Hi there!

In my area in Germany a lot of X-Wing players left the game during the last year of the first edition (golden age of harpoons, etc.). In my vicinity (approximately 200000 people are living in this area) there are three game stores which sold X-Wing.

Two of the three stores disbanded X-Wing from their product range entirely. I just called the last store and asked for the new wave. They told me, that they only ordered a small amount of boxes. Only three pieces per product. ???

I am worried. What is your experience?

If it doesn't sell, there's not much reason to order more, I guess. The thing with miniatures games, card games, any 'living' game really, is that it' s only at its best if there's a community to support it. That community is usually dependent on a few people organising game nights, events, etc., keeping at it even when the response is reduced by a weak or unbalanced release. Sometimes, if that one person who does everything decides to call it quits one day, the whole community just collapses, because everyone sort of assume everything happens by itself somehow. And obviously, if there is no real community, the game will struggle to attract new players, and the product will just sit on the shelves of your FLGS until they decide to dump it at half price and not order any more. Locally, I've seen it happen to Flames of War, Bolt Action, Runewars, Armada and Legion, and there's a good chance Infinity and Warmahordes are going as well (not to mention Fallout, ASOIAF and Gates of Antares, all of which appeared to be dead on arrival). It can happen to X-Wing too, and probably will at some point. It almost happened to Warhammer Fantasy. Only 40k seems genuinely safe.

The best thing we as players can do for the game is to play it often, publicly (as in FLGS/club as opposed to kitchen table, not in the street ), set up game days and tourneys and generally make an effort to keep the community alive and preferably growing. In my experience it's good to talk to people directly, not just set up a Facebook event and hope people will show up. People are perpetually 'interested' on Facebook and generally forget about the whole thing after the initial click.

Also, maybe not buy everything online?

While I agree with Okapi to a point, I don't believe that organizing tournaments and game nights and stuff like that makes sense if there is no interest in what you are organizing. I could set up an X-Wing tournament in my local area where I offer free stuff, food, even pay you to show up and I will still get ZERO people in attendance. At the same time I could post that there is a tournament for 40k starting in 10 minutes at the local game store with no other information and five minutes later a dozen people are going to be arriving on site to play.

Organization of events only has impact if there is an existing interest you cannot generate interest in something, especially if its not something new. Like a new game that just released you could probobly get people to come down and try but X-Wing that has been around for several years and everyone knows... if there is no interest to play, no one will come.

It's all down to there being a local ecosystem of players. You can't magic that up overnight, and if people who played 1.0 don't want to come back (or fully liquidated their collections) you'll have to start over from scratch.

FFG could stand to do more advertising around X-Wing 2.0, especially focusing on ease of access to the game (perhaps arming game stores with special introduction packs to encourage Learn-to-Play events?). However, I think they are making the right move with providing support for more casual play (my local group is looking forwards to the casual play kits).

My store ordered 120 of each. You've gotta play in public. A weekly xwing nite should be a standing learn to play event for newer players. I gave a demo just last week.

I suspect that part of the problem is how we are forced to use the FFG app (which is hardly supported) and that the various languages are done very very badly, which forces people to use the English language version. If I were German this would put me off.

I never touch the official app. Is there not a German YASB or equivalent?

2 hours ago, 235711 said:

Hi there!

In my area in Germany a lot of X-Wing players left the game during the last year of the first edition (golden age of harpoons, etc.). In my vicinity (approximately 200000 people are living in this area) there are three game stores which sold X-Wing.

Two of the three stores disbanded X-Wing from their product range entirely. I just called the last store and asked for the new wave. They told me, that they only ordered a small amount of boxes. Only three pieces per product. ???

I am worried. What is your experience?

I don't know anything about sales numbers, but I can tell you, that 2.0 has been doing really well in my area of Germany. Our FLGS is well stocked. There are at least two tournaments a month within 1h driving distance of me (all of which are well-attended). There's going to be a huge System Open in Hanover next month.

So, yeah. I'm not worried

I don‘t see the problem in my area neither. Try the german X-Wing site to get in touch with other players, shops and events.

http://www.moseisleyraumhafen.de/

1 hour ago, NervousSam said:

My store ordered 120 of each. You've gotta play in public. A weekly xwing nite should be a standing learn to play event for newer players. I gave a demo just last week.

120 of each??? That can't be right.

Oh its correct, lol. Its a couple of pallets worth of product.

The whole product line is available in German. Actually, you get the German content before the English one, and easier and cheaper. I'm only collecting the English stuff, so this pisses me off.

1 hour ago, Naerytar said:

I don't know anything about sales numbers, but I can tell you, that 2.0 has been doing really well in my area of Germany. Our FLGS is well stocked. There are at least two tournaments a month within 1h driving distance of me (all of which are well-attended). There's going to be a huge System Open in Hanover next month.

So, yeah. I'm not worried

That is kind of reassuring.

Perhaps then there is just a problem in my specific region and the stores are reacting by removing X-Wing from the shelves.

17 minutes ago, Stefan said:

The whole product line is available in German. Actually, you get the German content before the English one, and easier and cheaper. I'm only collecting the English stuff, so this pisses me off.

That is the main reason why I still buy the German stuff. Despite such translation masterpieces like Tie Dämpfer.

Don't get me started. I don't want to fly X-Flügler. I want to fly X-Wings. And this seriously interferes with my enjoyment of the game, so I need the English versions.

23 minutes ago, Stefan said:

Don't get me started. I don't want to fly X-Flügler. I want to fly X-Wings. And this seriously interferes with my enjoyment of the game, so I need the English versions.

Kreischläufer ....

just kidding 🤮

I'm always getting into arguments with my 6yo how to properly pronounce the things.

4 hours ago, Odanan said:

120 of each??? That can't be right.

I used to live in Sam’s community. The way the veteran players encouraged newer players was a model for how to grow a community. When a community has enough leaders, it will grow.

i live in a small city. 3 gaming stores. all 3 used to stock xwing and two used to run events. now events are run by one store and the other store who previously ran events does not anymore and do not stock it either. the community is sml but its growing slowly. we have a younger group coming thru, sons of dads who play that are starting to come to events (no doubt to be with their dads and give mum a break but its a positive sign). i was worried xwing would die off when 2.0 arrived. i think it might have in some other areas but we still have a core group and monthly events.

I don't get why we don't get the English product. As I told you guys, I still haven't received my Resistance A-Wing, and now the German versions of Wave III are out (barring the squadron packs), but no one knows when (and if!) the English versions will arrive. I preordered that stuff ******* months ago! What is going wrong there?

9 minutes ago, Stefan said:

I don't get why we don't get the English product. As I told you guys, I still haven't received my Resistance A-Wing, and now the German versions of Wave III are out (barring the squadron packs), but no one knows when (and if!) the English versions will arrive. I preordered that stuff ******* months ago! What is going wrong there?

Could be distribution related. I know when I lived in Germany, it was significantly harder to English products even for items produced in Germany because the distribution wasn't really in place for it. It proved to be easier just to learn German

It was NEVER a problem with 1st edition, nor with Wave I and the conversion set. It's only since Wave II that suddenly nothing's working anymore.

Just blame Brexit. Even if it’s not to blame it deserves the negative perception

Pricing?

I don't know what the prices have been like in the rest of the world, but here second edition is about 40% more expensive than first. That's pretty offputting.

On 3/21/2019 at 12:41 PM, NervousSam said:

I never touch the official app. Is there not a German YASB or equivalent?

You can switch YASB to German.

Send some love to raithos