Riftboundis generating a lot of excitement in the trading card game community.Riot Gamesis known for investing heavily in production values, especially at the beginning of a product’s life cycle, which has trading card game players excited to dive into a new, high-budget TCG.
Riftbound releases on August 1 in China, and Riot has yet to announce a release date for additional regions.
A common problem with popular physical trading card games such as Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering is the perpetual battle against scalpers. These are individuals who buy up a large amount of stock to sell it back to desperate consumers at marked-up prices.
Inan interview with Travis Gafford, Riftbound executive producer Chengran Chai opened up about Riot’s plans to stop scalping.
Everyone Will Get Their Hands On Riftbound
“We will definitely have anti-scalping, anti-bot measures for the Riot channels, because those are the channels we control,” Chai explained. “The local game store is the one that’s a bit more tricky, because that’s one where Riot isn’t directly in control […] but we want to support them as much as possible.”
It’s very easy for a scalper to target smaller stores that may not have anti-scalping measures in place. It’s also more difficult for an independent retailer to decline a high-value purchase, when their profit margins tend to be much finer than those of large multinationals.
“I think it’s about finding the right balance of incentives, so players can get their hands on the cards,” Chai continued. “I don’t want to comment specifically on print runs, quantities, but I will say that again, going back to us wanting to ensure the game is accessible, and that there is adequate supply, we will closely monitor and ensure that players who want to play the game can buy the game at a reasonable cost.”
Chai stresses that products will be available through official Riot channels, which can be controlled and monitored by Riot. The company also wants to support game stores, so managing the amount of stock going to both sources will be a balancing act.
Unfortunately, scalping is likely an inevitability with any hyped physical product. It’s exceedingly difficult to stop scalpers at every level of the distribution chain.
