\"Sales Woes For GW\" -Really Intreresting!

[MarkusTay]

Going to China is a good idea, but I still think slashing prices would help them in the long haul. They are losing hundreds of customers every month to other companies, and in a hobby like ours with limited appeal that spells disaster. Even if they cut prices by 50% for a whole year, and actually operated in the red for awhile, in the long run they would have created thousands of new GW enthusiasists not to mention bringing many converts back into the fold. Its like dealing drugs, you\'ve got to get the customer hooked first. Once a person becomes heavily invested they will stay with the system even when the prices gradually start to climb back up.

That is what happened in the 90\'s. Thousands (millions?) of new enthusiasts got into the hobby, either through GW or through the miniature lovers from the RPG crowd (like myself) after D20 went open license. That was a brilliant strategem on TSR/WotC/Hasbro\'s part; Give the system away, make it open content for development (alla Microsoft), and you create an instant boom in the industry. GW could learn something from that; maybe by licensing some of the armies out to OTHER miniature companies they would create new interest in the product, and they would still make their money off their core (Empire, Space Marines, Chaos, etc) armies and all of the rule books they would be selling, including all of the NEW rulebooks for all the NEW armies other companies would be making. Why not give Reaper permission to create a new Halfling Army? They\'re not doing it so why not? Reaper could probably do a bang-up job with a dwarf army, or even a new undead army. I know there are already two (3?), but you can never have too many undead; in fact last month\'s WD had a new army list for an undead faction, using models from all different factions to come up with the \'new\' army. Why not let independents develop this sort of stuff and make models for it? It would make the world more interesting, the models more diversified, and bring the customers back in. Bottom line is they need to create NEW customers, and right now they\'re not doing that. The newbs are all playing Warmachine, and a lot of oldtimers are turning to Conforntation.

 

[Antar000]

I think something that\'s really hurting GW is that they\'re a pain to work with. They don\'t let their products appear in any online catalogs but their own, they\'re very difficult to deal with if you want to retail their merchandise, and they do things like hold off on shipping items around christmastime to force people to buy direct. Because of these things, a lot of stores have stopped carrying GW products, or severely cut back on the amount they carry. This limits market saturation a lot. Before they built a new store by me, it took a good 30-40 minutes for me to go to a GW store, and the comic store near me, while it does sell GW stuff (and more nowadays), is still plagued by all the problems that GW places upon them. Though their prices are steep, I think the worse issue is that of their relations with vendors and independant business.

 

[Dr Death]

I wont pretend i have any grand economic idea as to what\'s making GW go down the pan and support it with statistics from the last 15 years (i\'ve only been collecting for 8) but i\'ll tell you what\'s turning me off GW and ramble for a bit and hopefully it\'ll be somewhere near accurate. Here goes...

I think this policy of focusing heavily on one army a year is really doing GW some harm. When i first started collecting way back in 1998 (which it appears was at the height of GW\'s newbie push) things apprears in a generally random fashion, occassional updates for everyone concerned. That was a nice way of doing things because it basically meant you didnt just fall asleep for 6 years before frantically checking the release schedule to see which models are still usable. Nowadays, you have far too dedicated release schedules, they cant get enough armies out because they\'re not willing to overlap releases and the whole thing is just dying a very dull and boring death. The last time GW truly did anything vaguely exciting with its release schedule was when 6th ed warhammer came out and you had 4 armies released with practically all new miniature ranges within 6 months. Since then its just become more and more painfully drawn out.

The lack of character is missing from all elements of GW. It struck me yesterday when i was wondering why White Dwarf has gone so drastically downhill and basically the reason is that GW have become too focused and serious, all the irrelevance and humour it used to have is being systematically wiped out and the games are just no fun anymore. The sculpting has shifted from playing on the sculpters personal opinions to mechanical guidelines and standards which just produce faceless, dreary sculpts.

While i am a Lotr collecter i agree its day has been, GW is actually killing my interest in it the more they keep ploughing away at it. I would like to see lotr take a slight backseat, still supported, by filling out the range of book characters but have it done more slowly, 2 or 3 new miniatures a month would do me instead of the constant stream of BIG MEGA RELEASES! they keep throwing in our faces. When the Hobbit comes along they can go back and remarket lotr proper but for now i would like to see it fade a little.

One of GW\'s problems is that they\'ve taken all their talent away from frontline positions and channeled them into more and more obscure promotions. Paul Sawyer is now quality controller of WD or something obscure, but more prominantly and importantly Jes Goodwin and Brian Nelson, the only truly great sculpters GW have other than Juan Diaz (and on his increasingly rare \'day\'s\', Gary Morely) and they have been promoted so far that you dont see them actually do any models anymore. I would say get them back into frontline sculpting and just pay them more. On the same note, forgeworld has some serious talent, why not recruit them into mainstream?

The whole \"grim, dark\" thing is beginning to piss me off, theres only so much you can push that line before it becomes \"grim, dark, dull\" at which point the hobby ceases to be fun. Combined with the huge armies you have to construct to have a grim, dark and dull time, the game systems become somewhat intolerable.

I think the focus should shift onto smaller games, and the specialist range. People should be able to have a \"little of everything\" from the GW family of systems instead of having to religiously stick to a single gamesystem because funds wont allow to cross over and have a little fun. A slight price drop would also promote this. If GW went back to the prices of around 2000 with £12 plastic boxes and £5 blisters i would almost guarentee a resergence of interest, particularly among the mid-later teens like myself who though they enjoy the games, feel prohibited with their limited cash.

But over all, the message is- Make gaming fun again, be quirky, be irrelevant, stop being so straightlaced and rigid and take a gamble.

Dr Death

 

[DrEvilmonki]

I just manged to get myself a copy of spacehulk. IMO the best game they ever produced rules wise. Absolutely simple and balanced - shame they blew it by trying to add extra fluff in the expansions.
Games like this should have been liscenced out if they didn\'t want them.

 

[Orb]

popped into my local GW store (we\'ve got 4 or 5 in a 30 mile radius of me) which was predictably empty (no-one popped in to see if they sold Playstations) and the staff had the company figures and long faces.

They\'re delighted that paints are going up to £2 and tanks will go up £5 in february.............

 

[Pestie]

You got to think of the demographic that GW is aiming for. It\'s kids - we all know how much the lil beggars get as pocket money nowadays

the idea is to get them spending little and often, and it seems that that is a strategy that has generally worked. Thats why GW is invaribaly empty on a weekday - it\'s customers are all in school!

Now looking at the results, with no other supporting data you can take two views -
GW has finally priced itself out of the market.

or that there are other factors that have had a negative influence on this Qtr\'s figures.

I would suggest the later for 3 reasons:

A. Retail market as a whole is down 2% over the same time last year - that in itself might spell 0% growth depending on the cost Model/ overheads.

B. you dont know if there are large captial costs due in the same Qtr - perhaps they have bought a new company, or new technology and just paid the bill....

C. the competion ups it\'s game- maybe, but i would specualte that the people to buy other mini\'s are not nesecarily GW\'s core market (8-14 year olds want GW, just like the want Nike trainers - it\'s all about the brand)

Lastly I would suggest that the arrival of the Xbox 360, the PSP and Nintendo DS may have had an impact, as jnr may have been saving up real hard for new technologies.....

What the rest of you think about GW\'s strategy is irrelevant- as your not it\'s intended audience. Now dont go a flaming - if it\'s one thing that GW has realised in the last couple of years, is that the older gamer IS a valid income stream - and hence the idea to set up things like clubs and tournaments, etc . But it will never devote massive resource to keep you loyal, becuase it knows that you will do as you want.

Kids are far easier to brainwash

Lastly - LoTR is here to stay people. It\'s part of thier core game system - the 5 year plan and wont disappear anytime soon, unless there is a massive boycott - and for the record, I agree with most of you. LoTR is geting tired now PJ is off doing more intresting stuff.....

Boy that\'s alot of text for a Friday nite!!

peace
P.

 

[Taarnak]

Originally posted by Trevor

(Mr. Diaz, step away from the sculpting tool...)

My god, he would be pretty much the LAST sculptor I would suggest GW drop. He\'s done some awesome minis, he can do space marines and females as well as Jez, *snip*

Vehemently disagree there. He is nowhere near as good as Jes is. His control of the medium is nowhere near as good either.

The proportions on his Space Marines in particular are straight HORRIBLE. Can you scratch your knees without bending over? Probably not. His Space Marine sculpts can...

He kinda reminds me of an artist that learned to draw comic books by looking at comic books, instead of learning anatomy, proportion, etc. from life drawing. It makes a huge difference in that when you learn the first way you are distorting distortions. Did that make any sense at all? I hope so...

Anyway, I don\'t really want to start a sub-argument here.

I just have not seen anything that Diaz has sculpted that I would call technically good. His stuff is acceptable, but not up to the standards set by some of the other sculptors, Jes Goodwin in particular.

Now, I will add a last item here that I don\'t know every miniature that he has sculpted, so there very well may be a particular line that he is very good at. Space Marines are not it, though.

My opinion, your opinion; all valid, yes?

Cheers,
Eric

 

[Dedwrekka]

Originally posted by Taarnak

Originally posted by Trevor

(Mr. Diaz, step away from the sculpting tool...)

My god, he would be pretty much the LAST sculptor I would suggest GW drop. He\'s done some awesome minis, he can do space marines and females as well as Jez, *snip*

Vehemently disagree there. He is nowhere near as good as Jes is. His control of the medium is nowhere near as good either.

The proportions on his Space Marines in particular are straight HORRIBLE. Can you scratch your knees without bending over? Probably not. His Space Marine sculpts can...

He kinda reminds me of an artist that learned to draw comic books by looking at comic books, instead of learning anatomy, proportion, etc. from life drawing. It makes a huge difference in that when you learn the first way you are distorting distortions. Did that make any sense at all? I hope so...

Anyway, I don\'t really want to start a sub-argument here.

I just have not seen anything that Diaz has sculpted that I would call technically good. His stuff is acceptable, but not up to the standards set by some of the other sculptors, Jes Goodwin in particular.

Now, I will add a last item here that I don\'t know every miniature that he has sculpted, so there very well may be a particular line that he is very good at. Space Marines are not it, though.

My opinion, your opinion; all valid, yes?

Cheers,
Eric

Space Marines have always, and I mean always, had horrible proportions.

Another thing, after a year of listening to people complain about the \"Simple changes\" that Blizzard entertainment could do to it\'s games, I realized that those \"simple changes\" were never as simple as they sounded. Most of the time they require an entire scratch rebuild of a system, and I see the same ending in the ideas for WD, GW, and their models.

By the way, after 6 pages of GW bashing, is anyone drunk yet?

 

[AlexDaKid]

I have read about half the posts on this thread and then well, quite frankly i gave up, another rant about GW, GW makes mistakes you kick them, GW screws up loads of people are there to laugh at them and shout abuse.

I dont get it, GW are quite frankly the face of this industry. They are the people on the street recruiting new people into this market. I\'m sure a lot of people are gonna shout out \"bullsh*t dakid, Ive never bought GW products its all lame they charge too much, their products crap, their too commercial, they didnt introduce ME into this\", well sure ok, maybe you have never bought a GW product but think of the people who have. Think of all the millions in revenue GW brings in for other companies because little tommy saw a model store called GW oneday and then spent the next 10 years buying stuff from it and other companies when he found out there were other cool models out there. I\'m sure an awful lot of the smaller independant sculpting and mini companies owe a sh*t load to GW because of this fact. Don\'t say BS you know its true, wether or not you personally were introduced to this by GW or not, you KNOW a lot of people have been.

Yeah GW tried to get new people into this hobby so yeah there were \"newbies\" running around, sure a lot of them are kids and can be annoying but where do you think new customers and a new market comes from?? How old were you when you started? These new hobbyists don\'t just grow on trees or appear from thin air. If you want to keep the wargames industry for yourselves your gonna have to keep buying even more stuff to keep your favourite alternate brand running, no new customers no new money, companies can\'t run on the same money forever, interest rates mean everything must grow. And seriously how many \'adults\' do you think will actually get into this hobby? Most of them think its childish and pathetic. Yes they are idiots but they aint gonna be swayed on that view point. Kids are the future and you have to see this, where does the next AlexiZ, EricJ, SJB, Cyril come from?

So GW loses money to smaller wargames companies. great, lets see someone try to make another GW, i\'d luv to see it happen, it won\'t happen though, how big do you think these other companies are? Not big enough to set up a retail chain like GW, no GW retail chain= nothing but airfix kits, word of mouth and the internet
as advertising for this. That aint enough is it? really?

You can bitch and moan about GW as much as you want and I KNOW that i am gonna get slated and ridiculed for posting this but this is my opinion and I am sticking to it. Im sure i will be accused of being a gw \'fanboy\' or woteva but u know wot I don\'t care, call me a fanboy, yes I love GW, they have given me 15 great years of fun and entertainment and for that i thank them. You want to badmouth GW and watch it slide into oblivion fine, lets see how this industry fairs without them.

Alex

 

[Evil Dave]

For me the entertainment value became way less than the monetary value.

This coupled with the fact that when most of the metal figurines started to go plastic the fan base was told it would make the figurines cheaper. They lied.

 

[tzor]

I would disagree that they are the \"face\" of the industry ... actually look closely there is really more than one industry in the mini market, they just look really alike. They are one face in the industry.

Remember people used to gripe and moan about TSR but D&D was still the face of the role playing genre, even by those who griped about the company. The griping is in one part a reflection of the importance of the company because let\'s face it, you ignore the small guy you dislike, you gripe at the big guy.

I have very mixed feelings about GW product. I personally think they are overly expensive. I personally won\'t buy a GW mini unless I really liked it at the time, because I can find a couple that I like almost as much for less money and I\'d rather paint two minis than one.

Still it is better to make happy customers and get new customers. GW seems to have a problem with the former, and I don\'t think they can grow the hobby fast enough to replace the latter. It is easier to sell a lot of minis to one person than it is to sell a lot of people a single set of minis.

 

[Nomis]

I just picked up a few old copies (round about numbers 95-100) of White Dwarf on Ebay. Despite the lackof modern production values these issues are a lot more interesting than the latest issues.

Like Cry Havoc these older Dwarfs have something for everyone - whatever you collect.

I agree with comments already made that the focus on onearmy at a time must be a turn off if you don\'t collect that force - Rackham have that aspect sorted as there is something for every army every time they issue new models!

I also agree with comments made that the newer GW models, though technically far superior to the old lack something - character, style, whatever. the old minis were usually a lot more fun - compare one of the older models of an ogre with the new ones for example- Technically they are much better but there aint much \"fun\" in the latest models!

Its actually quite a long time since I bought any models from GW and my only purchases recently have been the mag and some of their paperbacks - I dont think I have been contributing much to their profits.

On the other hand I have bought quite a lot of Rackham\'s stuff - bags of character interesting poses and a challenge to paintin the models and a first rate magazine (even if the English is a bit esoterical some times).

Having said all that I wouldbe very sad if GW went belly up as I doubt if there wouldbe anything like the interest in minis that there is- would there be a CMON for instance? - Idoubt it!