3 minutes ago, Pollux85 said:

You are all arguing over nothing at this point. To me, the clearest evidence that X wing sold better than IA is that I've seen X-wing for sale at frickin Barnes and Noble. Somebody at FFG and at B&N thinks that this is so easy to sell and makes so much money that they can sell it at a place that its core audience would NEVER go to buy or play games. I ain't never seen no Core Box for IA at Barnes & Noble. In the absence of market data, that tells us all we need to know.

Soo true. I wish they sold armada or legion at B&N. X-wing is the best selling game FFG has ever made. It’s pretty affordable too.

2 minutes ago, Pollux85 said:

You are all arguing over nothing at this point. To me, the clearest evidence that X wing sold better than IA is that I've seen X-wing for sale at frickin Barnes and Noble. Somebody at FFG and at B&N thinks that this is so easy to sell and makes so much money that they can sell it at a place that its core audience would NEVER go to buy or play games. I ain't never seen no Core Box for IA at Barnes & Noble. In the absence of market data, that tells us all we need to know.

Yeah, when something is very popular, it's pretty obvious. I actually did see an IA box at Barns and Noble but a lot more self space was dedicated to X-wing. How much self space and where the product is located tells you everything one needs to know.

It's also obvious when someone keeps asking for sources, misquoting people, hashing word meanings. They are just trolling and looking for an argument for no reason at all.

38 minutes ago, Uninvited Guest said:

No, I'm not looking to start an argument nor am I trolling. I also didn't misquote you, that's what you said. You attempted insult me in your previous post and rather than engage I deflected with a sarcastic remark intended to make a point.

Actually I was trying to be helpful by explaining simple English since I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you simply misunderstood what was being said and it was a communication problem. At this point, all you want to do is start arguments with people asking for sources, misquoting people and hashing word meanings. You doing it to multiple people here.

1 hour ago, Mep said:

Yeah, when something is very popular, it's pretty obvious. I actually did see an IA box at Barns and Noble but a lot more self space was dedicated to X-wing. How much self space and where the product is located tells you everything one needs to know.

It's also obvious when someone keeps asking for sources, misquoting people, hashing word meanings. They are just trolling and looking for an argument for no reason at all.

I've had way too many positive interactions with @Uninvited Guest for me to believe he is a troll. And your comment about his English did come off as a little condescending, whether you meant it that way or not.

I think you both went a little off the deep end about something you care about and both are knowledgeable of, but no harm done.

1 hour ago, Mep said:

Actually I was trying to be helpful by explaining simple English since I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you simply misunderstood what was being said and it was a communication problem. At this point, all you want to do is start arguments with people asking for sources, misquoting people and hashing word meanings. You doing it to multiple people here.

*intent and disbelieving squint* Sir, had you just left an apologetic post, nothing, or maybe a "oh, I misunderstood here", and you would have been able to walk away with me thinking you actually misunderstood, and weren't just being stubborn, and me possibly respecting you, seeing as you gave up the argument when you lost.

1. You insulted him, there is almost no other reason to post " Maybe you should have taken some English classes while in school. You wouldn't be so confused right now. " and " Hope the Engli sh lesson helps you out and you d o a bit better in the futur e . " Also, is English a secondary language for you, or do you just not notice when there are red lines under your misspelled words? Do you just not notice when you make a mistake, or are you too lazy to edit your posts after you made them? By the way, you forgot an r. (look, now I'm slinging insults, by the Force , look what you've done. On another note, I probably made a few spelling mistakes myself, since spell check can't check to see if your using the correct version of different words, like there/their/they're and your/you're)

2. He clarified his meaning's, and if you didn't understand that, than you need to read his post more thoroughly, not just taking part of it and trying(Poorly) to spin it into something that puts you in a better light.

3. What other people is Uninvited Guest(I'm going to paraphrase here) "Starting arguments with people asking for sources, misquoting people and hashing word meanings" with, in your opinion? I don't see him doing any of that. Please direct me to a post of him doing any of that. I think I saw him ask for a source for something else, but that person did not "troll" like you are.

1 hour ago, Mep said:

Actually I was trying to be helpful by explaining simple English since I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you simply misunderstood what was being said and it was a communication problem. At this point, all you want to do is start arguments with people asking for sources, misquoting people and hashing word meanings. You doing it to multiple people here.

4. He(Uninvited Guest) tried to brush of the comment and not get in a fight with you. He literally said, quote:

"No, I'm not looking to start an argument nor am I trolling. I also didn't misquote you, that's what you said. You attempted insult me in your previous post and rather than engage I deflected with a sarcastic remark intended to make a point.

As for your statement that "outstanding and great are synonyms," you might want to check a thesaurus. You have "great" ranked as better than "good," but "great" is listed as a synonym of "good." Therefore you can't eliminate a word being used to indicate that something is better than great, even if they are synonyms. "

5. You completely ignored paragraph 2(highlighted in bold), not to mention my message.

6. If anyone here is misquoting people, it's you, so stop trying to take some moral high-ground in this argument as far as I am concerned, only people who haven't insulted others to try and repress, demean, or drive away the opposing side of the argument have that right.

Asking for a source is a good way to check whatever a person is saying isn't just there own personal opinion or an isolated experience or event. A reasonable person responds with "I can't find it" if they had a source, "I don't have one" if they don't have it, or, "Here is the source your looking for", if they do have one. You obviously do NOT have a source, either that or(as I am coming to suspect) you're not a reasonable person.

Now, I like to think I am a reasonable person, and that I actually try to be kind and considerate to others online. Only people like you @Mep , bring out this side of me online. By this side I mean the one who throws insults at the insulters(and yes, I know that's not a real word), and the one who argues over pointless things with stubborn people.

-Arctic

7 hours ago, Mep said:

Actually I was trying to be helpful by explaining simple English since I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you simply misunderstood what was being said and it was a communication problem. At this point, all you want to do is start arguments with people asking for sources, misquoting people and hashing word meanings. You doing it to multiple people here.

Honest question: you really don't see how any of your comments were insulting/condescending/rude? You don't have to answer but I ask because someone in my life has that issue. As this conversation has not gone well I intend to reevaluate how I interact with you in the future and I want to know if I should take that in to account.

@ArcticJedi , easy Chewie, lol. I do appreciate where you're coming from, and I'm sure I've made it obvious that I have a hard time dealing with stubborn people myself. Like I said, someone in my life has clinical reasons for thinking differently. I don't want to assume Mep does or does not. But thank you.

@Pollux85 , thanks for stepping in to shut it down. I do want to ask:

7 hours ago, Pollux85 said:

You are all arguing over nothing at this point. To me, the clearest evidence that X wing sold better than IA is that I've seen X-wing for sale at frickin Barnes and Noble.

Did I miss someone saying IA out sold x-wing? I'm asking because I didn't say that, or ever intend to imply it, but Mep claimed I did imply it. I just want to make sure there's no misunderstanding.

On 10/21/2019 at 1:27 PM, Pollux85 said:

You are all arguing over nothing at this point. To me, the clearest evidence that X wing sold better than IA is that I've seen X-wing for sale at frickin Barnes and Noble. Somebody at FFG and at B&N thinks that this is so easy to sell and makes so much money that they can sell it at a place that its core audience would NEVER go to buy or play games. I ain't never seen no Core Box for IA at Barnes & Noble. In the absence of market data, that tells us all we need to know.

For the record, I agree with the idea that X-Wings almost certainly crushed IA in sales.

But just as a neat tidbit, I have seen IA for sale in my local-ish Barnes and Noble.

Ah, gotta love the “whataboutism” that’s been employed in this thread...

On 10/27/2019 at 8:08 AM, Majushi said:

Ah, gotta love the “whataboutism” that’s been employed in this thread...

I bailed on this thread long ago when it started going in circles. Without any sales data we simply don't know. It is all anecdotal based on one player's local sampling. I personal feel, but I have nothing to back it up, that IA was dropped in favor of Legion because Legion offers a better bang for the buck. They don't have to make up campaigns or design map tiles. Again, that is purely opinion without a shred of empirical data to back it up.

10 hours ago, Rikalonius said:

I bailed on this thread long ago when it started going in circles. Without any sales data we simply don't know. It is all anecdotal based on one player's local sampling. I personal feel, but I have nothing to back it up, that IA was dropped in favor of Legion because Legion offers a better bang for the buck. They don't have to make up campaigns or design map tiles. Again, that is purely opinion without a shred of empirical data to back it up.

I think you've nailed it on the head, but also have no data to back that up.

That's not to say that IA wasn't a good product for FFG (also, no data here, but I look at the sheer volume of product as an indicator), but the fact that the fall of IA was predictable from the moment they announced Legion (many people called this) tells you most of what you need to know.

I see the relative success of SW:IA skirmish being its own downfall, showing there could be customer base in skirmish games other than X-Wing (and Armada), the less than enthusiastic reception of Runewars Miniatures also contributing to the development of SW:Legion.

Now that I know it's never coming, I really do wish that we could have gotten an a Clone Wars box and some expansions. No idea how they would have made that work for factions in Skirmish, since I think there is enough there for a new Core box, expansions for Naboo and Geonosis, and maybe one more for the Clone Wars at large, but not enough units to make the Republic and the Separatists as fleshed out as the three factions we've got now.

I will always mourn never having an Endor box or a Yoda figure. Always.

I still feel like something is coming down the pipe. The "Descent Model" for lack of a better term, has been very successful for FFG for a long time now, over a decade including Descent 1.0?

People love dungeon crawlers and they are only growing increasingly popular with a new Kickstarter popping up all the time.

I can't see FFG abandoning that model, even if it is a new reskin.

I guess perhaps that is what LOTR was, but even that system is still very different from what Descent/IA was.

4 hours ago, FrogTrigger said:

I still feel like something is coming down the pipe. The "Descent Model" for lack of a better term, has been very successful for FFG for a long time now, over a decade including Descent 1.0?

People love dungeon crawlers and they are only growing increasingly popular with a new Kickstarter popping up all the time.

I can't see FFG abandoning that model, even if it is a new reskin.

I guess perhaps that is what LOTR was, but even that system is still very different from what Descent/IA was.

Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe they killed IA to split the baby and give us Legion, and now they are in the process of developing a Gloomhaven sized Star Wars dungeon crawler game with an honest to God narrative and original story and plot twists and stuff.

On 10/30/2019 at 7:15 AM, a1bert said:

I see the relative success of SW:IA skirmish being its own downfall, showing there could be customer base in skirmish games other than X-Wing (and Armada), the less than enthusiastic reception of Runewars Miniatures also contributing to the development of SW:Legion.

I don't know if IA Skirmish's success was its own downfall. Legion was likely in development a good 12-to-18 months prior to it being announced: Roughly the same time Jabba's Realm was being finalized & released, which shook up the IA Skirmish meta and made it more successful. I think FFG always wanted to enter the open tabletop wargaming area with the Star Wars license (and once they ended their partnership with Games Workshop , FFG finally could do so.) And due to the result of the Hasbro lawsuit, the Legion project became even more lucrative.

What Hasbro lawsuit?

Hasbro threw a hissy fit over IA back in the day since they thought they had exclusive rights to board games. FFG has since then made board games for Star Wars but part of that hissy fit was FFG can't sell them directly on their Web Site. Truth is, Disney is in full control of the situation. Hasbro can only hope Disney doesn't figure out they can have the same Chinese factories make all the same toys for them directly rather than Hasbro and just cut out the middle man. There isn't anything Hasbro is doing at this point that Disney can't do for themselves. If Disney says Outer Rim or Rebellion are cool for FFG to make, or even IA, it's cool. Hasbro has a lot to lose by being difficult and nothing to gain here. I mean board games, who really cares.

With IA not being a great seller and with the potential of more money in the miniatures market, FFG switched over to Legion. Giving Games Workshop the middle finger in the process was a bonus I am sure. With Legion being a pretty good success for FFG, they don't need more SKUs retailers don't have room for from IA. So the game is done. It was a good game, but we got to get over it.

6 hours ago, Mep said:

With IA not being a great seller and with the potential of more money in the miniatures market, FFG switched over to Legion. Giving Games Workshop the middle finger in the process was a bonus I am sure. With Legion being a pretty good success for FFG, they don't need more SKUs retailers don't have room for from IA. So the game is done. It was a good game, but we got to get over it.

Where I live, nobody (and I mean, really nobody) dumped GW games for Legion, which received a lukewarm welcome to say an understatement. As a matter of fact the new GW skirmish games are going stronger than ever.

On the other hand, XWing has disappeared from the tables of the local stores after they released the 2nd edition. Oddly, there is a quite solid community of Aeronautica Imperialis at the moment. So I am wondering who gave the middle finger to who...

As I already stated elsewhere, FFG gave up on their story driven dungeon crawlers to compete with GW on their field. There is only one possible outcome from my point of view, but I might be wrong and only time will tell.

The dungeon crawlers weren't making any money so they put those resources in miniatures. Descent became Runewars and AI became Legion. Runewars was a bomb. I am not surprised Legion didn't do well everywhere but it certainly has done well enough. I mean, they didn't end it like they had to with Runewars, if anything they ramped it up and been aggressively putting out new stuff.

Are you sure Runewars wasn't a quick counterprogramming move for losing Warhammer?

14 hours ago, Ico83 said:

Where I live, nobody (and I mean, really nobody) dumped GW games for Legion, which received a lukewarm welcome to say an understatement. As a matter of fact the new GW skirmish games are going stronger than ever.

On the other hand, XWing has disappeared from the tables of the local stores after they released the 2nd edition. Oddly, there is a quite solid community of Aeronautica Imperialis at the moment. So I am wondering who gave the middle finger to who...

As I already stated elsewhere, FFG gave up on their story driven dungeon crawlers to compete with GW on their field. There is only one possible outcome from my point of view, but I might be wrong and only time will tell.

It's their Waterloo. I am not surprised, but I didn't know that X-Wing was experience a severe loss of interest. You can just a take a game and tell everyone you are going to change and you have to buy a bunch of new stuff.

23 hours ago, Mep said:

Hasbro threw a hissy fit over IA back in the day since they thought they had exclusive rights to board games. FFG has since then made board games for Star Wars but part of that hissy fit was FFG can't sell them directly on their Web Site. Truth is, Disney is in full control of the situation. Hasbro can only hope Disney doesn't figure out they can have the same Chinese factories make all the same toys for them directly rather than Hasbro and just cut out the middle man. There isn't anything Hasbro is doing at this point that Disney can't do for themselves. If Disney says Outer Rim or Rebellion are cool for FFG to make, or even IA, it's cool. Hasbro has a lot to lose by being difficult and nothing to gain here. I mean board games, who really cares.

With IA not being a great seller and with the potential of more money in the miniatures market, FFG switched over to Legion. Giving Games Workshop the middle finger in the process was a bonus I am sure. With Legion being a pretty good success for FFG, they don't need more SKUs retailers don't have room for from IA. So the game is done. It was a good game, but we got to get over it.

do you have any actual facts to go along with your hyperbole when it comes to what is a "great seller" and if something is a "pretty good success"?

I don't dispute that IA was buried to make way for Legion. It obviously was. But that doesn't mean IA didn't sell "great". It's just had a long run with many SKUs. They wouldn't have put out as many SKUs for IA as they did if it did not sell "great".

Do you actually have any hard facts about the sales performances for Legion and IA to draw your conclusions or are these more of your instinctual statements that you've gone in hard on against anyone who takes issue with your hyperbole?

16 hours ago, Mep said:

The dungeon crawlers weren't making any money so they put those resources in miniatures. Descent became Runewars and AI became Legion. Runewars was a bomb. I am not surprised Legion didn't do well everywhere but it certainly has done well enough. I mean, they didn't end it like they had to with Runewars, if anything they ramped it up and been aggressively putting out new stuff.

If the dungeon crawlers weren't making enough money, their miniature wargames are making even less.

Descent (let's consider only the 2ed) was released in 2012, and since then has been a very popular game with tons of materials which are regularly reprinted. With XWing has been probably one of their best selling lines in the past years. Runewars got canned pretty quickly, due to poor sales. Therefore, miniatures games do not guarantee better sales or profit than dungeon crawlers.

Then IA got killed to make space for Legion. Let's face the truth. The only advantage Legion has over its direct competitors is the appeal of the setting. It doesn't have a solid and large playerbase as GW games, it doesn't have enough variety in terms of playable factions and it prevents the players to reuse their miniatures in other systems.

As someone already said in these boards, FFG could have kept alive IA line by releasing products that players could use in different systems. GW, with all its defects, understood that this is the way (just think about their lastest skirmish games, which as a matter of fact are a bridge to the larger AoS or 40k systems).

But here we are. Still, I think that the downfall began with Petersen's resignation. This Navarro guy is leading FFG down a very steep cliff.

13 hours ago, Majushi said:

do you have any actual facts to go along with your hyperbole when it comes to what is a "great seller" and if something is a "pretty good success"?

I don't dispute that IA was buried to make way for Legion. It obviously was. But that doesn't mean IA didn't sell "great". It's just had a long run with many SKUs. They wouldn't have put out as many SKUs for IA as they did if it did not sell "great".

Do you actually have any hard facts about the sales performances for Legion and IA to draw your conclusions or are these more of your instinctual statements that you've gone in hard on against anyone who takes issue with your hyperbole?

Yeah, all you have to do is pay attention to the world. D&D is currently a great seller (thanks in part to Stranger Things). I mean you can go on YouTube and find successful channels about people playing that game. Magic has been a great seller for a generation. Imperial Assault - no. Not even close. Even if you look at FFG's worlds' participation it clearly was one of FFG's bottom tier games with X-Wing at the top by a big margin. You can always tell how well a game is doing by general interest in that game and it's overall popularity. Not actually difficult to do. Take Stranger Things as an example. Do you really need Netflix to release the actual viewership numbers (which they won't) to know that is a popular show for them? Or can you just pay attention to the world and see everyone talking about it, bunch of media interviews about it to know it is a popular show and is doing very well. These things are not hard to figure out even in absence of hard numbers that won't ever be released.

The dungeon crawlers seem to do well enough for a while for them to continue to be developed. Maybe it was the rise in popularity of D&D that did them in or people just lost interest. What we do know is great sellers don't get canned and replaced with new products that may or may not bomb. If something is a real money maker it gets bleed for all it's worth. Also, not a board game issue since FFG has put out new Star Wars board games. It's a sales issue. IA is just not a great seller. Pretty self evident. No need to argue about blatantly obvious facts unless you just want to troll.

Also I think the downfall began when FFG got bought out and the spread sheet decisions began. The games FFG was making needed to hit certain arbitrary marks or they are gone. FFG has been canning several games as of late and been putting out brand new ones hoping to get one of those great sellers that not just pays the bills but also pays the investors.

Honestly @Mep , I think the general disconnect between you and some other posters seems to be in your definition of "sell well". I don't think a single person here has claimed that IA has ever sold as well as Magic or D&D or even X-Wing. But saying "IA didn't sell well" because X-Wing has been more popular is like saying that the movie Get Out didn't do well because Infinity War was more popular. I mean technically both statements are true, but when most people say "that sold well" they're talking relative to most comparable products , not relative to the far-and-away market leader. FFG does not need every game to be X-Wing in order for most people to consider it a good seller or a success.

Arguing that a game that was in the BGG top-10 for a while (and is still in the top-40 five years after its release) has never sold well just strikes most people as kind of strange. It's one thing to say that sales dropped as time went on and may not have been great at the end, and that may well be true (although again we have no real way of knowing), but you seem to be saying that it was never successful.

Besides, I've always held that X-Wing was the bigger failure. Waaaaaay more people have heard of Monopoly.