Asmodee rolled out its AsmoPlay Organized Play program this
week, along with accompanying solicitations from several distributors, all
wanting the store to order its AsmoPlay OP kit from them. Some just announced
the kit, letting me know Asmodee only produced a limited number of kits and
that I best snag one while I had the opportunity, whilst other sweetened the
deal, offering limited edition playmats or extra discounts on the games
promoted. In case you did not see the write up elsewhere, each kit consists of
two copies of the featured game and assorted promotional items, for a cost of $40
for the Cash n’ Guns Kit and $50 for the Splendor or7 Wonders assortments. The
nice thing about the kit is that it is designed to let stores use it for a demo
session with giveaways for demo players, or for a tournament or league, with the
same promo items as prizes (though I can’t say I would be too comfortable with
the idea of running a tournament in the store with all the participants
pointing pistols, even foam ones at each other).
However, there are a couple of things, well one really, that
a store has to take into consideration before buying into a program like this. Will it make the store money?
That means we weigh (almost) everything we do in terms of “Will this make a profit for the store?”
either over the short term or the long term. When deciding to invest in one of
this, or another companies’ OP kit, we look at it in terms of dollars and cents
from either a short term or a long term viewpoint:
Short term—Will
buying an OP kit for Spelndor or one of Asmodee’s other games generate enough
sales of the game over the next 30/60/90 days (or whatever time period I
choose)for the store to make a profit over and above the cost of the kit? The
store does have costs over and above those of the kit, primarily payroll for
the wages of the staff member assigned to oversee the event. To cover the costs of the AsmoPlay kits, I
would need to trace sales of at least three copies of the game directly to the
event. Other OP event kits, such as
those from Fantasy Flight Games, run less, so the breakeven point for running
FFG OP events runs correspondingly lower.
Long Term— Will
buying an OP kit for Spelndor or one of Asmodee’s other gamesbring customers
into the store, allow customers who have purchased one of the games already the
opportunity to play or otherwise create customer goodwill over the next
30/60/90 days (or whatever time period I choose) for the store to make a profit
over and above the cost of the kit? While valuable, goodwill is a much harder
asset to which to assign a value. In general, stores run OP events targeting
customers who have already purchased that game or similar games in the store. I
can look at is as a “thank you” to the customer, an event to add to the
schedule or something we might promote to the local community (The King of
Tokyo National Championship Qualifier generated a few lines of press in the
local paper).
Much like everything else in the game industry, the decision
about investing in OP comes down to profits.
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