Sunday, August 22, 1999
Local firm big winner in Pokemon card game
BY MIKE BOYER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
An odd assortment of little creatures with names such as Pikachu and Jigglypuff are turning into a gold mine for United States Playing Card Co.
The Norwood playing card maker last month won a lucrative license to produce a Pokemon Rummy card game featuring the animated characters in the latest kids craze created by Nintendo Co.
“That Pokemon deck is hot. Kids are going nuts over it,” said Ronald Rule, president of U.S. Playing Card.
So hot in fact, it threatens to become the most successful licensed card game in U.S. Playing Card's history.
The privately held company won't disclose numbers. But Scott Becker, vice president for consumer marketing and sales, said the game is already setting production records.
“We originally planned for over a million decks, but we already think we'll exceed that,” he said.
The previous best-selling licensed card games produced by U.S. Playing Card were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of a couple of years ago and some of the Disney characters, Mr. Becker said.
He said retailers such as Kmart, Wal-Mart and Toys R Us already have ordered about 75 percent of the initial production run of the Pokemon Rummy Card Game, and the company is planning to double its initial production run.
Pokemon, short for pocket monsters, is set in an imaginary land where the object for kids is to catch as many of the 150 gender-neutral characters as possible.
In Japan, the Pokemon craze spawned a multibillion-dollar industry of Nintendo Game Boy cartridges, a TV show and an assortment of toys.
4 Kids Entertainment Inc., the small New York company that persuaded Nintendo to export Pokemon to the United States, told the Wall Street Journal last week it has negotiated 90 different license deals for Pokemon toys, games, comic books and other items.
Mr. Rule said the Pokemon deal “was one of the toughest licenses we've ever negotiated. It took a real long time to convince them of what we wanted to do.”
The U.S. Playing Card Pokemon game includes 56 cards, each with a different Pokemon character that kids can collect and trade after they tire of playing the game, Mr. Rule said.
The cards are round like a Pokemon ball, and come in a plastic case with a belt clip to make them easy to tote around.
Mr. Becker said forecasting revenues from licensed products can be tricky because sales fade rapidly when consumer interest wanes. But he says marketers anticipate another wave of Pokemon mania when a movie featuring the characters makes its debut in November.
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