WoW can get away with one big tournament because it is only 1 set deep right now. Magic had to adopt multiple formats as it grew and expanded...Vs did the same thing appropriately.....Now it is near impossible to have just one tournament for either....you need to allow for a major tournament for each format. Otherwise what is the benefit of building for Golden Age, Modern Age, or Silver Age? UDE could just choose one and every card from Origins could be obsolete, or every player would quit because they were tired of playing the same 8 decks every week.....multiple formats makes for year round change and allows for the game to remain diverse....if they went to just one big event it would be a negative towards continued play

It's certainly not about the source of income. They chose to cater to people who play the game casually with this announcement. Why would you support a company that basically told you that it can live without your business?

Also, you're flat out wrong about Sydney. It WOULD be the highest turnout ever if they had made this announcement way earlier and people would've made more of an effort to go to the last real PC.

I think the production of VS sets will continue as long as sales are decent. That's why it's important that the casual players are catered to, which is in effect what UDE is focusing on.

It's funny because at our last Sneak (and now it is our last one), I was talking to the TO for Magic in our area about The Spoils' generous OP program and we both came to the conclusion of you can't have a successful CCG without casual players. They are the ones who buy the most product, not the tourney pros. Pros buy what they need, casual players buy what they want.

I think VS will remain a viable card set to produce... they just need to get Billy off of the design team.

In all honesty, most companies I purchase from can live without my business.

No one is asking you to support UDE. If you no longer want to play, than don't. But calling for a boycott just because UDE is forced to shift it's demographic is just being a dick.

Really funny bit just went through my head, with Joe not knowing who that was...

(In a loud booming Moses voice.)

I am Phimus Pan...

All right, so let's take my idea of a "revisitation" of their comic book licenses as a bad one. So now you're stuck with a game that doesn't bring in new players, has too many teams (and thus will NEVER support singles sales), and a bad reputation (which makes store owners not want to pick it up).

How do you go about reselling it? Maybe rebranding? Tell them "new and dedicated". They are trying to build a casual base (City Championships, improved hobby league), but let's be honest: None of this will work if the stores won't support it.

Whew! So anyway, I think people are being overly optimistic about 3 100Ks... Jeff's message did say there would be more if things improved some, but as it stands things will whittle and there may not be much after Indy. So since you know they are listening, give them outs. Quit begging for them to keep printing a product and tell them how they can get sales for doing such.

Finally, if anyone whines about paying $20 extra to buy a box locally, they should realize they are part of the problem. My local store owner said it best: if you want to buy boxes online, great, play where you bought them. The store front has to make a profit because it is a store front. Internet companies make boxes "break even" in hopes it will entice you to the store to buy singles and things like sleeves. Stores selling Magic (and Yughioh, and WOW, and even Spoils) can actually do similarly; since those games have a great singles market. But VS (and V:TeS, and Dragonball, and UFS)? No Singles market, so they actually have to make profit on the boxes to see any revenue generated at all.

Whew! Rant off. But bottom line is this: Access, Tim, whomever challenges my "restructure"... do you see ANY way for UDE to make a profit with this game as it stands?

Sounds a lot like what Magic did. And last I heard, they were pretty successful.

I agree, and it's why, really, all of this stuff doesn't really bother me. If you enjoy just playing the game casually don't worry over all the #### on this thread.

VS, as a product, should be fine.

On the other hand, if you are a "competitive" player, there are many of you with whom I do sympathize, as the "competitive" scene, most likely, will be taking a large hit.

QFT and Rep'd (as soon as I spread some lovin' around :-)

Lots of things to read here and lots of opinions. My two cents. . . on one of the local lists here someone said they're taking the "glass is half full" point of view (this was just from reading the announcement on metagame, not this thread). I expected a lot of Chicken Littles here as well as a number of named players saying "Well, that's it, I'm out."

I love judging this game. I love Draft Club every week. I look on this change as an opportunity to have (in effect) multiple PCQ-like events during the City Championships month. I also think this is what will provide the incentive to local venues to jump on board and start promoting the game.

The problem for a venue previous was hosting a PCQ got you no direct money. All the money goes to the PTOs. Now as a venue, you're able to run Release Celebrations (aka Sneak Previews) and City Championships (aka PCQs) and actually get money for the events that are run in your stores.

Now, I don't have any problem with PTOs. I've got a lot of friends who are PTOs and who I have happily helped run events over the years. But, now I can go down the street to my local game store's owner (who's stopped hosting any premiere Vs events in their store because it disrupts their normal business and doesn't make them any money) and tell him "Here's what you need to do, here's the calculations based on attendance and here's how much money you'll make because of it." This will encourage him to order more boxes for the store (since local events tend to generate sales). Also, if he's getting money for Vs events, it's far more likely he'll promote our game instead of UFS, Naruto, Pokemon, etc.

I really hope the 10ks get a good amount of attendance. Right now I'm on the fence about whether I'd like to attend Origins to judge or to play (I know the wife and kids have always enjoyed Columbus in July. . . just have to make sure we have an appropriate amount of 2006 NCAA National Champions apparel before traveling up there :-) but I really want to show up and support high level organized Vs tournaments. While I realise that if I play instead of judge, I'll be forgoing the exclusive judge EAs, those always just tended to languish in my binder anyway. If I play, at least I can generally make top 64 and get the performance and participation EAs they have.

Now, I realise a lot of people are going to say "But Dylan, you already have a good group of players in your area and regularly get 6-9 players a week for a draft. My area sucks because we can hardly get 3 people together for a Hobby League." The reason this area is so good is because we were able to hold on to the players that liked the game, events were run reasonably well (if I do say so myself) and I always made sure there was a place for people to play if they wanted to (even if it was my house). I know that not everyone has the time, money, etc to put into growing their local player base. But I can tell you from personal experience that you get back far more than you put in if you do.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some phone calls to make to my local venues. I need to make sure they are ordering their Vs Hobby League kits for next month!

Run the City Championship centered OP structure for a year and see what the sales are. If possible, run some $10Ks and PCs. Then cut back production until they are making a profit. Stop over-extending the prize support and emphasis on the strictly competitive community and see if the casuals have enough buying power to keep it alive.

It might work, it might not. We shall see.

I'd just like to point out how hilarious I found the "Vs. System Goes to Hell" Hellboy ad while reading this thread.

How about gradually changing the game?

Don't introduce new teams anymore. Make future sets purely about 10 main teams, and use dual-affiliation to provide legacy for other cards. That would reduce the team problem over time.

I support this idea of changing the game, and think that we will see a rules change at some point (just as Magic had). Assuming it's continued.

It could even be remarketted as something other than VS, while keeping VS as a tagname and on the back of the cards. I just can't think of a good name to replace VS.

How is this in Magic? YuGiOh? Spoils? I've never bought from my local store unless I get comprable pricing (within $5), but I don't play at the store. I don't think that's common for casual players. Casual players are kitchen table players. Anyone playing at a store, I believe, has OP expectations, not just casual play.

I agree that building from the ground up is a great thing to do. Back when I was just starting out playing CCGs I played SW:CCG (the one made by Decipher). On friday after work we'd hit a SW tournament in Staten Island and get like 16 people out to play. Saturday we'd hit a 20 person local in North Jersey and then Sunday drive down to Philly for a similiarly sized gathering. There were no big cash prizes for the game, we all played it for the fun of it. Last month I played in a 32-person SW:CCG tournament (some 13 years after the game started). This is what happens when you build from the ground up.

However it's pretty tough to build from the ground up when you have something like 12 sets worth of cards already out w/ 20 different keywords. They're about 3 years too late on the starting from the ground up thing and I just don't think it's gonna work. There's a lot of competition out there from other games (like WoW) and I don't think a lot of people want to put in the effort to gather up 8 people, find a store to hold hobby league, and then show up every week. It's a lot easier to just go play another game.

All very good ideas, and probably the best approach. You're right; twice Magic went through rules changes that affected the very structure of the game, to make it more accessible and flow more smoothly. The result led to more players (even after tons of the old ones threatened to quit, but never did).

They could go through a name rebranding, and include VS in the title ("Marvel VS DC: Clash of Superheros", for instance... make logical sense to see "VS" on the back at that point).

And as long as they stop supporting legacy teams outside the 10-12, they could even fix that; kinda have a "Golden" age they could fade to obscurity with all those older teams; introduce newer groups into teams they work with (put SHIELD with Avengers, for instance).

Deffinetly the most intuitive ideas I've heard. Repped.

Not true, at least in my case. Being 30, I have zero friends who are into gaming or geek stuff aside from nostalgic value, and Vs is too complex for nostalgia. Store play is the only place I can play, unless I want to watch my girlfriend fall asleep on the other side of the kitchen table after I agree to go shopping with her. I don't think I'm the only one.