Australia is one of the last global territories where online retailers are still able to sell Games Workshop products. But now, without telling anyone, the wargaming giant has moved to shut them out.

POSTED BY Tim Colwill AT 7:49 pm ON Tuesday, August 12th 2014 IN Wargaming
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 pretre wrote:
Wait, so this is an article about the 2011 change in T&C? A little slow on the draw...

 agnosto wrote:
This is new. GW is now targeting online retailers in Australia just as they successfully did in the US and Canada.

 pretre wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
This is new. GW is now targeting online retailers in Australia just as they successfully did in the US and Canada.

If, by new, you mean 'something that happened in 2011', yes.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
This is new. GW is now targeting online retailers in Australia just as they successfully did in the US and Canada.

If, by new, you mean 'something that happened in 2011', yes.

Honest question, have you actually read the article? This is new. GW filed for an application in May to prevent online sales of their products from retailers based in Australia. It has just gone through.

 Gallahad wrote:
Dude, check your face, do you have a 3 year beard? You might have just Rip VanWinkled and not even known it!
Welcome to the new golden age of miniatures in which the gaming masses buy into pipe dreams via a platform called Kickstarter in which companies take your money "only six months in advance because we are basically done with everything" and then proceed to string you out like a crack addict with infrequent updates trumpeting how everything is moving along as planned before finally announcing new "unforeseen delays" weeks before they are supposed to start shipping. Then, when your product finally does arrive 8 months late, you have the misfortune of realizing everything was cast in a type of plastic called "Premium Plastic, Restic, Hard Plastic, etc" which makes a mockery of your finest blades, refuses to stay glued, has crazy moldlines, and OH! they changed the scale on you in between waves.
Yes, you will learn to love the warm feeling of always having that big box of plastic this close to being delivered. At least, you think it is because that is what the last update four weeks ago said. Welcome to the future!!!!

 Grimtuff wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
This is new. GW is now targeting online retailers in Australia just as they successfully did in the US and Canada.

If, by new, you mean 'something that happened in 2011', yes.

Honest question, have you actually read the article? This is new. GW filed for an application in May to prevent online sales of their products from retailers based in Australia. It has just gone through.

 pretre wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
This is new. GW is now targeting online retailers in Australia just as they successfully did in the US and Canada.

If, by new, you mean 'something that happened in 2011', yes.

Honest question, have you actually read the article? This is new. GW filed for an application in May to prevent online sales of their products from retailers based in Australia. It has just gone through.

Yes, I read through it. They are applying the 2011 trade guidelines to Australia. Hence, this is something that happened in 2011. It sucks that it hit Australia too, but it is old news.

 Talizvar wrote:

 Gallahad wrote:
Dude, check your face, do you have a 3 year beard? You might have just Rip VanWinkled and not even known it!
Welcome to the new golden age of miniatures in which the gaming masses buy into pipe dreams via a platform called Kickstarter in which companies take your money "only six months in advance because we are basically done with everything" and then proceed to string you out like a crack addict with infrequent updates trumpeting how everything is moving along as planned before finally announcing new "unforeseen delays" weeks before they are supposed to start shipping. Then, when your product finally does arrive 8 months late, you have the misfortune of realizing everything was cast in a type of plastic called "Premium Plastic, Restic, Hard Plastic, etc" which makes a mockery of your finest blades, refuses to stay glued, has crazy moldlines, and OH! they changed the scale on you in between waves.
Yes, you will learn to love the warm feeling of always having that big box of plastic this close to being delivered. At least, you think it is because that is what the last update four weeks ago said. Welcome to the future!!!!

A Robotech Kickstarter customer I presume?

This is new. They filed this in May with the ACCC. It's old for US based gamers because they've been dealing with it since 2011. But, since Australia is not a state of the US, we did not have this limitation. No such change was made to the terms and conditions for Australian retailers.

 Kirasu wrote:

This is new. They filed this in May with the ACCC. It's old for US based gamers because they've been dealing with it since 2011. But, since Australia is not a state of the US, we did not have this limitation. No such change was made to the terms and conditions for Australian retailers.

If you were a state you probably wouldn't have to pay the crazy cost for GW products due to exchange rate!!

Toofast wrote:
They haven't already? From all the evidence I've seen, GW has already lost the majority of their customers down under.

 -Loki- wrote:

Toofast wrote:
They haven't already? From all the evidence I've seen, GW has already lost the majority of their customers down under.

Not unlikely. IIRC their Australian region sales were abysmal in the last report.

Kiwidru wrote:


perhaps this will be better recieved, since the daft are to lazy to click and read

 -Loki- wrote:
If anyone is interested, the ACCC asked for submissions from the public about GW's request. And they got them.

http://registers.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/1178319/fromItemId/776499/display/submission

The submissions are also public record if anyone wants to read them. One particularly great submission is by WarPuppy games.

WarPuppy Games wrote:
3. Has the proportion of GWOP sales or the mix of bricks and mortar versus distance selling of
GWOP products changed in recent years? If so, please explain how and to the extent possible,
why.

I have only stocked GWOP for approximately four years. The reason for this is that GWO had
previously denied me a trade account because I was a distance selling company.
I have observed two things in the time I’ve stocked GWOP. In the first two years I experienced a
steady increase in GWOP sales to a point where it constituted more than half my turnover. I believe
this is a result of:
a. GWOP being a new line and take up from existing customers;
b. Subsequent marketing and promotion of the new products;
c. Growth into the market share for this product range.

In the last two years I have however seen a significant drop in GWOP sales. I believe this is due to a
number of factors that have been developing over many years:

A. An increase in the number of companies producing miniature wargames globally, offering
more choice of genre, rules style, and price point. Examples of these are Privateer Press,
Battlefront Miniatures, Cipher Studios, Ninja Division, Avatars of War, Dark Age and Wyrd
Miniatures, to name a few. The entry price point of these games is generally much lower
than GWOP, and offer the opportunity for people to collect and play a number of miniatures
wargames on a limited disposable income.

B. Kickstarter and other crowd-funding campaigns are driving the introduction of new games at
a rate never before seen, and many people take advantage of being able to purchase directly
from the manufacturer with enticing deals being offered to support these campaigns.

C. (Although still a small player the,) Increased popularity of alternate, or substitute, miniatures
which are designed in styles and scale to match GWOP. These offer a player a high quality
alternative of adding unique and usually cheaper miniatures to their army, instead of relying
on the official GWOP. Whilst this will be a financial choice for some people, it is also a ‘social’
or ‘creative’ choice for many. The miniature wargaming hobby is inherently creative and
expressive as a result of its model building aspect, and these alternate lines offer valued
personalisation and individual expression for the collector and player.

D. Change in customer attitudes towards Games Workshop – I have been involved in the hobby
for 33 years and in that time personally established 2 wargaming clubs (Dominion Gold
Coast & Queensland Gamers Guild Inc Brisbane), President of a third (Brisbane Independent
Gamers Inc), organised the largest Queensland games convention (The BIG Weekend by
Queensland Gamers Guild Inc), organised the second largest GWOP annual tournament for 7
years (Ork-toberfest Brisbane), and I even ran tournaments for GWO Brisbane’s Games Day
event before it was made defunct. In addition to running a game/hobby business for the last
7 years with involvement in many trade shows and conventions. I feel that I am extremely
qualified to comment on community sentiment towards GW. I can say that over the last 10
years there have been growing dissatisfaction with GW especially among established
hobbyists, which I believe is due to a number of key factors:

a. Initially this was borne out of steady annual (sometime more frequent) price
increases across their entire range, which became a noticeable trend dating back
approximately 10 years.

b. An increase in the frequency of updating of rules books, which often completely
changed the rules and style of game play. This has most recently in the case of
Warhammer Fantasy Battle seen a massive exit of players from the game in Australia
in the last few years. Evidence by the Ork-toberfest tournament that once
consistently hosted 70 players for this game, now struggles to get 30. Our sales in
this line have mirrored this decline and by comparison earn me only 25% of the
turnover from Warhammer 40K. Similar occurrences have happened with
Warhammer 40K over the years. Sometimes players return to GWOP as new
versions of the rules are released that are more preferable to those individuals.
Mostly GW simple aims to recruit new players who have no experience of previous
editions of the game. In fact in many ways once GWO has recruited a person and
they become an established player they largely ignore them, failing to provide any
encouragement to remain an active hobbyist. I believe this why many people ‘exit
the hobby after a time’. Clubs and independent stores (of all sales distribution
models are the main driving force behind keeping people in the hobby long term).

c. A concerted and heavy handed effort to maintain market dominance through
various legal actions (many unsuccessful) and trade embargos where global regions
have been locked down, resulting in Australian customers unable to purchase from
cheaper overseas suppliers (including Games Workshop outlets overseas).

d. The massive disparity in Australian pricing structures compare to their overseas
counterparts. For example a novel produced by GW, Horus Heresy: The Primarchs,
holds a recommended retail price in Australia of AUD18.00 with a wholesale price to
me of AUD11.48. An Australian shopper can go onto bookdepository.com and
purchase that book, delivered to their door, for AUD10.59. There is literally no way
any Australia retailer can compete with that on price alone. This is a situation
directly created by GW own policies and business decisions, which drives the
sentiment of people about their business and product.

e. As a result of their draconian and inherently biased terms of trade:

i. GW makes it extremely difficult for resellers to maintain a ‘stockists
program’ account due to high entry and maintenance costs, an inflexible
demand to maintain stock of particular items that deny the retailer the
ability to flexibly display stock on the basis of local demand, and as is
currently the case for online stores, total refusal to allow them access to the
program.

ii. They also make it difficult to compete with GW themselves through the
following practices:

1. Limiting access to popular stock at time of release, and in the case of
distance selling business, further delaying their access date to those
products. This can only be seen to benefit GWO outlets and website
sales. I evidence this by the fact that I have been denied access to
stock in the past, which I was able to purchase direct from GWO via
their own website. Clearly stock was available but being withheld to
me as a trade account, for GWOs own direct benefit.

2. Maintaining a ‘direct-only’ range - approximately three-quarters of
the GW range and back catalogue is only available via GW’s own
website or as a special order-in item via their own outlets. They do
offer the back catalogue to other stores who are part of their
‘stockists program’ but at a significantly reduced margin, which
removes incentives for stores to stock them. GWOP refuses to
supply back catalogue items to online stores, as they are not
permitted to access the ‘stockists program’.

 -Loki- wrote:
If anyone is interested, the ACCC asked for submissions from the public about GW's request. And they got them.

http://registers.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/1178319/fromItemId/776499/display/submission

The submissions are also public record if anyone wants to read them. One particularly great submission is by WarPuppy games.