Lastly, and this is just a request, please speak so everyone can understand what we're discussing here. I think that's the point of this thread, and you're not doing anyone a service speaking in a select lingo (I think you're doing it deliberately, but this might be paranoia because your tone notably changed) that only a select few in this thread want to process.

Sorry, I was trying to be precise. Both you and Lyraeus have stood on your bona fides as researchers, so I figured that the jargon would help in terms of precision more than it would hinder. I'll back off on that.

Why do I think we need to compare to X-Wing? Because it's from the same parent company making the product. If one product is drastically driving sales while the other is not, then there will be a shift of resources and business strategy to accommodate supply and demand. X-Wing, despite being the older brother, also allows us to study the trends and success that it has a product and allows us to set the gold standard for Armada. Unless FFG increases resources for both R&D and production for the Armada line due a change to drastic change to business strategy, I don't think anything will change. X-Wing is clearly the money-maker here, so why should they shift agendas? Given, this is based off recent attendance of regionals events + the average cost to make a competitive list at said events.

Yes, there is a point there, but has anything really changed with X-Wing since they came out with Armada? It was going gangbusters before, and its still going gangbusters. How do you know that Armada has disappointed them? We don't know what their projections were. It might have exceeded their expectations, and they never expected it to beat X-Wing in the first place.

You're also presuming that FFG is limited to a fixed number of product lines that they can put out. Sure, there will be some level of trade-off, but why should we presume that they can't hire more people to do R&D. I know guys who would give their left ******** to work in R&D for FFG. There's also been a drop in the unemployment rate in China, so maybe they've hired more people to paint more little plastic spaceships (j/k).

As for my data, it was merely a collection of attendance for 3 key data points: attendance for weekly events for Armada vs. X-Wing, attendance for store tournaments Armada vs. X-Wing, and regionals participation over time. The social media bit I did myself. The same stores showed an increase in participation for X-Wing, and a decrease for Armada, while keeping within the same proportion of players. These are the same stores, so there's no divergence from the source of the actual data pools.

Okay, so in what form are these data coming in. Are you being told what is being played by FLGS store owners for the weekly events data? Also, Store/Regionals over time is not really possible, as Armada did not have Store/Regionals last year. All it can do is demonstrate that X-Wing is growing. If you're comparing growth rates, Armada would be doing infinitely well, because it grew out of '0' from last year.

Regarding social media, that's also going to give you a false positive for your (implied) hypothesis, because people join FB groups more than they leave FB groups. The size of such groups is really just a measure of longevity. I manage our area's FB group for Armada, and the number of members is not at all reflective of how many people are playing it. It still includes the people who started and stopped. Our area's X-Wing FB group also has a TON of people who no longer play actively. In fact, it might even be the case that a larger share of the X-Wing group's membership is non-active, simply because the group has been around longer. In that sense, the social media data might actually be giving you vastly inflated numbers for X-Wing, even in comparison to the Armada numbers.

If 30% of Armada players play X-Wing then it proves that they are a minority in Armada. Thus it is not X-Wing sales driving Armada since the other 70% don't play X-Wing (I fall in that 70%, so do many others on the forums)

I think that was just MoffZen's misunderstanding of the data.

I would not give a body part up but I would sell my mother to work for FFG. . . Though that's not likely a fair trade. . . I don't like my mother. . .

@Ly : Still, you know what happens when one assumes See point below. I'm sure FFG has a plan for Armada, but the current data is not indicative enough to find patterns.

@HERO : Your profit calculation is, once again, completely hypothetical and uncorrelated to reality. You don't know the variable cost structure of Armada. You don't know the variable cost structure of X-Wing. More importantly, you don't know the fixed costs that each line has to cover. In summary, you have no means to prove that your hypothesis is truthful.

And if you reach logical conclusions on a wrong premise, only luck in your logical process will yield truthful results.

You're also assuming that FFG is trying to make a profit with Armada. It would seem logical, but there are many reasons why companies launch specific product lines, some of which are completely uncorrelated to profit. Armada could have been made to promote the brand image of FFG. Heck, it could have been made because some guy threw a tantrum and wanted to see big ships on the table ! If they don't make a buck per each sale, limiting the releases is a valid strategy.

My point is, you and Lyraeus are both trying to find the underlying truth behind FFG's strategy and how to increase their profit margin, and that's a noble goal. But, you're trying to interpret data to find the truth, rather than observing the truth which is currently impossible to do given current access to information.

____

@HERO 2 :

My point was : Even though your local data is interesting, it doesn't show anything except :

- 30% of Armada players are also likely to play X-Wing

- X-Wing has a larger player base than Armada in tournament attendance

These two facts (because they are facts, I won't be questioning your data integrity here because I have no means to gather it myself) don't tell us anything else about the health of the game. Yes, X-Wing has more players than Armada, so what ?

To sum it up : you guys are jumping to conclusions based on a subjective interpretation of data, rather than taking the data for what it is. As such, you're finding conclusions that are highly emotionally involved (as seen by the use of qualitative adjectives like "better" or "worse" rather than quantitative terms like "more" or "less").

@Mikael, I was basing my 30% off of :

Social Media (FB page, regional): 1151 X-Wing members to 236 Armada (4.87:1), 14 new:1 new monthly, 13 new events: 4 new events, 67 Armada are in the same group as X-Wing

Maybe I didn't understand it, but the way I read it was : 67 Armada players in the FB regional page are also in the regional page of X-Wing. Which is a ratio of 28% that I arbitrarily rounded up to 30% because numbers ending in 0 are sexier

(Picture this, what if 007 was instead 700 ! Much classier this way !)

@ Lyr: Heheh

By the way, I think that if you want to still work on your trend analysis data, I think that here are some ways that you might make that better:

Make your X-Axis one of time interval rather than the more nebulous increment of 'wave'. As others have said, you can go month-by-month, or quarter-by-quarter. The thing is, if you really want to compile data that will be more useful for projecting forward, I think you might want change up your data entirely and measure it by when announcements were made, when stuff went on the boat, shipping, release date. You might have to search through the forms in order to get a lot of the dates right. Also, I think that you're missing the boat (the rhetorical one, not The Boat) by not including the Imperial Assault stuff. Sure, it has a different type of release schedule, but it would still be interesting to see the comparison.

Also, I would note, that it gives us something to think about. As far as I can tell from listening to our IA community, is that it's not doing as well as Armada is, even if vastly more product has been released for it. So, if HERO's product-possibilities assessment is correct, that's where the cuts to R&D and output would be cut before Armada.

Anyway, back to the data. I think you're giving your implied theory too much credence by not including all the between-wave product that X-Wing came out with before Wave 4 hit (Imperial Aces, the GR-75), as well as what happened afterwards.

Short story: just get rid of 'waves' from your data, unless you just want to have a dotted vertical line at the wave release dates to give a sense of when they came out - just for descriptive purposes, not for its analytical utility.

@Mikael, I was basing my 30% off :

Social Media (FB page, regional): 1151 X-Wing members to 236 Armada (4.87:1), 14 new:1 new monthly, 13 new events: 4 new events, 67 Armada are in the same group as X-Wing

Maybe I didn't understand it, but the way I read it was : 67 Armada players in the FB regional page are also in the regional page of X-Wing. Which is a ratio of 28% that I arbitrarily rounded up to 30% because numbers ending in 0 are sexier

(Picture this, what if 007 was instead 700 ! Much classier this way !)

Aha, I see.

Yeah, I think looking at the FB data is very problematic, as I outlined above. It's understandable that he would look there, because it's at least 'an' indicator in a field where we have so little to go on, but it's too laden with problems to really build inferences on.

@Mikael, I was basing my 30% off :

Social Media (FB page, regional): 1151 X-Wing members to 236 Armada (4.87:1), 14 new:1 new monthly, 13 new events: 4 new events, 67 Armada are in the same group as X-Wing

Maybe I didn't understand it, but the way I read it was : 67 Armada players in the FB regional page are also in the regional page of X-Wing. Which is a ratio of 28% that I arbitrarily rounded up to 30% because numbers ending in 0 are sexier

(Picture this, what if 007 was instead 700 ! Much classier this way !)

Just really quick before I run, and that the 67 persons in the Armada group are also in the X-Wing group!

I am just trying to bring logic and a form of trend analysis that I am experienced at MoffZen. It is less about understanding and more about a predictive analysis that will help us a little and to show potential players that we are here and not dying no matter what anyone says.

We can make some assumptions though from historical trends. For instance, it is roughly 6 weeks from an announcement article to a preview article. Dras found that one and it has been fairly consistent. There is nuggets of Intel everywhere, you just have to have an open mind to find them.

@Lyraeus : Predictive analysis is interesting for sure, but it's always wrong I'm kidding of course, but there are just way too many variables going on to accurately assess them all in some circumstances and quite often the trend analysis looks at the past rather than the underlying mechanics of . Example : The photovoltaic industry in France was growing super strong until March 2011 and everybody thought it would keep growing, at which point the gvt passed a law that completely cut subsidies. This came out of the blue and they effectively destroyed half of the industry in 3 months.

The point is, assumptions are just that, they are not the truth.

I accept your evidence for the articles, but what that tells us is : up until now, FFG has let 6 weeks pass between announcement and preview. If tomorrow they decide to halve that delay, that previous piece of information has changed. And nothing stops FFG from doing that and there's nothing to predict it. Also, maybe they're going to change it to 8 weeks instead ?

There are trends and patterns to see everywhere as of now, for sure. But they can't predict the future unless these trends and patterns uncover the underlying mechanics behind that trend.

For instance : Right now we know that FFG has released :

- Wave 1 : 7 products

- Wave 2 : 5 products

- Wave 3 : 2 products

- Wave 4 : 2 products

Are Wave 3 and 4 hitting the stores at the same time ? Well, we won't know until they hit the stores So, this could either mean FFG is going to reduce the number of products per release, or actually keep them at 4-5 depending on how they push Wave 3 and 4. And even then, nothing stops them from throwing a 6 ship Wave.

___

I am not trying to diminish your work or effort in any case, and it's really cool to see community members that are positively engaged ! Just, be careful to what generalizations you guys jump to based on the actual information.

@Lyraeus : Predictive analysis is interesting for sure, but it's always wrong I'm kidding of course, but there are just way too many variables going on to accurately assess them all in some circumstances and quite often the trend analysis looks at the past rather than the underlying mechanics of . Example : The photovoltaic industry in France was growing super strong until March 2011 and everybody thought it would keep growing, at which point the gvt passed a law that completely cut subsidies. This came out of the blue and they effectively destroyed half of the industry in 3 months.

The point is, assumptions are just that, they are not the truth.

I accept your evidence for the articles, but what that tells us is : up until now, FFG has let 6 weeks pass between announcement and preview. If tomorrow they decide to halve that delay, that previous piece of information has changed. And nothing stops FFG from doing that and there's nothing to predict it. Also, maybe they're going to change it to 8 weeks instead ?

There are trends and patterns to see everywhere as of now, for sure. But they can't predict the future unless these trends and patterns uncover the underlying mechanics behind that trend.

For instance : Right now we know that FFG has released :

- Wave 1 : 7 products

- Wave 2 : 5 products

- Wave 3 : 2 products

- Wave 4 : 2 products

Are Wave 3 and 4 hitting the stores at the same time ? Well, we won't know until they hit the stores So, this could either mean FFG is going to reduce the number of products per release, or actually keep them at 4-5 depending on how they push Wave 3 and 4. And even then, nothing stops them from throwing a 6 ship Wave.

___

I am not trying to diminish your work or effort in any case, and it's really cool to see community members that are positively engaged ! Just, be careful to what generalizations you guys jump to based on the actual information.

lel

HERO, is there a reason why you think FFG need to make a choice between the two games?

Money issue? I don't think that's a problem for them, I think it's more like a Win-Win situation. On the market, there was a demand for a product like Armada (in direct competition for Star Trek Attack Wing, game with capital ship). Pretty sure that they are doing money with Armada, maybe not the same as X-Wing, but enough to keep both of them. The way you present it it's like if Ford, because that they are selling more car than truck, took the decision to stop selling truck. Not a great idea at my eyes

When I look at this, I merely put around 1000$ on Armada (both factions), I bougth also Rebellion. I'm the kind of person who like micro and macro management. What those games are giving me. When I saw X-Wing, this game did'n attract me enough to bougth the core set. Maybe I could some day but I'm very to happy with Armada for now. I really prefer those big ship, with the system of turn dial (simulate the process of commandment), the maneuver tool (simulate the inertia), the use of squadron in anti-ship role and many other reasons.

Is there room for both??? Yes!

Can you play both??? Yes!

So what's the problem??? Affraid that FFG decide to cut supplies some day for one of those game and you prefer to choose the one that you think will last longer? There is no need to do so. Armada and X-Wing are there to stay, don't worry about it. Play with the game that you prefer and enjoy it. That why they are there for.

@Ly : Still, you know what happens when one assumes See point below. I'm sure FFG has a plan for Armada, but the current data is not indicative enough to find patterns.

@HERO : Your profit calculation is, once again, completely hypothetical and uncorrelated to reality. You don't know the variable cost structure of Armada. You don't know the variable cost structure of X-Wing. More importantly, you don't know the fixed costs that each line has to cover. In summary, you have no means to prove that your hypothesis is truthful.

And if you reach logical conclusions on a wrong premise, only luck in your logical process will yield truthful results.

You're also assuming that FFG is trying to make a profit with Armada. It would seem logical, but there are many reasons why companies launch specific product lines, some of which are completely uncorrelated to profit. Armada could have been made to promote the brand image of FFG. Heck, it could have been made because some guy threw a tantrum and wanted to see big ships on the table ! If they don't make a buck per each sale, limiting the releases is a valid strategy.

My point is, you and Lyraeus are both trying to find the underlying truth behind FFG's strategy and how to increase their profit margin, and that's a noble goal. But, you're trying to interpret data to find the truth, rather than observing the truth which is currently impossible to do given current access to information.

____

@HERO 2 :

My point was : Even though your local data is interesting, it doesn't show anything except :

- 30% of Armada players are also likely to play X-Wing

- X-Wing has a larger player base than Armada in tournament attendance

These two facts (because they are facts, I won't be questioning your data integrity here because I have no means to gather it myself) don't tell us anything else about the health of the game. Yes, X-Wing has more players than Armada, so what ?

To sum it up : you guys are jumping to conclusions based on a subjective interpretation of data, rather than taking the data for what it is. As such, you're finding conclusions that are highly emotionally involved (as seen by the use of qualitative adjectives like "better" or "worse" rather than quantitative terms like "more" or "less").

OK, I'm back.

You are correct, I do not know FFG's exact business intent. I do that that the vast majority of businesses enjoy a profit While this is a generality and not set in stone, I'm going to assume that the entire idea of releasing a product is to generate revenue for the company.

So if the idea is to turn a profit, then would you say that my analysis of the 3x people playing X-Wing based on Regional attendance, plus the fact that most competitive lists upwards of 150-250 dollars (data provided), then mathematically, this means that as far as competitive events are considered, that X-Wing players there have at least made FFG 3x the amount of profit than Armada has.

Now, we all know for the most part that the people go travel to tournaments are in the niche. The large majority of people who own X-Wing or Armada are labeled as casual and don't participate in these events. So proportionally, if there's a 3:1 ratio of hardcore X-Wing vs. Armada players, then it's safe to assume that proportionally this could travel to the general demographic who don't participate in these events. I mean, even when looking at local store participation data for local areas with respects to weekly participation, any hosted events or store tournaments, you'll find just about the same ratio of numbers. This to me suggests that the proportions are indeed accurate enough to make some kind of logical conclusion.

With that said, can we talk about price for competitive lists for Armada for a second just to entertain my train of thought here. I already provided my cost estimate for how much my ST list was. Can someone possibly provide some numbers based on regionals data? Aka, the DeMSU, Fireball or Rebel Carriers? I'd love to see how that stacks up to X-Wing.

HERO, is there a reason why you think FFG need to make a choice between the two games?

Money issue? I don't think that's a problem for them, I think it's more like a Win-Win situation. On the market, there was a demand for a product like Armada (in direct competition for Star Trek Attack Wing, game with capital ship). Pretty sure that they are doing money with Armada, maybe not the same as X-Wing, but enough to keep both of them. The way you present it it's like if Ford, because that they are selling more car than truck, took the decision to stop selling truck. Not a great idea at my eyes

When I look at this, I merely put around 1000$ on Armada (both factions), I bougth also Rebellion. I'm the kind of person who like micro and macro management. What those games are giving me. When I saw X-Wing, this game did'n attract me enough to bougth the core set. Maybe I could some day but I'm very to happy with Armada for now. I really prefer those big ship, with the system of turn dial (simulate the process of commandment), the maneuver tool (simulate the inertia), the use of squadron in anti-ship role and many other reasons.

Is there room for both??? Yes!

Can you play both??? Yes!

So what's the problem??? Affraid that FFG decide to cut supplies some day for one of those game and you prefer to choose the one that you think will last longer? There is no need to do so. Armada and X-Wing are there to stay, don't worry about it. Play with the game that you prefer and enjoy it. That why they are there for.

Hi, thanks for your post. I'd like to express firmly that I am in no way thinking that Armada is dying. While the numbers have declined regionally, I am sure that that's because of Wave3/4 taking their sweet time.

I have both X-Wing and Armada, and I jumped into X-Wing first simply because Armada did not exist. If both were present at the same time, I doubt I would have ever gotten into X-Wing seriously.

So I became a bit proactive and decided to ask the source of the matter what their tournaments were like back in their first 18 months. So far not many responses but what I have been getting is what I have been told in the past by local players before.

Question regarding tournament turnouts from the early days of X-Wing

Now, if I could get hard facts I could do a comparative analysis and see what it is like for us and them in the same length of time from release.

I can't wait to see what responses I get.

HERO, is there a reason why you think FFG need to make a choice between the two games?

Money issue? I don't think that's a problem for them, I think it's more like a Win-Win situation. On the market, there was a demand for a product like Armada (in direct competition for Star Trek Attack Wing, game with capital ship). Pretty sure that they are doing money with Armada, maybe not the same as X-Wing, but enough to keep both of them. The way you present it it's like if Ford, because that they are selling more car than truck, took the decision to stop selling truck. Not a great idea at my eyes

When I look at this, I merely put around 1000$ on Armada (both factions), I bougth also Rebellion. I'm the kind of person who like micro and macro management. What those games are giving me. When I saw X-Wing, this game did'n attract me enough to bougth the core set. Maybe I could some day but I'm very to happy with Armada for now. I really prefer those big ship, with the system of turn dial (simulate the process of commandment), the maneuver tool (simulate the inertia), the use of squadron in anti-ship role and many other reasons.

Is there room for both??? Yes!

Can you play both??? Yes!

So what's the problem??? Affraid that FFG decide to cut supplies some day for one of those game and you prefer to choose the one that you think will last longer? There is no need to do so. Armada and X-Wing are there to stay, don't worry about it. Play with the game that you prefer and enjoy it. That why they are there for.

So I am having a bit of fun being proactive and asking people who played X-Wing from Release to wave 4 what tournaments looked like for them.

Question regarding tournament turnouts from the early days of X-Wing

Enjoy

So I am having a bit of fun being proactive and asking people who aged X-Wing in the ear of Release to wave 4 what tournaments looked like for them. Question regarding tournament turnouts from the early days of X-Wing

Enjoy

So I am having a bit of fun being proactive and asking people who aged X-Wing in the ear of Release to wave 4 what tournaments looked like for them. Question regarding tournament turnouts from the early days of X-Wing

Enjoy

I hate it when X-Wing ages me in the ear.

You are correct, I do not know FFG's exact business intent. I do that that the vast majority of businesses enjoy a profit While this is a generality and not set in stone, I'm going to assume that the entire idea of releasing a product is to generate revenue for the company.

So if the idea is to turn a profit, then would you say that my analysis of the 3x people playing X-Wing based on Regional attendance, plus the fact that most competitive lists upwards of 150-250 dollars (data provided), then mathematically, this means that as far as competitive events are considered, that X-Wing players there have at least made FFG 3x the amount of profit than Armada has.

But none of this logically means that it would net them greater profit by focusing even more resources into X-Wing than they already do OR that they must take away resources from Armada even if it does.

If they pour more into X-Wing, it could easily mean that they run into diminishing gains on their return-on-investment. ie. the market for X-Wing becomes flooded and people turn away from it because it seems like there's just too much that they need to keep up with to remain competitive. I hit that point a while ago already. Also, the deeper they scrape into the barrel of obscure EU garbage, the less people are attached to the types of ships that they might put out there.

You are correct, I do not know FFG's exact business intent. I do that that the vast majority of businesses enjoy a profit While this is a generality and not set in stone, I'm going to assume that the entire idea of releasing a product is to generate revenue for the company.

So if the idea is to turn a profit, then would you say that my analysis of the 3x people playing X-Wing based on Regional attendance, plus the fact that most competitive lists upwards of 150-250 dollars (data provided), then mathematically, this means that as far as competitive events are considered, that X-Wing players there have at least made FFG 3x the amount of profit than Armada has.

But none of this logically means that it would net them greater profit by focusing even more resources into X-Wing than they already do OR that they must take away resources from Armada even if it does.

If they pour more into X-Wing, it could easily mean that they run into diminishing gains on their return-on-investment. ie. the market for X-Wing becomes flooded and people turn away from it because it seems like there's just too much that they need to keep up with to remain competitive. I hit that point a while ago already. Also, the deeper they scrape into the barrel of obscure EU garbage, the less people are attached to the types of ships that they might put out there.

I'm saying the exact opposite actually. I think they should focus more R&D and production to Armada because X-Wing seem to be doing just fine lol I'm getting greedy for sure, but I would definitely like to see Armada at an accelerated rate compared to X-Wing at this front. Maybe reverse the wave cycles to 6mo for Armada and 9 for X-Wing.

A word of caution when asking for initial X-wing event data. FFGs OP barely existed prior to X-wing/Netrunner. The only game they had that drew more then 2 dozen for Gencon was AGOT, which drew at "Worlds" about what you'd expect to see at an X-wing Regional. "Worlds" was held at Gencon, and Regionals were essentially Store Championships, and SCs didn't exist.

So when making the comparison you have to account for the fact that Armada was released into an environment in which there were alot of venues and people involved in running FFG events, X-wing on the other hand was not.

A word of caution when asking for initial X-wing event data. FFGs OP barely existed prior to X-wing/Netrunner. The only game they had that drew more then 2 dozen for Gencon was AGOT, which drew at "Worlds" about what you'd expect to see at an X-wing Regional. "Worlds" was held at Gencon, and Regionals were essentially Store Championships, and SCs didn't exist.

So when making the comparison you have to account for the fact that Armada was released into an environment in which there were alot of venues and people involved in running FFG events, X-wing on the other hand was not.

That is true but GenCon last year for Armada had what 96 people and it was the biggest tournament to date. Worlds only had a bit over 50 I believe. I remember asking during one of the streams. So oddly enough we have a comparison point!

I was not going to go above a regionals which I heard from AlexW that the Roseville 2014 had 60 people which with space requirements that is the equivalent to 30 Armada players which is really close to our best.

OH! Our third best tournament was held by mikemcmann (where did he go anyway! I do miss his input! I hope he is ok. . . ) who had 50+ I believe.

Dras looked up the tournament kits earlier today when we were chatting and yea, there is a hefty difference. Though I think they just reprinted the Luke/Vader cards for the recent Fathers Day event from their first kit.

aYou are correct, I do not know FFG's exact business intent. I do that that the vast majority of businesses enjoy a profit While this is a generality and not set in stone, I'm going to assume that the entire idea of releasing a product is to generate revenue for the company.

So if the idea is to turn a profit, then would you say that my analysis of the 3x people playing X-Wing based on Regional attendance, plus the fact that most competitive lists upwards of 150-250 dollars (data provided), then mathematically, this means that as far as competitive events are considered, that X-Wing players there have at least made FFG 3x the amount of profit than Armada has.

But none of this logically means that it would net them greater profit by focusing even more resources into X-Wing than they already do OR that they must take away resources from Armada even if it does.

If they pour more into X-Wing, it could easily mean that they run into diminishing gains on their return-on-investment. ie. the market for X-Wing becomes flooded and people turn away from it because it seems like there's just too much that they need to keep up with to remain competitive. I hit that point a while ago already. Also, the deeper they scrape into the barrel of obscure EU garbage, the less people are attached to the types of ships that they might put out there.

I'm saying the exact opposite actually. I think they should focus more R&D and production to Armada because X-Wing seem to be doing just fine lol I'm getting greedy for sure, but I would definitely like to see Armada at an accelerated rate compared to X-Wing at this front. Maybe reverse the wave cycles to 6mo for Armada and 9 for X-Wing.

Okay, then I'm confused or you're confusing. All of this time it has seemed to me that you've been a wailing prophet, prophesizing doom, DOOM, for Armada because its fanbase can't keep pace with X-Wing.