Someone brought up selling prizes won at tournaments and events in a different thread.

Now, even though this topic is not related to the discussion going on in the other thread, it is still worth discussing on it's own merit.

I can see a few different reasons for doing this...

1. You use prizes to fund the trips to the event- Does not make sense to me. This is the same sort of reasoning that leaves people in Vegas and Atlantic City broke with no way home. Simple reason it is a gamble. A gamble that could lead unscrupulous or desperate players to cheating or breaking the rules to ensure wins they have not earned through game play thus harming the hobby as a whole.

2. Mercenary- Your good and are out for profit- I see nothing wrong with this. You won it, it belongs to you. Do with it as you like.

3. You dont need it- Alternate art cards, fancy looking dice or models you already have. Like with #2, it is yours. Do with it as you like.

What other reasons are there and your feelings about them (or the ones I already mentioned)?

I think number 1 is less gambling and more “if I get something I don’t need/want, I can sell it to get back some of what I already paid.” If a player is smart, they already budgeted out the costs, and just use prize stuff to offset those costs when available.

8 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

I think number 1 is less gambling and more “if I get something I don’t need/want, I can sell it to get back some of what I already paid.” If a player is smart, they already budgeted out the costs, and just use prize stuff to offset those costs when available.

Normally, i agree. Thats most likely the case for most in which case, I would classify it under 2. or 3.. In the other thread, it was mentioned that there are at least a few who rely fully on the prize sales to fund it to the point where they could not go without it. I believe that those would be the super few minority and even then. Thats why I put that in as an option.

I don’t mind it, because the secondary market makes things available to those who might otherwise not be able to obtain them (for a multitude of reasons).

However, I do get upset when I see a single person on eBay selling, for example, 20 SDCC giveaway cards, or more prize cards than one person should be able to acquire by entering a tournament.

$125 BIN for “Odd Ball” gave me a good laugh, at least.

I'm of mixed minds on this. On the one hand, yeah, if you win the prize, it's yours to do with as you will. On the other hand, I know one of our local shops won't host tournaments anymore because every time they did, Mercenaries who had already won other local tournaments would drive in from hours away to win all the prizes. Local players hated it because no one local ever got any of the prizes, and the store owner hated it because the Mercenaries never bought anything there and were just driving away regular customers. I can sort of understand wanting to go all out at a major event; but for a small, local tournament, why not content yourself with the ones in your own town?

1 minute ago, JJ48 said:

I'm of mixed minds on this. On the one hand, yeah, if you win the prize, it's yours to do with as you will. On the other hand, I know one of our local shops won't host tournaments anymore because every time they did, Mercenaries who had already won other local tournaments would drive in from hours away to win all the prizes. Local players hated it because no one local ever got any of the prizes, and the store owner hated it because the Mercenaries never bought anything there and were just driving away regular customers. I can sort of understand wanting to go all out at a major event; but for a small, local tournament, why not content yourself with the ones in your own town?

I have seen this in 40k. Once the "pros" found out about the local tourneys, they added our local shop to their "circuit". How the shop handled it was by doing store credit for prizes mostly covered by the entry fees and by the built in aspect of the hobby with having painting, basing and such being part of the judging and points. it did chase away a few players. The rest of us... it caused us to "up our game". I dislike playing against folks I can always easily beat as do many others of the locals. In the end, we discovered why the pros change their circuits so often. They need to alter their regular tournament routes after time because after a few times, they find that they no longer win the games as easily and eventually found a different tourney to play at. Then, the ones they chased off came back and the store benefited because as we upped our game, we bought more. I'm thinking this can be applied to most such games.

1 minute ago, JJ48 said:

I'm of mixed minds on this. On the one hand, yeah, if you win the prize, it's yours to do with as you will. On the other hand, I know one of our local shops won't host tournaments anymore because every time they did, Mercenaries who had already won other local tournaments would drive in from hours away to win all the prizes. Local players hated it because no one local ever got any of the prizes, and the store owner hated it because the Mercenaries never bought anything there and were just driving away regular customers. I can sort of understand wanting to go all out at a major event; but for a small, local tournament, why not content yourself with the ones in your own town?

But, on the other side of things, you have the small play groups who use events to draw in players from other areas. That’s what our local group did, and several others around the state.

Also, considering this has led to me making friends, not just of players, but store owners too, I’ve never really seen the use for “locals only” tournaments. Sure, you can get some jerks, but that’s a fact of life.

4 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

But, on the other side of things, you have the small play groups who use events to draw in players from other areas. That’s what our local group did, and several others around the state.

Also, considering this has led to me making friends, not just of players, but store owners too, I’ve never really seen the use for “locals only” tournaments. Sure, you can get some jerks, but that’s a fact of life.

That's true. I didn't mean to make it sound like people shouldn't travel for community or fellowship. I was focused on those playing for prizes, which as I understand it, are the same at a store in Indianapolis as they are for a store in Dayton.

I mean, it's one thing if you lose your tournament so you go to another one for a second chance. But to win the prizes at one tournament and then use those prizes in another tournament just to rub it in other players' faces just how superfluous the extra prizes are for you...well, that just seems in poor taste to my mind.

35 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

I'm of mixed minds on this. On the one hand, yeah, if you win the prize, it's yours to do with as you will. On the other hand, I know one of our local shops won't host tournaments anymore because every time they did, Mercenaries who had already won other local tournaments would drive in from hours away to win all the prizes. Local players hated it because no one local ever got any of the prizes, and the store owner hated it because the Mercenaries never bought anything there and were just driving away regular customers. I can sort of understand wanting to go all out at a major event; but for a small, local tournament, why not content yourself with the ones in your own town?

That's one side of it, especially the "Goes to store, then leaves". BUT that just to me is a **** move period. And i've known of folk that way period, doesn't matter the store they go into.

But on the flip side, i'd also hate to see tournaments be "locals only"..

I have sold prizes for reasons #2 and #3. I'd rather buy another ship for my collection than have a set of grey dice that I can't read, or a second set of acrylic templates that I'll never use. That said, if I know a friend (or especially a new player) that could put the prize to good use, I'd rather give it to them. Fostering a healthy and generous community is much more important than scoring an extra fang fighter for my army.

I give away my spare alt art cards, and various tokens if I don't like them or need them. (Those very small metal focus and evades looked nice, but were too fiddly to pick up easily.)

I haven't won any (2nd!?) sets of valuable prizes to make selling them an option for me!

I do know a player who really struggles to get enough disposable cash to be able to attend many tournaments so he sells every prize he wins to recoup travel costs and entry fees. He also can't afford to buy many new ships. He tries to break even on x-wing, but I don't think he manages to do so.

I've given away spares to new players or put them in the FLGS tournament prize box. I've never sold anything. But then, I've never won more than one of anything I only need one of other than C-3PO in 1e and those all went to new players or into the tournament prize bin.

If someone wins stuff at a tournament, and then decides to sell some of that stuff (doesn't fly that faction, won't use the tokens etc), I've no real issue with it.

My only objection would be if someone was purposely 'hustling' tournaments to acquire stuff for sale, without any regard for other players and the wider community.

I've seen people actively turn down prizes because they don't need/want them, passing them onto other players who might not have won anything, so I don't think this is a big issue in the community.

12 hours ago, EVIL INC said:

Someone brought up selling prizes won at tournaments and events in a different thread.

Now, even though this topic is not related to the discussion going on in the other thread, it is still worth discussing on it's own merit.

I can see a few different reasons for doing this...

1. You use prizes to fund the trips to the event- Does not make sense to me. This is the same sort of reasoning that leaves people in Vegas and Atlantic City broke with no way home. Simple reason it is a gamble. A gamble that could lead unscrupulous or desperate players to cheating or breaking the rules to ensure wins they have not earned through game play thus harming the hobby as a whole.

2. Mercenary- Your good and are out for profit- I see nothing wrong with this. You won it, it belongs to you. Do with it as you like.

3. You dont need it- Alternate art cards, fancy looking dice or models you already have. Like with #2, it is yours. Do with it as you like.

What other reasons are there and your feelings about them (or the ones I already mentioned)?

You won it, its yours, do with it as you please. Football players sell superbowl rings. I wish I woulda sold all my 1.0 prizes. I was holding onto official acrylic bomb tokens that in 2.0, FFG decided is not going to be legal anymore 😕 Because of this, Im basically just holding onto dice and anything else can go. When 3.0 is released it will all be useless.

10 hours ago, JJ48 said:

That's true. I didn't mean to make it sound like people shouldn't travel for community or fellowship. I was focused on those playing for prizes, which as I understand it, are the same at a store in Indianapolis as they are for a store in Dayton.

I mean, it's one thing if you lose your tournament so you go to another one for a second chance. But to win the prizes at one tournament and then use those prizes in another tournament just to rub it in other players' faces just how superfluous the extra prizes are for you...well, that just seems in poor taste to my mind.

That’s fair. Like I said, jerks are a fact of life. But I do wish to caution against assigning malice where there isn’t any. I’ve seen people who won top prizes in one tournament show up for another with the same prize pool, using those prizes. But for the most part, if they won anything they weren’t directly gonna use (some tokens, for instance), they’d pass it down to the next person in line.

Now, that’s probably me being fortunate and having good relations with most of the players in the area. But I’m worried that frustration with Mercenaries/jerks can poison the well against new faces who come to play that may just want to use the stuff they won.

Overall,I've seen the mercenaries being a good thing.

They usually buy at least something from the shops they visit, even if it is just sodas or some other item that usually sells out fast at the bigger places but has not done so because the local one doesnt have mail order or is overlooked by scavengers (I got a couple of starwings at my local and was shocked by what they sold for online afterwards).

They help the locals become better players (enough so that eventually, the mercenaries stop coming soon enough as they find the wins are not easy enough to make the risk of losing worth the trip). Many like to brag about their lists and how they work and discuss other lists and tricks they see on the road all the while demonstrating what they are talking about in the games and forcing the locals to pay closer attention to the games and hone their skills. (this has the side benefit for the store as it encourages locals to make purchases they might not otherwise have made)

More players in a tourney means more seed money for prizes with their entry gees being added in. Meaning that they pump up the value of the prizes. (from what I've seen, most shops put store credit up as prizes meaning that the store still gets the $ and the more folks enter, the larger the pot)

Huh...do people do this? Specifically hunt prizes for resale? This idea is truly foreign to me.

I guess I see both sides - I’m in an area where I can see the same people turning up at the top of 4+ Hyperspace tournaments denying the rest of us a shot at the prize they already have multiple times over.

At the same time, it’s the only way for them to play higher level xwing if they are trying to prepare for worlds. Casual night at the game store may not quite cut it for them, even if it’s what most of us love doing.

I saw it in 40k where money was more of a factor with a wider range of models and the prizes were different along with different scoring (many shops put the hobby aspect such as painting into the scoring) so my experience is slight different and there, the prizes werent collectible. They just used the prizes to bulk up with units for newer armies or more expensive models for themselves.

I was kind of a tourney traveler (I say traveler instead of mercenary because I usually wasnt good enough to get higher than 3rd and always ended up putting more into gas and dinner than I won if I won anything at all). The reason I traveled was because I did not have a local shop and not many locals even played. Then when I get get a local shop I had to travel just to get to it and I enjoyed playing the game. A tourney was the only place I could be assured of a full day of playing and I enjoyed shopping at shops that were larger than my local and had stuff to buy I couldnt get at home. Plus being able to discuss the hobby, get tips on play and painting and getting to see how others did their models was a bonus. I got some GREAT conversion tips at one place in particular.