Honestly at this point I think we need to just let UDE get its act together with this game before we put anything more on the plate. If they can't roll existing programs out the door on time with the limited player base we have, can you imagine how painfull it would be to have the whole world clammering for their Random Punks kits et al.

A simple starter deck, Spiderman Vs. Batman. (A booster set released at the same time with the same theme, maybe.) BOMB plot twists along the lines of Wrath of God and Coat of Arms. Major cleavage in the art. Massive advertising coordinated with the movies, and massive exposure displays in Wal-Mart, Target, Toys R Us, and 7-Eleven.

That's my rhyme. Take it to the street, beeyotch.

There are a bunch of things that can be done.

◊Any advertising would be great. They can put ads in magazines and comics.
◊Product placement would be nice too.
◊Have Vs be sold in more places. More people would buy Vs if it was available in more types of stores. (maybe we can get the tobacco advertisers to do the vs campaign.)
◊Have a New Guy Night. Just like WizKids as for their games. People who have played will be there to help new people who come in. Smaller demo decks can be provided for the new guys. Extended Art cards can be used as participation prizes.
◊Have things done on time. I hate to be a jerk, but all the promises are great and all, but without the end results they are just words.
◊The suggestion about having some cards easily accessible is great. The Archive Collection was a great buy, but it wasn't even made by UDE. If UDE would just produce these type of items, I'm sure everyone would be happy.

They still put cards in the cigarette packs... we could take it all the way!

Put a Venom in the wrapper with the Newports and get all the kids in the ghetto hooked twice for the same price!

(I repped your post, your suggestions are 100% pure truth.)

I agree, Walter. ;)

I keep seeing people wanting to see vs appear in mass consumer stores like Target and Walmart. Funny thing is, they did for awhile. I know my friends found some DC Origins in the card aisle of a local Target at a super-discounted price and I've purchased packs of MOR at a Walmart before.

The thing about these kinds of stores is it's a HUGE commitment for UDE to make and the volume of product you have to ship to one of these stores is extremely high compared to your local hobby stores. When the big consumer store sees that there's not enough sales, they just cancel future purchases, leaving UDE in a bad position. I'm willing to bet this is what happened with Spiderman and why you can still find it readily available everywhere you buy product. UDE convinced Walmart and Target to pick up their game (since obviously it's good because Yu-gi-oh sells well at these stores) and then sales didn't happen the way walmart/target expected and they dropped their orders for spider-man.

I'm pretty sure these mass-market stores won't be carrying vs again, especially if UDE can't prove that the game sells well.

Another interesting place I've seen VS is at Blockbuster videos. These were probably some packaged deals with Yu-gi-oh product, but it sort of makes sense to try to sell the X-men, Fantastic Four and Batman starters in a place that has other mediums that people can enjoy these characters. Again, not a huge commitment to the product, but it's "getting the word out."

The comic-book idea has been stated a lot. I definately agree with Michael Barnes that vs has inspired me start purchasing comics and graphic novels, so why wouldn't the reverse be true. Advertising has to happen somewhere, this makes the most sense. I see ads for magic and wow in my comics, why not vs?

The biggest problem with appealing to the open "masses" is that a lot of people aren't receptive to card games. Magic is only successful because of its history. Yu-gi-oh is only successful because of the tv show. WoW is only successful because of the MMO. Take those away from those games and give it a cool property and you have every tcg ever made that had any amount of success; vs isn't any different. You want to truly appeal to a mass audience? Advertise vs as the next big game when you're tired of getting 'rivered' and put up a ton of money. Wait, we lost that...

Honesty, to get a mass audience, there's nothing better than giving away stupid amounts of money. Dad's teach their kids to play golf because they want to see them be the next Tiger Woods. Why? Ultimately, it's cuz he makes ridiculous amounts of money playing golf.

If someone started a tournament/OP system to play candyland, and you saw people playing candyland for money on ESPN, who wouldn't think to themself "I could play candyland for money...I want to play candyland!"
Television and money will get people to do just about anything. The only real problem with televising VS is the game is a little too complex to go over the rules to the lay-viewer (which is why I think televised magic was never successful either).

::diatribe continuing in my head but post is very long already::

This would have to be on Espn: The Ocho! But we would need Jason Bateman to be the announcer.

we definitely need pt candyland

Adam, didn't we talk about $50 buy-in candyland once...we should run that at Indy...

God...i always thought it'd be damn cool for a just straight gaming channel, kinda like G4 but just straight gaming, video games, ccg's, rpg's, and no dumbasses like Morgan Webb or that 40 year old lookin guy who dresses like he's still in high school.

God I hate g4.

Anyway, televised VS would be cool, and granted, the explanations would be a bit in depth, but hell, when you watch crap like the celebrity poker showdown they explain all the fundmentals of poker, so, it could be done...

if only...

Seen tons of ads lately for VS in comic books, especially in DC. The whole page looks like Avengers Assemble, with the blue outlines and everything.

Am I the only one that's noticed this?

B.

They'll never televise VS, as it is wholly uninteresting to watch a game if you aren't a player. I am a player -- I read match summaries, but I wouldn't expect anyone outside of the game to enjoy that, ever.

Furthermore, we use such a ridiculous degree of nerd-speak (even something like Chimp Faces means a lot to me but nothing to non-players) that no amount of explanation will make up the difference.

Really, just make the popular characters good. Flavor is a bigger draw for "the masses" than play. Most comic book fans are not diehards, so they don't get excited for people like Ahmed Samsarra. You can bet if Ahmed were 'Batman' a lot more casual folks would be inclined to play.

Everybody hearts Batman.

EDIT: Oh, a great thing about that solution? IT DOESN'T COST MONEY. Why would you throw more advertising dollars into the game, when you've already cut back the Pro Circuit (AKA the best advertisement for the game there is)?

How about a Vs. System show? Like Yu-Gi-Oh does? Now that'd be interesting.

That add is for the Marvel Vs Trading Card Game Video Game for the PC, PSP, and Nintendo DS. Which is made by Konami.