Upper Deck Wins Major Victory in Support of Worldwide Yu-Gi-Oh! Players

This is from UDE's site, so I guess Konami is not taking over the TCG after all:

1Upper Deck Wins Major Victory in Support of Worldwide Yu-Gi-Oh! Players

U.S. and International courts side with Upper Deck in multiple legal actions involving Konami and the future of Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Games.

North Las Vegas, NV (December 27, 2008) – A California court has denied Konami’s application for a temporary selling and shipping ban, effectively stopping any restrictions that would have prevented Upper Deck from marketing, selling, distributing and providing game support for the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game.

The Dutch courts also ruled in favor of Upper Deck, overruling Konami’s alleged termination of its contract with Upper Deck. Accordingly, Upper Deck will continue its role as the exclusive distributor of the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game in all European territories, plus Australia and New Zealand. The complete release announcing this decision can be found at http://www.upperdeck-international.com/tabid/56/language/en-US/Default.aspx?AnnouncementID=11

Both victories clear the way for Upper Deck to continue distributing, marketing and selling Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG products in territories outside of Asia. “Upper Deck is very pleased with today’s rulings”, said Upper Deck executive Bernd Becker. “We look forward to continuing the superior game support that we’ve been delivering to worldwide Yu-Gi-Oh! players for the last seven years."

The unparalleled game support Upper Deck has provided to dedicated Yu-Gi-Oh! players around the world has led to another successful year for the trading card game, as evidenced by the current product sell-out. "This is as much a victory for the Yu-Gi-Oh! players as it is for Upper Deck," said Becker.

Source: http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/ude/en/articles.aspx?aid=5072
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Click to expand...
Just thought I'd let you all know, My local shop just told me that while they won't be holding a sneak peek they WILL begetting five boxes of Crimson Crisis for sale.

Apparently the US packs will mirror the Japanese packs, the card count has been lowered to FIVE cards per pack.

Of course this also means that the price per pack has dropped, in my area that's roughly a $1.50.
 
Does that still result in the same value for money, though?

I have to say, 5 cards per pack is hopelessly low. I'll bet the rare pull rates suffer for this (if they don't, then I'll be amazed).
 
Of interest to note...all Yugi related forums have been removed from the UDE forums site, minus the Spanish speaking rulings. I wonder if this means Curtis finally gets to take a breath and relax.
 
If he's not still holding it in anticipation of he'll be doing now. There are still plenty of other games for him to give answers for, but none as exhaustive (or exhausting) as YGO!
 
This all rather sounds like Konami won a cease and desist order in some court hearing somewhere, at least temporarily, doesn't it?

This is probably going to play out over a number of months, or perhaps years...
 
Okay, seems my local shops distributor gave him the wrong info.

The Crimson packs never arrived. Instead he got the Yusei Duelist packs so the main set card ratio seems unchanged.

Managed to get a box of DP Yusei for myself though.


Pulled all of the foils which I guess is supposed to happen in each box, I like Armory arm, Tuning Ware and Fortress warrior.
 
Oooo, sweet! Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I think I saw news where Konami is still planning to release Crimson Crisis -- just probably not quite as soon as Upper Deck was planning to -- they probably have to get some ducks in a row to do all this after all. (Distribution, orders, trucks, invoices, little factory floor dweebs to stick cards in packs -- or at least run the machine that does so...)

Upper Deck just filed a new countersuit against Konami -- or perhaps new paperwork in the current one -- it came up in a google news search, but no details, just the notice of it being entered in Nevada courts on some site that tracks legal stuff.

The forums in English seem to be dead at Upper Deck, however yesterday the banned/limited list was still up and earlier today the rule book was accessible. It's down now, but it is up at http://www.yugioh-card.com/en/ so they seem to be changing over even as we speak. I think both companies are scrambling, one to take things down and one to put things up. I'd say one's complying with a judge's order, and the other is trying to keep their customers happy as fast as possible.
 
And that, of course, reflects Upper Deck's spin on it. Just as Konami's, when they get their response out (probably in a couple of days) will reflect their spin, which will no doubt represent this as the best thing since sliced bread, just as Upper Deck is representing it as the collapse of the universe. Of course it is probably neither....

It is important to remember that this is partly propaganda, meant to make one company look like the good guy and the other the bad guy. Which one is which, of course, depends on which company is doing the writing. For something less biased, probably try the Wall Street Journal. Or Forbes, or Business Week. Sooner or later, this may make its way into their pages. It is, after all, at its heart, a story about businesses sueing each other over business matters. Someone, somewhere, supplied counterfeit cards that got repackaged and sold with booster packs in a blister pack through Toys-R-Us. The reseller was named in a suit, and apparently passed the blame on, at least in part, to Upper Deck, and Konami is trying to yank the contracts on the basis of that. It may take years to figure out. It probably will take years for the lawyers to straighten out. Who knows if the truth will ever come to light?

However in the meantime, I bought two packs of cards last fall, one for me and one as a gift, at the local TRU that are almost identical to the ones they are showing at http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/13988.html as the ones with alleged fakes found in LA -- the only difference is ours here came with Water Dragon and White Horned Dragon only, but not the third card -- and, guess what? Based on the news article descriptions, I'd say, yeah, I have a fake Water Dragon; the words and millenium eye in the little square on the bottom right are printed vertically, not horizontally. Oddly enough, the White Horned Dragon is possibly okay; there at least is nothing obviously wrong and it would take someone with a lot more experience than me to prove it as either fake or genuine... (OOPS, no... please see my edit below....)

In the meantime, I hope the transition goes smoothly and quickly. A friend and I are trying to start a league -- wrote to Upper Deck last fall and got some info, but then a local store said they'd offer Hobby League support -- that lasted about a month and a half, but then after Christmas the owner decided to close on Sundays which was when we were meeting (it was economic - he wasn't making any money on Sundays, or not enough to break even anyway....), so now we are at the local library, with a meeting room and about a dozen committed players, but -- ack!? we have to take a test? -- uh, well, uh, ummm, we've been :hrm: putting that off dragging our feet being lazy making excuses uh, well, let's just say (ack! a test?!?!?) we just haven't gotten around to that yet. :good: So maybe our ESP was working, because we probably would have had to start the whole process over anyway.... -_-() So now I have another email in to Konami asking what to do and where to start. Maybe someday we'll have official play. In the meantime, our unofficial group at the library keeps growing. I don't know if any of us have a clue what we're doing, but we are trying....

Edit: Okay, I was wrong. I checked with my friend's daughter, who got the other package I bought, and she not only remembered that the packs here also came with three rare bonus cards, she remembered what the third card was. Like the pack pictured in the news story, the ones here had Water Dragon and White Horned Dragon. The one in the news story has a third monster pictured that I do not recognize and cannot make out the name of, but no doubt one of you can identify. The packs we both got had Mist Body included in place of that third monster.

So, I go through my cards, because I know I have a Mist Body somewhere and I figure I'd better check it -- and lo and behold I have Two White Horned Dragons, and Two Mist Bodies -- the White Horned Dragon I looked at and referred to earlier is okay -- but, guess what...? Yep, got it in one, the other one also looks to be bad, and the same goes for the Mist Bodies. One is good, I pulled it during the McDonald's Happy Meal promotion, the other came in this package, and it's almost certainly fake as well. Son of a gun....


2nd edit: Looks like the card in the package shown in the ICv2 news article graphic is Destiny Hero Dreadmaster in Ultra Rare....
 
Last edited:
Dark Star said:
This all rather sounds like Konami won a cease and desist order in some court hearing somewhere, at least temporarily, doesn't it?

This is probably going to play out over a number of months, or perhaps years...
Click to expand...

Ah, ha -- told you some court was involved in it somewhere, didn't I? Hot off the presses, see: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14421.html

(I really should have better things to do than read this stuff in the wee hours of the morning, shouldn't I?)
 
I doubt it -- remember, neither of them wants to see the game die; if that happens they lose a lot of money...

What it probably means is there are going to be some delays in cards being released. Upper Deck was going to release the upcoming boosters sometime in -- was it more or less mid-February? Now Konami is targeting the date of Feb 28-Mar 1 or so. A slight delay to get their distribution up and running, but far faster than one might expect. (Could you pull it off that fast? I couldn't...)

Upper Deck is now trying to countersue Konami for trademark infringement saying the little square in the bottom right hand corner of the cards is covered under their trademark rights, if I understand it right. Following the details of that argument probably takes a background in trademark law and access to the court briefs, so I'm not touching it, but I can see where it may simply be a delaying move, or jockeying for position, or a "our lawyers can beat up your lawyers" type filing that has more to do with one corporation trying to outglare and outpsych the other and less to do with what is actually on the paperwork. Konami has a handful of options to respond to that, including ignore it (till some court tells them not to, anyway), file their own countersuit, print a different mark (that would take a little time to set up at the printing plants, but probably not much), etc., etc., etc....

But totally killing the cards for a long period of time -- what happens to the game then? Both Konami and Upper Deck risk everyone quitting to play -- oh, Magic, or Pokemon (those Walmart 8 year olds are a fickle bunch), or Bakugan or Chaotic or World of Warcraft or Dungeons and Dragons, or even 5-card stud or Monopoly. And then whoever wins the battle just lost the war because they just lost a lot of money. Every $5 (or pounds, yen, deutschmarks, your choice...) you put into bakugan balls or the poker pot is $5 that you didn't spend on Yugioh cards and neither corporation will want to risk that happening. It's not in either one's best interest.

So I'll go out on a limb, which I never, ever do, and predict that cards will still be around, but that booster pack releases will possibly have some delays. And that the dates of release in Europe won't necessarily match those in North America because they are dealing with a different set of courts -- so far I think Upper Deck still has the upper hand (bad pun, I know...) in Europe, it did till last week in North America, I have no idea about South America, and Konami always ran the game in Asia (I believe) so the card releases in the OCG and the TCG have never exactly matched anyway. I don't know if the card release dates actually matched in Europe and America anyway -- video game release dates didn't always, but I really don't have the experience to say about cards.

Someone out there with more experience of the organized game (which is probably pretty much everyone on this forum...:rolleyes:) care to chime in on this?
 
Last edited:
I remember bringing up with great suspicion the Vintage cards to UD way back when (oops?). Now they're all gone and a company called Fairfield is selling aftermarket YGO sets. I can't help but wonder if it isn't just Vintage redeux.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top