Regarding Upper Deck, I forgot to give it credit for that whole e-Pack thing, mainly because I never participated and didn't think of it. However, I believe it was quite popular for a time with many card buyers. Recently it seems to get little mention. I think the fad has wore off and a lot of those e-Pack cards are stuck in storage, not selling and not worth the postage to send back to the owner.

Yet it's another example of how UD got ahead of the curve for online buying and also got rid of excess product after the traditional release. No other card manufacturer set up a system exactly like e-Packs yet, but they did play around with the idea.

All indications are that Fanatics would like to take a page from the old UD to control direct distribution and sidestep all those pesky middlemen, like dealers, flippers and hobby stores.