Altered’s Big Shift: New Distribution & Gamefound Preorders Explained

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wait, let me like my smoke.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Just let me be mean.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Leave me. That's been on my mind all lot's been
in my cup, and once I hit a certain point,
I stopped giving a fuck. I'm trying to stay up,
stay out till the sun is coming out. I'm on
my way up, way out, and I don't feel.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Like coming everybody. I'm the one, the only w O. Okay,
I e joined here by my normal cast and misfits.
We have the kid that knows more than you. Cole.
Robbie was that everyone's favorite red shirt Dexter. Hello everybody,
and the guy. I'm buying a microphone in Hero Phones
for Felix. No feedback today, no feedback today. Maybe we'll

(00:46):
see how the night goes. But boy, howdy, what a
bombshell this week? Gentlemen comes up?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, okay about the game. Cole probably knew about this.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I'm gonna say, I'm gonna give it to cold. Cole.
Do you want to explain? I don't really know, Like
I'm very confused out of how to put this. If
it's big news, if it's good news, if it's bad news,
as being someone right, as being someone who's been in
this situation before. I can talk a little bit about

(01:21):
it because me and Dexter have both experienced this in
key forage now, but go ahead and tell us what
is the news that came out this week from from Equinox.

Speaker 4 (01:34):
Yeah, so we will get into a lot more depth
of this as we go on. Off the top, I'm
gonna say it is big good. Plus I don't want
to say bad.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
It's a mixed bag. There are benefits and drawbacks to
what's gonna happen.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
Yeah, I pretty much overall it's a net positive.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
I agree.

Speaker 4 (02:07):
Basically, Equinox put out a article saying Altered is one
year old, what's next? The one year from the official
launch was actually yesterday, So happy okay, super.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Cool, Happy happy birthday to you.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
My I logged into my YouTube dashboard and it also
told me that my TCG.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Happy birthday to you. If you like your birthday wishes,
go donate one dollar to our Patreon and we'll wish
somebody of your birthday wishes. Every Friday.

Speaker 5 (02:48):
Was already called a loser.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Yeah, but it's by nobody important. So continuing on, Basically,
this is a very short article saying that.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Actually I believe what I believe what that says is
Coal is the second biggest loser, which makes him a
bigger loser.

Speaker 4 (03:14):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
I mean you lost the competition.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, Like he's the second biggest loser, second only to me.
So who is the bigger loser? What an interesting conundrum.
I'm sorry, I just had to That's I've always had
this like philosophical plunder with that the second biggest loser
only to you. So does that make you the bigger loser?

(03:41):
We're not sure. One day we'll figure it out, but
go ahead.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
Uh water is not wet, but moving on, I would agree.
So basically, to paraphrase this act, and because we're gonna
dive deep into a bunch of points from it, they
basically say, you know, after talking about the last year, YadA, YadA,

(04:10):
millions of cards scanned. Going forward, with full confidence and
support of Asthma Day, partner of Equinox, we've made the
choice to take back Altered's distribution directly into our own hands.
Starting with Set five, Altered will be distributed through pre
order campaigns on game found, which comes with many advantages

(04:34):
for everyone. No set will be.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
They unlike key Forge, they actually advertise it the way
it should be as a pre order. Key Forge is
still trying to do their campaigns as like game founds
when it's really just a pre order process. So them
saying that it's a pre order makes it a lot
easier for people to understand.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
I think, well, okay, so key Forde has done this
for a while. Back the day key Fordge we did
the original Game Found. It was launched because key Forge
was literally just making its way back. Lots of bad
things had happened to key Forde right the algorithm was lost.
It was sold from FFG to two Ghost Galaxies, which

(05:19):
has taken it over. The CEO of Ghost Galaxies is
the old CEO of FFG, so he was actually quite
familiar with the quite familiar with the with the with
the IP I guess is the way I want to
put it. Yeah, And they launched this big Game Found

(05:40):
and it was you know, it was the game Found
that was going to save key Forde. And we were
told it would only there would only ever be one
of these game Founds, and then they were going back
to traditional distribution processes. That never happened. We went right
back to game Found again. So every has been since

(06:03):
has been on game fund now and there are definite
advantages to game found right you can give and I
do like the way they spun it as like this
is a pre order. Now with that being said, and
I guess I'll just start asking questions. I don't know
if you want to say anything more about it, Cole,
but I'm gonna if.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
There's some more basic stuff to go over before we
start talking about what.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
I'm gonna let Cole finish that and then I'll dive
in with some questions.

Speaker 4 (06:33):
Yeah. So there are a couple of key points from
this announcement that are good to know going into it.
A lot of people in the discord and maybe you
listening to this, are like, why would they announce this
right before the launch of a new set? And it's

(06:53):
not really like a secret, but it was something that
you know, didn't get really spread around a bunch of places,
and Loki in the Q and A that we're going
to go over later does kind of mention it. Basically.
Part of this is I believe they sent certain things

(07:19):
to a distributor somewhere in Europe, and that distributor included
those things in people's shipments of altered stuff that they ordered.
Now I believe that is what happened. This is me guessing.
I honestly hold on.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
That makes me I'm a little confused on that. So
like a third party distributor sent.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
What Yeah, so basically there, I think they were like
demo decks or something that had the game Found symbol
on them, and they were sent to either a like
big store or a distributor or something.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Okay, now, and that's how the information got out there.

Speaker 4 (08:07):
Yeah, so it got two people it wasn't supposed to
get to, and it wasn't even supposed to be sent
to other people. And of course those people started posting
pictures on I don't know, French MySpace or something, so I'm.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Sure it was like a Twitter or something French. That's right,
France is so far behind they're still using my space.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, you're getting.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
A nice one.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
They they had to come out with this announcement. The
other part about this is they do expressly say pre
order A lot of people are concerned with. I mean,
technically Kickstarter in Game Found are the same but different.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
I look at same there are two different companies that
do the same thing. Yes, or I shouldn't say that
they do very similar things. Game Found Yes, leans harder
into marketing work and they take less of a cut

(09:17):
from what I understand, but least Kickstarter is just bigger.
They will take larger of a cut, and they don't
really help do any marketing. Like you either make it
or you don't. It's kind of how I understand it.

Speaker 4 (09:36):
Yeah, I personally kind of equate equate. Game Found more
like an indie Go go, where you have a small campaign,
possibly to where it's just however many people order this,
they're going to get it, whereas Kickstarter is a lot
more often seen as like if we don't hit this goal,

(09:59):
this thing will not you know.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
It doesn't get funded.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
Yeah, so a lot of people target audience.

Speaker 5 (10:08):
Kickstarter is really really open when it comes to pretty
much everything.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
Yeah, And game Found is more game centric.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Game Found does a lot of board games for those
of you who are in the board game sphere. Game Found,
I mean not that Kickstarter doesn't, but game Found does
like a lot of board games, right, they do. Game
Found actually almost Game Found is almost specifically games.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:36):
And I don't know if this is like actually correct,
but from what I've seen and read, it's not super
common that a game Found will like not deliver. It
seems like something that more often is like a pre order,
like Keith Forge is doing, or like Alter is going

(10:58):
to do, whereas Kickstarter literally like a story every week
about something that you know doesn't deliver. I don't know,
I have not heard of that around you know, game Found,
but I cannot expressly say it doesn't happen.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
Meaniky Startter itself tells you that as a creator, this
is not a preorder, and I think Game Found allows
for the environment that you can make preorders, which is different.

Speaker 6 (11:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:32):
The other piece of the quick announcement they put out
here is they made a point to call out what
about stores and people worrying about their lgs and how
stores are going to receive this news was probably the
number one Yes. Yeah, and the Q and A will

(11:57):
answer this a little better, but it's basically they're saying,
this is actually going to allow us to work better
with stores. And one easy way to put that in
a frame of mind is with Asthma Day. If a
store wanted anything or even like say us at ACE

(12:18):
for our events altered corninerator or a wall, we had
to go to Asthma Day, and if we were like, hey,
can we get price support for this tournament, like it's
the biggest, you know, running tournament for altered Asthma Day
would just never answer us, like they would not respond
to emails you would get nowhere this is a store

(12:39):
would be essentially going directly to Equinox. So it's no
longer out of Equinox's hands for things like that. And
I'll explain it more in the Q and A that
we're going to go over, but there's an easier path
for them to be able to step in and solve
those issues.

Speaker 7 (12:58):
So if people just done a lot of the same
thing too, trying to phase things out of Asthma Day
and more indighost galaxies hands so they don't have to
deal with them, well they still don't have op stuff, but.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Well hold on by phase out like since March of
this year, Ghost Galaxy is no longer attributed with Asthma Day. Yeah,
so for those of you who don't know, Asthma Day
is kind of notorious for especially as I Asthma A Europe.
I don't have a ton of bad things to say
about because I've heard them do things and stuff and better.

(13:33):
I'm not sure if Asthma DA Europe is just better
or what the case is. But ASTHMAE North America is
absolutely atrocious. They are. You literally have stores who will
not buy something because they have to go through Asthma Day.
They would even if it's the like white hot product,

(13:54):
if it says Asthma Day, they just don't have any
interest in having anything to do with them.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
It's very heavy corporate too well. I mentioned it before
in the.

Speaker 5 (14:06):
Discord, Like Julio from Ages, pretty much OPI was gate
keeper gate keeped to products. So if he didn't buy
specific amounts of cases, it wouldn't even be allowed to
get OPI.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
And that's and that's the big thing. Asthmade does have
their tier systems, right, So if you are not of
specific tiers, you basically, like Cole just said, you probably
weren't getting an answer because you weren't one of their
top clients and then you fell way down to the
bottom and more likely than not, you just never got
an answer, right. So, and this is the same thing

(14:44):
with key Forge too. Key Forge, like I said, since
the March of this year, is as severed ties with
Asthma DAE as well, because it was extraordinarily difficult to
do anything with them. Because it was Asthma dae multiple.
I guess the only way I can say it is botches. Right. First,

(15:05):
you know, it's the big first pre release of the
first set coming out of key Forde since the algorithm
was lost and all this stuff, and basically Asthmada and
they were running this big like you know, pre release
event for the set, and they completely botched it. People

(15:27):
were sent wrong amounts. Some stores were sent one pre
release kit, meaning they got sent one kit it was
three decks in one kit. Well, you need one of
those for each player. If you get one, what do

(15:47):
you do? Yeah, I think like you can't run events
off that, you know.

Speaker 4 (15:53):
Yeah, I think this part is actually a very important part.
And I mean, honestly, disclaimer are going to be shitting
on Asthma Day a little bit here.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
So here's the problem is Asthmada does it themselves, right, Yeah,
just starting, I mean talk to go, talk to your
local game store, and like unless they're on that top
end that I think it's the platinum tier for Asthma Day,
Like they're just like they have no interest in doing
anything for any store that's not buying just abundantly just

(16:27):
huge amounts of product for them, like they just won't.
They won't, they don't and they don't care, right, and
good on them because they have enough. I guess they
have enough people buying from them that like, they don't
have to care about you. But I mean, this is
kind of a what we're talking about here is kind
of a song as old as time when it comes
down to Asthma day, right.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
So I I do think that My point is that
I think this part is important because people who haven't
experienced this end or maybe don't know about it, they
are more worried than people who do. So things that
you mentioned happening happen a ton with altered because it's

(17:10):
not like one of Asmade's big, you know babies that
they are starting to push. We've had late shipments, incorrect shipments.
I know of at least like three or four stores
that received a Tumult kit for last season instead of
this season.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
The thing that Felix was mention mentioning about aegis is
not supposed to happen like Equinox's thing is they understand
this is a more niche or whatever you want to
call it. TCG. It's not one of the Big Three.
They have no limits personally on how many players the
store needs to run a Tumult or to do OP

(17:55):
or anything like that. From every time I have asked
for clarification and double checking that stuff is supposed to
be free to a store, especially the op boosters, and
then I believe even the Tumult kit, they have to
be a store that's you know, registered with Asthma Day

(18:16):
running in its own Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
The other thing about that too, And now that you
said that Asthma Day, I don't know if it was
an ASTHM Day or an FFG thing, but since the
dawn of time, Asthma Day hates anything that's online, they
will not support. I couldn't remember if it was an

(18:41):
Asthma DA thing or if it was an FFG thing
because Asthma Day bought out f FG. But like this
whole thing with BGA, like I would not be surprised
if they're like, we are not supporting this at all. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (18:56):
No, they are very uh not into supporting online. And
we were told that multiple different times, and it was
Equinox who was really trying to push for any of
the online support when we were first seeing about providing
Adventure Pass for online tournaments. As Meday was like no, no, no,

(19:17):
no no, And finally on the side of Equinox, they
pushed through and found a way for it to work.
So really, the easiest way to summarize as Miday as
a company is there's a lot of older white dudes
that are in high up management and they only care

(19:39):
about their lifestyle board games. And that's like the huge
focus for as ME Day. So anything like key Forge
or Altered or any like something that's not a lifestyle
board game, the employees that care about those projects at
Asthma Day have to fight tooth and nail for those

(20:00):
to get representation. And I can like confidently say this
because I've had friends who have worked at Asthma Day
and like I've had friends who've worked on KeyForge, and
like they loved the game, they never wanted, you know
it to go away from Asthma Day. But they are
just so hyper focused on lifestyle board games that they

(20:25):
don't pay attention to any other games. I mean, now
that Star Wars are successful, yeah, now that Star Wars
is successful though, they're paying more attention to that, and
they started outing Altered for Star Wars, so that was great.
I have experienced that first hand, so.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
I mean give it time. I mean, I don't know
how many of you remember Star Wars Destiny. It's yeah, yeah,
it's only a matter of time before they're like, this
game's too expensive to produce, We're not going to produce
it anymore because literally, I mean, I I gonna put
it this way because it's the only way I really
know how to explain it. As what Cole said is

(21:05):
not wrong either. It is a bunch of older white
dudes more than likely, but like.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
They're well, I've I've met them, so can.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Oh, Okay, I have not, so I cannot confirm. I
mean I've I've worked with FFG and asthmade people since
key Forge came out, so I kind of understand the
the whole, Like yep, they they they literally have to
fight and some of like the decision making that goes

(21:35):
into it. So and it's and it is incredibly frustrating.
I mean, I don't know how long I give Star
Wars like it's real good right now, but as soon
as there's something like they don't like on the on
the ticket bill or you know, some are the cost
the cost of the game or whatever the effect may be,
like they'll they'll deep six it tomorrow, right, I.

Speaker 5 (21:57):
Mean I wonder although it is good maybe getting ahead
a little bit here is.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
If BGA ever gets.

Speaker 5 (22:06):
Affected or not because it does relung to yesterday, that
was my options.

Speaker 4 (22:13):
Yeah, I don't think so. Because it is partly owned
by Asthma Day, I think so. I don't know if
this is true, but Asthma Day is still a fakeholder
in Equinox as far as I know. So they're not

(22:34):
going to want to purposely have the game fail by
doing something like oh, we're going to bang you from
board game Marine an hour.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Or when they ban it, But like, maybe there's not
as much focus on making sure that like new sects
get implemented as quickly or as readily.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
As not even then though, yeah, that pretty much all
volunteer works.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
It is all volunteer work, yes, but I mean, I'm
sure when it comes out to doling out see, I
guess I don't know how that works. Like are you
given a project to like, oh, yes, I'd like to volunteer,
and then you're given something to like, oh, well do
this or like is it Oh I want to I
want to write script for this game and you just

(23:14):
can do it.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
I've Vincent has they explained it a couple times. From
what I remember him saying is there's a couple different
like ways that game designers work on Board Game Arena.
Sometimes they're contracted by the company to make, you know,
a really good implementation of the game. Sometimes they're just

(23:38):
more fans and they get certain kinds of kickbacks from
Board Game Arena itself. I think Equinox, as far as
you know I've experienced, is very heavily involved with the
implementation on BGA, and that includes like Loki and Pierre,

(24:00):
and I think Nathaniel on the team, and the dev
for Altered is great Vincent, as I mentioned, and I
think there's another person, but I don't really hear from
him on anything, so I don't know him by name.
But yeah, I think BGA will be fine. And they
do call out like specifically more collaborations with or Game Arena,

(24:26):
so it's it's definitely in the works. And now that
Asthma Day doesn't have their you know, foot on the
online part of it, it should be a lot more open.
And my hope honestly is that I mean, maybe I

(24:46):
can create like a digital teo or something on the
Altered website, and then just run all of my events
myself and everything, because it's a pain to go through
a third party for both sides, Like I have to
send information to Julio, he has to do everything on
his side, and he's already running his store and doing

(25:08):
all of that, so I appreciate him helping out, but
it's it's a lot of extra work.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
So I guess we'll start with some of the positives. Right.
This will allow game stores, which is where you're going
to make a majority of your gains in player base,
gives them more of an ability to get access to

(25:38):
get access Altered, and get support for organized player and
local play events. Right, yes, yep.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
So this is kind of where it was unfortunate that
they had to put out an announcement ahead of time,
because now pulling up the Q and A, I guess
like everything was on fire and people were running around
screaming in the French discord or something, so Loki hopped

(26:13):
into a voice channel to calm them all down, and
then someone over there transcribed it into English. So shout
out to that person. I am sorry, I can't remember
who it was currently but maybe Dexter can find it. Anyways,
there's a very important part. And I think if you

(26:34):
take like nothing else from this entire episode than this
part right here, I think I think you'll be good.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
So was Martin p E with the top pat accent?
You are?

Speaker 4 (26:49):
Yeah, Martin? Yeah, he plays in online tournaments pretty often,
so shout out to Martin. So I'll just read this
real quick. The objective of the new independent Distribute US
approach is to improve access to altered products for both
LGSS and players. To start, lgs's will have access to
pre orders before players through a dedicated platform separate from

(27:13):
game found. They will also have new, specific new offer
specific to shops and not available to players directly. The
model has been developed to avoid disadvantaging lgs's in the US.
LGSS will be able to order directly from Equinox, which
should help build local communities. In the past, some shops

(27:37):
have had difficulties sourcing products and receiving materials needed to
maintain and maintain and grow in person play. And then
it goes on to talk about like Asia and other things.
But this is yeah that you brought up a very
good example in Star Wars Destiny. I did the road

(27:58):
shows while some of them I didn't do all of
them in the whole country for Star Wars Unlimitted, and
I literally had shops that told me, like, I am
not going to risk it after Destiny, And that was
like another impression of what you know Asthma Day has

(28:21):
done and how LGS is feel so exclusive products to
lgs's and their own ordering system, and in my eyes,
it should be a lot less wasteful. And I'm I'm
the last person to say that, Like I want people

(28:43):
to be able to make money off of a card game,
Like I love how affordable Altered is and how it's
not like one of those ones where you have to
spend a ton of money to play.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Well, yeah, but ninety percent of the rayres that you
want you can get on the marketplace for like twenty sense.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
Now, yeah, but that is also not a great thing
right now. We do have an over abundance of goods, ye,
So I think it does need to come up a
little bit, and this model should hopefully make it so
stories are not just sitting on boxes of Beyond the

(29:23):
Gates still a year into the game. That's that's the hope.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
So I guess getting into the Game Found and I
don't know. I I'm gonna I I briefly read over
the Q and A. Did they make any sort of
talks about Okay, so we're gonna do Game Found and
they put it down as a pre order.

Speaker 4 (29:55):
M hm.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
So the one thing I will tell you that is
hurting key Forge right now, or at least I believe
it is hurting key Forge especially, is is the LGS
right key Forge basically? And I don't we haven't seen
any of their tears or what their game plan is

(30:17):
with it. But right now, people are ordering basically what
they want from the Game Found a kind of a
good sized discount. But then like the LGS wants to
order and it's like, why would I order any more
of this stuff if everyone's just ordering all their items
from the game Found? Yeah, they tell any of those

(30:41):
type of issues where like it's a pre order, right,
but like how is that? Because again, like this just
feels like more of of the magic thing, Right, Let's
take it out of the game store's hands and not
grease their palms and just grease ours even faster, right,
Like this is every every card or every games kind

(31:03):
of like wet dream, I guess is the basically the
way to put it is because they don't have to then,
do you know they have to do one mark up
to the end consumer and don't have to grease the
palms of anybody in the middle.

Speaker 4 (31:17):
Yeah. So it's time for your favorite segment where I
try to answer your question without getting in big trouble myself.
Oh so, from things that Loki has mentioned in the
public discord and answers he's given just to like one
off concerns, they the stores will be able to get

(31:41):
products cheaper than the players, which is what you want.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (31:47):
I know to an individual person that might sound bad,
but trust me, that's what you want. And there are
products that you can only get at an LGS and
these are going to be specific things only for the store.
The problem with the timing and everything is all of this,

(32:08):
of course, was supposed to be announced at the same
time they're working on all of the tiers. You know
what else is included and more of the information will
be out on October fifteenth.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Because it is a problem, right, because anything that comes
out on game found right, it's it's tough for an
LGS to want to support that because it's like where
do I fit in all this? Right? Because it's like
and you know, it's like you said, like you you
definitely want the LGS to be able to buy it cheaper.
And that's that is one hundred percent correct, because y'all

(32:43):
like somewhere to play, right where do you think that is?
Like you plan at your local library? You know, so
like that's your LGS and if you want to play
it like your LGS, your LGS has to make some money.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
You need to make a profit off the game, right.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
They need to make some money. You don't know why
Magic is still around because there's even even if wats
these attempts to make it so lgs is don't make money.
They unfortunately still make money off of it and gobs
of it, and that's why they're willing to support it
because it does make them a lot of money. In fact,
I would say a good most lgs's that would be

(33:20):
a majority of their money comes from Magic, Pokemon and
yu Gi.

Speaker 4 (33:24):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 8 (33:28):
A lot that I've seen a lot of stores money
is going on a lot the pricing, well not even
that so for.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
Example, but yeah, so.

Speaker 5 (33:42):
For example in Pokemon, just because that's the one that
I'm most with.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
You can find boxes of the newest set.

Speaker 5 (33:50):
They've gone up since then because it just distribution has changed,
and boxes are now maybe one point fifty, But if
you go to specific country, the MSRP is way higher
than that. I see a store in Puerto Rico, which where,
which is where I'm from, and boxes go for almost
two hundred.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
Bucks and people buy it.

Speaker 4 (34:13):
The scarcity is real, all right?

Speaker 2 (34:18):
So for my next question, so we're treating this as
a pre order? Yes, where does that leave the I
guess the release just.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
Like regular ordering for the stores.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
No that that'll be sure. I'm sure they'll have some portal.
I don't know if it's going direct. Is it going
direct to Equinox or are they going to go through
like a Southern or somebody else.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
I'm not sure information, but it won't be through as
in the day. Stores will be able to go directly
towards Equinox most likely.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Okay, where does that leave like release events? What is
the release? I mean? And we probably don't know this,
so we might guess the release schedule. Right? Am I
going to get my game founder before I get to
go to my pre release?

Speaker 5 (35:14):
Yeah, it's going to be a thing still, and how
how early is presale going to start?

Speaker 3 (35:23):
He didn't answer any of those questions in the faq.
Mm hmmm. Pre order the stores and people would probably
get stuff before the actual release date, So I'm not
sure how pre releases would work then, but they're definitely
still planning on having pre release events and pre release

(35:44):
kits like they have in the past. Sets.

Speaker 5 (35:48):
Yes, speculation from my part, but I'm wondering if the
pre sales are going to go maybe two sets in advance,
which is a long term investment for a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
In advance, I could see one set in advance. I don't
think it'll be because the problem with the game found
right now with with key Forge is ghost Galaxy is
and I'm not gonna you know, I'm just gonna say it.
I shouldn't go Scalaxy all the time on arc corner.

(36:19):
Why not you? Ghost Galaxy is, whether people believe it
or not, are trying to circumvent the game store, right.
They want to make their money and the game store
be damned. The problem is is you're not You're not
going to see growth and year over year, right, Like
a game's health is determined by its growth or decline

(36:44):
the community in the store. We are going to lose
a certain number of players every single year. It is
bound to happen. It is never stagnant, right, You are
going to always lose a number of players every year.
I'm going to say that again. You will always lose
another a number of players year over a year. Because

(37:07):
I already hear the the the what's the word I'm
looking for? The uh, the sirens falling in the main
altered discord of this is it. Game's dead. Everybody move on.
You will one hundred percent always lose. You will never
have everyone from last year join again this year.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
You will with the gathering.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Always, You're always going to have a certain number of
lapsed players, right. The goal is to replace those lapsed
players with new players. What is the game plan to
make that happen? I guess this is the question at
this point because where you're seeing like key Forge, what

(37:59):
I especially with the game found is you are not replacing.
And they may tell me otherwise because they're like, oh,
we've had huge leaps and bounds us here places are
calling us to order key Forge now, great, right, Like
that's what you've had like four stores and you're going
to call that a win. I don't know, but you

(38:22):
know it's you got to replace those players and you can't.
You cannot take out the LGS. Number one. They're your
biggest advocates, right, you know, they're the ones that are
going to be like, you know, somebody comes in to
buy a pack, our or starter deck altered, you want
that LGS person to go, oh, yeah, we got a
group that meets every every Thursday. Yeah, you should come

(38:45):
on in check it out, you know what I mean, Like,
that's what you want, So I don't come.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Here that they will have exclusive stuff for the stores
and they will still have opie programs and packs and
kits and stuff, which is a lot more than key
for just doing absolutely.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
And I love that they're like, all right, we need
to think of a store because they've they've come to
that realization of how important the store actually is, right
because at number one, this game will not survive without
the LGS.

Speaker 8 (39:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:20):
Boy, I was just very quiet for a time. I
was just coughing, But yeah, I heard everything you said. Yeah,
you're hit the nail on the head. How I think
of it, and a good way to frame it is
Asthma Day is the distributor, They're not the one making anything, right,

(39:43):
And it's the same thing with game Jenik. They're not
really making the accessories. You know, cart Mundy is printing
cards whatever the other company is factories are making play
mats and stuff like that. So Equinoc is just going
to be dealing with those directly instead of having Asthma

(40:05):
Day being the one, you know, working the in between.
And since the start, they've always had, you know, lgs's
in mind and been very careful about the decisions that
they make around what they offer. I've seen it come
up already once or twice, and I would almost bet

(40:28):
my shoes that it'll never happen. But people mentioning like
digital packs, I don't think it'll ever happen, and that
is something that.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
This game went completely digital.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
Yeah, So I think a good point here is Equinox
the team themselves, has never given me a reason to
doubt that they can work us out. Without getting too
deep into it, I mean what he's already kind of
mentioned some things. Ghost Galaxy is a much different company

(41:11):
and there are some good people there, but there's a
lot that can be said about the owner of the company.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
There's a lot to be said about the owner of
the company, but that's not this. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:25):
Yeah, so in my eyes, this should go a lot
better because of that. And as you you've said, you
know you think that key Forge doesn't really care.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
As much about LG or in the community.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
I don't feel like key four. I don't feel like
GG cares as much about the lgs as they do
their bottom line, right, I mean we're talking, yeah, we're
talking three years now. You know, the very second Keyfarde
celebration we went to, we said, you know, man, it's
it's super great for Keyfardge to be back, but like

(42:08):
we want to get this into our local gaming stores.
Like this is cool that we can travel to all
these places. You know, we got five five stops a
year for the Vault Tours and it's really fun to
be at this high level. But like we need something
to show a new player, right, Like when that new
person comes in, like what what do we have to
show them? What do we have to offer them? What

(42:29):
do we have to give them? Right? Because you know,
doctor sheep on on Ac says, well, I stuff don't
do it, and I'm very much to the disagreement. So
stuff don't do it. Like, if you get something cool
from a game, you're like, that's super cool. I want
to I want more, I want more cool things. Right,
So I I am of a firm believer stuff does

(42:52):
do it. And if you can give up some cool
organized play stuff, right, Like I.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
Think little trinkets would make everything so much better.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Ship a bag of Doritos would work for me. I
don't know, but like, you know, but it's got to
be like and I don't have a good answer because
that's the first thing everyboel asked, Well, what is it?
I don't know, right, but like, you know, first things
off the top of my head was like, you know,
when you start doing your op kits, you know, tons

(43:23):
of tokens and altered right, And it's really cool that
there's all these third party people doing it. But it
would be even super cooler if there was an official
altered you know token.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
Hey this month, is there is like an official acrylic set?
They did like some some different ones mixed it up so.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Everyone could have those are from officials, right, but those
are from game Genic, right, And as far as I understand,
game Genic really won't be working with altered anymore.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yeah, I don't know the sensors will still be available, though.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
They'll be available as long as their stock. I don't
think after the stock gets gone that they will still
be that's true. So that's cool. Yeah you want these
super cool premium premium tokens, Yes, you can go buy them,
or hey, thanks for stopping by. Here's a pack of
five fleeting tokens, right that you can use at your

(44:21):
house or like, the next time you come back, you
can use these again. That's what we're giving away this month.
Don't forget. Come back next month to get your anchored tokens.
Anchoreds are going to be next month, so those are
going to be really cool. Or your your your first
player marker, right, like, don't you know, come on back
next to you get you.

Speaker 4 (44:40):
They do have.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
Plenty of first player markers for each set and pre
releases that they give out.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Sure, absolutely, but there would be some just more would
be cool, some really cool? Uh maybe maybe maybe some
you know, fan generated We got fan generated art. What
am I looking for here? Like fan.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
You know?

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Like, oh, who's your Hey? I really like those altered
corner guys, right, maybe you do something? Maybe they work
with somebody, and that's oh yeah. On one side is
the anchored token. On the other side, you got one
of your favorite podcasts. Right, maybe it's maybe it's not Altered Corner.

(45:25):
Maybe it's a Hero's Guide Asgartha, right, and you work
with them to put some you know, there's there's tons
of people out there like you can work with to
make this really cool. Right, And like number one, Altered
is a very very small community, whether whether the Altered
people believe it or not. Big in Europe, but not

(45:47):
in the US. And if you ain't making it in
the US, you ain't making it baby, So I mean
so if I'm lying, I'm crying.

Speaker 4 (45:55):
Right this is this is kind of a side note.
But have you you've seen any of the massubi alt
arts that will be coming I think next month.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Like the spam, the seweed spam and Rice.

Speaker 4 (46:16):
Okay, here we go, they did. The blog does have it,
so shout out to altertcg dot blog. Oh no, they
don't have. I swear one of the full ones was released.
They don't have it. I'll track it down as we
talk about the next time and share it. But they
they are super cool and I'm so stoked for them,

(46:37):
but as like game Genic and all of those partnerships,
I don't think they're one hundred cut off from Gamegenic.
But here's another benefit to not being expressly tied to
game Jenic. The playmats that are going to be at
Worlds only have the Altered logo. They do not have

(47:00):
have game genek on nice, which I mean it never
really bothered me, but if you think about it, like
less random words on your very nice art playmat is better,
you know, and then.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
Not gonna lie to you. It's been a long time
since I've used anybody else's playmant. I make my own
playmats now over at InCD dot com with ink dot
com because I like to put naughty things on my
playmat to make other people's feel uncomfortable. But that's me,
Like I wouldn't take notes from the Wookie on how
to go to your premiere luxury cardboard event, right.

Speaker 4 (47:38):
Especially especially not altered, Especially.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
You've never met the key Forge community, especially not there either.
But I do it anyway because because we are key
Forge is number one podcast, so we get away with things.
Over here, we're only number forty four, so we can't
get away with as much.

Speaker 4 (48:02):
True, there there are more things coming though, there's going
to be a wooly back.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Plush are always fun. Yeah, those went over huge in
the key Forge community, and don't take those for granted.
We actually we had a conversation with Josh Massey who's
now over in Universes. He's organized play over there. He

(48:34):
used to be organized play for key Forge. And actually
I used to talk a lot to Alex Watkins, who
used to be I think he's with I think he's
with Uh was it Live Story Studios or whoever? Whoever?
What is that game? Why am I drawing a complete

(48:55):
blank on it? What's the other big game? Flesh and Blood?
He's over there now with Flesh.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
Living played that for a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah, same, I think we all did. But like plushes
are ridiculously expensive to make, Like you're talking like the
I don't, I don't know if you want to call
it the con like the mock up of number one,
Like you choose your thing right, but then you have
to like mock it up right of how like patterns

(49:28):
are going to be cut out. It's like ten thousand
dollars just to start one, just to like start it
and then you have, and then you have the actual
cost of actually making them. But that's that was wild
to me to build a stuffed animal. You're you're starting
at ten g's ten bands, Yeah, just to get started.

(49:53):
That's Dad's wild. But that's me.

Speaker 4 (49:59):
Yeah, I do, of course want to get into some
of the negatives. That way, people can't say that I'm
just always shilling. But Dexter took down some notes that
weren't fully covered in the breakdown from the blog. Do
you want to tell us what you learned from reading

(50:21):
the transcripts?

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Dexter and not a whole lot of separate things, and
it's all more positives, I think.

Speaker 4 (50:33):
But the first note, yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Is that they are this game Found is not slowing
down what they have, so they're still working on set
five uniques are almost done. All of the rest of
the development is pretty much done, So once they get
the game Found up and running, the set will be
pretty much complete, and then it'll be shipped out and
everything should go smoothly with timelines and when they finish

(50:57):
developing and getting everything ready and then board game arena
development is its own thing, so everything should be able
to run smoothly. And this game Found shouldn't interrupt that
too much. And Loki did make a point about how
a lot of people are saying that that people aren't
saying that alters selling very well, but if they actually

(51:19):
look at Beyond the Gates and how it sold off
the shelves, it did a lot better than they thought then,
like people are saying, and so that indicates that the
op structure is still in good shape. And they're also
keeping track of all comments that people are saying on
the internets and Reddit and discord, and they won't respond

(51:39):
to all of it, but they do keep track of
it all and they are going to set up ways
to respond to all comments there.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
I think a roadblock right now is just getting into stores. Yeah, yes,
that that is like there're still you know. So I
went to I took my wife out to dinner Friday night.
We went out. We went to this place. It's called
fah falk Landy a pub or it might be falk

(52:12):
Landy a brewing. It is a games It is a
bar and restaurant with a game store in it. Pretty neat, Huh.
They've never even heard of. Yeah, I don't know who is,
don't know what they are never heard of them now,

(52:33):
I mean not surprised poking around this store. They had
Pokemon and Magic. That was it. Like no board games,
no miniature games. No, I shouldn't say that that they
had a selection of board games you could play while
you ate dinner, which yeah, their service was. We did

(52:58):
not get to really play anything. But like you know,
but like basically like behind us there was a Commander
group starting kind of a cool thing. But again it's like,
all right, like this place just does Magic, right, So,
and that's the unfortunate fact is that's a lot of
places and you have to kind of fight and claw

(53:18):
your way to get into a lot of these stores
because Magic is such a powerhouse and it's not showing
any you know, especially with the universes beyond stuff Spider
Man and Last Airbender coming out, it shows zero signs
of slowing down.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
Yeah, I remember everybody.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
Magic's been dying for thirty years, so.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
Yeah, I think there are a couple key examples of
the fact that they really do listen to feedback. Sometimes
it's unfortunate for me personally, but I'm glad that they
do it. So the first season of Tumults, we got
the scout cards were like big oversized cardboard cards, right,

(54:05):
and enough people complained about them because they're not playable
cards that they this time are playable cards with a
tumult stamp, which they're very nice cards. It's great, But
I actually kind of liked that Altered was doing something
a little different because you know, Star Wars and all
those others they do the whole stamped card thing. It's

(54:27):
just industry standard. I had another I.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Think would also and I don't mean to cut you
off here, but I think also it would be also
pretty dope. I know they give away the little packs
now what they're like three card packs, and you have
a higher chance of a unique.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
I've always done those.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's what you get now, right, Yeah? Yeah,
what if it was just like this month's unique is.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Yeah, uniques have to be unique.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Sure, and you can make them unique, right, I mean
is that I guess I don't know, Like I don't
know how much is being produced.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Like they have one designated card that's a unique, and
they print like, yeah, a few thousand of them and
then we each.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
Store with SUBI twenty four altar right coming out, I'm
gonna assume in this next set, if.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
They will be unlocks for everyone in October.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
But yeah, the but let's let's say in October alongside
that every store you were getting you were given a
one card pack, right, a one card pack, or maybe
it doesn't even have to be a one card pack.
It could just be a card and each one is
you know, it's got its own little like wrapper around it. Hey,
here's your unique, Mitsubi Masubi, stay you with you. It's

(55:54):
just it's a unique, right, it might not be it
might be something in it be nothing, right.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
That might be hard for them to print that out
logistically and get the algorithm just to make a whole
bunch of one single card.

Speaker 4 (56:10):
But I don't know.

Speaker 9 (56:12):
What about And then I'm just shooting in the dark.
Here literally a specific character that's exclusive to promos, and
the unique can show up in any faction, though.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
You could, yeah that you'd have to. I like it
is and it isn't right. I like the I like
the Moxie. But however, you have to be very careful
because all of a sudden, you got one set of
Unique that becomes extraordinarily busted because it really synergizes with
one thing, and then all of a sudden a faction

(56:48):
takes off. They do a very good job of making
sure like the factions are somewhat altogether, except they hate
Cole for some reason. I don't really know why. It's weird,
but yeah, I mean you could do something like that,
or what if you do, like maybe it's not an
altart but like a full art, right, like oh Matsubi

(57:09):
full art, full art. Yeah, but what if it's like
the common art. I don't know. I'm just I'm spitballing here, right,
Like the biggest thing that you want to give to
a new player, and the biggest thing I realized with
my Altered Journey and still to this day is getting uniques.
That are some just getting uniques? Yeah, you know, I

(57:34):
don't suck if well, they could even suck, because you
need three to play the damn game.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
Next he I think, is there worse than the common then?

Speaker 5 (57:44):
I think even if they would suck, just the thrall
and the adrenaline rush people get from just one, I
think it already makes it worth it.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Right, and then not only that, like now you want
to build around it, right or like it gets some
hype flowing or you know, I'm just and again, I'm
spitballing here, you know, or you know, in again industry
standard you can kind of like stamp it or give
it some special kind of treatment, or I'm just again,
I'm spitballing because number one, some of my ideas usually

(58:16):
aren't very profitable or cost effective. So I'm just I'm
trying to figure out something because you always want a
new player to walk away with something cool, because that's
just that's what brings people back, in my opinion, is
walking away with something.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
They did add one unique to every pre release kit,
which is great.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
I feel like that's what is what everyone's looking at.
But I feel like, man, how many new you guys
got a lot of new players that come to the pre.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Release normally the biggest events.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
Yeah, but like new players, yep, that's why.

Speaker 4 (58:59):
That's that's why we were so adamant about the pre
release kits and having like a little instruction guide and
stuff like that, because yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
More so than the tumult, we aren't getting any new
people at tumults.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
Yeah, tumults like people are scared to attend.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
Well, yeah, because now you're going to get hyper competitive, right,
It's really not the well you can say that all
you want, but like in the eyes of the person
that's like, yeah, I went to a pre release and
I had a lot of fun. I don't know if
I want to go to the tumult though, that just
seems maybe a little too you know, how do you
bridge that? Yeap, I guess that's the question.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:40):
Well, there's a lot that they're going to be doing
in the way of, you know, improving the Adventure Pass,
improving the season of op. And they have mentioned before
that they know opening Altered packs isn't very exciting right now,

(01:00:00):
and that's where like it's this really hard thing to
balance and win because getting one box of Altered is amazing.
You get like almost everything you need, but then you
don't have as much of a reason to open packs
after that. So there's been things thrown around like box toppers,

(01:00:24):
new rarities.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Somehow have to beat magic in this territory.

Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
You have to beat magic though, or do you just
you just have to have you know, I don't even know,
but yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Because and the reason it's not exciting is because I mean,
they're the and I'm just gonna say this, the secondary
market for this game kind of blows.

Speaker 4 (01:00:51):
That's kind of what I was saying earlier is yeah,
I don't it's too cheap.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Yeah, it's a little too cheap. It's awesome, yeah, but
like it's a little too inexpensive to play this game
to the point where like, oh man, I opened this
sweet unique, what's it worth? Well? And that there's your
next problem.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
Five bucks?

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Nobody knows. Nobody knows. How do you know if that's
a five bus or five hundred dollars unique?

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
You ask someone with a lot of experience, right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
And where am I gonna? Okay, so I but you don't.
But as a person, just as a person, I don't know.
Like I'm brand new to this game. I just opened
some altered man. I got this sweet Oh man, it's
a gold one. Oh man, I got this sweet unique card.
Oh man, what's it worth? I'm gonna go to TCG player.
I'm gonna Oh, there's no information.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
There is some information, now, there was, I know, Cole
found one website that gave estimates. Yeah, and you can
also just look on the marketplace and look at some
of the similar cards that are.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Up there to ask Loki what the conversion rate? And
I'm sure that's a number that somebody he might not
even know what is what's the conversion rate from person
who buys card, like the amount of cards that have

(01:02:16):
been sold versus the amount of cards that have been scanned,
because you know how much of each set has sold, right,
And then you could do like some rough math to
be like, oh, there's you know, thirty seven million beyond
the gates cards that have sold. How many are actually
scanned into the system. I can tell you it's probably

(01:02:37):
commons behind that have never been scanned.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
Number one, I'm just not an I'm not an online player,
so I don't care. And I'm not really going to
any big events right because there's just not a thing
near me. So I don't care. Right If I need
to like find a way to scan them because I
need them for a deck, yeah I'll scan them then,
but I'm not going to spend any extra time scanning them.

Speaker 4 (01:03:09):
Yeah, I uh, if you if you know me, I
am a very hateful of capitalism. But I also understand
that there there is kind of an issue with the
value on cards. I I literally have two long boxes
full of cards I cannot give away, and that that

(01:03:32):
is kind of a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
You can them up here, Okay, I will, I will
commons won't be scanned in or anything.

Speaker 4 (01:03:42):
Hell yeah, uh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
I mean, dude, I got three kids. What do you mean?
I love it? No, kids just look pretty. I tried to,
So I tried. I was like, I brought my wife.
I'm gonna tell this story again and she's gonna kill me.
You guys ready for this? So recently I went to

(01:04:05):
two new game stores because I just I you know,
I hadn't been in the game store near me locally
had basically had shut down. So I had I had
heard about this game store, Old Guard Games for like
the longest time. They had reached out to me moons
ago because they wanted to get a Vault tour at

(01:04:29):
their place, but like it just never happened, never, like
uh never amounted to anything, right, And so I was like, ah,
one of these days, I will check them out. And
I finally did, probably I don't know, about a month ago,
and I took I took my wife and we went
into the game store and we were poking around. Right
it's you know, it's a game store, very heavily miniature base.

(01:04:49):
But they had some of course, you found some Commander
players and then there was there was a few. It
was a handful of people that were opening up one piece,
which that is a whole conundrum in itself. But I add,
you know, you gotta be altered or key forge, and
they're like nope, and they at least knew what I

(01:05:12):
was talking about. What weren't interested. Had a little talk
about it. My wife was pissed. She's like, when when
did it become that a woman could walk into a
game store and not get one look? She was like
mad that nobody even like paid attention to her. She's like,
I'm a girl in a game store. Pay attention to me.

Speaker 4 (01:05:29):
Old news.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Yeah, but one game store, uh knew what I was
talking about, but didn't have anyone had never even heard
of it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
So I have a couple of game stories like that
as well. Even with Star Wars they were like, yeah,
we skipped on that. I was like, all right, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Cool, I mean it looks just fair. But because again,
like the LGS is what will make her break a game.
If people are playing it and they're coming in a
you know, at a decent clip with a good size
tot you know, good size following, people will be like,
what's this game? Oh, that's kind of cool. Oh that's
kind of cool. Well, that's kind of cool. I mean,

(01:06:10):
are there are there plans to do any sort of
like bring a new player type event type deals like hey,
you bring a new player and get this sweet altered
travel mug. That's something I just completely made up off
off the hip. But you know, like, you know, you
get us a sweet promo card or whatever. I don't know,

(01:06:32):
insert something here for bringing a new player and they
play play the game with you, or like demo decks
or you know, giveaways. I mean Magic used to do,
though I know they don't anymore, and I don't know
how successful they were.

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
But I mean decks.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
Magic still does demo.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
For conventions, mostly.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
Because I remember used to be able to walk into
an LGS and be like, I want to learn to
play Magic, and they'd hand you like half a starter
deck and then like you're remember, they'd hand them half
a starter deck too, and then you could like play it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
It was packs East.

Speaker 6 (01:07:13):
After talking with Cole in the very last day, and
went to Mendi the gathering and I talked to them,
how I have a.

Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
Car game club at my school. They give me a
whole kid a demo.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
Decks Magic did. Yeah, oh wow, nice. I just I
wonder how this game survives, right, And I know it's
still very I know it's still very profitable. And I'm
not overly worried about Equinox because it seems like even

(01:07:42):
though they're going away, like again, believe it or not,
leaving Asthma Day is probably for the best. Like if
if you are crying about them leaving Asthma Day, don't
because it is actually way better that they are not

(01:08:03):
associated with Asthma Day that it is that they are.

Speaker 4 (01:08:08):
Yeah, yeah, yep, there's Yeah, as unfortunate as it is,
that is true. And I said that I was going
to have some negative things, but I might have already
forgotten them because all the things I can think of
are things that is not Equinox's fault. So, for like

(01:08:34):
an example, I was a judge at gen Con, same
as Felix and Dexter, and we didn't get any anything
like they Asthma de sent us none of our stuff.
We didn't have our demo kits, we didn't have our
table cloths.

Speaker 6 (01:08:52):
Yeah, we didn't have anything, and that would make ourselves.

Speaker 4 (01:08:57):
Yeah, and that wasn't the only thing we didn't have
Convention play mats either, which people love, like, people go
crazy for them, people spend five hundred dollars to buy
them if they couldn't go there, And the reason we
didn't is game Jenik just didn't make them. They just
decided not to make them. And the reason there.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Or they got pushed to the back burner because somebody, something,
something bigger came along. Yeah, yeah exactly, but out of
the time and it was like, oh yep, sorry guys.

Speaker 4 (01:09:28):
Yeah, and it's not Equinox who like didn't make them.
It was gamegenic right, And like I was there when
when they found out, and we were like, well shit,
like what the hell, Like, We've been asking you about
this for months and now you tell me that they
just never got made. We did our part, we gave
you the art, we gave you the files, you just

(01:09:49):
never produced them. And that's kind of the same reason
that there are no accessories for Skybound Odyssey, which is
super unfortunate. There's gonna be no play mats, no sleeves, nothing,
and it's because Gamegenik didn't produce them. So, I mean,
there are obviously things that Equinox needs to work on themselves.

(01:10:12):
I really really want them to hire at least one
or two more support people. That poor one support person
they have is absolutely not enough. But everything else is
honestly like just kind of out of their control. I
know a lot of people will give them a lot

(01:10:32):
of flack about like print on demand in the market
not being in certain countries like Switzerland is a great example.
And it's not like they don't want to. It's Switzerland
has very very strict and weird laws around taxes and
like digital purchases and making money on websites and stuff,

(01:10:56):
and they have like two different tax systems or something,
so I literally have to work with like the Swiss government.
But yeah, I don't know if I can remember anything
that I thought was unfortunate about this specifically outside of

(01:11:17):
I hope people don't just give up on it because
of like the perception of the biggest fear this announcement.

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
The biggest fear I would have going into this is
and this is just from a player's state, because I've
been around the block for so long. The biggest fear
with game found is how are you going to make
it successful? For this? Like, how are you going to

(01:11:50):
make a store want to carry your shit? And why
should I still carry your product, right, like give me,
give me your elevator pitch right, Like why should local games?
You know, a local game store. He makes all his
bones off of magic and Pokemon. Why should he carry altered?

(01:12:11):
Give him a re he needs. That's the guy. The
smallest game store you can imagine, is the one that
needs the reason.

Speaker 4 (01:12:20):
And definitely a hurdle.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
Right, and now you're going to Game Found, which is
even more of It's that scary word, right, crowd Every
every game store hates that word crowdfunding.

Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
Yeah, it is important to note that stories will not
go to Game Found.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
But that was actually that was one of my questions.
I was going to ask, will there be some sort
of retailer, I guess pledge that they're able to get
stuff and get like super cool things, right you?

Speaker 6 (01:12:58):
And I says there's a specific platform that they'll have
access to.

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
Yeah, it's not going to be through the game Found.
It will be through Equinox, not game Found. Yes, correct, right,
because like the biggest thing that I had I had
kind of voiced after the last Game Found for key Forge,
and it wasn't this last one, it was probably two
game founds will go was like why would a story

(01:13:22):
even want to bother with you, you're just circumventing them.
So my biggest question is you know to to to
low key in the team. I know you got we
had all talked about maybe having him on and answering
some questions, but it might be a logistical uh nightmare.
But like I know, but like how are you going

(01:13:44):
to make it profitable to game stores? Like how what
are you going to do? Like it's cool to say,
like there's going to be product that is only retailer available,
but is it cool stuff that's that's and that's that.
I'm sure he can't tell us any of that, right

(01:14:06):
or maybe to him and super it's super cool, right,
And it's up to the retailer to figure out whether
it's cool or not. But like you got to give
them some somewhat of a huge advantage over ordering through
the game Found because like I guess at that point,
why even have a game found? Is it just a
distribution method then? At that point, because again I don't

(01:14:30):
know how game found works really, like are you just
distributing it via yourselves and you're using and again as
a crowdfunding to like make money off the set.

Speaker 4 (01:14:40):
It's just a preorder portal basically.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
But like, so okay, So then again, my biggest question
is why not run the preorders through the store.

Speaker 4 (01:14:51):
I don't know the answer to that, but what I
would assume.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
Somebody write in our docks for Loki, because I'll forget
that question.

Speaker 4 (01:15:01):
How how I see it? Yeah, Dexter's got it. I'll remember.

Speaker 3 (01:15:07):
I'll remember it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:11):
How I see it is you kind of have to
have both. You have to have a way for people
to order the game that want it and don't have
an LGS they can get it from. But also, as
we've kept saying, you do as well have to work
with stores to foster like a p and you know,

(01:15:32):
supporting stories. The game found will also have things like
the plushes and other things, but not the story specific.
So it's like this balance. And I remembered one of
the things that is is a good point you were
talking about when I was away for a second. The

(01:15:56):
time frame is something to worry about.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
Oh, I wasn't talking about that. We were talking about
that on discord in our little private chat. Is like,
that's that's something we didn't talk about here at all,
Like time frame, Like you're looking at releasing a set
every what every quarter? Basically every four months, four months,
every yeah, every four months, So you're looking at you know,
four sets a year, three to four steps.

Speaker 3 (01:16:22):
We're doing four pre orders?

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
Is it every three months? Is it quarterly they're looking
to release or just every four months four months? Okay,
because I mean, yeah, well some years you'll have three,
some years you'll have four, just depending on where the
dates fall.

Speaker 4 (01:16:43):
Yeah, So I think that is one of the legitimate
concerns is you know, how often are people going to
be able.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
To how often is too often? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:16:55):
And what is it going to look like for you know,
getting it in in people's hands, Because I know that's
a that's a big issue with key Ford. It's like I.

Speaker 3 (01:17:04):
See it, yeah, timelines.

Speaker 4 (01:17:07):
I see it mentioned very frequently in the Arkans Corner discord.
So that that is at.

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
Another big thing too, is I guess I don't know
if they'll have shipping partners or printing partners or how.
I don't know how it is, but like we just had,
Indonesia just had their like nationals, right, So there's a
huge problem because like Indonesia doesn't there's certain parts that

(01:17:37):
don't have certain sets that we have here. Because they
haven't been released yet, so it becomes an issue.

Speaker 3 (01:17:45):
It's taken so long to get delivered over there. They
don't have petic visions. It's released like a month or
two ago now, but they weren't able to play it
there because they just don't have access to it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
Remember, and then in China, right, there's a problem with
grim Reminders, like it was just stuck in there in
their processes for like ever.

Speaker 3 (01:18:07):
And I think for authetic visions there's a lot of
decks still stuck at the Asia hub too, right, Yeah,
I mean it's nightmare.

Speaker 2 (01:18:14):
So in the UK, it was a big problem too
with uh, with with ember Skies, because like it was
stuck on a boat, right, so like there was no
way to like they were trying to get it all done.
All they were trying to make it so like everybody
could get what they wanted all at the same time,

(01:18:35):
because like they originally started shipping to us people, but
then we got it way faster than anybody else because
literally Gigi is in Minnesota, so depending on your where
you were in the world in accordance with Minnesota, depending
on how long your stuff took to get to you.
And it was a nightmare, and then they tried to

(01:18:55):
do Europe first, and then some people in in the
States still got the stuff. Further, it was just yeah,
shipping was a literal nightmare.

Speaker 4 (01:19:05):
Yeah. The only thing I have to go off of
for that is they do have a partnership with ups
which yes, you know, I mean, you know, that's all
on the side. And people will complain how expensive the
shipping is for proNT on demand, but it's actually but
incredibly priced. Like I don't know how they.

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
For the print on demand, and they do at least
have the experience of getting things shipped out with their
whole print on demand system. Yes, and at first it
was taking quite a few months, but they've gotten better
and better with each print on demand printing session that
they've done, so hopefully they're able to learn from that
experience and able to get the game found shipped out

(01:19:46):
equally quickly.

Speaker 6 (01:19:48):
It makes me think, for example, how rya Game just
started with their riftbound and you As Games as their
publishing partner. Yeah, they're the ones that are taking care
of the distribution in China and here so is not
Ryot Games themselves that's doing more most of the work.

Speaker 4 (01:20:06):
I think the most recent print on demand orders went
really well, so I think that's a good sign. But yeah,
I would say to help anyone who's also worried about
the every four months and backing a game Found is
if you look at it how they're wanting to set

(01:20:27):
it up, you don't have to back the game Found.
I kind of see that as for like.

Speaker 3 (01:20:32):
You can still buy it in the stores in the
store should still be available in all the stores that
you got.

Speaker 2 (01:20:37):
Unless there's something super cool in the game Found that
we don't know about yet. But yeah, well if you
want uses, yeah, well maybe for this one. I mean,
I'm sure each one will have its own special little shinn'tig.

Speaker 4 (01:20:51):
So yeah, I think in a perfect world, what I
would hope a store would do is to help them
out and help their customers out. They just say, like,
how many people want to buy Altered from us, and
will buy that much plus maybe a tiny bit extra,

(01:21:13):
and then they won't have any stocks just sitting there.
Everyone will be able to still go to their same
store and get Altered, and everyone will be happy, and
the people who are die hard will back the game
Found at whatever level they can afford.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
But I mean, to be with you too. Just is
coming from someone who, like I have no way to
buy Altered. I can't go to my local game store
and just buy it. Like, this is actually what dexter?
What number one? You don't live in Wisconsin.

Speaker 3 (01:21:53):
There are stores around you that sell the game.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):
Yes, there are stores around me. The closest store is
an hour away.

Speaker 3 (01:22:02):
Yeah that's my name.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
My name is not Cole Robbie. I will not be
traveling an hour to spend money. I'm old next, Okay,
I'm I'm old man, right, I'm not spending I'm not
traveling an hour to spend money.

Speaker 5 (01:22:21):
Yeah, was traveling with like four hours to go to
ages when he was doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):
And I can understand why he didn't want to do it, right,
But like this is good for people like me who
don't have an LGS to actually be able to buy cards.

Speaker 3 (01:22:37):
Yeah. Yeah, it gives you a chance to get I
can get I can.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
Get a box or two and be happy. Right, So yep,
I think all this is probably a good thing overall,
it's going to be for the better. Again, I have
plenty of experience with FFG and ASTHMA day to know that,
like they're just the worst. So if you're if you're like, oh,
you know what's going to happen. Only good things can

(01:23:02):
happen when you leave.

Speaker 4 (01:23:04):
Asthma day yep, I think overall net positive. But as
Felix mentioned twenty minutes ago, where now at an hour
and a half, I just know two very small things
to tell you, and then let whatever else anyone else

(01:23:24):
wants to say. Demo Deck Tournament. They are bringing it back.
It'll be on the twenty first, which is a sun
okay nice yep for Skybound Odyssey, so there will be
some new.

Speaker 3 (01:23:38):
Do we have access to the decks yet?

Speaker 4 (01:23:40):
I think you will not get access to them until
the twentieth at the absolute earliest.

Speaker 3 (01:23:46):
Okay, cool, looks like I'll need to start practicing.

Speaker 4 (01:23:48):
Then sign ups will open on Thursday the eighteenth. I
think it's going to be the same five hundred and
twelve person cap, but I am not one hundred percent
on that. I can one hundred percent tell you that
there will be a stream on the A Wall YouTube

(01:24:12):
and I will be there and yeah, that'll be a
lot of fun. And then the current season ends on
September twenty fifth, So get your Adventure pass points in
where you can online with events like a wall and
you see ace parent time a new tournament that's come

(01:24:33):
out has Adventure Pass, and then Hero's Guide to as
Gartha runs one on Thursday as well, So do you
need Adventure Pass? Do that? Season's almost over? And Worlds
tickets are actually selling really really well and they are
having to open and release more tickets for like TVC.

Speaker 2 (01:24:56):
And that's how you know when something's doing well, like
they're like, oh man, the biggest of out of the
year we got, we got to actually print more tickets,
right yep.

Speaker 4 (01:25:06):
So but yeah, that's that's it from me. No Patreon question.

Speaker 3 (01:25:11):
And then October fifteenth and the game look for the
game found on October fifteenth at.

Speaker 4 (01:25:17):
Least more information on it, Yes, yes, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:25:22):
So all you dooming gloom naysayers, I don't know. I okay,
real quick, before we get out of here, what are
the doom and Gloom naysayers saying? Like, I guess I
haven't really seen a lot of like next towards this.

Speaker 4 (01:25:35):
The really the most frequent concern was how it would
work with lgs IS, which I think was.

Speaker 3 (01:25:42):
How the LGSS would still get product, and like if
you can still buy from them. Even people were thinking
that the pre orders were going to be only two
direct fans and the stores weren't going to have anything,
and everyone was freaking out. But that's not the case
at all. The stores will get your own chance to
pre order stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
Isn't It isn't right Like there are going to keep
people out there who just buy everything they want through
the through the.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
Game and they don't go to lgs at all. That is,
I think that those people will be far few and
far between. Most people will still buy at least at
least a large amount of product from their lgs.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
I think more there were not. The only fear I
would have is that then the game founds don't do
so well. But again, if they're running it more as
a pre release as opposed to a Again, this is
a good question, like what are we setting the cap
at ten grand? You know, at what point do we
consider game found of failure? Why why did we go

(01:26:38):
a game found? Oh man, we need to figure out
this whole thing.

Speaker 3 (01:26:41):
I guarantee you it will get funded. Yeah, so fun
it will be funded. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:26:48):
So that was the movie concern. The second most frequent
concern I saw was the scarcity mentioned and like no reprints.
I don't think it's as much of a concern as
people make it because there is the game found and
then stores can still go direct and as Wookie let

(01:27:12):
me know, like Southern Hobby and things like that will
still be able to Like.

Speaker 2 (01:27:19):
Yeah, they're not exclusive with Asthma Dae anymore, right, because
I'm assuming they sign That's normally how ASMADE runs. They
sign exclusive contracts, right, So now you've got people like
Southern Hobby and Diamond and like all these other distribution companies.
Now you know, distribution companies that the rest of the
world uses, right, because like your your smallest to your

(01:27:42):
small game stores. I hate to tell you aren't buying
from Asthma day. They buy from your Diamonds, from your Southern,
from your know all these other like again, smaller I
guess smaller distribution companies, not even smaller because like Diamond
and Southern are huge, but.

Speaker 4 (01:28:01):
Like Southern already carries altered as well, so I assume
that interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:28:08):
Yeah, there's also.

Speaker 6 (01:28:12):
That the article does say that they're looking into reprints
in the future for specific cards, and.

Speaker 3 (01:28:18):
If there's any single card on the marketplace that's way
too expensive, then they'll reprint it or figure out a
way to make it so that all players have access
to something and it's not a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:28:31):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (01:28:31):
And that's what a lot of TV see.

Speaker 2 (01:28:34):
And you know what, I don't know if I.

Speaker 3 (01:28:36):
Like that, Well, you wanted some cards to be really expensive?

Speaker 2 (01:28:42):
Yes, yes, yes, the reason Magic is and I hate
it like yes, we are our and half. And the
reason magic Is does so well is because of the
amount of the secondary market they are allowed to I
don't know, quote unquote control, Right, all these reprints, all

(01:29:03):
these specials, but like all these older cards that they
still have yet to reprint, right, that creates a demand,
a demand issue. Right. People are demanding them because they
want to play with them, which makes them expensive. So
when they finally do decide, well, now's the time to
reprint it. Right, those packs sell like gangbusters because everyone's

(01:29:24):
hoping crossing their fingers out of a fifteen dollars pack. Right.

Speaker 4 (01:29:32):
I think they have to definitely strike a balance. But
the third thing was people just saying the game is dead,
which people have been saying that for weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:29:43):
Justic's been dying thirty years, right, Magic's been dying since
ice age. So and if you don't know what ice
age is.

Speaker 3 (01:29:55):
Just.

Speaker 7 (01:29:56):
Just just no go back to school.

Speaker 2 (01:30:02):
There's the doom and gloomers are always around.

Speaker 4 (01:30:05):
Yeah, and to be honest, it was like a full
day of like chaos and people worrying. And then after
the Q.

Speaker 2 (01:30:14):
And it came every time news like this comes out,
like yeah, we got big news, and then all of
a sudden, it's like, well that's it, fucking games done, bye, guys.
It's like, what are you talking about? They just said
they're releasing another set. Yep, that' said game's over against
this game's down.

Speaker 4 (01:30:30):
But the discord is back to normal. Everyone's talking about
the new cards, the wcqs that have happened. Shout out
to freaking our boy, all of the marbles who qualified
for Worlds on Novenka today.

Speaker 2 (01:30:46):
All right, all the marbles, let's go. Let's make Lyra
great again. Yep, you can buy those shirts eventually on
our spreadshirt.

Speaker 4 (01:30:55):
I think out of the last four or five we've
had Novenka, Fenn and a Rock all get qualification spots.
So super dope.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
Yeah again.

Speaker 4 (01:31:10):
Muna finally finally got their first person qualified. They were second,
but since it was two qualifiers they got in, so
it was Tasia.

Speaker 2 (01:31:23):
Watch it be written.

Speaker 3 (01:31:29):
Rine festival can do some stuff if you get good
festival nies man.

Speaker 4 (01:31:34):
Alrighty, we gotta go to bed.

Speaker 2 (01:31:37):
We all gotta go to bed. It's been a long Sunday.
Thank you for everybody joining us in a live chat.
Thank you for everybody listening to us on the Patreon.
If you'd like to give a dollar over to Cole Robbie,
who makes this whole thing go round. Without him, we
probably wouldn't be here. Still, go ahead and do that
over on the Patreon. You guys get it a full
handful of days early. I don't know how many days

(01:31:58):
that is. You get the episode early and ad free,
and then one day we'll do something fun on the
Patreon or it's a Patreon exclusive, and make sure you
head over. I'm gonna make those shirts. I'm gonna just
start designing them later on this week, so look out

(01:32:18):
for those on our spread shirt. Right now, there is
no altered corner gear, but eventually maybe there will be.
And then head over to w dot gg use code
draw better for ten percent off your clean energy for
those long BGA sessions where you have to be up
at three in the morning because everything's in European time.

(01:32:38):
But with that being said, we will see you all
next week later.

Speaker 1 (01:32:47):
My cup, and once I hit a starting going, I
stop giving a fuck from trying to stay out, stay out.

Speaker 9 (01:32:53):
Tennis.

Speaker 1 (01:32:53):
Sun is coming out. I'm on my way up, way out,
and that'll fit I coming down. I'm trying to stay out,
stay up, phil A sun is coming out. I'm on
my way out, way out, and I don't feel like coming.
I don't want to go back home. I'll keep going
the all night longnight. I don't want to go back home.

Speaker 3 (01:33:15):
I'll keep going the all night long honight.

Speaker 1 (01:33:19):
I'll relate to the fast

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