For those who haven’t heard the news, Panini, the company that published the Dragon Ball Z Collectible Card Game has decided to pull the plug on the game.
Check out the announcement on the Panini America website here: https://paniniamericadbz.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/dbz-tcg-announcement/
Panini’s decision was essentially motivated by the introduction of a competing game published by Bandai to the market. Another trading card game based off of the Dragon Ball license but incorporating new content from the relatively new Dragon Ball Super.
While the PanZ version of the game has only been in print for the last two years, it has garnered a passionate and loyal following. A number of players have congregated around PanZ because of its innovative gameplay mechanics and unique play style. It even had a comparatively thriving secondary market on the internet up until the announcement on January 6th. The product line featured the typical array of offerings that other card games had including booster packs, booster boxes, starter decks, ultra rares, and more.
The game also featured sets designed off canonical events in the Dragon Ball universe including a Movie Collection set and followed the narrative set out in the Dragon Ball Z television show.
Normally, when the organizing body announces that it’s dropping a game from production, that is typically the end of said game. The community disperses and the players move on to other card games or hobbies.
But it looks like the fans of the DBZ TCG have other ideas.
Within days of the announcement, the community figuratively gathered the seven dragon balls and has come together to keep the game alive. Developers of the game and prominent players within the community have collaborated to create a new organizing body, dubbing their version of the game FanZ. You can check out the press release for the new era of the Dragon Ball Z TCG here: FanZ Release.
To quote the release:
On Friday, January 6th, Panini America officially announced the end of production of the Dragon Ball Z Trading Card Game. The game’s devoted community quickly rallied around the concept of Virtual Sets and continued Organized Play support for the game they love. Thanks to this overwhelming positivity, several former developers and community figureheads have come together to bring their favorite game back to life!
With a promise to continue supporting tournaments in the US and even creating new card sets for the game, FanZ is looking to capitalize on the community’s loyalty to their favorite card game.
It will be interesting to see where the fan directed version of the DBZ game ends up going. It’s going to be an experiment in whether or not a game can continue to live on once the support from the original publisher dries up. At the very least, it’s something that Panini and Bandai should take note of.
It seems that much like Goku, the DBZ TCG community will not give up without a fight.
To find out more about the community, check out:
If the new FanZ version of the game is not your style, check out the new Bandai trading card game and grab your starter decks featuring cards and characters from Dragon Ball Super here.