How FFG killed the Netrunner fanbase

i think blaming the competitive meta for the decreasing playerbase is extremely shortsighted and backed by no data. for every example listed, you will find people who disagree about what a “good” or “bad” meta is, and really, the top end competitive meta is experienced by a pretty small amount of the community (i went to 5 regionals in 2016, was top 3 in 4 of them, and played IG54 once)

if the meta is the controlling factor of the number of players, when it gets better, a sizable number of people should start playing, and when it gets worse, a sizable number should quit. this has never been the case, though. for every example listed, attendance at regionals broadly stayed the same until the period ended. the large, consistent, 20-30% dropoffs come between the end of regionals (july-august depending on where you are) and the start of store champs (usually around january). it becomes difficult to stay invested if you aren’t hitting GC, UK nats, worlds, etc.

it is easy to pick the things about the game that personally annoy you when you quit. it is much harder to identify that your interest fades when your focus/time/energy are spent elsewhere because there is no opportunity to play

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I don’t think this is quite right. The thing to realize is that–just like people will stop coming to game nights / tournaments at variable rates, they will also return to the game at variable rates, if ever. The vast majority of players who’ve exited my meta did so explicitly because they were tired or bored of the meta; many of them stuck their toes back in a few months later, but few of those decided to re-up because things didn’t seem to be headed in the right direction for them.

“The Meta” can kill player interest, but isn’t alone enough to bring every player back. They have to have trust in the future, which comes back, fundamentally, to communication from FFG.

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I think an important part that is missed and that should be added is:
“How the players killed the Netrunner fanbase” by talking about how the game is dying! I was relatively new to the game, when there were these discussions and they were more pushing me back then anything that FFG did!
When I see this post, it’s part of it.

Where is the down vote button?

If you are not happy about it complain at FFG and don’t bother me with your bad assumptions!

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I don’t disagree with you, but you would be surprised how many people I have gotten into magic simply by them seeing a game in progress and asking what game that is…that’s not that the case with Netrunner because no one plays it in the shop…and when I ask why they don’t play in the shop they give the same answer you did, because it’s not convenient to do so…

I used to drive 35 minutes to go play Magic every day of the week back in 93/94 because no one I knew played it. It’s just a matter of priorities I guess.

I agree with you that elements of the player base—particularly those with a wide reach on social media etc.—need to more carefully consider the tone and impact of their statements.

However, I’ll tell you that FFG patently does not engage with the Netrunner community and that this tactic is very much a secondary line of play.

I think the best shot Netrunner players have is organization. There is a reason why labour unions were historically powerful: they gave the collective will a big push at the expense of the individual right to mouth off the employer. I have always wished there was a single, relatively cohesive, player-run body. It would have helped shield newer players from some of the anger while giving the angry players a consistent, uh, escalation path. A cohesive player group could, in return, work more productively with FFG with respect to their limitations as a marketing organization.

Oh well, one can dream eh?

That’s, uh, that was kind of the intent behind the ANRPC, I think.

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Yeah, I was being semi-facetious. ANRPC would have been the natural choice, but I think that ship has pretty much sailed. I doubt there’s anything incentivizing that group to present a more organized channel to FFG anymore. It’s almost as if the more FFG supports the game, the more people will spend their own free time to also do so.

You know what? Fuck it. You know what this is about and why it’s so frustrating? It’s about FFG’s ability to listen to and respond to customer feedback in a modern way. EVERY OTHER COMPANY I deal with in day to day life (including financial institutions, software companies, service providers) is better than this at FFG. I suspect this is why dedicated Netrunner players seem more frustrated on average than casual fans or fans of other properties: Netrunner fans are, per capita, older, better educated, and more successful. Many of us work in tech where if I had the same contempt for my customers I would be bankrupt. That’s what pisses me off. Fucks sake.

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netrunner is the best designed card game i have ever played. Richard is a genius. but i think the competitive scene of it, and card design wasnt pretty , many metas felt like a plague…

it’s a hard game to get in, to teach, to be good at, because it needs skill, and not pay to win like others…and VERY HARD to start a playgroup and keeping it alive…

but ffg didnt do a great work at it aswell…many mistakes,some cards were ridiculous…how much can you patch… if they let it die and just go on with their next trend (l5r) i dont think ill follow any other new lcg ever again, i hope it’s all doomsaying and they will continue to support the game as long as people play it and there’s design space

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You’re right, it’s very hard to start a playgroup and keep it active. But many are doing just that: creating semi-private metas where we can socially engineer out problematic design decisions and poor support for the MWL on the part of FFG. I have more fun in this format than “organized play.” Unfortunately we can’t be counted but I suspect we aren’t alone.

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Can I also offer a perspective of a new player.

From a certain angle, Netrunner seems really healthy and exciting. When I started playing, Netrunner seemed to be thriving for a few reasons:

  • There is new product coming out, and buying the core sets, big boxes and datapacks is easy in multiple LGS and online (even in Australia)
  • There’s a huge amount of content and discussion online, several high quality podcasts, youtube and twitch channels, blogs and so on
  • Terminal Directive is a fun way to learn the game with a friend, came out quite recently, and generated lots of online content also, continuing the impression of a healthy community and competitive scene
  • Friendly and engaged local players who are welcoming to new folks
  • NetrunnerDB, jinteki.net, ancur, stimhack - the tools are all there to really dive in and explore the game
  • Lots of different decks being discussed and popping up on NDB
  • It’s still an excellent and addictive game

All this convinced me to take the plunge and pick up the entire card pool (more or less) plus an extra Core Set, and try and recruit a few new players to the game (working on it!). It seemed like a pretty vibrant community to get into.

After a little while, I came to realise that the player base is declining (“we had 3 times as many people last year”) and there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the state of the meta. I don’t run into too many new/casual players to play against, though everyone is happy to give me a game.

Now that I am heavily invested and reading the forums, the pessimism is strong, so it’s a bit discouraging. I also feel like the card pool is large and it’s a bit of a daunting sell to new players. With no real equivalent of MTG-style limited, and nobody playing cache refresh or 1.1.1.1, and one GNK a month, I’m not second-guessing my decision but I now share the feeling that something new is needed pretty urgently to reinvigorate the player base and make the game accessible and exciting to newcomers.

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Look guys, it’s their business model for LCG’s - hype a game then dump that game after a few years of half-assed support.

Their PR is bad, their Community Support is terrible, their Product Management is terrible and their Organized Play is really lackluster (except for Star Wars stuff because of money).

This is my conclusion after heavily investing in CoC LCG, AGoT 1st Ed., WH:I, Netrunner, WH:40k, Star Wars LCG and AHLCG: You CAN’T trust that company with card games. They all look shiny and have solid mechanics but in the end it’s a fucking scam. These are not games for casual gamers or gamers who don’t want to spend $1500 for a magic deck, because in the end, you have to buy those expansion to stay in the loop and you will probably pay $1500 for the whole card collection and have about 100 competitive cards.

Don’t support those shitty business methods, don’t buy L5R. It will probably be in the same spot in about 2 years.

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I guess they’re called Living Card Games because eventually they get old and die

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salty gamers everywhere. evacuate!

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I haven’t given up on Netrunner just yet, but if it does die it will be my last “lifestyle” game. No more *CGs. No more miniatures. There are several boardgames and card games that come close enough for me (deep games with replayability): Codex, COIN, Cthulhu Wars, High Frontier, others. I’m not investing the time and money again in something that is so reliant on a company-supported community.

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The big thing Star Wars has that the other games don’t have is free marketing (GoT has this but to a lesser extent).

There are way more people actively looking for a Star Wars game because they can piggy back off of marketing / existence of the movies. Compared to Netrunner which gets something close to zero marketing for people who don’t already play FFG games. For a long time Quinns / BBG top 10 / Word of Mouth was the only advertisement to people who didn’t already play FFG games, and we’re now left with just word of mouth for an increasingly hard to sell product.

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[quote=“ahzrab, post:52, topic:9186, full:true”]AHLCG: You CAN’T trust that company with card games
[/quote]
A little off-topic but what’s your gripe with AHLCG? A few friends of mine are really into it and I liked it well enough too.

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That’s basically the problem we’re all complaining about.
They’re spending their (probably limited) marketing efforts on hyping a new game instead of using the game they already have.

Sure, they get more recognition through Star Wars and L5R license, but that costs licensing money… Maybe they’re just way better at licensing deals then they are at marketing products?

Co-op LCG’s really occupy a different space than the rest of them. It is extremely out of place in this discussion.

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That definitely seems like their strategy (wittingly or not), but even inept businesses would soon realize that it’s not profitable for long. If Netrunner ends like it’s trending, I know I won’t be buying into any other competitive card game from FFG and have a feeling I’m not alone. If they do the same thing to L5R and AGoT, they won’t have much of a non-Star Wars player base to speak of.

I’ll be playing Netrunner as long as I can and there are some really easy things to do to turn things around for the game we love (so I hope they see the light soon):

  • Revamped Marketing and OP (including consistent quarterly MWL/errata updates and continued support for Cache Refresh)
  • Core 2.0
  • Rotate to 3-4 active cycles, and probably rotate out some big boxes if they want to make more campaign/deluxe expansions
  • More beginner-friendly products like the Champ decks and Campaign expansion
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BTW, in case anyone missed it, the Bad Publicity GenCon interview with the new FFG head went up.

Worth noting that they do feel that the current rotation plan ended up being way too conservative, and are taking a hard look to see if they can change things up to feel fresher.

Also there’s a Android Genesys book in the works, but it’s incredibly early in production.

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