Topps Shuts Down WizKids

[Zustiur]

Ouch. No more pirates? That sucks.

 

[justanobody]

I have no special knowledge of this situation, but I'm guessing this has as much to do with corporate direction as market conditions. Keep this in mind:

Topps buys WizKids, a year later Torrnante buys Topps, a year later Topps divests WizKids.

It could simply be a case of the new management saying "hey, this isn't why we bought the company, so let's get rid of that part and focus on what we did buy it for."

Difficult market conditions could have made that decision come easier and faster, of course.

Don't know, just pointing out another potential reason.

There could be a bit more into it with China, but most of those things are political in nature....

But one point is China is not that green and clinging to out-dated technologies. Take swapping out petroleum to soy, which they should have plenty of, and they could reduce the costs of minis for every company to allow for lower prices for the consumer and great chance at keeping the product alive.

I have spoke with several people the past day and they don't understand because the Clix were bought by large numbers.

I think the fact that Topps is not really the gaming giant for minis may be a point, but that would lead to hope that they could sell off WizKids to someone, maybe even Hasbro to collect even more of the gaming industry.

Someone who is interested in the gaming portion of the company.

So you may be in big part correct about why WizKids is going down because it isn't what the new parent company wanted out of the deal.

But would they try to bring back the popularity of sports cards?

 

[darjr]

Umm.. so why did Topps buy Wizkids?

 

[Fifth Element]

Umm.. so why did Topps buy Wizkids?

I think you missed the point. The question you're looking for is "why did Torrnante buys Topps?"

 

[CharlesRyan]

Topps is one of two big producers of sports trading cards. The other one is Upper Deck.

I suspect (and I have no special knowledge to confirm this) that Topps originally bought WizKids to give them a gaming division, just like their major competitor.

I suspect that Tornante bought Topps primarily for its sports card business, and the new management didn't agree with the strategy of competing with Upper Deck in the games category. Or even if they did, they wanted to strip Topps back to its core business and get that business running well before broadening the company's focus. (That's a very common practice when new management takes over a struggling company.)

Purely my speculation.

 

[justanobody]

Sports cards will never be back to running well or popular as long as Yugioh, Magic, etc exist.

Unless they are going to put Fuzzy in some golf game, or Farve in some football game, or maybe a SCTG (sports card trading game) that has ALL the sports involved and can take over normal CCGs.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Sports cards will never be back to running well or popular as long as Yugioh, Magic, etc exist.

Topps has annual revenues around $260MM. When sold, WizKids' annual revenues were around $30MM. So Topps is making somewhere in the neighborhood of $230MM from its non-gaming business (assuming WizKids' revenues didn't change too radically).

My guess is that Michael Eisner and Tornante disagree with you. That doesn't make them right, of course, but one can see how gaming might be viewed as a side venture for Topps.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I have no special knowledge of this situation, but I'm guessing this has as much to do with corporate direction as market conditions. Keep this in mind:

Topps buys WizKids, a year later Torrnante buys Topps, a year later Topps divests WizKids.

It could simply be a case of the new management saying "hey, this isn't why we bought the company, so let's get rid of that part and focus on what we did buy it for."

Difficult market conditions could have made that decision come easier and faster, of course.

Don't know, just pointing out another potential reason.

Yeah, that's why I'm generally against large corporations buying up hobby game companies. It may look like a good move in the short term, but when the product loses steam, as hobby games generally tend to do over time, the future of the brand is in serious jeopardy.

The options then become to sit on the brand and do nothing with it, license it out to another company, or sell it outright. The best possible case for the fans is to sell it because sitting on it means the death of the brand, and licensing often translates to short term stints and frequent upheavals. Were it owned by a smaller company that specializes in that specific brand, it is likely that the brand would have been managed better in the first place, and when it does go down, that it will be sold to a new company within the same industry that will make an honest attempt to breathe new life into it.

In other words, corporations don't have any real interest in preserving the integrity of hobby games other than to turn a profit. There is no slavish devotion to the game from the executives. It simply is performing or is not performing. When this happens to a brand, it affects the enjoyment from those who have years invested with the brand, and its disappearance ultimately has a negative effect on the industry as a whole.

 

[Glyfair]

I suspect (and I have no special knowledge to confirm this) that Topps originally bought WizKids to give them a gaming division, just like their major competitor.

They pretty much said as much (under layers of corporate speak) at the time they bought them. I believe Upper Deck might have been specifically mentioned.

I suspect that Tornante bought Topps primarily for its sports card business, and the new management didn't agree with the strategy of competing with Upper Deck in the games category. Or even if they did, they wanted to strip Topps back to its core business and get that business running well before broadening the company's focus. (That's a very common practice when new management takes over a struggling company.)

Makes you wonder what might be happening with their candy business, which was a large part of their business (might have been the largest part at one point). I know they were struggling a couple of years ago and a faction on the board wanted to try to dump them.

 

[El Mahdi]

I was really into Pirates until the glut of expansions killed it for me; still, I'm sad to see it go.

Lanefan

Me too. I liked their Alien vs. Predators and Halo figs also. It is sad to see them go.

Anyways, anyone interested in a complete set of American ships up through the Pirates of the Barbary Coast set? I'll give you the "special" collectors price. (Just kidding, I doubt I'd ever get rid of them.)


So long plastic "crack", so long.