Diamond Has It Rough

Sun, 19 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not going to post here every time there’s a news story that interests me, but this one is something that could affect me (and likely, you) directly. Diamond Comic Distributors is the largest distributor of English-language comics, toys, games, collectables, etc. They have just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

This is going to have major repercussions. First of all, they owe many companies a lot of money. For example, they owe Hasbro (makers of Dungeons & Dragons and many other things) around $2m total. They owe others even more. So there’s going to be a lot of companies hit hard by this restructuring, if they rely on Diamond for most of their income, and now they’re only going to get a fraction of it. And what will those companies do? There aren’t many comics distributors out there, in part because Diamond bought up the competition years ago.

Speaking of what Diamond owns, they also owns a game distributor, Alliance Game Distribution, and that’s going to be acquired by another large game distributor, Universal Distributors. My guess is that small, indie games are probably going to suffer the most from this.

I’m not worried about the big players; Hasbro, Marvel (owned by Disney), DC Comics (owned by Warner Brothers), can afford distribution channels. No worries. But what about the small indie comics? I think like the games, they might find themselves in dire straights.

I hope this doesn’t lead to smaller game companies going under. There’s been an explosion of late of incredibly creative, innovative games and RPG supplements released by indie developers and small companies. I really hope this doesn’t curtail those people being able to make a real career of it.

Only time will tell. For now, we can only hope this is resolved quickly and without much fallout.

games on The Merton Folio

Diamond Has It Rough