Post made after some adult beverages, please disregard. Sorry if thread title hurt anyone's feelings, because that's the last thing I wanted...

I wish I could afford drinks!

;-)

Games lead to competition.

Competition leads to inequality.

Inequality leads to the dark side (as in an empty wallet).

Curse you FFG!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, it's not a lot of money to spend.

Ask a Standard Magic player how much it costs to maintain a competitive deck...

No, it's not a lot of money to spend.

Ask a Standard Magic player how much it costs to maintain a competitive deck...

This ^.

I was curious about MTG and bought a starter deck to try it, after opening it the local players told me how much it costs to play competitive standard.

I gave it away for free, seemed better than even trying to mess with anything MTG related.

I mean, this is a hobby, not a career, for a reason.

seriously anybody on here into cycling?? lol Plastic crack is a much cheaper addiction!! actually out of all my hobbies plastic crack is the cheapest!! compare it with Shooting/archery/HO trains/gardening/backpacking/camping/building plastic models/video computer games etc.. i cant think of one that is less expensive besides hiking. but price a new pair of GOOD boots/ carbon fiber walking stick/and appropriate clothes for 4 season hikes and even it gets expensive!!! lol Also you dont step on slippery rocks and cut your feet all up when you play X-wing.. (Speaking from experience this past week while on Fall vacation. Nice BOOTS were off because i didn't want to get them wet while fording a stream DUMB move) but i digress...

You'd spend more playing golf or airsoft so as a hobby it's already cheap, you'd spend £500 starting the market leaders game so again your ahead.

seriously anybody on here into cycling?? lol Plastic crack is a much cheaper addiction!! actually out of all my hobbies plastic crack is the cheapest!! compare it with Shooting/archery/HO trains/gardening/backpacking/camping/building plastic models/video computer games etc.. i cant think of one that is less expensive besides hiking. but price a new pair of GOOD boots/ carbon fiber walking stick/and appropriate clothes for 4 season hikes and even it gets expensive!!! lol Also you dont step on slippery rocks and cut your feet all up when you play X-wing.. (Speaking from experience this past week while on Fall vacation. Nice BOOTS were off because i didn't want to get them wet while fording a stream DUMB move) but i digress...

I was starting to get into this problem and then decided enough was enough. One only has so much time, the more toys you have the less you can play with each individual one, and I would rather have more $ in my pocket than pay the opportunity cost for things sitting around and losing value. At least I only do human power sports and not anything motorized.

No it is not expensive for a box ready game.

I guess that it depends on what it is, and how good you are at it.

A dollar investment can help one be competitive yes; but in a game of skill (the only kind I think worth being competitive in), hours spent practicing should trump dollars spent on kit every time.

That's my answer to "Is it so much?"; but to the unasked-yet-implied question "Is it worth it?", I would suggest that as with most sports or games the answer is subjective, and unique for every person asked.

Post made after some adult beverages, please disregard. Sorry if thread title hurt anyone's feelings, because that's the last thing I wanted...

Nope.

But there is a sense of entitlement these days (not just mini game related).

People feel entitled to have access to whatever they want, and then get upset when reality bites.

I feel entitled to a Bugatti Veyron. How dare they price it out of my price range!!

My costs to have competitive X-wing squads (albeit not every competitive squad) is a small fraction of the cost of just fielding a single 40k army.

Yeah, compared to all the other hobbies I have (or pursue in rotation, since some are on the back burner at the moment), X-wing is pretty cheap. Tracking & modifying my car -- very $$, so it's 2-3 times per year. RC -- haven't flown in a while, but big up-front costs.

RPGs are cheaper to play if you keep it sensible, but then I look at my huge D&D collection and realize Mistakes Were Made .

Edit: I'm curious if those who know about Magic could go into the costs. I've never played -- missed that period -- and won't because I don't approve of a random "collectible" model. But our FLGS always has about 50 people playing Magic when I go for Fright Night X-wing, so I wonder about both the appeal and finance. So long as it keeps the store alive ...

There are a huge number of hobby stores that wouldn't exist but for Magic.

Edit: I'm curious if those who know about Magic could go into the costs. I've never played -- missed that period -- and won't because I don't approve of a random "collectible" model. But our FLGS always has about 50 people playing Magic when I go for Fright Night X-wing, so I wonder about both the appeal and finance. So long as it keeps the store alive ...

When you "start" Magic, you probably pay full retail for packs of cards. Or you buy the $20 deckbuilder's toolkit and make a bunch of decks and practice a bunch and learn the game. Once you know how the game works, then you get to pick a format to play: Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Standard, Commander, Pauper, Sealed, Cube... (the idea is that there are a bunch of different ways to play that Wizards has put out tournament rules for, as well as all those have different deck construction rules) Your Friday Night Magic is probably one of the most popular of the formats: Standard and Draft. Also, keep in mind that the game was originally designed to be portable, each player only needs a deck to play. I would say this reason is why MTG is so popular with everyone, I can take whatever I need to play MTG in my pocket, and only need to find a table to play someone else.

Standard basically says you can only use the last two year's worth of non-special set cards to build your deck. Draft is usually a $10 buy in, and you and 7 people sit around a table, each open 3 packs of cards, and build a deck on the fly. In X-Wing terms, Standard would be ONLY playing with the last 2 waves of ships. And Draft would be something really weird, like shuffling up pilots and picking one, then handing the rest of them to the next person sitting at the table.

The main difference in packaging between X-Wing and MTG is that MTG is random (blind) buy. You have cards you will get, like 10 common cards, 3 uncommon cards, and 1 rare card. And in some packs you get a mythic in place of the rare. And in some other packs you get a foil in place of a common. But its the randomness of it that is the important part in this, because the randomness keeps the Draft format alive.

What keeps your game store alive (probably) is them selling boxes and boxes and boxes of MTG cards to players looking to be competitive in one of the formats. Most of the time you can build a pretty competitive (expect to win 50% of the time) deck at under $20 just buying single cards and building it (not booster packs). You can even buy pre-made competitive decks at about that price. At this point in the X-Wing game, that would be similar to buying a Falcon and an E-Wing, or two B's and two X's. You get the ships, but to really sink that list home as a solid winning list you need 3P0, or Advanced Sensors. That's where the Mythic cards come in for MTG. That's what pushes a "competitive" deck to a $400 "top tier competitive" deck.

Also keep in mind that MTG has an online component to it, as well as an app that's fairly cheap for learning to play, etc. If anyone is really curious I recommend the Android/Apple app, I think its $10 and you can play it for a very long time on that. It also forces you to learn the rules, only allowing things at certain times.

I've been playing MTG for many, many years (I recently sat across the table from someone that wasn't born when I started playing MTG) and have accumulated quite a collection. I play a few different formats, but all of it is for fun now. Its far too expensive to shell out for the chase rares ever few months when a new set is released, not to mention staying on top of the meta! But, for those that do... I thank you as you've kept my FLGS's doors open so I can play more X-Wing

Some of you in this thread kind of spawned another thread idea in the off topic forum:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/192574-what-other-hobbies-do-you-have-and-how-expensive-are-they/

I'd like to see what other hobbies I'm missing out on!

Post made after some adult beverages, please disregard. Sorry if thread title hurt anyone's feelings, because that's the last thing I wanted...

I bet you had to pay for that booze too! Is it so unreasonable to be drunk forever because you bought $40 bottle 3 years ago?! I blame FFG for you fleeting intoxication.

It can be but it really depends on what it means to be competitive.

If it is something where you could earn a living playing then I'd certainly say that spending money to stay competitive is fine. I believe some people have made a living playing MtG (although I stopped following that a long time ago) but I haven't heard of anyone who plays X-Wing as anything better than an expense be it travel and such, entry fees, and keeping current.

Now to be casually competitive, if you can work out what that means, I don't believe you should need to continually lay out funds or at least not hundreds. This is a wonderful way to play games although with some games you can run into big problems when a ringer shows up and takes all the fun away. In the various collectable games I've figured out plenty of decks/squads/warbands that can be made with just common and occasionally uncommon pieces which are full of synergy, thematic, and even play nicely. The problem with those is when someone drops by and brings something full of rare, or worse, pieces which may just be outright better than the pieces I'm using for that same cost.

Looking specifically at X-Wing I'm torn. I certainly believe plenty of fun can be had from a small collection and some of that can even be relatively competitive against a larger pool of pieces. Where things break down for me is the min/maxing that goes on where a squadron requires so many different expansions to complete that it is sometimes illogical for a single player to have all of that. As a hobby, X-Wing may not be too bad but I'm not sure the rewards for winning are worth all of the cost that it takes to stay competitive at any given moment.

All it would take is some fool with a lot of money, and have a tournament with main prize of 1 million dollars.

Xwing just hit the big leagues

If I won the 55 million dollar lottery I'd probably do a 500k tournament, because, why not? Lol

Well I'm loving the idea of this post mate, and in the off chance that anyone from Western Australia is feeling the same way and lets you know, I'd be happy to hand out a few ships to our Aussie fans!

We've danced around this, but the actual answer is "it's only too much if you aren't getting that out of it."

I've been fortunate enough to play so many games that my money has either been recouped in time or prizes.

Similarly, the guy that pays for the millinium falcon model just to sit in his desk has already gotten exactly what he wanted out of it, and the cost is met there.

Not everything is as black and white as oh I spent 400 dollars on this game.

Purchases are often made months apart in much easier to digest 50-60 dollar amounts.

Given that I have sold most of the plastic mcgubbins that I have won, the cost is very little.

I would argue that the competitiveness of any list lies with its player.

I can be pretty competitive after $100 at the pub...

Nah, a couple hundred bucks is nothing to spend on a hobby, especially one you want to be competitive in! Other sports, well, the comparison has been made already so..

Here is a thought. Can the casual player spend more perhaps? A tourney goer is going to buy his list. When the meta changes he does too. Us casuals will buy stuff for no other reason than it looks cool and Dengar is awesome. So really...

... What is the cost of staying casual? We better get our tourney lists then so we can save some money!