The word just got sent out - the current 2011-2012 season will finish out with the Throne of Skulls as planned, but they're not going to have a circuit next season.

So does that mean no support for large events or just no Golden Ticket/Throne of Skulls event?

On a sidenote I can't say I'm shocked. I haven't been able to get anyone to respond to me the prize vouchers they were suppose to provide to the winners of our local GT....

Correct Hulk, I would share the email but after reading the underscore of it GW if not allowing any of the recipients to do so and at legal advice it seems best not to play with fire. This is not suprising as Ed was the forerunner for this and for me this is a huge crush and nail in the coffin with GW. Though personally I will continue to sell bits etc as that is my business I think honestly I for one will find something else to play.

TimmyMWD wrote:The word just got sent out - the current 2011-2012 season will finish out with the Throne of Skulls as planned, but they're not going to have a circuit next season.

Not surprising considering GW's current move away from a competitive play focus across all platforms. It'll be up to the community to determine a marquee event now. As it should be.

@Empchild

Which part was correct?

No support at all (i.e. no prize support)?

Or just no Golden Ticket/Throne of Skulls?

REally? Could they Feth things up anymore? Granted in the Widwest we have an awesome Fantasy Tourney circut without a signifigant ammount of GW support(Mostly terrain pieces these days) But it is discouraging for new events to arise without assistance.

Circuit is dead. But not. GW support diminished to small for all events after year 1, regardless of size. The circuit is still alive, just minus gw vouchers, $500/year in unboxed sprue terrain, and lanyards.

Hulksmash wrote:@Empchild

Which part was correct?

No support at all (i.e. no prize support)?

Or just no Golden Ticket/Throne of Skulls?

Interesting. Dark Star never gave out the GW prize vouchers? They even had those as part of the advertisement for the GT....

That's bizarre, and really quite unprofessional.

Meh. GW doesn't care about the NE of America, so I don't care.

Now there's a free weekend to play more Kill Team at my FLGS!

MVBrandt wrote:Circuit is dead. But not. GW support diminished to small for all events after year 1, regardless of size. The circuit is still alive, just minus gw vouchers, $500/year in unboxed sprue terrain, and lanyards.

Mike - did d you get add'l info?

I don't know how you interpret minimal support from an email that uses the word discontinue.

Edited to exclude the content of the email - don't want to get in trouble

Timmy I'm saying the support offered after year 1 to all circuit events regardless of size was so relatively minimal, it didn't impact much that they formally ended it.

What I don't get is how they quantified the drop. NOVA survey showed attendees dropped over $100k in hobby purchases prepping their armies for the 2011 NOVA. Hardly seems a poor investment that GW put around $800 in value to support that kind of economic activity.

Well I would certainly agree there. The independent tournaments will survive just fine - the official GW support was nice but not necessary. However, the prize support was nice to mitigate cost - that's less money I'll be able to put into the debate program from the Bugeater GT this year unless I find other sponsors to cover the first place prizes. It's just disappointing - their reasoning was they want to promote a variety of events ... yet the circuit allowed TOs the freedom to create dozens of iterations of warhammer tournaments.

The decision was more disappointing for conceptual reasons than fiscal ones.

Being as somone who fronted all of the cash for my local tourney the GW support helped a ton. Sad to say in my case it didn't arrive till several days before the event so I had no time to put it together but it got used instead to help raise money for the charity I donate the proceds to (thank you all for that btw as those). What was great was as a organizer we got a lot of help but publicity wise, product, and prizes to hand out. This helps free up cash etc for otherthings for the event. As the one who has fronted money on both occassions without any help from others that $500 some of you scoff at is a huge help. I don't think some of you have a clue what it really costs to run a indy GT financially. You have to rent the hall, buy the materials for the terrain, the prizes, the insurance for the hall, rent the tables, buy tropheys, swag bags etc. All told it runs between $3000-$5000 depending on where in the country you are and believe me you seldom make that money back to cover next years.

A while ago I spoke to Hank Edley one of the main organizers for Adepticon, and he told me it took them 6 years before they were able to actually cover the event itself, and that was a group of people. For me overall this sucks and I think it's more of a hit on the overall scale as tourneys are not just about winning or losing but the socializing and if people start going broke trying to run them then they will slowly fade away. Saddly this is what happened to me as since i don't work for the gov't anymore I couldn't affoard another year of losses organizing the Boston Brawl and no one would step up to help so that kicked off that idea. I apologize for going on the rant all but I get agrivated when people have no idea how much GW was actually doing to help the circuit!

I have nothing negative to say about Ed, but he didn't do squat for the BAO. I mean nothing, and I was bugging him for over a year. I am sure this wasn't a personal decision, but still, GW just has such bizarre policies.

I play Heavy Gear a lot these days and I have had several conversations with one of the owners of the company and to him, I am nothing more than a guy who likes his game. Now, I know there is a vast difference of scale here, but Heavy Gear is a 20 year old game system and they still have that level of customer interaction.

Oh well. The Indy circuit is better than any event GW ever put on anyway.

I don't see why people believe GW should be hosting events....

Most companies don't support their products after you make the initial sale.

GW makes money by making people buy their models.... If you have an 1850 pt army already then you aren't their target market.... Why do they want to shower the players with gifts if you aint spending any money on their gear?

From a tightwad economic plan that GW has, tournaments needed to be axed....

Also 5th Edition is not endearing itself to the tournament scene do to GW's lack of support for the main product. IE: Tau, Eldar, and until recently DE and Crons.... all have been left unsupported for to long... which lends itself to a boring tournament evironment where only GK, DE and IG are competing at the highest levels...

On the upside, there's even less reason now for indie tournaments to require 100%, or even any %, of our minis to by GW, now. Zero tourney support from GW + lots of small manufacturers doing alternate minis COULD = a more vibrant, enjoyable, friendly, welcoming wargames scene, as well as a more competitive one.

Ian Sturrock wrote:On the upside, there's even less reason now for indie tournaments to require 100%, or even any %, of our minis to by GW, now. Zero tourney support from GW + lots of small manufacturers doing alternate minis COULD = a more vibrant, enjoyable, friendly, welcoming wargames scene, as well as a more competitive one.

This is a fine point. My gaming group out of Kansas City is working on putting together a two day GT style tournament. I see no reason what so ever to require model's be GW any more.

I hate GW so much.....

They are going to kill their own hobby.

Smitty0305 wrote:I hate GW so much.....

They are going to kill their own hobby.

In fairness I think you mean their own product as this hobby as a whole was around long before them and will be long after them.

It is completely idiotic for GW to not formally support a major tournament circuit. Here's a few quick, no brainer reasons why tournaments are a benefit for them:

1. People spend a lot of money buying new armies / buying new units for the next tournament (see NOVA post).

2. People spend a lot of money buying unnecessary terrain, paints, flock to create display boards and other scenics.

3. You get people to play more often, by creating meaning for regular games (e.g. "tournament practice"). By getting people to play more often, you increase the value of their purchases and make it easier for them to rationalize purchasing more. (Why do you need more than 1 army if you play once a year?)

4. Tournaments give you something to aspire to and a way to rank yourself relative to your peers. They also give you legendary players to look up to and try to emulate. All these factors increase your stickiness / interest in the game.

5. You create a strong incentive for people to use GW models (as mentioned above). Why do you think you don't see alternative models on Warmachine/hordes boards? Because you can't use them in tournaments, so it's generally a waste to purchase an alternative.

6. Very low cost for GW to support. Their markup on product is ridiculous (something like an 80% gross margin if I recall correctly). $500 worth of prize support is pretty solid and costs them a mere $100. The marketing these events do alone is worth far more than $100.


GW just doesn't get it. Lets do the math for them right now. You support 5 major events a year with $1,000 in GW merchandise ($5,000 total). That costs GW ~$1,000. To make that back, they need to sell approximately $1,250 in minis (assuming 80% gross margin). $1,250 breaks down to about 4 armies.

Does anyone honestly think that 5 major events with a $500 top prize each won't get FOUR PEOPLE to buy new armies in preparation for the tournament?

Only a fool wouldn't support a major tournament circuit.

^^^^ Pretty much summed it all up.

I find this disapointing. Mabye they will be back with a better plan at some point but I think its poor planing on their part to just discontinue support with a couple of empty pladatudes about yeah we got something in the works. As I understand it the two main guys that pushed Tourny's and tourny support have both left GW:US recently. I would guess this is the major reason for the drop. If it was my company though I would have pushed someone else into that position imediatly and got to work on a new plan. I wouldnt just let it fester in the minds of my customers that once agin it looks like im only looking at the bottom line and not my customers.

A couple inputs from my p.o.v. ... I'm going to use the NOVA as my baseline, b/c I run it ... hope that's ok.

GW built this circuit, including events like the NOVA, because their initial offering was extremely beneficial for tournament organizers.

I'm going to use "close" numbers and not actuals, but the problems arose initially from the ambitious support quantities and unethical behavior by tournament organizers in the first year of the circuit.

GW basically required no past performance to get on the circuit, first of all. As I built and run the NOVA, I'll use it as the example of an event that should NOT have been in on its first year, yet benefitted by acting ethically.

You submitted your "application" and in large part it seemed it was accepted as written. You stated your EXPECTED # of attendees, and before they sent you final prize support, you would confirm your actual #.

As part of prize support, you'd get $500 in unboxed terrain (or you could add this to your prize pool), and a set amount of dollar value prize support that YOU as the organizer selected from the GW store (no tax/shipping).

You'd also get advertising on website/newsletters, and things like lanyards and bags for swag if you wanted them (just shop retail bags).

So in Year 1 the NOVA initially anticipated only 64 40k players, so our initial offering from GW for that quantity (under 100) was ~$700 of prizes + the $500 in terrain or prizes. We ended up with 118 (88 40k, 30 fantasy) in year 1, so we reported that when we hit over 100 (101-200 was the second tier), and wound up with ~$1400 in prizes + the $500 in terrain/prizes.

This was huge - the 2010 NOVA gave out around $8k in prizes, so 25% of our sponsorship was from GW. I received this support from GW purely on my word, with not even a phone call (every other sponsor even in the first year engaged in lengthy phone calls w/ me and all that). How many events claimed far more attendees and thus prize support than they actually had?


The problem here was a large # of unethical types on the circuit (arguably) took advantage by SAYING they were going to have 128 or 200+ or however many attendees, yet only wound up in the 50's, and so received $2k or more in GW support for very small attendee bases (and who knows what happened with the prizes).

As a result, after 2010 and starting in 2011's year, while GW would support very large events in ways OUTSIDE the circuit, even the big ones like AdeptiCon (to my understanding, I'm not quoting anyone in AdeptiCon's group) only received the "flat" quantity as part of the circuit, that being:

$300 in total voucher value for 1st/2nd/3rd places, in the form of 'after-event" online vouchers
$500 in unboxed terrain (that could no longer be converted to prize value instead)
Lanyards

In 2011, the NOVA had over 500 total hobbyists present counting volunteers, and 450 attendees despite a hurricane and earthquake ... quite the 1 year growth from 128. We went from spending $8k total to run the 2010 event and generating $6400 in ticket revenue (costing us, yes, $1600 to run the first year event), to generating over $35k in revenue (and spending about $36k, so a net improvement to the bottom line, haha ... it's expensive to build something up so fast, folks!). The GW sponsorship was ... $300 in vouchers, $500 in unboxed terrain, and lanyards. Our overall sponsor donations and prize support given away for 2011 was over $40,000.

So they went from contributing basically $2k of $6k in prizes for one of the biggest 40k events in the nation ... to contributing $800 in prize support of $40,000+.

Despite this, I frankly loved the support they gave us. GW is a major public corporation and the tourney-attending group pays an exorbitant but internationally marginal quantity of the GW annual revenue. Around 450 people spent over $100k on hobby products getting ready for the 2011 NOVA, and some quantity of that magnitudes larger than $800 went to GW. In return, we got to proudly run GW games, we got all kinds of support from them on the website / newsletter / etc., I got to build a great relationship with Ed Spettigue that really blossomed in communication through a couple of spurious comments by misinformed other people in the industry, and the NOVA grew into what it is. This wouldn't have happened without GW - they started the circuit, they sparked the first NOVA, they got me into this crazy hard game of convention organization.

So ... YES GW support is really important, but the support they JUST ended was not all that important to the FINANCIALS of running the events. Financially speaking, I just lost one of my SMALLEST sponsors (out of over 50 sponsors). Black Library will still be attending separate from the Independent Circuit, and we'll still have awesome prizes from them (they gave us some AWESOME prizes last year), and the presence of heavily involved, involved-in-the-events bestselling authors, etc. That's still Games Workshop support, it's just not "Independent Circuit Tournament" Support.

So the enterprising TO's out there can still try to build their event to a place where it's economically feasible for GW marketing folks to send support, it just isn't going to be part of a circuit.

It hurts the ability of NEW events to build themselves, to not have a ready-made prize pool pre-built from GW support, or maybe not to get lanyards. It doesn't REALLY hurt any existing events, unless they were already really rough on the financials ... like barely there rough.


The long and short is all of us who are part of the "de facto" circuit need to more and more support each other. There are a lot of activities going on in this regard, both regionally and country-wide. I do what I can with blog posts (i.e. in support of SVDM, MechaniCon, BFS, Colonial, Conflict, and many other local/regional events) and Invitational quals (nationally) to encourage people to attend other GT's, and I'm always happy to do more as memory and time permits. We need to replicate the "press" benefit GW gave all of us as part of hosting the circuit. As long as your event is running well and you're marketing well, you'll be able to handle the financial hit, because after year 1 it wasn't much of a hit at all.


Perhaps in finality to a rambling post, I think a THANK YOU is still in order for GW, and for Ed Spettigue, in their combined role of building many of the events on the circuit through press and enabling their existence, and while MANY of us may feel this change actually hurts GW financially ... it doesn't change the fact that the help they gave us to date certainly benefitted the hobby experience of everyone involved.

I dont see your reasons to support a tournament as being viable...

I have played wh40k since RT days and have NEVER been to a tournament or even had any inkling to see how I "Stack Up" against my peers in this hobby.

I personally believe Tournaments are a detriment to this hobby.... and that is why I choose to stay away from the power gaming tournament player...

This afterall is a hobby.... I derive my fun from it by being with my friends and having a good time...

In fairness with no GW tournament support I think this benefits the 40k world because people who actually care for the game will start hosting smaller and better run events... Maybe no prizes etc but who really cares.....

Maybe finally we can see some better missions being created and used etc........

I would say there are more recreational users for 40k then comp players..... that is the market for GW... People who want to perhaps change things up and have a 2nd army etc.... they buy ALL the models in the range not just the good ones....

Being a Rec level player brings in MORE cash than a Comp Player.

GW is a model based company. They want to sell models....

Leenus wrote:Only a fool wouldn't support a major tournament circuit.

QFT, though it is Workshop we're talking about!

What irks me most as a retailer is that GW is doing a lot of talking about what they *aren't* doing (no more 'Ard Boyz, no more ToS, etc.), and not a lot of talking about what they *are* doing for support beyond product releases. It seems clear that they are shifting the focus of their systems away from any serious competitive format. Cancelling all the official tournament formats, new hugely expanded paint range, each new model range has a huge super cool model kit for which game balance and effect is a marginal concern...

Which is all fine. I just want them to come out and say it, already! If GW put out a retailer packet that detailed their concepts and suggestions for supporting and promoting their product as a storyline-driven, hobby-oriented range, then I can run with that, and make sure every prospective minis gamer that comes in the store and wants to get involved in a system with a serious competitive format gets his warmachine starter box!

Milisim, my post above has a great deal of relevant info, and far more useful insight I think, but in short for your question -

Events generate THOUSANDS of dollars in product activity among players preparing for them ... models, paint, glue, brushes, snippers, tools, flocking supplies, etc. The more formally GW supports an event, the more formally the event requires GW product usage and the like. More importantly, the "spectre" of people using all NON-GW knock-offs as counts as is unreal (the NOVA for instance doesn't require GW models or even % models as long as things are WYSIWYG / proper proportion, but almost everyone of our 256 GT players uses GW models primarily).

Long story short, tournaments generate money for GW. By investing less than $1k in every event, GW effectively generated economic activity far in excess of that for their benefit. We surveyed our attendees after the event, and got an overwhelming response of over 50% of them (very high in survey terms). Our attendees spent over $100k total on ... JUST hobby stuff (models, glues, etc.).

So, GW sells models by having tournaments run on their behalf, and these tournaments cost GW WAY less than if they run them on their own. No two ways around it ... for marginal investment, GW was gaining considerable profit.

Im no GW FanBoy by a long margin, and I actually detest most of their decisions with their version of the hobby, but this one dosent strike me as being of major concern.

You would garner more outrage and a price hike of 5% than no tournaments....

GW I believe is trying to go back to the grass roots of having fun with its product. There are a lot of people with 40k armies who no longer play, because they are no longer enjoying themeselves....

Perhaps this is GW's way of eradicationg the power gamer and power lists from ruining its product.

What are power lists? If you check the winning lists at basically any major GT in the last year, you'll find almost none of them match up with "Common" internet power lists. Everything from double stormraven to close assault guard armies abound, sprinkled with orks and daemons and everything else.

I'm trying only to assess this from a point of view of provable numbers, rather than the largely irrelevant business of opinion-making. A TINY percentage of GW's fanbase, most of it over the age of 25 (and nearly half of it over the age of 30) actually participates heavily in the tournament circuit. All the kids they cater to as a major fanbase component aren't at all affected by the circuit's existence one way or another.

What the circuit did was generate NEARLY free revenue for GW, selling models and supplies galore. Going from spending almost nothing, to spending nothing, and as a result possibly infringing on hundreds of thousands in future revenue ... is pointless. Every event that now WON'T get started because there's no circuit participation to kick-start it ... is an event not generating revenue for GW in the future at literally a GW-based cost of $800 and lanyard-shipping.

More importantly, all of this is completely irrelevant to the opinion-wars about what constitutes "Fun." Whether you actually believe events like NOVA, AdeptiCon, Bay Area, WarGamesCon and so many others are actually somehow "not" fun ... is pointless; it affects such a tiny % of the wargaming population as to not be part of the discussion about whether supporting the circuit with marginal resources was financially intelligent or not on the part of GW. I argue that it provably, measurably was ... and poor market research on the part of GW is what's behind the decision not to continue it ... nothing more. Certainly nothing along the lines of "Fun" and trying to improve or decrease it.

I guarantee you a few ill-informed marketing / business support personnel got together and looked at how much money they spent supporting the circuit over a few years, made some kind of comment or conclusion that "People just brought armies they already owned, and didn't buy things while they were there from us," and cut the umbilical.

Milisim wrote:Im no GW FanBoy by a long margin, and I actually detest most of their decisions with their version of the hobby, but this one dosent strike me as being of major concern.

You would garner more outrage and a price hike of 5% than no tournaments....

GW I believe is trying to go back to the grass roots of having fun with its product. There are a lot of people with 40k armies who no longer play, because they are no longer enjoying themeselves....

Perhaps this is GW's way of eradicationg the power gamer and power lists from ruining its product.

Hahahahahaha, what?! How in the blazes does that get rid of power gaming/lists? Hahaha, that is just the way some people play games in general. Tournaments allow an outlet for it, but the root of "power" lists is GW's terrible rules writing abilities.

No offense intended, but if you've never been to a tournament, your opinion is pretty limited. They are fun, that's why a lot of people go all over the country to attend them.

Sorry, but your argument is totally illogical.

I love it when people infer some bizarre conclusion from totally unrelated facts.

Why wouldn't GW support a tournament circuit? Because they either have another plan or are stupid. End of discussion.

I know my opinion is pretty strong here and I don't mean to offend, Milism, but the attitude you express here is repeated a lot by gamers who really don't understand what the tournament scene is about because they've never been. It's a pretty weird and irrational point of view, in my opinion.

Tournaments drive sales. They pull people in. Look at Warmachine, Magic, etc. Those games make TONS of money from the active support of the Tournament scene. There is literally nothing to lose if it is done properly and a lot to lose if you DON'T don it. You leave the door open to the competition to get another foot in the door.

Supporting tournaments doesn't do anything to hurt the casual gamer (which you are right, are the majority of the gaming community) and it only generates revenue, increased interest in the hobby, and awareness of GW's product. Anyone who's been to Adpeticon can tell you how powerful of a motiviating, community building force that these things can be. And they are just plain FUN. To not support the tournament scene is just so, so, so stupid. But hey, it's GW we're talking about here, so that's par for the course.

Reecius wrote:

Tournaments drive sales. They pull people in. Look at Warmachine, Magic, etc. Those games make TONS of money from the active support of the Tournament scene. There is literally nothing to lose if it is done properly and a lot to lose if you DON'T don it. You leave the door open to the competition to get another foot in the door.

Supporting tournaments doesn't do anything to hurt the casual gamer (which you are right, are the majority of the gaming community) and it only generates revenue, increased interest in the hobby, and awareness of GW's product. Anyone who's been to Adpeticon can tell you how powerful of a motiviating, community building force that these things can be. And they are just plain FUN. To not support the tournament scene is just so, so, so stupid. But hey, it's GW we're talking about here, so that's par for the course.

This is the total simple truth. Tourneys do not impact casual play at all and do not harm or stunt casual play, but it sure as hell drives sales. Hell, the only reason why myself and people like me are buying new armies every year is because of tourneys. People either want to switch to the next big thing or want to try something new this year. I actually need 4 new battlewagons now because of what I want to play in the 2012 tourney season even though I own tens of thousands of orks. It drives sales not just for new players who get brought in but also vets who don't have to spend a dime if they didn't want to.

Personally, I would like to see GW do the old RTT system. Give free prize support to owners and organizers who already run good events. GW isn't able to run quality RTTs or GTs like they used to. I would eather no GW events rather than bad ones poisioning things. If they took all the prize support and provided it to Indy events to make them better, I think that is the best solution until GW can get their stuff together.

Edit: Oh, please don't pretend all tourney goers are WAAC powergamers, it simply isn't true. Most tourneys promote the hobby as a WHOLE and I go as I see some of the most amazing models and paintjobs and meet amazing people. I probably am gonna lose my ass on the battlefield but there is so much more to the tourney than just the game. Most tourneys really are amazing hobby-centric events and most people are going for all aspects even if they are playing to win.

Wasn't there a rumor a while back that GW was ramping up its tournament support? Guess that was BS.

You are right im not a tournament player.

I have zero interest in tournaments.

I am simply giving a recreational level perspective on why GW most likely pulled the plug on it.....

The perception (obviously it must be out there, since I have it too) is that tournaments congregate the comp players, or else why would you go if not for the competition of winning?

Comp players produce comp lists and disregard fluff based units etc... GW produces units that compete and be fluff based.... It it the power gamer who disregards the fluff units in favour of the winning units..........

Rec level players are more interested in FUN. I believe this is what GW is trying to achieve by its actions of late.... Casual gameplay etc......

Wether you agree with it or not.. simply means you will most likely move on to Warmachine where the "Comp" players will most likely flee too....

It is a bad business decision for many of the reasons listed but it is also alienates someone who should be a powerful advocate for the GW product, the TO. Think about it. The average casual gamer knows how many people in the game? Half dozen? Dozen? How many gamers does the average Organizer know? 100? 200? How many are on their e-mail lists? I just checked. I have 350 different gamers on the QCR e-mail list. When I send the next update out that states simply that GW has withdrawn their support from the Indy GT circuit, how do you think that will sound to their customers? How about when I update the QCR participants (past and present) about the companies that are supporting QCR, what they offer, and links to their sites?

GW really just does not understand the goldmine that the Indy GT circuit is. It generates positive exposure to their product. QCR is held in Fort Mason, a very public place, and I answer a lot of questions. If that leads to just one new customer, that would likely pay for a great deal of prize support. Tournaments create great energy. People get armies done. People buy new models. Finally, it is a time and place that has anywhere from 50 to 5000 (how many at Adepticon?) of your customer there. All who have proven they spend several hundred dollars on your product. How many companies would love the opportunity that this provides?

QCR was financially sustainable prior to the “GT Circuit” and we thought long and hard about actually signing up. I remember having conversations with the group on how long this would last, so in the end it is no surprise.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Milisim-

I think you should try out a tourney before making pretty broad statements about them. The majority of people are attending to have fun. Sure you want to win, the game is a contest after all, but it is just a game. Power lists are represented at the top tables but also a good selection of non-traditional lists are also there, and do very well, at least in fantasy. I see harder lists played at GW stores quite frankly. I have made a slew of new friends and expanded my gaming experience at these events.

I am inferring that your primary objection is you do not like people you play to win. Fine, throw your first game and end up in the middle tables. There is less pressure to win since you have been knocked out of contention and you can enjoy a game with someone new.

Personally, fun for me is taking on a superior player and/or tackling a harder list then what I brought.

Milisim wrote:
I am simply giving a recreational level perspective on why GW most likely pulled the plug on it.....

The perception (obviously it must be out there, since I have it too) is that tournaments congregate the comp players, or else why would you go if not for the competition of winning?

Comp players produce comp lists and disregard fluff based units etc... GW produces units that compete and be fluff based.... It it the power gamer who disregards the fluff units in favour of the winning units..........

Rec level players are more interested in FUN. I believe this is what GW is trying to achieve by its actions of late.... Casual gameplay etc......

GWs old GT system invalidates everything you say and think about tourneys. Tourneys can be super casual and super hobby focused and still be awesome events and be on message with GWs goals. There is no such thing as tourneys being the opposite of hobby or casual... so if they want to focus more hobby or casual, discontinuing tourneys does nothing to cause that and actually harms that. Your perceptions are wrong.

Since you have never been you have no idea what GW used to accomplish or what the Indy events currently accomplish and you have no idea the type of people who go or why they attend.

I think GW simply doesn't have anyone qualified to run an appropriate event. 10 years ago, anyone who was willing to run an event migrated to GW. Many of the TOs today probably would have been roped in to doing GW events, many of the current judges and helpers at indy events actually have had experience helping GW run thier events. I hope that maybe they have decided to help indy events grow opposed to try to compete with them with half-assed events.

Well, looks like everyone is getting a taste of what they did to us BFG players. (A very small taste, granted, you still get support and codecies)

Not sure if anyone else mentioned it but in another thread it was brought up that they canned 'ard boyz too.

Milisim wrote:You are right im not a tournament player.

I have zero interest in tournaments.

I am simply giving a recreational level perspective on why GW most likely pulled the plug on it.....

The perception (obviously it must be out there, since I have it too) is that tournaments congregate the comp players, or else why would you go if not for the competition of winning?

Comp players produce comp lists and disregard fluff based units etc... GW produces units that compete and be fluff based.... It it the power gamer who disregards the fluff units in favour of the winning units..........

Rec level players are more interested in FUN. I believe this is what GW is trying to achieve by its actions of late.... Casual gameplay etc......

Wether you agree with it or not.. simply means you will most likely move on to Warmachine where the "Comp" players will most likely flee too....

There is so much wrong with what you just said, I honestly don't even know where to begin. You are making so many generalizations and assumptions that are hugely biased, that it's crazy.

Only recreational players play to have fun? What? That is sooooooo biased, so prejudicial of a statement and one of the fundamental reasons why the casual/competitive gamer rift exists. Tournament gamers are 99% nice, love the game/fluff and play to have fun. It's just that their idea of fun is different. Not bad, just different.

GW writes good rules that allow fluff armies to be effective as they are in the stories? Sometimes, but usually not. GW writes gakky rules, they just do. I question what goes through their minds. Play any other games and you will learn really, really fast just how bad GW rules are. It is not incumbent upon the player to play a certain way, but only within the boundaries of the rules. It IS incumbent upon GW to write better rules. They just don't.

Your perspective on why GW pulled the plug is 100% speculation. You are assigning your personal point of view to objective events which we have no explanation for. You have NO IDEA what GW's intentions are. You are guessing and you coul dvery well be totally wrong.

And we'll probably "flee" to Warmachine along with the other Competitive players? That is pretty lame, bud. For one, the competitive 40K scene is GROWING at a huge rate. Secondly, no one is fleeing, perhaps other than to get away from crappy attitudes like yours.

Lastly, if you have no interest in tournaments, why are you involved in this conversation other than to try and poo poo on the parade?

It never ceases to amuse me that the supposedly "WAAC" gamers get painted as jerks, when we are accepting of all ways to engage in this hobby while the "casual" gamer only concerned with fun, goes out of their way to be negative.

I play casually, and at tournaments.

My lists aren't all WAAC best-unit-spam builds. Most of them would probably be laughed out of the Army Lists section.

They are fluffy, and i have fun with them.

That said, tournaments do attract more WAACs than a casual gaming scene, as competition is the nature of the beast. We aren't all WAAC TFG's though

I live in Oregon. There isn't even a GW store here, let alone GW support for tourneys. The tourney scene is still fairly lively though

I think I got a little angry in my last post.

Ascalam has it. You can do both, be both and enjoy all aspects of the hobby. One isn't mutually exclusive of the other.

Tournaments are fun. Are their occasionally douchey guys? Yeah, but that is true of any situation.

Reecius wrote:Tournaments are fun. Are their occasionally douchey guys? Yeah, but that is true of any situation.

but the %s (and raw numbers obviously) are much higher in 40k (than in WHFB at least, not sure about WarmaHordes). I doubt many would argue otherwise.

I would. The percentage of douches is tiny in both, and fairly similar, IME.

Milisim wrote:
The perception (obviously it must be out there, since I have it too) is that tournaments congregate the comp players, or else why would you go if not for the competition of winning?

Comp players produce comp lists and disregard fluff based units etc... GW produces units that compete and be fluff based.... It it the power gamer who disregards the fluff units in favour of the winning units..........

I can say from experience that multiple events provide options for players of all type to shine. AdeptiCon, Daboyz GT, WargamesCon, Nova, and more all provide awards and all of the various hobby aspects from competitive play, appearance, team spirit, etc. They also offer awards for different factions (ie: Imperial, Heretical, Xenos and Hyrbrid for AdeptiCon). This promotes players to participate however they wish. The sheer creativity and variety of displays seen at events is simply amazing.

I can also back up Mike Brandt's numbers based on the survey data taken at AdeptiCon. The numbers are significant enough with total sales driven in purchases just for AdeptiCon hitting ~1.5-2% of GWs North American Sales. For a single, yearly event - that is definitely an impact to the company.

GW can ignore this market if they wish. However, the same driven individuals that make these events happen with great success can readjust their focus to other companies that wish to support their communities appropriately. Ultimately, the short term savings has a stronger potential to realize a long term loss in sales revenue.

Yeah, its rare that I run into douches on the tournament scene. And generally the ones I run into are the Big Fish in a Little Pond types. The ones that are used to beating the people at his local scene, then he comes into the bigger pond and stands around the shop, admiring his own army and talking about what it can and can't do, rather than letting his generalship and army list speak for itself.

He usually loses in the second or third round and gets all grumpy when he realizes he's had it. I think a lot of people call the winningest players the "douches" or "WAAC", but that is either envy or misunderstanding of the better player's skill level. Either way, both players should have fun, but also realize that it is not your opponent's job to make sure you're having a good time. You have to put into that pool too.

As to "fluff" in the tournament scene, I only play tournaments. I haven't played a casual game in a long, long time. There is something about prizes at stake that really gets my blood pumping. At the same time, I try my best to fit my fluffy units into my competitive lists. Some of my best lists have been on the tails of Asurmen leading a Dire Avengers squad, or Dark Reapers lighting up gunlines from afar. These are generally not considered competitive choices, but I do well with them because I enjoy playing them and so I learn the nuances of fielding them. My recent list has a full unit of Wraithguard - will I do well with them? Probably so. This is not because I am cocky or a "douche", but because I am confident in my skills with the rest of my army, so I know that I can compensate for the weakness of the Wraithguard (which is not many, outside their slow movement in a fast army!).

Maybe instead of chiding others for what they enjoy and looking through a prism of bias at the tournament scene, you should attend one or two. Maybe don't even play - just observe - and see if it is for you. I bet you'll find that there aren't quite as many douches as you think there are. I've met many friends through the tournament scene - people that I am happy to see every time we get together to play. The people that are douches usually find themselves sitting alone at the lunch break.

Mannahnin wrote:I would. The percentage of douches is tiny in both, and fairly similar, IME.

well, the beauty of it is that everyone has a different opinion/definition of "douche"! Which probably contributes to how/why a lot of douches misidentify/can't identify other douches...

Hmmm, let's get back on topic! MVBrandt's really insightful numbers from page 1 are getting lost in a debate that's pretty clear from the outset. Casual gaming and tourney gaming can easily coexist, and we don't have to rehash that here (i.e. don't feed into it).

I think the tourney circuit can survive just fine without GW support. As others said, maybe even some good will come of this in a sense. Really doesn't make sense business-wise to me, but I think it could have a good end result in independent events being more "truly" independent and hosting a variety of systems for play. I know they could already and still get support from GW, but this could reinforce that independent mindset.

Personally, all my favorite tourneys have been run by independent groups (mikhaila's, the Inner Circle's, and hopefully soon, the Nova Open. I did go to one of MVBrandt's early outdoor "for charity" tournies in a park, small affair but fun, can't wait to see what he's turned his big monster tourney into now!). And this will be my first year going to Adepticon .

Keep on rockin', indies!!

Like I said in my post the PERCEPTION (Be it right or wrong) is that tournaments and tournament players play power lists and are WAAC Players....


Of course my reason for GW is speculation..... GW is speculation based since they tell no one why they make crazy decisions and that is why we talk about them here on dakka..

I was simply stating perhaps they cancelled tournaments to focus on bringing a friendlier more casual environment to THEIR games system...

After all this is their game and they can do whatever they like with it including closing up shop and not selling anything ever again.....


It is my Impression that GW is just wanting to produce models and a game system to accompany them...

They arent in the business of holding tournaments etc... wether or not they produce revenue or not... they simply no longer have the desrire to do it...


People play MW3.... Thousands of players......... some join leagues to play in....... Without the leagues in MW3... the game still gets played.... Same with this business model.... At the end of they day you wont quit buying and playing GW simpoly because they arent doing a tournament in your area...... They know that.... and they are happy with that decision? Again Im assuming...

puma713 wrote:I think a lot of people call the winningest players the "douches" or "WAAC", but that is either envy or misunderstanding of the better player's skill level. Either way, both players should have fun, but also realize that it is not your opponent's job to make sure you're having a good time. You have to put into that pool too.

touching on my point that everyone has different definitions of "douche", I think a players list/tactics/competitiveness should not be taken in to consideration when players form opinions/judge of that persons "douchiness". I appreciate WAAC players, they're respecting the game and their opponent. However, when I think of wargaming douches, I think about finicky critics or people who insult/make sly remarks about you/your list/your army/etc. Basically the ones who are overly judgmental w/o being constructive. To me, those are the true douches.

Ellipses are not a substitute for punctuation.

puma713 wrote:Ellipses are not a substitute for PROPER punctuation.

Fixed that for you. Ellipses are a form of punctuation, after all.


This issue never was a problem for me since there was never an official GW presence in my area. All tourneys are indie and all prize support provided by FLGS owners. If they were given support through GW, they never made it known.

And last time I checked this was a TT Gaming forum and not english 101............ ......... ....... ....................... .......................................................... .................... ...................... ......................

Milisim wrote:Also, the last time I checked, this was a TT gaming forum and not English 101.

Fixed that for you.

Please read the forum guidelines, specifically #5.

Otherwise I have nothing to add and apologize for going off topic.

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

Reecius wrote:Tournaments are fun. Are their occasionally douchey guys? Yeah, but that is true of any situation.

but the %s (and raw numbers obviously) are much higher in 40k (than in WHFB at least, not sure about WarmaHordes). I doubt many would argue otherwise.

Hahahaha

Oh please, do share these figures. I would love to see the actual douche/nice person ratio data you are drawing on to make that statement, as you clearly indicate that it exists.

Please tell me you were just baiting and that you really understand how absurd what you said was.

Again, the "casual" gamers casting stones and offering only speculation and opinions, while the "WAAC" jerks present sensible, fact backed arguments and encourage tolerance, and open mindedness. Hmmm.

Ah, whatever. It's a silly argument and I honestly don't know why I still get my hackles up when it rears it's ugly head. If those of you who have never even been to a tournament want to cast stones, it only reveals your ignorance. I really don't need to add to it.

I'm just gonna poke my head in here for a second.

I'm like Milisim - I don't do tournaments, and have no interest in ever joining one myself. The only event I ever did that was anything like a Tournament was the latest Warmachine League.

But, here's where I diverge with Milisim - I think tournaments are a perfectly acceptable, even healthy aspect of the wargaming hobby. It's just a different part of it. Think of it like sports. Do some people play sports recreational? Sure. Do some people play sports in a tournament setting? Well, yeah. And you don't see them at each other throats, blaming each other for the poor state of their chosen game.

The reason why GW games shouldn't be played competitively? Because they're terrible. They're great if you want to push around painted little plastic and metal minis and make pew pew noises with, but for anything past that you're expecting too much.

It's why we see such a vibrant tournament community for games like Homachine and Magic - these are games with rulesets designed for competitive play. Hell, the 'rulebook' for Magic are a 192 page legal document.

But I don't see this as an excuse for GW to pull out completely from it's tournament scene. Whether they want to ignore it or not, competitive wargaming is here to stay - it's not a 'fad', like that whole internet business. They'd be better served by tightening up their rulesets and future army releases.

Reecius wrote:

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

Reecius wrote:Tournaments are fun. Are their occasionally douchey guys? Yeah, but that is true of any situation.

but the %s (and raw numbers obviously) are much higher in 40k (than in WHFB at least, not sure about WarmaHordes). I doubt many would argue otherwise.

Hahahaha

Oh please, do share these figures. I would love to see the actual douche/nice person ratio data you are drawing on to make that statement, as you clearly indicate that it exists.

Please tell me you were just baiting and that you really understand how absurd what you said was.

Again, the "casual" gamers casting stones and offering only speculation and opinions, while the "WAAC" jerks present sensible, fact backed arguments and encourage tolerance, and open mindedness. Hmmm.

Ah, whatever. It's a silly argument and I honestly don't know why I still get my hackles up when it rears it's ugly head. If those of you who have never even been to a tournament want to cast stones, it only reveals your ignorance. I really don't need to add to it.

ehh, I just want to point out I have nothing against WAAC or tournament players, please see:

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:well, the beauty of it is that everyone has a different opinion/definition of "douche"! Which probably contributes to how/why a lot of douches misidentify/can't identify other douches...

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:touching on my point that everyone has different definitions of "douche", I think a players list/tactics/competitiveness should not be taken in to consideration when players form opinions/judge of that persons "douchiness". I appreciate WAAC players, they're respecting the game and their opponent. However, when I think of wargaming douches, I think about finicky critics or people who insult/make sly remarks about you/your list/your army/etc. Basically the ones who are overly judgmental w/o being constructive. To me, those are the true douches.

give me the (read: your) definition of a wargaming douche, and I'll start my research if you want "fact-backed arguments". but as for the facts I have, I can only give my own experiences, experiences of others I know personally, and the experiences reported by others (see the numerous "new to WHFB" threads started by 40k converts. I don't see much of the vice versa...). Plus again, it's hard for douches to recognize other douches. If one guy partakes in a type of douchbaggery, he probably won't acknowledge other guys doing the same douchebaggery as douchebags. Kinda like fake-tanned, popped-collared fauxhawk meatheads in New Jersey. So while one may say the casual player has a bias or skewed perspective, I'd argue so does the douchebag (again, whatever defines a douchebag).

oh, I should make an amendment to that last quote of mine. A player's list/tactics/competitiveness are still a-ok in my book. But if they're FOTM players (i would LOVE to see stats of 40k new codices played compared to WHFB new army books played), they're most likely giant tools, which aren't quite the same as douches, but really close... edit: also another amendment. rules bending (I don't want to throw out "cheater") is also douchebaggery. edit: also, sore loser, obnoxious winner - douchebags. ...guess my definition is growing the more I think about it!

anyway, I don't want to get too OT, this thread is about the tourney scene, and I'm merely stating 40k has a less desirable community (to the average person) than WHFB, regardless of tournaments. Of course, I know it's all relative to your location and its obviously a YMMV scenario. But we can discuss it in another thread if you prefer.

so to go back on-topc (didnt see this at first):

Smitty0305 wrote:I hate GW so much.....

They are going to kill their own hobby.

a guy from a local gaming store (one of the bigger ones in the region), who's passionate about his 40k, believes 40k will be overtaken as the top war game in a few years as GW will make 40k less desirable for its player base. Hard to believe, given the current tournament and sales numbers. But I definitely don't doubt GW has the unwitting capability to run 40k in to the ground.

Just dropping in to add my 2 cents...

My club started MechaniCon the day GW NA cancelled the official GT's in 2009. That was the second time in less than 5 years that they cancelled the large events at the last minute.

This year, the NAIT Circuit has been cancelled.

These things just don't happen on a whim. Staff changes are a huge part, and when the Promotions/Community person leaves then you see a reboot with the whole system. In over 15 years, I have never seen the new staff member pick up where the old one left off. This year was very tough with Ed leaving and I don't think they could have prepared to replace him so quickly. The Indy circuit was Ed's brain child and although you can point out the flaws it was a genuine effort and I thank him for it.

I disagree with a bit of what was said here regarding the details about how things went down and why it is a bad move, but I am not here to argue the facts. Yeah, some events got included more easily than others and some TO scammed the system but those events have been covered over the past few years. Yes, it is clear than any form of Organized Play by a gaming manufacturer is beneficial to the company. I feel that had little impact on the decision to cancel the circuit this time.


For now, this means that 2012-2013's tournament circuit sponsored by GW is dead. Will anything ever develop again? I bet there will be something coming in the future and I will be content to keep my own plans moving forward without depending on GW support. If and/or when it comes again, then it will be a welcome bonus.

TO's from the Independent Circuit have started to join a Facebook group to coordinate our events and while the comments are private to the TO's, their Events are public for players to be able to see. I encourage all TO's to join and we will have a centralized meeting place for North American events coordination.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/256707011088137/

I find this disgusting.

I played in a lot of tournaments ranging from small tourneys in Canada, to the GTs here in England and I was hoping to get back into playing at them.

I heard about this from one of my long time friendly tourney rivals and I couldn't believe it.

Big big shame and yet another missed business opportunity by GW.

Reecius-

Don’t apologize. I know where you are coming from buddy. It takes a lot of time, effort, and personal financial resources to put on a quality event and to have someone crap on it that has never bothered to play in a tourney pisses me off as well. In the end, it is just uninformed drivel driving an opinion like the one expressed.

Keep up the good work and I will see you at BAO next year.

-Michael

Leenus wrote:GW just doesn't get it. Lets do the math for them right now. You support 5 major events a year with $1,000 in GW merchandise ($5,000 total). That costs GW ~$1,000. To make that back, they need to sell approximately $1,250 in minis (assuming 80% gross margin). $1,250 breaks down to about 4 armies.

Does anyone honestly think that 5 major events with a $500 top prize each won't get FOUR PEOPLE to buy new armies in preparation for the tournament?

Only a fool wouldn't support a major tournament circuit.

What if the tournaments were self supporting? Then GW is spending $1,000 for no reason at all.

hay i play Fluffy list at tournament just ask Reecius and i do well with them to.
For my self i see tournaments as a way to play new players that are not my normal playing group . Playing the same players over and over has gotten stale and i need the challenge. This is coming form a player that love to play the game for years and i will play it still like i still play Battletech.

GW deciding not to support tournaments is such a strange move even for them. I agree with much of what has been said already and just have a few points to make myself.

I am not sure how taxation works over there, however in Oz the prize support/promotion given to an event would be tax deductible.

So it makes no sense to withhold support to save some dollars considering the huge gains to reaped by GW indirectly.

In Australia (its a big place to travel around) tournaments are also a good way to play people that you would not otherwise have been able to play against.

Games with friends to gaming groups to tournaments all works for me and I am happy to participate in all of them because they all bring something different

While it is disappointing to hear about GW pulling support, I do not think it will kill the Indy Tournament sceen. As a player, I do not go to GTs just for money. I spend way more than I would ever get back in winnings. Hotel, Gas, airline tickets, let alone paint, armys, transports for said army, and too many things to mention. A nice looking trophy or plaque is all most gamers ask for. Heck my favorite lately is collectible poker chips with the GT's logo on it. Sort of my "spoon" collection (really old person reference to collecting spoons on trips).

I go to tournaments to meet people and have fun. It is an event to look forward to. It is a goal to get armies paint for. Where else can you meet and talk 40k to 60+ others?

I do have a heart too. I feel for tournaments tryint to raise money for non-profits. I would also have no ploblem paying an extra $10 on my ticket to play to cover GW's loss of award money. CUZE I WANT TO SEE A FOUR PEAT STATE CHAMPION DEBATE TEAM........lolz, for Tim.

While I did not make it to the Indy Open, or Darkstar GT, I can say the Bugeater GT is an awesome event. I would go even if there was zero prizes! (cuz the tacos were awesome)


PS we really could use a GT in Des Miones Iowa! I think regionally it would work with good support in IL and a straight shot from the Twin Cities in MN. Just saying.

@dr. Cheesesteak
Dude, your argument is so biased, it amazes me that you don't see it yourself. You're making huge gneralizations based on such a limited perspective. You can't possibly believe that what you have observed from your miopic perspective applies to everyone, everywhere. If you do, then I suppose their isn't much more to discuss.

My only advice is to go out into the wider world of gaming and see what it's all about. I think you will be pleasantly surprised how much more you will get from this little.hobby of ours if you do.

@hinge and madfjohn
I'm glad you guys came and had fun at the BAO! It's amazing what happens when you come and give something a try instead of just accepting preconceived notions unquestioningly, right =)

well, maybe next time you'll actually read (and comprehend) the entirety of a post before you make false assumptions and hasty conclusions.

...Aww hell, who am I kidding, I'm guilty of the same thing sometimes!

I think Mike and a few others really shined a light on how GW's support impacted the Tournament scene especially as they grew in size. GW's prize and terrain support made it alot easier for me to get the BFS GT expanded to a bigger event. Even thought $800 isnt a huge amount of money. It really helps getting Independants up and running or at the very least expanded in size. I can for one say that it was nice to be able to virtually build all new terrain for 40+ boards and replace all of the "club" terrain we used in prior tournaments. I also regret not being able to provide that extra $300 in vouchers to participants.

I appreciate GW's support and understand that with Ed's departure things will change so i want to thank them. However the lack of support does hurt independants getting started so i hope they have somthing planned for independant support in the future.


- ed
www.battleforsalvation.com

I just wanted to add my $.02. In business there are things called hurdle rates and required rates of return. These numbers are based on a CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) which is essentially discounted cash flow and cost of capital to the firm with a risk overlay. Though GW might generate revenue through tournaments we honestly have no idea about their cost of capital and it might not make ENOUGH to actually support. I have said no to many many projects that would make money simply because they do not make ENOUGH money.

Don't get me wrong, I would love GW to support Feast of Blades and all the other great tournaments/ events around the world/US but sometimes it just isn't worth the human and financial capital.

Mike made a comment about the added benefit of players attending events but lets be honest, in the grand scheme of things it isn't that much to their bottom line and the simple fact is that TO's are still going to run events with or without GW support.


So, the point is this. If TO's are still going to run events on their own would you rather generate a return from a $0.00 investment or a $300, $500, $1000 investment? GW is a publicly traded company, they can't just throw money away to get earnings they would already get for free... It's business, it isn't personal.


All that said I will miss the support, long live the INDEPENDENT CIRCUIT!

Chandler

Chandler,

I think you're right in one sense - events already going aren't going to suddenly stop, so the investment doesn't necessarily garner additional return.

That said, many of the new events would not exist at all if not for the investment GW made hosting the circuit in the first place. Many events, INCLUDING the NOVA, were in many ways 'sparked' by the initial GW creation and support of the circuit.

Therein lies the intangible I think is being overlooked. But as also said, the support was welcome while it lasted.

Duke wrote:I just wanted to add my $.02. In business there are things called hurdle rates and required rates of return. These numbers are based on a CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) which is essentially discounted cash flow and cost of capital to the firm with a risk overlay. Though GW might generate revenue through tournaments we honestly have no idea about their cost of capital and it might not make ENOUGH to actually support. I have said no to many many projects that would make money simply because they do not make ENOUGH money.

Don't get me wrong, I would love GW to support Feast of Blades and all the other great tournaments/ events around the world/US but sometimes it just isn't worth the human and financial capital.

Mike made a comment about the added benefit of players attending events but lets be honest, in the grand scheme of things it isn't that much to their bottom line and the simple fact is that TO's are still going to run events with or without GW support.


So, the point is this. If TO's are still going to run events on their own would you rather generate a return from a $0.00 investment or a $300, $500, $1000 investment? GW is a publicly traded company, they can't just throw money away to get earnings they would already get for free... It's business, it isn't personal.


All that said I will miss the support, long live the INDEPENDENT CIRCUIT!

Chandler

The problem with trying to justify the existence of the tournament circuit on exclusively economic terms is that the circuit brings intangible benefits to GW that can't be quantified in terms of rates of return (although I don't know staffing costs ... if we look at the material cost GW spends of $440 dollars, even if half the Bugeater GT field spent $10 on GW products, they'd have a gigantic return on the $440 invested). It's the same thing with teaching: people keep trying to evaluate success based on pure data, which is fundamentally impossible.

First, the circuit helped tournaments get started up. I know it helped my event get started. Many people have said that tournaments barely break even ... any assistant is critical, particularly in the first year. I make a substantial net gain on my tournament, but that's because my facilities are free in exchange for donating all the net gains to the debate program. So in my case any dollar provided by GW means more money going to the program.

Second, the profits gained from the circuit are inherently untrackable. Unless we all ask people to bring an itemized list of items purchased exclusively for the GT, they can never justify it on a spreadsheet because the value is simply unknown.

Third, the circuit demonstrated GW's involvement in the community while allowing for experimentation in tournament design and format. They are competing with an ever growing Warmahordes tournament scene, and the loss of the circuit will only slow GW down in that race. Now, this fact could prove irrelevant if GW comes out with a new system of tournaments but for now GW has nothing.

I was definitely appreciative of the support GW had for the Bugeater, and I understand that businesses decisions won't always go my way. But the thing that has me a little miffed was the terrible communication from GW. I give them a pass during the transition after Ed's departure, but I was told by GW that applications for the 12-13 circuit would be reviewed in February and notices sent out in early March. There was no mention that they'd consider scrapping the circuit. Then early March passed, and no update. No communication to me means our tournaments weren't valued by Games Workshop. Keeping people in the dark or giving questionable time tables smacks of disrespect.

Empchild wrote:Correct Hulk, I would share the email but after reading the underscore of it GW if not allowing any of the recipients to do so and at legal advice it seems best not to play with fire. This is not suprising as Ed was the forerunner for this and for me this is a huge crush and nail in the coffin with GW. Though personally I will continue to sell bits etc as that is my business I think honestly I for one will find something else to play.

Im curious how a company can send out an unsolicated letter and under pain of lawsuit can force the readers to prevent any disclosure of the contents...I didnt go to Harvard Law School, but Im nearly 100% sure you cant do that...

Im curious how a company can send out an unsolicated letter and under pain of lawsuit can force the readers to prevent any disclosure of the contents...I didnt go to Harvard Law School, but Im nearly 100% sure you cant do that...

Well its out there on the internets so it will be interesting to see if they do anything about it. The email is below.

The North American Games Workshop Business Support team along with our management team has spent an extensive amount of time reviewing the current tournament circuit and the best way to offer support to hobbyists interested in hosting events of their own.

As you are undoubtedly aware, there is a Games Workshop tournament circuit in which tournaments must apply and those chosen are offered support. After serious consideration, we will continue with the current 2012 circuit ending in May 2012 and host the culminating Throne of Skulls tournament this October. Going forward, in order to be more supportive of events of all types, especially those in our retail and trade outlet stores, we will discontinue the GW tournament circuit.

We would like to thank all the organiser's from the 2012 Circuit and we wish everyone the most success with their events in the future.

Regards,

Desiree Dorsey
Director of Business Support
Games Workshop

So the spin is they are moving the focus away from supporting any ole TO and instead helping out FLGS owners. Nothing to do with pulling away from supporting competitive events entirely.

People are silly. If GW were going to completely stop supporting tournament/competitive play, then why would they still facilitate tournaments in their own stores?

The LA Battle Bunker has had an ongoing tournament season with some trophies as prizes once a month for both Fantasy and 40k.

If anything, GW has the Soviet "iron curtain" strategy for public relations. We DON'T KNOW what GW's plans are for competitive/tournament play, only that they are canceling old policies/events and are going to be making way for something else. What this something else is, remains to be seen but to get into an argument about competitive play bad, hobby time all the way good, is a silly discussion...

Because...

That's...like... your...opinion man...

This seems like they are doing more to encourage the narrow views of the person who is afraid of running into tfg at a large event. Constricting the community to local events and removing interaction from the community as a whole.

My favorite thing about 40k or any game where events are held at a larger level is that I get to meet and talk to people who are as passionate about the hobby as I am. It's all well and good if you are a garage game player who plays a fluffy (or whatever type) army and you have a great amount of fun. I'm all about that as well and often play in my buddies garage and we come up with fun mini-games to pass the time. But what I really like is playing against people in the larger world and testing my skills against people I've never met before.

Sure, occasionally you run into tfg during a tourney. But you put your big boy pants on and do your best to win the match. If the player is cheating or abusing rules, then that's why there are judges. Call them over and get his ass tossed. There are measures in place to prevent you from having a crappy time.

While I love this game, the moves made by GW proper are really starting to get to me. It seems as if they are specifically trying to diminish the part of the game I like. Luckily there are people out there like Reece and Mike who are trying to bring us folks who like to play in tournaments in out of the cold. Thanks guys, I for one really appreciate it.

Chandler, I ran the numbers in an earlier. If you want to add a small discount to the cash flows you can, but I'd say it would actually have no effect or even a benefit, because the tournament goers are spending cash (cash inflow to GW) BEFORE the cash is spent on prize support (cash flow out).

The other major risk you run is your perception compared to PP. If consumers see one company really support events and the other completely ignore events, what do you think that does to PR? It's a pretty big negative hit on GW, all which can be fixed for less than a couple thousand dollars a year, assuming that there's no incremental spending by consumers (which we know is simply not the case).

To your last point, yes it's nice to generate a return from $0. However, the real exercise is to compare the INCREMENTAL return generated by spending the $1,000+. That analysis will tell you if it's worth spending the money on said initiative.

History is an important thing to remember and things go in cycles.

Games Workshop had an outrider program which it supported and those individuals ran events, mainly limited to stores in support of the one day RTT events and the Hall of Heros system. Staff and policies changed and the outrider program went away. Not surprising the vast majority of outriders I knew at the time ceased to run events and for a time we had a void.

When we started AdeptiCon 10 years ago, you had a handful of 40k events and at the time had more Indy WFB events due to the success of the Hillbilly GT. That was the case really for our first 5 or so years.. you had AdeptiCon, Astronomicon, and the Necro, I’m sure a few others.. that I am overlooking… but we didn’t have the shear amount of events we have today. At that time GW was regional and we had built a great relationship with the Midwest region working pretty closely with them prior to the consolidation of the business unit and then the development of the circuit.

Only recently, have we had an explosion of events but I think the reason for that are pretty clear. I am sure there other contributing factors. For one thing when AdeptiCon started the internet community was still pretty young. You didn’t have the sort of blog and podcast coverage available today. So the information is now widely available and folks don’t have to recreate the wheel or discover fire to setup and build an event.

But with the rise of the tourney circuit support you saw a significant uptick in events to the numbers we have today. Only time will tell if that trend continues.

Games Workshop is moving away for internal reasons from providing “product” for any and all event support is my understanding. The voucher program was only ever a stop gap in this process.

This is going to hurt us, starting with the Fantasy Slaughter, because we are small and most of the potential sponsors around here are strong in the (stow the racist remarks, thanks ~Manchu) side of the force. I wish I was as big a leech as Mondo Vega was (we always accurately reported our numbers and kept our estimates conservative) because we could have stocked up some stuff for future events. I already basically buy the trophies out of my own pocket and (when storage is figured in) basically run things near to even as it is.

This essentially means the end of ever requiring GW figures at our events, because if they are not going to support us, why bother? And those bunker events are not the same as an actual 2 day GT. Going in to the LA Battle Bunker and curb stomping some pubeless wonders with their battleforce armies is a far cry from refining a list over several months and testing it against a playerbase drawn from a large geography. Our event will continue to operate, with its 30-40 attendance mark each year, but I know a lot of othe small events are going to struggle massively, especially the startups.

My one real criticism here is that GW needs consistancy. They are the establishment because they are the oldest game in the market, so they need to start acting like it. A long tradition of GT circuts that span over a decade would do a lot more to strengthen their brand than scrapping everything and starting over every couple years. This is particularly hurting the Fantasy scene, which is struggling from the 8th transition and the long gap of no new armies after it came out. My guess is they think they can ride the Hobbit Horse into the ground for extra money for a few years.


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ps- Trust Lenus when it comes to numbers. Its what he does for a living.

Would you care to eliminate the anti-Semitic remark from your post?

Milisim wrote:And last time I checked this was a TT Gaming forum and not english 101............ ......... ....... ....................... .......................................................... .................... ...................... ......................

Exactly. This is the tournament discussion forum, I have a hard time understanding why people who "never play in tournaments" are even bothering to comment here. Other than to troll the tournament players who actually care about the tournament scene of course.

The tournament circuit seems to be pretty healthy all on its own without support from GW. I completely agree with Lee, Reece, and the others who have made the point consistently, despite being trolled, that GW has made a fairly large PR blunder here. Supporting events was good for their PR as proven by Lee and others.

I will continue to play in GW events; 40k is now and always has been my game of choice. I enjoy WM from time to time but honestly I am not drawn to play it competitively. Why? Because I have no buy in to the fluff of WM. I have read the majority of the 40k books published by the BL including all but the most recent HH book (Know No Fear, I can't wait to read it...) and I am intensely interested in the goings on of the 41st, and 31st millenium. I dare anyone to tell me I only am interested in tournaments because I am a WAAC player with power lists. I have been accused of being such before but it has yet to stick

GW has made a mistake if they truly have no plans for supporting tournaments in the future. A deal breaking mistake? I doubt it, but a mistake none the less.

Phazael wrote:This is going to hurt us, starting with the Fantasy Slaughter, because we are small and most of the potential sponsors around here are strong in the Jew side of the force. I wish I was as big a leech as Mondo Vega was .

Unneccessary point made I guess. Although there are people of Jewish faith in my gaming group that this might worry...

Phazael wrote:This is going to hurt us, starting with the Fantasy Slaughter, because we are small and most of the potential sponsors around here are strong in the Jew side of the force. I wish I was as big a leech as Mondo Vega was .

I'm sorry Q, but...

If I were running GW, I'd announce a $10K+ tournament circuit in a heartbeat. I'd support the live streaming of top games as much as possible. I'd build a community around the aspiration of being a top player. I'd give people a reason to continue to play the game obsessively, to take their time away from MW3, from League of Legends, from PP.

It's a very simple formula. Who do you think buys more? The guy that plays occasionally with 4 friends in his basement? Or the guy that plays 3 times a week trying to prepare to win $10,000 at the national championships? I agree that there are more of the first guy and less of the second. However, the goal is to convert as many of the first guys to the second and that's what a major, well-supported tournament circuit does. Create and nurture the whales.

Look at League of Legends if you want to see a company that understands the value of a tournament circuit. Sure, they are on a much larger scale and offering more meaningful prizes, but the lessons are still very much the same.

Leenus wrote:If I were running GW, I'd announce a $10K+ tournament circuit in a heartbeat. I'd support the live streaming of top games as much as possible. I'd build a community around the aspiration of being a top player. I'd give people a reason to continue to play the game obsessively, to take their time away from MW3, from League of Legends, from PP.

It's a very simple formula. Who do you think buys more? The guy that plays occasionally with 4 friends in his basement? Or the guy that plays 3 times a week trying to prepare to win $10,000 at the national championships? I agree that there are more of the first guy and less of the second. However, the goal is to convert as many of the first guys to the second and that's what a major, well-supported tournament circuit does. Create and nurture the whales.

Look at League of Legends if you want to see a company that understands the value of a tournament circuit. Sure, they are on a much larger scale and offering more meaningful prizes, but the lessons are still very much the same.

I am sold, where do I sign up?

winterman wrote:

Im curious how a company can send out an unsolicated letter and under pain of lawsuit can force the readers to prevent any disclosure of the contents...I didnt go to Harvard Law School, but Im nearly 100% sure you cant do that...

Well its out there on the internets so it will be interesting to see if they do anything about it. The email is below.

The North American Games Workshop Business Support team along with our management team has spent an extensive amount of time reviewing the current tournament circuit and the best way to offer support to hobbyists interested in hosting events of their own.

As you are undoubtedly aware, there is a Games Workshop tournament circuit in which tournaments must apply and those chosen are offered support. After serious consideration, we will continue with the current 2012 circuit ending in May 2012 and host the culminating Throne of Skulls tournament this October. Going forward, in order to be more supportive of events of all types, especially those in our retail and trade outlet stores, we will discontinue the GW tournament circuit.

We would like to thank all the organiser's from the 2012 Circuit and we wish everyone the most success with their events in the future.

Regards,

Desiree Dorsey
Director of Business Support
Games Workshop

So the spin is they are moving the focus away from supporting any ole TO and instead helping out FLGS owners. Nothing to do with pulling away from supporting competitive events entirely.

I can't even get that woman to return my emails......Normally customer service from GW is top notch but she hasn't responded to my update requests regarding my online vouchers in weeks....

Oh and Q....I found it funny but most of my fellow jews are a little touchy on the subject

sharkticon wrote:

Phazael wrote:This is going to hurt us, starting with the Fantasy Slaughter, because we are small and most of the potential sponsors around here are strong in the Jew side of the force. I wish I was as big a leech as Mondo Vega was .

I'm sorry Q, but...

LOL holy butthurt. Ok, my bad, I just figured with all the fat jokes that get lobbed my direction that this crowd had more of a flexible sense of humor. I guess I should probably not bring my swastika themed empire army to a tournament (/drumfill).
Anyone offended by that, sorry, thats on me....


My original point remains, though. If GW won't support newer/smaller events, then why should anyone else? The bigger regional events (Nova, BAO, BoLS, Adepticon, ect) will be unaffected by this, of course, but the small fish who tow a tight line are going to get killed by this. Good luck starting ANYTHING in Southern Cali, where renting a bare dirt lot for a weekend runs you over a grand. And with the economy like it is, the small gaming stores are not going to kick anything in, especially with the way GW treats them in general.

For better or worse, this is essentially going to consolidate most things into a couple large regional events with established turnouts. Whether this is good for the hobby or not is debatable, but you can basically bet that none of these remaining events are going to have any incentive to encourage people to stick with GW products in their armies. From a PR standpoint, this could be a disaster for them if they lose the whole third party add on lawsuit thing they have going on, which has done little to endear them with their most active portion of the player base.

And yeah, I am going to call Mondo out. Just his publicly known shennanigans are enough to make me suprised that the Circut made it past year one, let alone the stuff he pulled that most people do not know about. Ask Doc Dragon, Blackmoor, or Hulksmash about him sometime, or just search the forums on it. He was a text book case of expoiting the system that Ed laid out at the start.

I'd second the Mondo bit. He was the perfect example of taking advantage of the system.

Hulksmash wrote:I can't even get that woman to return my emails......Normally customer service from GW is top notch but she hasn't responded to my update requests regarding my online vouchers in weeks....

My understanding is that she is essentially an administrator. She handles the payroll for GWUS, for example. I think she was put in place just to handle the last of the stuff after Ed's departure, while Tony (James) Bell from the LA bunker is going to go and run the actual Memphis Bunker. I have been trying to contact her to confirm that this years circut obligations would be honored, once Ed quit and all the voucher snafus started occuring, and I have yet to get a response from her. The people I know who know her basically indicate she was massively overworked before this extra stuff got dumped in her lap and that she is not someone who plays the game at all, so I am not completely shocked about that. Curiously, I got my vouchers from the Broadside almost instantly after the event, so I think she is just having trouble chewing through Ed's backlog. I still cashed out all my vouchers though, since god knows whats going to happen with that.

That's kinda crazy since the Broadside was actually after the Darkstar and the guy running the Darkstar forwarded me his email to her from the monday after the Broadside regarding our vouchers. Makes me sad a little but thanks for the heads up you anti-semite

I'm German. We hate all other people equally. I am offended that anyone would suggest otherwise!


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And yeah, to add further fuel to this:

Our painting judge, Carol, has run a paint and take thing at the strategicon conventions for years, now. In the past, she was able to get starter blisters from GW (the kind used to teach new kids at the stores or extra starter box ones) for this event, where she would prime them and teach people how to paint them. The last year or so, this event has gone on literally 30 feet away from either our events or the Broadside. Rewind to about a year ago and GW basically stopped supporting this (and its identical counterparts at other cons in the area), which boggles the mind because Carol is essentially doing what the GW staff do with new people, but for free. This is literally the entry point for new people in the hobby, completely removed from a GW store, and costs them a couple sprues they already basically give out all the time anyhow.

So, its not just the tournament thing being rolled up, its all aspects of community support outside the tight confines of their stores. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I feel this is probably more about their paranoid information control than the money.

Phazael wrote:
And yeah, I am going to call Mondo out. Just his publicly known shenanigans are enough to make me surprised that the Circuit made it past year one, let alone the stuff he pulled that most people do not know about. Ask Doc Dragon, Blackmoor, or Hulksmash about him sometime, or just search the forums on it. He was a text book case of exploiting the system that Ed laid out at the start.

Hey Y'all

Although I was front and center in the Mondo problem I will say that his dealings with GW are not the reason GW has stopped the Circuit.

IMHO there will be something new in a year or two. Ed ran a special event and now Ed is not in the picture (my best to Ed and his family) so GW made a business decision and will move on to something else.

Then 5-6 years from now we can all meet back here and rant about how bad it is for GW to stop that new idea they come up with.

Will this hurt some events? Yes
Can you get over it? Mostly yes

For my part with Celesticon last year we got about 2% of our prize support from GW. Endgames of Oakland was the big donator and intrun I tried to drive as much business to Endgames as possible.

This year we are looking at an increase of about 30-50% in the number of players and because of that I am out betting the bushes for more prize support and GW was never on my radar before any of this circuit stuff came out.

My real hope is that we all have fun at tournaments or if you don't do tournaments enjoy playing in your group, club, and local game store and enjoy a beer on me.

Doc

As a Warhammer Fantasy and 40k player for the last 14 years, this annoys me greatly. Oh well, I'm enjoying Warmachine and Hordes a lot and it is quite nice to know what models are coming out a few months in advance so I can save up for them as well as have a company that actually supports competitive play in some form. PP will continue getting my money for now and hopefully, one day, GW will wake up and realize what they are doing.

The North American Games Workshop Business Support team along with our management team has spent an extensive amount of time reviewing the current tournament circuit and the best way to offer support to hobbyists interested in hosting events of their own.

...Going forward, in order to be more supportive of events of all types, especially those in our retail and trade outlet stores, we will discontinue the GW tournament circuit....

Desiree Dorsey
Director of Business Support
Games Workshop

Quite supportive...

Leenus wrote:
It's a very simple formula. Who do you think buys more? The guy that plays occasionally with 4 friends in his basement? Or the guy that plays 3 times a week trying to prepare to win $10,000 at the national championships?

Honestly, the guy who plays with 4 friends in his basement.

Let me give you an example:

Here's a tournament gamer's idea of an army:
six razorbacks, three dreadnoughts, maybe 40 marines, maybe a specialty unit like thunderwolves or paladins.

Here's a basement gamer's idea of an army:
Three full companies of marines, including one drop-pod company (10 pods), one ground & pound company (8 rhinos, several other vehicles), one biker company (with 80 bikes), along with dreads and characters for each company.

The basement gamer has no practical limit to how many toys he buys. The tournament gamer may change armies more often, but they're smaller armies. The basement gamer cares about his apocalypse games... I watched an apoc. game for the 25th anniversary of 40k. One Tyranid player fielded (among numerous "smaller" models) three harridans, three hierophants, and one custom-built dominatrix. Six Forgeworld bio-titans, each one costing $400+.

What's more, the tournament gamer is more likely to sell an army when they switch to the latest flavour of the month. While this still results in new sales for GW, from the tournament gamer, it also results in lost sales to GW from whoever bought the army from him. Anytime someone buys an army from a friend instead of new-in-box, GW lost a sale. Basement gamers don't tend to sell one army to fund another, because more is better.

So, while I feel for the loss of the tournament circuit, and I certainly don't downplay that tournament gaming is a significant driver of sales - one that I also contribute to - to denigrate the impact of the basement gamers just shows that you don't understand the mentality of many basement gamers.

Milisim wrote:I don't see why people believe GW should be hosting events....

Most companies don't support their products after you make the initial sale.

?????

Really?

My car has a factory warranty for three years after the date I purchased it. As terrible as Windows is, I get free updates for it when they're available. Most electronics items have similar built in warranties: my cell phone, for example, died last year a couple of months after I got it; the cell company replaced it with a newer model for no cost.

To keep in the gaming industry, of the bigger companies, GW provides the least amount of product/customer support. WotC has a sponsored tournament system for MtG. Privateer Press supports a tournament system. Even the makers of Dark Age support a tournament system.

Honestly, with the exception of consumable goods like food, most companies in fact DO support their products after the sale. Most companies understand that this post-sale support is one of the simplest things they can do to ensure continued patronage by their customer base. There's an old saying that it costs ten times as much to get a new customer as it does to keep an existing customer.

Redbeard wrote:

The North American Games Workshop Business Support team along with our management team has spent an extensive amount of time reviewing the current tournament circuit and the best way to offer support to hobbyists interested in hosting events of their own.

...Going forward, in order to be more supportive of events of all types, especially those in our retail and trade outlet stores, we will discontinue the GW tournament circuit....

Desiree Dorsey
Director of Business Support
Games Workshop

Quite supportive...

Leenus wrote:
It's a very simple formula. Who do you think buys more? The guy that plays occasionally with 4 friends in his basement? Or the guy that plays 3 times a week trying to prepare to win $10,000 at the national championships?

Honestly, the guy who plays with 4 friends in his basement.

Let me give you an example:

Here's a tournament gamer's idea of an army:
six razorbacks, three dreadnoughts, maybe 40 marines, maybe a specialty unit like thunderwolves or paladins.

Here's a basement gamer's idea of an army:
Three full companies of marines, including one drop-pod company (10 pods), one ground & pound company (8 rhinos, several other vehicles), one biker company (with 80 bikes), along with dreads and characters for each company.

The basement gamer has no practical limit to how many toys he buys. The tournament gamer may change armies more often, but they're smaller armies. The basement gamer cares about his apocalypse games... I watched an apoc. game for the 25th anniversary of 40k. One Tyranid player fielded (among numerous "smaller" models) three harridans, three hierophants, and one custom-built dominatrix. Six Forgeworld bio-titans, each one costing $400+.

What's more, the tournament gamer is more likely to sell an army when they switch to the latest flavour of the month. While this still results in new sales for GW, from the tournament gamer, it also results in lost sales to GW from whoever bought the army from him. Anytime someone buys an army from a friend instead of new-in-box, GW lost a sale. Basement gamers don't tend to sell one army to fund another, because more is better.

So, while I feel for the loss of the tournament circuit, and I certainly don't downplay that tournament gaming is a significant driver of sales - one that I also contribute to - to denigrate the impact of the basement gamers just shows that you don't understand the mentality of many basement gamers.

To be fair there were quite a few non-tournament players in here razzing us earlier in the thread.

You fail to account in your explanation of the superior economic impact of basement gamers that while they may create large sales in the long run for GW they don't create anywhere near the immediate sale spikes that tournament minded players do. While a tournament player may buy the exact 2k list he wants to run he will switch codices and whole armies more often. Creating new sales of entire armies more often for GW. Not to mention very few tournament players actually buy exactly 2k worth of an army and never buy another unit again, that just doesn't happen. My current tournament army is GK and I have about 2500 points, my SW who I played competitively for 2+ years number near 12k and prior to them I played Salamanders of which I had 6k. Lists and players naturally progress over the course of the competitive shelf life of a codex which means they must buy more GW products to keep their army at the cutting edge. I added 2 dreads and Bjorn to my SW and took out the TWC when Necrons came out. Small sales? Yes, but no less than the guy in his basement who has collected 40k points of Space Marines over the last 20 years. Tournament players have a quicker turn over rate and incentive to buy the new hotness compared to basement players. You only really analyzed one side of your argument fully.

nkelsch wrote:
Edit: Oh, please don't pretend all tourney goers are WAAC powergamers, it simply isn't true. Most tourneys promote the hobby as a WHOLE and I go as I see some of the most amazing models and paintjobs and meet amazing people. I probably am gonna lose my ass on the battlefield but there is so much more to the tourney than just the game. Most tourneys really are amazing hobby-centric events and most people are going for all aspects even if they are playing to win.

This is totally true. One of the best parts of going to a large regional or national tournament is when you have free time to go around and look at everyone else' armies. There are some absolutely amazing painters and conversion artists out there, and you'd never get to see them if you didn't happen to be at the same tournament on the same day, because they're sure as heck not likely to spontaneously drive 500 miles to play at your LGS.

Milisim wrote:I don't see why people believe GW should be hosting events....

Most companies don't GW most of the time does not support their products after you make the initial sale.

Fixed that for ya milsim

You really should give a turney a try mil, I am in no way a competitive gamer but I have played in two turnies and had a blast. It was totally not what I was expecting, then again I got curb stomped so hard early on I didn't get to play with the local TFG's =o] Sisters for the win.

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:well, maybe next time you'll actually read (and comprehend) the entirety of a post before you make false assumptions and hasty conclusions.

...Aww hell, who am I kidding, I'm guilty of the same thing sometimes!

Haha, fair enough. I probably over-reacted a bit myself. No hard feelings.

Well, we'll see what actually happens long term. As other have said, if I were the one making the call, I would roll out a huge support program for organized events to build excitement and grow the hobby. Not just tournaments either, but national paint competitions, narrative campaigns, etc.

The intangible benefits are huge.

But hey, I am not in charge and we don't know what is to come. The Indy GT circuit will continue to grow and thrive. With the increased support we are offering one another, it will only continue to get better.

Something else ... Tourney events move the standard of the hobby. What was an acceptable level of army finish at AdeptiCon ten years ago and would have placed well from a paint and theme standard point would not do near as well this year. The bar has been raised.

A certain percentage of folks that come to an event will get inspired to do better .. be it painting, theme, “spirit” , or playing. That inspiration typically also involves a reinvestment in ones collection.

That is so very, very true.

My own painting was incomplete at best before my first tournament. Now I tend to score in the top 3rd of most events I attend on paint score, and I've had to learn and improve a lot in order to do that. The team themes/paint jobs, and individual things (ahem, GMM Studios, ahem) seen at AdeptiCon alone is a freaking inspiration (I still show everyone I talk to about high level painting the Pirate CSM army that GMM did for AdeptiCon singles 2010).

Frankly, I never understand the "WAAC non-hobbyist" thought process people develop toward tournaments. I won my last GT at BFS 2011 with a close-range assault-capable and heavy outflanking guard army that scored high on painting, while earning good sportsmanship scores. What part of that is "WAAC netlist" I'll never know, but I and every other GT/multi-GT winner always gets swathed into the same unsubstantiated bucket.

C'est la vie

Aye doc dragon i do agree its always fun running in to you at these events .

Redbeard... You're picking a huge outlier to prove your point. You're comparing a single tournament player army versus an army that you've built through years and years of collecting. I'm a tournament player and I probably have 6 or 7 40K armies. That rivals what you have, so did I just disprove your point? Using an outlier against the average doesn't really progress the argument.

You're also missing a key point. A well-supported tournament circuit creates an entirely new type of customer for GW to target. They make incremental profit by supporting people who like to play for competition. The basement gamer will exist regardless. The bottom line is that you need to create a reason for people to play this game. A certain subset will play it for the fact they love war gaming and seeing epic battles (you and your buddies). However, a large majority will abandon the game if there's not some hook. As I said before, there is a reason video games have achievements, levels, carrots, etc. They need to give you a reason to come back.

The tournament tournament circuit simply expands GW's market. That's what a good business strives to do. How many people do you think say to themselves "Man, GW isn't supporting tournaments.. I'm going to stop playing for fun with my friends in our basement. I'm going to stop playing massive apoc games with my buddies." And now how many people do you think say "Man, GW isn't supporting tournaments.. I'm going to go play Warmachine/Hordes, because I like minis games, I like tournaments and PP cares about the tournament player."

If you have a good business reason why they shouldn't support tournaments, then by all means, please let us hear it. But there really isn't a good reason, unless they are trying to make less money, or they have poor management. Basement gamers certainly spend money on the hobby and aren't a segment that should be ignored. But supporting tournament players has little to no effect on basement gamers.

Leenus, you nailed it. That is pretty much the most succinct argument for it that I have read so far.

Has anyone has thought that perhaps this is just another symptom of GW's financial streamlining process? To me this is more of a response to what is happening to the global economy.

It looks good on the books and to the share holders if they make additional profit from not shelling out money and resources in supporting the tournament circuit. IMHO the company has been doing a lot of this in the past year here in the US.

Leenus wrote:Redbeard... You're picking a huge outlier to prove your point. You're comparing a single tournament player army versus an army that you've built through years and years of collecting.

Not making it personal - wasn't talking about me. I don't even own one company of marines, let alone three.

I'm a tournament player and I probably have 6 or 7 40K armies. That rivals what you have, so did I just disprove your point? Using an outlier against the average doesn't really progress the argument.

But, I'm not sure they are the outliers. I think we can all agree that there are a large number of different approaches to the game. I'm as much a tournament gamer as anyone else posting here, although one more into the painting than the high-competition sort. But, I talk to a lot of people, both tournament players and basement players. And I've yet to see a tournament player with the depth of collection that many basement players seem to have. It's a different mindset. I collect huge armies - I've got 20k of daemons painted - and yet I don't have more of any given model than could fit in one force-org chart. I can pick from a lot of different things, but I tend not to go beyond what I could run in a normal game. The apoc players - they don't think like that. They will happily buy multiple titans because titan are cool.

I'm not trying to argue that these players will spend more than any given tournament player, but I don't think you can just assume that tournament players spend more, and there are far more basement players. And some of them do codex hop when something new comes out - they just don't do it to play the new competitive stuff in organized tournaments, they do it to play the new stuff and get the new models.

And there are also the tournament players who will spend as little as possible, and paint their models as generically as possible so that they can use the same guys for any of a half-dozen MEQ codexes. So there's that too.

You're also missing a key point. A well-supported tournament circuit creates an entirely new type of customer for GW to target. They make incremental profit by supporting people who like to play for competition. The basement gamer will exist regardless. The bottom line is that you need to create a reason for people to play this game.

I am not sure I agree with this. I don't think that a tournament circuit creates a new type of customer, I think that a tournament circuit gives a certain type of customer an outlet, where playing 'hard' armies is considered more acceptable. I say this because I've seen people build armies as if they were playing in tournaments just to play at the local store against whoever walks in. Heck, if you read the Battle Reports section of this site, look for Mercer's reports, where he runs a Purifier spam GK army, just at his local club, and self-admittedly has no interest in tournament games.

So, no, I don't think that a tournament circuit creates a new type of customer. I think that it has value for a certain type of player, and that possibly, that value includes keeping that sort of player away from the less-competitive types

I also come to this conclusion because you say that you need to create a reason for people to play the game. I think that reason is that people want to play with toy soldiers. I think that it most certainly isn't that they're seeking a highly-competitive outlet. Consider that the manufacturer of the game states publicly that they don't want to support a competitive game, and don't design the game with competition in mind, and that there are many better and more competitive intellectual outlets (such as chess, or M:tG, or even Warmachine) available. Why would someone seeking competition pick up GW? They wouldn't - the tournament circuit isn't creating customers.

Instead, people who are interested in playing with toy soldiers (and, I am not using this term as a knock on anyone. As I've already stated, I am also a tournament gamer) pick up this game because it's got a cool story and cool models. And they learn to play. And some of them will be more interested in the tabletop than in the fluff, and they'll dominate games among their friends and maybe then, they'll start to look for the bigger pond, the tournaments. But that's not why they started playing.

A certain subset will play it for the fact they love war gaming and seeing epic battles (you and your buddies). However, a large majority will abandon the game if there's not some hook.

And GW is just fine with those people. Half their business model seems to be selling toys to kids who they know will play for a few years, then figure out that girls are interesting, and girls aren't into toy soldiers, and they'll lose interest in the toys.

As I said before, there is a reason video games have achievements, levels, carrots, etc. They need to give you a reason to come back.

This is a tangent that I could spend quite a bit of time on. If you're interested in why this analogy is incorrect, PM me. I will simply restate the above; GW doesn't need you to come back. Buy your toys once and they'll be happy. There are always more kids at the target age who will pick up the game if you don't come back.

The tournament tournament circuit simply expands GW's market. That's what a good business strives to do. How many people do you think say to themselves "Man, GW isn't supporting tournaments.. I'm going to stop playing for fun with my friends in our basement. I'm going to stop playing massive apoc games with my buddies." And now how many people do you think say "Man, GW isn't supporting tournaments.. I'm going to go play Warmachine/Hordes, because I like minis games, I like tournaments and PP cares about the tournament player."

I'm not arguing that their decision here is a good one. Like you, I'm disappointed in this choice. But, it is irresponsible for you or I or anyone else without access to their sales numbers to say that their decision is a poor financial one. For all you know, they believe they're losing casual sales because of the WAAC seemingly presented by tournament players. For all you know, cutting these events isn't about saving a few dollars, it's a direct attack on the tournament gamer because that's not the sort of game they want to be part of, and they think they can sell more to casual gamers if the uber-competitive, vocal, minority goes off and plays warmachine instead.

If you have a good business reason why they shouldn't support tournaments, then by all means, please let us hear it. But there really isn't a good reason, unless they are trying to make less money, or they have poor management....

Maybe it's a calculated move, knowing that very few gamers will quit playing their games, in spite of their approach to the tournament circuit, because the independents have done such a good job at taking up the slack. Maybe they see Adepticon, Nova, BAO and the like as doing their job for them, for free. Is Adepticon going to go away next year because GW isn't giving them a box of free terrain? Is Nova? Of course not.

Are you going to stop buying GW products because of this? Or are you going to get a new army with the onset of 6th ed, and go to the independent events in your area, or that interest you? If you're in the later category, then you're part of this calculation that tells them they made the right business decision. If you're in the former camp, well, you're taking a stand, but I think you're taking it as part of a minority.

So, in answer to your question, the good business reason why they shouldn't support tournaments is that they no longer believe they need to. The tournament scene is mature and thriving without them, they're reaping the benefits of an active tournament scene without needing to dedicate resources (manpower probably even more so than the material giveaways) to it.

It is completely false that GW 'Doesn't need you to come back" Redbeard.

More than just the percentage of their sales that are to repeat customers, it is an expensive hobby to get into, so how do people usually get into the game? Someone, usually a friend, brings you into it. Or people you know at the game store show you the ropes, give you a demo, whatever.

Either way. THESE PEOPLE are what get new people into the hobby. Seeing models on the wall doesn't get people interested, seeing people playing painted armies gets people interested.

I think this is being painted as too black and white- it's entirely possible that GW doesn't view tournament players as the driving factor behind their business. In fact, it's incredibly likely.

This doesn't mean that tournament players don't buy a lot of stuff. It just means that they're not the bulk of GW's income- which surely, they're not.

It also doesn't justify neglecting them. However, if this argument held, GW would've been doing a lot more for "veterans" of the hobby all along- and they haven't been. Hence, from what I've seen, more of those types of gamers being drawn into other game systems. It's also an age thing. Most of us here are adults, adults buy tons of GW's stuff- but maybe it's not the majority, or at least not the group GW wants to focus their energy/funds towards.

These things could all be true without negating the fact that tournies are good for the hobby, tourney players buy lots of stuff, etc.

More than likely, imo, it's not an extreme- it's just GW stopping one program before starting another in a year or two. Personally, I think it will lose them some business, but that hasn't stopped them before . And I think indy tournies will adapt, and the tourney scene could in the end be better off for it. Weaned off of the "subsidies", forced to bring in other forms of sponsorship, etc.

keithb wrote:It is completely false that GW 'Doesn't need you to come back" Redbeard.

More than just the percentage of their sales that are to repeat customers, it is an expensive hobby to get into, so how do people usually get into the game? Someone, usually a friend, brings you into it. Or people you know at the game store show you the ropes, give you a demo, whatever.

Either way. THESE PEOPLE are what get new people into the hobby. Seeing models on the wall doesn't get people interested, seeing people playing painted armies gets people interested.

Honestly do you understand GW's business model? Get little kid into one of the big three, get a birthday, X-mas or two out of them and get another "Little Timmy" into the GW PLC,c,tm, Hobby,c,tm. Rinse and Repeat, newbies can't bitch about the price rises and shody Finecast QC because they are not around long enough to know any better.

Think how easy it is to get a 10-14 kid into 40k. The game is rather easy to pick up play wise. Sell them a AoBR, hobby starter set, around 1000-1500 points of Space Marines, codex, some more paints, some glue, FineCast(c,tm) clean up kit, some sand and flocking, paint brushes and you are on your way in the GW PLC Hobby. There are a lot more new players out there then vets, GW has figured this out a while ago and moved it's business model to this.

Honestly, I think store recruitment and word of mouth go along more ways in getting people in GW games turnies do. But that is just personal opinion and not hard fact.

@Lee, Ask me some time to spin you the wonderful, harrowing tale of my pitch to the honchos at GW US HQ back when I worked for them in days of yore. It will... end your life.

keithb wrote:It is completely false that GW 'Doesn't need you to come back" Redbeard.

I know, they really do need me to come back. I spend far too much...

On a more serious note, yes, you're right, they do need some people to come back. But, not in the same way that a video game does. And, while they'd like repeat sales, they don't need repeat sales, because they're happy with new sales too.

It's because you're buying goods, not services - and this is actually an evolution that's happening to the video game market right now. Video games can be divided into two categories - those where you buy game, and play a game, like Portal, and those where you buy a service, like World of Warcraft.

The former is essentially the traditional 'buying goods' model. The developer makes a game, you buy it, you pay them once. They're happy for the sale. If they did a good job, then you'll get excited about a sequel, and when that's released, you might buy it too. They like to have the repeat sale, but really, you bought their game, and they're happy that you did.

World of Warcraft, Farmville, and other games where you are essentially paying to play operate on a different model. WoW's prime revenue stream is from subscribers. You're buying a service - the ability to play - and you pay every month. If you don't come back, you stop paying, and they make no more money. They "need" you to come back. And so they make achievements, to hook you and get you to try and get them all. They use all sorts of other psychological tricks to get you to keep coming back and keep paying - it's actually pretty disturbing, and at some point, people realize that they're treating their 'game' like a second job, with terms like "farming".

GW sells a luxury (as in, not a necessity) good. They're happy to sell it to you once. If you drop $600 on an army, they had a good day. They hope that you like the product and that maybe you'll buy another. But, they don't need you to - not like WoW needs its subscribers to return month after month.

More than just the percentage of their sales that are to repeat customers, it is an expensive hobby to get into, so how do people usually get into the game? Someone, usually a friend, brings you into it. Or people you know at the game store show you the ropes, give you a demo, whatever.

This is true. Their marketing does require game ambassadors - and in fact, the game requires enough participants that you can find someone to play against. But, I don't think they need as many of these ambassadors as there are customers. They need some, but realistically, not that many.

To play Devil's Advocate, I've got some questions for you:

Firstly, If I buy my army once, and never buy anything else, but I keep going into the store and acting as the advert that you rightly claim GW needs, am I actually a "repeat customer"? I think we all know someone who is still using rhinos and marines from the 90s. These people still act as game ambassadors, but I don't think you can still call them customers.

Secondly, is a tournament, especially a big circuit tournament, really a positive recruitment tool? Does GW need a tournament player to come back because tournaments are such a good recruitment activity? And to this, I'd say, no, they're not. I think that tournaments aren't good recruitment tools because the players are too busy with their games to take the time to talk to prospective customers. I think that they're also not good recruitment tools because, unfortunately, tournaments can bring out some of the worst behaviours in people, and you don't necessarily want prospective customers getting that idea of the hobby.

Regardless of business models, I just don't understand why GW doesn't support all aspects of the hobby, including the Tournament scene.

If they wanted to maximise sales wouldn't it be prudent to encourage all potential consumers?

If they took the time to actually send someone to independent events, they would see only a small portion of the players are "in it to win it" if that is really the type of people they are scared of. The vast majority playing in events go to them to just play games against other people that wouldn't normally play against. Instead GW probability randomly read forums and blogs and think the comment sections are reflective of most tournament players.

Either way I still think GW has something in the works as a replacement what it is is I cannot say.

Anyway I put together some thoughts on the matter on my website if anyone is interested.

Games Workshop Kills the Scene

The North American Games Workshop Business Support team along with our management team has spent an extensive amount of time reviewing the current tournament circuit and the best way to offer support to hobbyists interested in hosting events of their own.

As you are undoubtedly aware, there is a Games Workshop tournament circuit in which tournaments must apply and those chosen are offered support. After serious consideration, we will continue with the current 2012 circuit ending in May 2012 and host the culminating Throne of Skulls tournament this October. Going forward, in order to be more supportive of events of all types, especially those in our retail and trade outlet stores, we will discontinue the GW tournament circuit.

We would like to thank all the organiser's from the 2012 Circuit and we wish everyone the most success with their events in the future.

Regards,

Desiree Dorsey
Director of Business Support
Games Workshop

Anyone catch that possesive 'our' retail stores? Maybe I'm reading alot into to that but doesn't that imply actual GW stores? (which don't exist in huge swathes of the US)



On a related note don't think 40k can't get knocked down a peg or two- it happened to DnD in the nineties due to TSR's bad choices, allowing white wolf, fasa, and other companies to take up the slack and pick up huge swathes of their market. For a while there DnD seemed damn near dead, where before it was THE pen and paper RPG, its name virtuallly synonymous with the hobby, It recovered of course with the WoTC buy out and 3e, but it just goes to show no matter how big the name, a game in a hobby full of iritable, picky, geeks anyone can wind up in the trash bin of nostalagic old OOP games.

Redbeard... I don't get it. First you say GW doesn't need people to come back, now you say they do. But then you say not really.

Which is it?

Also:

1) I think we'll have to disagree about how to run a successful company. Pretty much every retailer wants you to continue to shop at their store. No retailer wants you to buy once and never come back. I think this idea is pretty much business 101. I can't really think of business off hand that is happy you purchased once and never came back (ok.. I lied.. a vaccination business would be happy with you only showing up once, since they can generally only sell you a vaccine once).

To thrive as a company (especially when public) you need to grow your business (by growing customers or growing purchases per customer). You simply do not grow a business by replacing customer 1 with customer 2, as you suggest.

2) I wish you and others would stop with the hyperbole about tournaments and bad behavior. Adepticon hasn't grown by thousands of players over the past few years because "tournaments can bring out some of the worst behaviors in people." MVBrandt shows real data through a survey that says people spend more BECAUSE of tournaments. I've yet to see anything that shows people spend LESS because of tournaments. Or that a people really quit the hobby, because there are tournaments held which they are in no way forced to attend.


I don't get what is hard to understand. Tournament support helps GW profit from competitive minded players at no real cost to the "hobbyists." In fact, I'd say tournament support ALSO helps you profit from the hobbyists, because they spend a lot of money on armies to try to win the Best Appearance at Adepticon. Just answer me this. If tournaments didn't exist, do you think people, on average, would spend less, more or the same?

Leenus wrote: Just answer me this. If tournaments didn't exist, do you think people, on average, would spend less, more or the same?

Less money. I would probably have quit the hobby or simply reverted to a model collector and paint only collector models that look cool on a shelf. I simply don't have the time to game 3 nights a week and every weekend like I used to. Organized play is my best shot to turn a full day into compact quality gaming. If I didn't have tourneys, mega battles or other organized 'all day' events, I doubt that the casual FLGS play would have kept me going. GW almost lost me with the death of the GT which was an amazing event. I do miss the GW battle bunker in Glen Burnie, in 2000, I was able to bounce up there almost 3 times a week, but now I barley have time to make it to bowie which is way closer!!! And it does sound like they are very active and GW has really done a good job with organized play, it simply is an hour plus drive through traffic to play there.

Tourneys are fantastic for people like me. They give me exactly what I am looking for in social, hobby and competitive nature. And when I want to be fluffy and compy, there are megabattles and compy tourneys, and when I want to crush skulls there are no soft score best geenral events. All of them are great and what keep me gaming (and spending monies)

I think Redbeard is right... the Indy events are doing things SO AMAZINGLY WELL, why should GW 1: foster an employee or staff to try to do things that good and 2: spend a dime even attempting to run an event when we do seem to be getting what we want from indys. Of course MORE is BETTER, but MORE CRAP is not necessarily better especially if it turns people of indy events by them only experiencing unfair, poorly run GW messes.

Leenus wrote:Redbeard... I don't get it. First you say GW doesn't need people to come back, now you say they do. But then you say not really.

Which is it?

You're trying to make this combative, and it's not. There are different definitions of need. One could argue that GW needs every customer because they're a publicly traded company and therefore have a mandate to return as much value to their investors as possible. In this definition, yes, GW needs every customer to buy multiple armies for all of their game systems, and many thousands of points of each.

That, however, is not realistic.

Another definition of need would be what is required to remain in business. This is more realistic, because it allows for the fact that they do actually make a profit when someone buys one army, and then doesn't buy another. Does that maximize their profit? No. Does selling to enough one-shot customers allow them to stay in business? Yes. Is one of these definitions of need superior to the other? Well... that's up to you. You're asking for a sound-bite answer to a complex question. If you want to refine the question to the point where it's legitimately answerable with a yes or no, I'll attempt to answer as such.

Also:

1) I think we'll have to disagree about how to run a successful company. Pretty much every retailer wants you to continue to shop at their store. No retailer wants you to buy once and never come back. I think this idea is pretty much business 101. I can't really think of business off hand that is happy you purchased once and never came back (ok.. I lied.. a vaccination business would be happy with you only showing up once, since they can generally only sell you a vaccine once).

And yet, pretty much every retailer is also happy if you do buy one thing at their store, and pretty much every retailer is aware that they're not going to get a 100% repeat rate. That's realism. No company is going to say, "we're going to fail if we cannot ensure 100% repeat customers." And, this is more true for 'luxury' goods (again, the definition of luxury as non-necessity, not Ferraris). A 2000 point army is going to cost between $500-$1000 at retail. That's a fairly major purchase for what is essentially a toy. Do they want to sell you more than one? Sure. Is it realistic that most people will buy more than one?

To thrive as a company (especially when public) you need to grow your business (by growing customers or growing purchases per customer). You simply do not grow a business by replacing customer 1 with customer 2, as you suggest.

But you have to admit that, while infinite growth is an ideal, it's not actually going to happen. What's more, I'm not sure GW fancies itself as a growth industry - not in the sense that its investors are looking for. GWs investors aren't looking for a company that's going to double in size in the next three years, they're looking for a company that pays a reasonable dividend on a regular basis and that can continue to generate a profit, even if it grows slowly. There's nothing wrong with this approach to business either. This isn't Amazon, sacrificing profit for growth, this is a steady business that's simply looking to remain in the black.

If a steady dividend is what your investors are looking for, selling the same thing to a new teen audience every couple of years suddenly doesn't sound like the worst business model in the world. Of course they'd like to also expand their customer base, and they'd like to also get every customer to spend more, but there are trade-offs that need to be considered. Consider advertising. You could claim that if they advertised on TV, especially during shows targeted at teen boys, they might get more customers. And yet, they don't. The people making these decisions aren't forum posters without data, they're MBAs with sales forecasts and cost analysis', and a bigger picture view than we have. What do they know that we don't? Maybe they understand that playing with toy soldiers is not a mainstream activity, and so pursing mainstream advertising isn't going to generate a return that justifies its cost.

Maybe tournament support falls into the same category. Not because tournaments are useless, or have no value, but because they believe that the tournament scene is mature enough to survive without their direct involvement. So here's a business 101 question for you. If you can spend nothing, and get a return of $1000 for each of 140 people who plan to play at NOVA, why would you spend $1000 - plus the human resources required to manage the program, to get the same return?

2) I wish you and others would stop with the hyperbole about tournaments and bad behavior. Adepticon hasn't grown by thousands of players over the past few years because "tournaments can bring out some of the worst behaviors in people."

Having experienced some of the bad behaviour first-hand, I don't think it's a non-topic at all. And yet, the positive experiences outweigh the negative, and it is because of this that the events grow. I do know that if I wanted to get a friend into 40k, I would not bring them to Adepticon for their first experience. I don't think it is a good environment for an introduction.

MVBrandt shows real data through a survey that says people spend more BECAUSE of tournaments. I've yet to see anything that shows people spend LESS because of tournaments. Or that a people really quit the hobby, because there are tournaments held which they are in no way forced to attend.

Okay. Show me the data that says people won't go to NOVA because GW is cancelling a very small percentage of NOVAs prize support. NOVA doesn't need a GW circuit anymore. Adepticon existed before there was a GW circuit.

I don't get what is hard to understand. Tournament support helps GW profit from competitive minded players at no real cost to the "hobbyists."

You have no proof to back this up. What you mean to say is that Tournaments help GW profit from competitive minded players. Whether GW provides support for those tournaments or not doesn't change the outcome.

Just answer me this. If tournaments didn't exist, do you think people, on average, would spend less, more or the same?

I'll give you the straight answer you're obviously begging for here. People would spend less on average. This isn't difficult math. So, I played your game - now you just answer me this: Are you going to skip any independent tournaments in the next year solely because GW has cut their support for the circuit?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nkelsch wrote:. Of course MORE is BETTER, but MORE CRAP is not necessarily better especially if it turns people of indy events by them only experiencing unfair, poorly run GW messes.

And this too. There has to be a point of diminishing returns when it comes to large tournaments. People only have so many vacation days, so much travel money, and the like. Between Adepticon, BOLScon, BAO, NOVA, as well as plenty of other existing events, is adding another new event simply dividing the pool further? If there was a GT every weekend, would that be a good thing, or would it dilute them all to the point that none were really grand? How many large events is ideal? Would you rather see twelve events with 30 players each, or four with 120?

I'm wading into this really late, but is GW canceling the monthly prize support they send to FLGS's around the US?

GW as of late is turning into a money hungry monster........

You tournament players have proven to everyone that tournaments are good for Business..........

You will ALL still continue to compete in 40k based tournaments and GW isnt spending a single penny for them....


How is making it fall upon the fan base to support their models not a good thing? You guys start up your own leagues and tournaments and continue competing with each other as always driving up sales of GW product and GW sits back and thanks you for the money while spending NONE.


It's a pretty shrewd business model really....

You have invested too much in the hobby to just quit and most likely they know that.......

Thunderfrog wrote:I'm wading into this really late, but is GW canceling the monthly prize support they send to FLGS's around the US?

Monthly? As far as last month, not at my FLGS. He gets a "x" amount of dollars per year based on sales of the product in question.

I am continuously dazzled by Redbeards insites into vastly different topics. I feel I'm ready to take a final exam in a Psychology of Buisness course after reading his posts.

TBH the Red Kid is spot on with his assessment. I'm an old time tourney player and tourneys bring the worst out in me. I'll also have a rotating supply of 4-6 2000pt armies at any one time. I sell off ones I think have no future (because of rules changes for instance) and pick up a new one as cheaply as possible.

A number of years back I was introduced to my first basement gamer. He was an older fellow, a reverend actually, who had passed away. His widow couldn't afford to live in the house the church provided so she wanted to sell some of his stuff. He had been a basement 40k player for years and few people knew it. I went to sort through his stuff with a store owner and to get it ready for sale. When I walked into that basement I was shocked with what I saw. He had 6 large folding tables put together with cloth covering them. On the tables was a humongous battle scene of Orks vs. Guard. Imagine a toy train collector who has a town and railway station all modeled up on a 20' x 15' table and this is what it was, but with 40k stuff dating back to the 1980's. He had everything and in lots of numbers. The guy never played. I'm sure he barely knew the rules. He treated it as a scenic modeling collection. We spent over a week trying to catalog everything. This was one basement gamer, but I have never seen anyone with more models in all my life.

Catering to the young teen is a common buisness strategy with lots of products. From teen magazines to skinny jeans, many industries are in business to get money from 12-16 year olds as they progress through that age. It's not far fetched to see a sic-fi modeling company do the same thing. I have said for a while now the proof will be in 6th edition. Will the rules become more random, like the current edition of fantasy? Or will the rules become more competitive with predictable outcomes to tactical decisions? That will be my clue as to where the company wants to go.

Leenus wrote:If you have a good business reason why they shouldn't support tournaments, then by all means, please let us hear it

Just as a thought, but perhaps the tournament scene will continue to thrive and grow regardless of GW's input.

Perhaps the benefits to GW are not related to their input in the tournament scene.

GW canned their events, and support for other events in Australia a long time ago. Our tournament scene has only gotten better, and no one misses the old GTs (although it would be nice to add to the trophy collection!). Even just looking through the last new pages at the reasons people give for playing in Tournaments: Meeting new players, challenging themselves, seeing new awesomely painted and converted armies, motivation for finishing armies and buying new ones. Not to mention the other 'standard' reasons for a weekend away from home, such as recharging the batteries, taking a break from regular life, etc.

Not one person has said they only go to tournaments because of the financial support given by GW, and I would be shocked to hear if even one person said they were to quit attending tournaments, or quit 40K altogether, entirely because GW stopped giving prize support to tournaments.

DarthDiggler wrote: I have said for a while now the proof will be in 6th edition. Will the rules become more random, like the current edition of fantasy? Or will the rules become more competitive with predictable outcomes to tactical decisions? That will be my clue as to where the company wants to go.

Oh, what a load of crap. The 'more random' element serves to increase the importance of tactical decisions, not decrease it. As the old saying goes: Only through adversity is genius revealed.

Reecius wrote:The Indy GT circuit will continue to grow and thrive. With the increased support we are offering one another, it will only continue to get better.

Kaldor wrote:
Just as a thought, but perhaps the tournament scene will continue to thrive and grow regardless of GW's input.

this is what I was thinking. Perhaps GW has faith in the 3rd-parties to grow the hobby/game. Maybe this is their super-subtle way of telling the community to try to spread the hobby more (not sure that makes sense as a business model...)? Maybe they're expecting those 3rd-parties to up the ante of their tournaments in hopes of getting the word spread even more? Or even find other, more creative, ways to promote the hobby? Really not sure haha. Who knows how, why, or what GW thinks sometimes...

...or maybe they're cutting back on their tourney support finances to focus their finances elsewhere long term (pre-painted minis? venturing in another medium - return of the Warhammer Monthly comic or a live-action movie?)?

Milisim wrote:GW as of late is turning turned into a money hungry monster........ after Tom Kirbys managment buy out and fired on all cylinders around 1998

You tournament players have proven to everyone that tournaments are good for Business..........

You will ALL still continue to compete in 40k based tournaments and GW isnt spending a single penny for them....


How is making it fall upon the fan base to support their models not a good thing? You guys start up your own leagues and tournaments and continue competing with each other as always driving up sales of GW product and GW sits back and thanks you for the money while spending NONE.


It's a pretty shrewd business model really....

You have invested too much in the hobby to just quit and most likely they know that.......

Again fixed

But yes it is a good business model, no cost and nothing but gain, sounds like a win-win for the bean counters again.

One of the things that worries me about GW is that their current business model continues to cut costs, and I see very few attempts to grow new markets. The following is a list of things (just from semi-recent memory) that GW has done:

1. Cut all staff from all stores down to single-employee stores for almost every store in the world.
2. Cut tournament support.
3. End Ard Boyz.
4. Close Australian stores
5. Increase shipping to australia
6. Increase shipping to Japan
7. Increase salaries of top execs
8. Still more price increases.
9. Develop finecast
10. Dreadfleet oops
11. Re-release Lotr

Many of these things cut costs. In other words, I see programs/employees being cut, an average series of numbers for profits, and an increase in price over all product lines. This looks a lot like a company that is losing sales and is cost-cutting and attempting to drive sales by marking up their product, and to anyone on this side of the pond that should be worrying, because we have seen a lot of bad things resulting from that sort of behavior recently.

Their business model seems to require them selling models in a large-scale, per-customer bulk purchase, with the hope that said customer continues to pay small parts of that investment to them over time. They continue raising prices and asking people to pay greater and greater amounts for the same bulk purchase, but what happens when the average person can no longer afford the purchase, or the payments, and has to sell their house? Oh, I meant models. Yeah, sell their models.

Of the three items on that list that are not cost-cutting, executive bonuses, or price increases, one of them (finecast) did not expand the market or grow consumer business as it was simply a replacement for existing products (unless it is actually less expensive for them to make things finecast instead of pewter, but then it would just be another cost-cutting strategy anyway). Another (Dreadfleet) was another example of good intentions poorly executed or thought out, and resulted in product failure and what I'll bet is a net loss. The last (lotr) is a product line that already massively failed once, but should bring in or rekindle old interest, and is therefore what I'd call a market growth decision. This seems to directly contradict with the crowd who thinks GW isn't interested in old flames, but I could see it getting a lot of attention in the year of The Hobbit. Should they choose to continue the line for another decade after the movie's release, it will probably end up like like it did the last time (not well) but I can always hope they'll learn from their mistake.

Also, anyone who says that GW giving up on something because someone 3rd party is doing it better should take a look at their lawsuit with chapter house and the old fights against the internet ordering sites from the 90s. Losing a part of your company that can generate revenue because a 3rd party does it better is not a "good business decision." Unless GW also intends to make fandexes, 3rd-party modelers, 3rd party distributors, and its competitors a part of its business model, they need to seriously rethink their current run of business decisions imho.

Also, as a disclaimer, I am no expert in business or economics. I'm just calling this as I see it in relation to how I see other companies succeed and do well, or fail and do poorly.

Yeah, I see a far better painting standard, overall, at tournaments than I do gaming with my friends or at the local club.

(Oh, that goes for my own armies too -- I'm much more likely to have unpainted or unfinished minis in a friendly game than at a tourney!)

I might have been lucky, too, but I've never actually had an unfriendly opponent at a tournament. I suspect most people make a special effort to be friendly, because that is (or should be) part of the game -- it's a social experience.

I've also found that the majority of tournament players are also scrupulously fair. In fact, the most consistent, ongoing cheat I've enountered wasn't at a tournament -- it's a local player who plays close combat heavy armies and will always turn a 6" move into 7" or 8" if you're not watching him like a hawk. As far as I know, he's never played at a tournament in his life.

Kaldor wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote: I have said for a while now the proof will be in 6th edition. Will the rules become more random, like the current edition of fantasy? Or will the rules become more competitive with predictable outcomes to tactical decisions? That will be my clue as to where the company wants to go.

Oh, what a load of crap. The 'more random' element serves to increase the importance of tactical decisions, not decrease it. As the old saying goes: Only through adversity is genius revealed.

All I've heard from the fantasy crowd is how 7th edition has killed fantasy. There are threads on that topic that say random charge distances is killing the game. All your genius is thrown out the window when your tactical movement is stopped not from anything your opponent does, but when you roll poorly for your random charge distance. (above and beyond the 16% chance to fail by rolling a one.)

Players like to know that when they make a move it will lead to X, not that when they make a move any number of random outcomes can come about. That's not a competitive tactical gam, that's Chuts and Ladders. Look to the battle reports, and complaints, when you have random deployment, random movement of objectives, etc...

No surprise there.
GW ceased prize support here two years ago, and were tapering it off everywhere else as well.

WE couldn't even BUY their trophies off them ( that they had offered in WD for what was the current month to them ceasing the support).

It took you until now - feel lucky. Bad news travels by slow coach to the US these days, it seems.

That really is ashame

The long and short is, all this discussion about the finances of supporting tournaments is a little silly.

NO, the NOVA Open and many other events are not going to stop b/c GW stopped its marginal support.

The problem is, there are a lot of grand events that hundreds attend that GREW from the initial spark GW offered.

It's easy as the NOVA Open, or AdeptiCon, or whatever, to contact 100 sponsors and get support from 90 of them. The exposure is so significant and the playerbase that attends and watches and pays attention so large, it's a bit of a no brainer. Coupled with the fact that most of us TO's are crazy and don't do this for money, but to support our hobby and hobbyists (including the hobby-related sponsors), it's not hard for the big events to gain support.

The PROBLEM is the small events have exactly NO value statement to make in their first year or two to sponsors. GW offered intrepid TO's around the nation the opportunity to get started with a tailor-made package of prizes and terrain, which are the two biggest hurdles for a 'first' year event.

Should GW support ceaseless event generation? NO idea, not my place to get too deep into that business case, but by cutting off this support GW IS preventing many new events from continuing to develop; by sparking the development of events to date with the circuit, GW has almost undeniably generated revenue for itself; stopping, therefore, has at least some question to it in a financial sense ...

NOT AT ALL because of the argument line being pursued around the impact on existing events, but instead around the natural "death" of future not-yet-conceived events that occurs because of the cut-off.

*shrug*

Yeah, while all the philosophical and business talk is interesting, I really think the main driver behind this decision is organizational. The guy who used to run the thing is gone now. I've worked in organizations before where "the guy who did X" left, and it can take six months before his replacement has figured things out, cleaned up whatever issues were left behind, and has a good grasp of how to proceed in the future. In the meantime, things went into a deep freeze. I can't be the only one who's seen this in action.

As Tironum said, this isn't the first time that GW's axed a circuit. And each time it's returned. I don't think GW views a tournament circuit as a crucial component to its business, for some of the reasons that Redbeard states. However, I think the many resurrections of the circuit shows that GW (or GWUS, at least) sees *some* value there.

Let's give it some time and see what happens. History suggests that in another year or so, we'll have something new. In the meantime, I expect most of the indy GTs will continue chugging along, although startups may be affected. Probably the only difference that players will notice is a lack of GW vouchers.

@Gorgon: I actually agree with your first paragraph. This move away from providing prize support, ending the tournament circuit, and ending 'Ard Boys all coincide with the exodus of the two people in GW US who ran all of this stuff.

GW has been hot and cold towards the idea of tournament support over the years. We'll just have to wait and see what the future brings to know if this policy is a new corporate direction or merely the results of not having the right people in place.

Ok guys I have the solution!!!

After tonight, when I win the Mega Million jackpot, I'll sponsor the Indy Curcuit! Heck I could set up a traveling GT!

What else are you going to do with 1/2 a billion dollars?

Inquisitor_Dunn wrote:Ok guys I have the solution!!!

After tonight, when I win the Mega Million jackpot, I'll sponsor the Indy Curcuit! Heck I could set up a traveling GT!

What else are you going to do with 1/2 a billion dollars?

I make the same pledge should I win.

Inquisitor_Dunn wrote:Ok guys I have the solution!!!

After tonight, when I win the Mega Million jackpot, I'll sponsor the Indy Curcuit! Heck I could set up a traveling GT!

What else are you going to do with 1/2 a billion dollars?

You could buy GW and run it any way you would like.

Not a bad idea, think I'll go buy a lotto ticket.

same
lol

doc dragon wrote:

Inquisitor_Dunn wrote:Ok guys I have the solution!!!

After tonight, when I win the Mega Million jackpot, I'll sponsor the Indy Curcuit! Heck I could set up a traveling GT!

What else are you going to do with 1/2 a billion dollars?

You could buy GW and run it any way you would like.

Not a bad idea, think I'll go buy a lotto ticket.

That's an even better idea... But I would have to move the company to the U.S. because there is no way I want to live in England. Or I could just Skype all my board meetings

Redbeard wrote:
Maybe tournament support falls into the same category. Not because tournaments are useless, or have no value, but because they believe that the tournament scene is mature enough to survive without their direct involvement. So here's a business 101 question for you. If you can spend nothing, and get a return of $1000 for each of 140 people who plan to play at NOVA, why would you spend $1000 - plus the human resources required to manage the program, to get the same return?

You're looking at the wrong analysis.

If I could get $1,000 for each 140 NOVA players for free, would I spend $1,000+ HR to do the same thing? Absolutely not. However, that is not the actual scenario. The real scenario is that you can get $1,000 for each 140 NOVA players for free as a baseline. The question is then how much MORE money per 140 players do I get for the incremental $1,000+ HR. If it's $0, then of course it doesn't make sense. My argument is that you get enough return (both in direct $ spent and intangible benefit) to offset the investment.

However, it's less the case with NOVA/Adepticon. They have reached the critical mass where they have enough presence that they get plenty of sponsorship regardless of GW. In the early years, those tournaments needed GW's support to survive (MVBrandt said so in his own posts and Adepticon was in the red for 6 years as per their post). More importantly, lots of smaller GT events, Socal Slaughter for example, need the sponsorship to have a chance of breaking even. The prize support is not that important for major established events, but it is critical for the smaller events that are starting up.

If the prize support goes away, these small events will vanish and people won't spend money in preparation. Again, the simple analysis on the value of prize support is [estimated incremental sales + intangibles - $ spent on prize support]. A quick back-of-the-envelope analysis shows they don't need to encourage that many people with incremental purchases to breakeven (see earlier post for analysis).

Moreover, the prize support says a lot about GW's view of the game. No prize support says to me that they don't care about the massive events people independently put together to support their game. It's basically an "F You" we have your money, now get lost. As a comparison, Privateer Press significantly supports their events and shows they care about the time people put into organizing an independent event in their free time. That makes me want to support PP far more than GW.


To your question about if I'll skip any events. Absolutely. I am attending more PP events and fewer GW events. Why? Because PP supports competitive play and GW doesn't. The reason I didn't switch sooner is PP hadn't hit a critical mass of players and I was hanging on to GW, because I had played the game for so many years.

You spend a lot of time positing tangential nonsense (like talking about TV advertising. Who was even talking about that??) and not focusing on the issues. You admit you believe that the elimination of tournaments would result in less spending, then the question becomes does the elimination of prize support result in fewer tournaments? That is the core question for debate. I think we both agree that it doesn't suddenly end the major events like Adpeticon and NOVA. However, I believe it will cause the end of some smaller events. The lack of support, even if it doesn't directly kill tournaments, has a secondary effect of really highlighting that GW doesn't give a crap about it's players or their events. That fact is further amplified by the fact a direct competitor DOES support tournaments. GW might have been able to get away with ending support when they were the only show in town. But now PP is a real threat to their business. How many tournaments have been adding significant PP events to their tournaments? A lot. If I was GW, that would scare the crap out of me.

I think you're in a hard position to win this debate though. There are several tournament organizers that freely admit GW prize support is/was vital to their success. There are plenty of people who say they spend more in preparation for a tournament. I bet a quick poll would give us some quick data (I'll start one). I don't think saying GW has run the analysis is a strong defense. Not all companies make the right decision despite "running the analysis" otherwise businesses wouldn't fail.

Leenus wrote:
You spend a lot of time positing tangential nonsense (like talking about TV advertising. Who was even talking about that??) and not focusing on the issues.

I think you're in a hard position to win this debate though.

This appears to be a fundamental difference in our approach here. I am not trying to win a debate. There are no judges, there are no scores. Not everything needs to be based in conflict. I post about tangential issues because I believe this is a discussion forum, not a debate forum, and discussions naturally have a tendency to wander.

You admit you believe that the elimination of tournaments would result in less spending, then the question becomes does the elimination of prize support result in fewer tournaments? That is the core question for debate.

For discussion, sure. And I'm not sure that it does. I'll use the example that I've got first-hand knowledge of, the Chicago-area tournament scene.

We've got one of the GW battle bunkers in the area. But tournaments were rarely run at the bunker. When I got into competitive play, around 2006, most tournaments were held at independent locations. Sometimes bars, (where the beer round would allow a player to place an empty bottle on the table as terrain), sometimes independent game stores. But rarely the GW bunker. I think this was when the Outrider program was getting some people to run events - DarthDiggler was more involved than I back then and may be able to correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, for some reason those people stopped running tournaments and the scene dried up for a couple of years.

Around 2008, Chris Hill (zero_cool) decided to take over the organization of a tournament series himself. Although he has been a GW employee, and I think is again now, this wasn't done in an official capacity with the company. It was done because there was a mass of players who wanted to have a tournament series. Some more competitive, some more social, but a group of players took the reins and set up the events. GW supports us in this endevour by providing table-space, but not prize support. Maybe a couple of times the Bunker manager has added a few dollars to one of the gift cards that we buy with our entry fees, but there's no organized prize-support. What's more, there's a vocal part of this group that has ensured that these tournaments not be about prize support, but about competition. We spend entry fees on plaques for winners. Sure, it's a few less dollars on your ift-card, but we tend to believe that we're not in this for the money, we're in it for the competition and social experience. We've maintained this tournament series for three years now, holding our 3rd Championship finals tomorrow.

Based on this, I have no doubts that a tournament scene can flourish without corporate handouts. What's needed is strong organizers, not corporate cash. If there's a demand for a competitive scene, then the competitive scene can happen, regardless of what level of interest a game publisher has in it. (P.S. if anyone is interested in more details on our series, or how to start one in your area, feel free to PM me).

Strong organizers, like muwhe and MVBrandt are more important than getting prize support. People who will promote the hell out of their events.

I think we both agree that it doesn't suddenly end the major events like Adpeticon and NOVA. However, I believe it will cause the end of some smaller events.

It might. On the other hand, diminishing returns may also, and GW removing that sponsorship may not be a bad thing when you take a larger view. How many "events" can you legitimately run before they start stepping on each other's toes? At what point does adding a new event not add new players or new participation, but merely draw them away from another event? These are realistic questions.

The lack of support, even if it doesn't directly kill tournaments, has a secondary effect of really highlighting that GW doesn't give a crap about it's players or their events. That fact is further amplified by the fact a direct competitor DOES support tournaments. GW might have been able to get away with ending support when they were the only show in town. But now PP is a real threat to their business. How many tournaments have been adding significant PP events to their tournaments? A lot. If I was GW, that would scare the crap out of me.

I see where you are coming from, and yet, I'm not your ideas mesh with GWs. I talked to Jervis at a GT a few years ago. I asked him if they evaluated how other game companies, using M;TG as an example, wrote their rules. I mentioned the way that M:TG's rules are written with clarity in mind, that there are established keywords that always mean the same thing. And he said that they were aware of this, but that they had no interest in doing this. He outright said that the competitive scene was not their priority, and that they prefer to write for casual gamers.

And this was at a GW-run GT.

It wasn't what I wanted to hear. I like tight rules, I'm an engineer by trade, getting things defined well is what I do. But it did open my eyes to the company's perspective. They're happy that there are tournament players, but tournament players put an extra demand on them that takes their attention away from their core focus - making and selling miniatures. Tournament players are a significant minority of their customers, although we don't notice that as much in the US because we're more competitive in general. But remember, they come from a English mindset. Why would they need to write clear rules that people can't take advantage of because, in their mind, taking advantage of loopholes isn't sporting. If something is too good, it's not sporting to take three of them...

I don't see this as being a case where they hate their players, or show contempt for us. I think that they're being honest, both to themselves and to us - the competitive scene is not their area of primary focus. If PP steps in to fight them for that sector, well, that may force them to re-evaluate that focus, but at the moment, their focus is on recruiting kids to buy models. And cancelling the support and the 'ard boyz events seems to me more a case that they're re-focusing on their core.

That's okay. I don't think that the competitive scene needs their hand-holding. I think there are enough bloggers and podcasters that keep the flame lit 24/7. I think there are enough 'grand' events that are big enough to stand on their own that we don't really need more big events. I think there are enough 3rd party sponsors who are happy for the competitive dollar - like Neal at the Warstore and Romeo at Battlefoam - who will be happy to fill that void, and take that money. And I think that local groups of competitive-minded players can do more to organize a tournament circuit in their area than GW can.

There are plenty of people who say they spend more in preparation for a tournament. I bet a quick poll would give us some quick data (I'll start one). I don't think saying GW has run the analysis is a strong defense. Not all companies make the right decision despite "running the analysis" otherwise businesses wouldn't fail.

While amusing, your poll has no real relevance. People who don't play in tournaments aren't going to spend less because tournament exist, and people who do play in them are either going to spend more or the same. This isn't data that shows anything interesting. Interesting would be if you could, somehow, compare the amount of extra money spent by these tournament players against GWs revenues. That would tell us if their decision to focus their energies outside of the competitive sector is wise. But we don't have that data. We cannot make that analysis.

Maybe they do have it wrong. But they've done a decent job of not failing as a business so far, so perhaps they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

I totally get GW's perspective and focus on casual play. I just think it's completely wrong and there's a reason PP is growing like wildfire. There's a reason League of Legends supports a $5M prize pool tournament series. There are too many obvious indicators that supporting tournament play is a profitable endeavor. Many reasons in this thread have shown why supporting tourny play makes sense.

You are certainly right that if the incremental revenue from tournament players' incremental spend is a small, small percentage of GW's revenue, then it may not matter if they don't focus on competitive play. Neither of us can prove this point, since we don't have the numbers. But for $5,000 of prize support (~$1,000) to for five major tournaments, they could make a huge defensive move against PP in terms of public perception. You don't really need incremental headcount to admin gift vouches for 5 tournaments a year and you only need to sell 4 armies worth of goods across all those people to recoup your investment. What I think you're missing is the extremely low cost in terms of $ and energy to support a few major events, especially when you consider the potential upside.

The lack of tournament support is just 1 piece of a larger problem. GW makes money so I agree they aren't "failing." Yet, I think you'd have to be out of your mind to buy their stock given management's decision making coupled with the PP threat. Privateer Press has stepped in with a tight ruleset, strong competitive support, no yearly price increases (I believe) and an excellent relationship with the customer. Four major things that GW does not do/offer.

Competitive play can exist without corporate support. But what happens when 2 similar game systems compete and 1 has corporate support and 1 doesn't? Which one flourishes and which one simply exists?

I think GW has made it pretty clear by now they neither want nor welcome hobbyist participation in anything that doesn't bring immediate sales to their bottom line. Maybe they think they're on the path to becoming the next Hasbro and don't need their hardcore crowd anymore. Either way it'll be pretty hilarious when their house of cards eventually comes crashing down.

Edit: You're also deluding yourself if you think the loss of tournament support isn't a net negative, not matter how you spin it for the company.

As one of the guys trying to graduate things to the GT level. (Steel city showdown in Pittsburgh this and last year) I'm kind of disappointed. I've asked to join the Facebook group so i can somewhat stay in the loop with the folks in the know.

We've been pulling in 40 and 50+ regularly for our quarterly events. and submitted for the 2012/2013 season but never got a response back from Ed S.

Does anyone have speculation on whats going to be the replacement for this? I cannot see them re-doing the outrider program, nor a company held GT.

Too early to tell, I think, WG.

That's awesome to hear that your local events are doing so well. One of the stores (fairly) near me, Battlegrounds in Southern Massachusetts, is in a similar spot- running quarterly one-day events which regularly fill up at 40 people, and working on plans to take it to the next level.

Leenus wrote:I totally get GW's perspective and focus on casual play. I just think it's completely wrong and there's a reason PP is growing like wildfire. There's a reason League of Legends supports a $5M prize pool tournament series. There are too many obvious indicators that supporting tournament play is a profitable endeavor. Many reasons in this thread have shown why supporting tourny play makes sense.

Leenus- as someone who last year directed almost all of my hobby funds into Privateer Press, and who plays in tournaments for GW games, I can honestly say that PP support for tournaments did nothing to get me interested in the game.

What got me interested was the leagues- the local press ganger is very frequently organizing leagues, with something like a $5 fee, to get people out and playing, with prizes for various things at the end. In fact, this is what got me into playing warhammer fantasy after tiring of 40k for a while- a league organized by some guys at the local GW shop.

I think it doesn't have to be "either / or". For some reason, Redbeard got jumped all over for bringing up the opposing viewpoint, despite being a tournament player. As someone who travels in both circles, I find both hardcore tournament players and hardcore casual players can be equally stubborn . There's room for both under the tent, and companies should support both and everything in between.

But as a tournament player, the tournaments organized for Privateer Press were far from the primary consideration for me starting their games. Hearing that there was good balance/support was a major factor, however. And having a league to join in gave me the opportunity that just watching a tournament would never do- that of easing me into the game system and helping me learn and start out, rather than having opponents have to "play to win" rather than to teach.

So, I think it's a factor, but not so much in the way that you're stating. The general reputation of PP's games as having a tight rules system was attractive, but I've also seen it turn people off. Companies need to cater to all types of gamers to do well, and I agree that PP is doing a bit of a better job of that at the moment. But just as important as their tournaments are their more informal leagues and other ways of supporting "friendly/casual play"- in my case, much more so, and I would think the same is true for many others trying to learn a new game system... and this is despite the fact that I am extremely interested in playing in tournaments for any game system that I play.

It seems like GW is only focused on making changes that directly, obviously, and immediately affect the bottom line in their favor even if it is a bad idea in the long run. You'd think that they'd consider prize support as advertising (having their name and logo all over swag bags, posters, mentioned at tournies, etc) but all they apparently see is an expenditure with no immediate return on the investment.. not surprising considering that almost all their "ads" are in their own publications and are effectively free. I see this change as being in the same vein as stripping down their stores to one man outfits. They'll gain a better number on one line of their balance sheet at the expense of community goodwill (less chatting with customers, less hobby support with painting/advice) and growing the pool of gamers.

Eh, if I had one the mega millions lottery yesterday, I could have bought out GW and made the changes but alas I didn't. :(

I don't think that tournaments, even ones like the NOVA, necessarily contribute as much money as people think either. Just wanted to point this out, but even if everyone spends $1000 for their nova army, that doesn't mean that every tournament makes GW $1000. A lot of the people who go to the nova go to the other GTs with the same army.

Not an excuse, but perhaps part of the explanation.

Mike, I have to disagree completely...

The PROBLEM is the small events have exactly NO value statement to make in their first year or two to sponsors. GW offered intrepid TO's around the nation the opportunity to get started with a tailor-made package of prizes and terrain, which are the two biggest hurdles for a 'first' year event.

and

NOT AT ALL because of the argument line being pursued around the impact on existing events, but instead around the natural "death" of future not-yet-conceived events that occurs because of the cut-off.

I need to point out for possible future Tournament Organizers that beginning events CAN-AND-DO acquire fantastic sponsorship from many manufacturers. I have had wonderful success and so have many other TOs I know. Also, most events out there had nothing to do with the latest circuit and had established themselves on their own.

The Berks-PA Gaming Club is a prime example. They started with a moderate size club with a few old timers (sorry guys but it is true) and a bunch of younger players. They got help from others and ran their first event in 2010. Even though it was their first year, they were able to get sponsorship from many manufacturers as well their local retailers. Their second year they were able to grow, start building their own tables and scenery and receive MUCH more sponsorship. This will be their 3rd event (in 24 months) and they are booming. Why? They put in the effort to make it happen with a good approach and a great group of guys pitching in.

If you want to get into trying your own event -

Get help from other clubs who have experience or supplies. Sometimes you find the hoarder who just needs to empty a closet and can donate prizes. Team up together with other groups to come up with enough tables and scenery and start building your own immediately.

See what you can do to work with your local retailers. Most will be able to offer discounts for tournament supplies and may even be able to assist with prize support. Maybe they need some terrain assembled and painted or you can help run a demo sometime to return the favor.

Contact prospective sponsors well in advance and in a professional manner. There is tons of sponsorship out there - just look for it! Use the sponsorship the way it was intended or you will lose it in the future.



I also do not think the big tournaments have anywhere near the impact on sales that is being stated here. Players who spend more than a couple hundred dollars on an army are not dumping it into GW unless they are doing units of 25th anniversary marines and they certainly are not doing it for every event they attend. Resin bases, scenic supplies, paint and adhesives, custom foam carrying cases, painting services, lights, cameras and photo booths, airbrushes, tools and more are all the big preparation expenses.

Tironum wrote:
I also do not think the big tournaments have anywhere near the impact on sales that is being stated here. Players who spend more than a couple hundred dollars on an army are not dumping it into GW unless they are doing units of 25th anniversary marines and they certainly are not doing it for every event they attend. Resin bases, scenic supplies, paint and adhesives, custom foam carrying cases, painting services, lights, cameras and photo booths, airbrushes, tools and more are all the big preparation expenses.

I have to disagree here. A fairly low model-count Grey Knight army, 2000 points, will run you:

Codex: $33
10 paladins: $100
3x Dreadnought: $135
Draigo: $22.50
Libby: $22.50
5 Other terminators: $50
Vindicare: $15
Techmarine: $20

Total: $398 - double the "couple hundred" you suggest. And this is for one of the lowest model-count armies you can play, with few vehicles, that tend to rack up points in a hurry. A "parking lot" style army is going to start at $280 just for the eight rhino bodies, and you still need to add men in.

This doesn't account for Forge World models or conversion parts (three dreads above require either the purchase of parts for conversions, frequently from GW terrain sets, or Forgeworld arms, at $25/dread) much of which does actually go to GW, and if you use GW paint, well, that cost goes to GW too. I know that armies run into the $1k range, because the army I took to Adepticon last year did.

Pricing it out (rounding to $5):

Codex: $33
FW Biker Boss kit: $65
2x FW Nob biker kits: $85
2x box of nobs: $50
2x box of boyz: $30
2x box of kommandos: $75
Snikrot: $15
2x kommando w/ burna: $30
Box of stormboyz: $25
Trukk: $30
Battlewagon: $65
9 boxes of warbikers: $370
Waboss: $25
Deathkopta: $35
2x buggies: $50
Battlewagon upgrades: $15
Space Marine Attack Bike: $25
Space Marine Bike: $15
Scout Bike: $15
Chaos Marine Bike: $15
-------
Total so far: $1069

Parts for conversions add up. Forgeworld models and parts aren't cheap. My list above doesn't include resin bases, non-gw components used for display bases, paint, glue, or tools. It's not at all unrealistic that someone creating a tournament-caliber army will drop $1k on it.

Redbeard wrote:

Tironum wrote:
I also do not think the big tournaments have anywhere near the impact on sales that is being stated here. Players who spend more than a couple hundred dollars on an army are not dumping it into GW unless they are doing units of 25th anniversary marines and they certainly are not doing it for every event they attend. Resin bases, scenic supplies, paint and adhesives, custom foam carrying cases, painting services, lights, cameras and photo booths, airbrushes, tools and more are all the big preparation expenses.

I have to disagree here. A fairly low model-count Grey Knight army, 2000 points, will run you:

Codex: $33
10 paladins: $100
3x Dreadnought: $135
Draigo: $22.50
Libby: $22.50
5 Other terminators: $50
Vindicare: $15
Techmarine: $20

Total: $398 - double the "couple hundred" you suggest. And this is for one of the lowest model-count armies you can play, with few vehicles, that tend to rack up points in a hurry. A "parking lot" style army is going to start at $280 just for the eight rhino bodies, and you still need to add men in.

This doesn't account for Forge World models or conversion parts (three dreads above require either the purchase of parts for conversions, frequently from GW terrain sets, or Forgeworld arms, at $25/dread) much of which does actually go to GW, and if you use GW paint, well, that cost goes to GW too. I know that armies run into the $1k range, because the army I took to Adepticon last year did.

Pricing it out (rounding to $5):

Codex: $33
FW Biker Boss kit: $65
2x FW Nob biker kits: $85
2x box of nobs: $50
2x box of boyz: $30
2x box of kommandos: $75
Snikrot: $15
2x kommando w/ burna: $30
Box of stormboyz: $25
Trukk: $30
Battlewagon: $65
9 boxes of warbikers: $370
Waboss: $25
Deathkopta: $35
2x buggies: $50
Battlewagon upgrades: $15
Space Marine Attack Bike: $25
Space Marine Bike: $15
Scout Bike: $15
Chaos Marine Bike: $15
-------
Total so far: $1069

Parts for conversions add up. Forgeworld models and parts aren't cheap. My list above doesn't include resin bases, non-gw components used for display bases, paint, glue, or tools. It's not at all unrealistic that someone creating a tournament-caliber army will drop $1k on it.

Ditto, my guard army at 2k + Case clocks in at around $1200

My GK army, which I routinely buy new units for to switch up my lists for tournaments/GTs, is coming in closer to $1500 now if I had to take a guess (Mind you, it's massive). But just recently for a GT I decided "I'd like to put dreadknights in for kicks" and picked up a couple. Beyond my initial army purchase (which was primarily to take to events) I drop 50-100 easily on updating it from time to time and for new events.

Tony I think you're missing my primary point.

My point is not that future hopeful TO's who want to start events CAN'T get sponsorship elsewhere, support from local clubs, or a myriad of other processes by which to establish themselves. This is obviously true, by virtue of the wide # of events that pre-date the GW Independent Circuit.

That said, there are TONS of events that only exist BECAUSE the circuit was so well publicized to the world of GW lovers, and because of the support it offered. The NOVA Is but one example of an event that exists because of the circuit. I was barely aware of Dakka or even local clubs pre-NOVA; but I was already scrubbing together an annual outdoor charity event and seasonal blood bowl leagues ... that's what us organizer personality types do. But I had 0 intention or even THOUGHT of ever expanding beyond 32 at the outdoor event, and "locals" in the blood bowl leagues, until I got the GW newsletter in my inbox with information on this newfangled tournament circuit. That's the sole reason I expanded into the 500+ attendee annual convention I run today.

The point that events can start w/out GW support is irrelevant, and I completely agree with it.

The point also stands that there are now many events which may have been, that will not be. There is where I think GW is missing the mark on this drop. Every event that would exist regardless, or that already exists and will continue regardless, is irrelevant to the continuation or cessation of GW prize support.


PS - Also, what Andrew/Redbeard said. I'm not into arguing that one too closely though; I can only share what our survey shows people spent on hobby - over $100k among all NOVA attendees. We didn't break the survey down last year into more specific numbers, so I will not make any assertions of what I "think" people actually spent % of that total on.

Long and short, the Mechanicon in all its awesomeness is an example of an event that exists regardless of GW circuit support, and is a good example in that regard; you've provided some great points to support that as well. The NOVA is an example of an event (that I hope also is awesome) that would not have existed because of the nature of the situation without GW circuit support. There are MANY events that fall into the category of the NOVA, and their future analogs are what will NOT now exist.

Mike, I was thinking you are selling yourself short. I think the biggest thing that helped NOVA boom is having a great format. Your format has been copied by many other clubs for their own events and the popularity has little to do with the promotion from GW. We also had parts of our system adopted by other clubs and even 'Ard Boyz borrowed some of our scoring.

Many events were announced in the newsletters after they happened. White Dwarf listings were cancelled early on and the website was rarely updated. Quite a few events on the circuit pulled in less than 40 players and not because of being one of the tournaments with a bad reputation. Some TOs did not receive their support for 6 months after their events happened. What we did get was a generous donation from GW and the freedom to host our events as we saw fit and I cannot be more thankful for that.

Events became successful because of the hard work of those running and supporting them as well as having a great player base who enjoyed them. NOVA might have started after the circuit was created, but in no way would a massive event with one opportunity to move on to Throne of Skulls be booming because of the circuit. Is that really the sole reason you tried to build a large gathering of gamers - to have 256 players compete for one chance to play in the GW hosted event?


I also think that the little bit of GW scenery support didn't help that much to run a tournament. Sure, it was a great bonus but it was a drop in the bucket for the budget to build tables and scenery for an entire tournament. For example, our first year we received:

5 Imperial Strongpoints and a landing pad = 10 bastions, 3 sets of aegis lines and 1 landing pad = 20 pieces of terrain = about 3 tables worth. Hardly enough to run a competition in a basement of a club-mate's house let alone be the difference if an event can succeed or not.


As for the price of an army, sure you can go nuts as my cadians have cost me a ton with forgeworld heads/backpacks/upgrades and GW parts but my Draigo army cost less than 300 due in part to gifts, prizes and discounts. I know guys who spend years and thousands on a single army. It doesn't really have anything to do with the tournament support discussion though and it surely is not spent for every event that tournament players attend.


Getting all doom and gloom is not going to fix things, you just gotta roll up your sleeves and make it happen. Along that same point, help give the new organizers confidence that they can succeed. They are reading our posts and copying them to their forums and blogs. We are the ones making the standard for events, whether they be a small niche event like MechaniCon or the other extreme - a massive convention like Adepticon.


Once again, I will repeat that you have to remember that there is no one at GW who is running promotions and they will have to revamp the entire system. Let's all take a breath and wait til next year and see what happens.

RiTides wrote:Leenus- as someone who last year directed almost all of my hobby funds into Privateer Press, and who plays in tournaments for GW games, I can honestly say that PP support for tournaments did nothing to get me interested in the game.

What got me interested was the leagues- the local press ganger is very frequently organizing leagues, with something like a $5 fee, to get people out and playing, with prizes for various things at the end. In fact, this is what got me into playing warhammer fantasy after tiring of 40k for a while- a league organized by some guys at the local GW shop.

No where did I say that that tournaments were solely about getting people interested in the game. They certainly help get competitive players into the game, but the value of the tournament is less about the initial draw and more about the continuous carrot. I actually said, if you read my posts, that they were an important factor in KEEPING PEOPLE INTERESTED in the game. The corporate prize support does two things. It helps new tournaments thrive AND, more importantly, it sends a clear message that the company cares about the independent organizers/players, giving them further reason/incentive to pursue their events. Just like your league which gives your a reason to play, so do to tournaments. I don't think tournaments will vanish without GW's support. I do think less will flourish and people will be less inclined to start them up, but there will always be some level of independent tournaments. However, my issue with GW is the very small cost for the potential of large returns, or guarding against a large potential loss.

If there were massive costs to supporting a tournament circuit, I'd agree that the benefit might be minimal. But when GW uses it's own product to support tournaments, the cost is so cheap that I fail to see the business rationale for giving PP a free advantage over GW.

GW really needs to take a more active role in thwarting PP if it wants to hold on to market share. I think tourney sponsorship is an excellent way to do so, because the cost is very cheap for the effect.

My Manager told me our GW Rep didn't say much about the issue but there is a Rumor going that The Ard Boyz Tournaments are gonna no longer be around as well. No more Prize Support or anything like that.

I hope its not true though. Prize Support and big tournies generate a lot of excitement and stuff.

Leenus, it's a good point, and I guess I'm not aware of how GW's policies might differ from PP's in regards to tournament support. I had thought that GW was a lot more generous, until this new policy change of course. Was that not the case?

I.e., GW were providing more prize support to tournaments than PP was? I'm guessing someone like MVBrandt or mikhaila could verify this easily, but from the small tournaments I've seen for PP, I thought the prizes were basically equivalent to the pooled entry fees, without a lot of prize support from the company itself.

I could be totally wrong about this... I guess my point (in perhaps a little too energetic of a fashion) was to say that the organization / opportunity to play through the press ganger system has been a big draw for me. Prize support never really matters to me, although I know it helps tournaments able to exist / break even... but I never win them so they're not much of a factor for my decisions on whether or not to play in a tournament. But I know they matter for their existence... I just didn't think that PP was more generous in their "prize support" for tournaments than GW was.

I definitely know that they're more supportive in their "attitude" towards competitive play, but that isn't really what's being discussed here (I think) as far as what's ending with GW.

Would welcome thoughts on this!