I am fairly new to Star Wars Destiny. I have spent about $500 on it in the last week getting all the cards I wanted, and I have setup some pretty cool decks. I have always been an avid MTG player, but I actually think I like Destiny more. So far so good. Once I had my decks setup I really wanted to play in some tournaments for prizes. I live near Cincinnati, Ohio. I tried stores in northern Kentucky, Cincinnati, Dayton, Ohio and Lexington, KY. They all told me the same thing - we love the game but we can't hold tournaments because we have no product to offer as prizes. When the recent re-release of awakenings came out the boxes and booster sold out in every area around here within 1 day. It has been very disappointing. Has there been any word on proper stocking from FFG or Asmodee? Have others run into this problem? I am pretty envious of the people who post that tournaments are held in their area. Wish we could hold some around here! Wish I could go to the store and buy more packs, but everything is always sold out.

1 hour ago, UPAA said:

They all told me the same thing - we love the game but we can't hold tournaments because we have no product to offer as prizes.

Is there any problem with offering different prizes (like store coupons, for example)?

1 minute ago, Bron Ander Haltern said:

Is there any problem with offering different prizes (like store coupons, for example)?

You would think. I called about 10 stores and got the same answer. When I asked about that they all said they only bring in like 5 people if they don't offer product as prizes.

That sounds incredibly frustrating. I think that there's something wrong with your game stores - most of the ones here don't have any stock either, and they still hold tournaments, just with store credit or something like that for prizes.

At my stores, oftentimes, the way to get a tournament going is to host one yourself! If you're artistically inclined, you could make some custom alt-art cards and have them printed with makeplayingcards.com to hand out as participation prizes! Also, if you have access to a 3D printer you could print some custom tokens (there's plenty of them on Thingiverse).

Also, maybe you can hold a tournament in a place other than a store! One of my favorite coffeehouses here is always completely empty in the afternoons, doing most of their business at breakfast or late at night. They say that it would be great if I would hold an event there, and I don't think they'd even need to charge for entry, just make money off of people buying drinks.

Game stores, like anybody else, are about profit. If they don't make money on something, they won't do it. Therefore, sometimes if you really want something, you have to do it yourself!

Hope that helps!

9 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

That sounds incredibly frustrating. I think that there's something wrong with your game stores - most of the ones here don't have any stock either, and they still hold tournaments, just with store credit or something like that for prizes.

At my stores, oftentimes, the way to get a tournament going is to host one yourself! If you're artistically inclined, you could make some custom alt-art cards and have them printed with makeplayingcards.com to hand out as participation prizes! Also, if you have access to a 3D printer you could print some custom tokens (there's plenty of them on Thingiverse).

Also, maybe you can hold a tournament in a place other than a store! One of my favorite coffeehouses here is always completely empty in the afternoons, doing most of their business at breakfast or late at night. They say that it would be great if I would hold an event there, and I don't think they'd even need to charge for entry, just make money off of people buying drinks.

Game stores, like anybody else, are about profit. If they don't make money on something, they won't do it. Therefore, sometimes if you really want something, you have to do it yourself!

Hope that helps!

That's a good idea! I am not very artistically inclined haha, but maybe I could try to find other local players and host small friendly tournaments. I might call up the shops closest to me and see if there is any way I can convince them to have tournaments with store credit on the line. I certainly wouldn't mind ponying up entry fees. It seems hard to find players around her too though since everything sells out so quick. Maybe it will catch on more with each set that is released and available.

5 minutes ago, UPAA said:

That's a good idea! I am not very artistically inclined haha, but maybe I could try to find other local players and host small friendly tournaments. I might call up the shops closest to me and see if there is any way I can convince them to have tournaments with store credit on the line. I certainly wouldn't mind ponying up entry fees. It seems hard to find players around her too though since everything sells out so quick. Maybe it will catch on more with each set that is released and available.

Definitely! Maybe you should ask whatever store is your favorite if they'll let you host an Empire at War prerelease draft tournament! Basically, everybody gets six packs, trades cards amongst themselves until they all have the same number of characters and relatively legal deck builds (albeit smaller than 30/30), and then you can play a tournament with these smaller decks! That way new players feel comfortable checking it out.

You could also find a coffeeshop you like and ask if they have a time you could host a day for people to come learn how to play (sounds like you've got plenty of decks!) Maybe if it goes well, you would have a regular gaming group! I'd suggest Sunday afternoons - most coffeeshops are pretty dead then. They'd also be pretty cool about letting you decide the structure and they'd get good publicity!

I know its a bit of a drive but Detroit has had a ton of tournaments. Last weekend most stores still had stock, and the tourney last weekend was giving product away as prizes.

Sorry for the bad luck of poor support. Things are running fine here.

**** thats harsh :/ We have 10+ man tournament every week and every time there is booster for everyone.

with Asmodee taking over from Lion Rampart we have barely gotten anything, in our area the Destiny play has dried up. we can't get new players since we don't even have starters

That's insane I have a flgs here that has NEVER received one single shipment of Awakenings and a total of three boxes of SOR which were all spoken for. They are having a tournament next month. The lack of supply shouldn't equate to a lack of effort from those game stores. I guess they have never watched field of dreams.

Well I talked more in depth with one of my local game shops yesterday about it. The owner gave me a long spiel about why they don't hold Destiny tournaments. He said that he knows the owners of the other shop and they all agreed not to hold them to prove a point. He said FFG has made it hard for all of them to get product but constantly asks them to buy OP kits and hold tournaments on store credit to advertise their product. The owner said he would only lose money on this deal since he doesn't have product to sell of it while people are there playing, so he would just be spending money on OP kits and losing store credit. He said all the shop in my area have agreed that because they will only lose money on it, they aren't going to do it until FFG / Asmodee ponies up product to them so they can make money on it. Wish I knew that before I spent so much, but it is a very fun game. Maybe I can travel 2 or 3 hours to a tournament sometime. Or maybe they will eventually get what they are demanding and they will finally have tournaments.

My local game store rarely has stock, and when it does it vanishes, but they do have the prize packages from FFG. That's what your stores should be doing.

6 hours ago, UPAA said:

Well I talked more in depth with one of my local game shops yesterday about it. The owner gave me a long spiel about why they don't hold Destiny tournaments. He said that he knows the owners of the other shop and they all agreed not to hold them to prove a point. He said FFG has made it hard for all of them to get product but constantly asks them to buy OP kits and hold tournaments on store credit to advertise their product. The owner said he would only lose money on this deal since he doesn't have product to sell of it while people are there playing, so he would just be spending money on OP kits and losing store credit. He said all the shop in my area have agreed that because they will only lose money on it, they aren't going to do it until FFG / Asmodee ponies up product to them so they can make money on it. Wish I knew that before I spent so much, but it is a very fun game. Maybe I can travel 2 or 3 hours to a tournament sometime. Or maybe they will eventually get what they are demanding and they will finally have tournaments.

That seems shortsighted to me. I don't think players expect packs or store credit along with the quarterly tournament kit prizes. I know our group pays a $5 fee with no problem as long as everyone gets the kit's standard promo and a shot at the more exclusive stuff. If you get enough players to pay for the kit, seems like it would be better to have people in the store than not.

Store credit tournaments can be for when they don't have a tourney kit. If they do that, then they won't lose money. At worst, they'll get Destiny players in their shop. And, while that won't help them sell their non-existent Destiny product, they just might buy something else.

On 6/28/2017 at 8:35 AM, UPAA said:

I am fairly new to Star Wars Destiny. I have spent about $500 on it in the last week getting all the cards I wanted, and I have setup some pretty cool decks. I have always been an avid MTG player, but I actually think I like Destiny more. So far so good. Once I had my decks setup I really wanted to play in some tournaments for prizes. I live near Cincinnati, Ohio. I tried stores in northern Kentucky, Cincinnati, Dayton, Ohio and Lexington, KY. They all told me the same thing - we love the game but we can't hold tournaments because we have no product to offer as prizes. When the recent re-release of awakenings came out the boxes and booster sold out in every area around here within 1 day. It has been very disappointing. Has there been any word on proper stocking from FFG or Asmodee? Have others run into this problem? I am pretty envious of the people who post that tournaments are held in their area. Wish we could hold some around here! Wish I could go to the store and buy more packs, but everything is always sold out.

we have tried to have tourneys at battlegrounds in etown ky but with no product we can not get anyone to play.

store credit is nice but a lot of ppl including me like to win product related to the game

21 hours ago, UPAA said:

Well I talked more in depth with one of my local game shops yesterday about it. The owner gave me a long spiel about why they don't hold Destiny tournaments. He said that he knows the owners of the other shop and they all agreed not to hold them to prove a point. He said FFG has made it hard for all of them to get product but constantly asks them to buy OP kits and hold tournaments on store credit to advertise their product. The owner said he would only lose money on this deal since he doesn't have product to sell of it while people are there playing, so he would just be spending money on OP kits and losing store credit. He said all the shop in my area have agreed that because they will only lose money on it, they aren't going to do it until FFG / Asmodee ponies up product to them so they can make money on it. Wish I knew that before I spent so much, but it is a very fun game. Maybe I can travel 2 or 3 hours to a tournament sometime. Or maybe they will eventually get what they are demanding and they will finally have tournaments.

So who are they punishing FFG or the local player base? This game will succeed without their contribution, perhaps not in your local community which is unfortunate, but I don't think sales of the product are stagnant anywhere else. Way to stand up for the little guy, fight the power, gg.

In all honesty it sounds like they are making excuses because they are mad about all the money they are loosing by not being able to jump in and I can sympathize with that, but to alienate local players because of a product shortage of a collectible game seems like an irrational business move.

Theres plenty going on in Lexington, KY. We have weekly Saturday tournaments at D20 Hobbies. I oversee a league that encompasses multiple cities/states and it continues to grow. The local squadron leader here for Lexington, KY is well known amongst the community (CooMasterCoo). We start at 2PM. Buy in is $6 for 4 rounds (we get 12+ peeps) and every win gets you $3 store credit (or packs when they have them in). Which they just got another order of Awakenings in. We have a great community here and it continues to grow. Send me a message if you need more details bud.

~D

1 hour ago, HoodieDM said:

Theres plenty going on in Lexington, KY. We have weekly Saturday tournaments at D20 Hobbies. I oversee a league that encompasses multiple cities/states and it continues to grow. The local squadron leader here for Lexington, KY is well known amongst the community (CooMasterCoo). We start at 2PM. Buy in is $6 for 4 rounds (we get 12+ peeps) and every win gets you $3 store credit (or packs when they have them in). Which they just got another order of Awakenings in. We have a great community here and it continues to grow. Send me a message if you need more details bud.

~D

Wow! I must have called the wrong places in Lex haha. I called around, but I was able to walk into my more local shops only. I will check out D20. Thanks!

The game stores around here are not even getting on board. When you looks at the forums, youtube, and the big resellers, it seems like the game is hot. But around here it still a bit of an enigma. Nevertheless I have spent over $1000 on it and I am having a blast at the house.

Wow, i just realized how spoiled i was. I'm in Virginia and my local game store is star city games. We have had no issues in the slightest with product, one of my buddies whos works at star says they have S.O.R. for the next few months and they got easily 20 boxs or more of awakenings. Kinda stinks some game stores are missing the opportunity.

Local stores had no product but had the game night kits the other didn't at all, people still showed. Sounds like stores nor active player base not actually attempting. It took some of the more active players to keep it going, but it did.

20 hours ago, Hujoe Bigs said:

Local stores had no product but had the game night kits the other didn't at all, people still showed. Sounds like stores nor active player base not actually attempting. It took some of the more active players to keep it going, but it did.

ppl would be more likely to get into the game if they did not have to scavenger hunt for the packs

1 hour ago, soviet prince said:

ppl would be more likely to get into the game if they did not have to scavenger hunt for the packs

Now don't get me wrong, product does help, but I know locally no store is hurting for it right now. Sadly that's not every where, but the more prepared places that ordered from more than one distribution center got a decent allocation.

Also I thought you finally ran out of steam, but apparently as product becomes more scarce you turn up. Just to give lamentations of the failure that FFG is.

I think that shortsighted shops owner are ruining this game way more than product shortage.

It looks to me that too many shop owners are kind of SWDhaters/MtG supporters and justify themselves with lack of product.

You don't want to invest money or efforts on a new game? Fine.

You accusing FFG/Asmodee of your lack of initiative? That is utterly wrong.

On 29/06/2017 at 11:56 AM, UPAA said:

Well I talked more in depth with one of my local game shops yesterday about it. The owner gave me a long spiel about why they don't hold Destiny tournaments. He said that he knows the owners of the other shop and they all agreed not to hold them to prove a point. He said FFG has made it hard for all of them to get product but constantly asks them to buy OP kits and hold tournaments on store credit to advertise their product. The owner said he would only lose money on this deal since he doesn't have product to sell of it while people are there playing, so he would just be spending money on OP kits and losing store credit. He said all the shop in my area have agreed that because they will only lose money on it, they aren't going to do it until FFG / Asmodee ponies up product to them so they can make money on it. Wish I knew that before I spent so much, but it is a very fun game. Maybe I can travel 2 or 3 hours to a tournament sometime. Or maybe they will eventually get what they are demanding and they will finally have tournaments.

I understand their point. Why hold tournament and encourage people to buy more and competing when the guy who would benefict from it is a online store like coolstuff or MM, because you cant manage to have stock in your store.