by ManuMan
IelloGames wrote:
Aereas wrote:
But by selling a limited quantity of some cards on a website, IELLO is really saying "these aren't promos even if we call them that, it's an extremely limited mini-expansion".
This is exactly why we decided to no longer sell those and only offer them through contests, trade shows and special events.
How does selling something make it not a promo? I found out about King of Tokyo because the cards were in the Geek Store when I went there to buy some Dominion promos. The promos did what they were supposed to do... promote the game. If the promos hadn't been there, I likely would have never noticed the game. I bought the promo, and then I bought the game to go with it a few weeks later.
Now by only being available at cons at giveaways, it just means fans of the game either have to chase them down or pay $30 to someone that was able to go to a convention. There's no promotion whatsoever with this method; it just serves to dangle a carrot in front of fans, watching them chase and grab for it.
The best of both worlds seems to be if the promos were available at shows for free, but also through an outlet like BGG where they both promote the game and can easily be obtained for a small fee by fans. This seems to be what most publishers are doing these days, and you see a lot of happy people being able to easily obtain the items they want for their games. Not to mention, from what I understand, the promos help support BGG, to which it appears King of Tokyo owes a lot of its success.