Are the conversion kits a scam?

By D34d guru, in X-Wing

5 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

That is a bad solution, because in that case buying the new ships is cheaper. That's literally more expensive than rebuying the whole imperial faction ?

so hang onto the cardboard for the ships you dont have that they are not going to re-print incase one day before the release of the 2.0 version of that ship you decide you should go out and buy the 1.0 ship that is most likely not available?

really sane, its more sane then asking me to pay for multiples of the cardboard and cardstock for every ace because you want duplicates.

26 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Someone just told me that all unique pilots will be only included ONCE per conversion kit, which means you will not be able to re-sell or trade any conversions to people who don't have already conversion kits. You will not be able to build several mirror lists for example out of one conversion kit. So shared collections basically need one kit per player.

Now I don't know if this is a true or not. But if it is indeed true than the kit does sound pretty … scummy.

You have to understand that this is a niche that FFG can never really cater too, right?

1 hour ago, Icelom said:

really sane, its more sane then asking me to pay for multiples of the cardboard and cardstock for every ace because you want duplicates.

I am not actually asking you to pay for those card boards, because let's face it. They are irrelevant for the price of the product. We are talking here about roughly 10 A4 pages extra print and cutting. That's less than US$1 price difference in the overall product. And we are talking about a $49.99 price tag based on how marketable that price tag is. Adding 2% of production cost to the product will not change the price of the product. Actually it's below the currency fluctuations between USD and Renminbi.

The way I see it is that FFG is concerned about people selling 1.0 ships to new 2.0 players. Selling whole collections is a lot harder than single ships and they just increased the MSRP by 25% when going from 1st edition to 2nd edition. They really want new players to buy 2nd edition packages instead of first edition ones. So no splitting of those conversion packages between different players to make buying 1.0 ships viable as strategy to get into the game. This way they don't temp their retailers to open the conversion kits themselves and offer fitting cards to their now "worthless" 1st edition products.

It's clever product design.

Edited by SEApocalypse

No

16 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

I am not actually asking you to pay for those card boards, because let's face it. They are irrelevant for the price of the product. We are talking here about roughly 10 A4 pages extra print and cutting. That's less than US$1 price difference in the overall product. And we are talking about a $49.99 price tag based on how marketable that price tag is. Adding 2% of production cost to the product will not change the price of the product. Actually it's below the currency fluctuations between USD and Renminbi.

The way I see it is that FFG is concerned about people selling 1.0 ships to new 2.0 players. Selling whole collections is a lot harder than single ships and they just increased the MSRP by 25% when going from 1st edition to 2nd edition. They really want new players to buy 2nd edition packages instead of first edition ones. So no splitting of those conversion packages between different players to make buying 1.0 ships viable as strategy to get into the game. This way they don't temp their retailers to open the conversion kits themselves and offer fitting cards to their now "worthless" 1st edition products.

It's clever product design.

I don't think that this will work. If the 1.0 ships are cheap enough (which they probably will), buying the 1.0 ships and then the conversion kits is much cheaper than the 2.0 ships that cost 25% more.

Wow, I’m not trying to be insulting here but did you guys even watch the the 2.0 presentation? He clearly says that they will aggressively release 1.0 ship updates alongside new 2.0 ships...

we we will not need to get the separate ships in 2.0 if we already own them from 1.0 all the content for these ships has been done and put in the kits, they couldn’t possibly release all the ships at once that’s just unrealistic...

don’t panic, buy the kits your not missing out if you don’t buy the new rerelease ships if you already own them...

20 hours ago, Suhawk75 said:

The sunk cost fallacy at its finest.

You don’t HAVE to upgrade. This is the very definition of a 1st world problem!

Playing collective competitive miniature games is about as far from a human necessity as it’s possible to get.

Just keep playing XWMG v1.0. Added cost is exactly zero.

Your models and cards are going nowhere. Casual play is going nowhere.

Playing the latest competitive miniature games is an expensive hobby you’ve CHOSEN to partake in. You can choose to save your money or not

If i wanted to play casual, sure. I love this game because of the competitive aspect, and because I love spaceship battles.

Other miniature games have no community where I live. The only other competitive thing is MTG, but that is even more expensive and I don't like it as much.

This change means 1.0 competitive scene will die eventually. Maybe a few people may keep playing online, but with no content it will eventually become stale, and then die off. If FFG had announced it as a parallel product with support for both it would have been different (like Imperial Assault and Legion).

As for casual play, I can only do it online. Local community is mostly the competitive scene. Some people may keep playing casually online for a few years to come, but I don't like casual matches as much.

I can choose to not play 2.0, but there is really no other viable alternative from where I stand. It may sound like a 1st world problem, but I don't even live in a 1st world country, have been investing (at nearly double msrp, with far lower income than in 1st world countries, so the actual cost is far higher) in this game since release, have just a few months ago catch up to the point where I could play competitively and is one of a few things in life I look forward to. It is not like I despise 2.0, just that there are a few major problems that could have been easily avoided if they asked for more community feedback, and I like the rest of the good changes.

My choices are to not invest into 2.0 or stop playing a competitive game about spaceship battles, I choose the former. I'm like way beyond balls deep to pull out, if that puts my previous post into context.

I feel like most of the threads just devolve into a hate or love attitude towards the change, I'm more of lukewarm. I don't understand people zealously defending 2 x-wings vs 3 a-wings in the kits, nor detractors not understanding kits need to exist and they need to cost some money. Why won't people just recognize what is good and what is wrong? The change is not perfect but it is not completely erroneous, either.

Star Trek Attack Wing suddenly looks a LOT more attractive....

4 minutes ago, madquest8 said:

Star Trek Attack Wing suddenly looks a LOT more attractive....

star_trek_attack_wing_expansion_ships.jp

...if you insist?

12 minutes ago, madquest8 said:

Star Trek Attack Wing suddenly looks a LOT more attractive....

Where single ship updates cost 10$... yap looks much more attractive.

9 minutes ago, Reaver027 said:

Where single ship updates cost 10$... yap looks much more attractive.

Where you don't get charged £200 to continue playing every few years...?

1 hour ago, madquest8 said:

Where you don't get charged £200 to continue playing every few years...?

This has only happened once so far. That is not enough to justify it being a trend.

10 minutes ago, LifeGain said:

This has only happened once so far. That is not enough to justify it being a trend.

You've heard of MTG, right? You know how money grabbing FFG are... right? You realise that as soon as 2.0's 2nd wave hits, it will have new cards, new upgrades that aren't needed.. etc, etc... right?

Roll on the 3.0 cash grab.

13 minutes ago, madquest8 said:

You've heard of MTG, right? You know how money grabbing FFG are... right? You realise that as soon as 2.0's 2nd wave hits, it will have new cards, new upgrades that aren't needed.. etc, etc... right?

Roll on the 3.0 cash grab.

I feel like if this was true, we'd be on 3.0 already.

26 minutes ago, madquest8 said:

You've heard of MTG, right? You know how money grabbing FFG are... right? You realise that as soon as 2.0's 2nd wave hits, it will have new cards, new upgrades that aren't needed.. etc, etc... right?

Roll on the 3.0 cash grab.

I'm really confused by why people insist on being so cynical when FFG is going out of their way to be transparent about this. They're being very reasonable with the conversion kits AND they've committed to not requiring out-of-faction purchases. As long as you buy at least one of everything in the factions you play, you will have all the cards you need. The future of X-Wing is less of a cash grab, not more.

1 hour ago, madquest8 said:

You've heard of MTG, right? You know how money grabbing FFG are... right? You realise that as soon as 2.0's 2nd wave hits, it will have new cards, new upgrades that aren't needed.. etc, etc... right?

Roll on the 3.0 cash grab.

Well, they are a business. Is there a company that has a successful miniatures line that is as widespread as X-Wing and is less of "cash grab"? Yes, the way they distributed cards in 1.0 was dumb, but they have addressed that. Also, you don't have to buy the new ships... I fully expect there to be new cards and new upgrades, but they have commented they are trying to figure out a way to get those to players who already have the ships.

Yes, I have heard of MTG, but they are a ccg and that is what a ccg does. They constantly rotate cards and come out with new sets.

Edited by LifeGain

@madquest8 You still didn't answer the question (you just did a sad emoji). If you can point to one then I would give your side more consideration, but so far you have mainly made comments without any substance.

Edited by LifeGain

Even if the new expansion packs have new pilots in them, unless they come out with new generics which seems unlikely, you'd only need one. So if you have defenders already get a conversion box to cover those generic cards and pilots. Get the new expansion if you want the new pilot. It's just like any aces box with a new pilot card.

Edited by All Shields Forward
On 5/2/2018 at 11:59 PM, ABXY said:

TIE/ln and x1 : old model (I assume?!), old scheme (not a lot of scope really, but are they the previously less common blue? I can't tell from the articles)

New TIE fighters in the 2e core set and blister are the proper Imperial Navy blue. So is the TIE advanced.

On 5/3/2018 at 3:44 AM, Jadotch said:

I agree with most of your post except for this part.

Large ships should have had 1 dail each. (And the attack shuttle.)

Anything that came in an Ace’s pack or Epic secondary ship should of had 4 dials.

The TIE Fighter should have had at least 5.

Everything else 2 works just fine.

If FFG went that route, I think one conversion kit plus the odd dial from the secondary market would fit most players collections sufficiently to fly most lists. I certainly think they have got some ratios wrong.

Why yes, it is a cash grab, in as much as releasing a miniseries game based on a popular IP is a cash grab. It's almost life they want to be paid for putting a hobby product on sale or something...

The kits just don't suit me but I recognise they are good for a lot of people and, compared to the cost of everything else XWMG, I think they're fairly reasonably priced. So I don't think they're a cash grab in and of themselves.

Overall, its seems to me that FFG are genuinely trying to do good by the community with everything 2.0. Including the kits.

However, business wise, I fully expect to see smaller conversion kits a little later. It makes too much sense to me that they may have these planned but are holding them until the $50 preorders have reached a satisfactory sales point, or until release. Either way would work for them. I imagine that the larger kits have a relatively low profit margin that could easily be recouped in the later sales of smaller blisters.

I could certainly understand that from a business perspective but I'd not call it a scam exactly. Plus it's just my own theory ofc.

Personally, if there were smaller blisters available now that had a similar proportional cost, I'd definitely be eyeing them up. As it is, I believe I might be looking at them later and making sad faces at the comparative value.