WhizKids Steps Up

The game store folks were embroiled in a minor controversy regarding the whole case flipping thing I got into earlier. WhizKids went exclusive on their game distribution with the premise that they would stop online sales by limiting sales to those who violate their flipping policy. Then someone learned that Amazon.com and Wal-Mart online were selling cases of clix at a discount. The only thing worse than bonehead game stores flipping cases is ceding the market to mass!

WhizKids explained that yes, they went exclusively with Alliance for the game trade, but they use half a dozen different distributors outside the trade to get their product to various sources, including the mass market. That was yesterday.

What surprised me is their very good decision to step up and fix the problem. This is from Joe Hauck, their EVP of Sales:

The problem is not Amazon per se, they are merely the enabler. The problem lies with Ingram and B&T. We made the decision yesterday that until such time that we can determine a legal method where we can have an agreement in place with these two book distributors to not have our products placed on internet only sites, we won't sell them any WizKids products.

Yeah for them.