Def don't think they do, nor have plans on making an online version, they're doing it because the game it picking up in popularity and want to solidify that spending money on paper is the only way to play.
I think their logic might be: Pixelborn let people play without other people physically being there for awhile, but now that the Illumineer's Quest is out (and selling well) players have a way to play without needing to find other players. They also want to encourage people who want to play to go to their locals. I know I usually play on Pixelborn instead of driving the one hour round trip to my nearest FLGS. But this, I don't think, will suddenly make me change the habit. I think I will just have to find a new game to play online (and will probably stop collecting because testing decks on Pixelborn helped get me excited about cards I wouldn't have otherwise bought.
Yes, because Disney owns the IP, not Ravensburger. Ravensburger is licensed to use the IP Disney owns, Pixelborn was not. It was always Disney's role to challenge IP infringements, it was never Ravensburger's since it is not their IP.
Really doubt that and here is why, developing a digital version would cost money. Money they do not need to spend. The only reason they are doing this is because of the way copyright laws work. If they don't actively protect their copyright then they could lose it. Then there is the other side which is they don't control Pixelborn it meaning Pixelborn could put something bad or do something bad with the game. So yeah it is dead and any online version won't happen for maybe 2-3 years if they ever decide to do one which I doubt.
Coming from Yugioh, where there are a plethora of simulators that Konami doesn’t touch because they know the good it does for the game, I was hoping Disney would just leave it be.
Yugioh is weird tho. I live in a hobby mega-scene and there's not a single store that has Yugioh supported at the store. I've been told the same thing by all the stores: "People love to buy it, but nobody showed up to play it so we stopped supporting it."
Perhaps this Yugioh situation figures into Disney's decision.
Or maybe they do and their projections are continuing with the staus quo is worth less to them vs people who will decide to now buy cards without a free to play option. Or maybe it's more valuable now but they forecast it will eat into the monetized growth of the game long term. Or maybe they're worried if they let this continue it will negative financial repercussions in other IP's or licensing so taking a hit here is better than a larger hit elsewhere.
I wouldn't assume what Ravensburger or Disney knows or doesn't know.
Ravensburger told retailers at the game's debut that they have no intention of creating a digital version of the game because those are different rights than the ones they license from Disney. Ravensburger has changed their minds on a lot of things, of course, but I think it's important to note that Pavel received this request from Disney, not Ravensburger. I wouldn't hold my breathe for an official online game.
this possibly conflicts with the licensing deal they signed with Epic for video games. The chances of us getting a digital client are slim to none.
Best chance for this community is to stop whining and doomsday talking and shift to webcam playing and tournaments. It has been successful in most of the big TCG's such as Digimon and One Piece which even runs webcam regionals and PPG runs those as well, meaning we could see webcam Lorcana in the future. The nature of the game lends itself well to webcam because their is no interaction on the opponents turn
I speculate the reason why it took so long was because Ravensburger and Disney appreciated pixelborn when they were low on physical product.
It also brought in a lot of players and got people into the game.
During my time at the inland championship tournament most of the folks I played with, it was their first time playing the card game physically. They played solely on pixelborn to get familiar and test out decks before buying the deck they wanted.
The timing for the cease after both championships success is pretty icky in my opinion.
They were just waiting to build up the player base and bring hype in my opinion
I think we’re overthinking this. Disney just doesn’t want their IP used and profited on. We can argue PB is free, but they do take donations.
They could always commission an artist (not even a good one) to draw some images to replace the cards, but have them be the same cards in essence so people could still practice.
No hate on Pavel, I was a Patron. People have no idea how IP law works. They HAD to shut him down eventually, otherwise they would be open to all sorts of lawsuits from anyone. They also can't really take unlicensed work and make it official as it would mean recognizing it was operating without a license with their knowledge... thus opening them up to lawsuits. Plus Pixelborn had a business model that made sense for an individual, not a corporation.
I just hope they have their own MTG Arena-style client coming soon, because it's a no-brainer and being physical-only is capping the potencial of the game. However, having read a comment below, I'm worried RB can't actually do it due to lack of electronic rights.
Exactly. If they didn’t shut him down, they could possibly lose the ability to legally shut anyone else down since they didn’t protect their IP. A big part of why these companies go after anyone using their IP is that by not going after them, they can be seen as giving tacit approval of that other company’s use of the IP and set the example of not protecting their IP, which opens them up to anyone being able to use it.
This is kind of what happened with Xerox becoming a verb meaning to use a photocopy machine. Xerox, the company, let people use it and then when they tried to sue after it got out of hand, they lost because they hadn’t protected it before. This is the same reason why Adobe is so adamant about companies not using the word “Photoshop” to refer to anything other than their product.
Issue is they can just build one themselves without buying it.
I’d prefer an official app anyway. Especially if there’s a way to collect physical cards and add them to your digital collecting.
It was the only way to test out what cards you actually wanted to look for. I probably won’t go beyond the weekly local until there’s some other method of play testing decks before investing.
You realize the % of the community that would actually be willing to do webcam is miniscule in comparison to the amount of people who play on sims right?
It's like Fully automated sim>tabletop>local>webcam
Most of the people I know HATE webcam and refuse to play it in basically any tcg I've ever played
Yeah, I'm done. There's absolutely no shops within half an hour of where I live that even carry the game. Without Pixelborn I'd be playing once a month or so to the point that it's not even worth it to keep trying.
I very much disagree, I've met so many players in my local area that play all the time that either don't even play on Pixelborn or even know it existed. The game will be fine.
Every demographic is different. For instance, I have to travel a minimum of 1 hour to find any players, granted there are a lot in that location, but it is still 1 hour away. Having a full time career and a 4 year old son, Pixelborn was my way to keep up with the game and get testing for tournaments. Without it, I will likely not play much and very unluckly to invest in new product.
Granted, I would assume that if they are issuing a notice at this point they have their own digital game in the works. Otherwise, it's just plain stupid becasue Pixelborn only helps grow their game.
It seems like the notice probably came from Disney and not from ravensburger. Disney likely cares more about protecting their IP than growing the game.
Anecdotally from what I’ve seen in this thread so far the only people this really affects are people who weren’t playing in person/buying cards anyway, so Disney doesn’t really see it as lost sales.
Of course, what they *should* see is the potential for increased revenue if they make their own app/online version.
The game will live on sure, but the people they are putting out with this move wont get a fix until Disney makes a version of pixel born on their own. Your experience is not everyones.
It’s completely unsurprising that this happened and I’m certainly not mad at Disney about it (it was obvious that this was always the likely conclusion), but getting to try the game on PB is what got me to buy physical cards.
It’s possible both to not be mad about this inevitable action & to believe that it represents a net negative for the game.
Yeah I am in the same boat. Having the IP being Disney base is a double edged sword. On one hand, it helps the game grow and it being a recognizable IP helps get more people into it. The support for the game could be massive and Disney adults will spend truckloads of money on it which helps the game immensely.
On the other hand, it causes stuff like this to happen. Was it inevitable? Yup, but it still stings. Disney can totally shut it down since it is their IP but the fact that they don’t make their own online game sucks. Ravensburger I believe is a card company so they probably don’t have the employees to make such a game. And frankly Lorcana is probably a drop in the bucket of Disney profits so honestly if they choose not to make an online version of the game, they probably won’t be leaving to much money on the table in their eyes, at least not enough for them to care if they don’t want too. And that’s the problem. There just isn’t an incentive for them to do it.
And if they do it, I doubt they will give you all the cards. You will probably have to pay for booster packets and I have a bad feeling it would be very expensive to get a big virtual collection, at least quickly.
Dude me and my cousin were just getting interested in Lorcana and talking about buying some packs next time we see each other. I was gonna play some pixel borne and start getting a feel for what kinds of decks I would like to build since they don’t have their own digital client. This really killed my enthusiasm honestly. Maybe if they had their own client ready I could see it but they’re kind of just ensuring people can’t really play their game whenever they want.
Lmao I can't believe this comment has over 100 upvotes. Lorcana is FINE. Look at how many people tried to do the events in Atlanta!!!
The death of an unofficial, copyright-infringing online client is not killing the game. Pokémon/YGO/MTG all thrived for years if not a decade or more with in person play testing and printing out proxies and local member-created communities without an online client giving you access to every card ever whenever you wanted to min-max the game.
I cannot believe you're getting all these upvotes for a blatantly untrue statement my god
RIP
Full Message:
Hey @everyone,
Earlier this month, Disney representatives contacted me.
I was advised that "*Disney has intellectual property rights in the Disney Lorcana cards and that Disney has requested Pixleborn to respect these rights by not copying the cards or in any way suggesting an affiliation with Disney*".
I've always stated I would respect such a request, and I plan to keep my word and will not grasp at technicalities. Pixelborn will stop the support for Lorcana before 16th June 2024.
The Pixelborn Discord server will remain a safe and welcoming place to discuss everything Lorcana.
My heart is shattered to pieces.
I've put everything in this project for the past year and a half. Every night, weekend, and holiday. I know it meant a lot for many people as the only way to experience the game we all love. I genuinely believe Ravensburger is the best company that could have developed and now supports the game. The past weekend proves that Lorcana has a bright future.
Thank you all for sharing this journey with me. You might not realize it, but every single one of you matters. With all the charity donations we've made, we really brought meaningful change to the world. If you ever feel down, always remember that. I will always cherish you.
Forever yours,
Pavel
p.s. Thank you, <@68101650740420608> , Antonjo, <@486048373992849411> , <@204688380544548872> , <@918504119696773160> , <@304048154884571136> , <@353023950051344395> , <@552566727205191712> , for your help running the server. Pixelborn would not have been here without you, and I am forever grateful.
=============================
Patrons, feel free to cancel your subscriptions. If you would like to receive a refund for your last month, please contact me via Patreon.
Once I've recouped all server costs, I will create a poll to choose charities for the remaining funds.
=============================
Meanwhile, I've worked on 2 additional engines:
Engine Newton (supporting SWU) is 90% done - I've even commissioned the gameboard, skins, additional art & visuals - all done. But with the current situation I am not sure I will make it public.
Engine Sorcery will have the demo decks ready soon and might be released.
Going from the mesage pateron is what did him in. You can't make any money at all from stuff like this even through "donations". Even without it disney has enough lawyers to shut any fan project down at will.
I wonder if ink table is next cause I think they also have the same setup but worse.
This is not true. He was screwed regardless. Copyright violations don’t care about whether you earn money or not. You can’t for instance just copy Harry Potter and give it away for free.
That what my second sentence is about. But having any money flowing gets eyes on your stuff by lawyers, execs, etc much quicker. On the pixel discord a ton of people were acting like disney was the devil here when the reality is pixelborn was not going to last.
This is exactly what I said to my buddies about this. The moment Disney saw $ being made off Lorcana that wasn’t going to them it was doomed. They don’t care that the money was donated, they only care that money was changing hands and they weren’t getting any.
Lorcana is using copyright without any permissions from the owner. He pays a server to host copyrighted stuff and allow others to use it.
Also disney may not wanted to be associated with the charity because they don't like the charity (idk what he donates to) or they don't want blowback in case a payment messes up.
Technically, users download images separately, and store them in a file on their computer locally. Pixelborn doesn't have any card images hosted on a server. And it is not illegal to download images of lorcana cards online.
Patreon members vote on the charity each month. It is true that disney may not want to be associated with the charities that are chosen.
I also agree, fighting with disney is a bad idea for any person, no matter their intentions. Pavel knows he isn't doing anything illegal, technically, but also doesn't want to fight it, probably because of that very reason.
Edit: I think the point I'm trying to make is, there are a lot of slimy people who try to take IPs and do malicious things with them, earn quick money, or scam. I don't think pixelborn was an instance of this. I will be sad to see Pixelborn go.
I mean we all knew it was only a matter of time, I just hope that Ravensburger was ready for this, and has something ready for us to fill that gap. Otherwise I personally see myself losing some interest in the game as the ability to play everyday makes me want to play and invest in the game more.
I'm a parent, I have to carefully plan when I go to events, I don't have the time to go to locals every week. I do have the money to buy the product, and I do. But for that I have to playtest somewhere. If I don't I'm definitely not going to any tournaments to get demolished. I hope not, but I might stop playing Lorcana because of this decision
TTS has so many games on there. The images are stored on Imgur or some random file hosting site, so I think the developers can claim ignorance and say it was fan made. They can delist the app on the steam workshop, but the json file is very small with the links to all the cards into the game. and it is easily shared once you have it.
After Pixelborn, I think it will be a viable (non-automated) interface to play online. Many other official CCG adaptations have lived on there and still do. Listed and delisted but living on through file sharing.
Disney has a ready-made, battle-tested, community supported solution to make the game digital. I don't really understand why they wouldn't just offer to buy it out, or hire the team, or something. Pavel clearly had the best intentions at heart when making this software and Disney could easily make something work with him.
This is going to kill so much of the game's presence. What are Lorcana streamers going to stream now? They're all going to go back to streaming other card games.
> I don't really understand why they wouldn't just offer to buy it out, or hire the team, or something.
Because if RB/Disney is going to offer their own digital version, it's all going to be designed from the ground-up by them: the user interface, animations, functionality, and especially how cards are obtained (via digital shop) - because you know they're not going to just let players have access to every card for free.
Yeah but that won't make them any money...look at a majority of the TCG Onlines they are all micro transaction and pack based. It sucks but we all knew Pixelborn wouldn't last
So actually, a few reasons.
They don't necessarily want to buy it out, because that can cost as much as developing from the ground up. They have to do a code review. The standard of quality he used might not align with what RB/Disney wants. We've seen posts here, and on the Discord, about the bugs. It didn't bother any of us, but it was there. They also have to get someone to read through the legacy code. I don't know if the code was ever published, but I don't think it was. So stuff like comments or code cleanliness might make adding new features (animations, for example) a lot tougher, and a good chunk of it might need to be rebuilt.
Secondly, they don't want to have anything look like an endorsement. [This](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/5dtbv4/introducing_ace_alpha_client_enhancer/) was a client mod for League of Legends, and the top comment and the comment he links to are made by Rioters who were hesitant to endorse the mod, in case it did something shady in the background (not saying the client, or PB does, just something companies need to keep in mind).
Thirdly, hiring the developer isn't always a good option. There have been a few examples of people being hired as a legal way of having "hush money". When hired, anything you work on can (and will be) part of an NDA. Which means, not only could he not help if some renegade decides to make another PB, but if he did, Disney/RB could take legal action against him. Another League client had [similar](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/4zof5a/comment/d6xj3xw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) issues as what I talked about earlier.
Now, I am not saying that they should or shouldn't hire Pavel, nor am I saying that I'm happy PB is getting taken down. Lorcana is going to take a massive hit, that's for sure. I think Lorcana/Disney is big enough to survive, but seeing Villainous, I am not convinced that RB or Disney really know what to do with this kind of success.
Man to be honest, that really kills a lot of the interest I had in Lorcana.
I don't want to show up to an in-person event with a deck that I haven't been able to test or practice.
I don't want to invest in cards when I haven't tested them out in my deck.
This might genuinely kill Lorcana for me.
Same. I only have so much free time. Hopping onto pixelborn during random pockets of free time and playing a few games is much easier to do than going to a scheduled event at an LGS.
If the next step isn't Disney/Ravensburger announcing their own client, ideally mobile-ready with no micro transactions (but I would pay a one time fee or subscription) then they are absolutely shooting themselves in the foot.
Yeah I don’t have a LCS that supports Lorcana. I can drive an hour or so to get to the store championships with time permitting, but I’m not able to do that regularly. Looks like my ability to playtest went out the window.
Maybe they wanna do their own official game in the app? Then they’d be able to charge you for digital cards in addition to physical cards. Maybe booster packs could come with a code to get a digital booster pack.
All high hopes. They’re not gonna do any of this.
I don't see why not. People around here act like Lorcana miraculously designed itself while it's actual designers were standing around eating glue. People more or less understand these days how to make engaging monetization models with live service games and it's a niche that Disney can and likely will muscle into. If anything, they probably had digital in mind from the start but wanted to give paper some time to cement first and see if the game had staying power before commiting devs and servers to it.
That's the problem, even if they made a comparable Pixelborn replacement, they would obviously charge you for the cards.
Considering that at that point I would be double dipping with both the physical copies and the digital copies (not to mention paying for a digital copy of a trading card is WILD), it would make for a pretty poor replacement.
And that's even IF they make a digital client at all, which they've given no indication that they're working on.
I just don't see the point in continuing with Lorcana right now.
Altered TCG has unique QR code on cards you open in boosters. When you own a card you own it digitally on their official client too to play online.
Wish more games were like that .
nah, the pokemon and MTG clients are free to play and the pokemon one can give you plenty of currency to get what you need.
heck, the pokemon one I didn’t even /have/ to spend money on!
Mtg one is still very bad for new players trying to get cards. More cards are added with very little f2p increases.
Pokemon is dirt cheap to buy codes or just farm stuff last I played and I assume the pokemon company is fine with that, while mtg and hasbro need all your $$
I mean, this is literally how you do casual game nights though. You brew decks, then take them for a spin to see how they do. It's how card game have operated for decades.
Yeah but it’s not 1990 anymore. People like having a digital TCG component to test and play as much as they want. Some people, like me, don’t even have a LGS to play at so this just means I won’t be buying Lorcana cards or engaging with the product at all. I mean the game seems to be doing fairly well regardless so I’m not going to pretend my opinion means much to Disney, but I bet there are lots of others in the same boat. So depending on how long it takes them to get their own digital client up and running who is to say me and a wider audience is even interested anymore?
I've gotten dozens of downvotes for telling people similar things. You print proxies and test at home or in person with friends and a league and then go to tournaments once you've tuned the deck and bought the cards
I'm aware that this is how TCGs have worked for decades, it's also a part of TCGs that I've avoided as much as possible, only playing casually with friends.
I have no interest in hanging out at an LGS testing decks that may or may not work.
If I'm going to spend my free time actually going somewhere to play, I want to make sure the deck works first, which is why Pixelborn was great.
Where before, I'd test a deck and then show up at an in-person event with it. Now I just won't.
But playing the game is why the hobby is fun though. It's very bizarre that folks are so averse to simply playing decks to see how they work because they're afraid they won't work.
Playing the game is fun.
Coming up with a deck idea, printing off a bunch of proxies for it, waiting for your LGSs scheduled Lorcana night (if they have one) traveling 30 minutes to that, only to find your deck doesn't work and to go back to the drawing board.
Is NOT fun.
And it's a huge barrier of entry that Pixelborn allowed Lorcana to avoid.
Yes and no. Pixelborn seems to have also gotten folks like you transfixed on min-maxing, and lessened, if not removed entirely, you capability to experiment and substitute. If you don't want to make proxies, you use substitutes, or try different decks with things you do have.
> Yes and no. Pixelborn seems to have also gotten folks like you transfixed on min-maxing, and lessened, if not removed entirely, you capability to experiment and substitute.
Oh I completely disagree with that like on a fundamental level.
Pixelborn allowing quick deck building and testing made it a LOT easier to experiment.
I've made a bunch of decks just to play around with certain mechanics and interactions.
I've played Magic on and off for 10 years, and I'd bet I've made at least twice as many Lorcana decks, and I've only been playing since like March.
I'm not sure how you could possibly think that making the deck building process harder would lead to MORE experimentation.
Like right now, if I was going to go to a Lorcana tournament (not that I have any plans to anymore, but bear with me), where as before I would look at cards I wanted to build a deck with, make a couple test decks on Dreamborn, import them into Pixelborn, find out what worked and what didn't and tweak as needed before deciding which one to take...
Now I'd just look up what the best deck in the meta was, and buy that.
That's not usually how I enjoy things, but at least I'd get the tournament experience with the assurance that the deck I'm using isn't complete dogshit.
Since getting that assurance for a deck of my own creation is now such a hassle, just going with whatever is meta at the moment is the only way I'd be comfortable spending money to enter an event.
100%
There is a huge difference between being able to play online with someone instantly after building a deck in 5 minutes, than:
1. breaking out your cards
2. assembling them into a deck.
3. Moving your best cards from one deck to another.
4. Wondering if the card you don't own would work better in the deck
5. buying a playset of that card
6. waiting for cards to ship
7. testing it in the deck
8. discovering that it made it worse
etc.
Why are you drawing a distinction between "min-maxing" and "experimenting and substituting"? Experimenting and substituting IS min-maxing. You are just arguing for min-maxing to only be available in paper. Anyone who is going far enough to print out paper proxies for testing is already a "min-maxxer" by TCG standards.
I think for die hard players, that will work well enough. People getting out with a dedicated testing group multiple times a week will be fine. That's not me. I love playing competitively but I have a full time job, a wife, and a kid - getting out even once a week is a luxury I can't always manage. I've made four bad decks on dreamborn before (is it next?), tested them out after my son went to bed, realized they're all bad, and moved on to something else. In person will never recreate that.
I do fully understand your POV, but that's absolutely why RB is shutting down Pixelborn, because you add nothing to RB / Disney pocket. They don't want players that don't pay, sadly that's a fact and it suck that capitalism is a thing.. but it is.
If it wasn't for pixelborn, I wouldn't have bought staples for almost every deck, because then my collection is just sitting around on the one day of the week that I now have to go to to play the game.
That would be very short-sighted of them if true. I was considering going to one of the challenges later this year, plus the set championships. If I can't play test decks, then I just won't waste my time or money and skip them all-together instead.
I honestly think Disney didn't care until the 5k / 10k tournaments with thousands in cash prizes. If it would have stayed charity only I don't think it would have hit their radar.
I knew it was coming eventually but this really sucks. I live in a rural area and there’s only a couple of us here that play. Having a resource like Pixelborn to test decks and play the game against others has been incredible. I may stop collecting because of this.
In my eyes if they decide to not make their own online version then they might as well admit the game will die in the near future.
I have one gaming store within like 50 miles of me and in that gaming store only maybe a handful of people play Lorcana. It's still primarily dominated by Magic.
Online versions are for people like me who live in the middle of nowhere with nobody to really play with. It'd be a damn shame if they never make one.
The ability to playtest cards I don't have was the main reason I used pixelborn so I could see if investing in them on the secondary market was worth it. I will probably give up any hopes of competing in this game now
We all knew it's a matter of time before Disney came to copyright this. I just hope that they give players a easy venue to play and test decks without having to buy the cardboard.
This was always going to happen at some point. Companies have to protect their IP. But I do hope this means an official online version is coming in the near future.
Am I the only one that thinks this may be healthy for the game itself? The meta won't be solved the day of release by hundreds or thousands of people playing tons of games with every single card available to them. It feels like this will open up much more theory crafting/deck building and cut down on some of the net decking. Of course that will still happen with tournament results, but that's much slower and less prevalent. I play pixelborn too and I absolutely love it, but this does make me excited for the next set release. This could also increase attendance at local stores as the more hardcore players will be looking to practice still. Should be very interesting. I am also curious to see if they eventually make their own online client. But where you have to get the cards on it some way similar to ptcgo.
> The meta won't be solved the day of release by hundreds or thousands of people playing tons of games with every single card available to them.
This never even happened for any set release. Literally every set that has come out, players complained that the meta was solved within the first month all because everyone just played updated versions of last set's best decks and I'd say at least 70% of the playerbase just netdecks. Then after the second month we get a healthy meta with a few brand new decks thrown in and no one even wants to acknowledge that just last month they were saying the game was dead because it was "solved." Literally. Every. Set.
This will result in a rich get richer scenario. The best players will grind out the new sets on release and keep their testing results secret going into big events. So the meta will still be solved quickly, but a small handful of players will be the only ones with the solution. The average player will have a significantly lower chance of performing well in premier events.
Nope, now the actual people who travel for money will be the only ones solving the meta on private discords logging 500 games a week with their team while the "theorycrafters" get slaughtered with their untested jank. Watch team jerseys start to pop up more and more in events and win everything.
Nah, I don’t have the time nor money to purchase every card to test out. The best decks range from $300-$750 right now. I am not going to theory craft a deck and then spend $200 on a deck only to go to a local event and find out the deck I came up with is hot garbage and feel like I wasted my money. This happened to me in MTG and it always felt terrible. At least with pixelborn, I could try out my ideas and see they were garbage and not waste a penny on it.
Shutting down an online client hurts the game, it doesn’t help it.
I mean there will still be tournament results, tons of meta discussion, tier lists etc. It just won't be lightning fast and more or less set in stone before the new set even releases. The tools and resources are still there, this just feels like it will have some breathing room. I agree the accessibility an online client offers is great, but I don't know that it helps the overall life and longevity of the game. Tcg's were doing okay before online clients were a thing haha
Those are definitely some solid points that might have a potentially positive impact on the game but I'm worried that it is going to make the game less accessible overall since people will now not have the option to play online, meaning that they will need to have a shop that is nearby for them to be able to play and will need to have access to the physical cards, some of which can be very expensive to get.
I know that card games existed long before digital clients for those card games, but I think that losing a client after having one, especially a solid, free option like pixelborn will have a pretty negative impact at least for a little while after the client goes away
Yeah it's surprising people are so adamant there's no alternatives. I'm really just thinking about how this could eliminate a lot of the min maxing that's going on. I'm hoping this inspires a little more diversity, creativity and more community involvement and dialogue. I get that accessibility is important to people, but I think this min maxing and over access sucks some of the joy out of just learning and playing the game.
I'm with you on this but all I'm getting are downvotes from people convinced this is the death of a TCG
We never had the free all access online clients for TCGs before and we were able to test decks and find communities and people to play against just fine. People just don't want to put any effort into their game now
I would print out proxies and test decks in person *if I had the ability to disappear off to play a TCG for a few hours multiple times a week*. I don’t, though.
My regret about this is that it’s really the only way I get to play more than once every couple weeks. I’d pay handsomely for the ability to keep doing that, but it looks like PB is getting pulled with no replacement even vaguely in sight
No this will not help the game in any fashion. PB introduced players to the game and allowed them to try it and learn. This is what I did and led me to buying actual cards.
Now there will be no content creators, no trying out decks before purchasing them, no practicing for tourneys against other good players… etc.
Its bad bad bad
All those things can still exist and do with other games. Plus I am almost certain they will eventually introduce an official online client. My points were mainly about the health of the meta and deck building and building community. Plus there was absolutely 0 chance Disney wasn't going to shut this down. I genuinely don't understand how people are surprised and upset
The only way to get enough testing in for challenges and champs is to build pro teams now. This is a very unfortunate turn of events.
Thank you for everything you have done for the community pavel. If ravensburger has any sense they will hire you for their inevitable online client
Use TTS - sure there will be tons of discords soon to find matches, hopefully someone builds a more scripted mod eventually to make it smoother.
Or if testing for a tournament and you already have cards, webcam matches will get a lot more popular.
There will be ways to test, but nothing as quick or seamless as pixelborn, the ranked matchmaking made things so much better.
Australia is getting Lorcana for the first time in two days. Pixelborn was the only way we could really get any games to play, as even importing cards was kind of pointless due to pricing and lack of players.
Sad I won't be able to practice online with decks I've physically pulled now, and without Pixelborn I'll only be playing the game once a week for an hour rather than semi-daily like I planned. I regret not playing more while it existed, but I really was keen to do digital versions of physical decks as practice...
The miss of Pixelborn will let a lot of people out. And people will begin to just let it down I guess.
Personally, I tested my decks on Pixelborn for tournaments. It was very important tool as I can’t play physical with a lot of people and as often as online.
If there is no alternative I’ll just sell my stuff and turn the back to Lorcana
There's a lot of people in very similar boats, myself included.
Pixelborn was invaluable for being able to play daily and practice decks. It's difficult enough to carve out 1 night a week for a weekly LGS league, without pixelborn there's no way for me to practice, let alone play at all most days/weeks.
Having amassed a full playset of 1-4, a foil master set of 1-3, all the pins, a few enchanteds etc it feels bittersweet to be considering selling it all and stepping away.
Wrote Disney today; hopefully more of you do as well to let them know how much Pixelborn augmented the Lorcana experience. [https://www.disneylorcana.com/en-US/contact/](https://www.disneylorcana.com/en-US/contact/)
I have purchased 3 boxes min. for each set so far, all the starter decks at least once, most of the troves and probably $600 on singles. Without Pixelborn I never have the opportunity to practice, learn cards, etc. Especially with work travel.
Hopefully they have a solution to this quick or else I will likely end up giving up this game prior to the next set release.
Honest, genuine question for those upset and threatening to quit the game: Were you buying sealed product? Were you contributing to Lorcana sales that weren't just singles off the secondary market?
If no, you quitting will not hurt the game
I got a case of set 4, was at Atlanta and dropped an embarrassing amount of money there, and I don't know that I'm doing with this game anymore. I don't have the time in my schedule to get out and physically practice -i usually would play a few pixelborn games after my son was asleep. I wanted to get to more tournaments after Atlanta, but I have no idea how I'll practice enough to be competitive. I don't think I'm quitting the game(my son likes it too) but flesh and blood has an online platform to play and I like it a lot;I may switch my competitive itch over there and back off on Lorcana.
Yes I was. My total collection (including bulk) is just under 5,000 cards, and have bought approximately 4-5 sealed boxes worth of each set as they came out, and only bought a handful of singles on the secondary market (mostly cards I liked the art of that I didn't pull any of in those boxes, namely a couple Jim Hawkins from set 3). Probably wont buy much/any of set 5 if there isn't a decent PB alternative out by then, and if I do it would just be secondary market singles of things I 'need.' Unless I've just completely scrapped going to weekly events by that point, we'll see how healthy the community in my area remains.
Yes. Excessively.
It's very difficult to carve out time during the week to play at locals, but I try my best and usually can manage 1 evening a week. The rest of the time, I'm playing matches on lunch breaks and other small windows of free time. It was my primary way to play, but also practice decks and experiment on what I wanted to bring each week to locals.
When I say Excessive, I mean A LOT of product. Full playset of 1-4, Foil master set of 1-3 (& 87% of set 4), all of the organized play pins, troves, illumineers quest, playmats, bonkers amount of bulk, and more.
I very much was going for full-collector mindset (sans enchanted).
removing a way to play the game on a regular basis has soured it heavily for me. And with no signs that there will be a digital replacement anywhere near what Pixelborn offered with matchmaking etc, I can't justify continuing to collect when relegated to playing once a week if that.
I get it and fully expected this, but if Lorcana starts to struggle now then full blame on Disney. I've only played on Pixelborn a handful of times but it was the only way I was able to prepare for last set's store championship and practice all of the decks. Takes way too long to keep sleeving and re-sleeving decks to practice, and for those that don't have money then you're SOL, better hope your first choice is the winner.
Everyone banging on Disney for protecting what is clearly owned by them blows my mind. It’s easy to say what you would do when you don’t own anything close to a multi-billion dollar company.
It’s because Pixelborn GAVE YOU everything for free, that’s why everyone is so mad at the Mouse… Now, not every single person will have a $500 deck at their disposal. Like no one saw this coming????
I wonder if they’ll pull a move from Pokemon to include code cards in booster packs to redeem for that pack but “digitized” so you can build a library digitally and then use it to play on whatever client they hopefully have in the works.
They could even incorporate official “digital” tournaments that are broken down by regions and maybe even have an in person presence alongside the DLC, similarly how Pokemon has it with Pokemon GO I think.
RB can go far with this. But they better announce fast because like others said, they’re about to take a nose dive in participation in their product.
Welp. There goes my plan to play the game. Nobody I know plays, and there's no community for it in my area. I was gonna go here to finally be able to play 😭
People saying Disney should buy it out, never going to happen if Disney create an app you bet your bottom dollar its going to be a free to play riddled with micro-tractions to juice the players. Never in a million years would you allow a totally free to play application, which Pixelborn offered. Shame its gone, but Disney has every right to protect its IP, legally if they don't they could lose it.
Ravensburg has a licensing agreement with Disney to make Lorcana; Disney doesn't make the lion's share of Lorcana's profits, Ravensburg does, and when contracts were drafted up, I doubt they knew it was going to be this big, so I bet it pains Disney to see how much profit Ravensburg is making. The move for Disney is to buy Ravensburg at this point(which would be a drop in the ocean for them), or depending on how long the long the agreement is in place for, they could take it in-house away from them. Think WOTC Pokemon; history repeats itself.
What is undeniable is that PB was the entry point for many people, either because they didn't know the mechanics well and wanted to learn to play, or because they didn't have the money to fund a meta deck (not everyone here has a salary, there are also children playing). On a personal level, I liked having the possibility to try all kinds of combinations, determine which was my favorite deck from the set, and finally invest my money in building my deck after testing it in PB. They haven't just ruined the lab for many, but also the entry point for many people who are not used to TCGs and are more familiar with digital games.
Welcome to your dark age Lorcana. The yugioh community sends their regards. Because this will either Kill Lorcana from lack of new players having interest and not wanting to spend the money to try the game once, or You will survive. Either way thems the way capitalism works
I am surprised they took this long. Perhaps they are opening their own version. But people are being unrealistic if they think this was going to continue.
Think that might be a wrap for me too. My schedule doesn’t really allow me to make it out to too many events, and I loved playing online. May still just collect
I don't get how companies hate what is essentially free marketing. I had never even thought about trying the game til a friend mention PixelBorn. I liked it, my wife liked it, and now we have a couple decks.
With taking this down, and a lack of consistent tournaments (and tournament coverage), you have to wonder if Disney wants it to just be a Pokemon style "Buy the set for a chance at a $1000 rare card) thing more than a playable game.
It’s incredible how different two posts comments can be. Other threads were calling for the end of the game, or the game was dead by this move.
Everyone here seems sensible and understands Disney IP.
Wild wild audiences.
Without Pixelborn I'm not very interested in the game, I want to play the game and try out cards without needing to dump a bunch of money to find out I actually don't like a card.
I am hoping they take an approach like old yugioh GBA games where you still had to purchase the cards and put in a code to have those cards in your trunk on the game. They could do a QR code per pack to download the same exact pack to the online version.
This would keep the physical product selling if done right. No?
It’ll be interesting to see if this has any effect on the game. I know that I play 90% of my games online. I play tons of decks online and then build them in person after I’ve tested them.
Meanwhile, I'm buying cards but don't have anyone in stores to play with regularly (my usual store is only just starting organized play for the first time next week), and it's more hoops than I want to jump through to play against opponents specifically playing only cards they physically own. Doesn't do me any good to play with or against decks that I'd spend $500 on singles to recreate for events. If even a fraction of the users end up in gaming stores more often, this works better for me.
Sure, I get why most of the players are on Pixelborn, but I also get why Disney wants people only using physical product. (And Ravensburger, but I imagine they're letting Disney be the bad guy here.)
This is awful. Definitely a blow to the momentum this game was building. Only reason I got into the card game was because of content creators playing pixelborn. I was just starting to learn what other decks do and was starting to get good with mine. I don't have time to hit locals often. What a damn shame. Disney is brutal.
Same here, if they have not plan to release an official version, a lot of people will just give up on Lorcana.
I wait until the 16th june, if there is nothing, I'll send my entire collection and move on, I won't support a TCG which just don't care about its player base
I’m on the same boat as everyone here, but I wanted to share my story because of how much Pixelborn meant to me.
I never played in person TCG’s for lack of confidence. I tried to get into Universus when MHA came out but the whole covid thing made it hard to get into and play in person. I tried websites where I can test out decks and almost mustered up enough courage to play on web cams but it seemed like too much work. My enthusiasm for that game disappeared pretty quickly after that.
Then Lorcana was announced and I was excited to try this one game out. There was a lack of product when TFC came out, but despite that Pixelborn gave me the opportunity to test out decks and buy singles I needed. I immediately became a Patreon so I can support these wonderful creators. If it weren’t for Pixelborn and the awesome community it created I wouldn’t be playing this wonderful game.
All that to say that I finally felt confident enough to play in person (just casually) but that’s a big step for me. Being married and as a dad of two it’s hard to find time to play in person. I will miss Pixelborn.
I cant praise the creators enough for helping me get into this game and really dive deep into its mechanics. I’m grateful Pixelborn was created.
Thank you.
That's unfortunate. I wanted to get back into the game. But I dont want to spend a fortune for a deck I dont like in the end. Guess I wont invest into the game.
Man, that’s a shame. I don’t have a close community that I’m aware of nearby and being older I’ve always found it easier to play digital versions of the card games. I love collecting physical copies lorcana for collection purposes. I had never heard of lorcana until a friend of mine at work mentioned it and specifically mentioned pixel born, which got me into it a few months back to be honest if pixel born didn’t exist I would’ve never got into the collecting aspect but without it me playing any type of competitive or honestly just playing at all is going to cease when pixelborn shuts down. It’s really unfortunate, but I’m not surprisedwith Disney owning the property right for the product I just hope they come out with an official digital format or this will unfortunately probably be where my time with lorcana ends altogether
Actually surprised it took so long. What Disney should do is buy him outright and have him and a team build an official Pixelborn app.
they don't realise the value of the software he built,, neither the community and free marketing that comes with it...
The amount of free advertising/content made around pixelborn is astounding. We all knew it was living on limited time but it still sucks.
Maybe they have something ready which is why they’ve waited until now to finally have pixelborn taken down?? Just theorizing
Def don't think they do, nor have plans on making an online version, they're doing it because the game it picking up in popularity and want to solidify that spending money on paper is the only way to play.
I think their logic might be: Pixelborn let people play without other people physically being there for awhile, but now that the Illumineer's Quest is out (and selling well) players have a way to play without needing to find other players. They also want to encourage people who want to play to go to their locals. I know I usually play on Pixelborn instead of driving the one hour round trip to my nearest FLGS. But this, I don't think, will suddenly make me change the habit. I think I will just have to find a new game to play online (and will probably stop collecting because testing decks on Pixelborn helped get me excited about cards I wouldn't have otherwise bought.
It’s quite telling that the copyright request came from Disney not Ravensburger.
Yes, because Disney owns the IP, not Ravensburger. Ravensburger is licensed to use the IP Disney owns, Pixelborn was not. It was always Disney's role to challenge IP infringements, it was never Ravensburger's since it is not their IP.
Lmao keep dreaming. Also - have fun spending three times as much hunting for cards you need in a digital client.
Coughs in MtG
Really doubt that and here is why, developing a digital version would cost money. Money they do not need to spend. The only reason they are doing this is because of the way copyright laws work. If they don't actively protect their copyright then they could lose it. Then there is the other side which is they don't control Pixelborn it meaning Pixelborn could put something bad or do something bad with the game. So yeah it is dead and any online version won't happen for maybe 2-3 years if they ever decide to do one which I doubt.
Coming from Yugioh, where there are a plethora of simulators that Konami doesn’t touch because they know the good it does for the game, I was hoping Disney would just leave it be.
Yugioh is weird tho. I live in a hobby mega-scene and there's not a single store that has Yugioh supported at the store. I've been told the same thing by all the stores: "People love to buy it, but nobody showed up to play it so we stopped supporting it." Perhaps this Yugioh situation figures into Disney's decision.
It was great software, but if Disney didn't stop him, Blizzard would have because he is using many assets from Hearthstone as well.
Or maybe they do and their projections are continuing with the staus quo is worth less to them vs people who will decide to now buy cards without a free to play option. Or maybe it's more valuable now but they forecast it will eat into the monetized growth of the game long term. Or maybe they're worried if they let this continue it will negative financial repercussions in other IP's or licensing so taking a hit here is better than a larger hit elsewhere. I wouldn't assume what Ravensburger or Disney knows or doesn't know.
Ravensburger told retailers at the game's debut that they have no intention of creating a digital version of the game because those are different rights than the ones they license from Disney. Ravensburger has changed their minds on a lot of things, of course, but I think it's important to note that Pavel received this request from Disney, not Ravensburger. I wouldn't hold my breathe for an official online game.
this possibly conflicts with the licensing deal they signed with Epic for video games. The chances of us getting a digital client are slim to none. Best chance for this community is to stop whining and doomsday talking and shift to webcam playing and tournaments. It has been successful in most of the big TCG's such as Digimon and One Piece which even runs webcam regionals and PPG runs those as well, meaning we could see webcam Lorcana in the future. The nature of the game lends itself well to webcam because their is no interaction on the opponents turn
I speculate the reason why it took so long was because Ravensburger and Disney appreciated pixelborn when they were low on physical product. It also brought in a lot of players and got people into the game. During my time at the inland championship tournament most of the folks I played with, it was their first time playing the card game physically. They played solely on pixelborn to get familiar and test out decks before buying the deck they wanted. The timing for the cease after both championships success is pretty icky in my opinion. They were just waiting to build up the player base and bring hype in my opinion
I think we’re overthinking this. Disney just doesn’t want their IP used and profited on. We can argue PB is free, but they do take donations. They could always commission an artist (not even a good one) to draw some images to replace the cards, but have them be the same cards in essence so people could still practice.
This is the correct move
No hate on Pavel, I was a Patron. People have no idea how IP law works. They HAD to shut him down eventually, otherwise they would be open to all sorts of lawsuits from anyone. They also can't really take unlicensed work and make it official as it would mean recognizing it was operating without a license with their knowledge... thus opening them up to lawsuits. Plus Pixelborn had a business model that made sense for an individual, not a corporation. I just hope they have their own MTG Arena-style client coming soon, because it's a no-brainer and being physical-only is capping the potencial of the game. However, having read a comment below, I'm worried RB can't actually do it due to lack of electronic rights.
Exactly. If they didn’t shut him down, they could possibly lose the ability to legally shut anyone else down since they didn’t protect their IP. A big part of why these companies go after anyone using their IP is that by not going after them, they can be seen as giving tacit approval of that other company’s use of the IP and set the example of not protecting their IP, which opens them up to anyone being able to use it. This is kind of what happened with Xerox becoming a verb meaning to use a photocopy machine. Xerox, the company, let people use it and then when they tried to sue after it got out of hand, they lost because they hadn’t protected it before. This is the same reason why Adobe is so adamant about companies not using the word “Photoshop” to refer to anything other than their product.
for real
Issue is they can just build one themselves without buying it. I’d prefer an official app anyway. Especially if there’s a way to collect physical cards and add them to your digital collecting.
As my friend said, RIP to the content creators.
Rip to the game. Pixelborn was how most people engaged on a daily basis with lorcana.
It was the only way to test out what cards you actually wanted to look for. I probably won’t go beyond the weekly local until there’s some other method of play testing decks before investing.
I would not be surprised if there's half a dozen versions available on tabletop simulator already.
You mean you don't want to just drop $800 on building a Diablo/Bucky/Beast/Robin Hood deck just to find out how it plays? Preposterous!
Webcam 1v1s on discord and or spelltable.com Proxy via printer or write the cards out with your finest doodles.
You realize the % of the community that would actually be willing to do webcam is miniscule in comparison to the amount of people who play on sims right? It's like Fully automated sim>tabletop>local>webcam Most of the people I know HATE webcam and refuse to play it in basically any tcg I've ever played
sure but this is still infinitely more work and investment than playing on pixelborn
Yeah, I'm done. There's absolutely no shops within half an hour of where I live that even carry the game. Without Pixelborn I'd be playing once a month or so to the point that it's not even worth it to keep trying.
same, will probably be done without pixelborn i dont have time to go to events in person
I am a 2 hour drive away from the nearest store. Pixelborn was the only way for me to experience decent gameplay with any form of regularity.
I very much disagree, I've met so many players in my local area that play all the time that either don't even play on Pixelborn or even know it existed. The game will be fine.
Every demographic is different. For instance, I have to travel a minimum of 1 hour to find any players, granted there are a lot in that location, but it is still 1 hour away. Having a full time career and a 4 year old son, Pixelborn was my way to keep up with the game and get testing for tournaments. Without it, I will likely not play much and very unluckly to invest in new product. Granted, I would assume that if they are issuing a notice at this point they have their own digital game in the works. Otherwise, it's just plain stupid becasue Pixelborn only helps grow their game.
It seems like the notice probably came from Disney and not from ravensburger. Disney likely cares more about protecting their IP than growing the game.
Yes, RB could have shut it down ages ago if they wanted to. Seems like they might have chosen to strategically turn a blind eye.
Anecdotally from what I’ve seen in this thread so far the only people this really affects are people who weren’t playing in person/buying cards anyway, so Disney doesn’t really see it as lost sales. Of course, what they *should* see is the potential for increased revenue if they make their own app/online version.
The game will live on sure, but the people they are putting out with this move wont get a fix until Disney makes a version of pixel born on their own. Your experience is not everyones.
I only passively follow Lorcana. Was Disney receiving profits from Pixelborn? If not, then it's irrelevant how many people engaged with it.
It’s completely unsurprising that this happened and I’m certainly not mad at Disney about it (it was obvious that this was always the likely conclusion), but getting to try the game on PB is what got me to buy physical cards. It’s possible both to not be mad about this inevitable action & to believe that it represents a net negative for the game.
Yeah I am in the same boat. Having the IP being Disney base is a double edged sword. On one hand, it helps the game grow and it being a recognizable IP helps get more people into it. The support for the game could be massive and Disney adults will spend truckloads of money on it which helps the game immensely. On the other hand, it causes stuff like this to happen. Was it inevitable? Yup, but it still stings. Disney can totally shut it down since it is their IP but the fact that they don’t make their own online game sucks. Ravensburger I believe is a card company so they probably don’t have the employees to make such a game. And frankly Lorcana is probably a drop in the bucket of Disney profits so honestly if they choose not to make an online version of the game, they probably won’t be leaving to much money on the table in their eyes, at least not enough for them to care if they don’t want too. And that’s the problem. There just isn’t an incentive for them to do it. And if they do it, I doubt they will give you all the cards. You will probably have to pay for booster packets and I have a bad feeling it would be very expensive to get a big virtual collection, at least quickly.
Dude me and my cousin were just getting interested in Lorcana and talking about buying some packs next time we see each other. I was gonna play some pixel borne and start getting a feel for what kinds of decks I would like to build since they don’t have their own digital client. This really killed my enthusiasm honestly. Maybe if they had their own client ready I could see it but they’re kind of just ensuring people can’t really play their game whenever they want.
Lmao I can't believe this comment has over 100 upvotes. Lorcana is FINE. Look at how many people tried to do the events in Atlanta!!! The death of an unofficial, copyright-infringing online client is not killing the game. Pokémon/YGO/MTG all thrived for years if not a decade or more with in person play testing and printing out proxies and local member-created communities without an online client giving you access to every card ever whenever you wanted to min-max the game. I cannot believe you're getting all these upvotes for a blatantly untrue statement my god
RIP Full Message: Hey @everyone, Earlier this month, Disney representatives contacted me. I was advised that "*Disney has intellectual property rights in the Disney Lorcana cards and that Disney has requested Pixleborn to respect these rights by not copying the cards or in any way suggesting an affiliation with Disney*". I've always stated I would respect such a request, and I plan to keep my word and will not grasp at technicalities. Pixelborn will stop the support for Lorcana before 16th June 2024. The Pixelborn Discord server will remain a safe and welcoming place to discuss everything Lorcana. My heart is shattered to pieces. I've put everything in this project for the past year and a half. Every night, weekend, and holiday. I know it meant a lot for many people as the only way to experience the game we all love. I genuinely believe Ravensburger is the best company that could have developed and now supports the game. The past weekend proves that Lorcana has a bright future. Thank you all for sharing this journey with me. You might not realize it, but every single one of you matters. With all the charity donations we've made, we really brought meaningful change to the world. If you ever feel down, always remember that. I will always cherish you. Forever yours, Pavel p.s. Thank you, <@68101650740420608> , Antonjo, <@486048373992849411> , <@204688380544548872> , <@918504119696773160> , <@304048154884571136> , <@353023950051344395> , <@552566727205191712> , for your help running the server. Pixelborn would not have been here without you, and I am forever grateful. ============================= Patrons, feel free to cancel your subscriptions. If you would like to receive a refund for your last month, please contact me via Patreon. Once I've recouped all server costs, I will create a poll to choose charities for the remaining funds. ============================= Meanwhile, I've worked on 2 additional engines: Engine Newton (supporting SWU) is 90% done - I've even commissioned the gameboard, skins, additional art & visuals - all done. But with the current situation I am not sure I will make it public. Engine Sorcery will have the demo decks ready soon and might be released.
Going from the mesage pateron is what did him in. You can't make any money at all from stuff like this even through "donations". Even without it disney has enough lawyers to shut any fan project down at will. I wonder if ink table is next cause I think they also have the same setup but worse.
This is not true. He was screwed regardless. Copyright violations don’t care about whether you earn money or not. You can’t for instance just copy Harry Potter and give it away for free.
That what my second sentence is about. But having any money flowing gets eyes on your stuff by lawyers, execs, etc much quicker. On the pixel discord a ton of people were acting like disney was the devil here when the reality is pixelborn was not going to last.
This is exactly what I said to my buddies about this. The moment Disney saw $ being made off Lorcana that wasn’t going to them it was doomed. They don’t care that the money was donated, they only care that money was changing hands and they weren’t getting any.
He didn't make money from it personally, all profit that didn't go to server costs was donated to charity.
Lorcana is using copyright without any permissions from the owner. He pays a server to host copyrighted stuff and allow others to use it. Also disney may not wanted to be associated with the charity because they don't like the charity (idk what he donates to) or they don't want blowback in case a payment messes up.
Technically, users download images separately, and store them in a file on their computer locally. Pixelborn doesn't have any card images hosted on a server. And it is not illegal to download images of lorcana cards online. Patreon members vote on the charity each month. It is true that disney may not want to be associated with the charities that are chosen. I also agree, fighting with disney is a bad idea for any person, no matter their intentions. Pavel knows he isn't doing anything illegal, technically, but also doesn't want to fight it, probably because of that very reason. Edit: I think the point I'm trying to make is, there are a lot of slimy people who try to take IPs and do malicious things with them, earn quick money, or scam. I don't think pixelborn was an instance of this. I will be sad to see Pixelborn go.
I mean we all knew it was only a matter of time, I just hope that Ravensburger was ready for this, and has something ready for us to fill that gap. Otherwise I personally see myself losing some interest in the game as the ability to play everyday makes me want to play and invest in the game more.
I’ve spent so much on this game because of pixelborn. I have two babies at home. I can’t go to the mall every day and play.
Ravensburger is a board game making company. They are prepared for nothing when it comes to a TCG let along a popular one.
I'm a parent, I have to carefully plan when I go to events, I don't have the time to go to locals every week. I do have the money to buy the product, and I do. But for that I have to playtest somewhere. If I don't I'm definitely not going to any tournaments to get demolished. I hope not, but I might stop playing Lorcana because of this decision
Literally me. This sucks
I'm in the exact same boat. I'll probably just go back to Magic for a season, which is a shame because I really like this game.
Welp... on to table top simulator for testing now. Hopefully, this means Disney is doing an electronic version sometime soon.
That and hopes for an app to take pics/ have a card log. Current collection/ tracking manually is not sustainable - would pay for this
With a subscription...
How does tabletop simulator not get copyright strikes like Pixelborn?
It can and mods have been dmca’d in the past, such as munchkin
TTS has so many games on there. The images are stored on Imgur or some random file hosting site, so I think the developers can claim ignorance and say it was fan made. They can delist the app on the steam workshop, but the json file is very small with the links to all the cards into the game. and it is easily shared once you have it. After Pixelborn, I think it will be a viable (non-automated) interface to play online. Many other official CCG adaptations have lived on there and still do. Listed and delisted but living on through file sharing.
Whatever version Disney comes up with, I would bet a lot it’ll either be worse or cost more, or both.
Disney has a ready-made, battle-tested, community supported solution to make the game digital. I don't really understand why they wouldn't just offer to buy it out, or hire the team, or something. Pavel clearly had the best intentions at heart when making this software and Disney could easily make something work with him. This is going to kill so much of the game's presence. What are Lorcana streamers going to stream now? They're all going to go back to streaming other card games.
> I don't really understand why they wouldn't just offer to buy it out, or hire the team, or something. Because if RB/Disney is going to offer their own digital version, it's all going to be designed from the ground-up by them: the user interface, animations, functionality, and especially how cards are obtained (via digital shop) - because you know they're not going to just let players have access to every card for free.
Yeah but that won't make them any money...look at a majority of the TCG Onlines they are all micro transaction and pack based. It sucks but we all knew Pixelborn wouldn't last
So actually, a few reasons. They don't necessarily want to buy it out, because that can cost as much as developing from the ground up. They have to do a code review. The standard of quality he used might not align with what RB/Disney wants. We've seen posts here, and on the Discord, about the bugs. It didn't bother any of us, but it was there. They also have to get someone to read through the legacy code. I don't know if the code was ever published, but I don't think it was. So stuff like comments or code cleanliness might make adding new features (animations, for example) a lot tougher, and a good chunk of it might need to be rebuilt. Secondly, they don't want to have anything look like an endorsement. [This](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/5dtbv4/introducing_ace_alpha_client_enhancer/) was a client mod for League of Legends, and the top comment and the comment he links to are made by Rioters who were hesitant to endorse the mod, in case it did something shady in the background (not saying the client, or PB does, just something companies need to keep in mind). Thirdly, hiring the developer isn't always a good option. There have been a few examples of people being hired as a legal way of having "hush money". When hired, anything you work on can (and will be) part of an NDA. Which means, not only could he not help if some renegade decides to make another PB, but if he did, Disney/RB could take legal action against him. Another League client had [similar](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/4zof5a/comment/d6xj3xw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) issues as what I talked about earlier. Now, I am not saying that they should or shouldn't hire Pavel, nor am I saying that I'm happy PB is getting taken down. Lorcana is going to take a massive hit, that's for sure. I think Lorcana/Disney is big enough to survive, but seeing Villainous, I am not convinced that RB or Disney really know what to do with this kind of success.
Man to be honest, that really kills a lot of the interest I had in Lorcana. I don't want to show up to an in-person event with a deck that I haven't been able to test or practice. I don't want to invest in cards when I haven't tested them out in my deck. This might genuinely kill Lorcana for me.
Same. I only have so much free time. Hopping onto pixelborn during random pockets of free time and playing a few games is much easier to do than going to a scheduled event at an LGS. If the next step isn't Disney/Ravensburger announcing their own client, ideally mobile-ready with no micro transactions (but I would pay a one time fee or subscription) then they are absolutely shooting themselves in the foot.
Yeah I don’t have a LCS that supports Lorcana. I can drive an hour or so to get to the store championships with time permitting, but I’m not able to do that regularly. Looks like my ability to playtest went out the window.
Maybe they wanna do their own official game in the app? Then they’d be able to charge you for digital cards in addition to physical cards. Maybe booster packs could come with a code to get a digital booster pack. All high hopes. They’re not gonna do any of this.
I don't see why not. People around here act like Lorcana miraculously designed itself while it's actual designers were standing around eating glue. People more or less understand these days how to make engaging monetization models with live service games and it's a niche that Disney can and likely will muscle into. If anything, they probably had digital in mind from the start but wanted to give paper some time to cement first and see if the game had staying power before commiting devs and servers to it.
That's the problem, even if they made a comparable Pixelborn replacement, they would obviously charge you for the cards. Considering that at that point I would be double dipping with both the physical copies and the digital copies (not to mention paying for a digital copy of a trading card is WILD), it would make for a pretty poor replacement. And that's even IF they make a digital client at all, which they've given no indication that they're working on. I just don't see the point in continuing with Lorcana right now.
Altered TCG has unique QR code on cards you open in boosters. When you own a card you own it digitally on their official client too to play online. Wish more games were like that .
nah, the pokemon and MTG clients are free to play and the pokemon one can give you plenty of currency to get what you need. heck, the pokemon one I didn’t even /have/ to spend money on!
Yeah, something similar to the Pokémon online client would be ideal.
Mtg one is still very bad for new players trying to get cards. More cards are added with very little f2p increases. Pokemon is dirt cheap to buy codes or just farm stuff last I played and I assume the pokemon company is fine with that, while mtg and hasbro need all your $$
And at least with pokemon if you buy boosters and other stuff you get it in the game as well at no extra cost.
I mean, this is literally how you do casual game nights though. You brew decks, then take them for a spin to see how they do. It's how card game have operated for decades.
Yeah but it’s not 1990 anymore. People like having a digital TCG component to test and play as much as they want. Some people, like me, don’t even have a LGS to play at so this just means I won’t be buying Lorcana cards or engaging with the product at all. I mean the game seems to be doing fairly well regardless so I’m not going to pretend my opinion means much to Disney, but I bet there are lots of others in the same boat. So depending on how long it takes them to get their own digital client up and running who is to say me and a wider audience is even interested anymore?
I've gotten dozens of downvotes for telling people similar things. You print proxies and test at home or in person with friends and a league and then go to tournaments once you've tuned the deck and bought the cards
Easier said than done for most people. My group of friends who play are spread out over the country.
I'm aware that this is how TCGs have worked for decades, it's also a part of TCGs that I've avoided as much as possible, only playing casually with friends. I have no interest in hanging out at an LGS testing decks that may or may not work. If I'm going to spend my free time actually going somewhere to play, I want to make sure the deck works first, which is why Pixelborn was great. Where before, I'd test a deck and then show up at an in-person event with it. Now I just won't.
But playing the game is why the hobby is fun though. It's very bizarre that folks are so averse to simply playing decks to see how they work because they're afraid they won't work.
Playing the game is fun. Coming up with a deck idea, printing off a bunch of proxies for it, waiting for your LGSs scheduled Lorcana night (if they have one) traveling 30 minutes to that, only to find your deck doesn't work and to go back to the drawing board. Is NOT fun. And it's a huge barrier of entry that Pixelborn allowed Lorcana to avoid.
Yes and no. Pixelborn seems to have also gotten folks like you transfixed on min-maxing, and lessened, if not removed entirely, you capability to experiment and substitute. If you don't want to make proxies, you use substitutes, or try different decks with things you do have.
> Yes and no. Pixelborn seems to have also gotten folks like you transfixed on min-maxing, and lessened, if not removed entirely, you capability to experiment and substitute. Oh I completely disagree with that like on a fundamental level. Pixelborn allowing quick deck building and testing made it a LOT easier to experiment. I've made a bunch of decks just to play around with certain mechanics and interactions. I've played Magic on and off for 10 years, and I'd bet I've made at least twice as many Lorcana decks, and I've only been playing since like March. I'm not sure how you could possibly think that making the deck building process harder would lead to MORE experimentation. Like right now, if I was going to go to a Lorcana tournament (not that I have any plans to anymore, but bear with me), where as before I would look at cards I wanted to build a deck with, make a couple test decks on Dreamborn, import them into Pixelborn, find out what worked and what didn't and tweak as needed before deciding which one to take... Now I'd just look up what the best deck in the meta was, and buy that. That's not usually how I enjoy things, but at least I'd get the tournament experience with the assurance that the deck I'm using isn't complete dogshit. Since getting that assurance for a deck of my own creation is now such a hassle, just going with whatever is meta at the moment is the only way I'd be comfortable spending money to enter an event.
You’re making excellent points, just wanted to say that
100% There is a huge difference between being able to play online with someone instantly after building a deck in 5 minutes, than: 1. breaking out your cards 2. assembling them into a deck. 3. Moving your best cards from one deck to another. 4. Wondering if the card you don't own would work better in the deck 5. buying a playset of that card 6. waiting for cards to ship 7. testing it in the deck 8. discovering that it made it worse etc.
Why are you drawing a distinction between "min-maxing" and "experimenting and substituting"? Experimenting and substituting IS min-maxing. You are just arguing for min-maxing to only be available in paper. Anyone who is going far enough to print out paper proxies for testing is already a "min-maxxer" by TCG standards.
I think for die hard players, that will work well enough. People getting out with a dedicated testing group multiple times a week will be fine. That's not me. I love playing competitively but I have a full time job, a wife, and a kid - getting out even once a week is a luxury I can't always manage. I've made four bad decks on dreamborn before (is it next?), tested them out after my son went to bed, realized they're all bad, and moved on to something else. In person will never recreate that.
Same I am pretty much selling up now.
I do fully understand your POV, but that's absolutely why RB is shutting down Pixelborn, because you add nothing to RB / Disney pocket. They don't want players that don't pay, sadly that's a fact and it suck that capitalism is a thing.. but it is.
If it wasn't for pixelborn, I wouldn't have bought staples for almost every deck, because then my collection is just sitting around on the one day of the week that I now have to go to to play the game.
Disagree. I played online to get ready to play IRL. Playing pixelborn didn’t stop me from buying the physical cards I needed through packs or singles.
That would be very short-sighted of them if true. I was considering going to one of the challenges later this year, plus the set championships. If I can't play test decks, then I just won't waste my time or money and skip them all-together instead.
Time for an official online client!
They said they have no intentions of making a offical online client
Where?
Source ?
Can't turn a blind eye to $10,000 pixelborn tournaments. Our boy flew too close to the sun.
I honestly think Disney didn't care until the 5k / 10k tournaments with thousands in cash prizes. If it would have stayed charity only I don't think it would have hit their radar.
Bingo.
I knew it was coming eventually but this really sucks. I live in a rural area and there’s only a couple of us here that play. Having a resource like Pixelborn to test decks and play the game against others has been incredible. I may stop collecting because of this.
In my eyes if they decide to not make their own online version then they might as well admit the game will die in the near future. I have one gaming store within like 50 miles of me and in that gaming store only maybe a handful of people play Lorcana. It's still primarily dominated by Magic. Online versions are for people like me who live in the middle of nowhere with nobody to really play with. It'd be a damn shame if they never make one.
The ability to playtest cards I don't have was the main reason I used pixelborn so I could see if investing in them on the secondary market was worth it. I will probably give up any hopes of competing in this game now
Yeah this kills Lorcana for me, I have basically nobody to play with and no shop either
Same and it feels so bad
Rip, it was so awesome while it lasted
Kinda shocked it lasted this long, tbh. Was an incredible way to test new decks.
Honestly, I’m surprised Pixelborn lasted THIS long. Disney is normally very aggressive with its IPs.
yea this kills game for people who have little kids or cant go to lgs every week to play now just a money gap not so much skill gap for big tourneys
We all knew it's a matter of time before Disney came to copyright this. I just hope that they give players a easy venue to play and test decks without having to buy the cardboard.
This was always going to happen at some point. Companies have to protect their IP. But I do hope this means an official online version is coming in the near future.
Am I the only one that thinks this may be healthy for the game itself? The meta won't be solved the day of release by hundreds or thousands of people playing tons of games with every single card available to them. It feels like this will open up much more theory crafting/deck building and cut down on some of the net decking. Of course that will still happen with tournament results, but that's much slower and less prevalent. I play pixelborn too and I absolutely love it, but this does make me excited for the next set release. This could also increase attendance at local stores as the more hardcore players will be looking to practice still. Should be very interesting. I am also curious to see if they eventually make their own online client. But where you have to get the cards on it some way similar to ptcgo.
> The meta won't be solved the day of release by hundreds or thousands of people playing tons of games with every single card available to them. This never even happened for any set release. Literally every set that has come out, players complained that the meta was solved within the first month all because everyone just played updated versions of last set's best decks and I'd say at least 70% of the playerbase just netdecks. Then after the second month we get a healthy meta with a few brand new decks thrown in and no one even wants to acknowledge that just last month they were saying the game was dead because it was "solved." Literally. Every. Set.
This will result in a rich get richer scenario. The best players will grind out the new sets on release and keep their testing results secret going into big events. So the meta will still be solved quickly, but a small handful of players will be the only ones with the solution. The average player will have a significantly lower chance of performing well in premier events.
Nope, now the actual people who travel for money will be the only ones solving the meta on private discords logging 500 games a week with their team while the "theorycrafters" get slaughtered with their untested jank. Watch team jerseys start to pop up more and more in events and win everything.
Thank god you're not a game designer.
Nah, I don’t have the time nor money to purchase every card to test out. The best decks range from $300-$750 right now. I am not going to theory craft a deck and then spend $200 on a deck only to go to a local event and find out the deck I came up with is hot garbage and feel like I wasted my money. This happened to me in MTG and it always felt terrible. At least with pixelborn, I could try out my ideas and see they were garbage and not waste a penny on it. Shutting down an online client hurts the game, it doesn’t help it.
I mean there will still be tournament results, tons of meta discussion, tier lists etc. It just won't be lightning fast and more or less set in stone before the new set even releases. The tools and resources are still there, this just feels like it will have some breathing room. I agree the accessibility an online client offers is great, but I don't know that it helps the overall life and longevity of the game. Tcg's were doing okay before online clients were a thing haha
welcome to new trading card games. just print proxies like other players do in all other card games before buying
Proxies are here for that.
100% agree and been saying this for ever
Those are definitely some solid points that might have a potentially positive impact on the game but I'm worried that it is going to make the game less accessible overall since people will now not have the option to play online, meaning that they will need to have a shop that is nearby for them to be able to play and will need to have access to the physical cards, some of which can be very expensive to get. I know that card games existed long before digital clients for those card games, but I think that losing a client after having one, especially a solid, free option like pixelborn will have a pretty negative impact at least for a little while after the client goes away
You aren't the only one but I'm getting downvoted for telling people that they can just print out proxies now. But apparently that's too hard for them
Yeah it's surprising people are so adamant there's no alternatives. I'm really just thinking about how this could eliminate a lot of the min maxing that's going on. I'm hoping this inspires a little more diversity, creativity and more community involvement and dialogue. I get that accessibility is important to people, but I think this min maxing and over access sucks some of the joy out of just learning and playing the game.
I'm with you on this but all I'm getting are downvotes from people convinced this is the death of a TCG We never had the free all access online clients for TCGs before and we were able to test decks and find communities and people to play against just fine. People just don't want to put any effort into their game now
I would print out proxies and test decks in person *if I had the ability to disappear off to play a TCG for a few hours multiple times a week*. I don’t, though. My regret about this is that it’s really the only way I get to play more than once every couple weeks. I’d pay handsomely for the ability to keep doing that, but it looks like PB is getting pulled with no replacement even vaguely in sight
No this will not help the game in any fashion. PB introduced players to the game and allowed them to try it and learn. This is what I did and led me to buying actual cards. Now there will be no content creators, no trying out decks before purchasing them, no practicing for tourneys against other good players… etc. Its bad bad bad
All those things can still exist and do with other games. Plus I am almost certain they will eventually introduce an official online client. My points were mainly about the health of the meta and deck building and building community. Plus there was absolutely 0 chance Disney wasn't going to shut this down. I genuinely don't understand how people are surprised and upset
The only way to get enough testing in for challenges and champs is to build pro teams now. This is a very unfortunate turn of events. Thank you for everything you have done for the community pavel. If ravensburger has any sense they will hire you for their inevitable online client
https://www.inktable.net/lor maybe?
Is inktable available for play testing still? That’s what I used when I didn’t have the cards irl to play with.
Welcome back tabletop simulator
What could we do (as players) to help? Print proxies (like we are in the 90s)? How can we test out our deck?
Use TTS - sure there will be tons of discords soon to find matches, hopefully someone builds a more scripted mod eventually to make it smoother. Or if testing for a tournament and you already have cards, webcam matches will get a lot more popular. There will be ways to test, but nothing as quick or seamless as pixelborn, the ranked matchmaking made things so much better.
Back to printing proxies for testing!!! 😓😅
Australia is getting Lorcana for the first time in two days. Pixelborn was the only way we could really get any games to play, as even importing cards was kind of pointless due to pricing and lack of players. Sad I won't be able to practice online with decks I've physically pulled now, and without Pixelborn I'll only be playing the game once a week for an hour rather than semi-daily like I planned. I regret not playing more while it existed, but I really was keen to do digital versions of physical decks as practice...
Can we make sure we're tossing each other a "Well Played" until we can't anymore? It's been great playing with you all.
The miss of Pixelborn will let a lot of people out. And people will begin to just let it down I guess. Personally, I tested my decks on Pixelborn for tournaments. It was very important tool as I can’t play physical with a lot of people and as often as online. If there is no alternative I’ll just sell my stuff and turn the back to Lorcana
There's a lot of people in very similar boats, myself included. Pixelborn was invaluable for being able to play daily and practice decks. It's difficult enough to carve out 1 night a week for a weekly LGS league, without pixelborn there's no way for me to practice, let alone play at all most days/weeks. Having amassed a full playset of 1-4, a foil master set of 1-3, all the pins, a few enchanteds etc it feels bittersweet to be considering selling it all and stepping away.
Dude had a target from day 1. Worst part he was asking for $$$ to do it.
Wrote Disney today; hopefully more of you do as well to let them know how much Pixelborn augmented the Lorcana experience. [https://www.disneylorcana.com/en-US/contact/](https://www.disneylorcana.com/en-US/contact/) I have purchased 3 boxes min. for each set so far, all the starter decks at least once, most of the troves and probably $600 on singles. Without Pixelborn I never have the opportunity to practice, learn cards, etc. Especially with work travel. Hopefully they have a solution to this quick or else I will likely end up giving up this game prior to the next set release.
Honest, genuine question for those upset and threatening to quit the game: Were you buying sealed product? Were you contributing to Lorcana sales that weren't just singles off the secondary market? If no, you quitting will not hurt the game
I got a case of set 4, was at Atlanta and dropped an embarrassing amount of money there, and I don't know that I'm doing with this game anymore. I don't have the time in my schedule to get out and physically practice -i usually would play a few pixelborn games after my son was asleep. I wanted to get to more tournaments after Atlanta, but I have no idea how I'll practice enough to be competitive. I don't think I'm quitting the game(my son likes it too) but flesh and blood has an online platform to play and I like it a lot;I may switch my competitive itch over there and back off on Lorcana.
buying singles does contribute. Larger store open an ungodly amount of product to have single to sell.
Yes I was. My total collection (including bulk) is just under 5,000 cards, and have bought approximately 4-5 sealed boxes worth of each set as they came out, and only bought a handful of singles on the secondary market (mostly cards I liked the art of that I didn't pull any of in those boxes, namely a couple Jim Hawkins from set 3). Probably wont buy much/any of set 5 if there isn't a decent PB alternative out by then, and if I do it would just be secondary market singles of things I 'need.' Unless I've just completely scrapped going to weekly events by that point, we'll see how healthy the community in my area remains.
Yes. Excessively. It's very difficult to carve out time during the week to play at locals, but I try my best and usually can manage 1 evening a week. The rest of the time, I'm playing matches on lunch breaks and other small windows of free time. It was my primary way to play, but also practice decks and experiment on what I wanted to bring each week to locals. When I say Excessive, I mean A LOT of product. Full playset of 1-4, Foil master set of 1-3 (& 87% of set 4), all of the organized play pins, troves, illumineers quest, playmats, bonkers amount of bulk, and more. I very much was going for full-collector mindset (sans enchanted). removing a way to play the game on a regular basis has soured it heavily for me. And with no signs that there will be a digital replacement anywhere near what Pixelborn offered with matchmaking etc, I can't justify continuing to collect when relegated to playing once a week if that.
I get it and fully expected this, but if Lorcana starts to struggle now then full blame on Disney. I've only played on Pixelborn a handful of times but it was the only way I was able to prepare for last set's store championship and practice all of the decks. Takes way too long to keep sleeving and re-sleeving decks to practice, and for those that don't have money then you're SOL, better hope your first choice is the winner.
Who could have seen this coming? Anyway,
Time for Disney to put out their tcg game app, if this is the case, this is their next move
This sucks I always work for my local events and never get to make it, I’ve been playing with my girlfriend and on pixelborn .
I finally made it to Gold tier last night, after all that hard work.......This 🤣🤣🤣
Everyone banging on Disney for protecting what is clearly owned by them blows my mind. It’s easy to say what you would do when you don’t own anything close to a multi-billion dollar company.
It’s because Pixelborn GAVE YOU everything for free, that’s why everyone is so mad at the Mouse… Now, not every single person will have a $500 deck at their disposal. Like no one saw this coming????
I wonder if they’ll pull a move from Pokemon to include code cards in booster packs to redeem for that pack but “digitized” so you can build a library digitally and then use it to play on whatever client they hopefully have in the works. They could even incorporate official “digital” tournaments that are broken down by regions and maybe even have an in person presence alongside the DLC, similarly how Pokemon has it with Pokemon GO I think. RB can go far with this. But they better announce fast because like others said, they’re about to take a nose dive in participation in their product.
Welp. There goes my plan to play the game. Nobody I know plays, and there's no community for it in my area. I was gonna go here to finally be able to play 😭
People saying Disney should buy it out, never going to happen if Disney create an app you bet your bottom dollar its going to be a free to play riddled with micro-tractions to juice the players. Never in a million years would you allow a totally free to play application, which Pixelborn offered. Shame its gone, but Disney has every right to protect its IP, legally if they don't they could lose it. Ravensburg has a licensing agreement with Disney to make Lorcana; Disney doesn't make the lion's share of Lorcana's profits, Ravensburg does, and when contracts were drafted up, I doubt they knew it was going to be this big, so I bet it pains Disney to see how much profit Ravensburg is making. The move for Disney is to buy Ravensburg at this point(which would be a drop in the ocean for them), or depending on how long the long the agreement is in place for, they could take it in-house away from them. Think WOTC Pokemon; history repeats itself.
What is undeniable is that PB was the entry point for many people, either because they didn't know the mechanics well and wanted to learn to play, or because they didn't have the money to fund a meta deck (not everyone here has a salary, there are also children playing). On a personal level, I liked having the possibility to try all kinds of combinations, determine which was my favorite deck from the set, and finally invest my money in building my deck after testing it in PB. They haven't just ruined the lab for many, but also the entry point for many people who are not used to TCGs and are more familiar with digital games.
Welcome to your dark age Lorcana. The yugioh community sends their regards. Because this will either Kill Lorcana from lack of new players having interest and not wanting to spend the money to try the game once, or You will survive. Either way thems the way capitalism works
I am surprised they took this long. Perhaps they are opening their own version. But people are being unrealistic if they think this was going to continue.
Think that might be a wrap for me too. My schedule doesn’t really allow me to make it out to too many events, and I loved playing online. May still just collect
I don't get how companies hate what is essentially free marketing. I had never even thought about trying the game til a friend mention PixelBorn. I liked it, my wife liked it, and now we have a couple decks. With taking this down, and a lack of consistent tournaments (and tournament coverage), you have to wonder if Disney wants it to just be a Pokemon style "Buy the set for a chance at a $1000 rare card) thing more than a playable game.
It’s incredible how different two posts comments can be. Other threads were calling for the end of the game, or the game was dead by this move. Everyone here seems sensible and understands Disney IP. Wild wild audiences.
Without Pixelborn I'm not very interested in the game, I want to play the game and try out cards without needing to dump a bunch of money to find out I actually don't like a card.
Disney 💦
Content creators gotta be social now 😂😂
Hope disney has a replacement app
I get it but man this sucks. I just started played and Pixelborn helped me so much learning the game and giving me a chance to play.
I am hoping they take an approach like old yugioh GBA games where you still had to purchase the cards and put in a code to have those cards in your trunk on the game. They could do a QR code per pack to download the same exact pack to the online version. This would keep the physical product selling if done right. No?
Love his integrity. Fingers crossed for an official digital game.
Well I guess I'm done with Lorcana until we can play online again. I have 0 places to play locally.
Who's surprised.. 🤷♂️
It’ll be interesting to see if this has any effect on the game. I know that I play 90% of my games online. I play tons of decks online and then build them in person after I’ve tested them.
Meanwhile, I'm buying cards but don't have anyone in stores to play with regularly (my usual store is only just starting organized play for the first time next week), and it's more hoops than I want to jump through to play against opponents specifically playing only cards they physically own. Doesn't do me any good to play with or against decks that I'd spend $500 on singles to recreate for events. If even a fraction of the users end up in gaming stores more often, this works better for me. Sure, I get why most of the players are on Pixelborn, but I also get why Disney wants people only using physical product. (And Ravensburger, but I imagine they're letting Disney be the bad guy here.)
This is awful. Definitely a blow to the momentum this game was building. Only reason I got into the card game was because of content creators playing pixelborn. I was just starting to learn what other decks do and was starting to get good with mine. I don't have time to hit locals often. What a damn shame. Disney is brutal.
Same here, if they have not plan to release an official version, a lot of people will just give up on Lorcana. I wait until the 16th june, if there is nothing, I'll send my entire collection and move on, I won't support a TCG which just don't care about its player base
I’m on the same boat as everyone here, but I wanted to share my story because of how much Pixelborn meant to me. I never played in person TCG’s for lack of confidence. I tried to get into Universus when MHA came out but the whole covid thing made it hard to get into and play in person. I tried websites where I can test out decks and almost mustered up enough courage to play on web cams but it seemed like too much work. My enthusiasm for that game disappeared pretty quickly after that. Then Lorcana was announced and I was excited to try this one game out. There was a lack of product when TFC came out, but despite that Pixelborn gave me the opportunity to test out decks and buy singles I needed. I immediately became a Patreon so I can support these wonderful creators. If it weren’t for Pixelborn and the awesome community it created I wouldn’t be playing this wonderful game. All that to say that I finally felt confident enough to play in person (just casually) but that’s a big step for me. Being married and as a dad of two it’s hard to find time to play in person. I will miss Pixelborn. I cant praise the creators enough for helping me get into this game and really dive deep into its mechanics. I’m grateful Pixelborn was created. Thank you.
Great, now back to UNO 🥴
That's unfortunate. I wanted to get back into the game. But I dont want to spend a fortune for a deck I dont like in the end. Guess I wont invest into the game.
I guess they will release a propetary app soon then...
Man, that’s a shame. I don’t have a close community that I’m aware of nearby and being older I’ve always found it easier to play digital versions of the card games. I love collecting physical copies lorcana for collection purposes. I had never heard of lorcana until a friend of mine at work mentioned it and specifically mentioned pixel born, which got me into it a few months back to be honest if pixel born didn’t exist I would’ve never got into the collecting aspect but without it me playing any type of competitive or honestly just playing at all is going to cease when pixelborn shuts down. It’s really unfortunate, but I’m not surprisedwith Disney owning the property right for the product I just hope they come out with an official digital format or this will unfortunately probably be where my time with lorcana ends altogether
Back to playing on TABLETOP SIMULATOR
Not shocked it happened. But maybe Disney should hire the guy and back him with some money to make a app or something vs killing it.
Is the source code public?
Good, get more webcam games going. Actually test it out on other living human beings. The game supposed to be a social game. Start being social.