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I'm of two minds about this.

On the one hand I agree that the retailer network of the FLGS in the US is, in the main, worth protecting. That people will go into a store, check out the item on the shelf. make sure they like it and then order it online from another vendor is undoubtedly a thing that happens regularly and in more than just gaming. That will only result in the closure of those stores and that's not really in anyone's best-interest.

On the other, I think this is the most bone-headed way to attempt to do it. Essentially, by trying to roll back the clock to...geez, the 1800s? Cutting off ALL online/mail-order sales (except for companies that are big enough to dictate their own terms, natch) isn't really protecting FLGS retail; it's driving customers away as you've limited availability down to a few outlets who now have less of an inclination to actually work to attract customers and generally engendering ill-will for what is likely to be viewed as an anti-consumer move. What happens when people order from Target instead of the FLGS because they can get their cat food and a new set of cutlery too and the FLGS can't compete on breadth of product?

Now, different terms for different channels referenced in the ICv2 quote does make a bit of sense. If you host # of events you get X trade rate, if your sales exceed a percentage via online then you get Y trade rate (where X < Y), etc. or even a simple fixed maximum discount which accomplishes a similar job and is much easier to enforce. That doesn't really seem to be what FFG is going for here though. Time will tell what the actual results are, of course.

On a separate but mildly related topic, it would be nice to see some FLGS get better at actually being a business wherein the goal is to encourage people to spend their money with you instead of somewhere else. Sure you can't compete on margins with someone who's using a greenhouse on his family farm and employing family members when you have a storefront with huge rent and a half-dozen employees, but there's a lot of room between "full MSRP" and "viable margin in certain cases" that stores, at least around here, don't seem to want to attempt to explore either (e.g. - discount for special/pre-orders paid up-front). Granted, if a major company is looking to enable the decision to not be customer-friendly, I suppose that would explain the reluctance.

Neronoxx wrote:
A common complaint seems to be, "I live in a remote area with no FLGS, so why should I bother supporting them when I can get it cheaper?"
Sorry, but to be honest, how is that anyone else's problem but your own? Why do FLGS have to suffer online discounters because you live in the middle of nowhere? It's not a customer service issue if you restrict yourself to not being a customer.
So in short, you say "It's YOUR problem I live in the boonies, so i'm going to buy it from someone else." That is what i'm hearing, correct?
Supporting the hobby should be a gaming companies ultimate goal. Encouraging price wars between online stores and physical retailers IS NOT how you support the hobby OR the industry. People say FLGS have to change how they do business in order to survive, but those people don't know what it takes to run one, or even how they should change. It's all just baseless opinions founded on greed and selfishness.

Are cheap games easier to get into? Yeah, absolutely. Starting MTG costs roughly $15, and X-wing and other board games are anywhere from $30-60. But don't defend undercutters by claiming that these already inexpensive games should be cheaper because that's the only way you can afford it. That's called entitlement.
And just to be clear, I'm not saying discounters are bad. 10-20% off is fine, and stores make good enough money they could do that all year round. It's the 40-50% discounters that kill FLGS. And it only takes one of these discounters to ruin it for a huge portion of stores. I would gladly pay full price, plus shipping for any game I wanted to play. If I can't afford it, that's no one else's problem but mine.

No, what's being said is that we dirty gaming peasants with no access to the FLGS should go without or pay significantly higher prices so the elite FLGS nobility gets to keep their castles.

And if you believe for a second that this has any more to do with "protecting the FLGS" than it did when GW did it, you are painfully naive.

But, again, just another example of "I got mine, feth you".

~Eric

 Alex C wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
I suspect that people who live more three hours from their closest store are a very small minority in the US..

I suspect that people would need significant;y less than 3 hours travel each way before they consider a store to be too far away to be worth the bother.

Exactly. I've seen people lamenting a 40-minute trip as being too far out of the way. That's my trip to work every morning.

And after you commute 40 minutes each way, are you willing to throw on another 40 minutes each way for a weekday game night? Unless you live on the coast or a college town, odds are most people in the US play in their home or a friend's house. This is doubly true for board games (FFG's main business other than X-Wing). The LGS is nothing more for most of us than a place to pay extra. Plenty dont offer events. Its silly to expect us to subsidize your special snowflake gamestores we dont have access to.

BTW, I hope no one defending this has a Netflix, or Amazon Prime account, and instead rents from a mom and pop video store. You know, the glue that holds movie fandom together!

Neronoxx wrote:
Honestly, it really just sounds like people are butt-hurt about this because they wont be able to buy board games and other games at cost.
I know for a fact that if a FLGS were to sell all of their board games at Amazon's prices, they would actually lose money.
Keep this up, and then they would go out of buisness.

Amazon stays in business by running a deficit (losing money on every sale) but then generates a collosal amount of revenue from investors, keeping them in business.
In short, Amazon makes money by losing money. How do you expect any other store to compete?

People come into our store all the time, look at what we have, then buy it online cheaper. We do price matching, but some people just prefer to buy online, after coming into our store, taking up our time, and then leaving us with nothing. It makes you just want to dump the entire gaming aisle.
You know what doesn't have that problem? Games Workshop.
Makes me wonder.

Indie retailers need to learn they're not entitled to anyone's money. Corporate retail may be soul-crushing work, but at least they beat one valuable lesson into you: if the customer doesn't buy, it's your fault as the person who was supposed to persuade them. Sure, there's always going to be a percentage of people who'll take advantage and still buy online at a discount, but for a retailer that puts in actual effort to add value sufficient to justify the increased costs they have to charge over online sellers, rather than just expecting gamers to empty wallets into their laps because the RRP is how much things are "supposed" to cost, that percentage is negligible.

Sheck2 wrote:

Neronoxx wrote:

You know what doesn't have that problem? Games Workshop.
Makes me wonder.

Depends on perspective. GW does control their pricing, but now they have created new competitors who seem to be thriving when GW is surviving. They have lost customers...someone who stops buying is worse than someone who buys at a deep discount.

And let's be fair, the issue is the higher priced items where you can find them at 30% to 50% of retail not the $30 or less items.

Have you considered whether the issue is pricing not discounting? If a store has to discount by 30% to 50% to sell the product than it might be priced too high based on what the actual demand is at that price level.

This is it for me. FFG games are priced far too high for what they are worth.

I support my FLGS. I buy more from them than anywhere online. But if it weren't for MM's Black Friday sales, there are lots of games I would simply never buy. I certainly wouldn't buy a big box FFG game any other way.

Bossk_Hogg wrote:
odds are most people in the US play in their home or a friend's house.

This times a million. My nearest town is a whopping 4,400 people. We can't keep sandwich shops alive, let alone a hobby shop.

I learned X-Wing from a friend, at another friend's house. I have never attended, and have no interest in attending, any official or store event or game night. I suspect the majority of players are in the same camp as I am.

I see the FLGS rich gaming Utopia that is the USof A we are told of is actually a hotbed of discord and petty recrimination!

Come join us in the enlightened UK where every town has a Games Workshop. Free hat with every purchase!

Free hat? What if I want a chum bucket?

It's a hat, too!

 streamdragon wrote:


I learned X-Wing from a friend, at another friend's house. I have never attended, and have no interest in attending, any official or store event or game night. I suspect the majority of players are in the same camp as I am.

I picked it up more or less on a whim after a friend told me about it. Mostly I have ordered online, just out of ease of doing it with a healthy side of "I have lots of hobbies so saving some money here or there help finance all of them."

I have yet to play in store, but am considering it. Most of my play time comes from having friends over and busting out the minis in the game room.

Bossk_Hogg wrote:

 Alex C wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
I suspect that people who live more three hours from their closest store are a very small minority in the US..

I suspect that people would need significant;y less than 3 hours travel each way before they consider a store to be too far away to be worth the bother.

Exactly. I've seen people lamenting a 40-minute trip as being too far out of the way. That's my trip to work every morning.

And after you commute 40 minutes each way, are you willing to throw on another 40 minutes each way for a weekday game night? Unless you live on the coast or a college town, odds are most people in the US play in their home or a friend's house. This is doubly true for board games (FFG's main business other than X-Wing). The LGS is nothing more for most of us than a place to pay extra. Plenty dont offer events. Its silly to expect us to subsidize your special snowflake gamestores we dont have access to.

BTW, I hope no one defending this has a Netflix, or Amazon Prime account, and instead rents from a mom and pop video store. You know, the glue that holds movie fandom together!

I'm on your side dude, I'm agreeing with Insaniak's point that gamers don't need a 6 hour round trip to consider a game store to be not local, even 40 minutes is too long for some folk.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 streamdragon wrote:

Bossk_Hogg wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
odds are most people in the US play in their home or a friend's house.

This times a million. My nearest town is a whopping 4,400 people. We can't keep sandwich shops alive, let alone a hobby shop.

I learned X-Wing from a friend, at another friend's house. I have never attended, and have no interest in attending, any official or store event or game night. I suspect the majority of players are in the same camp as I am.

I didn't say that, might want to fix your quoting.

If this is supposed to help FLGSs, it's not even going to work. Barnes and Noble routinely has 20% off coupons and carries FFG stuff, including X-Wing. This is not going to make people pay full retail.

 Alex C wrote:
I'm on your side dude, I'm agreeing with Insaniak's point that gamers don't need a 6 hour round trip to consider a game store to be not local, even 40 minutes is too long for some folk.

Guys, I won't even drive 40 minutes for an all-nude strip club, so 40 minutes is way to far to hang out for a gamer sausagefest. If it's for buying, try 10 minutes out of my way, or I don't even bother.

As I said earlier, I live in the middle of nowhere, and my nearest FLGS/Games Workshop is miles away in a large city, with thousands of potential customers.

The idea that people like me, buying online now and again, will sink a FLGS surrounded by thousands of people, is ludicrous.

If a game store can't survive in a half-decent sized city, then that's down to poor management.

 Alex C wrote:

Bossk_Hogg wrote:

 Alex C wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
I suspect that people who live more three hours from their closest store are a very small minority in the US..

I suspect that people would need significant;y less than 3 hours travel each way before they consider a store to be too far away to be worth the bother.

Exactly. I've seen people lamenting a 40-minute trip as being too far out of the way. That's my trip to work every morning.

And after you commute 40 minutes each way, are you willing to throw on another 40 minutes each way for a weekday game night? Unless you live on the coast or a college town, odds are most people in the US play in their home or a friend's house. This is doubly true for board games (FFG's main business other than X-Wing). The LGS is nothing more for most of us than a place to pay extra. Plenty dont offer events. Its silly to expect us to subsidize your special snowflake gamestores we dont have access to.

BTW, I hope no one defending this has a Netflix, or Amazon Prime account, and instead rents from a mom and pop video store. You know, the glue that holds movie fandom together!

I'm on your side dude, I'm agreeing with Insaniak's point that gamers don't need a 6 hour round trip to consider a game store to be not local, even 40 minutes is too long for some folk.


[

Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were saying 40 mins wasnt bad because it was just equal to your commute! I might do that for a special event, but just to game on a weeknight with some randos is a bit of a stretch.

Really, FFG should be glad people are still buying product, and not just using vasaal.

That said, it seems like they left this open to allow exemptions for miniature market and the warstore (both of which are physical stores) due to the volume exemption (because I really dont think you want to piss them off). So basically it just screws the smaller online stores. WTG FFG!

Neronoxx wrote:

Amazon stays in business by running a deficit (losing money on every sale) but then generates a collosal amount of revenue from investors, keeping them in business.
In short, Amazon makes money by losing money. How do you expect any other store to compete?

Since it sounds like you have a game store, I'd expect you to know the difference between revenues and capital. That you don't is a bit worrisome.

Alex C wrote:I didn't say that, might want to fix your quoting.

Gah, apologies. I've fixed it.

 Taarnak wrote:


No, what's being said is that we dirty gaming peasants with no access to the FLGS should go without or pay significantly higher prices so the elite FLGS nobility gets to keep their castles.

And if you believe for a second that this has any more to do with "protecting the FLGS" than it did when GW did it, you are painfully naive.

But, again, just another example of "I got mine, feth you".

~Eric

Let's take a step back and realize that this is about a gaming product that isn't exactly collectible.
You live outside of the main economic centers that fuel an industry? Be prepared to have to modify your spending habits in consequence. That's what I did for 20 years when I lived in the middle of nowhere, that's what everyone does.
Painting yourself as a victim only shows how unreasonnable your whole approach of the situation really is.

The LGS industry distribution practices are insanely out of sync from the reality of consummers purchasing practices. This regulation can only end up lowering the huge risks taken by people who invest in the least profitable part of this industry, LGS owners.

You do realize you could live in a decently sized town and not have a game store that carries FFG stuff right? Or even a game store at all?

Or live in a series of medium sized towns that have a single game store but because you're on one end of that series it's 40 minutes to an hour drive away with no traffic.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

Let's take a step back and realize that this is about a gaming product that isn't exactly collectible.
You live outside of the main economic centers that fuel an industry? Be prepared to have to modify your spending habits in consequence. That's what I did for 20 years when I lived in the middle of nowhere, that's what everyone does.
Painting yourself as a victim only shows how unreasonnable your whole approach of the situation really is.

The LGS industry distribution practices are insanely out of sync from the reality of consummers purchasing practices. This regulation can only end up lowering the huge risks taken by people who invest in the least profitable part of this industry, LGS owners.

You argument would have been reasonable 20 years ago, before the insane rise of internet shopping. But this is 2015, and they're trying to retract something that already exists.

As to supporting LGS owners, essentially you are suggesting that if I want to play X-Wing, I either drive several hours out of my way for a discount, or I subsidize the existence of shops that I will never even see. Both are lunacy.

 Hulksmash wrote:
You do realize you could live in a decently sized town and not have a game store that carries FFG stuff right? Or even a game store at all?

Or live in a series of medium sized towns that have a single game store but because you're on one end of that series it's 40 minutes to an hour drive away with no traffic.

I grew up in Québec City. Everywhere and everything is at least a 45 minutes bus drive away, when not worse. I don't see the problem.
FFG's market penetration is awesome. There are a few large-surface librairies carrying their games here.

Seriously, are FFG games so expensive that paying retail will drive you away? Netrunner releases 6x 20$ data packs a year, plus the mandatory expansion. That is the most collectible of their games, the one you don't want to miss upon release, and retail price still amounts to walking money.

Otherwise, yes, drive 45 minutes to a store and buy the game you really want, what, once every 2-3 months? Is that seriously such a hassle? Or any different from any other purchases you might have when you live in a hole?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 streamdragon wrote:


You argument would have been reasonable 20 years ago, before the insane rise of internet shopping. But this is 2015, and they're trying to retract something that already exists.

Internet discounters game the already prohibitive distribution practices of the industry. You may feel entitled to this advantageous mode of purchase, now that it exists, but the truth is that you simply aren't, and that the game producer may very well decides to alter distribution channels. That it already exists doesn't mean it should exist the way it does now.

 streamdragon wrote:
As to supporting LGS owners, essentially you are suggesting that if I want to play X-Wing, I either drive several hours out of my way for a discount, or I subsidize the existence of shops that I will never even see. Both are lunacy.

You aren't entitled to your discount. That you even can suggest otherwise shows how warped your view of consumers-producers relations are.

And here everyone was hoping that Asmondee would also buy GW because they wouldn't pull the stupid crap GW pulls. This is harsher than anything GW has pulled. At least you can still phone up/email an online store and order stuff at a discount. Asmondee won't even allow that.

What age were you when you lived in a place that 45 minutes was acceptable each way to pick up hobby supplies/games? And when was this? As was previously mentioned internet shopping is a thing. My gaming/out time away from the wife and kids is limited. I'm not wasting a significant amount of that. It's really that simple.

I grew up in Ventura County, it's the county north of Los Angeles county where the "small" towns still have 100k+ populations. I understand needing to drive to get to things and timing issues. I just don't have the kind of time I did back then.

As for your example it's not the card gamers that are going to have the issue. They can do exactly as you say. But if you like playing X-wing, Armada, or board games you're experiencing a significant mark up while also eating into your free time. In other words, it won't be worth it for many.

But like I said, we'll see how it plays out.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

I grew up in Québec City. Everywhere and everything is at least a 45 minutes bus drive away, when not worse. I don't see the problem.

Really? You don't see the difference between spending 90 minutes behind the wheel of a car and 90 minutes sitting on a bus?

 infinite_array wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

I grew up in Québec City. Everywhere and everything is at least a 45 minutes bus drive away, when not worse. I don't see the problem.

Really? You don't see the difference between spending 90 minutes behind the wheel of a car and 90 minutes sitting on a bus?

You mean, a difference as pertaining to the argument on access to a product? No, I don't see one.

My local Games shop is a 40 minute drive away and I live in the third largest city in the UK. I've been to it twice.

This has no real affect on me, the only FFG products I have any interest in are their RPGS and unless they update Rogue Trader I'm not likely to be buying anything from them.

That being said though draconian and anti consumer terms of service such as these are a very dangerous thing to introduce. As it will certainly annoy customers. Battlefront and it's 10% max discount was the final straw for me. Flames of war used to be my number 1 game, I had 6 different 2k armies, after their handling of Maelstrom though I never bought anything from them again. There were multiple reasons for this but that incident was the catalyst.

 Hulksmash wrote:
In other words, it won't be worth it for many.

But like I said, we'll see how it plays out.

For me, it must makes it all that much less likely I buy anything with a FFG logo on it ever again.

I think it plays out with ever more people buying direct from the publisher via KS, a la CMoN. Why go through his hassle, when, for $100-$150, you get all the game you could possibly ever need shipped direct to your door?

 Hulksmash wrote:
What age were you when you lived in a place that 45 minutes was acceptable each way to pick up hobby supplies/games? And when was this? As was previously mentioned internet shopping is a thing. My gaming/out time away from the wife and kids is limited. I'm not wasting a significant amount of that. It's really that simple.

If I still lived in Québec City, it would still be the same. The city is just built that way.

 Hulksmash wrote:
As for your example it's not the card gamers that are going to have the issue. They can do exactly as you say. But if you like playing X-wing, Armada, or board games you're experiencing a significant mark up while also eating into your free time. In other words, it won't be worth it for many.

I guess I don't know enough about how people spend on X-Wing and Armada, I've only invested 45-50$ in X-Wing and only play at home. I'm under the impression that the fact that both games require a significantly smaller investment than other wargames combined with the fact that releases are announced months in advance should allow people to deal relatively well with that lost discount.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

I grew up in Québec City. Everywhere and everything is at least a 45 minutes bus drive away, when not worse. I don't see the problem.

Really? You don't see the difference between spending 90 minutes behind the wheel of a car and 90 minutes sitting on a bus?

You mean, a difference as pertaining to the argument on access to a product? No, I don't see one.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

Otherwise, yes, drive 45 minutes to a store and buy the game you really want, what, once every 2-3 months? Is that seriously such a hassle? Or any different from any other purchases you might have when you live in a hole?

It is when you think people are going to a store once every 2-3 months.

How about making a 40 minute drive back and forth once a week?

That's much more effort and money required then sitting on a bus 4-6 times in a year.

 warboss wrote:

 Red Harvest wrote:

Board Games, and even this X-wing game also sell in the Big Box stores-- Target, Walmart etc-- in the USA. I wonder if those places had any influence on the decision?

I'm guessing the decision was made without their direct involvement. FFG isn't big enough to push a big box store around so they'll likely qualify for their super special double rainbow exception without ever knowing about the change in policy. They'll keep selling the box during sales/clearances oblivious to the restrictions being forced upon smaller stores who want to maintain their retailer discounts. Even if the small online seller organizes local demos, sponsors a league in store, and are the bestest B&M FLGS eVAR!, they're likely not going to qualify for an exemption and FFG is taking money out of their pockets by disallowing online sales.

I meant the other way around, that the Big Box stores may be pressuring Asmodee/FFG to do this as a condition of stocking the games. I should have been clearer about that.

A lot of interesting bloggers are *donkey caves*, just like interesting newspaper columnists were, back in the day... It is that *cave-ness* that motivates them to write interesting things. IMHO.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


Guys, I won't even drive 40 minutes for an all-nude strip club

No. You don't support your FLANSC because you get what they offer cheaper/for free online! Do you realise that why there isn't one in your neighbourhood with good service and special events is because of this attitude?