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PhantomViper wrote:

PP's conversion rules have always been much more restrictive than GW's and this latest set of restrictions has nothing to do with fear of being sued by GW, but it does have everything to do with fear of being sued by Disney.

The new policy came shortly after a Legion Harrier with a Tyranid undercarriage and wings was disallowed on Adepticon with the reason given it had too recognizable GW parts (which it did, it didn't look like a Harrier at all). So while it also of course covers Disney (and FC Barcelona for that matter) it seems it was primarily intended to cover against that there ole' Lawhammer.

Kaptajn Congoboy wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

PP's conversion rules have always been much more restrictive than GW's and this latest set of restrictions has nothing to do with fear of being sued by GW, but it does have everything to do with fear of being sued by Disney.

The new policy came shortly after a Legion Harrier with a Tyranid undercarriage and wings was disallowed on Adepticon with the reason given it had too recognizable GW parts (which it did, it didn't look like a Harrier at all). So while it also of course covers Disney (and FC Barcelona for that matter) it seems it was primarily intended to cover against that there ole' Lawhammer.

I thought it was due to the acquisition of Marvel by Disney, but I stand corrected then.

 Coldhatred wrote:
.

Not really disputing anything you've said, but I'm sure there we many people who thought the same thing about Games Workshop back in the day.

Indeed there were, we never ever imagined a games day with no actual games to play though !

Why not? The company is called 'Games Workshop', and hasn't created a new game (with the exception of Dreadfleet) in many years.

Prices aside(which need to be more comepetitive) its not the minatures but the #1 problem is the game development. Creating rules that are designed to make players buy more minatures at the cost of game quality is the problem gw has.

GW needs to omni-channel-ize their organization. With the rest of the world moving that way, GW needs to do the same in order to streamline. Basically (if you don't know what omni-channel is) they need to create a universal standardized supply chain. So I could go to the store, website, or app (ding ding) and order a product. The system automatically finds where that product is closest and cheapest to ship to my store or home. At the same time, they need to really fix their store incentives. I love my local GW shop (it's less than a mile from my house) but I never buy anything there. Most of the stuff I need they don't carry in house (IE Beastmen, Nightlords) so if I order it it takes a week to get there because they're closed on mon/tues. Why would I possibly pay retail for most items and wait that long when I could pay less at most online retailers and get them quicker? I honestly don't ever feel bad when I walk into my GW with something and my GW rep asks where I got it. I once had one at my old GW get mad at me when I purchased 3 Imperial Knights off ebay, claiming that was commission his store could have made. Told him it wasn't my problem, take that up with corporate. I filed a complaint against him (that being a common problem with him among other things) he was fired so I have to assume others did too. I think a lot of fans want to work at GW shops thinking it will be awesome to sit and paint all day but have no idea how to run a shop.

PhantomViper wrote:


PP's conversion rules have always been much more restrictive than GW's and this latest set of restrictions has nothing to do with fear of being sued by GW, but it does have everything to do with fear of being sued by Disney.

Why would they worry about Disney? I don't get it? Can you please explain?

Davor wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:


PP's conversion rules have always been much more restrictive than GW's and this latest set of restrictions has nothing to do with fear of being sued by GW, but it does have everything to do with fear of being sued by Disney.

Why would they worry about Disney? I don't get it? Can you please explain?

Because the mouse goes after everyone. They make GW look tame.

In what way though Grimtuff? What does PP have to fear about Disney? They don't have any "ears" on their product and from what I see, I don't see anything remotely to Disney in their product.

What can Disney sue PP over for?

 Coldhatred wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

Davor wrote:
LOL so Privateer Press is finally going down the Games Workshop slope now eh?

Personally, I thought that when they first showed up...

In some ways, PP has moved in that direction. For example, when the game first came out, a typical game consisted of less than 20 models. For a Khador army, it might have had fewer than 10. Games today consist of significantly more models, even in smaller formats.

However, I feel it is very unlikely that PP will ever abandon their attention to the quality of their rules or their engagement with their customer base.

Not really disputing anything you've said, but I'm sure there we many people who thought the same thing about Games Workshop back in the day.

Haha...having played since Rogue Trader, GW rules always kind of sucked. They might have been cool or interesting, but they always had wonky interactions that required the players to figure out how to handle it mid-game.

It's just always been an idiosyncrasy of GW; they've never thought that quality rules matter that much.

I can remember when Avalon Hill went under. I remember several of our gaming group hoping that GW would hire some of the rules writers from there to write GW rules. Sure, the rules wouldn't be as interesting to read, since they'd have almost all been written in outline form rather than paragraph form, but there would have been a lot less room for misinterpretation.

Davor wrote:
In what way though Grimtuff? What does PP have to fear about Disney? They don't have any "ears" on their product and from what I see, I don't see anything remotely to Disney in their product.

What can Disney sue PP over for?

I think it would be if people made like a marvel-themed army or something.

The way they presented the new conversion rules on the forums was basically that they stream some games and they didn't want to have a heavily converted army using parts from someone else (e.g. GW) appearing all over Twitch and Youtube as it might cause them problems.

Thank you WayneTheGame. Now I understand why can happen.

So what could happen if someone made say a paint scheme in Iron Man, or Spiderman? PP can't be sued if someone made it. Is the idea that PP wouldn't be able to publish that art because that could be considered advertising for PP?

At least now I understand.

Davor wrote:
Thank you WayneTheGame. Now I understand why can happen.

So what could happen if someone made say a paint scheme in Iron Man, or Spiderman? PP can't be sued if someone made it. Is the idea that PP wouldn't be able to publish that art because that could be considered advertising for PP?

At least now I understand.

First, I Am Not a Lawyer, so just my viewpoints. I'm not quite sure honestly. I mean, when they announced the conversion rules it was pretty much implied they were referring specifically to using GW parts in conversions, although they never outright said that and made some broad statements about others copyrights, but it was pretty clear they meant GW (IMO anyways). I never got the impression it was about anyone other than GW.

Saldiven wrote:

 Coldhatred wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

 Vermis wrote:

Davor wrote:
LOL so Privateer Press is finally going down the Games Workshop slope now eh?

Personally, I thought that when they first showed up...

In some ways, PP has moved in that direction. For example, when the game first came out, a typical game consisted of less than 20 models. For a Khador army, it might have had fewer than 10. Games today consist of significantly more models, even in smaller formats.

However, I feel it is very unlikely that PP will ever abandon their attention to the quality of their rules or their engagement with their customer base.

Not really disputing anything you've said, but I'm sure there we many people who thought the same thing about Games Workshop back in the day.

Haha...having played since Rogue Trader, GW rules always kind of sucked. They might have been cool or interesting, but they always had wonky interactions that required the players to figure out how to handle it mid-game.

It's just always been an idiosyncrasy of GW; they've never thought that quality rules matter that much.

I can remember when Avalon Hill went under. I remember several of our gaming group hoping that GW would hire some of the rules writers from there to write GW rules. Sure, the rules wouldn't be as interesting to read, since they'd have almost all been written in outline form rather than paragraph form, but there would have been a lot less room for misinterpretation.

I've always equated GW to British cars...definitely stylish and a little quirky, but in the shop more than you'd like.

WayneTheGame wrote:

Davor wrote:
Thank you WayneTheGame. Now I understand why can happen.

So what could happen if someone made say a paint scheme in Iron Man, or Spiderman? PP can't be sued if someone made it. Is the idea that PP wouldn't be able to publish that art because that could be considered advertising for PP?

At least now I understand.

First, I Am Not a Lawyer, so just my viewpoints. I'm not quite sure honestly. I mean, when they announced the conversion rules it was pretty much implied they were referring specifically to using GW parts in conversions, although they never outright said that and made some broad statements about others copyrights, but it was pretty clear they meant GW (IMO anyways). I never got the impression it was about anyone other than GW.

Boils down to:

*Why do we sponsor events, and appearance contests? To advertise our product in the best possible light.
*What do we do when we have official events? Take lots of pictures to show customers what they can get from our company and our game.
*What happens if you have models with other companies parts, or other companies IP? Pictures which you don't want to use to advertise your own product.
*What happens when the 'best painted/appearance' army or 'best overall/General' army is a total conversion army based upon other companies models or IP? You can't share pictures of the winners for your event you spent a ton of time and effort sponsoring and have basically nullified your social media presence and intent for the event to even exist.

It basically makes the event into a landmine of 'don't get those models in any images', and prevents the 'Woooooooooooow, this game is so cool! I want that model... what? what do you mean PP doesn't make that model? oh buy from someone else?'

Long and the short of it, officially sponsored events means all the participants are functioning as corporate shills and free advertising if you like it or not. Take the King's coin, do the King's bidding. Besides fearing the mouse if you make a marvel-themed paint job, there is the simple 'our goal is to promote our companies models' so it is not unreasonable to expect models to not be other companies stuff in official events with prize support and such.

nkelsch wrote:


Boils down to:

*Why do we sponsor events, and appearance contests? To advertise our product in the best possible light.
*What do we do when we have official events? Take lots of pictures to show customers what they can get from our company and our game.
*What happens if you have models with other companies parts, or other companies IP? Pictures which you don't want to use to advertise your own product.
*What happens when the 'best painted/appearance' army or 'best overall/General' army is a total conversion army based upon other companies models or IP? You can't share pictures of the winners for your event you spent a ton of time and effort sponsoring and have basically nullified your social media presence and intent for the event to even exist.

It basically makes the event into a landmine of 'don't get those models in any images', and prevents the 'Woooooooooooow, this game is so cool! I want that model... what? what do you mean PP doesn't make that model? oh buy from someone else?'

Long and the short of it, officially sponsored events means all the participants are functioning as corporate shills and free advertising if you like it or not. Take the King's coin, do the King's bidding. Besides fearing the mouse if you make a marvel-themed paint job, there is the simple 'our goal is to promote our companies models' so it is not unreasonable to expect models to not be other companies stuff in official events with prize support and such.

Great explanation. I never even thought of that. Now it really makes sense and there is no ulterior motives or anything sinister about it at all.

 Pacific wrote:
Why not? The company is called 'Games Workshop', and hasn't created a new game (with the exception of Dreadfleet) in many years.

Non one guessed this back in the day though, as i was referring to.
They were going from strength to strength for a long while.

Being sorta new the game...well stop raking customers with crazy prices, the price of a vehicle fig is equal to the price of one months worth of gas(petrol to you brits)...last i looked the figs are not sprinkled in gold nor do they drive themselves around. two: prices, if you want a game to continue to boom then make it affordable, plastic is not a rare material..price is a big big turn off to anything games workshop makes, yes its imported in my neck of the woods but sometimes quantity overules quality as far as commerce, theres a zillion other cheaper games, prices drive consumers nowadays with the world being broke. Third: throw a bone to the merchants, dicking people that want to sell your product is no way to create a legacy at all or create profits, the nearest games workshop retailer from me is 2 hours away otherwise i find myself picking the bones of the left overs at a few local stores...as a consumer i should be able to walk in to a store within reasonable distance and find what i need, not go on a deep woods boondoggle across the lands to find what i want...this isen't the dark ages, hell the 40k scene around here has been ground out to a handful of players because there is no bloodflow because merchants have to be shackled and chained to even carry anything labeled as a games workshop product. Fourth: f^ckin support merchants and players, give incentives to carry and sell your product, give players incentive to show up and play...i love the game and the fluff but i feel like games workshop is living in this 80s xenophobic stage where they think that one store in a 500 miles radius with prices higher then oil will save the day


end of rant...

A month worth of gas? You must work across the street and never go anywhere else. I spend $100 a week on gas and barely go anywhere but work. I drive a 4 cylinder in Alabama where gas is $2.15 a gallon. Yes the prices are high but I think 90% of working Americans with a car spend far more than 40k vehicle price per month on gas.

I watched the short documentary about Lego today and I couldn't believe all the parallels. What did Lego do to turn things around?
- Get back to their core of making stuff that people want
- Do MARKET RESEARCH to find out what people want, because when you tell the market what it wants and lose 10-20% of your revenue from one year to the next, obviously the market isn't listening to you and it's time for you to listen to the market!
- Know your demographic. Lego thought that girls didn't like building things. Then MARKET RESEARCH showed them girls would build lego sets if lego did a better job of offering products that appealed to them.
- Fill gaps in their product based on MARKET RESEARCH. If you have humvees, tanks and battleships, and the military lego collectors want A-10s and F-22s, you make some freaking military plane kits to round out the product line.
- Engage with customers through social media.
- Host lego events where people can showcase their creativity by making things with Legos that aren't sold as kits. When someone really impresses them, offer that guy a job.

What has GW done?
- Proudly exclaim to their shareholders and customers that market research is otiose in a niche market.
- State their demographic without any market research to actually back up what they think their demographic is.
- Throw a bunch of ideas out there and see what sticks. You could've asked 1000 long time players, I doubt a single one would list close combat dreads and Logan Clause on a stupid sleigh pulled by wolves as holes in their product line.
- Run away from social media.
- Discourage conversion at events and then turn them into a 2 day giant GW store.

Lego's big turnaround came when they hired a new CEO and said "our way isn't working, let's try things your way". If GW hires the right person and has this attitude, they could turn the company around and be more profitable than ever before. If they hire the wrong person, don't give him any freedom to make changes or a combination of the two, it could go very badly.

Toofast wrote:
A month worth of gas? You must work across the street and never go anywhere else. I spend $100 a week on gas and barely go anywhere but work. I drive a 4 cylinder in Alabama where gas is $2.15 a gallon. Yes the prices are high but I think 90% of working Americans with a car spend far more than 40k vehicle price per month on gas.

I watched the short documentary about Lego today and I couldn't believe all the parallels. What did Lego do to turn things around?

I would love to see that documentary, if you could link it (assuming you watched it someplace like Youtube or something).

To the point of prices here's a fairly good example, in my mind of what is wrong with GW's prices:

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Space-Marine-Rhino

This is the US page for the Space Marine Rhino, listed at somewhere between 35 and 40 dollars (I almost forgot the rules about posting actual prices )

http://www.tamiyausa.com/items/plastic-model-series-20/1-48-scale-military-miniatures-10500/german-tiger-i-late-production-32575

That link goes to Tamiya's US page, and is of a German Tiger I, late production tank. It is 1/48 scale (useful for 1/48 aircraft dioramas, and conveniently a fairly appropriate size for a 40k game), and is listed with an MSRP of $38.


My point is that, if you look at the "quality" and detail contents, if you put the two, side by side and asked someone who'd never been exposed to ANY sort of plastic models before how much they thought each vehicle sold for, the GW one would be much, MUCH cheaper than the German tank. You certainly lose some details in the guy sitting in the cupola of the German tank, compared to a figure sticking out of a GW tank, but the rest of the model is almost barren of details (leaving realism aside here)

It's on Netflix, just search lego and scroll through all the dumb kids movies. It's only 21 minutes so it's a quick watch but replace "lego" with GW and "bricks" with plastic models and it's basically a story of what GW could do(but probably wont) to turn things around.

 Rayvon wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Why not? The company is called 'Games Workshop', and hasn't created a new game (with the exception of Dreadfleet) in many years.

Non one guessed this back in the day though, as i was referring to.
They were going from strength to strength for a long while.

Yes exactly - it was the perfect description back in the 90's, when there were so many different games available and new ideas being launched all of the time.

Now it is something of an ironic reminder of the company's past.

 Pacific wrote:

 Rayvon wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Why not? The company is called 'Games Workshop', and hasn't created a new game (with the exception of Dreadfleet) in many years.

Non one guessed this back in the day though, as i was referring to.
They were going from strength to strength for a long while.

Yes exactly - it was the perfect description back in the 90's, when there were so many different games available and new ideas being launched all of the time.

Now it is something of an ironic reminder of the company's past.

Yea and quite a sad one too if you think about what could have been.

There are plenty of these customers that they bang on about all the time as well, the ones that only buy miniatures and don't play any games, but most are in that position because they have been put there with the removal of the specialist games.

Bringing back some more games would do wonders for them I think.

I think GW could disclose their production pipeline and costs. Tabletop gaming is a niche market, that much I have to admit. I assume it is a hard job offering what they offer over 25 years, in that time many systems an companies came and closed. If they showed that is is costly to model things, that the material is x% of the price, that marketing and the shops take x% then maybe it would be easier to accept the prices and the problems. After all I prefer a price increase to having the game discontinued.

But somehow I'm afraid that they don't do it because their margin is not that bad... It's about investors, and not about creating games for the players and earning some money with it as well. So I guess they would need to shift the balance a bit in that direction and show it to the players. They have done so much to piss us off... establishing themselves as a partner of players would be a loooong way I guess.

Toofast wrote:

What has GW done?
- Throw a bunch of ideas out there and see what sticks. You could've asked 1000 long time players, I doubt a single one would list close combat dreads and Logan Clause on a stupid sleigh pulled by wolves as holes in their product line.

After some years in the video game industry I have to say that doesn't work in most cases. Players are not always the best people to ask about how to improve a game. E.g. if you ask 1000 players of some MMORPG if everyone should receive a free top tier sword or a lot of gold the majority will answer yes. If this was a majority decision you might ruin your game economy. Sometimes you need someone impartial to design this - and this could mean that he may not be too involved in the game. In terms of GW this could mean that 60% of all players play Space Marines and would appreciate if SM got some more love and power. Still that might be exactly the wrong thing. Many people would only realise that it is not much fun to be overpowered until after they won 99 out of 100 games and nobody wants to play them anymore.

 Murenius wrote:
I think GW could disclose their production pipeline and costs. Tabletop gaming is a niche market, that much I have to admit. I assume it is a hard job offering what they offer over 25 years, in that time many systems an companies came and closed. If they showed that is is costly to model things, that the material is x% of the price, that marketing and the shops take x% then maybe it would be easier to accept the prices and the problems. After all I prefer a price increase to having the game discontinued.

But somehow I'm afraid that they don't do it because their margin is not that bad... It's about investors, and not about creating games for the players and earning some money with it as well. So I guess they would need to shift the balance a bit in that direction and show it to the players. They have done so much to piss us off... establishing themselves as a partner of players would be a loooong way I guess.

That is all in the annual reports. Cost of manufacture is pretty low as a percentage of RRP (<20%), and most of the cost is in the stores.

Herzlos wrote:


That is all in the annual reports. Cost of manufacture is pretty low as a percentage of RRP (<20%), and most of the cost is in the stores.

Thanks, I will have a look at that. The big question is then: if they stopped having the stores, could they still maintain a customer base big enough to support such a model range and all the other stuff? How many people play because of the stores, how many would stop if they couldn't go to one?

I, for one, always hated playing with the people in the stores and almost entirely play with friends, aquaintances and their friends.

 Murenius wrote:

Herzlos wrote:


That is all in the annual reports. Cost of manufacture is pretty low as a percentage of RRP (<20%), and most of the cost is in the stores.

Thanks, I will have a look at that. The big question is then: if they stopped having the stores, could they still maintain a customer base big enough to support such a model range and all the other stuff? How many people play because of the stores, how many would stop if they couldn't go to one?

I, for one, always hated playing with the people in the stores and almost entirely play with friends, aquaintances and their friends.

Outside of Great Britain, I get the feeling that a relative minority of players solely shop and/or play at GW stores.

However, significantly reducing or eliminating entirely their retail branch network is something I don't think they have the intestinal fortitude to even consider. It would involve a lot of backtracking on the way they've engaged the customer base and the independent retailer over the last decade. The short term negative impact on their bottom line from such a move is something that GW would have a hard time to survive.

 Murenius wrote:

Herzlos wrote:


That is all in the annual reports. Cost of manufacture is pretty low as a percentage of RRP (<20%), and most of the cost is in the stores.

Thanks, I will have a look at that. The big question is then: if they stopped having the stores, could they still maintain a customer base big enough to support such a model range and all the other stuff? How many people play because of the stores, how many would stop if they couldn't go to one?

I, for one, always hated playing with the people in the stores and almost entirely play with friends, aquaintances and their friends.

I think they could. The stores are really only a big thing in the UK; they are too scattered in the US and I would assume Canada, Europe and Australia. Most games in the US (and I would assume elsewhere) take place in independent game stores, not in a GW store because often there are established independent game stores. In my state (Florida) for example I think there's only 1 GW store in the entire state, but dozens of independent stores all over in most metro areas. So I think they're keeping the stores out of this delusional idea that the GW store is the "hub" of gameplay all over the world, when it really isn't.

I think they could comfortably drop half of the gw stores in the uk too. It's probably the only way they can remain profitable

GW's Cost of Goods is about 29% in the latest financial statement, about 25-26% in various previous years' statements.