Organized Play

The moldy/musty smelling, poorly lit and ventilated, concrete floored, spider-infested man-cave is a popular hangout for all things Gamer. I'm lucky, though I have a basement, most of my toys remain upstairs. Partially because my wife plays, but mostly, I'm afraid of spiders (of course, I tell everyone that I'm just afraid of the basement flooding, thus ruining said gaming pieces). I'm not really afraid of spiders. Don't tell anyone, okay?

Actually, I'm even luckier than that. Once or twice a week, I get to play in a moldy/must smelling, poorly lit and ventilated, concrete floored, spider infested comic book store! For the last year, I have played many a game where organized play wasn't really an issue. We just kinda show up, and bust out our dice. But, with Heroclix coming back, and a bag of goodies as prizes, it makes me wonder what people think of the Organized Play structure.

These games don't play themselves. Without getting other like minded folks out of their stale pizza smelling man-caves from whence they were previously watching Season two of Terminator: Sarah Conner Chronicles on Blue-ray and playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, these games would die. Personally, I love what Neca just did for Heroclix approved play: for a small cost, venue owners can purchase a prize support pack, and then the venue has control over events and prize distribution. Smart. And I didn't even think that there would be any support.

How do you think Organized Play should be structured? Does it matter to you, so long as you get to build your 100pts of a WaS Russian minelayer fleet and watch as it is vaporized? Should events be left up to each venue to run, or by the company which makes the game? Should events be formal, cost something, and in turn, have a really *swell* prize, like a limited edition piece? Speak!