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Timekeeper's Terreno
“New Game on the Block”
August 22, 2006

Okay, welcome to Timekeeper’s Terreno. Terreno is Italian for ‘country’, and before I get floods of emails about it, yes, I am Italian. No, I do not live in Italy. I live in America. I was born in Jersey, just to clear things up.

Naruto is, essentially, the new big hit on the card game block. Much like Yu-Gi-Oh! And Pokémon before it, Naruto is going to have it’s ups and downs. One down that is already being spotted by fans (especially on the Pojo Message Boards) is that it is owned by Bandai.

Now, you may ask “Why is this a bad thing”? Well, Bandai here is notorious for discontinuing card games quickly. Digimon, Gundam, One Piece, Teen Titans, and more have all been one sided for Naruto, which I for one take as a good sign.

The Naruto CCG has some good Organized Play set up for it, with Pre-Release events already happening (and it was for the second set!). Bandai’s site itself is actually very helpful and useful, especially with a, supposedly, good ranking system.

Naruto is different than other card games. It’s original, with various play setups and deck styles already presentable with only two sets out. As of this writing, there are no cookie cutter decks, but “Water/Lightning Zabuza Control” (a decktype I happen to run) seems to be growing in popularity. With future sets, however, I predict that water in general will take a small dive (excuse the pun) because the sets need to focus on what’s “hot” in the anime. You can already see that is present in Coils of the Snake, which begins to focus on Orochimaru and other characters that enter in the Chunin Exam Arc of the animé.

Now, another thing I want to talk about is supply and demand. Now, before you all groan and say this has been done to death, I think it needs to be brought up. The number of booster packs and starter decks produced by Bandai (the supply) can’t even attempt to keep up with the amount of booster packs and starter decks the players of the game (the consumers) want to buy (the demand).

This causes a general lack of knowledge about the existence of the game. I didn’t know the game was even any good or had a following until I decided to pick up a starter deck and give it a shot. I figured it would be like plenty of other card games (Pokémon, NeoPets, Teen Titans, etc.) that I’d buy once (or in Pokémon’s case, a lot of times over the years) and never give it a second look ever again. Boy, was I wrong.

Bandai needs to step up a notch with advertising about this game. Start plugging ads on television while the Naruto animé is playing, or add a short mention of it to the Naruto toy commercial. Whatever it takes to get more players into the game. The higher the demand, the higher the supply will become, in an attempt to keep up with the demand.

Naruto, as a game, is still in it’s infantry. But being based around an anime mega-hit in Japan (that is still going strong, especially considering the anime isn’t going anywhere any time soon in America) it has the potential to last quite a while. And by getting word out there, the game can become the next Yu-Gi-Oh! Or Pokémon.

Do you have any questions, comments, or feedback about this article? You can email me at TimekeeperX@Yahoo.com and I’ll be sure to send out a reply.