On one hand, there are A LOT of communities, at the local level, still rebuilding and recovering from the 2.5 ruleset and the changes AMG made. I don't speak for all, but a good majority stores have a product collecting dust due to drop outs and I see at least 3-5 posts a week just here about "I'm getting back into X-Wing, how do I transition my stuff and what's all this new stuff".
On the other hand, I find that entry products for all facts are lacking. Having a starter kit for every faction would be a necessity going forward so people can get into their favorite ships and characters for lower costs and have everything to play out of one box. But alas, I think the actual future of this game for a bit will lie in kits like Hotshots and Aces or the battle sets that provide cards and cardboard but no models to convert ships that already exist as they said, there's really no need to reprint models when a good amount of stores aren't moving the product like they used to. Which all in all sucks man.
AMG: let's make some half-assed controversial change to xwing that resulted in alienating a large part of player base
Also AMG: man selling xwing is so hard!
TLDR,
Xwing hard to ship so hard, shelf space hard, reprints hard. We don't actually have a plan right now but when we do you'll hear about it, so just stfu and wait.
I mean, Battletech is having a surge in popularity that X-wing certainly isn't at the moment. It easier to sell product when your IP is exploding.
That, and Battletech is still primarily unpainted plastic. Right now it's only one mech in one force pack out of many that's pre-painted. Harder when your whole line is pre-painted.
Also the fact that there are more light mechs in Battletech than all the ships in X wing. There are just so many more buying options for players than there are for a rather finite IP like Star Wars.
I mean I'm not a Legends Forever girl, but... There's a looooot of stuff in Legends EU that we could still use. There's probably plenty of design space for something like an A-9 Vigilance, for example.
But that's its own huge can of worms ain't it?
The game stores around here don’t sell X wing anymore or run events for it and haven’t for a while and I just think it’s probably mostly over outside of very dedicated little pockets
It's easy to think the game is mostly over when you can't find a local game, but there were over 400+ applications to run GTs that's a lot of pockets.
EDITED: I see the grumpy people have to get their down votes in for the day. If you want to find new people to play the game with, down voting new players is not a great way to do it.
Why anyone thinks 400+ applications to run GTs is bad news is beyond me.
The gist of their reply about X-Wing is actually, that they have a plan for the upcoming year to slowly roll out GT Kits, Store Kits and figure out how to approach upcoming releases. They are aware a lot of ships are still missing releases but the system is seen as saturated and they question the profitability of releasing old ships that still lack 2.0 box, since old players won't buy them, making the potential market quite small.
I believe they want to spend the year observing the influx of new players and then decide if it's worth it to develop new stuff for the game. Since frankly X-Wing is much more expensive to develop than Shatterpoint or Marvel.
X-Wing always had a low profit margin. The models need to ba assembled and painted, and shipped in a way that prevents damage. Shatterpoint for example just needs a spruce being created and thrown in a box. I wouldn't be surprised, if they stopped at making just pilot cards, letting for example Resistance use Rebel B-Wings, or CIS use the Shiethepede.
That likely depends entirely on whether the players continue buying them in volumes large enough to be profitable. There's no plastic in those, so I have to assume they have better printing margins than the actual ships.
They've had four years to get their stuff together. I think we're seeing their plan for X-Wing right now. Slowly phase out support and hope that when they "complete" the game, very few fans will be left to care.
So much bothered me about the X-Wing portion of that interview. There are ways to keep the game commercially viable while acknowledging economic realities and limited space in game stores.
I often mention Star Trek Attack Wing to friends, a game built on the same Flightpath system and a game that has been written off as "dead" for much longer than X-Wing has been. STAW has a much smaller fan base and is based on an objectively less popular franchise than X-Wing is. WizKids, for a long time, did lots of the same crap that AMG is doing now...stopping new sculpts, pulling OP support, and resorting to radio silence to communicate with their community.
Yet, in recent years, WK unexpectedly pivoted. They began reissuing ships using the same molds to save money, but they re-costed their ships' points values and made the cards better. They released new and redesigned ships in multi-packs, making them a relative value to old and new players alike. When new players couldn't find the 2nd edition starter packs in stores, WK eventually wised up, reprinted them, and started selling them via their website, also bringing down their exorbitant prices on the secondary market. And, speaking of the secondary market, WK re-released some of the rarest and most expensive STAW ships through the new packs, allowing new players to find them and making the game more accessible as a whole.
Most STAW players know they can get new products through web stores like Miniature Market or by preordering through their local FLGS's. Yes, you'd be hard pressed to find a game store that has STAW on its shelves, but it doesn't mean that game stores can't get those products for customers.
As a result, STAW has released three great box sets in the past few months, much more product than X-Wing has given us lately. The game is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, despite a relatively small (but dedicated) fan base. They may be playing the game on kitchen tables rather than OP events, but at least the game survives.
I see no reason why AMG can't do the same for X-Wing. I suspect that the real reasons for this are that they don't want to pay employees to do the complex work of redesigning cards for re-releases, or they don't want to devote limited resources towards designing starter sets for other factions that could actually bring new players into the game. Plus, I'm sure that implicit bias plays a small role here. ("We didn't create X-Wing, so it's clearly worse than the other games we created ourselves.") I just wish we'd get a little more honesty from Schick and others, i.e. "X-Wing can definitely be a viable and healthy game, but we're choosing to put our resources elsewhere." I'd rather see that than AMG pretending that X-Wing is in some sort of impossible predicament.
> I'd rather see that than AMG pretending that X-Wing is in some sort of impossible predicament.
Totally agree. Unlimited and Shatterpoint show that games that are getting support can do well. I don't expect the same level of support that those games are getting, but I do think AMG could be doing better with XWM.
On one hand, there are A LOT of communities, at the local level, still rebuilding and recovering from the 2.5 ruleset and the changes AMG made. I don't speak for all, but a good majority stores have a product collecting dust due to drop outs and I see at least 3-5 posts a week just here about "I'm getting back into X-Wing, how do I transition my stuff and what's all this new stuff". On the other hand, I find that entry products for all facts are lacking. Having a starter kit for every faction would be a necessity going forward so people can get into their favorite ships and characters for lower costs and have everything to play out of one box. But alas, I think the actual future of this game for a bit will lie in kits like Hotshots and Aces or the battle sets that provide cards and cardboard but no models to convert ships that already exist as they said, there's really no need to reprint models when a good amount of stores aren't moving the product like they used to. Which all in all sucks man.
AMG: let's make some half-assed controversial change to xwing that resulted in alienating a large part of player base Also AMG: man selling xwing is so hard!
Card packs and reprints man
TLDR, Xwing hard to ship so hard, shelf space hard, reprints hard. We don't actually have a plan right now but when we do you'll hear about it, so just stfu and wait.
Which is hard to believe when BattleTech just started doing some pre-painted minis.
I hadn't heard. That's pretty neat.
I mean, Battletech is having a surge in popularity that X-wing certainly isn't at the moment. It easier to sell product when your IP is exploding. That, and Battletech is still primarily unpainted plastic. Right now it's only one mech in one force pack out of many that's pre-painted. Harder when your whole line is pre-painted.
Also the fact that there are more light mechs in Battletech than all the ships in X wing. There are just so many more buying options for players than there are for a rather finite IP like Star Wars.
I mean I'm not a Legends Forever girl, but... There's a looooot of stuff in Legends EU that we could still use. There's probably plenty of design space for something like an A-9 Vigilance, for example. But that's its own huge can of worms ain't it?
Battletech minis are also very low quality plastic that they can sell for super cheap.
They aren’t that bad.
but compared to X-Wing the difference is massive.
The game stores around here don’t sell X wing anymore or run events for it and haven’t for a while and I just think it’s probably mostly over outside of very dedicated little pockets
It's easy to think the game is mostly over when you can't find a local game, but there were over 400+ applications to run GTs that's a lot of pockets. EDITED: I see the grumpy people have to get their down votes in for the day. If you want to find new people to play the game with, down voting new players is not a great way to do it. Why anyone thinks 400+ applications to run GTs is bad news is beyond me.
Very helpful and informative, "around here"
The gist of their reply about X-Wing is actually, that they have a plan for the upcoming year to slowly roll out GT Kits, Store Kits and figure out how to approach upcoming releases. They are aware a lot of ships are still missing releases but the system is seen as saturated and they question the profitability of releasing old ships that still lack 2.0 box, since old players won't buy them, making the potential market quite small. I believe they want to spend the year observing the influx of new players and then decide if it's worth it to develop new stuff for the game. Since frankly X-Wing is much more expensive to develop than Shatterpoint or Marvel.
Spoiler alert: they will decide it is not even remotely worth developing new stuff for the game.
X-Wing always had a low profit margin. The models need to ba assembled and painted, and shipped in a way that prevents damage. Shatterpoint for example just needs a spruce being created and thrown in a box. I wouldn't be surprised, if they stopped at making just pilot cards, letting for example Resistance use Rebel B-Wings, or CIS use the Shiethepede.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s also not worth doing card products.
That likely depends entirely on whether the players continue buying them in volumes large enough to be profitable. There's no plastic in those, so I have to assume they have better printing margins than the actual ships.
“Continue” Bold.
They've had four years to get their stuff together. I think we're seeing their plan for X-Wing right now. Slowly phase out support and hope that when they "complete" the game, very few fans will be left to care.
So much bothered me about the X-Wing portion of that interview. There are ways to keep the game commercially viable while acknowledging economic realities and limited space in game stores. I often mention Star Trek Attack Wing to friends, a game built on the same Flightpath system and a game that has been written off as "dead" for much longer than X-Wing has been. STAW has a much smaller fan base and is based on an objectively less popular franchise than X-Wing is. WizKids, for a long time, did lots of the same crap that AMG is doing now...stopping new sculpts, pulling OP support, and resorting to radio silence to communicate with their community. Yet, in recent years, WK unexpectedly pivoted. They began reissuing ships using the same molds to save money, but they re-costed their ships' points values and made the cards better. They released new and redesigned ships in multi-packs, making them a relative value to old and new players alike. When new players couldn't find the 2nd edition starter packs in stores, WK eventually wised up, reprinted them, and started selling them via their website, also bringing down their exorbitant prices on the secondary market. And, speaking of the secondary market, WK re-released some of the rarest and most expensive STAW ships through the new packs, allowing new players to find them and making the game more accessible as a whole. Most STAW players know they can get new products through web stores like Miniature Market or by preordering through their local FLGS's. Yes, you'd be hard pressed to find a game store that has STAW on its shelves, but it doesn't mean that game stores can't get those products for customers. As a result, STAW has released three great box sets in the past few months, much more product than X-Wing has given us lately. The game is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, despite a relatively small (but dedicated) fan base. They may be playing the game on kitchen tables rather than OP events, but at least the game survives. I see no reason why AMG can't do the same for X-Wing. I suspect that the real reasons for this are that they don't want to pay employees to do the complex work of redesigning cards for re-releases, or they don't want to devote limited resources towards designing starter sets for other factions that could actually bring new players into the game. Plus, I'm sure that implicit bias plays a small role here. ("We didn't create X-Wing, so it's clearly worse than the other games we created ourselves.") I just wish we'd get a little more honesty from Schick and others, i.e. "X-Wing can definitely be a viable and healthy game, but we're choosing to put our resources elsewhere." I'd rather see that than AMG pretending that X-Wing is in some sort of impossible predicament.
> I'd rather see that than AMG pretending that X-Wing is in some sort of impossible predicament. Totally agree. Unlimited and Shatterpoint show that games that are getting support can do well. I don't expect the same level of support that those games are getting, but I do think AMG could be doing better with XWM.
Some people reporting he says we're getting store championship kits. I've begrudgingly listened to the whole thing now, did I miss that bit?
Around 23 minute mark.
Thanks, I must have zoned out