Diamond Comic Distributors Files Bankruptcy, Sells Alliance Game Distributors

The parent company of one of the key tabletop industry gatekeepers has filed for bankruptcy. Alliance Game Distributors is set to be acquired by Universal Distribution.

According to the filings the company owes money to various tabletop industry creditors (thanks to @Abstruse for the list):

• Wizards of the Coast: $914,602
• Hasbro (separately): $1,064,378
• Catalyst Game Labs (BattleTech, Shadowrun, Voltron): $401,483
• Army Painter Ap5 (miniature paint manufacturer): $316,296
• Publisher Services, Inc (board game and TTRPG distributor): $223,141

Also, NECA is owed $2,682,994. This is mostly from collectibles, but NECA also owns WizKids and Alliance handled distribution for HeroClix and their various D&D/Pathfinder miniature lines.

You can see a more complete list of all of the companies owed money over at comicsbeat.com.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Thank you. What's really crazy is that I was 19 when I started and had no education in business whatsoever!

That might be the best time to start a game store. I'd worked in several before I was in a position where I could have realistically started my own, and by that point I was very clear on the odds of it leaving me personally bankrupt so I ultimately just said no.

You can get on-the-job business training a lot easier than you can shake the cynicism and despair instilled by working for three colossal failures in a row. The day you realize this is the second time you've had to get a sheriff's deputy to let you take your personal belongings home before the locks are changed is the point where game retail really starts looking hopeless.

 

[Greg K]

This is bad. Stephen Glicker at Roll For Combat posted on YouTube that Diamond sells products on consignment (Diamond does not own the products they sell). and Diamond sent him a letter that they are not returning the products that they have in inventory from him and other companies. Instead, Diamond is liquidating the products they have in inventory and keeping everything they get from liquidation.

Diamond, according to Stephen, has thousands of his book worth hundreds of thousands of dollars . He is hoping that, maybe, he able to get back some of his product from Diamond . This would be the best case scenario, but Stephen's attorney told him there there is not much he (Stephen) or others can, legally, do about this. (edit: I, had originally written that they had over a thousand of his books)

Finally, Stephen also stated that Goodman Games, Paizo, and Green Ronin are among the game companies that use Diamond for distribution.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Diamond, according to Stephen, has over a thousand of his books worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. He is hoping that, maybe, he able to get back some of his product from Diamond .

That math is terribly off: his book retails for $59, meaning a thousand books for him is $24,000-30,000, not 'hundreds of thousands of dollars'.

 

[chuckdee]

The same was posted on the last page...

 

[FitzTheRuke]

That might be the best time to start a game store.

Too dumb to know NOT to do it?

I'd worked in several before I was in a position where I could have realistically started my own, and by that point I was very clear on the odds of it leaving me personally bankrupt so I ultimately just said no.

Funny that I was trained as an actor, but I felt that it was too risky - I didn't want to be a starving artist, waiting for my break. Of course, that's why I was going to school for engineering at the time I quit and ran off to own a comic and game store. (I hated some of my engineering classes!)

You can get on-the-job business training a lot easier than you can shake the cynicism and despair instilled by working for three colossal failures in a row.

Yes, I always struggled to work for anyone else, too. I try to be a better boss than I ever had.

The day you realize this is the second time you've had to get a sheriff's deputy to let you take your personal belongings home before the locks are changed is the point where game retail really starts looking hopeless.

The good thing for me was, though I didn't have a business education, I did have a business sense. That, and I have very mainstream taste. Things that I like tend to be liked by a LOT of people, when they get to know about it, AND I respect people who like different things than I do. These traits seem to be surprisingly rare in comic and game retail.

 

[Morrus]

That math is terribly off: his book retails for $59, meaning a thousand books for him is $24,000-30,000, not 'hundreds of thousands of dollars'.

I have no insight into his figures or what deals he has with his distributor, and haven't watched the video, but yes, books sold via distribution are typically sold at around half retail. Assuming your starting figures--$59 retail, a thousand books--are correct, your calculation seems reasonable. Also, that assumes that all the book are sold, as these are sold on consignment.

For that stock to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, we'd be looking at 10,000 books, not 1,000. Which may be what he says---as I say, I haven't watched the video, just relying on what you said here.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Too dumb to know NOT to do it?

I'd be more generous and say too hopeful, but there is a degree of "ignorance is bliss" involved when starting in gaming/comic/book retail. Can't deny it looks like a dream job from outside, right?

Things that I like tend to be liked by a LOT of people, when they get to know about it, AND I respect people who like different things than I do. These traits seem to be surprisingly rare in comic and game retail.

Part of the reason that I never pulled the trigger was due to watching my bosses (and in some cases my fellow employees) make the mistake of assuming everyone loves what they love, even in the face of sales figures suggesting otherwise. I'm self-aware enough to know my tastes are both eclectic and fairly exotic rather than leaning mainstream, and that's not good starting point for a store owner in most fields.

My second dreadful failure of a boss was a woman who quit Waldenbooks to open her own specialist scifi/fanatsy book store. Almost immediately discovered she couldn't make a living that way, so she pulled in used romance novels to keep above water. Then Magic came out, and she was an early adopter and on decent terms with WotC for a few years because of it. Her tiny book store was suddenly filled with players about six days a week so browsing the shelves became an unpleasant experience, and book sales became such a tiny part of her profits they couldn't begin to justify the space they took up. And yet she held onto them until the bitter end came with...I think it was a massive overorder on Fallen Empires that put her into a death spiral? Probably that. She never understood Magic as a game, just saw it as a cash machine, and when WotC inevitably put out a bomb she had no idea how to deal with it.

 

[Greg K]

That math is terribly off: his book retails for $59, meaning a thousand books for him is $24,000-30,000, not 'hundreds of thousands of dollars'.

I should have been more accurate. He actually said thousands of books. Could it be 10K? 15K? more? I have no idea how many titles he has had printed or how large his print runs are for each title.

 

[Greg K]

For that stock to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, we'd be looking at 10,000 books, not 1,000. Which may be what he says---as I say, I haven't watched the video, just relying on what you said here.

Morrus, in the video he actually says that Diamond has thousands of his books. I should have been more accurate and edited my original post accordingly.

 

[SteveC]

Morrus, in the video he actually says that Diamond has thousands of his books. I should have been more accurate and edited my original post accordingly.

From the video, if he's getting $35 per book, it's ~2850 books for $100000. If we're talking thousands of books, I can see how that number would make sense. Stephen is the only one who knows the exact numbers, and I'm sure he's heavily rounding.

And the real issue I see is with the smaller publishers. It's a mess, and it's going to affect a ton of people.