Hello Retailers, Players, and Community!
Before anything else, I want to say thank you so much for your constant support this past 6 months!
Since launching back in April, it has been and continues to be a humbling experience watching what used to be a small budding community of dedicated Kickstarter supporters grow to thousands of players across the globe.
Getting to meet over 400 of you at Ascent Houston was an incredible experience, and continues to motivate us to do more. I especially can’t wait for many more Ascents and premiere events in the future!
Because many of you are new to the community, a proper introduction is in order. My name is Roger Chen (aka Citsacras), and I am the Director of Operations at Weebs of the Shore. Basically, I make sure the cards are pretty and ready for you to open and play with them.
As we dive into the FTC season and build up towards the release of our 3rd set, Alchemical Revolution, releasing on January 26th; I wanted to take some time to share with you our plans to grow our company and develop better strategies to support our fantastic community.
Because our game and communities have grown exponentially in the last year, it’s finally time to also expand our team.
With only six core members of the team, we’ve managed to successfully launch two Grand Archive sets in both Dawn of Ashes and Fractured Crown. With what resources we had, we focused our attention on designing a fun gameplay experience, building up our manufacturing capabilities to produce the highest quality cards, and creating amazing art and characters that really showcased our love for the style of anime.
However, now that we have our third set on the horizon, the expectations are significantly higher. Stores, and even players, are now comparing us against the industry behemoths. We understand there are still a lot of shortcomings and we justified those shortcomings by saying we were just another Kickstarter TCG, we’re a small indie company, etc.
That stops now and as we enter into the new year, we’re investing heavily in 3 major categories: Marketing, Organized Play, and International Expansion.
Straight up, we’re making larger investments in marketing. Previously, our communications and marketing strategy were lackluster, often confined to Discord or website posts that required a significant amount of effort to find.
Moving forward, we plan on regularly communicating with our network of stores and players through direct email newsletters, providing consistent updates on new releases, upcoming events, and Organized Play news. We’ve heard feedback about how challenging it is to keep up with information on Grand Archive, especially with all the new TCGs currently in the market, and we plan to keep our partners continuously informed about what is ongoing in the world of GA.
In addition, we plan to align our social media platforms with this updated content strategy and be more responsive to comments, questions, and queries through various channels. Please look forward to more behind the scenes and GA content straight from the source! I have plenty to showcase with all of the new production developments at our manufacturer in Taiwan.
At the end of the day, local game stores are the lifeline of the community. Stores host events, sell products, and support the communities that love our game.
Our goal moving forward is to provide everything a store would need to build a community playgroup for GA. Starting with ALC, we’re planning out how we can make releases more exciting, with promotional material, posters, and release-stamped promo cards. We’re also introducing our new ambassador programs, which encompass incentives and resources for both stores and players to run learn-to-plays and demo days with support directly from us.
As many of you agree, the art of Grand Archive is incredible, and we’d love for there to be more ways to showcase it to new players and collectors.
Bliss Distribution is a major distribution for other TCGs and manages Yu-gi-oh! and Magic: The Gathering Organized Play in the UK. We’re excited to work closely with them to bring Grand Archive TCG and more OP support to the region!
Additionally, we are excited to announce our partnership with Dragon Shield for licensed Grand Archive TCG sleeves and accessories! The first products available from Dragon Shield and through major distributors globally will be with the launch of Alchemical Revolution on January 26th, 2024. We’ll make another announcement once the sleeve designs are finalized and available for pre-order!
Again, I want to give another thank you to everyone who has supported us thus far. I understand sometimes it may seem slow, or oftentimes, it seems like we could be doing more. But believe us when we say we’d rather do it right than fast, and we hope to continue to give quality back to the community. I’ve met so many wonderful members of our community around the world, from my own locals in the Bay Area to Melbourne, Zurich, and Taipei. There’s so much more in store for Grand Archive!
Until next time. I’ll be traveling back to Taiwan this week to oversee production for the rest of the year!
Before anything else, I want to say thank you so much for your constant support this past 6 months!
Since launching back in April, it has been and continues to be a humbling experience watching what used to be a small budding community of dedicated Kickstarter supporters grow to thousands of players across the globe.
Getting to meet over 400 of you at Ascent Houston was an incredible experience, and continues to motivate us to do more. I especially can’t wait for many more Ascents and premiere events in the future!
Because many of you are new to the community, a proper introduction is in order. My name is Roger Chen (aka Citsacras), and I am the Director of Operations at Weebs of the Shore. Basically, I make sure the cards are pretty and ready for you to open and play with them.
As we dive into the FTC season and build up towards the release of our 3rd set, Alchemical Revolution, releasing on January 26th; I wanted to take some time to share with you our plans to grow our company and develop better strategies to support our fantastic community.
Growing the Team
Because our game and communities have grown exponentially in the last year, it’s finally time to also expand our team.
With only six core members of the team, we’ve managed to successfully launch two Grand Archive sets in both Dawn of Ashes and Fractured Crown. With what resources we had, we focused our attention on designing a fun gameplay experience, building up our manufacturing capabilities to produce the highest quality cards, and creating amazing art and characters that really showcased our love for the style of anime.
However, now that we have our third set on the horizon, the expectations are significantly higher. Stores, and even players, are now comparing us against the industry behemoths. We understand there are still a lot of shortcomings and we justified those shortcomings by saying we were just another Kickstarter TCG, we’re a small indie company, etc.
That stops now and as we enter into the new year, we’re investing heavily in 3 major categories: Marketing, Organized Play, and International Expansion.
Improving Communications
Straight up, we’re making larger investments in marketing. Previously, our communications and marketing strategy were lackluster, often confined to Discord or website posts that required a significant amount of effort to find.
Moving forward, we plan on regularly communicating with our network of stores and players through direct email newsletters, providing consistent updates on new releases, upcoming events, and Organized Play news. We’ve heard feedback about how challenging it is to keep up with information on Grand Archive, especially with all the new TCGs currently in the market, and we plan to keep our partners continuously informed about what is ongoing in the world of GA.
In addition, we plan to align our social media platforms with this updated content strategy and be more responsive to comments, questions, and queries through various channels. Please look forward to more behind the scenes and GA content straight from the source! I have plenty to showcase with all of the new production developments at our manufacturer in Taiwan.
Developing Organized Play
At the end of the day, local game stores are the lifeline of the community. Stores host events, sell products, and support the communities that love our game.
Our goal moving forward is to provide everything a store would need to build a community playgroup for GA. Starting with ALC, we’re planning out how we can make releases more exciting, with promotional material, posters, and release-stamped promo cards. We’re also introducing our new ambassador programs, which encompass incentives and resources for both stores and players to run learn-to-plays and demo days with support directly from us.
As many of you agree, the art of Grand Archive is incredible, and we’d love for there to be more ways to showcase it to new players and collectors.
Going Global
Finally, we have some new partnerships we are excited to announce! In order to further support our UK and EU markets, we are adding Bliss Distribution as a distributor. In addition, we are partnering with Dragon Shield for some of the best-quality art sleeves in the TCG market.
Additionally, we are excited to announce our partnership with Dragon Shield for licensed Grand Archive TCG sleeves and accessories! The first products available from Dragon Shield and through major distributors globally will be with the launch of Alchemical Revolution on January 26th, 2024. We’ll make another announcement once the sleeve designs are finalized and available for pre-order!
Again, I want to give another thank you to everyone who has supported us thus far. I understand sometimes it may seem slow, or oftentimes, it seems like we could be doing more. But believe us when we say we’d rather do it right than fast, and we hope to continue to give quality back to the community. I’ve met so many wonderful members of our community around the world, from my own locals in the Bay Area to Melbourne, Zurich, and Taipei. There’s so much more in store for Grand Archive!
Until next time. I’ll be traveling back to Taiwan this week to oversee production for the rest of the year!
