Final Fantasy OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Public YouTube announcements of patron special deals might be the most painless way to advertise. This gets more people in here supporting Rudy. It's a shame what this distributor is doing. Keep fighting the good fight Rudy!

JmanV

RUDY - what about this ^^^^

I agree, maybe it should only go out to patrons through email or something

My thoughts.... Jason Wivart theoretically may be blowing goats behind a Taco Bell for fun, no profit though, he's a giver. FFTCG is only viable for fun. The stores complaining need to be monitored to make sure they do not price match as it could trigger another distributor based purchase restriction. Potential research into whether the distributor has an exclusive contract with an overseas distributor to get the product to the states, or whether he has it with the company that produces the game may be worthwhile (most businesses do not want even a hit of price fixing associated with them or their brand. It may also be in your best interest to not announce Patron only sales publicly anymore.

That sucks dude, I wonder how hard it would be to... put together some kind of psudo online gaming thing where... you do it over webcam but use real cards, i was thinking about this for magic, I don't know anyone here in my town so I thought it might be an idea to be able to have someone to play magic with, anyone think it's possible to organize something like that or if it's even possible?

I'm so sad and upset at this, me and a bunch of my friends were looking to try and jumpstart a fftcg scene at our lgs, but we only stuck with it until after opus 2 because there was only 3 of us and then a bunch of guys at another store 20 minutes away. With box prices being the way they are, it's ridiculous, especially when some of us play multiple games.

in some industries yest it is...in the world of cards...since the general public thinks trading cards are for kids and doesnt care....no one cares.

Rudy The Magic Guy

unless you really like FF, i would reco sticking with MTg/Pokemon/FoW

Rudy The Magic Guy

cant blame you...

Rudy The Magic Guy

I am surprised also...but again, this is a weird situation where 1 distributor bet big with the company...and they hit it big and are now controling it

Rudy The Magic Guy

Long term this is a very dangerous business model, it/when the day comes when the distribution changes, you could see a major price shift over night

Rudy The Magic Guy

the entire thing still rubs me the wrong way, but at the end of the day, i do have FF for the patreons...past that, i dont like it

Rudy The Magic Guy

GTS, it's the only distributor of FF TCG.

Simple, he does what they say or he can never buy any more from them again.

and I don't know what distobuter the is but if I had to guess it starts with an A and ends with an E

Isn't price fixing illegal? If I had put money into this game I'd be looking to start a class action lawsuit.

Chris B

Rudy cant thank you enough just for the info you provide. I don't like to endlessly feed the Greed Monster and knowing when he is around and feeding is just a perfect time to pull out that comet storm out of your pocket and wait and or pass.

Kyle Goodson

Thanks for the message didn't know you could send private message here literally been here 3 days just for fftcg

Thanks for keeping us informed on these shady business practices. I for one will not be investing in FF products. How the hell do they expect to get away with this?

I wonder when is the best time to get the Opus I foils. I just want enough to make a cube or simulate sealed packs.

Kenny Nguyen

I'm no business expert but, how can the distributor dictate to you what you sell product for? I get the producer of the item; Apple, Games Workshop etc setting policies in order to protect their brand. But a distributor!?! That seems like Safeway telling little kids what to sell their lemonade for, if the kids want to keep buying frozen stuff from Safeway.

Hey Rudy, lets forget all the FFTCG stuff and move on to Weiss Schwarz ;D ill buy heavily into that!

Joe

He didn't falsely advertise anything, 84.99 was the price he has set before the store backlash. Things changes! Welcome to capitalism baby 8) Rudy is still offering the best deal possible under the circumstances.

Joe

its not that its that case that THEY get boxes for 85-90 at lowerst each and rudy negotiated a cheaper price and was gonna sell for lower then the price almost all stores buy the boxes from GTS for

So will you refund on patron for falsely advertising fftcg at 84.99 on youtube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giTuElZXsOI&amp;t=337s" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giTuElZXsOI&amp;t=337s</a> is was the only reason I signed up for you?

I don't even know if we should be mad at the distributor. It almost sounds like the bigger stores want to make more money so they decided to bully Rudy.

well no matter what he already screwed the patrons that bought into him this month to buy the product at 85

Thanks for letting us know Rudy! Awesome as always. Also, when you say tomorrow, when should I order opus 2?

Teejay726

The greed monster is strong, and I will be avoiding the final fantasy TCG now cause of this.

That's unfortunate thanks for doing what you can stay floppy as a taco my friend

This is very disappointing. I really like the game but at $100 a box, not sure I can afford buying them at the minimum 2 boxes. after the distributor's price fixing. This reminds me of magic card... 'Strongarm Thug'.

As a shop owner, i'm going to avoid this like the plague.

TBH I am surprised this kind of stuff still happens in 2017. The market force of price equilibrium in this context can only be temporarily manipulated. A true price equilibrium will always obtain. I will not be touching this product - thank you for the information Rudy. I am proud to be a Patron.

Honestly this is just wow. I can't believe a company would openly take such a stance against anyone willing to spend money on their product. The selling price of a product should be the balanced result of competition between vendors and the demand for the product, not just everyone selling their Jimmies for the labled 50 cents a pop.

This is some lvl 99 greed monster shit right here. Is the CEO Square Enix? They must get hard for molesting my childhood good feels. I hope they blow their wads so they get back to being square soft...

I am not surprised by this tactic. Short term gain over long term growth. It is kind of stupid though because "Final Fantasy" is a great marketable brand. It could pretty much sell itself. By encouraging price fixing, it makes it harder for everybody to support the game and potentially make the game worthless in the future.

I'd say fuck those guys and don't give them any business, but that would screw the patrons who still want the product so it's not really a viable option as much as they deserve it.

Rudy, Clark Howard would be proud. Big business exists in all markets that prove themselves to show profit. The only thing we can do as consumers is make informed opinions on where we choose to vote with our dollar. Thanks for the information and looking out for our community.

This isn't an unheard of practice. Games Workshop dictates what prices game stores can sell product at and still be a partnered affiliate (affiliates bypass a distributor). Apple also dictates the price that distributors can sell at. However, I highly doubt Apple charges MORE to distributors that want to buy higher volumes of product.... Typically you pay LESS for doing more business. Both of these cases the price is fixed by the company of origin and NOT the distributor. I totally understand making sure there is enough product to spread around otherwise Rudy could "hands down" snuff out this game by selling to potential hoarders. But this is crazy.

This is one of the problems with an unregulated market. Impressed with your tact in the face of mafia style business practices. Offer still stands if you ever want to try to make this a legal issue.

wow hearing this completely dash my little interest i have in FF TCG. it is a shame really that they do this since, maybe they underestimate the popularity of the game going to be and under print or maybe they just don't know what the fuck they are doing. it a shame.

Joey Nguyen

Sad to hear as not only is limited distribution hurting the games growth but price fixing as well. It appears at the moment stores such as coolstuff/potomac dist are selling opus II at the $99 mark which would prevent flippers from making a profit off this as well after ebay fees/shipping. Sad times.

I bet its coming from both...

Rudy The Magic Guy

they made it very clear to me...i mean VERY CLEAR, after this initial batch at 89.99 i cannot sell a single box for under 100.00 or i will get cut off :-(

Rudy The Magic Guy

100% agree

Rudy The Magic Guy

i appreciate it...i still think the entire thing is nuts

Rudy The Magic Guy

correct, while this is only 1 distributor out of 5 nationwide, if i destroy the relationship i will never get FF for the patrons. considering the boxes are averaging 115-125 nationwide, even 89.99 and 99.99 is going to help my patrons

Rudy The Magic Guy

I want to at least buy a bunch of the product for about 50-75 patrons who are really waiting for it. I dont want to burn the bridge, They have been nice and respecetful to me, but told me how it is...

Rudy The Magic Guy

couldnt agree more with Jason

Rudy The Magic Guy

From what i gather, 1 distributor footed the bill and agreed to take the risk on buying into FF when it came out, and since it exploded and became huge, they are controlling it now

Rudy The Magic Guy

agreed.

Rudy The Magic Guy

I was really excited about picking up the FF tcg, but I refuse to support a distributor engaging is price fixing. I wonder if this pricing is coming from SE, or the distributor is exercising their monopoly status.

Robert

If you can't sell a SINGLE box for 99.99 then how about a 2 pack for 179.98? ;) It all depends on the wording, right?

First off, it is crappy of the vendor. It's not like you have open ended customers/supply/distribution and were undercutting all the LGS's like you were Wal-Mart. That said I'm not entirely sure I care to be honest. I appreciate the greater options (all around), but am not terribly interested in "other" TCG's. The MTG universe is big enough for me. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.

Are still*

$89.99 shipped and $99.99 ship or still boss ass prices compared to $120. I am a huge fan of final fantasy I love the game And I will still pay a $100 a Box shipped! I think I speak for everybody when I say thank you for keeping it real Rudy!

I wouldnt mind seeing these fuckers burn. Buuut seeing as this is a distributor Rudy goes through regularly, that may not be best for continued cheap product I actually care about..

As much as I like the game I don't know that I want to buy any more of their product now. Maybe we should all write a letter to the company that produces FFTCG? Ask them how they feel about the situation. Why no videos? The worst they can do is refuse you any product. It seems like that would be no big loss at this point. I really appreciate you trying though.

wow shady business practice. i like FF but never played the tcg. but honestly squareenix should really evaluate who they do business with in terms of distribution. this doesnt just hurt the tcg but also the franchise as a whole. the average gamer (like me) is a cheapo. we dont buy product thats stupid inflated. the whale in tcg is really mtg, maybe yugioh/pokemon and to be honest their price point should be BELOW mtg to encourage a new community, this is basically a "don't play our tcg, we dont care care about our players.....just like pokemon go." youd think companies would learn from PG's extreme fail lol. was remotely interested in FFTCG but theres little to no LGS community for these, and this doesnt help. good luck to the fans tho. just my opinion

I'm not familiar with who controls what, but can complaints/issues be submitted to the company that makes FF? They would have to know that this distributor relationship is going to have a negative long-term impact with consumer loyalty. Unless they are only concerned with the short-term... I've thought about getting into FF as a consumer...but I definitely don't want to deal with this.

Thats horrible practice on their end...

How much is it MSRP? I was thinking at first to buy some to invest but looks like I shouldn't.

I had a chance to play a few hands of FFTCG. I thought it was fun. No longer interested. If you cut FFTCG products from your store, I won't cry about it. In fact, I would prefer it if you did.

Ugh... that sucks, Rudy! Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

Rudy - agreed about the price fixing. If they don't want anyone to sell below 99 shipped. Then the wholesale price should be set at 95 or something. Let the free market sets the price.

The joys of unfettered capitalism! Monopolies are bad, mmmmkay? Someone should explain this to Ajit Pai.

Thats just ridiculous! I love that you talk about this stuff though &lt;3

$10 for complete honesty is worth it