I have been reading on lots of other threads about the issues at Cryptozoic and thought we could start a new thread that has all the rumors collected.

So far they have dropped Psych, Fringe and Enders Game. Any others yet?

What is this big announcement the made?

What is the rumor that most the "card" guys are gone?

quote:

Originally posted by Chris Cline:

So far they have dropped Psych, Fringe and Enders Game. Any others yet?

Ender's Game has already been released. . .

Pacific Rim was the other canceled set.

It's not a rumor, Scott Gaeta was the driving force behind trading cards at Cryptozoic and he has left and now has his own company, Renegade Game Studios (See the NSU blog of September 12th).

quote:

Originally posted by Batman:
It's not a rumor, Scott Gaeta was the driving force behind trading cards at Cryptozoic and he has left and now has his own company, Renegade Game Studios (See the NSU blog of September 12th).

I read about Scott on the NSU blog also.
I also believe Miranda is no longer there as well. The other names I know of that were there at one time but no longer are Jenna (was at Philly once) and Kurt (now at GTS I believe).
Any others?

I too am wondering what the announcement Tattoox mentioned was.

Shouldn't NSU want to update the front page of the forum with important news about the manufactures?

EDIT:
Finally found the post here:
http://www.nsu-magazine.com/sc...a-moves-to-renegade/

I hope that Cryptozoic survives as a trading card company. I am not the biggest fan of theirs, but they make some great sets - Adventure Time was amazing, and Arrow is something I am really looking forward to. I have no idea about the day to day operations of the company, but it seems like losing your top people affects more than a few release dates.

Hopefully trimming the dead weight and canceling some sets that will lose money means that they can devote more time to sets that will make them money like Walking Dead and Arrow. The more thriving card companies around, the better off we are as card collectors.

quote:

Originally posted by Roswellian:

quote:

Originally posted by Batman:
It's not a rumor, Scott Gaeta was the driving force behind trading cards at Cryptozoic and he has left and now has his own company, Renegade Game Studios (See the NSU blog of September 12th).

I read about Scott on the NSU blog also.
I also believe Miranda is no longer there as well. The other names I know of that were there at one time but no longer are Jenna (was at Philly once) and Kurt (now at GTS I believe).
Any others?

I too am wondering what the announcement Tattoox mentioned was.

I wouldn't quite call this a max exodus. Jenna has been gone for three years. She was Miranda's predecessor. Kurt has been gone for like a year. Miranda and Scott are no longer there (from I understand, Scott still has an interst in the company) but that's only a couple of people. They're still hard at work on their licenses.

Thanks for the update Harris!

quote:

Originally posted by H_Toser:

I wouldn't quite call this a max exodus. Jenna has been gone for three years. She was Miranda's predecessor. Kurt has been gone for like a year. Miranda and Scott are no longer there (from I understand, Scott still has an interst in the company) but that's only a couple of people. They're still hard at work on their licenses.

Those were the only people I knew who worked on the trading cards- other than George who I believe is still there.

Harris- who else works on the trading cards for them?

I have always liked their cards. Have a problem with the value of some sets with lower premium inserts and their new distribution policies. I was hoping sets like Sleepy Hollow would go to other companies as I see Crypto taking on too much and not delivering.

Cryptozoic has posted the DC Epic Battles case check on Facebook. Interesting reading!

quote:

Originally posted by Roswellian:

quote:

Originally posted by H_Toser:

I wouldn't quite call this a max exodus. Jenna has been gone for three years. She was Miranda's predecessor. Kurt has been gone for like a year. Miranda and Scott are no longer there (from I understand, Scott still has an interst in the company) but that's only a couple of people. They're still hard at work on their licenses.

Those were the only people I knew who worked on the trading cards- other than George who I believe is still there.

Harris- who else works on the trading cards for them?

Miranda has been replaced by a new employee and from what I gather, George has assumed some of her responsibilities as well. I believe George had moved into the product management side of things several months before Miranda left anyway.

I wouldn't be surprised if the failure of the Breaking Bad set is a reason these other sets were cancelled. They must have spent a lot of money into BB and for the cases to be selling at half their original cost now in the aftermarket is a sure fire sign that it is a failure. I think this set hurt their reputation quite a lot after the success they had early with TWD and TBBT sets.

They really need to think hard about the licenses they aquire and how popular they are going to be to the trading card collecting community. Just because a show is popular, doesn't mean it will sell well as a card set.

They really should have cancelled the Breaking Bad set once they knew they could not get the major characters. Probably also should have cancelled Revenge too, I heard that set didn't do very well either.

quote:

Originally posted by Sidewinder:
I wouldn't be surprised if the failure of the Breaking Bad set is a reason these other sets were cancelled. They must have spent a lot of money into BB and for the cases to be selling at half their original cost now in the aftermarket is a sure fire sign that it is a failure. I think this set hurt their reputation quite a lot after the success they had early with TWD and TBBT sets.

They really need to think hard about the licenses they aquire and how popular they are going to be to the trading card collecting community. Just because a show is popular, doesn't mean it will sell well as a card set.

They really should have cancelled the Breaking Bad set once they knew they could not get the major characters. Probably also should have cancelled Revenge too, I heard that set didn't do very well either.

From what I understand, Breaking Bad sold out long in advance of its release so on their end it was probably okay. I could be wrong but I seem to recall them saying it was a sell out (likely based on speculation of the potential for Cranston and Paul).

quote:

Originally posted by Ryan Cracknell:

From what I understand, Breaking Bad sold out long in advance of its release so on their end it was probably okay. I could be wrong but I seem to recall them saying it was a sell out (likely based on speculation of the potential for Cranston and Paul).

I'm not in a position to know that one way or the other, but it really doesn't matter. If box prices have to be slashed to move, someone has got stuck with them and is losing money.

So maybe its not the manufacturer if they managed to sell it out to their distributers, dealers or collectors pre-release. Then whoever is holding the hot potato will take the reduction and loss. But after this happens a couple of times, and these same people are being allocated on the big titles that could make up for it, you can bet that they will be in no hurry to buy from that manufacturer again. It's at that point that it all catches up to the manufacturer.

I don't think that Breaking Bad was the problem by itself. This has been coming over a number of releases and of course the restructuring of the distribution system. And when you see founding fathers leaving a company you know something internal has gone wrong.

**** no no no not again !
We must be optimistic. Once upon a tim and Arrow are almost done with many great actors autos.
I think they just cancel the sets which are non lucrative. How many of you have planned to buy Pacific Rim boxes ? a few i guess. And Breaking Bad was a fabulous show but the cards without one of the 2 major characters was just bad for breaking...
Focus on the 3 major series i have faith

I REALLY dont want them to go any where but I just can't trust them anymore. This puppy can only get hit so many times.

So, if they canceled Fringe Season Five, what happens to the autograph cards that had already been returned? Do they mysteriously show up on the secondary market, or were they destroyed?

Maybe they should put all the cards into mystery boxes?
Try and get some of that money they spent getting the licences and producing the cards.... just a thought

quote:

Originally posted by jane:
So, if they canceled Fringe Season Five, what happens to the autograph cards that had already been returned? Do they mysteriously show up on the secondary market, or were they destroyed?

Topps used to make a big deal about destroying the printing plates for sportscards every year. This after they printed gazillions of cards of course.

And then there is the old story of how Topps burned up all that fifties unsold inventory, including Mantle rookies, that was warehoused somewhere.

You can be sure that wouldn't happen anymore. Just look at the pile of autographs and material cards that Inkworks was holding and sold off in bulk when it shut down.

So if any autograph cards were returned prior to a release being cancelled I can't think why a manufacturer would want to destroy them, except if the license was somehow not valid because the set wasn't produced. As long as the copyright holder got paid for the license and the signer got paid, why would whatever autograph cards that were made not be the property of the manufacturer?

And I don't think destruction would be very high on the list of options.