they somehow connected to the language?
Unfortunately for now WOTC Support Team and Hasbro representatives answered me that I need to contact the current distributor. I find it odd. I hate this distributor and they suggest that I should ask him about how the get him out of my country's market? Sounds insane to me.
It wouldn't be too good if I had to change the country of living in order to play MTG in a reasonable way.
Is it really that important?
The first problems were about delaying promo production. After prerelease events were delayed for a month or even two because of no product provided. Right now it's more about keeping rising the prices for no reason, and personally for me it has a political reason.
We told WOTC/Hasbro about the issues and they didn't react at all. All the petitions, calls and other stuff didn't give any result. I think that we could apply a distribution contract, but I don't know the terms/rules. Maybe we won't be able to handle/follow them at the moment. I'm just curious about regions of markets. Geographically we could work with at least 4 distributors, but we are obligated to deal with one.
The distributor doesn't see any problems, he is totally cool with his current position as monopolist.
I guess he'll see the problem only after someone sets their office on fire.
Well I hoped to discover something about those contracts. Aren't there any similar terms in such contracts for distributors? I just want to hear the answer, but everyone is silent. I wouldn't hope for this situation to solve in a positive way. If there is no way to move him a bit I guess it would be better to quit MTG for some time.
Right now the whole issue is about the politics. I don't want my country to be obligated to trade with an enemy. And he is not getting any of my money for sure.
I live in Ukraine. Our distributor is in Russian Federation.
I'm not sure why are we in this region, but I guess it has something to do with the language.
Well I am going to contact them until I have all the answers I need.
I have no business at the moment. Right now I am just one player of many who is very unsatisfied by current situation.
What are the "regions" for "wotc distribution" ?
(Lets get down to detail, like the Maldives and the Samoan Islands please.)
I don't understand you.
While searching for regions I found this link:http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=judge/resources/coords
At the bottom of the page there is a list of countries. Ukraine belongs to region "Russia & Russian speaking countries". But I find it to some sort of sub-region of European region.
However, the heading reads "Judge Regional Coordinators", so personally I wouldn't take it as a given that
this is also a map of WotC product distributors. And even if it is of 'some sort' I would still ask the question
if (some of) those regions are further split when it comes to product distribution, meaning some regions might
have several distributors, or that some distributors deliver to (parts of) several regions.
It is of interest to know what a Wotc distributor in fact is (who they are, names of companies).
Is 'wotc distributor' (sometimes) a company that also prints the cards ?
Well I still seek the answers to these questions. As far as I remember the cards are printed by this company:http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Carta_Mundi. They seem to have much more plants now.
At end of prerelease put this suggestion forth to them;
Recollect (a part of) their cards except for money cards people want to keep.
As a TO you make new boosters from them, they don't need be random to you, just make them reasonable
without minding print runs (this does not take much time).
Run drafts/sealed and FNM (or what you want to call it), take a fee-X-players that is close to what you would
have made with an ordinary tournament.
When someone shows up to your tournaments without having contributed to the card pool, collect cards from them/take a
higher price from from them.
...you get the idea, and is able to make the adjustments that you see fit.
When you get product again you hand the cards back to them.