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@Kilkrazy.
Unfortunately as companies grow, the people that are best placed to grow the business,in the customer facing positions .Get less and less say in how the company is run.

IF GW corporate management listened to the store managers, and the studio staff, rather than finding the easiest way to make short term profits.GW plc would not be in such a poor state ATM.

When things go well the C.E.O/chairman pretends its all down to his amazing abilities to run the company.Where as it is usually down to the huge amount of dedication and work put in by the staff.

When things start to decline,its the staff that the C.E.O gets rid of , and the ones that dont hold the same view as the him are first to go.

Things are looking down still.

Since these things inevitably go back to price as a main issue, I just priced out what I've spent approximately on my Khador army for Warmachine. It came to approximately $600, give or take a bit. That gives me at the least two different 35 point armies (no overlap between them at all) and I could do close to two 50 point lists. That's not counting painting supplies or the like.

Last time I checked buying anything for 40k, I was at over half of that before I even hit 1,000 points (assuming I had the rules/codex already), so figure that $600 would be the equivalent of a 1,500 point 40k army with little or no variation.

It should be pointed out that GW had a cheap skirmish intro game- Lord of the Rings, which they have strangled by more than doubling the prices on new products, releasing only lacklustre new kits, and gradually halting support for what was a nice library of kits in their inventory.

I went to look at getting a Mamukil today and it was out of stock, for God's sake.

I would love to know the rationale behind the treatment of the Hobbit game, because it is a little bit mindblowing to see how badly it's been managed compared to the original game, which up until a few years ago was by far their best value for money option. And if you just want to play a game, it probably still is their best value option, strangely enough!

The company ethos has changed, so they're treating LOTR differently now than before their loss making years. They don't want just anyone to enjoy the Hobbit miniatures, they want the fanatics who will pay any price. They don't care about developing a local community of people who play the game, they just want a core group of collectors who will buy the miniatures at any price.

You can see it in the prices. Here, when the first movie launched, the plastic unit kits were $20. They had 24 miniatures in them. So that's ~.83 cents each. If you put that in today's dollars because of infaltion, they'd be ~1.07 each, with a box being 25.80. Right now the box is $29.75. Except... it contains half the amount of miniatures. So the cost per miniature is $2.48. Adjusted for inflation that would be 231% the price of when the kit was released.

One pricing model is to take advantage of the low marginal cost of each sprue when you make injection moulded plastic and is meant to get the product in the hands of as many people as possible. The other pricing money is meant to extract as much cash, at as low a cost to GW as possible, by only catering to a select few who are willing to pay more than double the original price even after adjusting for inflation.

GW doesn't want gamers. They want collectors who they can tell what to buy at what price. The hobbit as a game was a complete failure because it was never meant as a game, but as a vehicle to sell collectors miniatures. This holds for 40k and WFB as well. You can play the game, but it's real primary purpose is to sell people miniatures. To put the idea of collecting a whole army of them into people's heads.

I think the main cause of GW's decline into revenue and profit stagnation is their lack of appreciation for the network effect in miniature wargaming. The network effect is the idea that the more people that use a given product, the more useful it is to everyone. Like the more people that have email, the more useful it is as a communication tool. With gaming, the more people that play, the more potential opponents you have. The more people that paint, the more potential learning opportunities, painting competitions, etc.,. So when GW switches from a mass production pricing model meant to get their games into as many hands as possible (the 90s and first half of the 2000s) things change. Switching to a premium pricing model meant selling fewer products to fewer people at higher prices (more than double the price in the case of the Hobbit). This also creates less opportunities for the social nature of the hobby to work. Less games get played. Less painting and terrain making parties. Less painting competitions. There's just less of everything, because less sold at a higher price to the fewer number of people who would buy it at that price.

This also means less opportunity for word of mouth advertising (their only advertising). Sure, it saved them massive amount of money in terms of production staff, administration, shipping the product, to the point that they've closed their national offices, closed their US based production facility, etc.,. The switch in pricing model also drastically annoyed their existing customer base. People are going to be far less enthusiastic about buying new product when they're being charged twice as much (in real terms) as before. So they'll be less inclined to play the game, less inclined to paint it, less inclined to tell their friends about it. And it can even go so far as to create a volunteer sales force within your ex-customers who are out there actively steering people away from your products.

I agree with you about the network effect. In fact I would go further and say that GW have managed to turn the network effect on its head and create a large community of veterans who not only grumble about how terrible GW is nowadays, they also do their best to turn newcomers off GW games and onto alternatives.

 Da Boss wrote:
It should be pointed out that GW had a cheap skirmish intro game- Lord of the Rings, which they have strangled by more than doubling the prices on new products, releasing only lacklustre new kits, and gradually halting support for what was a nice library of kits in their inventory.

I went to look at getting a Mamukil today and it was out of stock, for God's sake.

I would love to know the rationale behind the treatment of the Hobbit game, because it is a little bit mindblowing to see how badly it's been managed compared to the original game, which up until a few years ago was by far their best value for money option. And if you just want to play a game, it probably still is their best value option, strangely enough!

Their thinking is fairly self-evident. Warped, counter-productive, moronic even, but not hard to discern. They have gleefully adopted the concept I call "phantom profit", that being the idea that every unit of currency which a particular action on the part of the company or customer could possibly be said to have cost the company, is treated as money which definitely has been lost. It's the same disease affecting the entertainment industry(initially just a bad idea, but once half-informed shareholders and corporate liability lawyers got it into their heads it's led us to modern DRM and copyright law, so yeah...).

To a company that believes in phantom profit, every sale of a less profitable thing is automatically equivalent to the non-sale of a more profitable thing. This is compounded in GW's case because thanks to their total lack of market research, products are considered by the company to be interchangeable in the minds of their customers, and so naturally if the customer buys Product A which has modest margins, they are not purchasing Product B which has higher margins. The conclusion reached at the end of the twisted chain of logic is either "we have to raise the price of Product A to make its margin equivalent with Product B" or "if we eliminate/devalue Product A, then they'll buy Product B instead and we'll make more money!".

The problem obviously is that fails to account for a lot of factors, eg:

- Products are not always interchangeable in the eyes of customers; if I like LotR, or Battlefleet Gothic, or Warmaster etc, I might well give exactly zero gaks about 40K and Fantasy, either because the background or the gameplay don't appeal. Eliminating/failing to support/jacking the prices on the stuff people preferred led to actual customers and sales lost.

- Intangible benefits can be as valuable to a company as outright profits. Lets say for the sake of argument we take the basic idea at face value; if a "core" product gamer buys into a "supplementary" product, that must necessarily result in them buying less core product, and since the margins are better on core product that results in less profit for the company. Even if that's true, you have to consider what other factors are at play; one of GW's biggest advantages as a company was the ubiquity of their games. Particularly in the UK, but to a fair extent until the last few years in Europe and the USA as well, if you wanted to play something other than historicals, you played GW games. Not because they were the only product on the market, they weren't, but because the combination of wide availability and simple peer dynamics made it the most sensible choice. The supplementary products, I contend, were a key part of maintaining that ubiquity; if a player became bored of a "core" game, or their circumstances changed and they had less time or money to devote to hobby projects, or they were never interested in the "core" offerings to begin with, there were multiple other options available to satisfy them; smaller model scale mass battle games, naval combat games, small model numbers campaign skirmish games, all in both fantasy and sci-fi flavours - every person who transitioned to one of those supplementary products had the potential to transition back to core products at a later time, every person who started out with the supplementary products had the potential to be lured into core purchases, and most importantly while people buying your supplementary products may potentially have been buying less core products they were still buying GW's products and so remained inside the GW ecosystem, exposed to GW "marketing" and acting as both recruiters for new customers and positive reinforcement for existing customers.

Now with LotR it's difficult to tell much beyond "GW priced a lot of people out and lost some number of customers as a result", because it's hard to figure out how many of the people who've stopped playing/buying LotR would have done so anyway once the films had slipped out of the public consciousness and stopped being "the thing" of the moment, but the Specialist Games are another matter given the fairly strong correlations between their decline and final eradication, and the rise in both numbers and success of competitors and GW's declining financials. GW evidently believed they could clear away all the "unproductive" parts of their customer base but still maintain their profit growth and perpetual dividend machine through a combination of cost-cutting and price rises, but I'd argue in ridding themselves of customers they perceived to be of lesser value they didn't consider or account for the knock-on effects - people who got bored of 40K who would previously have taken a break and collected a BFG fleet or Necromunda gang now pick up Deadzone or Dystopian Wars or Dropzone Commander, and once "the hobby" stops being all about GW a lot of those people will begin making small purchases for their 40K army from other companies, then larger purchases or just moving to other games entirely, or they'll become used to buying cheaper models and end up buying GW models from dodgy recasters rather than GW. That's been happening for long enough now, first in America but now even visible to an extent in the UK where GW have a branded store in just about every town with more than two houses, that they can't rely on that ubiquity any more. They're stuck in a negative feedback loop of their own creation; they drive away a portion of their customers, so with a reduced customer base people coming new into wargaming are incrementally less likely to be exposed to their products and feel GW are the only option, which means less customers, which lessens their ubiquity and makes the problem worse, which prompts them to try and clear out more "unproductive" customers, etc etc ad nauseum. Throw in the rise of the internet, the partial mainstreaming of "geek culture", platforms like Kickstarter, and GW management's blinkered attitude...yeah, not good.

EDIT: Man, I type too slow :(

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I agree with you about the network effect. In fact I would go further and say that GW have managed to turn the network effect on its head and create a large community of veterans who not only grumble about how terrible GW is nowadays, they also do their best to turn newcomers off GW games and onto alternatives.

Creating a volunteer anti-sales force is definitely something GW has done. They could have really leveraged the gaming community, had a dedicated volunteer coordinator and expanded programs like the Outriders/Grey Knights and Tech Priests. Instead they cut them all as well as all the volunteers keeping games like Bloodbowl alive. So not only do they not have any organized volunteering system where people run demos of their games and whatnot, they've created un unorganized volunteer corps that's actively sending people elsewhere. It's hilarious (and sad)

It's a rough time for an independent store when your sales with GW are dropping, but you still have lots of product on the shelves but the people who are coming to your organized play events are steering them to other products. Which is okay, because those products are often from a single distributor so the store has a better margin on them and more money diverted from GW onto them is better in the long run for their discount with the distributor, but what to do about the existing stock and managing the shrinking group of people buying it? Then the store starts struggling to hit minimum order sizes when there's not some sort of high demand pre-order and special orders get delayed and the whole process becomes a headache compared to just adding whatever you want to an order with a distributor.

 frozenwastes wrote:
This also means less opportunity for word of mouth advertising (their only advertising). Sure, it saved them massive amount of money in terms of production staff, administration, shipping the product, to the point that they've closed their national offices, closed their US based production facility, etc.,. The switch in pricing model also drastically annoyed their existing customer base. People are going to be far less enthusiastic about buying new product when they're being charged twice as much (in real terms) as before. So they'll be less inclined to play the game, less inclined to paint it, less inclined to tell their friends about it. And it can even go so far as to create a volunteer sales force within your ex-customers who are out there actively steering people away from your products.

This is, pretty much, how every gamer I know feels right now. GW's games were almost the only ones being played in my area, during the last two decades. Since last year, everyone is exploring new fields, mostly Infinity and Flames of War. Even FLGS managers encourage customers to try new games, and occasionally rant over GW (IIRC their policies for independent stores are not very friendly either). Me and my gaming group have spent the summer with a Dredd campaign, and last week we bought Dreadball, and everyone is preparing their respective teams for a league. We also pledged for the Kings of War kickstarter, which will arrive around July.

I haven't played a game of 40k in almost two months. It is hard to see my CSMs standing on a shelf. I have been playing GWs games since I was 9, and it is hard to accept what's happening nowadays with the game. But, as much as I love it, I realised I had no fun whatsoever during my last 10 games or so... I have lost my enthusiasm about it. But moving to other games has been refreshing, and I'm really excited about these new projects. Maybe all I needed was a change.

Sorry for going a little bit off topic, but I read that line and saw my gaming group reflected. This is no rant against GW, I am not selling my armies or dropping entirely the game. It's just parked for a while. I'm following every new release, and will be expecting futuer changes in new editions. As a gamer, I don't want GW to fall, and I don't think that's what most gamers want. I have the feeling we all know they have the potential to make GREAT games. They have done it in the past, let's hope they do it again in the future.

I think the hobbit game was more of a block move by GW. They really didn't want to continue the support of this game, even though LOTR made them money, but they didn't want to take the chance of someone else getting the license. Everyone knew the Perry's we're going to leave GW, they haven't worked on anything non LOTR in a long time and their own company was doing well as far as I know, so it was a way to keep them off the grid, and make sure they didn't wind up with the license. Could you imagine the results of that . The Percy's with rights to the Hobbit, we've seen the models already, but if they had done the pricing and gotten the profits plus the publicity that would have been another competitor that GW just couldn't have. So the result, GW keeps the license, ties up the Perry's, and squashes a possible competitor/range that could compete with them all in one blow. They ensure the game stifles by poor support, and does the bare minimum to keep the contract. It's a lose, lose, lose proposition which is an actual strategy in business. Look at how 7-11 became so big in the United states years ago. They would open three store up around one competing store and take a loss until that other store was bled dry and closed up, then they would close two of their stores and leave the one remaining store to grab all the cash. GW still thinks they are able to do this with their franchise and IP, and are trying to force out all other competition, but all it's doing is draining its own reserves as other systems are winning players over and gaining market share.

 Gallahad wrote:

Man, if even half that stuff is true that is pretty damning.

I can promise you, it's all true. I'm good friends with a guy who recently left GW and another who currently runs a store. They have both complained to me separately about all of those things. All the numbers both of them told me matched up.

 Toofast wrote:
4. Every store has the same target number to hit, $140,000 a year. A store in Hoover, AL population 80,000 people has the same goal as a store in LA where Robin Williams and Vin Diesel would walk in and buy up the whole store. This makes no sense and gives managers at large market stores a free pass while punishing managers of smaller market stores. Stores have different rent, overhead, and customer bases yet they're all expected to do the same $140k a year in sales. Calling this stupid and asinine would be putting it mildly.

But correcting this issue would require the research of markets. I'm sure there's a term for such a thing... market... studying? Regional... research? Whatever it's called, GW doesn't do that.

This might have been asked a few pages in, but are there similar charts for other table top games such as War Machine and FOW, etc. to show how those companies are performing at this time?

I'll have to echo those that say because of GW's current business practice in regards to pricing (40k in my case) has caused me to refrain from recommending the game to anyone. The game is just so expensive for what you get, and I cannot in good faith recommend that someone put forth such a heavy investment.

Honestly a major issue with GW's constant price increases is that no one can realistically just "try out" the game with an army of their choice. As has been iterated repeatedly, it's multiple hundreds of dollars for an operational force, not including dice, templates, codex(s), rulebook, and paint.

I'll admit, because of how expensive this is all getting I was honestly considering painting green army men to fill the ranks of my Imperial Guard forces...

 Cothonian wrote:
I'll have to echo those that say because of GW's current business practice in regards to pricing (40k in my case) has caused me to refrain from recommending the game to anyone. The game is just so expensive for what you get, and I cannot in good faith recommend that someone put forth such a heavy investment.

Honestly a major issue with GW's constant price increases is that no one can realistically just "try out" the game with an army of their choice. As has been iterated repeatedly, it's multiple hundreds of dollars for an operational force, not including dice, templates, codex(s), rulebook, and paint.

I'll admit, because of how expensive this is all getting I was honestly considering painting green army men to fill the ranks of my Imperial Guard forces...

I was tempted to do this as well back when I tried getting into the miniatures because I wanted a mostly-infantry IG army...I also even considered magnets for soldier limbs and equipment just to try and save money.

If they were cheap enough, I wouldn't even bother with that; if I need a flamethrower sometimes and a melta other times, I'd just buy two guys. But because they were so expensive, I was looking for any way to cut costs...then I realized the simplest way to save money was just not to bother at all :/

A way they could encourage more sales, on a related point, would be to go with the "What You See is What You Get" line of thinking in models, and actually have certain paint schemes for your armies indicate separate regiments/broods/etc with their own separate bonus rules that mean something, much like how the SM chapters work only applied to the rest of the game.

Out-of-Game, you'd either be incentivizing the purchase of additional minis to make separate colour-schemed armies, or the purchase of additonal paints for those who would rather repaint their existing models.

In-Game, it would make your opponent have something additional to consider "oh, they're using the Jormugand Brood", or "looks like they have a platoon of Ultramar Guard" and have it affect strategy/tactics.

Reading through the posts here I have to say that either my understanding of what a collector is off or GW's is. I myself see a collector as a person who buys a handful of models from a similar range, not 1500 / 2000pts worth!?! If I was a games manufacturer I'd not want my main market to be collectors, I'd want it to be gamers, people who want to be able to multiple armies to play with, not somebody who would just buy the odd solo model to paint or the odd squad. Or am I wrong in my understanding of the term?

 Wolfstan wrote:
Reading through the posts here I have to say that either my understanding of what a collector is off or GW's is. I myself see a collector as a person who buys a handful of models from a similar range, not 1500 / 2000pts worth!?! If I was a games manufacturer I'd not want my main market to be collectors, I'd want it to be gamers, people who want to be able to multiple armies to play with, not somebody who would just buy the odd solo model to paint or the odd squad. Or am I wrong in my understanding of the term?

GW expects the average customer to collect a force, like a specific company of marines or Imperial Guard, rather than individual models. I guess the company phrase 'hobbyist' (or cash cow) is more accurate.

It's true that GW acts like a firm in a collectors market rather than a game company. They cut costs in production (switch to plastic and centralization in Nottingham) and retail (one man stores) to maximize profit per item sold and aim to control the distribution of product to a greater degree (web exclusives and more constraints on independent retailers). In seventh edition they've replaced many older models with newer versions rather than adding new units. This is typically aimed at collectors who rate aesthetic more than rules. If the increased margin per product offsets the fall in demand the company will be better off.

During the early/mid 2000s GW soured on the gaming scene. Sales suffered due to competition with the second hand market and gamers tend to only buy newer and more powerful units. This is the period of power creep and codex bloat to induce players to buy new models and switch armies. Whether the refocus on collectors since sixth edition is going to work remains to be seen. Is the customer base large enough over time to sustain the company and will the investors accept a steady profit stream but with little opportunity for growth.

Mario wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
All that brings in to question what their customer base should be. Plus, I see no reason why they can't equally try and fleece new players as much as veteran players. It just seems illogical and counter intuitive to ignore an existing portion of your customer base.

It seems like they have fictional expectations of what their customer base should be but less of a clue who their actual customer base is in reality. They think a specific type of person buys their stuff and they are focused on selling their product to this type of person but in the end it doesn't add up to what they want it to be.

And that is quite literally what almost killed LEGO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
While it is quite correct to say that many aspects of running a business are complicated, especially across multiple territories with all the currency issues, cultural diffeerences (both broad and specific) and logistical challenges that presents, the nature of nearly all business can be reduced to the phrase:

"Find out what they want and give it to them."

Kirby has publicly stated they don't take any action with regard to the first half of that statement, and their falling revenue and profits suggests they aren't fulfilling the second

Couple that with that they appear to want word of mouth to be one of the primary drivers of new blood into buying their products, it would behoove GW to be seen to be doing good things by vets, whether they are still active customers or not, because having a positive attitude from your client base, whether they be active purchasers at this moment in time or not, has literally no downsides.

And the fact is that lots of new or prospective GW customers are going to be rubbing shoulders with GW vets at some point, whether it is at a club, FLGS, convention, or even in home play. They might even be rubbing shoulders with them just about every time they play.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smacks wrote:
I agree. I don't believe for a second that the market is saturated (which is a claim GW has made in the past). Products like washing machines and fridges struggle with market saturation, because who the hell wants a squad of washing machines? Most people don't have the space or the requirement to get more than one.

Miniatures are completely different. They are a hobby in themselves. People will keep buying them just for the fun of building and painting them.

People will keep buying them for the fun of imagining what they might do with them, and for the pleasure of collecting them. How many miniatures that have been purchased lie untouched in drawers, boxes, on shelves, etc. I myself have legions of miniatures that I will 'get to one day'. Deep down I know that a good portion of them will never get any tender love and care. But I like them, enjoy them, and continue to spend money on them.

I buy miniatures for their aesthetic value, I buy them because I think a game sounds cool, I buy them because I have a project planned. Miniatures are a hobby. How many woodworkers have fittings and wood laying around for projects they will 'get to one day'? Same with any hobby really. Even board games. How many gamers have purchased a new board game that has only ever been played...once...twice...never?

But I bet it has been unboxed, examined, admired, thumbed, and read through. I bet it is on the shelf for that special time when 5+ people are visiting and willing to put 3-4 hours into a game. Same with miniatures games. Gamers will continue to buy games...games that excite their imagination and that compete effectively with all of the other games out there on the market.

GW is not competing effectively. It says so much that a company holding multiple IP franchises that have so excited the imaginations of gamers can be offering such pitiful value as to be unable to compete effectively in the market. And I do understand that GW is selling lots of products and making plenty of profit. Those days are going to end if GW does not institute the type of fundamental changes that most indications suggest it is unwilling to implement.

I agree with a lot of what Yodhrin wrote.

The prices aren't just a barrier to entry, they are a barrier to interest. GW seems to want these 'collectors' who are willing to pay special edition prices for everything. Yet they aren't willing to nurture people's interest in beginning collections in the first place.

When I was young GW had games like Hero Quest on sale in big toy stores. Regular kids were getting those games for Christmas and being introduced to the hobby through them. I imagine a lot of people who are 'collectors' now, started their collections in exactly that way. But as the escalating prices push more and more of those people away, they simple aren't being replaced. So it is no surprise sales are dropping.

If GW management are out of touch with gamers then they are in a completely different universe to non-gamers. I remember a few years ago, my (then) flat-mate taking an interest in my Space Marines, he was genuinely excited and talked about how he'd like to get some and maybe we could have some games -- then he found out how much they cost (about £18 for a tac squad then). Jaw drop and expletives followed, and then he looked at me like I was an idiot. Because, honestly, who other than an idiot would pay such vast amounts of money for plastic soldiers. I don't think this is an uncommon response. I've seen parents literally dragging their kids out of GW at a run when they see how much things cost. And so another potential customer, or future collector is lost to the world.

weeble1000 wrote:

Mario wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
All that brings in to question what their customer base should be. Plus, I see no reason why they can't equally try and fleece new players as much as veteran players. It just seems illogical and counter intuitive to ignore an existing portion of your customer base.

It seems like they have fictional expectations of what their customer base should be but less of a clue who their actual customer base is in reality. They think a specific type of person buys their stuff and they are focused on selling their product to this type of person but in the end it doesn't add up to what they want it to be.

And that is quite literally what almost killed LEGO.

LEGO is ridiculously expensive, and a terrible value relative to any alternative. And yet, at least in my area, it is freaking impossible to buy the sets that my nephews and such want as Christmas presents unless you buy them like, 4 months in advance.

I spent a few hundred dollars on 3 LEGO gifts this year. The one Imperial Destroyer I bought literally costs more than a Titan-sized model. A Death Star is more expensive than 95% of forge world models ($500+). I mean, FFS, 40k is cheap compared to LEGO lol lol.

Talys wrote:
LEGO is ridiculously expensive, and a terrible value relative to any alternative. And yet, at least in my area, it is freaking impossible to buy the sets that my nephews and such want as Christmas presents unless you buy them like, 4 months in advance.

I spent a few hundred dollars on 3 LEGO gifts this year. The one Imperial Destroyer I bought literally costs more than a Titan-sized model. A Death Star is more expensive than 95% of forge world models ($500+). I mean, FFS, 40k is cheap compared to LEGO lol lol.

He wasn't talking about price.

Lego lost track of who their customers were and what they wanted for a while there, and it nearly broke them. The issue was never about price, though, it was about offering product that the people who were actually buying their product wanted to buy.

If you compare LEGO with GW you need to explain why LEGO despite being ridiculously expensive and rubbish is a highly successful company while GW is a company that every year needs to pull a new explanation out of its butt for why its sales and profits have declined due to extraordinary circumstances that did not affect LEGO this year.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If you compare LEGO with GW you need to explain why LEGO despite being ridiculously expensive and rubbish is a highly successful company while GW is a company that every year needs to pull a new explanation out of its butt for why its sales and profits have declined due to extraordinary circumstances that did not affect LEGO this year.

Lego are stealing all of GW's customers?

Probably because lego doesn't have an insane start up cost and can be found in nearly every toy store, not to mention has the reputation of making kids more intelligent.

Plus lego doesn't give half its customers the finger because they aren't using them right and are on a continuing campaign to sully what little is left of that experience.

It boils down to GW has to compete for our disposable income across more streams than it ever had before.
It just is not shiny enough in the new hotness to have much of a chance.

Tablets and phones consume product a dollar at a time convenient and immediate.
Kickstarters are allowing us to spend money on what we want to see hit the shelves.
Steam has a multitude of sales for all manner of games that the iStore has not provided.
X-box and Playstation have an online store as well to download whatever you want on the console.
Same applies for my kids 3DS portable games.
Netflix has created "binge watching" as a phenomenon, not much time to put models together when you have 5 seasons of show to catch-up on.
Really well made board games and table-top games have come out to allow an almost immediate ability to play: a good draw for those not talented enough or patient enough to spend the time.

This list is mainly my own personal excuse of why I am not spending dollars to keep GW in the black, having so much money tied up in models I do not use much is the main motivation for feeling guilty about not playing. I should be driven towards being excited to play which has not been the case lately.

Too many other things bring me that joy that GW seems to have fallen behind the times in doing.

Looking back at the veteran "anti-marketers" I can see why it happens: GW was capable in the past to bring out that gaming joy easily, there is a sense of betrayal when the old "go-to" just does not scratch that itch anymore.

Look, the LEGO example, as insaniak explained, was both precisely on point and very limited to the issue of market research.

LEGO had, for a long time, foregone market research because the company assumed it knew who its customers were and what they wanted. For example, LEGO had never tried to produce products that appealed to girls.

The company was in serious financial trouble and, long story short, they brought in outside management. The first thing said management did was to engage in comprehensive market research.

The results were staggering in that they were largely at odds with what the company had so long presumed it knew about its customers. Fast forward to today, and LEGO is once again a very successful company that is not on the brink of bankruptcy.

There's a movie about it and everything.

The LEGO example simply illustrates how a large, established, successful company can lose touch with its customers if it does not put any effort into actually trying to figure out what its customers, and potential customers, really want.

That is exactly where GW is right now, and you don't have to take the comparison any further than that.

 insaniak wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If you compare LEGO with GW you need to explain why LEGO despite being ridiculously expensive and rubbish is a highly successful company while GW is a company that every year needs to pull a new explanation out of its butt for why its sales and profits have declined due to extraordinary circumstances that did not affect LEGO this year.

Lego are stealing all of GW's customers?

My brother and law and I were thinking of starting up Mordheim. All my terrain is scifi, so we were thinking of how to make tons of quick fantasy terrain that's easily changeable. Then I thought "Let's play LegoMordheim instead!", I have all mine from my childhood, all my brothers and all the sets we've bought my son over the last nine years . So yes Lego is stealing GW customers, because I dont want to buy a regiment of skaven to make a skaven group. I'll have to figure out how to make skaven minifigs, but will still be cheaper. Now if GW didn't piss on specialist games I'd be building newmordheim warbands and necromunda gangs left and right.

 Talizvar wrote:


Too many other things bring me that joy that GW seems to have fallen behind the times in doing.

Looking back at the veteran "anti-marketers" I can see why it happens: GW was capable in the past to bring out that gaming joy easily, there is a sense of betrayal when the old "go-to" just does not scratch that itch anymore.

Exactly.

I worked for GW, it doesn't take much to get people excited and spend a few hundred dollars without a single sales pitch. GW just started acting like a sleazy used car salesmen where its not lying, but telling you "sort of" truth. Essentially GW eroded the trust it had with people and became a Saturday morning cartoon villain, with each week revealing a new dastardly plan to attempt to steal your money in an underhanded way and make the game less enjoyable. It wears on people, its a toxic relationship and there is only so much people can stand of that before they find something that appreciates them.

 insaniak wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If you compare LEGO with GW you need to explain why LEGO despite being ridiculously expensive and rubbish is a highly successful company while GW is a company that every year needs to pull a new explanation out of its butt for why its sales and profits have declined due to extraordinary circumstances that did not affect LEGO this year.

Lego are stealing all of GW's customers?

For GW's Hobbit and LOTR customers, yes. There are several members in the Great British Hobbit League on facebook who are dedicated collectors of The Hobbit Lego (one particular guy made a huge Lego Helms Deep diorama).

 Ravenous D wrote:
Essentially GW eroded the trust it had with people and became a Saturday morning cartoon villain, with each week revealing a new dastardly plan to attempt to steal your money in an underhanded way and make the game less enjoyable. It wears on people, its a toxic relationship and there is only so much people can stand of that before they find something that appreciates them.

I would not be quite that harsh but it is rather funny to envision.

I think we are used to a certain standard of customer service and have seen the multitude of scammy attempts at getting our money by others.
So when we face the GW store or the online store we think "Oh please!" and walk away without a passing thought.

I usually liked to try and complete my army even if it is just a new look of a similar performing model.
The speed of release and writing in/out of models has made me not care anymore for some reason.
My armies play OK with a bit of tweaking (or downright nasty with a bit of thought) but I am drawn more into getting a game of X-wing in.

GW will continue to fail as long as people like me find nothing they have to offer to care about compared to other product.