Looney Labs Expands Distribution

It won't mean anything to the purchaser but Looney Labs, maker of Fluxx, Just Desserts, Chrononauts and other fine card games, announced this week they are adding another distributor:  GTS Distribution. Up to now, if a store wanted to carry any of the Fluxx games, it had to buy direct from Looney Labs or buy from one of the two distributors that LL allowed to carry its games:  Alliance Distribution or ACD. This meant, in order to stock LL products, a store had to have an account with one of those two distributors. Now, at least, stores have three places to get LL games from.

Why does this matter? Mainly to stores because this gives them more options from which to get LL products. If Alliance or ACD is out of Regular Show Fluxx, the store can check if GTS has it in stock, meaning, hopefully, fewer out of stocks.

New Products Coming

For those of you who would like to see the new products shown off at the recent GAMA Trade Show, here are links to a nice round up of them:

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Products page 2
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Group 6

Magic Update

I'm at the GAMA Trade Show this week and just finished WOTC's presentation on what's happening with Magic this year.

Interest n Magic is up tremendously. Sales of the Magic 2010 set are 70% higher than sales of the Magic 10th edition set, with Zendikar being the best selling set of all time. Number of Magic sanctioned events is up 35% over 2008.

The next set , Rise of the Eldrazi, will have 248 cards, making it the largest final set of a block ever. It should be in store around the end of April.

Multiplayer Magics will get a big push this summer, which WOTC has designated the Summer of Multiplayer. The multiplayer set is titled Archenemy and the focus is on 3 average decsk against one uberdeck. Archenemy arrives June 18th.

Magic 2011 launches on July 16 with 249 cards, half of which are new. The major change in presentation of the set is that intropacks will now have a 60 card deck included, rather than the current 40 card deck. There will still be a booster back included with each deck.

August 27 will see the launch of this year's From the Vault set, Relics. WOTC will sell 100 sets per day at GENCon earlier in the month, then store's will have them on the 27. It's another limited set so expect to see them vanish quickly.