Sitting here after a surprisingly busy Boxing Day, I
starting scanning gaming news and just in time for Christmas, Ankama Products, publisher of the
Krosmaster Arena line of games, announced that, starting next year,
CoolMiniOrNot will take over distribution of the line from its current
distributor, Japanime Games. What does
this mean for the industry and consumers? Speaking as someone in the industry
but without any additional information, here’s how I see things shaking out:
Japanime Games—Comes out the worst. Based on the number of
posts on the company’s Facebook page, the main focus of Japanime Games was the
Krosmaster line. Japanime retains the rights to distribute already existing
Krosmaster products but any new ones will come from CoolMiniOrNot. The company
has three other product lines: Tanto
Cuore, Kanzume Goddess and Player’s Choice card sleeves. Despite having been in
production for several years, Tanto Cuore only three sets available, with
Oktoberfest scheduled for 2016. Kanzume Goddess, released in 2012 and
positioned as a trading card game, has never seen any expansions released,
leaving the Player’s Choice line of sleeves as the most active line of the
company. According to additional posts on the company’s Facebook page, Japanime
will use Kickstarter to fund additional expansions to Tanto Curore as several
other games including Heart of Crown and Gods’ Gambit. It looks as if Japanime
plans for a pretty active 2016, especially later in the year.
CoolMiniOrNot—Adds Krosmaster Arena to an already strong selection of
boardgames with expansion capabilities built in to the system. Already the home
of Zombiside, Rivet Wars, and Kaos Ball, among others, the comparatively
expensive Krosmaster Arena and its expansion kits will mesh well with
CoolMiniOrNots existing lines of premium priced games and expansions. Since
CoolMiniOrNot relies heavily on Kickstarter funding to fund the launches of new
products and Japanime Games used crowdfunding to fund Krosmaster Arena and the
Frigost expansion, as well as the delayed Krosmaster: Quest game. No indication so far if
CoolMiniOrNot will distribute the Krosmaster:
Quest game or not.
Customers—Given CoolMiniOrNot’s propensity to launch a Kickstarter
campaign for nearly every product the company releases, expect to see an
increased number of campaigns for new Krosmaster products as the agreement
between CoolMiniOrNot and Ankama Products moves forward. Customers willing to
back the Kickstarted production runs will gain access to a larger number of
promotional and limited edition figures as part of the Kickstarter, than were
offered with the release of a Krosmaster product under Japanime Games. The
tradeoff is that customers will likely find it harder to locate Krosmaster
products in their local game stores as the bonuses typically attached by
manufacturers to a crowdfunded product push those customers most interested in
the product line to back the product in order to get the add-ons and promos,
which as CoolMiniOrNot notes on its website are “Not available at retail”.
Stores—Expect them to carry less in the way of Krosmaster products.
As noted earlier, Krosmaster is a premium priced product, making it a good fit
for CoolMiniOrNot. However, this also means stocking a decent selection of
Krosmaster products ties up quite a bit of capital. Given that CoolMiniOrNot’s
business model involves driving consumer pre-orders and pre-payment, most sales
of new product will go to the company, leaving much less potential profit for
the store and likely a focus by the store on a different, more profitable
product line.
