Ugh. These threads are like watching neanderthals discussing astronomy.

Online prices have been artificially low and now they're going back up to WHERE THEY SHOULD BE. Sorry-not-sorry that you're hurt by being forced to pay MSRP. Find a new hobby perhaps? Something cheaper?

Amazingly short sighted people said the exact same thing to people unhappy about gw prices look where they are now.

X-wing is not yet on par with 40k and unlike gw ffg does not have any kind of monopoly on miniature gaming.

Drive people away and we all lose out as the game becomes a footnote and cancelled.

Well they'll be making less money then as people vote with their wallets.

Yes, because as can clearly be seen online everyone that's outside the US (and thus already not having those deep discounts) are entirely uninterested in the game and are not buying it. People will get used to the new prices, they always do.

This is freakin hilarious to me. Ffg isn't increasing prices at all. Msrp isn't moving a whit and if one never got their xwing at 30% off one wouldn't know a thing has changed.

The only real control Asmodee have over retail price is by setting wholesale price. They are doing the one thing they can do to push up online prices.

Amazingly short sighted people said the exact same thing to people unhappy about gw prices look where they are now.

GW increased the retail price of their stuff and continues to do so. That's a completely different thing than what is happening here.

Well they'll be making less money then as people vote with their wallets.

Amazingly short sighted people said the exact same thing to people unhappy about gw prices look where they are now.

GW increased the retail price of their stuff and continues to do so. That's a completely different thing than what is happening here.

Double post

As an argentinian customer this unilaterally sucks because we have no flgs and the prices in the current market are 50% OVER price plus the 50% taxes one has to pay to bring anything. Luckily im only one or two boxes away from curing my plastic addiction and supposedly the conditions only apply after april 1st so i have time

does FFG have any "official stores?"

No. The closest is the FFG Event Center in Roseville, but that place sells all the same stuff any other LGS sells. The only advantage it seems to have over any other game store is perhaps more FFG stock.

But even then, they don't seem to hold stock in reserve for it, back when A-Wings and Interceptors were quite hard to find the event center didn't have any either.

Sometimes gaming stores and associated local groups die, because people go there to play but buy their stuff from the internet because it's cheaper.

That's a really sad phenomenon.

Imagine you'd own such a store and try to not be offended by a 40% discount that is ruinious to you.

I can understand the pain if you have no store nearby though.

Ugh. These threads are like watching neanderthals discussing astronomy.

Online prices have been artificially low and now they're going back up to WHERE THEY SHOULD BE. Sorry-not-sorry that you're hurt by being forced to pay MSRP. Find a new hobby perhaps? Something cheaper?

Amazingly short sighted people said the exact same thing to people unhappy about gw prices look where they are now.

X-wing is not yet on par with 40k and unlike gw ffg does not have any kind of monopoly on miniature gaming.

Drive people away and we all lose out as the game becomes a footnote and cancelled.

This is freakin hilarious to me. Ffg isn't increasing prices at all. Msrp isn't moving a whit and if one never got their xwing at 30% off one wouldn't know a thing has changed.

Exactly - prices aren't going up, they're going back to where they're supposed to be.

This really sucks as your saying that only online prices will be going up but that is just not true. I buy from my flgs and only them. I have never bought a ship or anything from anywhere but my flgs and that flgs just happens to be CSI which is a 20 minute drive.

This really sucks as your saying that only online prices will be going up but that is just not true.

Everything we know points at the only change anyone will see is that the online discount will be reduced. That means people who buy at the LGS will still be playing MSRP (- whatever discount your LGS may offer)

Look at it this way: if online retailers had had to charge closer to MSRP from the get-go, would you have never started playing X-Wing at all? If ordering from Amazon was always the same price as going to your local store, would you have decided not to bother due to the cost?

Perhaps not, but I would own less ships which will be the effect of this decision for the North America consumers. If you purchased online before you will now be able to buy less product. FFG may make less money by selling less product. Let's say I spent $100 every month online to purchase 10 small ships. I will continue to spend $100 a month but now only get 9 ships. If FFG still gets the same amount of money per ship they will see a decrease in revenue. This will look like a decrease in demand from the current consumer base which would increase supply if production continues at the same rate. Increase supply decrease demand means a decrease in price. Of course this assume no new customers which in the current Star Wars environment is wrong.

Amazingly short sighted people said the exact same thing to people unhappy about gw prices look where they are now.

This isn't a good comparison. GW's policy stemmed because they wanted to funnel people into their own brick and mortar shops as well as their own online shop. They wanted to kill "independent" retailers, who they saw as competition for selling their own products.

FFG has no retail division that it wants to support.

I know for one if the prices shoot up at MM or CSI I will be buying a lot less or not at all and its not because I cannot afford it but I don't want to support someone with those ridiculous prices.

This is the perfect example of what FFG wants to eliminate: devaluation of their product lines.

This really sucks as your saying that only online prices will be going up but that is just not true.

Everything we know points at the only change anyone will see is that the online discount will be reduced. That means people who buy at the LGS will still be playing MSRP (- whatever discount your LGS may offer)

CSI online and in store prices are the same. Far from MSRP, and that is affecting me buying at my flgs.

Realistically this is the change.

Before: online 40% off, FLGS 10% off

After: online 20% off, FLGS 10% off

Does it suck personally for you if you only ever buy online? Yes. Is it a good change for the long term heath of the game? Yes.

That's the dumbest thing I have ever read on this forum.

Why is that a good change for the long term health of the game? What real evidence are you basing that on?

Then you can't have been around for very long.

I'm not certain why you think it is dumb.

I think Peterson is absolutely correct, and Asmodee NA is making a very sound decision. Yes, it will suck for those people buying only online (and not playing at FLGSs) - but it can help the FLGSs, because it can help them compete against the online retailers, who have had to suffer what is essentially an unfair disadvantage while did more to grow the hobby as a whole.

I see this baseless assertion all the time. That LGSs grow the market in any kind of significant manner. There is no proof of this. It seems more to me that the internet, more than anything, has pushed the hobby gaming market into incredible growth in the last 10-15 years and that rising tide has lifted the FLGS boat - not the other way around. There are orders of magnitude more game companies and more games released now than there were even 10 years ago. Do we seriously believe that FLGSs that have existed for decades just suddenly kicked it into gear in the last decade? Of course not. Exposure on the Facebook, on Boardgamegeek, on YouTube, in movies and on TV - there is where the growth comes from. The ability to find these games for sale online, to learn the rules from videos, to see others having fun experiencing them without leaving your couch - there is where the growth comes from. Your LGS isn't even a blip. And for every LGS that actually creates customers, there are 5 with poor lighting, unfriendly employees, a Magic-centric vibe, and dirty play space to scare them away.

And inevitably what I see when new people start buying games (or they buy games as gifts) is that they are SHOCKED by the sticker prices and only slightly less shocked by the online prices. People have spent their whole lives paying $12 for a copy of Monopoly at Wal-Mart.

The other thing I've seen is more and more game stores and game cafés opening than ever before - and by a huge margin. Because the internet created the market, the exposure, and the interest - not the game store down the street. I would wager that 90% of the people in a town with an FLGS don't even know it exists, and 99.9% of them have never set a foot inside.

I've said this before and I'll say it again - If Asmodee wants to raise prices, that's fine. It is a game and it is their product to sell as they wish. But don't think you are tricking me into believing it is about evening the playing field and helping brick and mortar stores who are "so important" to the hobby. They're not. They aren't growing the market - they are the recipients of the benefit of a market exploding around them.

Well they'll be making less money then as people vote with their wallets.

Yep.

Or... maybe the company isn't run by idiots and they've actually thought about this and decided getting new players into the games by having thriving FLGSs will be better for the health of the player ecosystem than online discounting was.

Those not in the industry may not realize it, but the distributors they cut are the ones that were selling product online for super low margins. Brick and mortar stores were forced to get their product from the same distributors that were undercutting their store. Now Asmodee has reset the distribution system so the distributors are no longer competing with their customers.

Just to clarify, they are not RAISING prices, they are REDUCING discount. This is a big difference.

Realistically this is the change.

Before: online 40% off, FLGS 10% off

After: online 20% off, FLGS 10% off

Does it suck personally for you if you only ever buy online? Yes. Is it a good change for the long term heath of the game? Yes.

That's the dumbest thing I have ever read on this forum.

Why is that a good change for the long term health of the game? What real evidence are you basing that on?

Then you can't have been around for very long.

I'm not certain why you think it is dumb.

I think Peterson is absolutely correct, and Asmodee NA is making a very sound decision. Yes, it will suck for those people buying only online (and not playing at FLGSs) - but it can help the FLGSs, because it can help them compete against the online retailers, who have had to suffer what is essentially an unfair disadvantage while did more to grow the hobby as a whole.

I see this baseless assertion all the time. That LGSs grow the market in any kind of significant manner. There is no proof of this. It seems more to me that the internet, more than anything, has pushed the hobby gaming market into incredible growth in the last 10-15 years and that rising tide has lifted the FLGS boat - not the other way around. There are orders of magnitude more game companies and more games released now than there were even 10 years ago. Do we seriously believe that FLGSs that have existed for decades just suddenly kicked it into gear in the last decade? Of course not. Exposure on the Facebook, on Boardgamegeek, on YouTube, in movies and on TV - there is where the growth comes from. The ability to find these games for sale online, to learn the rules from videos, to see others having fun experiencing them without leaving your couch - there is where the growth comes from. Your LGS isn't even a blip. And for every LGS that actually creates customers, there are 5 with poor lighting, unfriendly employees, a Magic-centric vibe, and dirty play space to scare them away.

And inevitably what I see when new people start buying games (or they buy games as gifts) is that they are SHOCKED by the sticker prices and only slightly less shocked by the online prices. People have spent their whole lives paying $12 for a copy of Monopoly at Wal-Mart.

The other thing I've seen is more and more game stores and game cafés opening than ever before - and by a huge margin. Because the internet created the market, the exposure, and the interest - not the game store down the street. I would wager that 90% of the people in a town with an FLGS don't even know it exists, and 99.9% of them have never set a foot inside.

I've said this before and I'll say it again - If Asmodee wants to raise prices, that's fine. It is a game and it is their product to sell as they wish. But don't think you are tricking me into believing it is about evening the playing field and helping brick and mortar stores who are "so important" to the hobby. They're not. They aren't growing the market - they are the recipients of the benefit of a market exploding around them.

QFT. These are my thoughts on the matter as well, only much more nicely written then I would have done.

I see this baseless assertion all the time. That LGSs grow the market in any kind of significant manner. There is no proof of this. It seems more to me that the internet, more than anything, has pushed the hobby gaming market into incredible growth in the last 10-15 years and that rising tide has lifted the FLGS boat - not the other way around. There are orders of magnitude more game companies and more games released now than there were even 10 years ago. Do we seriously believe that FLGSs that have existed for decades just suddenly kicked it into gear in the last decade? Of course not. Exposure on the Facebook, on Boardgamegeek, on YouTube, in movies and on TV - there is where the growth comes from. The ability to find these games for sale online, to learn the rules from videos, to see others having fun experiencing them without leaving your couch - there is where the growth comes from. Your LGS isn't even a blip. And for every LGS that actually creates customers, there are 5 with poor lighting, unfriendly employees, a Magic-centric vibe, and dirty play space to scare them away.

And inevitably what I see when new people start buying games (or they buy games as gifts) is that they are SHOCKED by the sticker prices and only slightly less shocked by the online prices. People have spent their whole lives paying $12 for a copy of Monopoly at Wal-Mart.

The other thing I've seen is more and more game stores and game cafés opening than ever before - and by a huge margin. Because the internet created the market, the exposure, and the interest - not the game store down the street. I would wager that 90% of the people in a town with an FLGS don't even know it exists, and 99.9% of them have never set a foot inside.

I've said this before and I'll say it again - If Asmodee wants to raise prices, that's fine. It is a game and it is their product to sell as they wish. But don't think you are tricking me into believing it is about evening the playing field and helping brick and mortar stores who are "so important" to the hobby. They're not. They aren't growing the market - they are the recipients of the benefit of a market exploding around them.

The FLGSs may not be responsible for the growth, but I suspect they play a part in avoiding shrinkage (which may result in net stasus). A lot of people would have a lot fewer opportunities to play if it weren't for FLGSs.

It seems more to me that the internet, more than anything, has pushed the hobby gaming market into incredible growth in the last 10-15 years and that rising tide has lifted the FLGS boat - not the other way around.

I'm not saying I completely disagree with you. But you have no more proof to back up your claim then does the people who say the LGS is the lifeblood of the miniature gaming market.

Just to clarify, they are not RAISING prices, they are REDUCING discount. This is a big difference.

Not really, no. The amount of fiat currency that I will have to trade to acquire one of their products will be increasing. To the end consumer it really doesn't matter what mechanism they use to accomplish this, only that their out of pocket expense is increasing. FFG will be charging more for their products, meaning I will have to pay more for their products. Assuming of course, that I still want their products.

maybe the company isn't run by idiots

That is the part that I'm having the most trouble with.

We can't actually say for sure what effect this will have in the long run, it may be bad, it may be good. But it's quite frankly foolish to assume that someone who has marketing numbers and other data available to them didn't look at it and made an educated decision.

Sure it may backfire completely, like new Coke did, but I'll at least assume that the people who made the decision think it was the right one, and see what happens next.

I'm not exactly aware of what goes on at GAMA. But, from the few companies I follow, there is a very apparent concern in the industry about online retailers. Wizkids has for the immediate future, cut off 90% of the stock the major online retailers would receive of Heroclix on release. Which is a bit more draconian and more harmful than what is happening here. Attack Wing seems to be doing fine with higher prices online than X-wing. And if $2 per ship is really that difficult for your hobby budget, then this hobby may not be for you.

As for the value of the LGS, well, is there any other place that allows as many players to, well, actually play? The internet encourages collectors, which is fine. But having a LGS encourages people to actually PLAY. The number one reason people quit a game is lack of people to play with. Are you really telling me, if all the gaming stores dried up, that this game would still be as big as it once was? Having a location that is pretty much already set up for gaming makes it easier for gaming to happen.