GW locking down bits stores

[jul]

Good video!

anyway so to resume the situation for the last 15 years or so:
GW stopped supporting clubs, unless you're in Nottingham
GW stopped selling bits
GW stopped supporting main events, unless you're in Nottingham
GW stopped supporting online community
GW stopped supporting online retailers
GW stopped supporting independent retailers
GW stopped the community, unless you're in Nottingham
GW is going to stop supporting their own products (that's a job for the independent retailers, you know the 2 that are left since GW stopped supporting them....)

[jul]

another good news from GW Wonderland..



ok, this AUS$ which makes 82$ US

looks like importing internet in Australia is really expensive....

j.

[3eland]

Wow, that is expensive....

[tordeck]

You missed in the resume where they forbid their UK distributors from selling to the southern hemisphere so that they could continue to charge the poor Aussies double what everyone else pays.

[MagickalMemories]

As stupid as I think it is, from the GW PERSPECTIVE that price makes sense.
They want to sell physical copies of the codex. It is currently their policy to charge the same for the digital codex as the physical one.
If they charge less for the digital codex, they'll sell less physical codices.

Eric

[jul]

yep a dex in Oz is 75$....

still doesn't come with Ky though...

J

[Xoan]

It sounds like GW is parting like 1999... back then they used their tracking to find the best stores and open across the street from them then stop supplying them with merch. This is different but in many ways it is a more evolved way of doing business as normal for a company who has a detached sense of its customers both past and future should expect from a game company.

While I have a several perfect examples of what GW has done wrong, I think it would get me banned for a few days if I spoke of it. I think it is safe to say this will affect a lot of those who do not fit the perfect mold of their vision of a retail store. A classic example of this would be MWG in Canada now closing their doors.

/Moment of silence


I do not believe this will be the only one affected, but I believe if managed right some new businesses can find success in the future.

[Doctari]

15 years later and GW is still essentially the old man down the street that doesn't quite get the internet but is still very scared of it.

[Bahamut_Dragonlord]

15 years later and GW is still essentially the old man down the street that doesn't quite get the internet but is still very scared of it.

"Get off my lawn!" - Every old guy ever

[Doctari]

The more I read about this the more amazed I am at the sheer level of stupidity with Games Workshop. Or more to the point of the stupidity of us for supporting them. There are thousands of new games coming out (just check kickstarter) and dozens of companies putting out miniatures that can be used with their rule sets.

As someone who just came back to the game in the last 2 months or so after a 12 year break I can honestly say I think GW has completely lost its way. I think I've spent my last dollar on any new miniatures from them. As far as their rules and books go.. well they're more expensive (in some cases) then text books so I think I'll probably start looking into "alternative avenues for acquisition" of these as well.

I thought it was just me when I was looking over the last 3 issues of white dwarf and being completely underwhelmed by anything in them. Compare it to 15 years ago when you got free buildings, free miniatures and more then 20 pages of articles in a 100 page magazine. I just dug out a old sister of battle cardboard cathedral to use in a game the other day. It has to be at least 10 years old. In 10 more years will I have anything from these to pull out and use?

[kturock]

The more I read about this the more amazed I am at the sheer level of stupidity with Games Workshop. Or more to the point of the stupidity of us for supporting them. There are thousands of new games coming out (just check kickstarter) and dozens of companies putting out miniatures that can be used with their rule sets.

As someone who just came back to the game in the last 2 months or so after a 12 year break I can honestly say I think GW has completely lost its way. I think I've spent my last dollar on any new miniatures from them. As far as their rules and books go.. well they're more expensive (in some cases) then text books so I think I'll probably start looking into "alternative avenues for acquisition" of these as well.

I thought it was just me when I was looking over the last 3 issues of white dwarf and being completely underwhelmed by anything in them. Compare it to 15 years ago when you got free buildings, free miniatures and more then 20 pages of articles in a 100 page magazine. I just dug out a old sister of battle cardboard cathedral to use in a game the other day. It has to be at least 10 years old. In 10 more years will I have anything from these to pull out and use?

preaching to the choir here brother.

I started the same rant 2 editions ago. I was in at RT and left dueing 2nd/3rd ed. I've checked the rules and tried a few games each edition.. usually disappointed in the rules. still love the minis but hate the company and it's lack of player support; and now retail support. [again]

[Xoan]

The reason why GW last through all of this is for a few reason imo. Strictly from a macro business stand point, not from a good vs bad of the micro individual here are some reasons.

Infrastructure of the tournaments is more than 80 players showing up for a mid sized GT for WHFB and another 80 for 40k. It is also 2 or 3 players at least per one who shows up who also dream, and want to show up to that exact tournament. These fund the store and the changing environment of each different tournament, so you have to buy more miniatures to keep the best list. It not the number 1 thing that draws money for GW, but is probably one of the greatest factors for new games coming in. I say that because it is hard to get everyone at the store to play the same game or at least the majority to play the same game without a reason.

How many games have great miniatures, but die because the store owner can't herd enough players to the same game long enough to get them interested and playing against each other for any length. A tournament infrastructure helps with that greatly, because even if you do not play in tournaments or ever dream of it, you play with someone who does and because they play you play.

The massive cost of starting a new game is insane really. Matthew from MWG said that there are over 2500 products for GW currently on the market, and that sounds about right. That is a lot of miniatures, and miniatures cost a ton to have made as a prototype I want to say 700 to 1000 dollars each by a pro, and if only 2,000 of the GW line is miniatures that is 1.4 to 2 million dollars to have as many prototypes as GW currently use in their miniatures. That doesn't cover all the changes and mistakes from the past. To protect yourself against larger fish who want to steal your ideas, or someone starting a new business to undercut your line you are looking at 1,200 to research each miniature, though that could be cut back as so many are very close to each other's design, and another 3,000 to 5,000 for a design patient. To take that many miniatures to production so you can start selling them, you will need another 5,000 to 20,000 per miniature.

That means a new company will spend 9,900 to 27,200 per miniature to get to to production, and that is skipping a lot of steps like packaging for example and trade marking the names. Lets say it is 15,000 on average that is 30 mill to do one run of production of the miniatures... no you need books, dice, carrying cases and so on.

The basic point is, there is no way a company can come in and compare to GW, it will take a very long time and they will have to do very very well to even compete within 10 years. To avoid that games often times scale from skirmish games, to small battles, and then to armies. Privateer Press would be a great example of a company that has managed new models and growth with their current situation. I want to say it was Heavy Gear, who has a good game system a few models out and no ability to take the next step from two brothers in their garage to having more employees and keeping up with orders. If I have the game company name right, they nearly stalled as it took 6 months to come out with more models, and just a few more to add to their line, and it nearly cost them everything.


The next part which I think I will just leave it for now is "History"... not only does history give you more time to get these other miniatures out, it also brings peace of mind to the retail owners who deciding which game they want to bring into their store since their space is limited. For them they need to decide if your product will be the next thing or water down the gamers that are currently playing, and make it hard for people to find matches to play against within their store.


With these two reasons Infrastructure and History it is very hard for anyone else to come and get their piece of pie. However, situations like this open the door for these hungry game companies who want to show what they can bring to the table to do just that.

Those are my opinion anyways, and from a business point of view. The reality of the changes that are being made, is we are all going to have to pay closer to full retail for our miniatures while they continue to go up. Special weapon blisters went from 8 dollars to 10 dollars in 5 months, and pretty much everything scaled with them on the site.

[kturock]

That also applies to CCG's. Anyone else here remember when every game came out as a CCG, or every game had a 'ccg component'? L5R had the ccg and the minis game, which used other cards. There were dozens of ccg's; some ok a lot of trash. Stores didn't dare miss 1 incase it was gold, but couldn't afford to buy them all because of the crap being released.
Same with RPG's; especially after the open license fiasco. Put the boilerplate on the inside and you could release any crap you could print.

MTG and YGO are the only 2 real ccg's surviving. Pathfinder brought RPG, especially D&D back from the edge of the bring. 4.0 suked and almost shut down the company. [again]

[Xoan]

Oh do I ever remember the influx of CCGs, I worked in a game store as the manger over no one until the owner came in for a while during this time, and I was a fixture prior to that.

YGO was one that we had to ration out, so it kept the customers happy. We could get 3 boxes of it in, so 152 packs, and we would start on a list of people to call and would sell them 3 at a time until we sold out 45 minutes later or so. The moms and dads who got there first hated that we would only sell 3 at a time, but the moms and dads waiting outside as that was where the line carried them were happier.

That game was so golden that Walmart changed their prices from the suggested retail prices to 4 dollars more per pack, and they would still sell out the day they came out.


However, other games were a total flop... Anyone ever hear of Monster Rancher the video game before? Here is a link to the wiki if you have not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Ra ... ideo_game)

Basically you would start the game, and then go to a spot to get a new monster. It would then ask you to put in a new CD and it would generate the monster, and then you would put the game back in and continue to play. The monsters were always the same for the same CD, so it would looking at the CD for something, but the CD's origin was not taken into account. So Gospel might give you an awesome one, and Metallica might give you the pink fluffy one that did not like conflict.

The game was a basic gladiator game with punishment and reward systems set up, and exploring to find bonus items and things to unlock. I found it to be a lot of fun back in 97 when I played it a lot... Yet the CCG totally sucked it was designed for 4 to 6 year old children, with cute graphics that made ygo characters look like convicts.

[MagickalMemories]

I just dug out a old sister of battle cardboard cathedral to use in a game the other day. It has to be at least 10 years old. In 10 more years will I have anything from these to pull out and use?

Toilet paper.
Glossy, glossy toilet paper.

Also, folks, let's keep the discussion to the topic at hand and try not to stray too far off on tangents. Thanks.

Eric