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VGBootcamp Acquires Smash @Xanadu Venue

AlphaZealot

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After yesterday's Smash @ Xanadu tournament, VGBootcamp announced that the owners of the venue were parting ways with the business. It was revealed that VGBootcamp was offered the store and that this offer was accepted. VGBootcamp, working with Xanadu Games, launched weekly Super Smash Brothers Melee and Project M tournaments over a year ago. The weekly Tuesday tournaments have seen huge numbers for a weeknight and the livestream has been one of the most consistently successful for any fighting game. With this acquisition, VGBootcamp plans on rolling out a number of Smash-related changes including:
  • 2-3 weeklies and more monthly tournaments
  • VGBootcamp streamed weekend events
  • Opening of the entire store to the tournament series

One potential downside for those that visit the Xanadu Games store is that Magic: The Gathering will no longer be offered. MTG is known in the card game community as the breadwinner for keeping stores alive because of the fervent tournament community and players who are willing to support their local game shop. VGBootcamp will need to make sure that the lost revenue from missing MTG is made up by Smashers venue fees if the store is to succeed.


The full announcement is below:
"All, this is an important, huge, late breaking announcement. To make a long story short, Xanadu and their management team have decided to part ways with the store and pursue other career paths. Because of this, they have offered the Xanadu store to VGBootcamp, which we have accepted. It will now be our store for full use.
This means:
- No more MTG
- We get use of the whole store, including the front so it's less cramped
- Weeklies for 2-3 smash games
- More monthlies
- Less schedule conflicts
- More VGBootcamp streamed weekend events
- More smashfests
- No price changes
- New stuff to flesh out the experience
- New staff to help assist the place
This is a huge deal for us, and honestly, Xanadu has established itself as the PREMIER weekly smash event in the world, and this just helps us bring that full circle.
The immediate change is that we our adding Melee to our weekly schedule on wednesdays (starting 9/10, streamed by VGBootcamp)and we will also be changing the layout of the venue a little bit to be optimized for smash, as that will be the primary focus of the venue. Project M will resume weeklies on tuesdays until Smash 4 is launched, at which point, it will alternate with that (tentative schedule posted for now, it is subject to change after October 11th)
Also, if anyone has any posters, decoratives, or any consoles/tvs they'd like to donate to Xanadu, please let Tant (@TheTantalus ) know. We want to make the place look and feel awesome."
 
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RedRambo4

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I actually really enjoy watching those tournaments, my favorite is AMSa vs Mew2King and Wizzrobe vs Mew2King
 

Rᴏb

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This is the beginning of the VGBC monopoly.
 

Amiibo Doctor

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Awesome! But less awesome, because VGBC. Still cool though.

I wonder why these larger streamers don't band together and start buying warehouses and big Smash-able venues to use as their own.
 

Sedda

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Is it a good idea to put melee on wednesdays? If there are a lot of players who play both PM and Melee that have to drive a good amount of time, they might not want to do it in two consecutive days.
 

Scruffy_Scoundrel

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That's great news, congratulations to GimR and the whole VGBC crew!
 

goateeguy

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Was it really necessary to kick out all the MTG players? I haven't been there so I wouldn't know but I don't know why that would be a useful thing to do.
 
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Man Li Gi

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I feel like the schedule could go like this
Mondays: Magic the Gathering as that brings in a good amount of money
Tuesday: To stay consistent with the current Smash @Xanadu Games
Wednesday: Rest Day (no need in having 2 Smash tourneys played consecutively with the SAME people coming to the venue). This could be filled with a Magic the Gathering day though or even a Yugioh tourney.
Thursday: The expanded Smash @Xanadu Games gets to be played.
(Only if a major event or a monthly is in place) Friday: Smash @Xanadu Games
Saturday: Same stipulation as above
(If even necessary) Sunday: Will hold the same stipulation of Saturdays and by proxy, Fridays.
I only listed these because I believe that this setup can and probably would be the most optimized and profitable. Cutting out MTG in general is a bad idea. It makes money almost anywhere it goes.
 
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Trickerhere

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This is pretty awesome because they are going to have more monthlies on Saturday for Smash 4! Hopefully everyone including myself will be able to attend when Smash 4 comes out.
 
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imrai

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The real problem is Magic's primary draw to casual-competitive (i.e. I compete for fun in my spare time at my local store) players, which are a lot of the income of one of these stores (as higher level players tend to order online/trade for needed cards) is an event called Friday Night Magic, which due to the way Wizards of the Coast regulates things, may ONLY be run on Fridays. This would cause quite a problem for scheduling Smash things on Friday as these events tend to have rather large turnouts in most areas.
 

pizzapie7

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ofc something this great happens when I'm about to leave the region

this could the be the start of something really great tho
 

Kesno

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I really hope that Gimr can keep this whole thing together money wise cause it sounds like it is only goes to get harder from here on out. Good Luck to GimR and the guys. Let's keep this going strong.
 

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If I didn't live in GA, I would go weekly to support
 

Da Black Rabbit

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Congrats to GimR and the rest of the VGBC. For smash in the region, this is great. But any business conscious person would know that this is a shakey move. Far as I know, his 700 subscribers was just enough to maintain stream equipment while allowing him to live with out having a "typical" source of income. Now he has has to some how keep the lights on. Another hurdle is he might not pull in as much revenue from tournaments as he used to because of the school season taking affect. People might not be able to come out as often which would cause smaller brackets and less money.

I am really curious to see how the VGBC plans on keeping the lights on at Xanadu, especially if they are going to get rid of the Magic: The Gathering scene. I understand that VGBC might not be interested in that card game and/or they might not know how to run MTG but to just axe a source of income like that? Questionable.

Again, cool that GimR was able to acquire the venue. I would assume (hope?) any grown man would of had a plan laid out to successfully run a business and not just blindly except an offer they may or may not be able to handle. Best of luck to the VGBC.
 

Usopp

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That is insane. I hope all works out well for VGBC now. I remember the Free GIMR movement lol and now he's super free.
 

hotdogturtle

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So he like literally owns the store now? The actual venue, including the expenses? I hope he has some kind of business experience, because that's a much bigger project than it sounds when you just sugarcoat it as "VGBC acquires Xanadu".
 

Ganreizu

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Congrats to GimR and the rest of the VGBC. For smash in the region, this is great. But any business conscious person would know that this is a shakey move. Far as I know, his 700 subscribers was just enough to maintain stream equipment while allowing him to live with out having a "typical" source of income. Now he has has to some how keep the lights on. Another hurdle is he might not pull in as much revenue from tournaments as he used to because of the school season taking affect. People might not be able to come out as often which would cause smaller brackets and less money.

I am really curious to see how the VGBC plans on keeping the lights on at Xanadu, especially if they are going to get rid of the Magic: The Gathering scene. I understand that VGBC might not be interested in that card game and/or they might not know how to run MTG but to just axe a source of income like that? Questionable.

Again, cool that GimR was able to acquire the venue. I would assume (hope?) any grown man would of had a plan laid out to successfully run a business and not just blindly except an offer they may or may not be able to handle. Best of luck to the VGBC.
I don't think axing MTG is a bad call. The store is still technically closing down, so this is expected. How much profit (note that i say profit; there are still costs associated with having MTG) could MTG possibly bring in that more S@X events on a weekly, monthly, and weekend basis would not fill if not surpass?

Not to say MTG isn't a big deal or anything, but literally tripling (and more) the amount of the most watched weekly content for smash is a big deal too.

I'm sure there are still plenty of ways GIMR could make money that would help support the place.
 
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Rambeard

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wow congrats to VGBC, this is a big step in the right direction for the crew.
 

Element of Smash

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I don't think axing MTG is a bad call. The store is still technically closing down, so this is expected. How much profit (note that i say profit; there are still costs associated with having MTG) could MTG possibly bring in that more S@X events on a weekly, monthly, and weekend basis would not fill if not surpass?

Not to say MTG isn't a big deal or anything, but literally tripling (and more) the amount of the most watched weekly content for smash is a big deal too.

I'm sure there are still plenty of ways GIMR could make money that would help support the place.
This. Running a card shop (because that's basically what a lot of comic shops are these days) has a lot of hidden overhead. Your business isn't done on Friday night, it's done over the entire week leading up to that. Yeah, you get about 30% of your stuff done before FNM, and a small bit after, but people are always buying, selling, and trading cards. To facilitate this, you need to pay people to be at the shop and do the things. And someone else to be at the shop and make sure the things that are done don't get ****ed up.

Basically, while the profit margins for MtG are pretty good, Smash is even better. Venue fees have a higher profit margin. And a venue like Xanadu can charge higher venue fees because they have a higher quality experience to offer. I am in favor of this.
 

Ganreizu

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And a venue like Xanadu can charge higher venue fees because they have a higher quality experience to offer. I am in favor of this.
Well, i don't think they will end up change venue fees (it could still be the case even though they said prices will stay the same, you never know) but they will certainly have a lot more traffic and popularity. Having the streams going constantly throughout the week is very helpful, plus i hope everyone who frequents there thinks of it as a second home since it's more of a hangout spot than it is a tournament spot so they might be willing to help set the place up without any sort of payment involved.

I don't really agree with raising prices solely due to "we quality" though. Remember netflix? (i mean, they tried to justify it with high cost demands of streaming but hey they're still around even after rolling the price back)
 
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gmanownyou

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That's pretty interesting. I like watching the Xanadu highlight videos
 

Element of Smash

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Well, i don't think they will end up change venue fees (it could still be the case even though they said prices will stay the same, you never know) but they will certainly have a lot more traffic and popularity. Having the streams going constantly throughout the week is very helpful, plus i hope everyone who frequents there thinks of it as a second home since it's more of a hangout spot than it is a tournament spot so they might be willing to help set the place up without any sort of payment involved.

I don't really agree with raising prices solely due to "we quality" though. Remember netflix? (i mean, they tried to justify it with high cost demands of streaming but hey they're still around even after rolling the price back)
I wasn't necessarily saying they should, but I also have no idea what they charge now, having never been to S@X. I was thinking however about LTC2. It had to be explained to a few people that because it was a bigger and better tournament, the fees were a bit higher then our locals, like DIME or GGWs. And that you were getting more for your money because of it.

I don't think they'll change prices unless they wind up needing to in order to support the increased traffic. Which again, I can't really comment on because I have no idea.
 
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