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Post by maeloke on Mar 28, 2014 17:43:41 GMT
Hi all, I've been following this thread on Dakka, essentially comparing GW to the final years of TSR: www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/584858.pageThere's some good points, some less relevant points, but the overall discussion has been both interesting and informative. A fair amount of insider expertise and information has cropped up, so if you have time and can get past derails, take a look. Then come back here and discuss, because I like the people on TTH more than dakka  |
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Post by Inquisitor Stingray on Mar 28, 2014 18:30:17 GMT
Interesting debate. I don't feel confident in my knowledge of the company or the industry to argue what is and what is not going to happen. I will say though that with the rapid surge of new contenders, Games Workshop certainly are no longer to be considered the end-all wargaming company. For example, my friends and I have been contemplating getting into Fantasy for quite a while, but realizing not just how expensive it would be, but also that the game suffers from an equal amount, if not more problems than 40K, we settled on Dropzone Commander instead. It's just anecdotal, but I think this is happening a lot right now.
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Post by nameless on Mar 28, 2014 18:56:31 GMT
From an outsider's perspective, they are in, what I like to call, the "head in the sand" phase. Meaning, they absolutely refuse to change anything they've been doing going forward and have decided that everyone else is wrong and they are correct.
It happened with TSR.
It happened with Polaroid.
It happened with NorTel.
It happened with Blackberry.
etc.
All of these companies held some belief that what they were doing was right and they knew better than what logic seemed to dictate. Blackberry is a classic example of finally now trying to move past it and into software.
I'd love for them to be taken over by Hasbro, FFG or WotC or better or for worse. I can't say I fully trust GW to make the best decisions from here on out.
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Post by maeloke on Mar 28, 2014 19:30:13 GMT
I definitely don't have a good enough grasp of the market to say for sure how accurate all the claims are, but it's interesting to aggregate the anecdotes about how business owners and players are seeing migrations. Obviously we're a pretty self-selecting group on forums for the game, so it's really hard to say how overall business has been.
My only note about GW games is that my primary LGS is talking about dumping the product because it takes up a lot of shop real estate/capital, and doesn't sell. CCGs are big in my area, so it could just be that nothing sells as fast and easy as Magic: The Gathering.
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Post by Overread on Mar 29, 2014 0:06:20 GMT
I personally find that Dakka has a very negative attitude as a forum, toward GW. I'm not saying GW is perfect, but they've a fair few there who clearly have reached a point where they should move on a bit, but haven't; treating GW and Warhammer like something they must do and thus complain like crazy about whatever GW does.
It's one bonus of the Hive - at least here we are mostly at least sane enough to not wallow in the negative side.
Also Minaiture games are expensive to stock - take up lots of room and don't have massive profit margins - Magic on the other hand takes up almost no room to stock (nor to play); isn't as costly to stock AND has a higher profit margin (generally speaking).
That said a shop is only as good as how they market; if they or the local gamers are not putting effort into the Warhammer scene then it will diminish and die. I'd honestly do your best to keep it - its very easy to lose that kind of support from a retailer and a lot harder to get it back once its gone.
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Post by gigasnail on Mar 29, 2014 3:01:39 GMT
i dunno, the most GW hating guy i know is still playing and is in fact buying new models after he sold all his marines. just had a half hour long conversation with one of the plant operations guys today, he used to play back in 4th and is getting back in with his son. in our shop alone, 3 out of the 5 guys play.
oh, and fresno got a brand new 1 man GW store. crazy. guy is really nice but their stuff is way too expensive, the two FLGS will giggle as they price themselves out of the market.
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Post by coredump on Mar 29, 2014 21:39:05 GMT
From talking with some shop owners... Magic also has more revenue streams than available to 40K.
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Post by Hivefleet Oblivion on Mar 29, 2014 21:50:41 GMT
I personally find that Dakka has a very negative attitude as a forum, toward GW. I'm not saying GW is perfect, but they've a fair few there who clearly have reached a point where they should move on a bit, but haven't;... dakkadakka is exceptional; the anger on there is palpable, it's like they all expect GW to be a paragon of perfection and generosity… then get outraged when they realise it's a company, that's just there to make money. It's true that GW is short-sighted and often lazy, and it's depressing that it's headed by a accountant from the Inland Revenue - you know, the people who have a God-given right to take your money. But when it all comes down, GW has given a lot of people a lot of pleasure, they're producing in the UK where most of their competitors are making stuff in China, and they're actually producing a more diverse range of stuff than was the case in the golden days, of the 90s, 2000s or whatever. they can still surprise with their stupidity, but the anger they seem to inspire is out of all proportion. |
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Post by Overread on Mar 30, 2014 1:00:31 GMT
The concept that companies want to make money appears to be something that continually catches people by surprise  Honestly the only thing I think GW really need to do is: 1) Abandon this whole mini-codex downloadable army idea (it's just going to end in tears) 2) Release a skirmish 40K and Fantasy based game based around hero units. Because honestly that's the market share they are losing the most to with their competition. Against Warmachine the prices of a full army for both are honestly about the same - WM is just a touch cheaper to get into. Meanwhile its Infinity, Malifaux etc.. that are eating up new gamers with 5 man armies aside. GW could easily do that with just a rules release alone, and maybe 1 token new champion hero model for each faction (and 5 for space marines because - space marines). |
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Post by werewalrus on Mar 30, 2014 1:29:21 GMT
2) Release a skirmish 40K and Fantasy based game based around hero units. Because honestly that's the market share they are losing the most to with their competition. Against Warmachine the prices of a full army for both are honestly about the same - WM is just a touch cheaper to get into. Meanwhile its Infinity, Malifaux etc.. that are eating up new gamers with 5 man armies aside. GW could easily do that with just a rules release alone, and maybe 1 token new champion hero model for each faction (and 5 for space marines because - space marines). Totally agreed. IMO, this would be a better way with which to promote a launching point for starting new armies too. Not everyone has enough dough to drop on a fully playable army. OT: I honestly wonder if using forums are a good barometer of judging customer satisfaction. Sure, it'd be stupid to ignore them, but I'm thinking that plenty of people are quite satisfied with the game so far. For example, how many lurkers visit this site on a consistent basis, yet never really make a post when it comes to customer satisfaction? Then, if I was to visit this site, and read a bit of negativity...or perhaps some positive perspectives...would I have a good grasp of how the average Hiver feels about GW? Or would my judgement be solely affected by just the vocal ones? I'd be very interested to know how many active members (insert arbitrary amount of prerequisite posts here based on post total/post per day) there are...vs (the amount of visitors that come to this site...or even dakka really has. In addition, there's tons of people in my local FLGS that are still excited about 40k. Of course, it would be unfair to use this small sample size to come to any real conclusion...but in my area...people are still happy to play 40k. Granted...we pretty much play everything though. We support Warmahordes, Infinity, Fantasy, Mantic, and all of the card based games. Perhaps that's the secret to our happy gaming community. When you base 100% of your tabletop satisfaction on 1 company...perhaps you're destined to be unsatisfied. Then again...we like to grumble about every GW decision like everyone else...especially about pricing....but we're still playing the (please do not swear) out of this game. When IG comes out...I anticipate at least 2-3 people picking the army up from scratch...and I look forward to it. To my financial dismay...I may be one of them. |
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Post by gigasnail on Mar 30, 2014 1:42:25 GMT
they really should have pushed the killteams supplement. it's a perfect intro to 40k.
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Post by Squire on Mar 30, 2014 10:48:36 GMT
What puts me off is that there are too many things you have to plan for when building a list. With flyers, fortifications and apocalypse stuff it seems to have a list realistically capable of having an answer to anything, army sizes are being pushed closer and closer to 2000 points as a minimum. Before flyers I think there were the right amount of elements to bear in mind when building a list, and you could make a more personalised army without feeling forced to take too many specific units. Mono-build depresses me. As does having to use three carrying cases to transport a typical sized army.
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Post by maeloke on Mar 30, 2014 21:01:59 GMT
Dakka negativity notwithstanding, there are a lot of salient observations on there about questionable business practices that GW has engaged in. The ones that resonate for me:
1. The increasingly haphazard and swingy release patterns they've been following, making the scope of any game much harder to predict. Fluff is great, but the playability of the product in-game accounts for a dramatic percentage of sales.
2. Inattentiveness to release quality, both in terms of actual balance and just basic editing. Not to mention the end of FAQs.
3. Pricing and marketing a product as 'premium' that does not command the consumer respect a premium product ought to. Half a hundred companies produce miniatures of comparable detail, and tend to be either better, cheaper, or both.
4. Failing to build customer goodwill. It's pretty clear that just one or two full time PR employees could do wonders for the company via social media, but instead they're pulling OUT of things like Facebook and twitter. It just flies in the face of everything modern marketing strategy teaches.
It's hardly an open-shut read on the long term success of the company, but all of them together do read badly for GW.
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Post by commandersasha on Mar 30, 2014 21:23:02 GMT
I have just started a new thread that is also pertinent to this discussion, so I won't double-post, but the gist is that GW now presents us with a game-building kit, rather than a finished game system: it is up to us as the players to find opponents, agree rulesets, and include or preclude what we want from the vast range of power and models that GW offer.
Johnson has likened it to a restaurant menu, where you choose your meal: I think a better analogy is a supermarket, where you choose your ingredients, then compose your own meal.
My only remaining criticism is that it used to be a really nice family restaurant, whereas now they've turned it into Tescos, and at Waitrose prices! (Apologies to non-UK readers, to whom the brand references will mean nothing!)
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Post by gigasnail on Mar 30, 2014 21:28:42 GMT
i wouldn't be opposed to this (at all), but having a unified rules system is supposed to be the job of the people that make the game. that's part of what you pay for when you purchase the rules and codexes.
so, failing (abdicating, to be honest) that then it's up to us to step up and clear these issues. hopefully this catches on and we have folks in the large event/organizations that put a FAQ/rules set down that folks can agree on.
otherwise it's house rules, and different house rules everywhere are annoying as hell.
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