Stimhack!
Have you ever experienced a drop in attendance in your local playgroup? Recently my immediate LCG night dropped to a record low of six attendees. This is in contrast to the 16-20 per week it was about a year ago.
What has worked for you in this type of situation? We are in the process of implementing a league at the moment, but I’m hoping for some short term solutions.
Thanks!
I’ve definitely experienced that issue. My group (Lower Alabama) had a very nice spike at the very beginning of about twenty or so which, in a matter of months, went down to only three. Tournament season would come around and we would pick up a few more players for a short period of time only to lose them after they’ve had their fill of store champs.
I unfortunately don’t have a short term solution for you. We persevered through a small playerbase because we all loved the competitive side of the game too much to get rusty. People saw our tenacity and, slowly but surely, we are now up to fifteen consistent players who have dedicated themselves to the game as much as we have. The FLGS owner in our area has told us we’ve beaten the Magic crowd weekly for a bit now.
The more you play, the more people will notice. Just keep doing what you have been and you’ll get your group back on track.
Not saying that your group isn’t experiencing general a dropoff overall, but I’ve noticed that attendance tends to hit a low around the holidays in general. People are busy/traveling, so Netrunner takes a seat on the back burner temporarily.
Some people seem to prefer the comforts of family, tradition, and bountiful food to the joy of YOLO running through two Ichis to rip the game winning agenda from the top of RND.
Sellouts.
Could it be seasonal? Last year, in the UK, there were no ‘real’ events from May->January. I myself took a many-month break after the national championships. Maybe people will come back when tournament season starts again?
Tends to go in swings and roundabouts. We get peaks and troughs due to seasonal reasons, a new game comes out, the students are here or away, people get bored or jaded, etc.
One thing that drove some interest for us was having a core-set-only tournament. That brought some people out of the woodwork and for some n00bs involved.
There’s no accounting for people though. This week at games night there were four of us, a couple of weeks ago it was 16. There’s a GNK tournament at the weekend, but who knows how many we’ll get!
Having events and special features is a way to get people out of their homes. Folk often find an excuse to avoid regular nights as “I can always go next week” becomes a feature.
I know here in PDX, there has been a pretty large drop off in attendance at our local league, but I think it’s just a holiday lull. There’s no major tournies occurring, and it’s seemed like tournament season brings a lot of people back. I’m doing what I can pimping our league to folks who haven’t been, and keeping the facebook event occurring every week so people know it’s still on and that it exists. I’m sure people will be back once the holidays are over, I wouldn’t get too down on it. Just create an inviting space =)
It’s a combination of December holidays, College out (so the students head back home instead of chilling at the game store), and also releases of popular video Fallout games 4.
So basically a normal December. I’d only worry if your numbers weren’t back up around February. (Coincidentally, this is why I’ve had a hard time keeping a campaign going for an RPG; inevitably we hit a lull where we can’t meet for a month, and then getting over that inertia to start meeting up again is painful.)
Has anybody observed AGoT affecting attendance (in either direction) at their meetups? So far it hasn’t added any new players to the LCG night that I go to, but has distracted people from the Serious Business of running nets a bit.
That could also be a factor for your group?
We’ve recently noticed an influx in other games at the LCG night over at Games of Berkeley (mostly Conquest and Doomtown, but also a bit of Thrones). What used to be more or less all Netrunner is usually now about an even split between Netrunner and Conquest, plus maybe some Doomtown or Codex.
Same in my group… 8-12 now down to 4-6. Some players rotated out, and we are having a hard time finding replacements - cost of entry is pretty steep at this point. I know it stopped me from ever starting GoT v1.0.
To counter the anecdotal drop in attendance stories, our store has gained attendance to about 8-10 weekly. However, right now it’s the holiday season so people are in and out and will probably go back to normal around January when SC season starts.
I think leagues and draft could help. I think it would definitely help keep interest up because netrunner is a bit of a grind especially if your trying to play competitively You really have to spend a lot of time on the game and I think once people realize that they start dropping out.
That’s happened a bit here in San Diego too. During our league there were usually 15-20ish, now it’s more like 5-6. Part of this is the rise of GoT 2.0, since that stole away a few players. Hopefully our next league will bring more back.
maybe running a league with a smaller required buy in would help, hard sell now that it’s 400+$
Ours goes up and down. Depends on the time of year, esp. if there are colleges nearby. We have guys who come every week and some once per month. Hopefully you’ll get more people back soon. Everyone comes back to Netrunner!
I’m in Reno. We have a solid core of four guys down from a rotating cast of six or seven. The drop-offs have been the more casual players, the ones who only ever played on game nights. It got harder for them to enjoy the game as more cards came out, I think, and it became difficult to remain semi-competitive without investing a little more time during the week. This is a lifestyle game, for sure.