Marquee Prize Support Reduced

[trutildeth]

Would any of the fine people at WizKids care to give us an explanation as to why they would reduce prize support to only two figures (minus judge's reward)?

This will make the tournaments more cut-throat, less people will have fun and it will be less successful as a promotion for your fine game. Total savings to WizKids, .02 cents per figure. Brilliant promotional business move, guys.

[bigbird]

you go, girl

[shin-goji]

Yeah I know a lot of people who aren't happy about it.

[Hellboy]

does that mean less figures overall? ie; rarer ultra rares?!

I never get to go to tournaments ( I want to, but never get the opportunity) So this just means it'll be harder to trade for (already difficult to aquire) LEs, and more exspensive to buy. This is making me madder by the second as I type this. Why would they do something so mean?

[shin-goji]

I hope it is JUST for the marquee and noton a permanent basis.

[Nevest]

So is it just going to be first place and fellowship or are they getting rid of fellowship?

[trutildeth]

First Place and Fellowship only. Second place gets nothing.

What this ultimately amounts to is that the Marquee tournaments are going to be cut-throat as all get-out. Superior players are going to go to particular pains to make sure to kill everybody they can just to get the points.

[Nevest]

Marquee tournaments are already cutthroat ... this will just bring it up to a new level.

[irweasel]

This is the first I have heard of this if this is true it does suck. And what do you think the chances are that judges will start giving the fellowship prize to second place winners? Therefore totally elimanating the desire of less experienced players to go to tournaments.

[Darth Sabre]

I know that they have been worried about production costs for the LE's that they were giving away for free.

But for the love of God, wouldn't it have made far more sense to cut down the amount of allotted tourneys in a month instead of making the tournaments just as cutthroat as the Marquees are?

Really, we already havesome issues in out area regarding LE's and cutthroat players. Now with this, sure doesn't inspire me in the least.........

[Brigadier M]

Originally posted by Darth Sabre
But for the love of God, wouldn't it have made far more sense to cut down the amount of allotted tourneys in a month instead of making the tournaments just as cutthroat as the Marquees are?

Oh, they HAVE cut down the number of tournies. By half at least. It's getting ridiculous.

M!

[trust7]

this makes no sense no matter how you figure it, even if you look at it from a business sense:

each LE lets just SAY they cost 5.00 to make which we all know is nowhere near true, but lets say, 5 x 3 is 15.00 for a tourneys prizes.

Each tourney for the most part that I know of has between 6 and 20 entrants, 20 being the local store I play at every tourney, sometimes 22 players when I judge, x 6.95 for a booster you do the math, thats sales to wizkids.

Now take that and make it only 2 prizes and think how many people are going to show up when they find out not only is there no fellowship because every judge I know of ALREADY gives out 3rd place because thats so ghetto ANYHOW but that there is only 1st and 2nd place to boot.

And speaking AS one of those cutthroat guys that goes to particular hours and houirs of studying type lengths TO win tourneys, YES it will and would make me more determined to win, which is a shame because the GAME is suppposed to be FUN, I think we need to call on wizkids to make sure this is NOT the trend, but more so go the OTHER way 1, 2, 3rd AND Fellowship please. Also speak to your local stores and point out to them what kind of money booster and even head to head tourneys are bringing in money wise and tell them to start offering store credits like our local store does.

25.-- store credit for first place
15.--
5.--

thats how our store does it.


C

[Raosun]

Okay well it looks like I get to whiz in your corn flakes guys, apparently the prize support for regular tourneys HAS been cut down to just 1st and fellowship, no more 2nd place it seems.

Trust me no one is happy about this, and there was zero notice to us judges either.

[irweasel]

This may cause me to quit going to tournaments. Because I refuse to use Firelord with barrier throwers. And as it is to get to one of the venues I play at I drive to the next town and have to pay three bucks to play.
Unfortunatley for Wizkids many others may do the same and although I'll keep playing, the number of my at tournament impulse buys will probably go down to zero.

[phonixinmi]

Aren't we exaggerating a little, here?

If this were true for all tournaments, I would agree that we'd have a problem.

However, it's my understanding based on this post's heading is that they're only doing this for the MARQUEE and no other tournaments.

No one has said anything about them cutting prize support (1st, 2nd, and fellowship) for standard tournaments, ONLY the MARQUEE.

If it's only the MARQUEE, then I say "BIG DEAL!"; at least there's still 2 prizes and players can vote for the fellowship winner.

[irweasel]

Uhm... check out post thirteen, it's not just Marquee it's everything.

[Brigadier M]

Anyway, shouldn't the Marquee tournaments (since they have the biggest turnouts, and are, well...MARQUEE, i.e., meant to put Wizkids best face on) have the BEST and MOST prizes? They do have the best - except for CT, whose Marquee LEs sucked - but I would've expected Marquees would've been the last places we'd see cuts.

M!

[Badges2]

Why do this now? Wizkids is probably at their best selling rate today. I think nearly every HCR member here ordered between 1/2 - 3 cases a piece. Few of us ordered cases of the other sets; those that did ordered more of XP. Right now, they have MK, MW, HC all doing great. Why get cheap on us? JonL says he wants us to play nicer and less cheaply. "Sure, JonL, I'll bring my X-Men Theme Team with me and fight off everyone else's F-lord, Black Panther, Wasp, Bullseye team. Since I'm playing nicer, I will win, won't I JonL?"

But since nearly every "fellowship" means "third place" you have to play competitively instead of silly. It sounds worse than it really was. It was really fun; we all devised good teams and stratagies and had a really great time. You learned strengths, weaknesses, and new combos. It was wonderful and educational. Now with only first and "second" place, I just might (regretfully) have to use the cheese.

This is the worst thing to do to us. Now we will all hate each other for being so cheesy. Forget team-building or themes; all teams will now be 100% real cheese. I will come to hate my competitors and no longer attend because "I hate those guys." Therefore, I will buy less clix because I have no one to share my enthusiam.

Less prizes = Wizkids saves $600 a month.
Less prizes = Sales will drop off $1500 a month.

I hope that Wizkids loses alot of money up front and realizes why. Then maybe they'll up the support again.

[phonixinmi]

It definitely is starting to look like HC is going to start getting more cut-throat.

Getting more competitive isn't necessarily bad on it's own, but getting cheap for the sake of profit margins and boosting the EBay LE aftermarket value is likely to drive new players away at a time when they were just starting to embrace the game and tournament play.

[rxkid75]

i think its a good idea. Hear me out. First I havent won any tourneys, and I probably wont for a while. But limiting the LE's makes them more valuable (not just in a monetary sense). I mean if it was incredibly hard to get an LE people would probably value them more. Sure there will be the jerk who puts together a cliche' team and play cheap just so he can sell the LE and make some cash, but stuff like that will happen anyway. I did like the comment about fewer tourneys though.

I kinda wish it would end up like Magic tourneys and eventually go pro-tour. That would be a cool day-go to your child's school and when they ask you what you do for a living reply "well i get paid $30,000 to sit and play games with little action figures" You would make the kid who's dad is a Doctor feel worthless.lol.

[cephusdog]

Originally posted by rxkid75
I kinda wish it would end up like Magic tourneys and eventually go pro-tour. That would be a cool day-go to your child's school and when they ask you what you do for a living reply "well i get paid $30,000 to sit and play games with little action figures" You would make the kid who's dad is a Doctor feel worthless.lol.
Wow! Heroclix players more highly regarded than Doctors. Dream on boys. Oh, and in the real world $30,000 doesn't impress anyone.

[rxkid75]

Um...that is not like a full time job (unless you take vvveeerrrryy long turns). Besides, what i meant was to a 7 year old who do you think the kid is going to say has a cooler job? Besides Doctors have too stressful of lives.

[Raosun]

Well if you made 30,000 in one afternoon in a tourney that ran around 4-5 hours, I'd be pretty impressed.

[]V[GoldEagle]

Why doesn't WizKids do the HeroClix tournaments like they do the MechWarrior campains?? I play in them every weekend, and win or lose, I know I'm going to end up with an LE or 2 for the month. You have 2 of the factions fighting for the month, so if you play each faction on different weeks, you can send in an order form, plus $5.00 *US*, and you get that factions leader for that month.

Would it be so difficult to just put the real name on a fig, and say they are the leader of the month for the "good guys" and one for the "bad guys", and let us send away for them??

Just my .02 cents worth

[Spock]

I'm afraid I have nothing new to add...but as someone who's good at getting second place, I'll chime in as being against this move.

I really don't see what they expect to gain from this; half their sales are probably to people at tournaments, and I can't see this increasing the number of people at tournaments. Quite the opposite..

[dolemite199]

Could this "rationing" of prize support have anything to do with judge/venue theft. We have all heard stories on this web site about "dirty" venues who run tournaments with no particiapants so they can keep the free prize support to sell on e-bay or in their own store. If this is a factor in this decision, then I am very disappointed that making the players suffer with less prize support because of someone elses actions. I am not saying that this is the reason for this change, but it definately must be taken into consideration. Maybe Wizkids feels that by lessening the prize support they can track it better, and prevent venue dishonesty from ocurring. Sadly, this move on the part of Wizkids is bad for business. I understand that prize support is free. However, each tournament I attend I usually buy some boosters, or other stuff. This generates revenue for Wizkids because that store had to purchase some HC product form Wizkids inorder to sell it to me. I can't really debunk Wizkids decision because I do not know what the actual production cost is per hero clix figure. If they save money by doing this, then great. But a short run manuever that reduces production costs helps you save money now and in the long run. But it also causes your long run profits to decrease depending on the product, and the customers reponse to the changes. As an example, if Wizkids sticks with this current setup for all tournaments you will see a decline in particiapants in tournaments. This will lead to less HC product being sold at those tournaments, which in the long run causes less product to be purchased form Wizkids at the whole sale level. Everything in economics has a trickle down effect. This change in prize support will ultimately anger some customers who may stop purhcasing HC, which will decrease the demand for HC. This, of course, leads to less profit for Wizkids. I say keep prize support the way it was, and make a strong effort to stop venue dishonesty.

This is just my two cents.

[I Am The Game]

I agree that LE sales on eBay are a bad thing, and fewer prizes are going to make it worse. I have plenty of problems with prize support at my venue. I'm supposed to be promoting the game, but people only come to grab prizes. I'm afraid of the winner/fellowship format... that means I've gotta hawk the guys who are in the lead after round 2. Someone will be fool enough to try and cut a deal to get their last opponent to tank their game...

[scowlingone]

Y'know, I'd be happy if they stopped sending LEs to stores entirely. Instead, they could provide coupons to the winners. Then the winners mail in the coupons, plus a nominal charge for shipping, in exchange for an appropriate LE.

One could not get the LE unless the Judge had sent in the tourney report.

This would mitigate the problem of dishonest stores getting LEs and help to ensure that Judges sent in the results. And I can't imagine that too many folks would complain about having to pay five bucks for shipping.

Yes? No?

[]V[GoldEagle]

I hate to ask, but why is everyone so upset about the lack of LE's anyways?? I have 2 LE's...Berzerk Wolverine, and OWAW Superman. I haven't played many tournies, but win or lose, I'm having a great time at them. Isn't that why we go to them?? To have a great time??

Dunno...guess I'm missing something here, but I like the idea of the mail away..works for MechWarrior, and every player is gauranteed an LE. *shrugs*

My .02 cents worth

[hulkamania85]

Originally posted by ]V[GoldEagle
Why doesn't WizKids do the HeroClix tournaments like they do the MechWarrior campains?? I play in them every weekend, and win or lose, I know I'm going to end up with an LE or 2 for the month. You have 2 of the factions fighting for the month, so if you play each faction on different weeks, you can send in an order form, plus $5.00 *US*, and you get that factions leader for that month.

Would it be so difficult to just put the real name on a fig, and say they are the leader of the month for the "good guys" and one for the "bad guys", and let us send away for them??

Just my .02 cents worth

That would be cool.

[Dexceus]

Well there is the fact that the tournament scene is just a SMALL portion of Whizkids sales, it actually makes sense that if they need to save money, for whatever reason, that would be the place to save the money.