The 'Digimon' fanbase is "very established", according to the UK tournament organiser.
The Japanese media franchise launched a trading card game almost 25 years ago and as the real-life tournament made its way to the UK Games Expo at the beginning of June, Tommy Roberts, Director of Organised Play Events, has expressed his surpriseDigi at the game's legacy all this time later.
He told Esports: "For specifically 'Digimon', it was interesting because it came out during the pandemic, so there were no in-person events. But we ran the 'Digimon' regionals here last year. It was very popular, it sold it very quickly at 256 players, which for a card game that’d been out and came out during the pandemic was very good, and the numbers have held strong over the last year. So, we had an Ultimate Cup which was held in Walsall in the Midlands. This year that sold out again quite quickly, and the event this year at UK Games Expo also did very well. So yeah, the online presence has definitely transitioned over to people playing in person.
"So we had BSS, DBS, One Piece and Digimon on top of that. One Piece and BSS being the newest releases. It doesn’t seem to affect Digimon’s attendance too much, it still seems to be going pretty strong. One Piece especially is very strong. One Piece is very strong at the moment, it’s had a very good launch. Most of those events sell very well and we usually hit capacity quite quickly, which is good. But Digimon is still going strong. For a card game, how long it’s been out, it kind of hit the period now like “how long will it do in the future?” It still seems to be doing pretty strong. The player base seems very established and it’s great to see."
Tommy went on to add that he is working "very closely" with other gaming developers for various events and teased that more is on the way soon as he admitted that the company is always looking at different options to expand.
He added: "We’re always looking to expand. We’re working quite closely with Bandai for their events in the UK. Not for Digimon but for BSS we have a Grand Open [event] at the beginning of July. There’s nothing else we can talk about for Digimon at the moment but we’re always looking to do more events. Seeing as the community is still pretty strong, I’m sure we are going to be doing something again soon."