Disney Headlines for August 30th, 2023
While the news reports continue to focus on the Florida Feud and The Walt Disney Company’s financial struggles, let’s take a break this week.
Instead, let’s talk about the new card game you may want to play.
That’s right, folks. The only Disney Headline this week is the card game that will either make you rich or totally broke!
You May Resent Me for This
Photo: Playbuzz.com
I want to tell you about a misadventure I had last week.
My wife and I are notorious among our loved ones for our super-strange luck, a lot of which…isn’t good.
Photo: Narnia
Friends have joked that if we ever went on The Amazing Race, we’d somehow board a plane to nowhere and wind up in Narnia. It’s that bad.
Thankfully, this little hiccup wasn’t on that level, just kind of funny.
Photo: Wikipedia
We co-host a podcast with a friend who has played Magic: The Gathering (MtG) and games in that vein for a long time.
A while ago, he told us about Lorcana, a new game akin to MtG, only with Disney characters and cards instead.
This wasn’t a recent conversation by any stretch, as he was one of the first to know and asked me to investigate it.
Meanwhile, knowing nothing about the industry or its release dates, I asked him to keep me apprised of the debut of Lorcana.
Amusingly, I missed my first chance because I chose not to join other MickeyBlog contributors at the 2022 D23 Expo. Oops!
Disney gave away promotional cards at this event. If you were lucky enough to get one, I have VERY good news!
Photo: Wikimedia
A year later, some of these individual cards are selling for thousands of dollars (!) on eBay.
Here’s a recent listing for an Elsa promo card that someone paid $6,207 to buy.
Seriously, folks. Those of you who attended D23 should check your souvenir bags.
Photo: Washington Post
You may have something that could pay for your next Disney vacation!
Those of us who weren’t as lucky are now ready to try the game, but it won’t be easy at first.
In the immortal words of Van Halen, everybody wants some. I want some, too.
The Lorcana Launch
Ravensburger, the creator of Lorcana, is launching Lorcana in phases to prevent any single entity from hoarding booster packs.
Yes, that’s a thing that happens with these collectible card games.
Photo:shopDisney
My first wife worked as an executive for the printing company for MtG during its earliest days.
Whenever a full sheet, something several feet long, suffered a misprint, they had to destroy the entire print.
Photo: Disney
That wasn’t all. Multiple other employees had to watch. And when the trash collectors arrived, they also had a process for proper disposal.
You can’t possibly understand it unless you’ve watched or participated in the collectible card game phenomenon.
Amusingly, that’s the same statement I’ve told my card-playing friends about Disney fandom. The passion for Disney is inexplicably potent.
I also recently told a small business owner this during an ill-fated pursuit of a Lorcana deck.
Photo:visitorlando.com
While the game debuted at Disney theme parks on Monday, card shops started selling them on Friday, August 18th.
I know this because we visited several in a desperate attempt to find a set. I’d hoped to write about it.
Coincidentally, it was a milestone birthday party for my mother that day as well.
So, my wife and I were on borrowed time as we blanketed the town in pursuit of Lorcana.
We had 90 minutes and one presumably futile mission: to acquire some Lorcana cards.
Spoiler: We Failed
At one location, I realized too late that the jerk in front of me was buying the final three boxes of Lorcana.
Yes, I missed buying a set here by about three minutes.
Photo: skillastics.com
These are selling for about $300 on eBay right now. So, I’m the idiot for not rushing to the store. But if that person is reading this, I hate you!
After we failed there, I told my wife that the dude walking to his car had taken our box of Lorcana cards.
She jokingly (?) suggested that we should walk over to his car and make him a cash offer.
Instead of bribing a stranger (and possibly getting charged with attempted solicitation), we drove to the mall, which hosts two other gaming stores.
At the larger vendor here, I spoke at length with the owner.
That was a curious conversation in that he wanted to know about Disney fans like me while I was asking about the cross-appeal of Lorcana with gamers.
Image Group LA via Getty Images
This individual bluntly informed me that demand for Lorcana rivaled anything he’d ever seen and asked me if such behavior was unusual for Disney fans.
You’re laughing at that, right? All Disney fans are self-aware enough to admit that we’re an *ahem* aggressive bunch when there’s new merch we want.
Lorcana
That’s the problem all Disney fans and card gamers face with the Lorcana launch.
Two passionate fanbases are joining together in an attempt to acquire the same packs of cards.
Getty Images
I liken it to Taylor Swift fans and BTS fans learning that the two groups are performing a show together.
People would literally murder for tickets to that concert.
The Coming Onslaught of Lorcana Pack Hunters
ebay
You can already tell from the eBay listings I’ve linked how well this is gonna go with Lorcana.
Demand for this Disney card game dwarfs any amount of printed cards that Ravensburger could produce in the short term.
Lorcana
The company has accounted for this by taking an unusual step. Some of the booster packs will go on sale at big-box stores on September 1st.
That strategy may help normies like you and me who just want to play a Disney card game.
Gizmodo
Still, Gizmodo recently ran with the Headline of “Hiked Up Lorcana Prices Could Hurt Game Stores in the Long Run.”
That’s how problematic this entire situation could become if demand vastly outweighs supply.
Bubbles Can Burst?!
Ravensburger
However, I’m also allowing for the (unlikely) possibility that Ravenburger has produced enough Lorcana cards.
Should that happen, everyone who paid these ridiculous prices on eBay has wasted lots of money. And, umm, I’m one of them.
I didn’t risk running late for my mother’s birthday party. So, we didn’t visit a couple of other stores.
Then, for the first time in my life, I was the first one of my brothers and sisters to arrive at our family gathering.
Photo: comicbook.com
That’s at least two other stores I could have tried! Instead, I bought a starter pack off eBay and also a Gen Con promotional card.
There’s also substantial diversity of opinion on that promo Lorcana Mickey Mouse’s value.
Some of them are selling for a modest $25, while the supposedly first perfectly graded card recently sold for $1,000.
Those of you who join me in buying Lorcana cards should think of it like investing in sports cards.
(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
Sometimes, that rookie on your trading card has a career like Pat Mahomes II. More often than not, it’s Zach Wilson, though.
Either way, Lorcana should be a lot of fun to play!
Photo: MickeyBlog
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Photo: Disney
