So today i was told that my local game store, where i play ufs is no longer going to stock the game. When i inquired as to why the awnser was simple, there is no player base anymore. So after brooding for a good 5 minutes at the loss of my game of choice I came to the conclusion that ufs is slowly going the way of the dodo bird, that is extinct. Now I ask you, my fellow ufs enthusiasts, what do you think. Is ufs dying? or just taking a brief sabatacle to get its head back on track. Either way i want to hear what your collective veiws are on this subject.

spyke132 said:

There have been shops that have refused to stock UFS since the 2nd expansion, citing the same reason yours provided.

Every few months we see a thread like this.

There are stores who have players like yourself, who want to buy UFS, but they refuse to bring it in. "They don't want to take a risk on the back stock sitting on their shelf."

Does it suck? Yes. I'm sure if you said to your store owner "I'd like you to bring in X boxes of UFS, I'll buy them." He would probably be willing to do so. If he has players who are willing to buy the product, and he's still not willing to bring it in, then there are usually other reasons at work.

Delayed releases, terrible prize support, diffuculty of obtaining certain cards, etc... Some people can't take it. I love the game to death and will stick around as long as possible. But the thing that truely pisses me off is how much promo charcters suck ass!! Remember Promo Ryu, Sakura, Tira, Adon, Blanka, Cassie Cody, Nakaruru, Ukyo, Rock? Now promo characters for the most part blow ass!

dont get me wrong i love ufs and i love playing it, what im not likeing right now is the lack of people trying the game in my area, couple that with a dwindling number of sales at my local game store and the picture that it paints for ufs is not a pretty one. now my next big worry is that soon i wont have a playgroup to play with, once that happens ufs in my area will be dead and i dont want that, now the question becaomes how can i try to save the game in my local area.

spyke132 said:

Do you have a scout/tournament organiser working out of your local store running demos to new players? If no, maybe you could do it?

The simple, honest fact is that without promotion in store, sometimes players get pulled away to other games, and if a store owner doesn't see anytning happening for a game, they may well stop stocking it, especially in these difficult economic times.

Ask the store owner if he'd mind you having a push on UFS one Saturday or something. Get a load of demo decks from FFG, sit down and demo the game to anyone that's willing to sit in front of you. If you need any advice, there are plenty of us old-timers that have done this many many times

Kev

yes we do have a scout for ufs at my local store, but hes not real into doing demos, or at least i havent seen him doing any. i like the part about getting a crap load of demo decks nd playing anyone who sits in front of me, but deciding on a certian day of the week to do is a bit hard as i have a weird work schedule. but i will try and work something out with the store owner about it. thanks for the advice

spyke132 said:

You're more than welcome mate, and best of luck getting things going again!!

Kev

Immortal-JyNxX said:

For good reason. Steve said it best; the best cards should come from the sets.

Besides, all those promo characters that "suck" have a 4 point shuriken, so I'm not even sure if Hata was the designer for those. I say let's wait a while and see what comes out as a promo (with 5 point shuriken) next.

Dude, I sympathise entirely. I live in Swindon (or Vanilla Land if you see the place!) UK, and I had a real nightmare of a time getting anywhere. I demoed at three different shops (repeatedly at me main one), I bought stock from them, I offered prizes, free decks, designed posters, gave out promo's, all sorts of stuff, with little result. But I stuck it out, kept travelling to play as much as possible (lets face it guys, the UFS player base is one of the nicest bunch of folks in the Universe!) and just to keep meself going, coz I love this game and don't want to see it die. Plus the help of a very cool store owner and two of teh UK's top players (stand up and take a bow Mr Tuesday and Mr c pyrotechnic a!)

Then, two weeks ago, a break through, a (fairly) new shop opened locally, filled with Mgc and Ygh players, turns out a LOT of them love the video games. Needless to say, I've now booked at least two tourneys for August there, pop in every week to play the new guys and basically haven't been happier. Several new players, with few people saying "Yeah, maybe I'll give it a try"

All I'm saying mate, is persevere. Its tough sometimes, but just keep trying. Change the format, try new things, offer help. If the scout isn't able (or willing) to help, ask if he wouldn't mind you taking the reins for a bit, get some demo's going, maybe bring a few old players along and make it look like your really having a blast and tempt some other players across.

A lot of things won't help. Late prize support, unhelpful shop owners, hectic work/life schedules, people just not bothering or paying lip service ("yeah I'll be here next Wednesday"......... haven't seen them since) but when it all comes together, it will be all the sweeter.

Me new play group may fall apart in a couple of months, other games may call them back or the y may just lose interest. But I'm gonna do me best to fight it, and keep those new people playing a game I love. Sorry if I sound like an annoying optismist (ask Mr Tuesday, boundless energy is my forte! Oh, and a bladder the size of a peanut) but thats the way I see all threads like this: a cry for people to step up and say "I STILL LOVE THIS GAME PLAY PLAY PLAY!!!!" and show that the game is far from ever dying!

Good luck dude, play for the love of it and just have a blast!

Cheers all

Fiddlestix *dons anti-pessimism hard-hat and post-flame retardant underpants*

Here's to Hoping the best cards do come from the sets. I have won (at least local) tournaments in 18 different CCGs. The ones that die are the ones that you can't get cards for. NOTHING is more frustrating to players then being simply unable to compete because they couldn't go to gencon to get a hand-out promo that's now $30+ or buy enough boxes of starters....*BRT*.

I have played competetively in a lot of games. won a couple regionals in MTG a while back, one states a few years ago, money'd some grand Prix's lived off of UDE's prize money in vs for about a year.

I know manage a Game store in madison, and had managed one in MN prior to this job. I had UFS players in MN, but they quit because they couldn't compete at events with the promo's. They play magic now. Games that make that error just feed WOTC, honestly. People find a liscenes they like, get upset at the company, but still want to play a CCG, so they play magic. it's what happens.

Exclusive Promo's have pissed off more player's then anything else companies ever do. The ultimate truth of CCGs is that you make cool versions of cards that the big collectors/pride players will chase, Alternate art, extended art, foil, maybe even All 3.

The best way to do promo's is easy. Take a look at your regionals, get some decklists. look for the 5 most popular cards, choose the most valuable one. Make an alternate art or Extended art foil of it. give it out as a prize. Profit. For door prizes (entry prizes) you do the same thing, just with the lower valuable card that see a lot of play. White magic, Blinding Rage, Makai High Noble, Shooting Capoera, Aquakenisis. who would be pissed off if they got Extended art foils of any of those cards? or if they didn't and someone else did.

Oh well I have said this on a bunch of forums. The people at game companies are smart enough to realize that WOTC does it right, but they are oftan to stubborn to "copy" a succecssful model.

Keys to a successful cardgame.

1. Bring new players into gaming. IE if you are trying to steal from other games yours has already failed. expecting people to make an investment and forgoe their previous one is relatively foolish.

2. Have a Good organized play system. tournaments sell cards, leagues sell cards. People just playing for fun just proxy cards or don't care...when an event is structured this changes now there is something on the line, a little more investment can have a positive EV (expected value).

3. Cards that are blanket staples should be common, or Fixed in starters. (See L5R starting holdings.)

4. Cards that people need very few copies of should be higher rarity or fixed in starters. (personally I would love to see every starter come with 2-3 diff versions of it's character, and keep them out of packs. but making them URs would be fine also. as normal rares I feel like I opened nothing everytime I open a character, this is discouraging to buying packs.)

5. Make cards accessible. single printings of sets is fine as a baseline, but when there is enough demand reprinting that set might be a good idea. Especially if there are multiple staples of a resource in it. saying "hi new players, sorry you can't really play this resource until rotation cause you can't get x cards..." not condusive to bringing those players in.

FFG has done very well at #1. The UFS license is excellent. organized play is decent, the scouts program is relatively effective.

Stores are unwilling to stock it because there aren't enough players. I have players at my store, but even so I'll have to reduce the amount I stock in a tigher economy because frankly UFS doesn't turn over that well. if I get 2 boxes when a set comes out, I will likely sell one of those boxes sealed, and sell 5-10 loose packs from the other. it's likely that I will sell more boxes over time, but I'll be given enough prior notice that I can easily order them.

IS UFS a dying game no. but it's certainly a fringe game. There is potential for it to push more into the mainstream and be a solid 2nd teir game. in the realm of WoWccg, l5r, pokemon. MTG/YGO are hard to catch. Card accessiblity and organized play are the major requirements to reach that goal.

Organized play includes decklists, interviews with the players, little mini-bio's of the players. People who are trying to learn about the game and can't find any info...painful.

I almost didn't start playing because I couldn't find any good information on what the tournement scene's were like it was difficult to figure out what cards were getting played when I couldn't find lists anywhere. and it's hard to learn a game at a competive level if you don't have a chance to figure out what sees play. Sometimes you don't understand why cards are good right away, getting beaten into submission by good players isn't always the most fun way to learn.

I know there are a million gamers out there who know how it should be done, but I have cited examples of companies who do it well. I love FFG, I feel the production value is excellent, I like this game and I would like it to thrive.

- Ben Rislove.

/Puts on Antigoth costume

*STAMP* for Brislove and Antigoth.

Seriously, when things got financially tough, I told our store owner exactly what we would be able to buy, he ordered it, we bought it, and everyone was happy. They're not loosing money on product, we have a way to bring in new players, and the relationship with the store strengthens knowing that we stick to our word and supported the store.

As the scout in Austin, as much as I love an intense game, it is personally more satisfying to teach someone how to play and watch them get better. Hayamachop (like anyone else) had no clue how to play when first starting out. He has improved so much. He actually totally came up with the idea for our 1st place Double Dragon team, that I was proud to play with him. In a struggling economic period, and when the game's future is somewhat unclear, I just want you to know that you CAN bring in new players. I hope you stick it out and end up fairing better soon, man.

Hey, this is andrew right?? What local store isnt stocking it anymore?? Not worlds right? we were there last night and Mark didnt say anything. Skyfox?? They havent stocked in a long time cuz Marv pushes his customers away, and more stuff that would be better said in person.

and if this ISNT andrew... well **** nvm and good luck

ROTBI said:

We've been doing that with our owner for years over multiple CCG's.

Additionally something else that we've done to support our shop - is once every few months we hold a legacy event where we do booster draft with old product that isn't moving. He cuts us a deal on it, and moves a bunch of boosters that he wouldn't sell normally.

What our shop normally does it gets each of us to commit to how many boxes we are definately going to purchase, then orders another one or two at most to sell through as an open box of boosters. If it sells through, he then brings in one box at time, until it finally "stops moving" at which point after a long time, it becomes a candidate for the legacy drafts.

Yeah like Linky there said. Mark'/Ross is all about ordering us in product if we buy what he has on the shelves. Obviously with almost all the Shadowwar and SC starters collecting dust, he's not gonna buy more of those. Same with packs. He's got a crap ton of packs that aren't the newest Soul Calibre and as such aren't being bought. Obviously he's not going to order more if it's just gonna sit there.

In my humble opinion, UFS will survive and thrive IF and only IF it can make it through 2009.

I remember the first year of UFS, 2006. The 2 first sets were unevenly designed, but it was expected, considering this was a new game with a completely new play style. Some cards caused major problems, but they were rather quickly banned. Void was strong, but considering that during most of the year, people had only 2-4 sets (+Penny Arcade) to play with, it would make sense to design the first few sets using fewer symblos so that there could be more variety in decks and everyone could get enough cards to be able to make 1 symbol decks. When SF/SNK were released, the game had become quite playable. Void was the strongest resource, but building Earth, Water, or Life decks that tried to get around Void's strengths was a fun challenge, and also actually feasible.

Then came the horror of 2007. Suddenly, instead of giving some more power to aggro, STG (at the time) gave aggro WAY TOO MUCH power. Whereas in 2006, Multiple attacks were few and far between, and difficult to actually set up and win with, Multiple attacks and gaining momentum became way too easy with Dark Path/Soul Arena. And the crazyness went on and on with next few sets. I realized at this point, that if this game was to become popular, it would need to have fewer 1 card kills and more strategy. We would have to wait 2 years for the 2007 cards to leave the field and possibly create a stable play environment. Well, I was wrong.

2008 came and brought us what I believe to be the greatest fiasco in the game. More power cards that were symply "broken". Most people tend to forget what "broken" means, nowadays. "Broken" means that the game actually becomes broken. And when your game is broken, you can't play with it anymore. And if you can't play it, you leave it. And play another game. One that works. I still cannot believe that cards like Feline Spike or Addes Syndicate would see the light of day. It is beyond my understanding. Luckily, someone decided to take control of card design and turn it around. Still, it was already too late, as we would necessarily have to wait until February 2010 for these 2008 cards to leave the field. Overpowered and broken cards aplenty for 3 years. Disappointing.

Now, we're in 2009. SCIV and Shadowar, by themselves, are absolute wonders. We're back to the basics. High reward comes with high risk, unlike what the game gave us for 3 years. Most attacks are playable, with a 3-check and they mostly aren't too strong. There's only 1 attack that's 5 dmg Multiple3 and that's it. Gone is the era when you would throw away half the cards in every pack because they were worthless 2-check attacks. There are some cards to watch, as they are borderline too strong, but if you try playing with five-bladed shuriken cards only, with only 2 sets, they aren't broken yet. Blocks are absent from almost all foundations, which brings back a lot of strategy to the game. Let's hope the next few sets don't break this beautiful harmony, and if they don't, then this game will be able to survive.

It will take time to rebuild its reputation, but once we have stable gameplay (and if the next few sets are similar to the two last ones we will), people will start liking the game again.

Link said:

yeah it is me mike, i was told directly by mark that all ufs is 50% off and that the store was no longer going to stock it, i was told this on thursday

both of the stores in our area have decided to stop stocking UFS, due to lack of player base, once again i show up to play the same 3-4 guys every week....i just have a bad feeling

Awaken said:

its the same situation for me mate, i play the same people over and over, after a while it starts to grate on you. that is why i plan to change that by doing demo to anyone who will try it, hopefully that will pan out and a newer, better and more diverse player base will be built, and if that happens then maybe the store at which i play at will try restocking ufs

guitalex2008 said:

Not a good idea at all. Getting nice promos is the incentive to play local events. Crap promos = empty events..

I will talk to mark today, and confirm everything, although the last time I spoke with him, we spoke about the situation with UFS, it's dwindling playerbase, and how much profit it is creating for World's Collide, and the amount of stock they have from people not buying cards, and people not coming out on thursdays to play UFS.

At the end of the day, I am fairly certain that all that has been posted here is accurate as he did give me a warning on wednesday about this happening, and I informed him of my situation with the game (lack of interest). I'll email you guys about this, or I'll find out for sunday and let you guys know exactly what is happening with this game and how much support World's Collide is willing to give.

the problem in this area is the game has no support, Scuba goes out of his way as well as myself to recruit new players but the game has such a bad reputation here that its hard to recruit any new players, we have tried for the last 2 years to grow the game, but everytime we get people excited about it, FFG drops the ball on some release or promotion and it all falls apart, or people get interested for a day or two and then find something else to do....The stores in this area wont stock anymore because once the UFS players buy their two boxes or whatever the product sits on the shelves and rots untill rotation and then becomes useless. Between both local stores here there are probably 12 to 13 boxes of older product that the store owners cant move at even a dollar a pack....its sad....i have seen over the last couple of years this game has slowly faded, i continue to beat the horse but it wont move anymore....and my arms are getting tired from swinging the stick....

My shop owner says the same thing, "If you can bring in enough people to buy the merchandise, I will purchase it."

Horvath's bold move to distinctly sell the game in "brick and mortar" stores is one thing, and then it's general lack of advertisement, IMO, is its biggest facet.

However, all we can continue to do is spread the game we always have.

"Like fighting games? Remember the days of pitting your RAW-YU versus their Dhalsim? Well then try this new card game." That very mentality is what has gotten most of us into it, the other one is, "Since we're all bored, let's learn how to play a fun ass game."

"Waka waka, who wants to hear a funny-ass joke?"

Just to let the customer's of World's Collide know:

I just got off the phone with the game's manager of World's Collide, and "officially" I am posting this on his behalf.

World's Collide will not be stocking anymore UFS. There is too much product on the shelves and the playerbase is too small (only 5 players realistically, with 1-2 who buy product at the store) with the lose of Kin and myself (still very much on the fence here). When set 12 came out, only 2 players bought boxes at all from the store, which were myself and spyke123. From these results, UFS does not seem like a wise financial investment from their point of view.
WC is willing to pre-order product, but they will no longer be setting up binders and I will not be pricing them, WC is also now missing a dedicated scout as I have told him my position on the game, but as long as there is weekend tournaments being played, I will make sure there is promos by emailing the proper people.
From what I know WC will not actively support UFS, but if the customers wish to purchase a product, it will be ordered for you as long as you ask. With regards to thursday nights, if you guys come out, the store will stay open, if not then it will close at it's ussual hour of 8pm. For now, thursday night will still be CCG night as long as there are people staying, this may change in the future though. The sunday tournaments will not change in anyway.
If I find out anything else, I will post here or email you guys personally or msg via facebook/msn etc.

I think this game has just about died for a few reasons.

1. blocking got to easy after set 8

2. damage reduction/ life gain got to be way over the top

3. to many **** cards that punished you for attacking. (akuma, psycho focus, bitter rivals, chinese boxing etc...)

4. delay after delay after f'n delay.

The first 3 led to a playstyle that encouraged sitting on your ass for 7-8++ turns and getting the lock out and one shot. However, I do that if this game somehow manages to see rotation if willl be in much better shape. If set 12 and 13 are any indication this game will be back in great shape. Damage reduction in the form of one shot actions (sa, symbol of protection and base hold), the better blocks on attacks/actions, and foundations back to just offering minor boosts to combat.

sir_shajir said:

Thanks Shajir for clearing up the situation, but now i must take this time to say that, for the time being(and perhaps longer debending on the situation of the game) I am no longer going to actively play UFS on a competitive or semi-competitive level. Although it hurts to say this I have looked long and hard at the direction that this game is going and have seen that it will, like a candle, slowly burn down and eventually gutter out of existence. If, in the future I see that ufs is going to pick up popularity again I will begin to play, but for the time being i can no longer finacially support competitive level play and I really see no need to waste so much money, time and effort on a game that is regretfully going the way of the dodo in my opinion. Best of luck to all my fellow UFS players in your future endeavors in this game.