Covenant Updates

Covenant Fulfilled, Indie Distribution That Works

Today, we’re launching our Covenant Fulfilled platform for Alpha Clash, Gudnak, Sorcery, and Warlord, with more to follow. Fulfilled is a solution for local game stores and communities who cannot get the products they need to support indie games—something that the current distribution model is incapable of providing.

Early Covenant

We know the latter is true because we were that local game store from 2012 to 2020, putting our hearts and souls into events and community just to be allocated by distribution or undercut by lifeless flippers selling large volumes of product for just over our cost. Since that time, we’ve been working on Fulfilled in the background, and it's a particularly good time to launch it given the current state of Sorcery’s Gothic set—a perfect example of the failed ecosystem that local stores have to use.

There are stores hosting Sorcery events every week, but distribution is out of Gothic boxes. How can Erik’s Curiosa get products to those stores without the flippers buying it all up and dumping it on TCGPlayer to increase their monthly spend? How does Alpha Clash enforce their Champion Store program? How does Warlord make sure their Overlord kits don’t just go straight to eBay? How does Gudnak even get a distributor to care about a non-collectible indie game, even if it’s incredible?

Retail quote

Fulfilled is frustratingly simple. Any local game store can create a Fulfilled account and then apply for the game line they want to sell. That request goes directly to the publisher, who then approves or denies the application (requesting additional information via email if needed). When approving the application, the publisher sets monthly volume limits, discounts, and terms (including Net 30). Then the approved store can order as desired, with free US shipping—or discounted international shipping—on every order.

Publishers have full control over where every product goes, and local stores get what they need without allocation, regressive bundling, or total spend requirements. It’s a system built expressly to support local community instead of maximizing short term profit.

If you’re a local game store interested in seeing what Fulfilled is all about, head to the Fulfilled website ->

There are a number of ways that Fulfilled properly aligns the incentives for indie publishers and local game stores. The basic thesis that this industry often forgets is that publishers give significant discounts to game stores so that they have product on hand to onboard new players and to continually engage existing players through local gatherings (which often require product for prize support or limited play).

In the current system, stores are incentivized to buy indie card games and sell them as soon as they can, for any amount of profit, so they can stay in a higher buying tier with their distributor. This ensures they get more Magic, Pokemon, and the rest, because traditional distribution is based simply on sales volume and total spend.

With Fulfilled, there are no quotas or volume incentives—and monthly ordering limits prevent bad actors from dumping product. Additionally, publishers can easily deny or revoke applications with the click of a button, so real partners aren’t competing with the aforementioned fire sellers.

In the current system, a store’s relationship with their rep determines the fate of their business. Third parties that are not invested in the success of any given game either give a store “hot products” to sell or perpetually allocates them—all based on how much they spend and how much they like the owner.

With Fulfilled, stores work directly with publishers. The more a store supports a publisher and helps them succeed, the more that publisher rewards the store with higher monthly purchase limits, better discounts, and better terms.

In the current system, stores need to strategically order so that they reach free shipping thresholds. This often means bare shelves for one game until a store sells enough of the others to justify a new order.

With Fulfilled, everything ships for free (in the US). Stores just order what they need, when they need it, without worrying about their order total.

In the current system, stores login to a slightly dressed-up distributor spreadsheet that requires them to reserve product in arcane ways, with buggy systems and a mix of non-functional inputs and bloated webpages—to say nothing of the automated emails. Oh, and you might not actually get the thing that you “ordered” if it becomes too popular.

With Fulfilled, you interact with a modern web stack that has the features you expect in 2026:

Covenant Fulfilled has already been tested for over a month by Alpha Clash and their Champion Stores (thank you all!) and is now ready for primetime. We’re thrilled to be trying something new, even with its own wrinkles, after decades of the hardest working stores just losing to high volume accounts. We hope you’ll let your local store know, or, if you run your local store, that you’ll apply today.

When we were running our local game store, in the throes of anger at the status quo, we promised ourselves that we would build a system that actually helps incredible publishers and local stores who care—no matter their size. Consider that promise Fulfilled.