Just a clarification for those that were left feeling puzzled, put out or in anyway unclear as to the cost increase of Vanguard events at Patriot. It has become increasingly clear that the player-base for this game is not growing with any great speed (It is not the next big thing that some people thought or hoped it would be). It does however have a fairly solid player-base and can sustain continued events such as league style play and small monthly events. BUT, and it is a rather big but from our point of view, Vanguard, as a product, has become one of the deep discount targets of online box shifters , as they too put it into the category of the new Yu-Gi-Oh. This means that there is always a cheaper place for you all to purchase your cards than from us. In fact quite often with stacking discounts places like Chaos Cards can sell you a case of product for less than we can buy them at trade. Due to the nature of our capitalist society and the way of the internet, many businesses offer nothing to you beyond the transactional, by which is meant that all they can do to get you business is offer goods at a lower price than their competition, because in-fact, they have nothing else to offer. Businesses like Patriot offer you more than the transactional, we offer a refuge, a place to play, to hang out, we organise and run events, sanction these events and provide you with exclusive tournaments and tournament prizes. But all of those things have attached to them a cost. A cost that is not insubstantial, and that is not covered in anyway by government subsidy or grant. We have taxes (many taxes) to pay, that we cannot avoid (unlike many of our online competition) and gaming space to maintain. (not to mention staff , electricity etc). Our prices are higher than those of our online competitors, and that is a direct reflection of the costs that have to be covered in order to keep places like Patriot Games open. This then is the simple model by which we provide all of the services and goods to you that we do. So when it gets to a point where more than 75% of what is a fairly small playerbase are spending hundreds of pounds purchasing the cards from online stores in order that they can come to Patriot and play, there exists an imbalance. The purely transactional company starts to make profit from the work and costs that are put at the feet of the bricks and mortar stores. This is not a sustainable situation, eventually something will give. Thus the cost of playing in an event at Patriot will now be more expensive. As of now entry to Vanguard events will be £5 and there will no longer be store credit given as prize support. I understand that Gavin has expressed an interest in changing the Sunday format from the current League system, and this will give us an opportunity to decide upon the new format that works within the new price structure.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 12:23:37 +0000
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