After reading through yet another "X faction rumor thread" I'm walking away baffled. Why the heck doesn't GW just come out and say what the heck they're working on... I can think of no other company that is so secretive about what's in the pipeline when it comes to releases.

When it comes to a release schedules, video game manufacturers, movie studios, other mini manufacturers, pretty much any other entertainment product I buy, the manufacturer lets the customer know what's coming out far before its release date. I'm curious why do you think GW tends to buck this trend? Why do they keep their future release schedule so secretive?

The ONLY reason I can think of is that the secrecy prevents customers from delaying purchases until new models are released. If true, this is a pretty S&%$^ reason, I'd be pissed if I dropped cash on a new army and two months later the rules and models for it were completely redone!

econtutor wrote:After reading through yet another "X faction rumor thread" I'm walking away baffled. Why the heck doesn't GW just come out and say what the heck they're working on... I can think of no other company that is so secretive about what's in the pipeline when it comes to releases.

When it comes to a release schedules, video game manufacturers, movie studios, other mini manufacturers, pretty much any other entertainment product I buy, the manufacturer lets the customer know what's coming out far before its release date. I'm curious why do you think GW tends to buck this trend? Why do they keep their future release schedule so secretive?

Video game companies and movie studios have no real choice in the matter. There's far too many people involved in the process for them to keep it quiet without killing off employees left and right.

'Other mini manufacturers' don't necessarily tell you what they're doing, but tease you a bit with it. Many of them just show you WIP stuff and just tell you they'll be out "sometime". If something changes between then and the release--people whine. It's easier to keep people in the dark and just deal with whatever happens with the release.

The ONLY reason I can think of is that the secrecy prevents customers from delaying purchases until new models are released. If true, this is a pretty S&%$^ reason, I'd be pissed if I dropped cash on a new army and two months later the rules and models for it were completely redone!

And by that same vein: GW would have craploads of unsold stock sitting on the shelves of their stores and the independent retailers who buy from them because someone was told that they can "get new models in a few months".

They also effectively don't make 'promises' they can't keep, by setting release dates(or even approximations of release dates), that fans will point to and cry about if something's missed.

Look at Duke Nukem Forever for an example of that.

They can't really 'recycle' the materials their stuff is made from, at least not efficiently.

As much as I would love to know the actual reason, I do believe it is partly motivated by the delayed purchase issue. I agree that it is a crap reason as well.

I think that another reason for it could be that they are still not financially secure enough to commit to producing items they currently have ready to go. So if they stated that this item was coming on this date and finances prevented it...?

This is pure speculation on my part, but I am sure it is as good as anything else you are going to hear.

It's all about marketing. If you knew say, blood angels were coming out after space wolves, would you buy space wolves or wait for blood angels?

Also they use hype to help spur purchases, see anything "Grey Knight" related atm.

GW does let you know what's in the works. I'm convinced 90% or so of these "rumors" are just viral marketing by GW.

Anyone who cared to has know about GK for months and months now. And, we're fully aware that SoB and Necrons are in the pipeline.

As for why they choose to do things this way... you'd have to ask a marketing person.

Can someone please tell me exactly what Privateer Press, Battlefront, Reaper, Hasslefree, Soda Pop, Corvus Belli, Freebooter... are releasing 6 months from now?


Just saying.

lord_blackfang wrote:Can someone please tell me exactly what Privateer Press, Battlefront, Reaper, Hasslefree, Soda Pop, Corvus Belli, Freebooter... are releasing 6 months from now?


Just saying.

Not 6 months from now, but I CAN tell you what exactly PP is releasing in 2 months, which is better than anyone can do for GW(all we know is it's Tomb Kings, so we only know for sure about the book, but not whether it's soft or hard cover).

I agree about the viral marketing aspect of things. I have believed for sometime now that GW leaks alot of what we have as rumors. Even the codex leaks I suspect are let out on purpose. I really think that GW as a company believes that the secrecy adds to the appeal of their products. They think their products are the best out there. They charge accordingly. They barely hint in open forum what is coming out, but they drop barely noticeable hints and feed the rumor mills constantly. It all adds to the glamor as they see it.

I find it annoying, but I still buy some of their stuff on occasion.

lord_blackfang wrote:Can someone please tell me exactly what Privateer Press, Battlefront, Reaper, Hasslefree, Soda Pop, Corvus Belli, Freebooter... are releasing 6 months from now?


Just saying.

Nope, but I could tell you that when PP redid hordes they had pretty accurate predicted release dates for all of the faction updates and the new rulebook, and some of these dates were six months or so in the future...

@Kanluwen

"Video game companies and movie studios have no real choice in the matter. There's far too many people involved in the process for them to keep it quiet without killing off employees left and right." Interesting visual with programmers being dragged out behind the building and "taken care of" I lol'ed

"And by that same vein: GW would have craploads of unsold stock sitting on the shelves of their stores and the independent retailers who buy from them because someone was told that they can "get new models in a few months". "- So it's the customer who takes the hit with old/unusable models instead of GW or FLGS's. Just an observation and if it makes sense financial sense for GW then I can see why they do.

lord_blackfang wrote:Can someone please tell me exactly what Privateer Press, Battlefront, Reaper, Hasslefree, Soda Pop, Corvus Belli, Freebooter... are releasing 6 months from now?

We didn't make the list :( but Dream Pod 9 has at least some stuff planned through the fall. I feel obligated to mention the 'coming soon' list on the DP9 online store is completely a 'best guess' at this point as real life often causes delays. We also usually sneak some mini releases in as they become available.

Personally, I prefer if a company plans in broad terms, then gets more specific as things get closer. For example, "Necrons in Q3 2011" followed a few months later by "Codex: Necrons in July with new Lord Blister and new Necron Megamonolith. New Pariahs in August" as things get closer.

Basically, don't lie and don't abuse the "We can't talk about that" answer.

Balance wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:Can someone please tell me exactly what Privateer Press, Battlefront, Reaper, Hasslefree, Soda Pop, Corvus Belli, Freebooter... are releasing 6 months from now?

We didn't make the list :( but Dream Pod 9 has at least some stuff planned through the fall. I feel obligated to mention the 'coming soon' list on the DP9 online store is completely a 'best guess' at this point as real life often causes delays. We also usually sneak some mini releases in as they become available.

Pretty similar to how we do things. I've got the next 10 months planned out for Brushfire's releases, and the next 6 are generally shown on the website, once the greens are done and I have an idea of cost we enable preorders.

Kanluwen wrote:And by that same vein: GW would have craploads of unsold stock sitting on the shelves of their stores and the independent retailers who buy from them because someone was told that they can "get new models in a few months".

Eh, not really. Unless the old models were truly crap the old models will still have a demand, either because they're cheaper (via getting excluded from the biannual price hikes) or because people want something different. You'd see a bit of slowdown, but they'd still sell out of them.

Because then dakka dakka would be filled with nothing but. I hate this model idea, I hate this codex, I hate anything they announce tell they acutely come out with it, then I love it.

This is why I love wyrd games.. Not only do they tell you what's coming in the next 4 months, but when, how much it will cost & pictures when they have them ready. Not sure why GW keeps everything under tight wraps except maybe to prevent the inevitable complaining when every other item on the list is Spess Mahreens.

econtutor wrote:After reading through yet another "X faction rumor thread" I'm walking away baffled. Why the heck doesn't GW just come out and say what the heck they're working on... I can think of no other company that is so secretive about what's in the pipeline when it comes to releases.

When it comes to a release schedules, video game manufacturers, movie studios, other mini manufacturers, pretty much any other entertainment product I buy, the manufacturer lets the customer know what's coming out far before its release date. I'm curious why do you think GW tends to buck this trend? Why do they keep their future release schedule so secretive?

The ONLY reason I can think of is that the secrecy prevents customers from delaying purchases until new models are released. If true, this is a pretty S&%$^ reason, I'd be pissed if I dropped cash on a new army and two months later the rules and models for it were completely redone!

While only GW knows the answer to this question for sure (so anything we come up with here is ultimately just pure speculation) I think there are two important factors involved with this decision:


1) GW is a publicly traded company, and as far as I know, they are the only wargaming company in that boat. What that means is that any leak of information can potentially result in a drop in share prices for their share holders...and that's not something that a publicly traded company can allow because their goal is to ensure their shareholders stock value stays as high as possible.

That means they need every release carefully orchestrated and which is why the amount of leaks overall has dropped quite a bit compared with several years ago.


2) GW is clearly following the same marketing school of thought that Apple and other companies follow, which is to hold off promoting their products until they are available for sale. That way, when a potential customer sees the new hotness and wants to buy it, they will be able to immediately do so before the impulse wears off. Again, this is the same tactic that Apple uses...they keep their plans very tightly under wraps and then when they announce them, they are usually on sale within the next few weeks (max).

Obviously this marketing tactic does not appeal to a LOT of people, myself included, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't effective...only people who have access to GW's sales figures on new releases could know for sure, and even then it would be hard to say with certainty because every new product is a beast of its own. Obviously sales overall have been decreasing over the years for GW, but there are lots of other factors that are likely involved in that as well, including raised prices, quality miniature game competition and the continuing rise of video games (just to name a few).

So this marketing strategy may or may not be a good thing for GW...but only they know for sure (if anyone does).

But the big side benefit of the strategy is that it does help to control 'bad spin'...or at least it seems that way to share holders. So for example, if GW were to release a Stormraven pic months ahead of time and it gets universally panned by the internet, and then when the model is released the sales are poor, the shareholders looking for someone to blame for poor sales can now point the finger at the marketing strategy (instead of blaming the miniature design). It may seem that the 'bad press' the early pic got actually affected some of the buyers who were 'on the fence' that may have bought the model immediately when it was released until they read all the negativity about the early pic.

Whether that's actually true or not is irrelevant when it comes to stock value, as perception is all that matters. That's why with publicly traded companies you almost never get off-the-cuff statements from employees. That's why the GW design team isn't allowed to attend non-GW events anymore (like Adepticon). Nobody wants to be 'responsible' for something slipping out that inadvertently causes bad press and the stock prices to fall.

lord_blackfang wrote:Can someone please tell me exactly what Privateer Press, Battlefront, Reaper, Hasslefree, Soda Pop, Corvus Belli, Freebooter... are releasing 6 months from now?

Sure. They will be releasing unpainted miniatures, possibly for use in a game of some sort.

Ahtman wrote:

lord_blackfang wrote:Can someone please tell me exactly what Privateer Press, Battlefront, Reaper, Hasslefree, Soda Pop, Corvus Belli, Freebooter... are releasing 6 months from now?

Sure. They will be releasing unpainted miniatures, possibly for use in a game of some sort.

Aww Man! How come all these other companies are so open about what they have planned, but GW won't tell us anything?!

Goliath wrote:

Aww Man! How come all these other companies are so open about what they have planned, but GW won't tell us anything?!

None of those other companies are publicly traded companies, so bad press/opinions on their upcoming products does not affect their shareholder's stock value (as they don't have shareholders).

GW does. If pre-release information gets out and the reaction is overwhelmingly negative that can most certainly affect their stock value. As GW has an obligation to their share holders, I believe they have decided that releasing information about their upcoming products until when the actual product is ready for purchase gives them the best window for sales while avoiding any unnecessary negative speculation that can affect their stock value.

econtutor wrote:After reading through yet another "X faction rumor thread" I'm walking away baffled. Why the heck doesn't GW just come out and say what the heck they're working on... I can think of no other company that is so secretive about what's in the pipeline when it comes to releases.

When it comes to a release schedules, video game manufacturers, movie studios, other mini manufacturers, pretty much any other entertainment product I buy, the manufacturer lets the customer know what's coming out far before its release date. I'm curious why do you think GW tends to buck this trend? Why do they keep their future release schedule so secretive?

The ONLY reason I can think of is that the secrecy prevents customers from delaying purchases until new models are released. If true, this is a pretty S&%$^ reason, I'd be pissed if I dropped cash on a new army and two months later the rules and models for it were completely redone!

GW isn't a video game manufacturer or a movie studio. Video game manufacturer's and movie studios have a lot of serious competition from other video game manufacturer's and movie studios. GW simply doesn't have that kind of competition as a mini's manufacturer,and don't have to hype their products a year in advance in order to sell them. The little guys do,because they are all basically fighting for a slice of GW's pie. In the mini's game buisness,make no mistake,it's GW's pie.

In GW's case,it's actually counterproductive to hype releases too far in advance. Take 40k,for example. It's not really a single product line. It's 16 different product lines[Space Marines,Blood Angels,Dark Angels,Black Templars,Space Wolves,Grey Knights,Imperial Guard,Witch Hunters,Eldar,Dark Eldar,Chaos Space Marines,Chaos Daemons,Orks,Tau,Necrons,and Tyranids] all competing for the 40k player base's dollars. Advance hype on GW's website for the next army does next to nothing to GROW that player base. Instead,it has their player base hording money for future releases rather than spending money on products that are currently available. You may think that GW will get their money either way,but things happen and people can be fickle with their entertainment dollars. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and all that,and there is no guarantee that GW will see those dollars.

What we have also seen as being the trend for GW regarding lines that are being completely redone,like DH/GK,WH/SoB,and DE,is that GW pulls those old mini's off the shelves over a year before the new line comes out and puts them in mail order only status to prevent somebody from making a brand new army and then getting completely boned a couple of months later.

re: GW Share Price - I think it's been pretty obvious that GW's share price has been somewhere between "stagnant" and "circling the drain" for quite awhile now. I think we can safely put the ky-bosh on the idea of "stock price is down because those heathens on youtube said something bad about the Stormraven.".

Point 2) ok. They keep everything tightly "under wraps" and they still get panned, mocked and outright crapped on for it because either something gets "leaked" or, to put it bluntly, someone just makes it up. The bottom line benefit is what? Everyone getting to break out their "surprised face" when it's another bucket of dross labeled "Space Marines"?

But there are still plenty of companies that show the prototype wares, that release proposed production schedules each year and update quaterly.

Have seen test shots of models absolutely panned on forums but the companies are still trading.

No company is going to get things absolutely right all of the time. Are the shareholders really that fickle? There is a lot of trustfunds iirc and while I cannot be certain, they won't be watching Dakka closely to ensure part of the portfolio is behaving itself.

It's not really that uncommon. Apple does it, as do most video game developers (I'm looking at nintendo, mostly).

It builds anticipation, obviously. It lets people speculate and guess, which makes them want to buy the product. It's simple

And if it is tosh do people buy it?
Do reviews and word of mouth not dampen subsequent sales?

Sales drop, shareholders panic
SELL!!SELL!!SELL!!

Swings and onions I guess

Worglock wrote:re: GW Share Price - I think it's been pretty obvious that GW's share price has been somewhere between "stagnant" and "circling the drain" for quite awhile now. I think we can safely put the ky-bosh on the idea of "stock price is down because those heathens on youtube said something bad about the Stormraven.".

Point 2) ok. They keep everything tightly "under wraps" and they still get panned, mocked and outright crapped on for it because either something gets "leaked" or, to put it bluntly, someone just makes it up. The bottom line benefit is what? Everyone getting to break out their "surprised face" when it's another bucket of dross labeled "Space Marines"?

1) I didn't say that bad press affects overall stock price...ultimately the condition of the company does that. However bad press and and DOES create dips in stock value. This is true in every single market as stock price is determined ultimately by the perceived value of the stock rather than anything truly tangible. This is why publicly traded companies always only release 'prepared statements' to the public, they very tightly control what their company says and does for fear that bad press may cause their stock to (even temporarily) dip. This is simply a fact of the stock market and right or wrong it is the environment that it creates.


2) I don't have any idea what point you're trying to make here except that you think people are tired of Space Marine releases? Again, the point of holding information secret is not because the company has some kind of mind-blowing new product, but rather so that when the information about the product is released, it is immediately on sale for the people who *do* get swept up by the flavor of the month (and there are people out there like that whether or not you are one of them).

Again, whether or not you or I agree with that marketing strategy doesn't matter if GW's data has shown them there is enough positive benefit off of these 'impulse buyers' to compensate for whatever ill-will is created by keeping their long-term releases secret. Clearly they believe there is, and they're the ones that have the actual sales data to look at.

Agreed with Samus_aran - It's like Apple I-phone 4 - talk about it for months, slowly release to the public(even though MILLIONS of units are in storage).

Generates public discussion - and you CANT pay for that kind of coverage!

Get's them out there, and discussions everywhere...

But discussion about what?
You must have some idea of what is being discussed.

I admit I am not a technonut nor an Apple fanboy, so am only going by what I can glean from various sources, but there are people willing to queue just to get their mitts on the latest slice of Apple.
How do you know it is any good?
What are you going on other than brand name?

Not sure the Apple analogy wholly stands up tbh

yakface wrote:GW does. If pre-release information gets out and the reaction is overwhelmingly negative that can most certainly affect their stock value.

Perhaps they could just put more thought into their stuff and not release obviously crap like the Grey Knight Death-transformer thing.

What Yak says about GW might be true if not for the fact that Forge World and the Black Library do exactly the opposite – news on upcoming releases, promotions, previews, sneak peeks, and so on. They also show up to trade shows and events to promote their own wares.

GW does none of this, and as I’ve said before in a similar discussion, if the small areas of your company are getting it right, how come the whole body can’t get it right?

It has been suggested that GW keeps their projects under wraps to build up a buzz on forums such as this one. This may be the case. However, their decisions are causing so much trash talking about the company that such a marketing plan could hardly be called a success. Obviously, they are annoying large numbers of their loyal customers, and that can only be a bad thing.

A viable company should not let stock prices dictate their decisions. However, one that is on the ropes may do so. I personally do not think that GW is on the ropes, but neither do I think that they are making decisions based on the trading price of their stock.

I suppose the thing that makes the most sense is that they do not want to advertise something early on and then have major delays or worse yet scrap the idea. Based on their lack of playtesting, and proof reading I think that it is clear that GW is run by the seat of their pants. Maybe if they ran a tighter ship they could plan ahead properly and would not have this problem.

It is more fun this way. GW "accidentally leaks" stuff from time to time. (Usually hints. The GK codex leak was probably not them.) With these leaks, people get excited and speculate, probably more than if they just said, "hey, new stuff coming soon. Here is what it will look like." Then there is stuff like the DE stuff. I know that there are new things coming, but there is no real news about it.

This being said, I would actually really like to see GW release concept are with the announcement of releases. Or at least sell a book of it. I love that stuff.


Finally, slightly off topic, but slightly on. Does anyone else hope that GW continues to release those youtube videos about the army releases like they did with DE?

It would be better to to be more upfront anyway - If you're about to sink a hojillion dollars into designing a new plastic kit (stormraven, dreadknight) and the majority of the people looking at it think it's crap (or the rules are awful - looking at you, chaos spawn and possessed marines) then you have the opportunity to possibly make adjustments in time to prevent a catastrophe.

This flexibility would be worth more than the potential negative of seeing, for example, a new jetbike 3 months early and not liking it - for hypothetical shareowners as well as the people GW tries to sell stuff to.

Making people delay their purchases is stupid too - every dollar you're not putting in my pocket at any given second for overpriced plastic stuff is a dollar that you could be using for movie tickets, restaurant food, warmachine minis, deodorant, finding a girlfriend, failing to find a girlfriend and giving your money to internet dating sites, etc.

Doesn't Apple use the same strategy of not telling anyone what' up. Like even when you know something's coming out you usually don't know the exact specs or release date until just before it's released.

See earlier in the thread Forest Fire.

Got stung by buying an Orcs and Goblins Army Book only to find it was obsolete less than 6 months later.
This doesn't get GW 2 books sold because I am not impressed and won't buy the new one. It does not make me feel inclined to buy any others either.

If I had some definite idea that the O&G were going to have a makeover I would have most likely bagged the new one even with the price increase.

Not to get sidetracked about any specific item btw. The anecdote is an example how customers can potentially get hacked off with the policy of being ill informed. Pops digging into my wallet for little Jimmy Tinwhistle is not likely to be any more impressed.

H.B.M.C. wrote:What Yak says about GW might be true if not for the fact that Forge World and the Black Library do exactly the opposite – news on upcoming releases, promotions, previews, sneak peeks, and so on. They also show up to trade shows and events to promote their own wares.

GW does none of this, and as I’ve said before in a similar discussion, if the small areas of your company are getting it right, how come the whole body can’t get it right?

Because Black Library and Forge World offer different product lines than GW's core does,and a marketing strategy that is effective for one line is not neccessarily effective with another product line? Heck,General Electric owns NBC,so should they be trying to sell dishwashers and refridgerators with the same strategies they use to sell TV advertising? Or the marketing strategies Honda uses to sell it's Infiniti car line will also apply to their line of lawnmowers? Subsidiaries within a company are USUALLY marketed differently to appeal to different groups. That's why Cadillac is marketed differently than Chevy. That's why you see tough,burly guys in pickup truck commercials,not female fashion models.

I'm by no means saying that GW is beyond question,but it's also very easy to play armchair CEO on a message board. As a publicly traded company,"getting it right" means making the most $ for the company. If GW's shareholders and financial analysts feel that their sales aren't as strong as they should be due to their tight lipped marketing practices,then they will change their marketing practices. Obviously,they don't feel that's the case.

I can see the apparent logic behind GW’s marketing strategy but in reality, secrecy has always been a turn off for me rather than something that generates interest as I’m the type who likes to make an informed purchase. At the end of the day, if I don’t know any details, then I don’t care.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:See earlier in the thread Forest Fire.

Got stung by buying an Orcs and Goblins Army Book only to find it was obsolete less than 6 months later.
This doesn't get GW 2 books sold because I am not impressed and won't buy the new one. It does not make me feel inclined to buy any others either.

If I had some definite idea that the O&G were going to have a makeover I would have most likely bagged the new one even with the price increase.

Not to get sidetracked about any specific item btw. The anecdote is an example how customers can potentially get hacked off with the policy of being ill informed. Pops digging into my wallet for little Jimmy Tinwhistle is not likely to be any more impressed.

Not saying that some people don't get honked off when something like that happens. However,90+% of people will pony up the money to pick up the new book instead of having hundreds of dollars of mini's sitting around that they can hardly play with because they don't have the current book. If you decide to sell your army,then GW will still get their book sale off the person you sell your army to,anyways. The only way GW doesn't get their 2nd sale is if you just sit on the army and keep it in mothballs somewhere forever[or until the Warhammer Fantasy line ends completely].

Another question is,just how long does a book have to be current for before people feel ripped off? There's no set answer to that question,and everybody's different. For some people,if GW opened up a 1 year rumor window,and they're book was invalidated after 60 weeks,they'd feel ripped off. On the other hand,some people are fine with a 3-4 month window,and feel that they will get enough use out of the book in that time period.

Whatever1 wrote:I'm by no means saying that GW is beyond question,but it's also very easy to play armchair CEO on a message board. As a publicly traded company,"getting it right" means making the most $ for the company. If GW's shareholders and financial analysts feel that their sales aren't as strong as they should be due to their tight lipped marketing practices,then they will change their marketing practices. Obviously,they don't feel that's the case.

The point of this thread is that what they "feel" is ill-informed. People have been, and will continue to, point to the fact that GW performs worse every year in a time when other minatures companies are on the rise, to back this up.

People feel like their needs are not being met, how is this possibly a good thing?

The army book sales may hold firm (which is more than can be said for some of the army books ) but they are not doing themselves any favours hacking off potential customers.

There will always be a cut off point at which there will be someone upset, but I would rather like to be in a position of making a choice rather than leaving it in the lap of the GW "gods".

Thank goodness it was only an army book I had just purchased and not some units that become useless. Honking people off, even if they need to buy a product, is poor form imho, and in the long run poor business sense.

I won't be selling fwiw.
If the army expands it will be using Mantic Orcs.

MikeMcSomething wrote:

Whatever1 wrote:I'm by no means saying that GW is beyond question,but it's also very easy to play armchair CEO on a message board. As a publicly traded company,"getting it right" means making the most $ for the company. If GW's shareholders and financial analysts feel that their sales aren't as strong as they should be due to their tight lipped marketing practices,then they will change their marketing practices. Obviously,they don't feel that's the case.

The point of this thread is that what they "feel" is ill-informed. People have been, and will continue to, point to the fact that GW performs worse every year in a time when other minatures companies are on the rise, to back this up.

People feel like their needs are not being met, how is this possibly a good thing?

GW is the only publicly traded gaming company so they are the only company whose financials we get to see. We have absolutely no idea how other companies are doing, and even when a company seems to be 'on the rise' they can often still be operating in the red attempting to push to a point of eventual profitability by riding through a lean period.

Say what you will about Games Workshop, but they are still far and away the most successful miniature gaming company ever, by a large margin. While their sales have certainly eroded from their LOTR peak, as I've said before there are a number of potential culprits for this. The way they choose to market their products may be part of the cause (or even the chief cause for all we know), but it may not be either...again we lack the real capability to find out how their marketing affects the customers outside of those who frequent forums.

Most important for me I would love the company to embrace the type of open communication with its fans that Privateer Press does...have forums and have the designers on there conversing directly with the gamers. Post previews of upcoming stuff and post heartfelt notices explaining exactly why prices have to be raised when they do, etc, etc, etc.

But the problem is that openness and honesty are generally anathema to a publicly traded company. I have a hard time thinking of any publicly traded corporation that is really 'open' giving information to the public because generally it isn't considered a wise move because as I've pointed out before, any leak of information that is perceived as negative has the very real possibility to cause the price of their stock to drop.

So unfortunately I don't think we'll ever see Games Workshop become much more transparent than it is now, and it does make me sad. While going public helped Games Workshop turn into the giant powerhouse it still is today, and that in turn helped to make miniature gaming a LOT more popular today than it used to be, I feel like the price they paid to build their castle is almost too high.

With all that said, I still take umbrage with the idea that their current marketing strategy is 'bad'. One method of marketing is the slow burn of putting out morsels of information long in advance, but another method is keeping things firmly under wraps and then trying to create a big 'splash' release that gets people to impulse buy. Both are used by very successful companies, so to say one is 'bad' when the other is 'good' is just silly.

They're just two different ways to approach marketing and while you may strongly favor one approach over the other it doesn't necessarily mean the other method is 'bad' in any way.

From the DE Wave 2 thread, but more appropriate here:

Cerebrium wrote:Yeah, it's not like it's the equivalent of a movie trailer or anything, no, it's clearly GW BEING MORONS..

The shorthand for this, sadly, is that "Games Workshop knows that other, better run companies run teaser campaigns, but they don't know why".

Or, more specifically, why this is not appropriate for their industry.

On a side note, I'm not sure I buy the "GWS profits have been plummeting because of video games" narrative, despite the fact they obviously believe it. The fact is, when I was a kid and the NES was announced, within 2 years every home had one, it seemed, even relatively poor homes like mine. So that was around 1988. I don't buy that the new Halo release is really causing them new, unforeseen troubles.

Some good points on this thread... GW marketing seems to be based on the Momentum, big splash and keeping silence until last moment... yes its a competent marketing strategy for some but alas only a company that his well knowened, established and has a very strong presence in mainstream public can pull off that right IMO... nintendo, mac etc all do apply that strategy and they are also VERYYYYYYYYYYYY agressive in publicity... everyone knows them.

So lets see ask your neighbour if he knows what, GW are or warhammer are, and ( apart UK XD) mostly are clueless to what they are... add to this that GW doesnt make ANY relevant publicity ( fewer people will get to know GW) and you will probably see that a marketing policy based on silence is a suicide ( specially agravated if the splash releases sucks).

Marketing and publicity should be applied to each company reality and just because company Y can pull something doesnt mean company X can.

Now I will put my guessing hat and say that GW marketing department is detached from GW reality and is pulling off a formula that will kill interest and that will cost them sales... and that publicity department is inexistant and runned by someone stuck in the early 90's still discovering the net and that has no perception of how invisible they(gw) are to the world... hat off.

H.B.M.C. wrote:What Yak says about GW might be true if not for the fact that Forge World and the Black Library do exactly the opposite – news on upcoming releases, promotions, previews, sneak peeks, and so on. They also show up to trade shows and events to promote their own wares.

GW does none of this, and as I’ve said before in a similar discussion, if the small areas of your company are getting it right, how come the whole body can’t get it right?

I think it has something to do with Forge World selling good models on the strength of them being good models, where GW is selling bad models on the strength of Clowns like Matt "Toss Bucket" Ward that are masquerading as game developers while giving bad models over-powered and broken rules that appeal to the dregs of GW Hobby that need to win to validate themselves (Reference: Trashraven and Failgatron).

Draigo isn't going to be making an appearance in ever battle involving Grey Knights because he's an awesome model, he's gonna be there because he's the mutant offspring of Mary Sue, Wolverine, Arthas and Darth Vader.

On the internet, everyone is a marketing genius.

I will put on my guessing hat and say that we know squat about what really drives sales best –for GW– apart from what we learn from their yearly financial report and what some faceless dude on the internet heard one guy at Bugmans say to another dudes cousin.

Get a hold of some proper financial reports that we can correlate to marketing drives (or the lack of) and we can perhaps do a proper analyisis. Until then it's merely speculation on what works and what doesn't. Even if your local gaming club "never plays Blood Angels" doesn't mean that thousands of customers buy the FOTW army and never paints or play with it. People that might not even frequent Dakka (oh the horror).

There's a reason people study and work for years in order to analyze economics & marketing. I will put on my OTHER guessing hat and guess that 99% of everyone posting in this thread haven't even heard of Kotler. And if they have, haven't read more than the blurb on the back of the cover.

The third hat guesses that smarter people than you and me are in charge of GW's marketing and will act accordingly to what's best for the company. But hey, who knows? They might take random knowitbests from the internet like you and me and have them run marketing?

econtutor wrote:The ONLY reason I can think of is that the secrecy prevents customers from delaying purchases until new models are released. If true, this is a pretty S&%$^ reason, I'd be pissed if I dropped cash on a new army and two months later the rules and models for it were completely redone!

This is exactly the reason...

The sales for Grey Kngihts would have been nil for the last three months if they had informed customers of the new releases. It always comes back to the same thing with GW. Every thread on every forum that questions their motivation need just be answered with the following caption copied and posted into every reply.

£££ AND $$$


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Whatever1 wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:What Yak says about GW might be true if not for the fact that Forge World and the Black Library do exactly the opposite – news on upcoming releases, promotions, previews, sneak peeks, and so on. They also show up to trade shows and events to promote their own wares.

GW does none of this, and as I’ve said before in a similar discussion, if the small areas of your company are getting it right, how come the whole body can’t get it right?

Because Black Library and Forge World offer different product lines than GW's core does,and a marketing strategy that is effective for one line is not neccessarily effective with another product line? Heck,General Electric owns NBC,so should they be trying to sell dishwashers and refridgerators with the same strategies they use to sell TV advertising? Or the marketing strategies Honda uses to sell it's Infiniti car line will also apply to their line of lawnmowers? Subsidiaries within a company are USUALLY marketed differently to appeal to different groups. That's why Cadillac is marketed differently than Chevy. That's why you see tough,burly guys in pickup truck commercials,not female fashion models.

I'm by no means saying that GW is beyond question,but it's also very easy to play armchair CEO on a message board. As a publicly traded company,"getting it right" means making the most $ for the company. If GW's shareholders and financial analysts feel that their sales aren't as strong as they should be due to their tight lipped marketing practices,then they will change their marketing practices. Obviously,they don't feel that's the case.

Forgeworld does not have the same customer base as the main GW body, but the strategy works in their favour too. If GW were to announce a plastic Thunderhawk, bye bye Forgeworld sales... announce Baneblade plastic kit, they'd have not sold any forgeworld kits, etc!

pixelpusher wrote:

The third hat guesses that smarter people than you and me are in charge of GW's marketing and will act accordingly to what's best for the company. But hey, who knows? They might take random knowitbests from the internet like you and me and have them run marketing?

I'm not doubting that smarter people than me tend to run companies. I -am- doubting that those people always act in the best interest of the company. (Reference: current global financial issues).


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geordie09 wrote:

This is exactly the reason...

The sales for Grey Kngihts would have been nil for the last three months if they had informed customers of the new releases. It always comes back to the same thing with GW. Every thread on every forum that questions their motivation need just be answered with the following caption copied and posted into every reply.

£££ AND $$$

Who says that the sales of GK hasn't been nil for the last 3 months anyway? Who says it hasn't been nil for longer because the army has been perceived as "squatted"?

I know far more people that have sold or tried to sell their GK armies in the past year (3) than I know people that have bought GK anything (0).

And yes, you're going to wave your hand and dismiss my post as "anecdotal".

I doubt you make tons of millions in courtage if you work as head of sales & marketing for GW. You might perhaps see more of your favorite army on the shelves (if you even play) but thats probably it.

The biggest incentive when you work in marketing is usually a bonus depending on how well the company did. In GW's case that most likely equals shifting more units of product than the year before. Not exactly comparable with Lehman Brothers et al. And definitely not at the same level.

I've worked with some complete tools that's "Head of Marketing" in pretty big companies though. So it's not like it's unlikely.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:
No company is going to get things absolutely right all of the time. Are the shareholders really that fickle? There is a lot of trustfunds iirc and while I cannot be certain, they won't be watching Dakka closely to ensure part of the portfolio is behaving itself.

As a shareholder, albeit a small one, no, no I'm not that fickle.

I suppose the other reason is that they are concerned that if they announce what they are doing by the time they get to release there will be many other companies releasing similar things at the same time. I'm only basing on comments I've seen elsewhere today about the number of small companies producing thunderwolves for SW while GW has not really done any.

With all that said, I still take umbrage with the idea that their current marketing strategy is 'bad'. One method of marketing is the slow burn of putting out morsels of information long in advance, but another method is keeping things firmly under wraps and then trying to create a big 'splash' release that gets people to impulse buy. Both are used by very successful companies, so to say one is 'bad' when the other is 'good' is just silly.

I would say it is bad.
It may be successful for GW but it is not necessarily good for the customer imho
Sorry Yakface but the manner in which GW communicates with a very loyal customer base leaves a lot to be desired.

The problem maybe the customers themselves for throwing cash at GW regardless.
Guess you are correct inasmuch as GW have no need to change any policies while things tick along nicely for them as they are.
But even if silly and in a minority I take umbrage at the way that GW goes about their business.

They still do not need to behave the way they do. If different methods work for other successful companies, why not be seen to show some respect for the customer?

The sales for Grey Kngihts would have been nil for the last three months if they had informed customers of the new releases.

If GW were the genius business being suggested they would be able to work around that problem.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:I would say it is bad.
It may be successful for GW but it is not necessarily good for the customer imho

Why is it bad? Is not GW being successful good for the customer? You may not like the way they do marketing, but it's most likely –for GW– successful marketing. The customer base is still loyal even though a vocal minority feels it's treated "bad" while still buying the models and/or play the game. Why change something that clearly works before it doesn't work anymore?

Could GW benefit better from marketing in another way? Trickling out new figures 3 months before release? Mayhaps. I still haven't seen anyone with any sort of credibility explain why their current business model is so flawed as many of the knowitalls here on Dakka try to portray it.

Such interesting thread of people debating personal opinions, some based on work experience others based on intuition and why but oh why does it always appear a fella screaming asking for credentials Reality check Pixelpusher... you can have the most expert persons on marketing but if your boss boss says no and wants to move the company direction otherwise your expertise is as good as nothing... Is GW model of business sucessfull depends on your measure... from a bitzone-garage-company prespective its huge... from hasbro its tiny... from me personally ( havent you noticed this is apublic forum and people express their opinions without having to pick up the credentials sheet?) I think its small because not only it fails to catch my interest but it also pushes me to buy elsewere.

Sure no one is saying GW is a bunch of dumb people in fact most have said that they dont know the full reality of GW biz... what I and many here are questioning is if this Marketing model is good for a company not that well knowened outside its bubble... your opinion may be diferent than mine and I respect it as much as anyone elses, regardless of pedigree.

The one thing I've never understood is why they don't seem to have, you know, a Commercial. See, there's this thing called Television, that most children, teens and young adults are constantly watching, and there's these things called Commercials that let those children, teens and young adults know about games and products.

I suppose there must be some sort of production of this sort of thing, due to the trailers you can find online for DoW, but I have not once seen a GW commercial. It's not like Space Marines Krumpin' and being krumped by Orks isn't interesting, and it's not like they can't have animated ads for toy soldiers. Heck, even a tie-in badly done cartoon would probably be a ridiculously good way to get the word out.

I don't care for your credentials, or anyone elses, in the matter of this discussion unless you're posting to verify your claim about GWs business model. I just wanted to point out that as far as we know, we really don't know jack. The common trend seems to be that GW is doing a bad thing and I just wanted emphasise that we dont know and just speculate usually based on very uninformed opinions.

Now I thought I made it kinda clear that even I speculated, based on my work experience, about if their current business model is sound or not. Apparently I missed the mark. (If I tried to move this discussion into who had the most credentials, if any, and therefore decided what -opinion- is valid enough to grace this thread. I would have made that pretty clear.)

What irks me though, is the apparent Dunning-Kruger effect that's rampant in threads like these. Some people are internet-experts instead of plainly stating "I'm out of my lane, but I don't like the way GW is marketing their product". Instead it's portrayed as "bad" or "not getting it right" as some sort of facts based on most likely nothing.

Why is their current business model bad? Is it any substance in that opinion? What would work better for GW? Can you back that up with anything else than "I believe…" or "I would like to…"?

I'm all for speculating "what if"-scenarios. But when it comes to the same type of speculation as "What if Godzilla was real" there really isn't much point continuing is there?

The substance in the claims that they are getting it wrong would appear to be borne out by their financial results over the past few years which show declining sales figures.

Like Aston-Martin, Porsche and other companies producing luxury-items?

This is about the point when someone posts the Razorgor shouting "Weee, I'm a porsche!"

Actually, Lanrak summed it up quite succintly in one of the other frequent threads that crop up about GW business practice:

Lanrak wrote:
Just looking at the financials for GW in the mid to late 1990s.

When GW supported all thier games (board and SGs,) and 40k was a large skirmish game of 2nd ed.
1995 to 1998, GW plc turn over rose from 30 to 60 million pounds!
DOUBLED their turn over in 3 years.(When they focused on gamers and game support.)

After the 'rushed hatchet job' of 3rd ed 40k ,turn over growth slowed down a bit, 60 million to 78 ,million from 1998 to 2000.
GW turn over rose from 78 million to 98 million at the start of the LoTR 'bubble,' 2000 to 2001.

GW plc period of greatest growth was when they actively supported and promoted a wide range of games to appeal to a wide range of gamers.

Since GW plc has declared it self to be '...in the business of selling toy soldiers to kiddies...' they have lost sales volumes year on year.
And now even their massive price increases can not make up the shortfall in sales volumes.

GW plc are in serious trouble , they can not make the radical changes required to secure long term growth without loosing short term revenue.

TTFN.

Falling sales has been an issue for GW long before the Global Financial crisis. This problem has thus far been masked firstly by the so-called LOTR bubble and subsequently by a round of cost-cutting and price hikes, but as anyone will tell you, this is not a sustainable model for growth.

The figure could also be interpreted as reduced individual items selling as boxsets including more options reduces the need for individual blister purchases.

As for the original premise of the thread GW drop hints and show in progress sculpts at Games Day or at least the many threads that it generates attest to this.

A 3 month heads up on a forthcoming line seems like a decent amount of notice to me. Never could understand the bellyaching over this issue. This to me is clearly done for sound reasons (stock, reputation and on time delivery all as stated by Yakface), preferable to the maelable release dates and stock levels that other companies have.

To be fair, GW can only double it's earnings so many times in a given decade, they aren't exactly producing cold fusion reactors. Saying "They supported their games (an assertion at best, and one that doesn't exactly smack of firm objective analysis) and this made their sales grow the most" isn't painting the most complete picture.

Stretched analogy time!

Really pixelpusher, if there's a new brand of, say, soft drink on the market, and it's in a store I live in, but I've never heard of it because it was never advertised, and it comes in a poop-colored can, and is named something disgusting, so nobody buys it, and the company fails, do I need experience in a corporate marketing department or a degree in business to know that their marketing strategy was bad?

Do you need one of the securities analysts that hang out on Dakka to re-iterate for the 50th time why GW isn't worth going near with a 10-foot pole? Or can we all agree that a company that is losing money while actively irritating players to the point where they buy other people's games is maybe doing something wrong?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm also going to wager 5 internetbucks that if you spent 5 minutes on Google you could find blogs by at least 5 individuals representing publicly-traded companies, where more information is discussed about their new and upcoming products in a month than GW does in 3 months.

In what way is it bad?
It is bad in my experience to treat people like 5 year olds, to be so insular and not to keep people informed.

I find the corporatre manner of GW to be arrogant, which is also bad.
There is a load of other stuff that gets my goat but am to tired to rehearse them right now.

Sorry Pixel just the way I was brought up to treat people with respect. Again, I find there are other succesful hobby companies able to treat their customers a great deal more so and I don't see why an exception is to be made for GW.

As for the ludicrous analogies to luxury cars.
Do Porsche et al hide their concepts and future products behind a veil of secrecy and no one must see them till the official day when the manager at the car store opens the black crate
tee hee

good grief Charlie Brown,
Black Boxes!
Such a grown up business way to sell shiney new toy soldiers. Jelly and ice cream all round.


Just be absolutely clear, I am speaking from experience as a customer with no allusions to being an armchair CEO

How about when they misled people over the Space Hulk release? They had their 'secret' box of toys and wouldn't tell anyone what was in it. But most suspected Space Hulk because rumours had been doing the rounds for a while. But apparently this secret box contained something "new" that "hadn't been done before". So some people thought well it *could* still be Space Hulk even though that doesn't match up with the teasers being given. "It's not Space Hulk" they said pointing to the "new and not done before" bit.

So a bit later on people are pretty convinced it has to be Space Hulk, but some are hoping for something else really groovy, because GW wouldn't lie to us right? Wrong. It was Space Hulk after all. Done *twice* before. lolz.

And the best bit was the way it was released, they bungled the 'big reveal' on the Gamesday and instead circulated the release details via email on the following Monday.

Grakmar wrote:GW does let you know what's in the works. I'm convinced 90% or so of these "rumors" are just viral marketing by GW.

Anyone who cared to has know about GK for months and months now. And, we're fully aware that SoB and Necrons are in the pipeline.

As for why they choose to do things this way... you'd have to ask a marketing person.

^This. They probably don't "officially tell you so they don't have to worry about an "official" release date or approximate timeframe to hold up. Plus, they're probably wanting to let us think that we're clever. Maybe they do that to brainwash us to buy more models. MAYBE PEOPLE ON DAKKA ARE SECRETLY GW EMPLOYEES!

/conspiracy theory

You're right.. I work for GW's secret department in charge of releasing secrets

I will give you 100% facts about the upcoming release if you PM me.. Dont ask GW if I work there as they will never admit to using secret operatives

GW's Next Release Clue

There is a clue in that picture.. There is a red shirt somewhere in there (Watch out for fakes) with pre-release information crucial to your interests.. You must find and interrogate him

Worglock wrote:

pixelpusher wrote:

The third hat guesses that smarter people than you and me are in charge of GW's marketing and will act accordingly to what's best for the company. But hey, who knows? They might take random knowitbests from the internet like you and me and have them run marketing?

I'm not doubting that smarter people than me tend to run companies. I -am- doubting that those people always act in the best interest of the company. (Reference: current global financial issues).


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geordie09 wrote:

This is exactly the reason...

The sales for Grey Kngihts would have been nil for the last three months if they had informed customers of the new releases. It always comes back to the same thing with GW. Every thread on every forum that questions their motivation need just be answered with the following caption copied and posted into every reply.

£££ AND $$$

Who says that the sales of GK hasn't been nil for the last 3 months anyway? Who says it hasn't been nil for longer because the army has been perceived as "squatted"?

I know far more people that have sold or tried to sell their GK armies in the past year (3) than I know people that have bought GK anything (0).

And yes, you're going to wave your hand and dismiss my post as "anecdotal".

no, but the facts remain that there will be hundreds of GK armies now that they are plastic kits anyway. I'll counter, if you were a GK fan and wanted to begin a new army with no sign of plastic kits or new codex on the horizon you'd think, maybe ill spend my money on Blood Angels, or something else when it was released. Now GK are out and you've spent your gaming budget on Marines with nipples!

I can't actually believe that were still discussing the mind set of GW after all these years. "Show me the money"

The fact that there will be hundreds?

How can you claim something that is speculative as fact?
Man I wanna borrow your crystal ball or tea leaves or whichever form of divination you use.

Gonna win that lotto and still not buy a Porsche!

filbert wrote:Actually, Lanrak summed it up quite succintly in one of the other frequent threads that crop up about GW business practice:

Lanrak wrote:
Just looking at the financials for GW in the mid to late 1990s.

When GW supported all thier games (board and SGs,) and 40k was a large skirmish game of 2nd ed.
1995 to 1998, GW plc turn over rose from 30 to 60 million pounds!
DOUBLED their turn over in 3 years.(When they focused on gamers and game support.)

After the 'rushed hatchet job' of 3rd ed 40k ,turn over growth slowed down a bit, 60 million to 78 ,million from 1998 to 2000.
GW turn over rose from 78 million to 98 million at the start of the LoTR 'bubble,' 2000 to 2001.

GW plc period of greatest growth was when they actively supported and promoted a wide range of games to appeal to a wide range of gamers.

Since GW plc has declared it self to be '...in the business of selling toy soldiers to kiddies...' they have lost sales volumes year on year.
And now even their massive price increases can not make up the shortfall in sales volumes.

GW plc are in serious trouble , they can not make the radical changes required to secure long term growth without loosing short term revenue.

TTFN.

Falling sales has been an issue for GW long before the Global Financial crisis. This problem has thus far been masked firstly by the so-called LOTR bubble and subsequently by a round of cost-cutting and price hikes, but as anyone will tell you, this is not a sustainable model for growth.

You realize that if you have a dollar to your name,and you're walking down the street and you find another dollar,then you've just doubled your money? It doesn't mean you're well off,it just means you have a good financial growth rate.

It's much easier to show a good growth rate when you're a small company with relatively little. It's substantially easier to double 30 million than it is to double 60 or 90 million,especially in a niche industry like the hobby/gaming industry.

The other issue with this entire discussion is that most of us Dakkaite's are not looking at the issue objectively. Most of us[myself included] want to know what GW has in the pipe,so we try to rationalize their current financial downturn as it's because of a lack of teasers and such,and not because of numerous other possible factors[like their failed retail chain,for example]. When you walk into an analysis and already have your conclusion,then you're really not being objective.

I heard from an informed source that he thinks that GW keep their release pipeline secret because they dont want other miniature companies to find out what they are working on. For a few years there were too many coincedental releases by rival companies (Reaper is one) that mirrored GW's current product output. Around '07 or so GW tightened up their security quite a bit.

GW's release pipeline is pretty long. Their releases are planned two to three years ahead of time.

There are two aspects to the discussion, Whatever.
There is the part that is about cash and profits and sales.

And there is the part that is about communication, public relations and goodwill.
The latter is more subjective by nature and imho this is the aspect that needs addressing here.
The question is, why don't GW provide information about forthcoming releases?
There has still not been a convincing reason, other than they can and it is good for shareholders.

That is probably true Snurl, but the same or longer for other products and the companies can give some details out months in advance.

Am still unconvinced the policy is necessary

There are even other companies out there using GW's IP that seem to understand that Prevews = Buzz. Relic and FFG do a nice number of previews of their upcoming products - be they demos, showing off at trade shows (something GW refuses to attend), and even designer diaries on their own websites.

Works well for them.

Maybe it's because they don't want you to stop spending now in order to save for something coming out much later?

I think it is to get old stuff of the shelf because GW will not sell old stuff at a lower price because then the new stuff wouldn't sell at all. So, they need to make a as much profit off it that they can, then release to stuff to make more profit. Its really simple; Okay models from last edition are about to updated but people don't know for sure. Anyone who regularly buys stuff for that army still will, then they release new stuff so the person keeps buying and GW gets rid of left overs.

That might be the thinking Mewith.

As an example, does anyone know when the old DE stopped being stacked on GW's shelves?
They were not that popular from what I could make out.
People were waiting for the new Codex and minis before they would buy.
GW possibly didn't shift that many old models for yonks before the makeover.
Even the GW possibly did not shift a lot of volume ditto SoB at the moment with more expensive metal figures.

So it may not have hit sales that much to have officially announced a GW telease for March at the beginning of the year.
With development taking years it would be complex but surely within the capabilities to phase things out and make announcements for provisional release.

Perhaps they should?

Ouze

Another brick to this wall of silence( mind its a big brick) is that GW releases schedule is soooooooo slow that it means that your army of election will be with barely no news for errrr 2 or 4 years some cases even more ( not mentioning marine armies)...
So they have a biz model based on secrecy, no clues for your army for years... does this seems to be a smart move for this kind of hobby related company?
I know I know videogames also take years to develop, movies etc but the big diference is that your investement is very low comparatively and the product is like chewing gum, you eat it and trow away... 700euros armies are not fast thrills and are huge investments in comparison ( would be a better comparison to make this a console and HDtv vs GW army comparison).

I leave you guys this question, does this momentum splash releases lures you to start another GWarmy? Maybe thats another factor that drives Marketing actions at GW.

Personally I love tyranids and we got some nice kits but 3 or 4 years gaps and sometimes the splash releases are huge deceptions wich makes even the most hardcore tyranid lover uninterested and kind of fed up.
In short the effects of the marketing silence, no publicity, saturation of one kind of infos on splashes ( to the point you dont want to look at news anymore) kills my maintenance with GW...

Sure they have their own reasons and we can speculate about some, confirm others but you dont have to be a marketing expert to know that you want SOME long therm costumers as your target and that this model of recycle (expurgating most customers every 4 year cycle) is only desirable if you dont relly on costumers as your only source of publicity and if your products are like chewing gum.


Many companies have a diferent aproach and they have a very agressive release shedule, giving goodies to all factions many times a year and lets be totally honest here with a bit of originality you can keep people interested without revealing much... black gobbos, PP little artwork puzzle, PP sneaks concept arts, PP stats contests... you name it... the fact is IMO GW just are not interested in keeping people on board.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:The fact that there will be hundreds?

How can you claim something that is speculative as fact?
Man I wanna borrow your crystal ball or tea leaves or whichever form of divination you use.

Gonna win that lotto and still not buy a Porsche!

How many people play this hobby? Enough to justify my use of language as there will be hundreds...

As for that crystal ball, the image is clearing... oh yes, its yet another pedantic git on dakka...

lol
Was only joshing Geordie.
Was a turn of phrase that amused is all

But as you do happen to have a crystal ball and it is gettring warmed up, would you be so kind as to PM me tonight's winning lotto numbers please!


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Going back to your question, tbh I have no idea how many people play 40k.
Of those that do what percentage will be buying GK and continue to collect and play them seriously?

Ouze wrote:

Perhaps they should?

We need an "owned" Ork-moticon

Now I'm wondering wtf happened in late 2004 that caused GW to plummet.

themocaw wrote:Now I'm wondering wtf happened in late 2004 that caused GW to plummet.

They stopped making LOTR films.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:lol
Was only joshing Geordie.
Was a turn of phrase that amused is all

But as you do happen to have a crystal ball and it is gettring warmed up, would you be so kind as to PM me tonight's winning lotto numbers please!


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Going back to your question, tbh I have no idea how many people play 40k.
Of those that do what percentage will be buying GK and continue to collect and play them seriously?

I think that the trend for 40k codex books to top the previous release for crazy/die hard/next to unstoppable rules will see plenty of people collect the gk's. Whether its a prolonged collection for them I'd imagine it'll only be hardcore gk players who stick it out. The rest will leap onto the next superdex that is released. And, in line with the thread topic, we will never find out what it is or when it'll be released until they decide the timing is right for their marketing managers.

In fairness this must be so else GW are not gonna bother getting out of bed in the mornings.
It would be interesting to know how many people play 40K
Sadly the question was not asked on the current census.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:There are two aspects to the discussion, Whatever.
There is the part that is about cash and profits and sales.

And there is the part that is about communication, public relations and goodwill.
The latter is more subjective by nature and imho this is the aspect that needs addressing here.
The question is, why don't GW provide information about forthcoming releases?
There has still not been a convincing reason, other than they can and it is good for shareholders.

That is probably true Snurl, but the same or longer for other products and the companies can give some details out months in advance.

Am still unconvinced the policy is necessary

GW does provide information about upcoming releases. It's just that it's 2 months ahead of time instead of 1 year+ ahead of time like most of us would like.

The thing that I don't understand is why people feel put off because GW doesn't announce what they're doing 1+ years ahead of time.

For example,I drive Ford's[just like my father and my grandfather]. I've never purchased a car made by another manufacturer. Should I be angry at Ford because they haven't sent me an e-mail with their plans for their 2013 model line,then? Most of us would say that's an irrational emotion,and we're talking about a purchase as major as a car,not toy soldiers. I don't understand the sense of entitlement to this information from GW that other people have,and thusly don't understand why they get upset about it.

I've been a GW customer since the launch of 3rd ed 40k in '98. I currently have 5 armies,and I've had a total of 7 different armies. My expectation from GW is that they provide a quality product equal to the price I'm paying for it,and if there's and issue,they rectify the situation. By and large,I have gotten my money's worth in enjoyment out of their products,and the two times I had an issue with missing parts in a blister/kit,they fixed it quickly and with no cost to me and no hassle. That's not saying I think GW is perfect,because it's certainly not,and it definately has room to improve in several areas,IMO[fluctuating power levels between codex writers and slowness in getting mini's produced/armies updated are at the top of my list],but I get what I expect as a customer out of GW when I purchase their products.

I realize that GW used to be a lot looser with their plans,and that's built up a sense of entitlement within the community,but I personally feel it's silly. For example,in one of my former workplaces,we would order Jimmy John's subs on occassion. Also,on occassion,Jimmy John's would show up with some free subs for everybody. Pretty sweet,right? That helps build up that goodwill you were talking about,obviously. Then,we stopped getting free subs when a new manager took over the store. Now,there's two ways I could look at the situation. First,I could be passive aggressive and not buy Jimmy John's and complain to anybody that would listen to me about them,or I could come to the understanding that I had no right to free subs to begin with,that it was very nice of them to give us free subs in the past,and that they still make a good sub for the money and get Jimmy John's.

Grakmar wrote:GW does let you know what's in the works. I'm convinced 90% or so of these "rumors" are just viral marketing by GW.

Anyone who cared to has know about GK for months and months now. And, we're fully aware that SoB and Necrons are in the pipeline.

As for why they choose to do things this way... you'd have to ask a marketing person.

I agree a bit. Keeping things vague also keeps the rumor mill going and GW releases the subject of threads all over the internet.


Simply...it keeps people talking about GW.

It is not about entitlement though, that is overstating the point. There is a fair and legitimate question, why do GW choose to not to make announcements, and prefer to wrap releases up in secrecy?

It is not irrational to want to be kept informed so as to make purchasing decisions. That to me seems very reasonable. Snap buying new shiney stuff that has been kept under wraps is irrational.
If development is 2-3 years as stated it cannot be beyong the wit of good organisational skills to make a provisional announcement in advance.

I am fairly new to GW. So the comment about how they may have acted in the past is not relevant in my case.
However, coming from other hobbies where firms do widely publish up an coming products, and have even been known to delay release when it has been pointed out there is a fault with the test shot (though by no means is this always the case) then I am frankly perplexed to see GW behave in the manner in which the do.
Quite frankly it is the acceptance of business practices, that would not be tolerated in other sectors, is irrational.

As a customer I do however feel entitled to being treated as an adult, even if I am buying toy soldiers.

With respect your analogy of the Ford is not really valid. If you go to the Ford website I would be surprised if future projects are not to be found.
Futhermore I would expect there to be a facility for email newsletters including new products if you wanted them.
What is it about GW discussions and bloody motorcar analogies!

there you go
http://www.ford.co.uk/Cars/FutureVehicles/Overview/mdp=i1204953017896
http://www.automotive.com/future-cars/01/ford/index.html
Sure there will be similar for the US market

The question still remains unanswered.
Why do GW not stop playing games and just tell us wassup Doc?

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:It is not about entitlement though, that is overstating the point. There is a fair and legitimate question, why do GW choose to not to make announcements, and prefer to wrap releases up in secrecy?

It is not irrational to want to be kept informed so as to make purchasing decisions. That to me seems very reasonable. Snap buying new shiney stuff that has been kept under wraps is irrational.
If development is 2-3 years as stated it cannot be beyong the wit of good organisational skills to make a provisional announcement in advance.

I am fairly new to GW. So the comment about how they may have acted in the past is not relevant in my case.
However, coming from other hobbies where firms do widely publish up an coming products, and have even been known to delay release when it has been pointed out there is a fault with the test shot (though by no means is this always the case) then I am frankly perplexed to see GW behave in the manner in which the do.
Quite frankly it is the acceptance of business practices, that would not be tolerated in other sectors, is irrational.

As a customer I do however feel entitled to being treated as an adult, even if I am buying toy soldiers.

With respect your analogy of the Ford is not really valid. If you go to the Ford website I would be surprised if future projects are not to be found.
Futhermore I would expect there to be a facility for email newsletters including new products if you wanted them.
What is it about GW discussions and bloody motorcar analogies!

there you go
http://www.ford.co.uk/Cars/FutureVehicles/Overview/mdp=i1204953017896
http://www.automotive.com/future-cars/01/ford/index.html
Sure there will be similar for the US market

The question still remains unanswered.
Why do GW not stop playing games and just tell us wassup Doc?

Ford's US site does not have links to future products[at least not so far as I can find]. Your Ford UK link isn't working for me,currently. The US and UK markets are different,and what works in one market will not neccessarily work in the other. Your second link is to a third party,the equivalent of what Dakka is to GW.

Ultimately,your question has already been answered. It's not best for GW's buisness,or at least not what's best for them as determined by their marketing staff,executives,and shareholders.

As for an informed decision,GW shows pictures of their models at least a month in advance under it's preorders section. A month isn't long enough to look at a model and decide whether to buy it or not based on it's aesthetic value and/or in-game abilities[if the book for the model is available]?

The issue with sharing more information with the consumers is that it only builds goodwill towards the company so long as the consumers are hearing what they WANT to hear. Delays tick customers off,and when stuff is announced well in advance,it costs GW money. For example,GW comes out and says "We're currently focusing on Tau and plan to have them ready for a Q4 2011 release." People who are planning a Tau army decide to hold off on buying them until Q4. However,problems happen,and Tau become the 40k version of "Nuke Nukem Forever,"and get pushed back over and over again for a variety of reasons. Then instead of being mad at GW for not giving them the information,they are mad at GW for MIS-information,complaining along a variety of tangents like "Tau got pushed back for more Spesss Mahreens AGAIN!" People who could be happily playing with Tau armies and making money for GW are instead po'd with the wait and/or waiting to see if Tau get squatted or not while not buying anything. Not to mention the fact that their competitors can beat them to the punch with similarly themed products,or worse yet,beat them to the patent/copyright office. "Bootleg" companies,like Chapterhouse,for instance,will be able to their own versions of the Dreadknight or whatever ready to drop when the GK codex does.

Another issue is that you keep saying why shouldn't GW be more free with their information,but not really giving much of an argument as for why they should.

Re Ford
Market differences are irrelevent to the point.
The point is that the future products are on the web if you want to see what they are up to
Third party interviews with Ford engineers who aren't threadtened with the sack.

Ultimately,your question has already been answered. It's not best for GW's buisness,or at least not what's best for them as determined by their marketing staff,executives,and shareholders.

Q: Why is the sky blue.
A: Because it is.

Okay now I understand



A month in advance is not long enough if I have just spent my budget on a book and models that become obsolete.

Kirasu wrote:You're right.. I work for GW's secret department in charge of releasing secrets

I will give you 100% facts about the upcoming release if you PM me.. Dont ask GW if I work there as they will never admit to using secret operatives

GW's Next Release Clue

There is a clue in that picture.. There is a red shirt somewhere in there (Watch out for fakes) with pre-release information crucial to your interests.. You must find and interrogate him

Now, in all seriousness, does it really seem THAT ridiculous that maybe they like to have a little fun with the ignorance of the masses?

Whatever1 wrote:
Ford's US site does not have links to future products[at least not so far as I can find]. Your Ford UK link isn't working for me,currently. The US and UK markets are different,and what works in one market will not neccessarily work in the other. Your second link is to a third party,the equivalent of what Dakka is to GW.

Pretty easy to find if you actually look for it. Go to Ford.com, look to the left side of the screen and scroll down to the bottom, under vehicles it's the 3rd link from the bottom...aptly entitled "Future Vehicles".......There's even a 2013 vehicle there but then that doesn't support your argument so we'll just quietly ignore that.

The sky is blue because of the high (about 1/3) level of Oxygen in the atmosphere. O2 and O3 (ozone) skatter light of wavelength 475 nm, while absorbing other wavelengths of light (i.e. other colors). Thus, the only light that gets through the atmosphere to reach our eyes is Blue, giving the sky a blue hue.

I used to do some video game reporting, including covering Blizzard. The two companies are fairly similar -- they have long development cycles, they're at the pinnacle of their respective industries, and they have very strong IP as the central pillar of their products.

Yak already gave two good reasons for GW's secrecy, but I'd posit another -- paranoia. If you're not familiar with how Blizzard's press releases work, they basically go this way -- they invite several media types to the campus / convention, give out some scripted answers, and then refuse to ask about anything outside of a very narrow scope. I asked Mike Morhaime (Blizz CEO) once why this was, and his answer was simple -- they worry that, if they tip their hands too much, a competitor will pounce on their idea / setting / mechanic and release something similar before their game came out.

I'd imagine that GW has a similar fear. They'd rather have their competitors -- in this case, mostly dozens of small-market molders and sellers -- scrambling to catch up with the new tech in a new codex, rather than anticipating it and having models ready to go when the codex launches. Similarly, they'd rather see their copy-cat competitors with faster release cycles reacting to their rulesets, rather than anticipating and improving on them before release.

econtutor wrote:After reading through yet another "X faction rumor thread" I'm walking away baffled. Why the heck doesn't GW just come out and say what the heck they're working on... I can think of no other company that is so secretive about what's in the pipeline when it comes to releases.

When it comes to a release schedules, video game manufacturers, movie studios, other mini manufacturers, pretty much any other entertainment product I buy, the manufacturer lets the customer know what's coming out far before its release date. I'm curious why do you think GW tends to buck this trend? Why do they keep their future release schedule so secretive?

The ONLY reason I can think of is that the secrecy prevents customers from delaying purchases until new models are released. If true, this is a pretty S&%$^ reason, I'd be pissed if I dropped cash on a new army and two months later the rules and models for it were completely redone!

Because gamers, whether they be computer gamers, board gamers, or miniature gaming are whining ninnies. If we find out that the tau are the next ones to get a codex all of the necrons would whine that they don't get a codex. And they would be justified.

The only people that wouldn't be justified in whining would be nids and space marines. And we would mock them for whining.

Everyone (except them) would be justified in getting a codex. Are tau players morally better then necron players? Are eldar better then dark eldar? Were all people, none of us are inherently better then each other.

No race deserves to get a codex. Anything we get is out of the good will of GW, so sit back, stop whining about other people, and get some patience.

It's weird reading the posts from the random apologists that like to pop in to the threads where people are unhappy with poor communication. Like they get off on pretending this international retailer/manufacturer is in fact a glorious charity, and anyone who would ever want anything (and be willing to pay money for items) from this very much for-profit organization, is somehow a worse human being for it.

Anomaly1 wrote:Anything we get is out of the good will of GW

Have you even heard of the word business?

Toy companies in general keep their products under wraps. Last year I was into Lego and I remembered how you'd be peaking around for rumors all the way up until the toyfair, where the models were finally displayed. They were released not that long afterwards (comparable to just a tad longer than GW's own Pre-order period).

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:... you'd be peaking around for rumors all the way up until the toyfair, where the models were finally displayed...

Replace 'toy fair' with 'car show' or 'gaming show' or 'electronics conference' or half a dozen other things and you'll notice a trend with how companies reveal things.

On the other hand:

1. GW doesn't go to other trade shows/conferences/events. They consider themselves to be a hobby in and of themselves and thus won't participate in events that involved the rest of the miniature war gaming industry (something they are part of no matter how much they want to deny it).
2. GW doesn't preview things at its own shows. I remember last year (I think it was last year), the big display cabinets at GDUK were of the Skaven, who had been released in the weeks prior to the event. No actual upcoming products were talked about other than Forge World and Black Library, the only two wings of GW that seem to understand what a 'preview' actually is.

Recently, I've wondered if a side effect of GW not revealing what's coming next helps keep them from being overwhelmed with simultaneous 3rd party releases.

Mantic is pretty much hitting orcs on the head, but it's still a few months late (or at least once they'll actually be available). If they were ready on day 1, imagine the lost sales for GW...

That said, if I start O&G, it'll be with Mantic regardless. I can wait a few months to pay much, Much less... the retroactive doubling of the price of the old orc boy box just so it doesn't overshadow the new feral orc box is the one that makes it a very easy choice.

MikeMcSomething wrote:It's weird reading the posts from the random apologists that like to pop in to the threads where people are unhappy with poor communication. Like they get off on pretending this international retailer/manufacturer is in fact a glorious charity, and anyone who would ever want anything (and be willing to pay money for items) from this very much for-profit organization, is somehow a worse human being for it.

Anomaly1 wrote:Anything we get is out of the good will of GW

Have you even heard of the word business?

What, do you think just cause YOU pay a few bucks YOU get to call the shots?

Its called capitalism, it trumps business. It means they will do WHATEVER they feel like, sure, they will likely do things in order to make more money. But I think they will do things to make the game better, because in the long run that is better then immediate appeasment of the largest faction playerwise.

So if any of you think that you deserve, like you have some sort of god given right, to know what is going on at all times just because you paid a few hundred bucks for your army then wake the hell up.

They will do what they feel like, if it means coddling your ego then thats what they will do. But chances are, they won't waste their time on you, they will use their time to improve the game in any way they see fit.

You can argue "business this", "business that", all you like. But when push comes to shove, you would need to gather at least a few hundred players to make your opinion even HEARD at the fundamental level, and at least a thousand or even more players to actually force them to do ANYTHING.

Push comes to shove, you don't have that kind of power, you have the power of a snot in the eyes of a company like GW. What are YOU gonna do? threaten to never buy another boxed set of whatever the hell you feel like? You losing your hobby and hundreds of dollars of units will hurt you a lot more than it will GW. You wouldn't make a dent. And we both know it.

I'm not defending GW here, I'm laughing in the face of people that think that they are so special that they deserve to be held in higher regards by other companies. If you guys manage to get GW to go ahead and tell you what they're working on then big whoop. It wasn't because you held any sort of actual power. It's because, as I said before, they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Hence, I stand by what I said before, GW will only ever do this out of the goodness of their little XV88 hearts.

And as far as you are concerned, you should be content with that like I am.

Happy gaming.

Anomaly1 wrote:I'm not defending GW here

You are, and you're not doing it in a way that is any more persuasive than your last post, you just made it a longer read by missing the point a few more times.

RiTides wrote:... overwhelmed with simultaneous 3rd party releases.

Mantic is pretty much hitting orcs on the head...

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on their sunshine. You didn't just call Mantic a '3rd party' group did you? I seriously hope not. That'd be like calling Catalyst Games a 3rd Party producer for C.A.V..

MikeMcSomething wrote:

Anomaly1 wrote:I'm not defending GW here

You are, and you're not doing it in a way that is any more persuasive than your last post, you just made it a longer read by missing the point a few more times.

Im defending capitalism and free business. Not that I honestly believe it to be that ethical *cough* gulf coast disaster *cough* *cough*.

What in the world are you defending? That the public has a right to force companies to their will? How did that end up? I'm pretty sure they named a city after that guy who defended it, oh what was it? STALINGRAD. Yah, and that ended up so well.

Its a zero sum world, that's the belief of capitalism and practically every other economic strategy. Be happy with what you've got instead of greedy for what someone else has.

I don't care what GW decides on this matter, and something tells me that you don't really care either. Because either way I will continue to build my new tau 1850 army, and you will continue to play with whatever army you have.

Same with the rest of us. If your really willing to stake your gameplaying based off of this subject then yah, you CARE about how this turns out. And not even that much, because staking what could objectively be called an overglorified version of chess (and I say objectively, I personally see this as a unique and different game, but from an outside perspective they really are that similarly related) on something like this is not that much of a sacrifice.

But lets face facts, neither you, nor I, nor probably 4 out of 5 people whom read this message actually care that much about the subject.

An0maly1 wrote:

MikeMcSomething wrote:It's weird reading the posts from the random apologists that like to pop in to the threads where people are unhappy with poor communication. Like they get off on pretending this international retailer/manufacturer is in fact a glorious charity, and anyone who would ever want anything (and be willing to pay money for items) from this very much for-profit organization, is somehow a worse human being for it.

Anomaly1 wrote:Anything we get is out of the good will of GW

Have you even heard of the word business?

What, do you think just cause YOU pay a few bucks YOU get to call the shots?

Its called capitalism, it trumps business. ...

Wow...

At first, I thought this must just be someone that profoundly misunderstands the nature of capitalism, but then I realized it must be an elaborate troll.

Seriously, no one able to turn on a computer could possibly think that paying attention to consumer desires is (via reference to Stalingrad) a defining feature of Communism, Right?

I mean, no one could seriously think that anything done by a publicly traded company is something they are "doing... out of the goodness of their hearts", right?
.
.
.
Right?

H.B.M.C. wrote:

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:... you'd be peaking around for rumors all the way up until the toyfair, where the models were finally displayed...

Replace 'toy fair' with 'car show' or 'gaming show' or 'electronics conference' or half a dozen other things and you'll notice a trend with how companies reveal things.

On the other hand:

1. GW doesn't go to other trade shows/conferences/events. They consider themselves to be a hobby in and of themselves and thus won't participate in events that involved the rest of the miniature war gaming industry (something they are part of no matter how much they want to deny it).
2. GW doesn't preview things at its own shows. I remember last year (I think it was last year), the big display cabinets at GDUK were of the Skaven, who had been released in the weeks prior to the event. No actual upcoming products were talked about other than Forge World and Black Library, the only two wings of GW that seem to understand what a 'preview' actually is.

With trade shows companies have to exhibit stuff giving long previews in order to secure retailers for their stuff. GW on the other hand never seem to attend such things and expect LGS and others to take on contracts with them and only give them the same degree of notice that they give the rest of the public or the bulk of their own staff. I'm pretty sure most toy companies and others don't expect people to retail their stuff when they don't even give a clue as to what they are doing beyond the next two months. Hasbro for instance display most of their future releases for at least the next year and sometimes beyond.

I suppose if anyone is showing a sense of entitlement it's GW and their assumption that many LGS will take their stuff come what may.

Mewens wrote:I'd imagine that GW has a similar fear. They'd rather have their competitors -- in this case, mostly dozens of small-market molders and sellers -- scrambling to catch up with the new tech in a new codex, rather than anticipating it and having models ready to go when the codex launches. Similarly, they'd rather see their copy-cat competitors with faster release cycles reacting to their rulesets, rather than anticipating and improving on them before release.

Ironic I suppose given that Reaper released a very Jokaero-like figure mere weeks before GW releases their own figure.

But anyway, GW do such a good job of sheltering their core audience, the younger players, from other manufacturers that I didn't think they treat others as a credible threat. As long as other companies don't copy their IP and people don't bring other models into their shops they are happy to ignore their very existence. Rather than 'compete' with competitors they carry on as though they are not there. If you're the sort of person that buys Mantic and others to fill out their Warhammer armies then you're probably beyond the influence of GW propaganda anyway so you're seen as a lost cause and a customer they can afford to lose.

They after all seem to rely heavily on new recruits to the hobby who solely buy GW, once you're a bit older and you buy less or buy other manufacturers you're very low on their list of priorities to satisfy, they it's a waste of resources to 'tempt you back' from other manufactures just like it is a waste to tempt someone back who has quit the hobby. The money is all in the new comers.

Howard A Treesong wrote:With trade shows companies have to exhibit stuff giving long previews in order to secure retailers for their stuff.

Yeah, 'cause, y'know, a big component of E3 each year is Sony and Microsoft hoping against hope that EB and Best Buy will continue to stock their products.

Good point re trade shows and retailers Howard

Have this morning received a newsletter from GW with hints at what they are going to release in the second DE wave.
Concept of the haemunculus that someone has posted already. And parts of something, possibly a Talos?
Not sure when the release is due but this may be a sign that they are taking notice at last.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=14300134a

If so good move GW even if is is a bit of a tease, it is a step in the right direction, and to those who said GW's market was working and all was tickity boo and what right have we to know what is coming etc, etc....
Yah boo sucks and a jolly good cocking of a snook to you!