Tee hee. I think you are God.

darn erick, all the coments about his hair, and being God, I'm starting to think you have a crush on him!:laugh:

Um, given the state of things, shouldn't Vs. avoid doing anything Spoils did?

Not if it was a good idea. And it was a good idea to get people to look.

Vs doesn't get the looks it should which is part of the problem. The costumes would solve that.

People looking at bimbos near the VS booth =/= people looking at the VS booth.

Even if these "VS Hotties" (notice that can be male or female) were actually demoing VS... as spud says... would anyone be paying attention to the actual cards?

I remember the concept of "booth babes" (mainly because the gimmick has been derided for years by con-goers), and I couldn't name a single product that the girls were shilling for.

Are you seriously considering the thought that if the only VS players were comic fans, the game would be in a better state than it is now? Seriously? Really? Really seriously?

How many people bought in to/ tried The Spoils as a result of the girls catching their eye and them wandering too close?

The Spoils wasn't a great game, was it? Vs IS a great game. Vs just isn't getting "face" time. People dressed in comic book character costumes get tons of attention at comic book conventions EVERY year. If Vs could get people to stop and look and try out the game a little it would do better. Especially right now. During a Super Hero Summer.

You know, if you didn't have a man and I didn't have a woman, you'd be the perfect catch. Friendly, and plays cards..? How do you top that?

:)

Seriously, though, I think the overall idea has merits. I think that people already playing the game that don't think it would generate publicity are automatically the right people to discuss this with. Our feet are the same.

How many? The tables always seemed pretty packed when i saw them at a convention. How many stuck with the game, that's the question.

I wasn't too impressed with the Spoils when I played it, but it did have a loyal fan base...much like a certain superhero card game I'm familiar with. There are a lot of parallels between VS and Spoils, to be honest...good game engine, dedicated staff, lot of cash prizes. VS was lucky enough to have UDE's deep pockets, and Spoils wasn't.

Let's take your "comic book characters = eyeballs" theory, and transfer it to another market/game. Naruto and Bleach are based on popular anime properties. I've been to anime conventions that was way more populated than your average comic book convention (exception: San Diego Comic Con, although that's strayed fairly far away from comics as far as mainstream goes, but that's a different discussion). It would be safe to say that the numbers of anime fans vs comic book fans are comparable, maybe even more for anime. Anime fans tend to be fairly rabid about their fandoms too. I see a lot more Naruto cosplayers than DC/Marvel cosplayers at the various conventions I have been to. However, Naruto doesn't seem to have the crazy numbers that one would expect.

Let me pose this another way: If Marvel put out a comic book about VS players, would every VS player buy it monthly? Or is there enough of a divide between "comic book fan who isn't into card games" and "card gamer who isn't into comics" to make that a bad project?

Vs was designed using Superheroes to appeal to a relatively untapped market. Relatively is, of course, subjective, since Heroclix and OverPower and that other X-men Movie themed game bounced around. Superhero gaming makes up less than 5% of the gaming industry.

If the subject matter wasn't important then Vs COULD be about My Little Ponies and Barbies. But VS IS about the capes and such. That means that it is at least in part targeted towards comic book fans. Comic Book fans don't dress up as much as the other fandoms do. But comic book fans are suseptible to marketing just like anybody else even if they tend to get a little heavy on the over opinionated side :rolleyes:

Vs is exciting and fast paced (most of the time; stall hurts the game's ability to be market as fast paced) and features the most popular names in comics.

Vs is too hard to get good at the competitive level for the average player. But it is a ton of fun sitting around and playing with friends that are all playing their favorite teams or characters and not just the newest broken combo.

But people don;t get to play VS at home like that as much as they could because the game isn't marketed to it's best target audience, not in a way that makes them WANT to buy product. Whyich ties back around to the Starter deck issue. The ability to buy a Legends deck pre-con that would let a super casual player play with his favorite characters and not have to buy 10 boxes to build a deck could go a long way toward making the world LOVE vs like most of us do.

If Psylocke and Rogue were helping to demo VS at San Diego, I bet the number of games demoed would at least double from past years.

UDE isnt demoing VS at comic-con D:


maybe we should work on that problem before we work on booth babes D:

The problem, as Spoils found out, wasn't getting people in... it was keeping people in.

Comic readers try VS out all the time... they just don't continue because it's a much more complex game than they have the time for. Since we really can't figure out the best way to keep them playing... we really just need their wallets to keep VS going (ala WoW).

We should give them more incentive to *buy* VS cards. It doesn't really matter if they play or not, as long as they keep telling their comic book stores to order more VS. That's why loot cards for uncut sheets, foil/non-foil sets or even giant sized VS cards would work because comic people dig the collectible aspect.

And maybe, if they keep buying VS cards, they'll eventually take the time to learn how to play it.

True story:

About two weeks ago, a "not so regular" Naruto players showed up for a naruto tournament; however, since most of our regular Naruto players were converted to VS, everyone was drafting the new set and having a lot of fun. This player (ironically so were the ones player drafting that day) was very adamant about not getting into another game, since he played Naruto and Yugioh, he just didn't want to try to learn another game. While he waited for additional players to show up for the Naruto event, he watched the VS players Njoying the game so much that he asked for a demo. We gave him a Starter for free and explained the basics to him. Since we had a bye during the draft, he stayed a few more hours playing the game with the available player(s) and left wanting more.
The point of all this is that no matter how much glitter you put on the package, people will not try a game unless they see the game being fun for others. Another great example, is when my mother watched us play Ticket to Ride at the store, she was so intregued by it, she asked us to teach her. She then thought the game to five other people, including my wife, whom I had attempted to get to play the game before but she didn't want to try it.
So, I suggest that everyone who's sitting in their basements playing the game hoping that others would pick up the game, go to your FLHS and play the game at their gaming area, whether it be the Hobby league, or just a casual game amongst your piers, go out in the public and play. As nice as gimmicks are, word of mouth is still one of the best marketing tool.

Lucky you had that starter for them - huh.

...and Erick I think we currently have both problems. (country and western)