8 minute read
Brand Profile - Disney Lorcana
Disney Lorcana’s on the cards in Cambridge
Toy World’s Caroline Tonks took a trip to Cambridge to visit the local Waterstones’ Collectible Card Game Night – a place where attendees can play popular TCGs including Disney Lorcana. With fun gameplay, demos, prizes and more, it is an event that is not to be missed in the Cambridge gaming community and a model example of Ravensburger’s Disney Lorcana Organised Play Programme.
Nestled in the back of the upper floor of Waterstones in Cambridge, Karl Webb, Games Department lead at Waterstones Cambridge, is setting up for April’s Collectible Card Game Night. He’s taken over the café, rearranging tables to create a comfortable gaming atmosphere and hanging Disney Lorcana posters to fill the space. Characters like Flynn Rider, Elsa, Mickey Mouse and Stitch sit above one of the long tables, ready to watch over players for the evening.
For its Collectible Card Game Nights, Waterstones Cambridge supports three trading card games: Disney Lorcana, Asmodee’s Star Wars Unlimited and Hasbro’s Magic: The Gathering Commander. General admission to the event costs £7 (£5 for Waterstones card holders), and attendees there for Disney Lorcana will receive product and prizes towards the end of the evening. There are opportunities to purchase new Lorcana packs, get the coveted ‘Play of the Day’ and take part in the draft – one of the night’s most popular activities. This event is held once a month, typically on the last Wednesday, and runs from 6PM-10PM. As the game night is held in Cambridge, there is a student focus and base, and with Waterstones being in the centre of town, evenings like these also attract many locals.
Ben Lovell, Disney Lorcana TCG Category & Sales manager, is there for the evening, showing his support for the event. At Ravensburger, Ben’s main job is overseeing what the company is doing in the UK and Ireland in terms of events, activities and ways of promoting the brand.
"The key thing for us has always been communities, and we work a lot with independent hobby stores which often hold activities on a weekly basis. They are perfectly set up to run events on this scale whereas mass market retail like Waterstones has traditionally been separated from running these play formats,” explains Ben. “When we heard that Waterstones in Cambridge was holding events like this, we wanted to help support its community and players, giving them a safe place to meet up. It’s a real-life bridge between the two.”
This initiative is part of Ravensburger’s wider Disney Lorcana Organised Play Programme. While Organised Play (OP) normally runs through hobby stores, the programme promotes casual/fun gameplay and community driven activities for all and is now expanding into mainstream stores like Waterstones Cambridge. Ravensburger is very hands on, providing exclusive materials to help promote the events. According to Ben, this is a huge outreach for the company, and the idea behind OP is to encourage people to play, have access to Disney Lorcana cards, have fun and meet people with the same interests –accentuating the concept of community.
With this shift to more mainstream stores, Ravensburger has recently unveiled the Ravensburger Play Hub. “Since the launch of Set One, our release schedule was designed to present every independent retailer with a pre-sale release window before it went to mass retail,” states Ben. “This worked really well for us to show hobbyists and suppliers that we’re here for the community and independent businesses.”
The Disney Lorcana team is aiming to expand the play activity schedule – a big priority is getting cards in the hands of fans, showing off the artwork and encouraging consumers to start playing the game. For the release of Set Eight: Reign of Jafar in May, Ravensburger shifted to a one-week pre-release.
The Ravensburger Play Hub (RPH) is a brand-new tool created for stores to run events for Disney Lorcana TCG and other Ravensburger games. Stores that are currently approved for OP can transition to the new system by entering their email address on the RPH site. It is an event organiser and management tool that is easy to use, with versatile features that make creating and managing events a simple process.
The RPH also has features designed with players in mind. It enables them to create and personalise a profile, build their own decks, search for local events and register for events through www.ravensburgerplay. com.
Ben continues: “These stores will get a one-week sales window before everybody else. After that point, everyone else will be able to sell it. The goal is for the OP stores to be a Disney Lorcana destination for that first week, and players who want to get their hands on those cards before anyone else can visit their local gaming store."
Around six o’clock, players slowly start to trickle in. They make their way to the tables, sitting with friends or readying a game while they wait for their competition to show, organising themselves based on TCG. Play mats are smoothed out and placed on tables, while cards are arranged and decks are set up.
There is a clear sense of community here, and Karl explains the history of Waterstone’s games department. He initially started at Heffers, another bookstore in the area, where he was a part of developing this area. Upon Waterstones’ purchase of Blackwells (to which Heffers was affiliated), the Cambridge location inherited Heffers’ games department, and with that, Karl and his wealth of knowledge and experience. It is obvious that he’s passionate about these events, from how he's running around to make sure everything is perfectly set up to answering any questions visitors have with enthusiasm. This passion makes a huge difference to the environment for all the players.
When asked why these three games are the highlights of the event, Karl smiles. “Those are the ones that I like.” When Disney Lorcana first launched, he enjoyed what the game did. “I’ve had a lot of faith in Disney Lorcana since the beginning, and I’ve been promoting it even before doing so an official level with Ravensburger. I’ve made Instagram videos supporting the game, and I’ve recommended it on other platforms like Discord and Facebook. While it’s still in its relative infancy, I think it’s a great entry point at a teachable level, even for those at a young age. It uses characters that fans are familiar with; when you open a pack, you can associate with the characters and their backstories and get excited about that. It’s deep game play, but I feel it’s at a very accessible level, unlike some of the other major TCGs.”
It is this approachability that makes Karl want to run events like the Collectible Card Game Nights. He highly values accessibility in games. “A game that is easy to teach, and one you’re going to keep coming back to again and again, is my sweet spot,” he says. “I can commercially market or recommend it to as many people as I can. Lorcana fits into this very well.”
Ben mirrors this, saying: “It’s a great brand, great IP and the game is a lot of fun to play. At Ravensburger, we want Disney Lorcana to be a welcoming TCG for new and experienced players alike.”
Alongside what Ravensburger has planned for the game, Ben intends to grow not only this event, but the whole OP programme. With more TCG events around the country, the more opportunities there are for people to take part – and Ben believes that there are many more opportunities out there.
From Karl’s perspective, he will continue to focus on the three games Waterstones is using in the collectible card game realm. “Splitting the player base I already have across more games would make it harder for the games I’m focusing on to do well,” he explains. “There are other locations within Cambridge that run organised play events for other games. There’s no reason for us to overlap.” But if this initiative keeps growing, and there was room to hold the event twice a month, he would be fully on board with doing that.
With the depth of experience from the Waterstones games department and continued success from these events, Waterstones Cambridge can be used as a model for other stores who wish to grow a competitive player community. Ben adds: “What Karl has done is creatively use the space available; during the 9-to-5 store window, it’s a café but can easily be converted into a mini game shop, with games all around and an open plan area for people to play and participate.
“We’ve seen a few different businesses organise games nights with board games. Some have featured card games, but not as often. It’s about welcoming gamers of all interests and showing them what there is to offer, and hopefully they’ll find something that they like.”
Karl adds: “Waterstones is growing in a number of locations, and there’s definitely the capacity for staff that are enthusiastic like me to set up events like this.” He sees it as an opportunity for both Ravensburger and Waterstones. “It is trying to manifest this into something beyond this location which I would love to see. Waterstones is still in the early days of taking games to a higher level, and I’m very excited to see where games grow in the Waterstones space.”
