Theros Beyond Busy

So, I, uh, promised an article about the MTG Theros Beyond Death release cycle for this week.  Tuesday came and went silently.  I was even halfway done with it, I had started fleshing out my notes while the prerelease was still underway.  But then something pretty awesome happened: Business went off on its super combo.

Let's recap in brief:

• We sold the Theros prerelease to within one prerelease pack of an event sellout.
• The prerelease scored the highest-revenue weekend in store history, beating the former champion, the Modern Masters 2017 release weekend.
• Then the Theros release weekend finished in the top five in store history, resulting in...
• ...the highest ten-day span of earnings ever for DSG, for any reason.  But that's not even all!
• Dungeons & Dragons showed up, with the highest dice sales in a month in store history.
• Pokemon showed up, with the most successful prerelease since we took them in-house and stopped using a third-party organizer back in 2018.
• Buys showed up, with more cash out the door for Magic cards and video games in a month than ever before in, yep, store history.  And,
• Not to bury the lede, but after months of process that I can't discuss, we finally cleared all the hurdles for direct distribution of brand-new video games and systems.  Our first batches of the current games and systems have already shown up and sales are well above expectations.  That inventory will grow organically.  Our first day-and-date new releases will arrive starting in late February and early March, due to the pre-order lead time, and will include Dreams (PS4), Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4), Doom Eternal (PS4 and XB1), Animal Crossing New Horizons (Switch), and of course, Ori and the Will of the Wisps (XB1), for which we're hosting a release party on March 11th.

That was, in essence, my January, which I may as well tack on to the list above, is now the highest-earning month in store history, with the rest of today still to go.  Under the circumstances, I hope you will all forgive me both the tardiness of this post and the navel-gazing.  If I was ever going to gaze at a navel, this one right now seems like a good option.

And the busy hasn't ended yet.  Back to work for me.

Postscript: I am happy beyond all reason to be hosting a release event for Ori and the Will of the Wisps.  I know I've gushed about Ori and the Blind Forest many times here on this weblog, and I apologize to anyone who is tired of it.  Metroidvania platformers aren't for everyone, not even when they're combined with a musical score worthy of John Williams and a story worthy of Pixar.