Star War TCG on indefinite hold

It is my sad duty to report that Wizards of the Coast, Inc. placed the Star Wars Trading Card Game® on indefinite hold. This includes the previously announced release of the Rise of the Empire expansion that was slated for August 2005. The following is the dialogue I was given permission to share from my contact at Wizards:

My response:

Their reply:

This comes as little surprise to the fan/player base. The writing's been on the wall for some time, but I was confident we'd at least get the RotE expansion. Alas this was not to be. The self-same fan/player base on Rebelbasers is working to build a "Player's Committee" similar to, but as yet not sanctioned like, the Player's Committee that exists for the Star Wars CCG.

This is truly a sad day for Star Wars TCG players everywhere.

 

WOTC is not going to allow (i.e. "sanction") a "Player's Committee". The situation here is completely different than Decipher's.

 

And the TCG'ers involved are well aware of that. It's really going to produce little more than "widely accepted dream card sets". Just fans o' the game keeping it alive, not unlike the purpose of the SWCCGPC.

 

Not to be hateful, or anti-SWTCG, but..... after like Week 1 of the release, you could smell its death-date approaching.

The three closest game-stores to me never even carried it. I went to a Pre-Release tournament of it the week before it was released, a good 50 miles away from me. After the tournament, TWO {out of 10 players} said they might think about still playing this game.

When I later asked them, they said they sold their cards for 5$ each.


Again, not to sound hateful, or anti-anything, but the game was poorly designed, poorly marketed, etc.

 

And I don't believe you sound hateful. I agree with everything you said, with the exception of "poorly designed." When it comes down to it, one's view of design can be the same as saying, "I prefer blondes while you prefer brunettes."

Admittedly, the game suffered a balance problem in its inception. Follow-up expansions worked to either tip the balance, or level it. The current/final result is a well-balanced game, with game results equally going to either a Light Side or Dark Side player.

It's my opinion that Wizards didn't really know how to market the game. They didn't seem to make it particularly attractive to either card players or Star Wars fans.

 

They also threw away a LARGE group of players who would have been interested in the game {SW:CCG players} by making it basically completly anti-SWCCG and more of a Pokemon version.

If one would make comparisons, it'd be Chess vs. Yahtzee. And due to that I think they eliminated a large group of players.

 

To play devil's advocate, the case was made that SW:CCG's complexity turned away many potential players, and that a simpler game was needed to attract more players. I think there is a lot of truth to that. Look at the top three TCGs in the market today, none are as complex as SW:CCG was. As a tournament director for SW:CCG I saw first hand how hard it is for someone to learn how to play that game by just picking up a starter deck and a rule book.

I think the failure of Decipher's WARS:TCG illustrates that people played SW:CCG primarily because it was STAR WARS, not because it had complicated rules.

 

My brother in law is a huge card player, and he used to be big into SW:CCG. I let him play some of the TCG with me one day and he actually liked it more than the CCG. He said the problem with the CCG was how complex the rules were and how long it would take just to play one game. He said the rules just got too complicated for someone to understand unless they were playing the game from the beginning and the length of time it took just to play one game was a huge turn off. I agreed that the TCG was simpler, but a lot more fun because you could play mulitple games in one night and it wasn't too hard to teach to other people.

 

SWCCG only takes, at most, an hour {and thats pushing yourself to make zero errors, playing for super win at Worlds kinda thing}.

Where as, {and this is only playing 5 games of SWTCG} took me anywhere between 10-25 minutes.

I dunno, I didn't see much fun in being able to play multiple games of something that ultimately came down to luck, time, and things. I rather had SW:CCG where I could do more things, play longer, and actually grow.

Not to sound ignorant, but when I played SW:TCG, I didn't think I was expanding my mind at all, I did with SW:CCG though.

 

Another article officially confirming the status of SW:TCG:

http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/7753.html

 

I have witnessed and seen my brother in law play many games of the CCG that took 2-3 hours to play. And he was playing with people who knew what they were doing. And I myself have played many games of the TCG that took over 30 minutes, and one game I played took over an hour.

 

Ah... I was here in the beginning. SWTCG got me into these boards (look at my first post ) At first a curious bystander and then a strong defender for the underdog, then a loyalist to a game I truly loved.

After all is said and done, I loved SWTCG a lot. I had a hope it was to be "better" because it was easier to get people into. But when I just watched all 6 movies back to back, time and again I thought of Deciphers CCG. In the end, now that both games are pretty much ended, I think Deciphers CCG was the best. Yes, I admit it

Which game had more cards anyway????

 

Hey, Baca! Ahh, fond memories of our discussions back then, eh?

(Sigh) Unfortunately SW:CCG has its own problems right now. The Virtual Sets that the PC puts out started out good, but have caused lots of problems too. They just can't seem to strike a balance in their card designs. They make a card/deck powerful enough that players will want to use, they end up making it TOO powerful and it overwhelms the meta environment. Hop on over to http://www.swccgpc.com/forums and see what kind of discussions are going on over there.

 

Yes... memories of the old times and all the arguing (*cough*) I mean debating...

 

Not to sound rude or anything.... but unless your in the final confrontation of Worlds at GenCon {where this year, a good buddy of mine, Drew Scott won, and both games only took them 2.5 hours total} there is no need to spend 2-3 hours on one game.

Are you sure it was only one game? And your not exaggerating? Or did they take breaks or something?

 

It's not that uncommon for casual players to take a long time to play. They simply do not deal as much damage to each other when they play, either because they do not have the cards, or they just aren't as skilled at playing the game (or at building "killer" decks), or just because they want to play fun decks that don't deal as much damage. The "kid gloves" are on, whereas the serious tournament players are playing for keeps.

 

oh well, another CCG bites the dust, and kids everywhere either save money or spend it on pokemon.

 

Lol. It'll come back. You cant beat that cat down. Witht the new film demand should be greater than most other card game projects they have running.

Pokemon's still going?

 

Film demand? The hype from the films is over. And the hype for the DVD will be over on 12.26, the day after Christmas.

In the long-run people will pick up SWCCG over SWTCG if their going to pick up a dead game.

 

Ohh well..




..It was fun while it lasted

 

I guess we can play the minis game now. Anybody Know when the next expansion for that is coming out. After the AT-AT whats next?

 

The RPG board might garner you a better response.