The Promise

I’m running the UK HeroClix Nationals 2019 as I type this.

Everyone loves something. They love it passionately, beyond reason. As a quantum retailer and a third space, I promised myself a very long time ago that I would not betray that passion. I would be a space for everyone, underdog and overdog alike.

Organised Pay is a promise. A promise built from publishers to support the games they publish with events, a promise to support the venues and the players that in turn support them. I discovered it almost by accident with the birth of HeroClix; there were these promo figures you could only obtain through running official events promoting and supporting the game, and I wanted them. I craved them.

Beyond reason.

It would lead me to fly to the GAMA Trade Show to pick up a Galactus figure. Wow, he was so cool. Unbelievably cool. One year I flew home from GTS with a Mechwarrior Dropship as my hand luggage. I was stopped by Homeland Security at the airport. The stony faced agent looked up from his x-ray…

“What’s in the box?”

“I can explain…” I replied

“IT’S THE MECHWARRIOR DROPSHIP!!!” he effused at me. “Do you want to see it!!!” I effused at him. Organised Play was like that. It brought people together, in mutual co-operation, to build something better. To build a society where like minded people could geek out about their personal geek.

When I opened Fan Boy Three back in 2004 I learned that as a retailer I too had made a different promise. Organised Play was sales and marketing – if I ran a game line, I sold it. If I sold a game line, I ran it. And I would make sure my events fired, whatever the cost.

It was Konami who coined the phrase Negative Play Experience. Many things can turn a play experience negative. Salty players, offensive players, dirty stores, bad judges, bad organisation. But the biggest negative play experience of all is to find that nobody plays your game.

Nobody.

So I refused point blank to let events not fire. There were always people in store, always people who would sacrifice their time to make sure people had a good positive play experience. I would pay for folks to play in drafts and use their cards for singles, put people in tournaments with loaner decks on us. Every ‘bye’ became a potential ‘teaching experience’ if there was a person in store with time on their hands. Organised Play IS sales and marketing, but part of what you are marketing is you.

Your store. Your ethos.

This last weekend I have heard of stores where premium events did not fire. Wizards require 8 people to sanction a tournament. Once that would have been an easy ask, but as Arena puts Magic only a click away wherever you are, as stores grew exponentially in number beyond reason and as players aged out of the natural growth demographic and started to get jobs and houses and families, the ask is no longer as easy. But I guarantee that if six people turn up to play and the event doesn’t fire, it’s a negative play experience.

And that’s on you. Not them.

You can make all the excuses you want. Apologise all you like. Sure, a Negative Play Experience ultimately reflects badly on everyone. But right now, in the now, you are the face of it. The stupid, gurning face of self justifying apology. Promised me a lifetime of friends, happiness, a community. Did not deliver. One star.

Here’s what I used to do to avoid that fate.

1) Have a staff member who can play. Or two. This is sub optimal as that staff member has a salary cost. But hey, they can drop after a round once the event has fired.

2) Have a loaner deck on hand. It does not have to be great – it can be a good teaching deck or whatever. The person who plays it IS going to lose, You can pretty much guarantee that. But if you explain what you are doing to their opponent, they’ll usually react favourably to what you are trying to do.

3) Have local casual players on tap. My Commander players would always be up for a draft if I paid them in. Which is to say, provided boosters for them to play. I then kept the cards or the figures or whatever. I would messenger players I know lived close if an event was failing to fire.

4) Sunk costs are sunk costs. Your costs in time, in staff, in venue… they were already sunk. Sunk costs are lost. Gone. Pining for the fiords. When events go poorly, you have to learn to take it on the chin and double down.

It took me a while to learn this. But pining over what could have been was less important than dealing with what I could do in the now. I could turn that negative play experience into a positive. A booster is a booster. It costs you $2.50 or less. Would I sacrifice $2.50 to make a customer so happy they returned to play and shop again? You betcha. Would I do that today and tomorrow and the next day? You betcha. I’m in the happiness business baby, and happy customers spend more. Just maybe not today.

Miserable customers? They never come back.

But I’m not a millionaire. My store isn’t a Warlock store or a vanity business. I want to support every line I stock, so that it supports me. But sometimes, well…

5) Just because it exists doesn’t mean its for you. Lots of stores treat Organised Play as a loyalty test. They ran Open House because they felt Wizards wanted them to. Otherwise why make it sanctionable, right? PPTQs as well. The world went from a couple of hundred PTQS to several thousand competitive PPTQ events, most of which were in stores who had never run competitive events before.

There’s a unique mindset to running events designed to be new player recruitment. There’s a unique mindset to running competitive events that attract competitive out of town players. Back in the day there was a PTQ held at a store in Nottingham where table 27 was literally the toilet seat. They played across a toilet seat. Negative Play Experience. And probably a Negative Toilet experience too, if you needed the loo.

Wizards or Fantasy Flight, or your favourite boardgame company will not reward your loyalty for running an event that only one person turns up to. Or so many that they play on a toilet. You won’t get five star ratings on Google and Facebook and Trip Advisor. Organised Play is sales and marketing, and when your events don’t fire all those positive, happy vibes that OP engenders become Negative Store Experiences.

And they work against you. And they work against the publishers interests, and the players interests and it becomes a negative feedback loop. If its not generating sales, and its not generating good marketing, and its not bringing in players and its not getting you positive feedback, it is literally damaging your business.

So yes. I would do almost anything to stop my events not firing. And that includes not running them.

The HeroClix UK Nationals is now in the final. Everyone left happy. I made profit. My work here is done. I’ve been the quantum retailer.