According to news from the adventure gaming hobby trade show in March, Fantasy Flight Games’ Star
Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game is the company’s most successful
game of any kind ever. This comes as no surprise. FFG has combined
one of the most popular media franchises with a fine-tuned marketing
and tournament strategy pioneered by Wizards of the Coast in its more
than 20-year campaign with Magic: The Gathering, a game that
re-shaped the hobby’s manufacturing, sales, and play landscape.
The X-Wing Miniatures Game is a
fantastic game. The basic set contains everything needed to play,
including an X-wing and two TIE fighters. My four year-old son plays
the quick-start version of the game (without all the numerous nuances
of squad points, special pilots, and a vast range of vessel
upgrades), though he usually flies the Millennium Falcon with
a 360-degree field of fire so he doesn’t have to line up shots like
the rest of the fighters. It’s a fun game that builds on the often
overlooked minis-moving-along-templates design pioneered by the folks
at Ares Games in their Wings of War/Wings of Glory games
simulating historical aerial combat from World War I and World War
II.
Since I’d only played the full
version of the game a few times with friends (and without the
aforementioned four year-old), I didn’t fully comprehend the
complex relationship between a 100-point squad, named pilots with
different special abilities, and upgrade cards that added enhanced
equipment, secondary weapons, and extra pilot bonuses. But after
recently participating in a tournament – my first – at my
Friendly Local Game Store, I quickly realized how FFG inserted layers
of complexity in the game design to encourage constant play and
frequent purchases.
Expansion
Addiction
The first level comes from providing
additional “expansion packs” with new ships. At $14.95 adding a
new ship to one’s squad doesn’t seem like a huge
investment...until players start building toward a collection of one
of each ship, or customized squads for either Rebel or Imperial
forces, or both. Each comes with several ship cards containing the
vessel’s combat stats (generally the same for each type) and a host
of pilots from the rookie and typical squadron pilot to those with
specific names and special abilities (including several from the
films and the expanded universe). Each also comes with the same set
of upgrade cards adding everything from new pilot bonuses to an array
of equipment including droids, secondary weapons like bombs and
missiles, and various sensor enhancements. Each in its own way
affects the game; they alter die results, allow for extra actions,
provide secondary weapons with greater potential firepower, and
otherwise improve the overall performance of the vessel. Some
upgrades seem common, while a few, more powerful upgrades only come
with specific ships. Both ship and upgrade cards include a point cost
used in assembling 100-point squads for the suggested personal as
well as tournament play, with the more powerful pilots and upgrades
costing more and theoretically balancing out advantages for fairness.
In the game a vessel can use an upgrade
as long as a player owns that card (and the associated ship it came
with) and the ship can add that kind of upgrade. Different vessels
allow different kinds and numbers of upgrades indicated by symbols on
the ship cards; however, upgrade cards rarely indicate they’re
limited to Rebel or Imperial ships. So an Imperial ship could use an
upgrade that comes exclusively with a Rebel ship, and vice versa. The
combinations in a squad between ship types, named pilots, and valid
upgrades seem limitless, yet they depend on owning more expansion
pack ships. The expansions encourage frequent play as gamers try out
different ships with varying combinations of pilots and upgrades.
This strategy requires an escalation on
different levels. New ships can’t simply provide previously
released upgrades, but must include some exclusive ones to tempt
player purchases. New releases must also fit within a player’s
vision of the continuity. Since the game’s publication FFG has thus
far produced most of the vessels from the classic Star Wars
trilogy. But those in the upcoming fourth “wave” of releases all
originate in “expanded universe” material developed over the
years in comics, roleplaying games, and other media (these include
the Z-95 Headhunter, forerunner of the X-wing; TIE Defender; E-wing;
and TIE Phantom) that some might not find fits with their own
personal “canon” for the franchise. Hedging its bets, FFG also
released more classic-canon vessels in “aces expansion packs”
featuring two alternate paint scheme models of previously released
ships (TIE Interceptors, A-wing and B-wing) with alternate ship cards
(and pilots) and no doubt a host of standard and exclusive upgrades.
Add to this the oversized ships – the Rebel medium transport and
Tantive IV Corellian corvette – released with appropriately
high price tags ($59.95 and $89.95 respectively) and even casual
players start considering buying new ships to add to their collection
(either to play with or simply admire). They’re beautiful models
that look fantastic on the gaming table, lend a realistic feel to
one’s Star Wars dogfights, and offer varying levels of play
complexity that perpetuate the play more/buy more cycle.
Tournament
Play
Although not every person who plays the
Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game invests time and money
participating in official tournaments, the vast gaming population
that does helps fuel FFG’s “most successful game of any kind
ever” sales levels.
Avid players like to try out new ships
just for fun, but tournament players seek to add new ships, pilots,
and upgrades to their arsenal, test out different, potential-winning
combinations in casual play, and then bring the best squadrons to the
tournament table in competitive play. Tournaments offer a chance to
face off against different opponents and squads with the goal of
winning prizes and rising in the overall ratings. This cycle often
encourages a min-max style of play as innovative players and avid
collectors/consumers purchase more expansion packs and work out which
combinations of ships, pilots, and upgrades work best together,
usually providing incredible advantages over other, less proven
squads. Unlike the random nature of Magic: The Gathering, in
which available cards to play must show up in one’s hand as
randomly drawn from the deck, X-Wing Miniatures
players stack the odds in their favor with pilots and upgrades
empowering their strategies in every single turn. This results in
seasoned tournament players completely rolling over rookies like
myself who haven’t had the time to exhaustively play out numerous
combinations of pilots and upgrades from my limited collection of
ships. I’m certainly not complaining that I didn’t enjoy the
tournament games – I had a blast – and every hard-core gamer I
played against remained friendly and in most cases helpful in
explaining (and sometimes showing off) the nuances of 100-point squad
play. It became very clear at the in-store tournament who were the
power tournament players and who played the game mostly for fun.
“Organized play” has fueled game
interest, sales, and fan loyalty since the days of the Role Playing
Game Association (RPGA); it continues as a strong and carefully
crafted marketing strategy through tournament leagues for Magic:
The Gathering, the X-Wing Miniatures Game, the Pathfinder
Roleplaying Game, and others. Finding the right mix between game
component “expansions” and combinations for winning tournaments
drives casual and tournament play, collectability, and ultimately
sales.
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