I'm sorry that most FLGS's can't survive vs higher volume online retailers.

Keep in mind here that online stores in NA used to have much higher discounts from FFG than FLGSs for literally no reason. And I am still unable to find a NA online store who can sell international, which suggest that those discounts were bound to selling just in NA as well. That not a fair competition of online vs brick and mortar that looks like an intentional setup by FFG / Asmodée NA. Splitting online from brick and mortar retail seems odd in the first place as selling online and offline should be a default for most small retail businesses.

Actually, they probably had a good reason for the bigger discounts. A lot of times, discounts are based on volume. And that is the issue, the big online stores will always be able to sell more online than a local store. That is an advantage a local store can't make up.

When this first came up on BGG, I saw someone post about the practice of local stores buying enough of a game to get the discount, and then using their ebay store to clear out what they couldn't sell. That just sounds like a dangerous business practice for the industry.

That sounds reasonable and now explain me why FFG should give them a discount just because they sell many? And besides the online discounts and the volume discounts are not the same thing when you buy from FFG. A volume discount makes no sense when your product is selling so good that it is going to sell out anyway. Bulk discounts are there to motivate people to order more, but they are unnecessary when they will order anyway more and more and more, because it is making them as well tons of money.

Furthermore the FFG distributors is for sure buying and selling a lot more units than most online stores do and yet their discounts used to be smaller, or so I have been told. Should be different now as well.

It's a business thing. The common discounts tend to be based on how much a customer buys and if they pay within a specified discount period. In business, it does tend to make sense to give your biggest customers a bit more of a discount than you smaller customers.

Keep in mind, FFG's true customers are not us, the public.

Sounds like CM and MM set their original prices at an unsustainable rate. They should have controlled their pricing to account for inflation and market fluctuation. It's costing them customers now.

Thankfully Asmodee realized this is a problem and moved to control the pricing of their product in the future.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.

Asmodee raised their price to CSI and MM. So CSI and MM had to raise prices. This isn't any fault of CSI or MM to "account for inflation and market fluctuation".

Had CM and MM set their prices appropriately they could have absorbed the change. It is their fault.

What do you think would have happened had one set their price to "reasonable" as defined by All Shields Forward, while the other deeply discounted? I bet you one of the two wouldn't be selling much x-wing.

The "reasonable" price is set at the very beginning from the point of origin - Asmodee in this case. Everyone after that simply adds margin onto the price they paid to cover operating costs and secure profit.

Essentially, X-wing has had a two-tiered pricing scheme: in-person purchases at a brick-and-mortar store are typically made at MSRP, and online purchases were made at approximately 66% of MSRP.

This led, rather predictably, to the idea among many consumers that the online price is the real or natural price for X-wing expansions, and that brick-and-mortar stores were effectively charging a 50% premium. So far, that's fine: FFG/Asmodee were making roughly the same margin either way, with the online retailers making up for the lower margin in volume.

The problem is that consumer perception of inflated prices at brick-and-mortar stores was driving customers away from those stores and to the heavily discounted online retailers for their purchases. That's a problem because no one demos the game online at Coolstuffinc. No one wanders by a game of X-wing being played at Miniature Market and asks questions about it. Amazon.com does not host any X-wing Organized Play events.

The deeply discounted online retailers serve FFG/Asmodee's existing customer base very well, if narrowly, but they don't grow that customer base. Brick-and-mortar stores do that, but they can't compete with the discount online guys. FFG doesn't really care who they sell to, as long as they get their margin, but they need the brick-and-mortar stores to stay in business and stay healthy in order for their business model to function--not just X-wing, but the entire business.

So FFG's options were to allow the online retailers to continue undercutting the brick-and-mortar stores, and by doing so eventually push themselves out of business, or step in and do something to push the online retailers at least further toward parity in pricing, if not all the way there. And FFG, especially post-merger, has a big enough slice of the hobby-gaming market to actually make a move like that and make it stick--so they did.

So yeah, especially for those who can't or won't buy from their FLGS, this is going to look like a substantial price hike. It is a price hike, because you're paying more for X-wing.

But the distinction people are trying to point out is that the difference between the online price and the brick-and-mortar price is what you pay to keep the lights on and somebody behind the counter at the FLGS. If you were hanging out and playing at an FLGS but buying your ships online, you were exploiting a loophole in the system at a direct and probably painful cost to the store.

If you ordered online but didn't play at an FLGS, that really sucks and I'm sorry. But the increase in price for you is, over the long term, about keeping FFG in business by keeping the doors open at those stores. FFG didn't make this move out of charity, but out of concern for their own long-term health.

that's not entirely true, in fact my own experience is different. I became interested in x-wing online, then checked out whether there was a local store I could play at which was active, then I checked out the cost of starting. since the online prices were very much lower than the store prices I decided to start playing at my local store X while buying online.

subsequently I bought most of my things online for a while, but then I did buy things at another local store Y (I'm lucky to have several nearby) when they organized a midnight event tournament and sold wave 8 ships at a discount for that night only. the local store I usually go to, X, made no effort for the wave 8 release so I did not buy from them.

I do, once a while, make a small purchase at the local store X, and I do pay for their tournaments. I know tournament fees go towards prizes and kits, but I believe part of it goes to the store too.

I keep hearing the refrain that local store contribute to the growth of a game but my experience is that is only part of it. online stores contributed by having accessible prices, local stores contributed by having a place to play, and local stores in turn also benefit from purchases, especially when they increase volume of sales by active participation and offering targeted discounts.

I am sure that the store Y which organized the event and sold at a discount had a much higher volume of sales, and overall profit, than the other store X which did nothing.

the thought that online stores are kind of akin to parasites is wrong and only feeds into arguments presented by a company, one of the primary motivations of which is to make a profit. I don't understand how people just support their views. I'm not saying that local stores are evil and FFG is evil. I'm just saying the reality is more complex than what FFG and arguments like the above one make it out to be, where the local stores are what really and only drives a game's expansion.

finally, FFG is a company working by capitalist economy and benefits from the rules of capitalist economy. for example, they fabricate their things in china instead of in USA, thanks to favorable trade agreement with china. they think it's good that china can compete with american manufacturing and they buy based on the lower price. in turn, however, they argue that competition between online and local stores in a capitalist economy is bad and they apply rules that even force local stores to not be able to sell online as well? this is plain hypocrisy.

sure, we all like, for the most part, getting cheap things from china, or perhaps x-wing would cost more. on the other hand, perhaps without all this outsourcing to china americans would be paid more and be able to afford higher x-wing prices. I'm not here to discuss outsourcing to china, but only to point out that it serves you not one bit to simply agree with asmodee's PR without some critical thinking.

and also, imagine if there were zero online stores and the only place you could buy from was your local store with no competition. no competition means higher prices. online stores are also part of the reason we can all afford to play x-wing without breaking the bank, and one of the reasons x-wing exists in the first place

final edit: it's a little silly to say FFG would go out of business if they didn't intervene in the online/local stores competition. online stores have offered discount prices all this time and x-wing has only increased in popularity (which means FFG profits must have increased).

The delima there is that online stores don't offer the local to play this game. The local stores are where most people play. So it seems counterintuitive to buy online and play at the store who is generating reduced sales in a game no one buys there.

Then the seller goes do I stock and support a game no one buys here? Nope.

It sucks you don't have an LGS. The portland metro area would loan you one or two if that was possible.

Moves like this one are meant to help ensure more places can keep the LGS that is already functioning. that will never be enough for some folks.

it is what it is

@XBear: my critical thinking is working fine, thanks. FFG wants people in brick-and-mortar stores because it's good for FFG . The benefit to local stores is nice, but as I said, it's about FFG/Asmodee's long-term health. And that's because physical stores actually do drive the game's expansion--or, at least, FFG believes they do. That's why Organized Play exists.

Moreover, I don't need or want lectures about how capitalism works. (I really, really don't.) FFG wants to manufacture their stuff in China because it's better for FFG. They want to structure their distribution network in this way because it's good for FFG. There's no hypocrisy involved because there's no principle at stake other than "how can Asmodee NA maximize its profit?"

I'm already paying the equivalent of $20-25 for a small base ship. Online retailers here are largely in line with shop prices, high as they are. It's always a little irksome when people complain that they're paying a dollar or two more for a ship due to the discount changes, when we're paying almost twice the cost in the EU.

Whatever price you're paying, add about 40% to it, and you'll see the "outside-US" price the rest of us have to put up with.

But, what about all the free stuff you receive, health care, college and food and board for the jobless. Is it not the wonderland we are always told about? I'm totally surprised that thousands if not millions of US citizens are not moving to Europe. Sorry, just some sarcasm for my US socialist/communist friends. So the bottom line is free stuff is not really free, somebody has to pay for it.

If you ordered online but didn't play at an FLGS, that really sucks and I'm sorry. But the increase in price for you is, over the long term, about keeping FFG in business by keeping the doors open at those stores. FFG didn't make this move out of charity, but out of concern for their own long-term health.

Edit: Fun fact, in the UK on-line discounts seem to be holding just fine, but the LGS here and two others in reasonable traveling distance have increased their prices in anticipation of an on-line price hike.

Lovely thread, Joe, thank you. Been a long week, I needed this

This is misguided and naive and requires pricing collusion between the two companies (and likely many others) to even make it work. The item was sold to them at a certain price. Due to competition, they will set their price as low as they are able to, within the bounds that they still need to secure a profit either through direct sales of this product or by enticing other business (e.g. Selling gasoline at or below cost to bring customers to your super-mega-store). Competition drives price down by its very existence. You can't just set whatever "reasonable" price you want and expect to get sales when someone can easily undercut you and still make a profit.

What do you think would have happened had one set their price to "reasonable" as defined by All Shields Forward, while the other deeply discounted? I bet you one of the two wouldn't be selling much x-wing.

The "reasonable" price is set at the very beginning from the point of origin - Asmodee in this case. Everyone after that simply adds margin onto the price they paid to cover operating costs and secure profit.

And you're absolutely correct, Asmodee gets to set the reasonable price.

And thats $14.95 for small blisters, $19.95 for medium, and $29.95 for large. If anyone distributor want to sell it less Asmodee has the right to deny them sales.

@XBear: my critical thinking is working fine, thanks. FFG wants people in brick-and-mortar stores because it's good for FFG . The benefit to local stores is nice, but as I said, it's about FFG/Asmodee's long-term health. And that's because physical stores actually do drive the game's expansion--or, at least, FFG believes they do. That's why Organized Play exists.

Moreover, I don't need or want lectures about how capitalism works. (I really, really don't.) FFG wants to manufacture their stuff in China because it's better for FFG. They want to structure their distribution network in this way because it's good for FFG. There's no hypocrisy involved because there's no principle at stake other than "how can Asmodee NA maximize its profit?"

Brick&mortar sales should likely increase, so that means more money for starter.

Online sales will likely decrease, but that doesn't necessarily mean less money for FFG as they make more profit out of each individual sale (for example,if FFG sold 10 ships and made 1$ per ship profit, they will still make more money after the change if they only sell 8 ships if their profit increases to more than 1.25$ per ship).

Tl;Dr There's a distinct possibility this us just about Asmodee wanting a bigger slice of the online sales pie, and the rest is sugar-coating/ secondary benefits.

are we perhaps all neglecting one point? I believe Amazon still sells x-wing at a discount compared to MRSP, yes? and doesn't FFG directly supplies amazon? so aren't all those online sales to miniature market and cool stuff being redirected not to local stores but to amazon, thus perhaps increasing overall profit to FFG? I don't know because I don't have the data, maybe it's totally wrong, but worth considering.

also, to explain something from an american/european person (I have double citizenship), europe overall has greater social protection, and hence labor protection laws, thus we have great social policies like better health care and education systems, while USA has less social and labor protection laws, hence a greater environment favorable to companies and businesses. as a consequence, it's easier overall to find a job in USA, but you have more social security in europe. prices in europe are generally higher, unless it's something local like italian food which is obviously cheaper in italy.

the above does not warrant calling europeans socialist/communists, since socialist democracy is not socialism and is not communism. don't forget europe was on this side of the Cold War, not on the side of communism.

I would have replied to this topic sooner but it took me a while to find my tiny violin.

Yes, prices have gone up but the US in general still pays a hell of a lot less than the rest of the world. The idea that these prices are now too high for the game to prosper just doesn't hold water when you consider the rest of the world has seen a similar explosion in X-Wing players over the last 18 months or so without such deep discounts. The game needs places like FLGS to run tournaments, which seem to be a major driver for both player recruitment and spending so I can see the logic from Asmodee in wanting to change the pricing structure to favour them.

The site I buy from in the UK has been hit by the decrease in reductions, meaning a price rise of a huge 95p (that's about 65 cents) for a small ship. It seems like Asmodee have concluded the deep discounting in the US is unsustainable. The discount structure in the UK means FLGS prices are not too far removed from online prices, which makes impulse purchases a bit more likely and makes life a bit easier for the places that have such a big hand in sustaining and growing the community.

Paying more than you used to is annoying but X-Wing is still one of the cheapest wargames out there. Hell, as hobbies go it's pretty **** cheap.

Oh boy the discount dropped by 15%, i'm never playing x-wing again!

The real price is what the customer is willing to pay, you can set whatever price you like but if the consumer decides it's not worth that then you won't be making a sale that's how retails worked for centuries.

I'm already paying the equivalent of $20-25 for a small base ship. Online retailers here are largely in line with shop prices, high as they are. It's always a little irksome when people complain that they're paying a dollar or two more for a ship due to the discount changes, when we're paying almost twice the cost in the EU.

Whatever price you're paying, add about 40% to it, and you'll see the "outside-US" price the rest of us have to put up with.

But, what about all the free stuff you receive, health care, college and food and board for the jobless. Is it not the wonderland we are always told about? I'm totally surprised that thousands if not millions of US citizens are not moving to Europe. Sorry, just some sarcasm for my US socialist/communist friends. So the bottom line is free stuff is not really free, somebody has to pay for it.

Totally right, free stuff is not free. I still like it, though the real reason why I answer to this is the following: I paid between 11€ (TIE-Fighter german edition, old prices) and 19€ (K-Wing, Star Viper) for a small ship base and 26,90€ for most large and I see those prices at amazon and tons of online stores. I would say that the mentioned prices are exaggeration and do not represent the European average. And those super cheap american online prices for x-wing are looking on global like an american oddity. Maybe they just wanted to test if the increased volumes help with overall profits, maybe not, who knows, but it does not seem like the norm in the rest of the world and FFG is for sure still selling more than they can produce from most models, stuff is constantly sold out. If they should just increase print volume or increase prices … I am all for more volume, but it seems like FFG is afraid to pull a Multisim and invest to much money into products which do not sell in the end.

Does anyone else keep reading this title this way...

are we perhaps all neglecting one point? I believe Amazon still sells x-wing at a discount compared to MRSP, yes? and doesn't FFG directly supplies amazon? so aren't all those online sales to miniature market and cool stuff being redirected not to local stores but to amazon, thus perhaps increasing overall profit to FFG? I don't know because I don't have the data, maybe it's totally wrong, but worth considering.

A quick glance at the Amazon prices shows that they are not exactly far off from the others. That's the Amazon prices, not the the other Amazon sellers. Which is another point of the deal, as most stores cannot use Amazon to sell stuff now.

The real price is what the customer is willing to pay, you can set whatever price you like but if the consumer decides it's not worth that then you won't be making a sale that's how retails worked for centuries.

Yes, and that is what Asmodee is trying to fight. See all the "you are a chump for paying MSRP" posts to get a glimpse of the attitude that is quickly taking over the board game community. Really, X-wing isn't really the impetus for these policies. Why would you make a $100 game, when the "value" is $60, thus unable to be sold retail. I want more games like War of the Ring, Imperial Assault, TMNT: Shadows of the Past, and Ghostbusters. But, you can't really make those games if you can only sell them through heavily discount online sellers.

FWIW...

I'm not going to bother replying in this thread again and in fact will make a point of avoiding these threads all together.

They have the same effect as a post topic of "Candidate X sucks!" People will post a lot, but no one will actually change their mind on anything.

The new policy changes nothing for me, I'm not paying more. If it helps out the LGS' which in turn makes X-Wing stronger, great. If it doesn't then I'm no worse off than I was really. If it actually hurts sales which I highly doubt, then maybe the game suffers and I go play something else if it comes to that.

In the grand scheme of things this change means nothing to me. The "real" reason Asmodee is doing it doesn't even matter. My LGS feels this may help him out, and to me that's the only thing that matters.

Edit: To anyone who thinks I'm a chump for playing MSRP. You all can get bent. I pay what the LGS owner asks because I know how much stuff he sells, I know he can't really manage a discount. I also know he works a second job to pay the bills at the store, while his wife runs it during the day. Having to pay 25% more for my stuff to have a store 20 min's away, that goes out of it's way to support the games I play... To me that's a fair price.

FWIW...

I'm not going to bother replying in this thread again and in fact will make a point of avoiding these threads all together.

They have the same effect as a post topic of "Candidate X sucks!" People will post a lot, but no one will actually change their mind on anything.

The new policy changes nothing for me, I'm not paying more. If it helps out the LGS' which in turn makes X-Wing stronger, great. If it doesn't then I'm no worse off than I was really. If it actually hurts sales which I highly doubt, then maybe the game suffers and I go play something else if it comes to that.

In the grand scheme of things this change means nothing to me. The "real" reason Asmodee is doing it doesn't even matter. My LGS feels this may help him out, and to me that's the only thing that matters.

Edit: To anyone who thinks I'm a chump for playing MSRP. You all can get bent. I pay what the LGS owner asks because I know how much stuff he sells, I know he can't really manage a discount. I also know he works a second job to pay the bills at the store, while his wife runs it during the day. Having to pay 25% more for my stuff to have a store 20 min's away, that goes out of it's way to support the games I play... To me that's a fair price.

While I have the same attitude as you towards my stores, I feel like I should point out that you could instead just give your store owner a 100 dollar bill, no questions ask and order online and give him another next quarter. In a rural area a gaming club might be the better concept than a store with huge amounts of dead capital in the shelves.

The bigger issue imo was anyway that FFG subsidized online stores with huge discounts now they took those away and add a small bonus to brick and mortar and they did both most likely for a better market positioning of their products. They are kind of screwing over all of retail with their sales policies and they can do it because of their market position and big product portfolio.

The problem is that consumer perception of inflated prices at brick-and-mortar stores was driving customers away from those stores and to the heavily discounted online retailers for their purchases. That's a problem because no one demos the game online at Coolstuffinc. No one wanders by a game of X-wing being played at Miniature Market and asks questions about it. Amazon.com does not host any X-wing Organized Play events.

Not true. Cool Stuff has brick and mortar stores that hold events AND charged 66% of MSRP in store. Just because the old way of doing business is (predictably) failing does not make it wrong. The world is changing....adapt or die.

Just because someone decided to buy a game store so they would have a place to play with their buddies, it does not follow that they are a 501 ©3 that we should subsidize with paying more "just because". You gotta be a smart business person and alot of these guys simply aren't. (like VanorDM's guy, holding onto a business that doesn't support itself...just stupid.)

Just my 2 cents...

This is misguided and naive and requires pricing collusion between the two companies (and likely many others) to even make it work. The item was sold to them at a certain price. Due to competition, they will set their price as low as they are able to, within the bounds that they still need to secure a profit either through direct sales of this product or by enticing other business (e.g. Selling gasoline at or below cost to bring customers to your super-mega-store). Competition drives price down by its very existence. You can't just set whatever "reasonable" price you want and expect to get sales when someone can easily undercut you and still make a profit.

What do you think would have happened had one set their price to "reasonable" as defined by All Shields Forward, while the other deeply discounted? I bet you one of the two wouldn't be selling much x-wing.

The "reasonable" price is set at the very beginning from the point of origin - Asmodee in this case. Everyone after that simply adds margin onto the price they paid to cover operating costs and secure profit.

I've actually worked at one of the distributors that runs one of the popular online stores. I'm aware of how they work.

And you're absolutely correct, Asmodee gets to set the reasonable price.

And thats $14.95 for small blisters, $19.95 for medium, and $29.95 for large. If anyone distributor want to sell it less Asmodee has the right to deny them sales.

You are moving on to an entirely different point. You have gone from - It is MM and CSI's fault that prices went up because their prices should have already been higher, to Asmodee can set whatever price they choose.

If Asmodee wants to enforce price floors and deny sales to people that sell at lower prices, they are certainly able to. I'm not arguing that. But they aren't doing that. They are selling items at wholesale prices and allowing others to set their own price based upon that cost. Until they enforce price floors, MSRP is absolutely NOT the price. The price is WHOLESALE PRICE + X, where X equals whatever amount is required for middlemen and retailers to make a profit on resale.

In all cases, it is Asmodee who sets what the "price" is, whether it be MSRP or wholesale+x is entirely dependent on Asmodee's policies and not downstream sellers. In the past, as well as currently, Asmodee has set the price at wholesale+x, not MSRP. MSRP is just a fictitious value that Asmodee has determined probably equals wholesale+x for face-to-face retailers. Competition in the market forces everyone to attempt to sell at wholesale + x (for whatever their x value is), including CSI and MM. Everyone downstream from Asmodee can only control their portion of "x". For LGS, it may add up to MSRP, but for CSI and MM it doesn't.

CSI and MM have what equates to zero choice in the matter. They will sell at wholesale + x, or they will not sell. If Asmodee some day in the future enforces a price floor at MSRP, they will sell at MSRP or they will not receive product. Until Asmodee does so, you absolutely cannot just sell at a higher price than the competition so that some day in the future you can absorb a price hike from Asmodee. You'll sell nothing in the mean time.

Acting as if CSI and MM should have been selling at MSRP already is dumb (or even anything greater than the minimum at which they make the most profit). They never had an option to sell at MSRP, at least if they are interested in making sales.

Asmodee absolutely set the price to sell online at 30% discount through their sales policies and pricing structure. They have now changed that price. CSI and MM are only actors in the market playing their roles to a script.

I went back and looked at my first Wave 2 purchase on MM.

In September 2013, a TIE Interceptor and an A-Wing each cost me $9.99, today they each cost 11.29. That's a difference of $1.30.

In September 2013, the Millenium Falcon cost me $19.99, today it's $22.49. Difference is $2.50.

And people are crying about being screwed over by it.

ETA: To put it in other words, if you're ordering to hit the $100 free shipping, now you're only getting nine small ships instead of ten.

The problem is that consumer perception of inflated prices at brick-and-mortar stores was driving customers away from those stores and to the heavily discounted online retailers for their purchases. That's a problem because no one demos the game online at Coolstuffinc. No one wanders by a game of X-wing being played at Miniature Market and asks questions about it. Amazon.com does not host any X-wing Organized Play events.

Not true. Cool Stuff has brick and mortar stores that hold events AND charged 66% of MSRP in store. Just because the old way of doing business is (predictably) failing does not make it wrong. The world is changing....adapt or die.

Just because someone decided to buy a game store so they would have a place to play with their buddies, it does not follow that they are a 501 ©3 that we should subsidize with paying more "just because". You gotta be a smart business person and alot of these guys simply aren't. (like VanorDM's guy, holding onto a business that doesn't support itself...just stupid.)

Just my 2 cents...

When I got out of this Biz-LOL in early 2000 it was falling off. I lived in a large city with plenty of active military people who came in and purchased all kinds of games and comics. We had a huge GW club and dozens of very active RPG groups and CCG players in the shop. The thing is the product sets on the shelves. Sure the new and the trending goodies move but you always had a slowly growing pile of everything in the stock room that gathered dust.

The gamer people are extremely fickle and you can not expect any amount of event running or sales to move products that people just do not care about. The mistake is charging more for the products that the fickle masses do care about... these super gamers (like us) do not like that crap.

The now model of selling globally is fine and mostly free of the FLGS issues. Trying to keep these last few dinosaurs from going completely under the tar in their sad little ageing lonely pits... it ain't my job anymore.