Any ideas on how X-Wing could be marketed in new ways?

I know virtually nothing about Marketing but I assume the largest audiences are expensive to reach which is why X-Wing is sorta invisible to the general public.

Basically I never played a table top in my life before this. I bought it at B&N about a year ago and didnt find out about the concept of store play until a year later when I went online to read about some rules i didnt understand.

Its probably the "best" entry point to Table Top games that I can imagine. Its extremely cheap and self contained to pick up the starter set meaning it can be sold as a board game first and a table top game second. That means 100% outsiders like me who had never heard the term FLGS before 4 months ago or that they even existed to begin with, can pick it up as a board game and find that side of things later.

But its almost INVISIBLE to people who arent already a part of the Table Top Community in general.

Unless you stumble on it at B&N or Toys R Us or a Hobby Shop. Its just not really out there.

Basically....could they have a tie in with Battlefront 2 or something? Spend $50 on Battlefront 2 get a bunch of money off an X-Wing starter set. Put it on the shelf at Video Game stores maybe. Package it with digital copies of the Movies. Advertise for it....during the commercials before the next movies in theater. Is it sold at Wal-Mart? Maybe it should be.

Or better yet sponser the FLGS owners to put tables up at the movie theater when the next movie comes out and play it on a bunch of tables in the theater itself opening weekend or just on weekends in general.

Oh and put a card in the starter box that clearly explain how to find a local store and try it out with other people. When I finally found out about the concept of an FLGS for xwing it took me months to work up the motivation to actually walk into the store that I had driven by. Some printed material in the box with suggestions on how to find one would make sense. Also i would probably remove any marketing marerial for warhammer or w/e from the inside of the box, just so people dont auto classify it as something they cant handle.

The game is great, how could FFG double down on getting it in front of people who arent part of the Table Top Club....which lets be honest is out right off the radar for a huge portion of the potential player base.

I don't know, but just a thought:

We're already at a point where demand seems to be larger than supply. More marketing advertising is basically wasted money if they can't deliver more ships.

They tried putting starter sets in Big-Box Retailers (WalMart and Target, to state a few), and that apparently flopped for them.

X-Wing is top dog in the miniatures market, so the methods they have used thus far have worked to a fair degree.

Also, tabletop gaming in general is more a niche market. There are a lot of people out there who haven't played any game outside of the standard Hasbro board games. Convining those people that this game with expansions is something they can pull out on game night seems like an up hill battle. Some will be converted, but I'm not sure enough would to be worth the marketing cost.

15 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

X-Wing is top dog in the miniatures market, so the methods they have used thus far have worked to a fair degree.

Also, tabletop gaming in general is more a niche market. There are a lot of people out there who haven't played any game outside of the standard Hasbro board games. Convining those people that this game with expansions is something they can pull out on game night seems like an up hill battle. Some will be converted, but I'm not sure enough would to be worth the marketing cost.

X-Wing looks and feels like a board game first and can be sold as such since its such a simple game out of the box. All the Table Top social conventions and logistical complexities are secondary. Its a self contained package that works immediately for 2 people. I would argue that anyone who has played Settlers of Catan or a Video Game is a potential happy X-Wing consumer.

But back on topic.......assuming you didnt think Marketing was a waste of money......how would you do it better?

It’s an interesting question. Marketing is generally used for product awareness and sales generation. I don’t have a marketing degree but my gut is telling me they are trying to shotgun burst sales for the holiday season and new movie drop. Trying to snag those impulse buys from adults who saw the movie and want a percieved “adult” toy.

I see no purpose for it other than that, it has done very well with relatively low marketing and it fails at big box because the general public doesn’t want that experience. Vanilla board gamers are not lgs gamers. You get responces like, “I have to buy how much stuff? It costs how much? Nerds play this? Pass.” Disagree all you like but this is reality.

43 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Or better yet sponser the FLGS owners to put tables up at the movie theater when the next movie comes out and play it on a bunch of tables in the theater itself opening weekend or just on weekends in general.

This is genius! I wonder if I could get something like this going at my local theater. That would be a great way to spend a Saturday, in my opinion.

33 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

This is genius! I wonder if I could get something like this going at my local theater. That would be a great way to spend a Saturday, in my opinion.

Yea man I plan to ask my FLGS owner about it next week.

I am willing to bet ( Based on no facts at all ) that 25% of the audience at any Theater for the Last Jedi would have some interest in playing after seeing Tie Fighters vs X Wings on some tables.

Especially on Opening night.

Also as an aside I think the Table Top community has a bit of a "complex" about what the identity of Table Top is or represents or who is capable of appreciating it.

Its still just a board game. Its not more complicated than that.

Settlers of Catan has expansions. X-Wing has expansions.

There are tons of barriers to entry to play Competitive X-Wing sure but im not talking about that since the general public definitely doesnt care about competitive X-Wing,

Probably the #1 thing holding it back in a casual setting is it doesnt have OFFICIAL rule sets for Co-Op or for versuses modes involving more than 2 players who just want to party and eat some pretzels.

@atkrull from OCX podcast talked a bit about selling beer at his FLGS helping keep that beer & pretzels feel which is awesome.

I wonder if there are any store owners who have thoughts on the logistics of community based marketing of X-Wing outside of the FLGS itself as a way of fishing for new store players.

Maybe approach the beer idea the other way around....and find some bars/cafes that are willing to let you set up some tables for X-Wing?

I am guessing trying to push the product outside of the store setting on their own is way more trouble than its worth lol.

1 minute ago, Boom Owl said:

Yea man I plan to ask my FLGS owner about it next week.

I may go straight to the theater manager and ask who to contact to get a spot outside in the shopping mall to demo the game. It's SoCal, so it shouldn't be too cold. Would be even better if they had space in the theater lobby, but I just don't see that happening.

25 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

I may go straight to the theater manager and ask who to contact to get a spot outside in the shopping mall to demo the game. It's SoCal, so it shouldn't be too cold. Would be even better if they had space in the theater lobby, but I just don't see that happening.

I bet thats something some $s would solve.

Every theater has an "Arcade" area these days.....just throw a couple tables over there with some people playing actual games + a demo area, with some great big "Star Wars X-Wing the Board Game" signs.

Maybe even build a table like the one Han Solo had on the millenium falcon??

32 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

X-Wing looks and feels like a board game first and can be sold as such since its such a simple game out of the box. All the Table Top social conventions and logistical complexities are secondary. Its a self contained package that works immediately for 2 people. I would argue that anyone who has played Settlers of Catan or a Video Game is a potential happy X-Wing consumer.

But back on topic.......assuming you didnt think Marketing was a waste of money......how would you do it better?

But Settlers and video games play differently than X-Wing. I know plenty of people who play both the others, but aren't into X-Wing. Plus with Settlers, you have a more than two person game for playing with friends. And Video Games has such a broad amount of genres contained with in it that saying that if you like video games you'll like X-Wing is a large oversimplification.

As for what I would do differently, not much. Again, X-Wing is currently the top miniatures game. It's doing something right. I wouldn't put it in movie lobbies cause you don't see anything else there like tie-in toys or classic game reskins. I might try to get it in bigger stores, but considering how quickly Target priced down their copies, it might be a moot point.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

I don't know, but just a thought:

We're already at a point where demand seems to be larger than supply. More marketing is basically wasted money if they can't deliver more ships.

Not really. Even if newer waves struggled to have enough stock (do they? Never been an issue for me locally, but I’m in a fairly small market), new players have all the previous waves to pick from as well, and newer players may well pick the more recognizable older ships first anyway

29 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

This is genius! I wonder if I could get something like this going at my local theater. That would be a great way to spend a Saturday, in my opinion.

I remember doing this with Deciphers lord of the rings Tcg for the second and third movies

1 minute ago, VanderLegion said:

Not really. Even if newer waves struggled to have enough stock (do they? Never been an issue for me locally, but I’m in a fairly small market), new players have all the previous waves to pick from as well, and newer players may well pick the more recognizable older ships first anyway

It's also hard to tell due to the intentional shortage with the distributor change. But even before, we in Europe are often suffering from high sales in the US when shipments intended for us are redirected to the US market because they are running low. And new waves are infamous for running out within a short time.

But this is of course all based on anecdotes and hearsay. I'm just saying: If I happen to be right, then marketing would be wasted.

Another idea.....that will probably trigger a lot of peoples FLGS defense program.....

What if Barnes & Noble and a local FLGS partnered to have players set up a few tables some where super visible inside the B&N store itself....not a permanent location just a way to try and catch some new players attention and steer them towards the FLGs......maybe steal a couple of the Star Buck tables around the holidays when people are rushing through there looking for toys for their kids. Lets be honest B&N is just a toy store at this point.

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

They tried putting starter sets in Big-Box Retailers (WalMart and Target, to state a few), and that apparently flopped for them.

Yup, I know some folks who nabbed extra core sets when Target was clearing them out cheap because it just wasn't selling for them.

The only place I've ever seen xwing outside of a FLGS is Barnes and Noble, which in of itself is a conglomerate of niches in the world where book stores that are only book stores are really hurting.

1 minute ago, Boom Owl said:

Another idea.....that will probably trigger a lot of peoples FLGS defense program.....

What if once a month Barnes & Noble and a local FLGS partnered to have players set up a few tables some where super visible inside the B&N store itself......

One of our local B&N does this. Tried Xwing twice and pretty much flopped so they only do board and card games now.

1 minute ago, LordFajubi said:

One of our local B&N does this. Tried Xwing twice and pretty much flopped so they only do board and card games now.

Yea i would think this would only be worth it right with around Christmas time. And even then its a long shot!

I think only having the core set in big box stores like target majorly hindered them. I know it did the first time I saw the game in 2013. just the core set, which was cool, but I was wishing for an A-wing or B-wing expansion. (which they had, but you had to buy the core to get the pamphlet that told you they had other ships for the game). I think the two most sought after expansions for new players prior to the new core set were the original Millienium Falcon for rebels, and Vader's TIE advanced for imperials. Of course everyone has a favorite ship and their probably going to pick that up first, but I think for many it's the two mentioned above. so not having the expansions on the shelf hurt them in the big box arena.

BN carries the expansions, but the ones I've been to never have any coffee shop style events like they do with other games like exploding kittens for example. So i think that dampens the playerbase a little bit, especially for those without a game store in the area. It would be cool if FFG and BN could work out something for a monthly casual event for X-wing, OT ships only, secnario based tournament that rewards it's players with some cool alt art and tokens.

27 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

It's also hard to tell due to the intentional shortage with the distributor change. But even before, we in Europe are often suffering from high sales in the US when shipments intended for us are redirected to the US market because they are running low. And new waves are infamous for running out within a short time.

But this is of course all based on anecdotes and hearsay. I'm just saying: If I happen to be right, then marketing would be wasted.

Like I said, new players have 11 waves of old ships to buy. They don’t just need the new stuff. Marketing would be far from wasted if it got new players into the game even if it didn’t sell any more of the new waves than would have otherwise

3 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

Like I said, new players have 11 waves of old ships to buy. They don’t just need the new stuff. Marketing would be far from wasted if it got new players into the game even if it didn’t sell any more of the new waves than would have otherwise

That's true.

I guess I was stuck in the thought that the new players want to get the new stuff that's good. Otherwise their new experience (if they play in tournaments) will be quite frustrating

34 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

Like I said, new players have 11 waves of old ships to buy. They don’t just need the new stuff. Marketing would be far from wasted if it got new players into the game even if it didn’t sell any more of the new waves than would have otherwise

Yea i think FFG and any FLGS owner would consider a sold starter set a successful sale. Expansions are gravy.

Picture this: t-shirt saying ‘GUNBOAT’. With the GUNBOAT on the back.

solid advertising.

Why are you guys talking about performing free marketing for FFG?

14 hours ago, RedHotDice said:

Why are you guys talking about performing free marketing for FFG?

Yeah, I don't really get this whole thread. Miniatures/table top games never market their products. It just isn't done because it would be a total waste of money. It's to much of a niche market.

Maybe look at it as building local player base... and that’s as much a self serving benefit to the players as it is “free marketing” for FFG.