21 minutes ago, mightyspacepope said:

I think you're making FFG/Asmodee out to be far more nefarious than they actually are. Let's be real, how often have we seen a new player come into a store, try the game, not buy anything, then come back in later with $300+ worth of product bought online that would have cost $400+ at MSRP?

Never. Or maybe it could be "all the time" if someone new shows up at and plays a store yet never having purchased a thing from the store. I'm curious how $300 worth of product needs to cost $400 at MSRP; are you saying that MSRP isn't WORTH the price as that is exactly how I'd read that statement.

If you think a person MUST buy from a store to play in a store then it sounds like an uphill battle if you want to try playing somewhere else. If I'm out somewhere and happen into a game store and give it a test run are you saying you'd never want me to come back just because I've purchased my ships from somewhere else? Unless that is true and you are discriminating based on me having a previously established collection what does it matter HOW I gained my collection?

Is there really a difference between someone who buys everything at Full MSRP at a Game Store (friendly and local require further definitions), someone who buys new from an online retailer at a discount, or someone who picks up a collection for next to nothing from someone who may be getting out of the game?

Haven't bought last wave at all, will likely wait for sales and even then buy 1/3-1/2 of what I used to. I know everyone's side is different but it dropped the ball for me

52 minutes ago, StevenO said:

Is there really a difference between someone who buys everything at Full MSRP at a Game Store (friendly and local require further definitions), someone who buys new from an online retailer at a discount, or someone who picks up a collection for next to nothing from someone who may be getting out of the game?

When it comes to building a strong local community long-term, yes, there's absolutely a difference. A store is much more likely to support a game like X-Wing, which takes up a lot of space but doesn't necessarily bring in a lot of money (in comparison to something like Magic) if there's a pool of players who buy from that store rather than from an online retailer located on the other side of the country.

20 minutes ago, mightyspacepope said:

When it comes to building a strong local community long-term, yes, there's absolutely a difference. A store is much more likely to support a game like X-Wing, which takes up a lot of space but doesn't necessarily bring in a lot of money (in comparison to something like Magic) if there's a pool of players who buy from that store rather than from an online retailer located on the other side of the country.

So if I haven't bought my collection at a given store then you're saying I'm unwelcomed there. You asked about someone visiting a store and then coming back to play with some kind of outside collection that wasn't built in from that store and how I got to that point shouldn't matter one bit if you want me to stay. If I stay and like playing there I'd be much more likely to buy from there but that has little to do with why I may have walked in the door in the first place.

Maybe it doesn't seem "friendly" but if it is all about the play space then perhaps the store should charge a nominal amount for the space instead of thinking people need to buy from them to support a game. If you really think that I need to buy my ships from a game store at full retail to come to a tournament in that store where they are charging an entry fee I'd need to rethink how "friendly" this game supposedly is.

17 minutes ago, StevenO said:

So if I haven't bought my collection at a given store then you're saying I'm unwelcomed there. You asked about someone visiting a store and then coming back to play with some kind of outside collection that wasn't built in from that store and how I got to that point shouldn't matter one bit if you want me to stay. If I stay and like playing there I'd be much more likely to buy from there but that has little to do with why I may have walked in the door in the first place.

Maybe it doesn't seem "friendly" but if it is all about the play space then perhaps the store should charge a nominal amount for the space instead of thinking people need to buy from them to support a game. If you really think that I need to buy my ships from a game store at full retail to come to a tournament in that store where they are charging an entry fee I'd need to rethink how "friendly" this game supposedly is.

You're taking what I'm saying and cranking it to 11.

33 minutes ago, StevenO said:

So if I haven't bought my collection at a given store then you're saying I'm unwelcomed there.

No that's not what he's saying.

The truth is unless you live in Orlando you aren't playing at Cool Stuff Inc.

if you go into a shop and play there, if you never spend money there then you are a bit of a parasite. Go to your FLGS, play some x wing and buy your next expansion there, or buy another game, buy SOMETHING because without that your FLGS will go out of business.

Its simple reallly.

The Canadian dollar has helped prices go down, but a not too insignificant amount of my money comes from my parents who are supporting my university/X-Wing hobbies are paid mostly in American Dollars or Euros, so it's hard to tell from that perspective.

That said, one LGS that I've been attending for 3 years turned out to not be an FLGS (short story is that the people working there on Saturdays, our game days there, are great, the manager working there on weekdays is not great) so I've stopped buying from there for the most part and so now the other FLGS whose owners have earned the F are now getting pretty close to 100% of my business rather than the 50% I'd divided between both stores. In addition to actually being friendly, their prices are 25% cheaper. Admittedly I've never been quite able to buy 1 of each ship per wave, usually dropping a ship per wave, but overall I'd say I'm spending less now that I'm prioritizing spending at the FLGS.

The price change for online purchases was one of the factors that did affect my purchases of X-Wing. Right now I purchase at least 1/3 less of product than I did before. My spending at my LGS has increased a bit more and my online purchases a bit less. Overall, I do spend less than I did before even with the "online price hike."

1 hour ago, StevenO said:

... then perhaps the store should charge a nominal amount for the space instead of thinking people need to buy from them to support a game...

Riiight. In my experience gamers hate spending money and think everything is too expensive. Back when X-Wing was starting up at my FLGS it decided to charge £0.50 to anyone who wanted to play. That fee would cover you for the entire day and it didn't matter if you were playing 1 game or 10 and permitted you to use any of the 4x4 custom x-wing boards they made up.

you know what? Some people still grumbled at first, although as time has gone on people have accepted it. However, it is very easy to put people off with moves like that.

We recently had a tournament here and as per usual the tournament was 5 rounds with no top cut. It used two kits to ensure no one walked away empty handed. The response was that people questioned why the store wasn't doing a top 8 cut. What they did not realise is that out of the £120 the store earned, only £10 of that was profit due to the cost of the kits and staff wages.

That isn't a lot for a place to earn...and if these places go under you'll be left with no public space to play. It's your money at the end of the day but do not be surprised if some people view you as a parasite for taking advantage of your FLGS and not giving anything back to them, that is merely selfish.

1 hour ago, BlodVargarna said:

No that's not what he's saying.

The truth is unless you live in Orlando you aren't playing at Cool Stuff Inc.

if you go into a shop and play there, if you never spend money there then you are a bit of a parasite. Go to your FLGS, play some x wing and buy your next expansion there, or buy another game, buy SOMETHING because without that your FLGS will go out of business.

Exactly. Most FLGS are small businesses run by people who have (hopefully, for the love of it) given up weekends and evenings to be at the shop (and not with family and friends) for you. They also have rent, taxes, and bills for the lights you're under and the toilet you flush. So, unless you are also one of those party guest who shows up empty-handed, drinks the beer, eats the food, and then leaves, you do owe the proprietor a little something for welcoming you in . Generally, that little something is a purchase at the store.

My local FLGS nearly closed not due to financial woes, but because the guy wanted his life back. Fortunately for the community, someone stepped in the take the baton, and the store is still there.

I never play in stores and I never buy in stores. All my FLGSes could go out of business tomorrow and it wouldn't impact me. I'm not a fan of being told that I need to pay more to support something that does nothing for me.

You can argue that FFG would have a harder time making and selling X-Wing if it didn't have all the players who got into X-Wing because they saw it in a store, but there's also an opportunity cost for increasing the pricing to support those stores. There's certainly an argument to be made that FFG could do just as well by pricing aggressively and letting FLGSes fend for themselves. But, either way, that's an argument about what's best for FFG, not what's best for me.

If you play in a store, then you should support that store. The logic of that argument is clear. Charging me more when I never play in a store and I'm never going to buy from a store is less clearly justifiable, especially when I have brought a bunch of people into the hobby through my own efforts, with no brick-and-mortar store being involved in any way.

I don't have a grudge against FFG for implementing pricing policies that they feel will benefit their business in the long run, but those policies are definitely not working to my benefit, and I don't mind pointing it out.

10 hours ago, VanorDM said:

In other news, apples are not oranges...

Bloodbowl while a wonderful game is not really a miniature tabletop game, it's an advanced board game, with a very limited number of pieces needed for any given team.

We were talking about miniatures games, which Blood Bowl undisputably is. And that description could easily be applied to X-Wing, too, which has a lot of boardgamey elements.

I buy from a FLGS that gives a 20% discount for pre-ordering. So, when a new wave is announced, I wait till they add the ships to their system and then place my order.

8 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

We were talking about miniatures games, which Blood Bowl undisputably is. And that description could easily be applied to X-Wing, too, which has a lot of boardgamey elements.

X-Wing is 100% "board game" that happens to also use miniatures. As I always have said if you take away the minis the game may not look as pretty and loses some curb appeal but the actual game play doesn't change one bit.

3 minutes ago, StevenO said:

X-Wing is 100% "board game" that happens to also use miniatures.

Really, because last time I looked I don't use a board with markings on it to play X-Wing. Which is not true of say monopoly or bloodbowl.

3 minutes ago, StevenO said:

As I always have said if you take away the minis the game may not look as pretty and loses some curb appeal but the actual game play doesn't change one bit.

That's true of every miniature game out there. You could easily play 40k or Warmachine without actual models, just need a label on each base so you know what it is.

Especially in Warmachine which doesn't even use true LoS, the size of the base is the only thing that matters.

8 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

We were talking about miniatures games, which Blood Bowl undisputably is.

No it's not, it's not even listed as a miniature game on GW's own website. You can play Bloodbowl without miniatures, what you can't do is play it without the board. If a game requires a board to be played then it is a board game.

miniature games are what i call "Glorified board games" to people who have no idea what im talking about.

The principle is the same, only they have their own mechanics for setting up rather than plopping down a grid with markings and pathways. Theyre much more advanced, indepth, and expensive than usual boardgames, which is why theyre usually classified as a miniature game instead of a boardgame because while being somewhat similar on one hand theyre plenty different in the end.

12 hours ago, Ebak said:

Back when X-Wing was starting up at my FLGS it decided to charge £0.50 to anyone who wanted to play. That fee would cover you for the entire day and it didn't matter if you were playing 1 game or 10 and permitted you to use any of the 4x4 custom x-wing boards they made up.

you know what? Some people still grumbled at first, although as time has gone on people have accepted it. However, it is very easy to put people off with moves like that.

The club I mostly play at charges £1.50 for a 3.5hr session and people routinely say that's really cheap. We do at least as much as our LGS to promote the game, but we can't get official prize support because we don't directly sell units.

Fortunately Cog 'O' Two are inexpensive, but FFG really needs to look again at supporting clubs and other social gaming like gaming cafes.

15 minutes ago, Major Tom said:

Fo rtunately Cog 'O' Two are inexpensive, but FFG really needs to look again at supporting clubs and other social gaming like gaming cafes.

Calgary is the mecca of the Gaming Cafe. You should really come and see what its like with places like Metal Galaxy...

Bit of a long trip from the armpit of East Anglia in the U.K., but I'd love to.

On 4/11/2017 at 0:40 AM, MajorJuggler said:

This also describes me. (For example I have 12 A-wings, 12 B-wings, 12+ T-65's, and 18 TIE Fighters... don't ask). My tournament winnings cover enough to get 1 or 2 of each ship now going forward, and that's fine for me, partially because I don't feel as justified in getting excess quantities of non "original canon" ships, and also because it would cost way more $$ now anyway.

I too have 14 TIE/LNs, but not nearly so many of the other new Cannon Star Wars ships. I'm finding the newer ships are greatly effected by the meta into which they're birthed. Not that I want to have the latest and greatest on the power creep wave, but I'm oddly repulsed a bit by them. I love my LGS, and support them, even though I play almost exclusively in homes.

Oh, when the terrorist TIE was released, I think that started the pull back from buying one of each of the new plastic crack....now that I think about it. The new wave doesn't have a real pull yet, like the last, save the potential of the Aggressor or a mod in the "bomber ship thing" that could assist actual Star Wars Bombers.

2 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

The new wave doesn't have a real pull yet, like the last, save the potential of the Aggressor or a mod in the "bomber ship thing" that could assist actual Star Wars Bombers.

I agree. I used to buy at least 4 of every small ship that came out, but I kinda got burned when I preordered 8 Z-95's, since you could fly 8 of them at a time.

Since then I've been been more picky about what I get. I have almost none of the large Scum ships, and find that the last few waves I may pick up a ship or two but seldom more than two of each and some I don't get any of.

1 hour ago, StevenO said:

X-Wing is 100% "board game" that happens to also use miniatures. As I always have said if you take away the minis the game may not look as pretty and loses some curb appeal but the actual game play doesn't change one bit.

The exact same could be said for any miniature game.

9 hours ago, Major Tom said:

Bit of a long trip from the armpit of East Anglia in the U.K., but I'd love to.

Small world, we're based in East Anglia too.

for what it's worth, even though I am happy purchasing via my FLGS to support the business so that they stay open and give me somewhere to play, in all honesty I would rather pay a "table charge" ($3 or so) each time I go there and give them regular income for a service received rather than feeling borderline compelled to buy 3-6 ships per wave.

I keep seeing fewer people coming out to play even casual. I hope they do something for the 40th anniversary to help bring people back.