The (perceived) Value of Organised Play

21st September 2026

Barry

4 mins

Tabletop games do not continue on forever – this seems obvious to some and perhaps not to others. As a commercial product something has to happen to keep it going with product support or organised play. Someone might seek to argue that Warhammer and Magic the Gathering have survived, however, they might need to consider the continued evolution of the game as intervention to keep it alive.

Plenty of games have come and gone and their survival is not always assured even with community support. There are some games that seem to enjoy and foster amazing community support can just end through business machinations. Sometimes quietly, sometimes not. I’m not looking to prosecute the ending of AMG’s support of X-Wing, Armada, or (should rumours prove accurate) Shatterpoint – I feel like that’s been done to death in many forums.

But what is it that draws players in and keeps them there? Not everyone has the same motivations – though a game can find itself victim of its success as a competitive game. I think a lot about X-Wing, and how its competitive scene was designed around incremental progression to World Championship. There was incidental loot on the way like cards, dice, and templates obtained at various level.

Don’t get me wrong, some of those were cool – but you could buy that after-market if that was your thing. The real goal at these events was to take the top place, progress to the next level of competition and chase that Worlds invite and all that came with it. It would bring people in for every store champs as they hunted that bye for the regionals event. Players would travel in packs to other states hoping to snatch regional tickets out from underneath their player base – to the point that a store championship of less than 60 people seemed weak and would be criticised for some nebulous reason.

And so the cycle would commence a cycle that drove a competitive scene at the expense of anything remotely casual. The OP formed part of the business case of the game – it drove sales since you need (or needed) official components to participate and a vast collection to be competitive. Think about it - if you wanted to run some variant of Palp Aces you would be have bought ships like StarVipers and an Imperial Raider that probably never left the box!

So from a purely commercial point of view – it must have been great. For players though?

“Filthy casual…”

A long time ago…

Recently I ran into a friend named Matt I hadn’t seen in a while, and asked about what games he was playing now since I assumed he’d moved on to another game/community since he didn’t make the transition to X-Wing’s second edition.

“Nothing,” he said, explaining he had tried to move into Legion which fizzled out, but that he didn’t play anything since an event in Queensland. And I remember that event – a Queensland regional championship – pretty well even though I couldn’t clearly articulate exactly when it was. I remember during this time though, Matt had been quite intent on proving he could win a Nationals event or similar.

And I could see him doing it – he was a great player, focused, and at the time had a great list (a Rebel alpha-strike list) that he had stuck with and was making work in the meta at the time. Julian, Matt and myself had made our way to play in this hoping for Capital Cartel to sweep in and take the win from my home state; in a store that is now long gone without working AC – which in summer made it feel like an endurance event that was highly competitive.

I remember during a break conversing with both of them about dropping. I was at 2-2 and all four games had just been an absolute slog. It was hot, I was tired, and there was no way to make cut.

And the pub across the road felt especially tempting.

Julian convinced me to hang in there since after-all, “you just need to 100-0 your next two games and you’ll make cut”. I remember that vividly because it was an absurd thing to suggest – but I did stay to see if we could all make it.

As it did happen, I managed to pull out both those wins – which I put down to hydration and pure luck. Matt’s luck didn’t hold, and there may have been some questionable aspects of one of his opponents – but he was done. Enraged even.

Julian and I had taken him across to the pub, bought him a beer and made the case that it was just a game and there would be other opportunities. That it seems still resonates with Matt today – he doesn’t play anymore and thinks back to how he felt, or perhaps reacted that day.

Which brings me to our current conversation about why people play – how to draw them in and keep them there. OP can only be an aspect of it – it cannot be the whole thing because it can become a bit elitist or exclusionary – dismissing players that just want to have fun or worse new players.

If getting to that final table is the only ends that matters, then how will players resort to getting there? And what’s left if they don’t?

So what then?

A game I’ve reflected a lot on the value of its organised play is Star Trek Attack Wing. Say what you will about the game – which for all intents and purposes is dead – the organised play community events were really cool story events that participation prizes like new ships, cards etc. that could stretch out over several months.

The game didn’t really find an audience here in Australia compared to the US; X-Wing was the first in and arguably the best dressed in terms of material quality like models and card-stock. I don’t think X-Wings OP was remotely as interesting as STAW.

I look enviously at the OP for STAW which provided a narrative structure events for players that could be stretched out for players looking to maximise their collection with the blind boosters. These events also had phases that included different scenarios as part of the story-telling device – if you wanted the full story experience you needed to play.

And the FOMO could be real with some of those ships not seeing a commercial release.

This arrangement isn’t always going to work the same for every game system; since some are able to introduce new components ready to add out of the box like cards or pre-painted minis – and clearly there’s a cost to it as well.

League events can keep community engaged in their games for weeks or months without presenting a roadmap to some sort of championship directly. These can be a great opportunity to get new players to participate and get familiar with the game.

But…

It is all speculative – if there was any level of certainty about how to build and retain a community for their game they would do it. There is obviously a lot that makes a game successful such as play mechanics, materials, theme, cost, product availability…the list goes on and on.

OP is a means to ends - move product. It creates a specific community - one that disappears once they perceive the game has run its course and all that’s left are those ‘filthy casuals’. That’s assuming any of them stuck it out at all - and I personally prefer a community that includes them than not. At least they’re having fun…

Stay Salty.

  - Barry