But when you talk about very few games played amongst like minded opponents... *snip* There is no reason to be a disconnected bunch of strangers, and every advantage to organising and being more than that.
I don't disagree with all you say. In fact I used to post up rants quite a lot like that, myself. But after reading the responses I used to get, I started to think it was perhaps too narrow a view, too unappreciative of other gamers' circumstances. So while structured - even points-based - games might inherently encourage wham bam thank you ma'am and even page 5 style gaming, like so many others have said I think they're a more stable, inclusive base to work from. You can try to persuade other points-preferring gamers to use them in scenario-based, narrative games; but if that doesn't work then you can at least still get a game, and maybe keep plugging. With AoS, whether persuading points-preferrers or trying to impose some sort of points system, things could be a little more difficult.
This. It is a lot easier to ignore point values than it is to come up with a method of reinstating them that everyone can agree on.
It's a lot easier in theory... in practice you'll have a pretty hard time convincing your opponent to play without points in 40k for example... a much harder time than getting someone to agree to play a comp system in AoS.
Yeah, balancing systems are there to make things approximately balanced. You can house rule to your heart's content, making whatever imbalanced stuff you love without detracting from a competitive game. It's like pulling teeth to try to house rule in a setting where you don't know each other in all my experience other than "umm, we can't figure out this rule. we'll call it X and move on".
On Malifaux, that game's always had a steep learning curve (hence the stompings), but is definitely better balanced than the first edition.
I think there is a lot of sticker shock. This also happens with 40k but there is a cushion of continuity over editions (largely illusory) to help there that is missing with AoS. GW came out of the gate with a huge value in the starter set but when the unit boxes started rolling out it became hard to imagine keeping up. As with 40k, those who want the models will find ways to rationalize the prices and sticker shock will be less of a concern over time. I know this will seem weird to online pundits, but it is still way to early to say whether AoS is a success or failure as a product line. So much of the line remains to be developed, after all. The game barely has its legs under it just yet.
But when you talk about very few games played amongst like minded opponents... *snip* There is no reason to be a disconnected bunch of strangers, and every advantage to organising and being more than that.
I don't disagree with all you say. In fact I used to post up rants quite a lot like that, myself. But after reading the responses I used to get, I started to think it was perhaps too narrow a view, too unappreciative of other gamers' circumstances. So while structured - even points-based - games might inherently encourage wham bam thank you ma'am and even page 5 style gaming, like so many others have said I think they're a more stable, inclusive base to work from. You can try to persuade other points-preferring gamers to use them in scenario-based, narrative games; but if that doesn't work then you can at least still get a game, and maybe keep plugging. With AoS, whether persuading points-preferrers or trying to impose some sort of points system, things could be a little more difficult.
This. It is a lot easier to ignore point values than it is to come up with a method of reinstating them that everyone can agree on.
It's a lot easier in theory... in practice you'll have a pretty hard time convincing your opponent to play without points in 40k for example... a much harder time than getting someone to agree to play a comp system in AoS.
Bad example. If someone is playing Age of Sigmar, they are already open to negotiating how points work. Fantasy players who want to play with points have all left. Whereas point-preferring players are present in 40k, as well as players who prefer to just put down narrative forces.
But when you talk about very few games played amongst like minded opponents... *snip* There is no reason to be a disconnected bunch of strangers, and every advantage to organising and being more than that.
I don't disagree with all you say. In fact I used to post up rants quite a lot like that, myself. But after reading the responses I used to get, I started to think it was perhaps too narrow a view, too unappreciative of other gamers' circumstances. So while structured - even points-based - games might inherently encourage wham bam thank you ma'am and even page 5 style gaming, like so many others have said I think they're a more stable, inclusive base to work from. You can try to persuade other points-preferring gamers to use them in scenario-based, narrative games; but if that doesn't work then you can at least still get a game, and maybe keep plugging. With AoS, whether persuading points-preferrers or trying to impose some sort of points system, things could be a little more difficult.
This. It is a lot easier to ignore point values than it is to come up with a method of reinstating them that everyone can agree on.
It's a lot easier in theory... in practice you'll have a pretty hard time convincing your opponent to play without points in 40k for example... a much harder time than getting someone to agree to play a comp system in AoS.
Bad example. If someone is playing Age of Sigmar, they are already open to negotiating how points work. Fantasy players who want to play with points have all left. Whereas point-preferring players are present in 40k, as well as players who prefer to just put down narrative forces.
I agree with Mymearan at least from a GW community standpoint. IME there is always much gnashing of teeth about the awful rules writing and imbalance but very little willingness to alter them in practice.
Mymerean has the stronger point there. The mechanical concept of points value has a strong hold on the imaginations of a whole generation of gamers, who seem to basically take it for granted and honestly do not see how a game can be considered "complete" without it. It was a very ballsy move subverting this basic assumption and there has been no end to wailing and gnashing of teeth over the issue. But just as a matter of game design, points values aren't really that big of a deal or rather are only as big of a deal as the game makes them for us. Having points is such a central part of 40k, playing without them is practically unimaginable for many. So it was better for GW to cut them out of AoS altogether rather than uselessly hope there would be any substantial number of gamers not using them.
Automatically Appended Next Post: @Eldarain: high five for tooth-gnashing reference~!
Bad example. If someone is playing Age of Sigmar, they are already open to negotiating how points work. Fantasy players who want to play with points have all left. Whereas point-preferring players are present in 40k, as well as players who prefer to just put down narrative forces.
There's a point. I'd also wonder if AoS players are open to comp systems because they (inherently?) want or feel there should be some way of balancing opposing forces.
Well sure, you have a store league with certain caps on scrolls/scroll types/etc. But playing in a league is different from casual play. The missing midpoint here is pick-up play. That's the most legitimate complaint about AoS I have seen, it is not going to do much for gamers looking for pick-up play.
I thought it would be a perfect time to start Age of Sigmar or finally get into Fantasy, but the only thing really keeping me away is the price.
Yeah free rules, and no codex books (or what ever they were called in Fantasy) is nice, but still not all the rules or formations are free. The books are really expensive, almost $100 Canadian. Now add the price of the minis, are expensive as well.
I could have almost gotten into it with the high cost of miniauters but add in the high price of books, no thank you.
You would think GW would want me to buy their books to get into the setting and buy the miniatures. I can't get into the miniatures since I won't buy the books to get hooked on.
I guess GW just doesn't want my money. GW charges a premium price but their product is not a premium quality that is for sure.
Back to topic, Bottle, I agree with your last sentence wholeheartedly. We can only hope.
An accidental omission isn't the same as terrible English.
You know where hope is the first step to.
Get over yourself, you love to troll... You tried to play college professor/grammar police and at the same time made a mistake yourself. Again move on buddy. *Gold Star
Back to OP. I just read and saw the info on "9th Age", the same guys who did the Swedish comp I think? AoS the game might not be popular, but i think the models will keep selling and might even see an increase if 9th age catches on and takes off.
Automatically Appended Next Post: In all seriousness, in a culture where that sort of butchery of language is becoming the norm, it isn't any wonder that GW decided to go for a dumbed down/streamlined set of rules?
The teen culture certainly doesn't seem to have the focus or dedication it did in even the relatively short time since I was one, perhaps GW felt they were making a game for the nxt gnrashun?
Automatically Appended Next Post: In all seriousness, in a culture where that sort of butchery of language is becoming the norm, it isn't any wonder that GW decided to go for a dumbed down/streamlined set of rules.
The teen culture certainly doesn't seem to have the focus or dedication it did in even the relatively short time since I was one, perhaps GW felt they were making a game for the nxt gnrashun?
Are you like 13? You really can't let it go... Lets recap. I made a grammar mistake, I mean I am human. Then you had to add your self righteous, insignificant grammar correction for some reason. In the same post you make a grammar mistake yourself... Making your attempt at grammar police, comical, and once again a target of being a complete joke. You get called out for it, and then instead of moving on, you flail like a spanked child in the corner.
And now you are back to crying about games workshop, and how it hates everyone, and is going to be the cause of WW III, over a grammar mistake.
For someone who hates GW so much and so critical, you sure spend a lot of time talking about it. Are you that sad, you have to needlessly starve for self worth and attention by trolling people on a forums board, around a game/company you constantly complain about?
Automatically Appended Next Post: In all seriousness, in a culture where that sort of butchery of language is becoming the norm, it isn't any wonder that GW decided to go for a dumbed down/streamlined set of rules.
The teen culture certainly doesn't seem to have the focus or dedication it did in even the relatively short time since I was one, perhaps GW felt they were making a game for the nxt gnrashun?
Are you like 13? You really can't let it go... Lets recap. I made a grammar mistake, I mean I am human. Then you had to add your self righteous, insignificant grammar correction for some reason. In the same post you make a grammar mistake yourself... Making your attempt at grammar police, comical, and once again a target of being a complete joke. You get called out for it, and then instead of moving on, you flail like a spanked child in the corner.
And now you are back to crying about games workshop, and how it hates everyone, and is going to be the cause of WW III, over a grammar mistake.
For someone who hates GW so much and so critical, you sure spend a lot of time talking about it. Are you that sad, you have to needlessly starve for self worth and attention by trolling people on a forums board, around a game/company you constantly complain about?
Hehe last paragraph i agree with. Glad to see I am not the last sane man alive.
But when you talk about very few games played amongst like minded opponents... *snip* There is no reason to be a disconnected bunch of strangers, and every advantage to organising and being more than that.
I don't disagree with all you say. In fact I used to post up rants quite a lot like that, myself. But after reading the responses I used to get, I started to think it was perhaps too narrow a view, too unappreciative of other gamers' circumstances. So while structured - even points-based - games might inherently encourage wham bam thank you ma'am and even page 5 style gaming, like so many others have said I think they're a more stable, inclusive base to work from. You can try to persuade other points-preferring gamers to use them in scenario-based, narrative games; but if that doesn't work then you can at least still get a game, and maybe keep plugging. With AoS, whether persuading points-preferrers or trying to impose some sort of points system, things could be a little more difficult.
This. It is a lot easier to ignore point values than it is to come up with a method of reinstating them that everyone can agree on.
It's a lot easier in theory... in practice you'll have a pretty hard time convincing your opponent to play without points in 40k for example... a much harder time than getting someone to agree to play a comp system in AoS.
Bad example. If someone is playing Age of Sigmar, they are already open to negotiating how points work. Fantasy players who want to play with points have all left. Whereas point-preferring players are present in 40k, as well as players who prefer to just put down narrative forces.
OgreChubbs wrote:I got mix feelings abot Aos . Love the models and am buying more but hate the game. But since the rules are free and I am buying more GW Wins?
Not really, the models are fantastic and can be used for plenty of gaming.
Azreal13 wrote:For the record, the apparent dumbing down of society informing the creation of AOS was a genuine thought, not an attempt to "troll."
Haha. Let it go, people are moving back to the topic at hand. What is with the constant need for attention with you.
The topic is about the potential failure of AOS and the reasons why.
I'm suggesting they may have deliberately pursued a dumbed down ruleset as it seems there's a perception nowadays that many younger people don't have long attention spans and are always looking for instant gratification, something a traditional war game doesn't really cater to.
I'd say that it's probably backfired, GW having no mechanism for judging these things, but I think the intent may have been there to increase accessibility. Hell, even the new faction seems tailor made to look good with quick and easy paint schemes.
If you're not prepared to debate that, feel free to move on, if someone else wishes to reply or disagree, then we can converse quite happily without you, otherwise my posts will vanish into the thread and the topic will move on.
To me it sort of feels like they're trying to emulate a video game - the sigmarines respawn, the seraphon are created on the spot from memories, not sure what chaos does (outside the demons) and giving fluff reasons for why it happens that way. Not really my cup of tea, not sure if there's any merit to doing it that way but i presume it's related to their (hopefully they have one) target demographic.
edit: and i guess that sort of ties in to trying to mainstream the game (ie appeal to the common denominator (ie dumb it down)) - most video game player's aren't concerned too much about why they respawn after they die, only that it happens. Idk.
I think january. Interesting thought, but presumably they'll want to be generating more income with AoS than fantasy was generating. I suspect their tolerance for failure will be low, but how long they give it if it is failing is anyone's guess.
GW dumbing down the game and removing any sense of balance by dumping army list construction/points values is a "ballsy move". No it wasn't. It was a lazy move. Creating a new points system for the new game went in the too hard basket, and that's that. There's nothing "ballsy" about making a game less playable, less balanced, and more vague.
You know I'm the last person to defend GW on anything, but I can't just go off what people feel. Reelz before feelz people; let's see some fething proof.
Azreal13 wrote: For the record, the apparent dumbing down of society informing the creation of AOS was a genuine thought, not an attempt to "troll."
People with poor grammar/spelling/sentence construction have always been a thing. The difference is that today we "see" more poor writers past the teen years and into adulthood as more people use written communication than ever before. You can pour scorn on teenagers and young adults for their twitterspeak and textspeak all you like, but when I think back to my own teenage years, we didn't send letters to one another, so it's more of a golden age in terms of written language being used by everyday people to transmit communication rather than simply only receive it via printed media.
Of course, none of this has jack gak worth of relevance for an AoS discussion, and trying to strawman one poster's typo or grammatical mistake on a forum discussion is a pointless and kinda dick move, as is trying to draw a link between all of these modern "dumbed down young people" and a simpler set of rules in the form of the AoS set.
Seriously, there are lots of legit ways to argue about AoS' shortcomings. The above are not them.
H.B.M.C. wrote: GW dumbing down the game and removing any sense of balance by dumping army list construction/points values is a "ballsy move". No it wasn't. It was a lazy move. Creating a new points system for the new game went in the too hard basket, and that's that. There's nothing "ballsy" about making a game less playable, less balanced, and more vague.
I don't get the 'they were too lazy to give points' argument, since surely if they were lazy they would've just done nothing.
They'd just sort of let Fantasy die without bringing out anything new or changing the rules at all, just let it slowly peter out over the next few years, a bit like Specialist Games or SoB.
Instead, they wrote up brand new rules for every single model they make, spent months on releasing new battleplans, scenarios, and models for the new system, and continue to do so. That takes at least a modicum of effort, leaving aside arguments about the quality of said content.
I mean, I'm not saying leaving points out was a good idea, but it would've been a very simple matter to just add them in whilst they were writing up all the new rules anyway, so I don't think laziness came into it.
An argument I could believe would be that GW decided that they weren't in the position to assign points, instead deciding that local communities would be better off creating their own systems to balance games (which is exactly what ended up happening). I mean, how many times have we seen people proclaiming "GW can't balance the game to save their lives, I/We/the Community could balance the game better!", maybe GW was calling those people on their bluff?
Manchu wrote:That's the most legitimate complaint about AoS I have seen, it is not going to do much for gamers looking for pick-up play.
Are pick-up players the new 'competitive' players? The only section of gamers who might appreciate a bit of inbuilt balance?
You can sort of work that one out, right? What is "balance"? What is its role? And of course, we're talking about balance and the more specific mechanic of points valuation as if they are interchangable, and they are not, but we can assume that for the purposes of this tangent. Really basically, when it comes to points, we are talking about rendering liquid, that is, into interchangeable units, some increment of whatever quality makes an element of the game contribute toward victory over the opponent, other than that which the players contribute in terms of experience and skill. We're in pretty murky, theoretical waters here but that is the reality of "points." Well, fine, let's just hand wave away all the arbitrariness of this. So assume this thing the Point is accurate. What does it do? It isolates everything it represents away from the "experiment" represented by the game. Points allow us to "control" for the game pieces so that we may observe how the independent variable, the skill of the players, resolves into the dependent variable, the result of the match. In other words, the inherent purpose/function of points is competitive. Whenever the concept of "balance" comes up around the issue of points valuation, the real topic is fairness in a competition.
The reason you have to write the word this way, 'competitive,' is because it has been somehow confused for a slur. Look at it this way, you are playing a competitive game every time you play poker. You don't have to go to a poker tournament to be playing a game that is in its essence competitive. Somehow we have started to think that the word competitive is the opposite of good sportsmanship or fun or something, which is nonsense. In this sense, pick-up play has always been competitive and that's exactly why gamers who want pick-up play have a concern about the lack of points in AoS. Now again the idea that points actually contribute to any kind of actual balance (in the sense of controlling for the rest of the game as described above) is really a matter of religious-like faith rather than anything objective. But the association is there all the same, even considering it is mostly a superstition. Gamers feel better about the fairness of a game if they can add up to a rather arbitrary number that happens to be the same as the number someone else summed. The really important role of points, however, is nothing to do with balance; it actually facilitates the list-building "mini game" that so many people enjoy.
Dr. Delorean wrote: I don't get the 'they were too lazy to give points' argument
Well it's pure ad hominem so entirely safe to ignore.
Dr. Delorean wrote: An argument I could believe would be that GW decided that they weren't in the position to assign points, instead deciding that local communities would be better off creating their own systems to balance games (which is exactly what ended up happening).
I guess you have to keep in mind that there are no game police knocking on your door in the night because you didn't play the Right Way. Rules are something we all voluntarily submit to and the really interesting phenomenon is, as someone mentioned earlier ITT, it seems like on average people prefer to play with published rules that they complain about rather than unpublished rules they personally think are better. I guess the biggest reason is, because we assume that by publishing a rulebook, GW is calling into existence a kind of social contract that transcends whether any given player knows or trusts or respects any other given player. "As long as we play by the rules, the game will be fair." That is the ideal and we seem to act as if it is true even if we know that following the published rules seems to produce slanted results.
Dr. Delorean wrote:I don't get the 'they were too lazy to give points' argument, since surely if they were lazy they would've just done nothing.
They wanted to make money (which is fine), and they wanted to revitalise a brand that was withering on the vine. And, I suspect, they had to be quick about it. Hence 4 pages of rules.
Manchu wrote: Well it's pure ad hominem so entirely safe to ignore.
No it's not. Replace laziness then with 'path of least resistance'. I'd even wager that the people writing the rules weren't given much time to do them, given how GW operates (models are decided upon, given to the rules guys and the rules guys are told how high to jump).
But I'm not going to get into an argument with you Manchu. I no longer have the stamina for that sort of thing. All I want is proof that AoS is failing, 'cause right now I don't see any.
It would be nice to have something more than a series of self-selected anecdotes but honestly that is exactly all we have here and, and barring some intrepid GW employee risking their livelihood, that's all we will have. Here's my anecdote BTW: I had pretty much given up on ole GW over the last three years (barring licensed properties like FFG's stuff) but feel a bit of the old enthusiasm again thanks to AoS.
But maybe your point was, prove X or stop passively asserting X by posing loaded questions no one present can answer. I agree there, too.
As to AoS being the fruit of laziness and stupidity, establishing that would also require support beyond a given poster's feelings. You and many others say, well there are no points, but that observation doesn't carry the issue for reasons I have already explained in the post to which you originally objected.
Dr. Delorean wrote:I don't get the 'they were too lazy to give points' argument, since surely if they were lazy they would've just done nothing.
They wanted to make money (which is fine), and they wanted to revitalise a brand that was withering on the vine. And, I suspect, they had to be quick about it. Hence 4 pages of rules.
Manchu wrote: Well it's pure ad hominem so entirely safe to ignore.
No it's not. Replace laziness then with 'path of least resistance'. I'd even wager that the people writing the rules weren't given much time to do them, given how GW operates (models are decided upon, given to the rules guys and the rules guys are told how high to jump).
But I'm not going to get into an argument with you Manchu. I no longer have the stamina for that sort of thing. All I want is proof that AoS is failing, 'cause right now I don't see any.
We've got the evidence presented on this forum, consisting of the general tenor of comments from users, a poll on how much people are spending on the game (not much), a poll on whether it's growing or shrinking locally (75% say shrinking), and statements from shop owners such as Mikhaila, who started off keen and quickly found there wasn't much demand for the game.
This can't be taken as definitive proof, because there could be many people who never post, who are keen supporters of the game. ut equally, it shouldn't be ignored. We will only really know for sure at the time that GW can the game.
I suspect if a year you had asked questions about how WHFB was doing, a lot of people on DakkaDakka would have said it was doing badly, but no-one actually forsaw that it would be canned this summer.
Looking at Manchu's point that people seem to prefer bought rules to home-brew rules, there are two reasons for this:
The first is that people tend to like things they have paid for. (There was a very interesting study a few years ago, that proved that people prefer advice they have paid for, over free advice, even if they know objectively it is of lower quality.) This is exploited in Marketing by pricing goods at a premium to make them more desirable.
The second is that people expect a game that has been written by a well-paid, professional design team, to be better than a game that was knocked out by a couple of guys in their garage.
AoS being free, it partakes of both these factors.
Sadly for the game, a lot of people have formed the opinion that whilst it might have emerged from the massive GW design studio, it was in fact bashed together by a couple of guys, and that it isn't very good.
I think we can safely ignore a trend in self-selected anecdotes regarding AoS posted on a site focused on 40k. Perhaps this becomes apparent when one considers that the trend in question is perfectly predictable.
Disregarding one or two citations as anecdotal is just fine, but when you do have a trend which involves quite a bit of store owners chipping in about AoS not doing well... Well that is hard to ignore now, isn't it? Unless one aims to become an ostrich...
As Grump said, it comes a time in which there are just too many anecdotes to safely disregard.
Kilkrazy wrote: The second is that people expect a game that has been written by a well-paid, professional design team, to be better than a game that was knocked out by a couple of guys in their garage.
Now here I want to limit my comments just to what we see from the demographic that seeks out a message board like Dakka to discuss these issues, because I don't see the same kind of thing IRL or even on Facebook. I think the expectation you mention exists mostly as an effigy to be burnt while criticizing the game. That is, the criticism derives a certain enhanced force for being directed at something that should be "better than it is" for the purposes of criticizing it. This drills down specifically to each facet: for example, whoever designed the rules is only a professional to the extent that we should expect more from him than the shoddy mess we are tearing down but for all other purposes he is simply and clearly just stupid and lazy (i.e., in no way professional). The only thing that holds this kind of thinking together is its sheer snideness, as it is otherwise incoherent.You see the same incoherence on KS, albeit in a different direction, when certain backers portray the project creator as infallible up until another backer complains about something in which case they excuse the creator as being overworked and understaffed, without ever seeming to wonder whether such systemic problems might reflect poorly on the creator.
Kilkrazy wrote: The second is that people expect a game that has been written by a well-paid, professional design team, to be better than a game that was knocked out by a couple of guys in their garage.
Now here I want to limit my comments just to what we see from the demographic that seeks out a message board like Dakka to discuss these issues, because I don't see the same kind of thing IRL or even on Facebook. I think the expectation you mention exists mostly as an effigy to be burnt while criticizing the game. That is, the criticism derives a certain enhanced force for being directed at something that should be "better than it is" for the purposes of criticizing it. This drills down specifically to each facet: for example, whoever designed the rules is only a professional to the extent that we should expect more from him than the shoddy mess we are tearing down but for all other purposes he is simply and clearly just stupid and lazy (i.e., in no way professional). The only thing that holds this kind of thinking together is its sheer snideness, as it is otherwise incoherent.You see the same incoherence on KS, albeit in a different direction, when certain backers portray the project creator as infallible up until another backer complains about something in which case they excuse the creator as being overworked and understaffed, without ever seeming to wonder whether such systemic problems might reflect poorly on the creator.
Whether purported evidence is anecdotal is not a matter of quantity. A thousand anecdotes don't add up to anything more than a thousand anecdotes.
The thing is, if it comes to a point in which we have thousands of players and store owners are coming forth and saying "AoS is crashing and burning where I am at" (or the other way around) can you really disregard it as not being a clear sign of what is happening? It's much easier to disregard a smaller number of anecdotal statements and evidences in a worldwide "pool", so to say, than when it's nearing four digits - do note I am not saying it is currently nearing that number.
At what moment common sense come in and you start thinking "Ok, maybe there's something wrong."
To me, main problem of AoS is that it's not friendly to pick-up play.
Since there is a lack of "common ground" in the rules, ie points system to have a "fairly balanced game by default", you have no choice but talking with your game partner/opponent so that you both agree on a game.
There are already a lot of talking in that "pre-game" phase in 40k, so it's not really surprising it's even more important in AoS.
Why? Because we don't have the same views on what is balanced or not. It's already difficult to agree in real life even when we are talking about the same topic, so why should it be different with games? Because it's games?
AoS is great when you already know the people you play with and you are all on the same mindset (competitive, narrative, "just for fun"...). It's different when you play with a "stranger"; you don't know him, you don't know his playstyle, you even don't know if he has the same views as you on the game. That's why tournaments/organized events aren't so many, IMHO; because it's too much a hassle to organise since you have to create that "common ground" by yourself. And GW is not paying you for that.
Sure, players can do this themselves. The real question is; why would they bother? If GW didn't make, why should they? Aren't they paying enough for their "premium prices" models and books, already?
Not really surprising, then, that people go to others games with other rulesets - where that common ground is already here. And also not really surprising new players don't seem to be that many on the market for now...since it's difficult to have a "pick-up game", that's not really pushing you to keep on.
A huge problem with this oft-cited 75% poll is evident when you read the thread itself. With some exceptions, you tend to see people who dislike AoS saying the game is dead, and people who like the game saying its picking up steam. Why? There are a number of reasons:
- people who dislike the game are more likely to be participants in a community that also dislikes the game, who actively promote other games, who play those games at home or at the club etc, and vice versa. This is already a huge red flag.
- people's subjective opinion (is the game "dying" or "picking up steam") is colored by their opinions of the game itself. The same amount of players playing AoS in two different places is likely to garner a different response depending on the respondents personal preferences.
These points would lead me to, like Manchu, safely disregard the poll as a reliable indicator. Now store owners are an entirely different story, and from them we have quite a few polar opposites.
THAT SAID, I still don't think Age of Sigmar is doing too well. But I don't think the poll specifically is an indicator either way.
Also it will be very interesting to see the whole "most sold models" list from GW leading up to Christmas! Now that's an indicator
To those who can't accept that the great number of anecdotes about AoS failing does indeed indicate that AoS is in fact failing:
Can you honestly say that you'd say the same thing if it was reversed? If the polls results showed the majority of those answering them were satisfied and known store owners reported that sales was through the roof. Would you still claim that, nah... we can't know if AoS is doing good. Sure a lot of people seem to like it but perhaps the majority of Fantasy players has rage-quit and just stopped buying stuff but haven't told anyone about it?
Similarly. Do you dispute that Betrayal at Calth seem to have been a success when it comes to sales? It sure seems to me that it has solt like hotcakes but using your logic I should be adamant that we cannot possibly draw any conclusions yet. All we have is anecdotal reports of people buying lots of sets and store owners saying they have sold a bunch of them. I sure haven't seen any reports from GW telling us the exact numbers.
While all anecdotal evidence should be looked at knowing that it doesn't tell the whole story; assuming that it can tell us nothing is as ignorant as assuming it can tell us everything.
Mymearan wrote: I work as a statistician so yes I would still claim that we couldn't know.
And that's a strawman basically.
No one is saying that the information we have 100% proves that AoS is failing. Simply that from what we know a lot point towards that it is. You even say yourself that you don't think it's doing well. I draw the same conclusion and that's based partly on the polls and anecdotal reports. They don't prove anything conclusively but they are a piece of the puzzle.
The point about it is that the methodology does have flaws. This does not mean the results are wrong, or right, only that the results can't be considered absolute proof.
The thing is, we won't know for sure if the game is a failure or a massive success until either (A) GW can it suddenly, or (B) GW consistently pump out new kits and books for a sustained period to rival 40K.
However it's also possible the game will pootle along, selling a reasonable amount of stuff and not costing GW a lot to keep in print, without it becoming a rival to 40K.
Yeah at this point we're sort of agreeing but arguing semantics. I think we all have our own idea of how AoS is doing, and we won't ever know the exact details. Personally the only thing I oppose is people saying "yep it's tanking, dead within 6 months" etc. and there aren't many of those thankfully.
With AoS, it's been cut out almost completely. Disorganised play is 'the only way to play' there.
I take the term 'organised play' From privateer press. I use it to define a comprehensive, defined and structured way of playing with the attendant mark of officialdom, universality and company support. Leagues, tournaments, competitions, communications etc. all feed into, and from this. Privateer press do an amazing job with their organised play. I like organised play. I think it's great.
But I don't think it's fair to say that not-organised play is 'disorganised' play. Plenty groups home brew their own stuff frequently, and it works there. And while its not 'organised' in the sense that pp define their 'organised play', I wouldn't call it 'disorganised' - more 'free-form (and often local) gaming'. Not a bad thing btw, if you're into it.
And yes, it is a problem with Aos in that is requires that approach. What I think is a bigger problem is a lot of people are unused to this approach, or might not be familiar with it, and gw haven't really offered any real directions or tools to make it work. Maybe they'll come later, because I think they expected their fans to just 'get it' (and yes, the double meaning there is deliberate) and they didn't.
I don't disagree with all you say. In fact I used to post up rants quite a lot like that, myself. But after reading the responses I used to get, I started to think it was perhaps too narrow a view, too unappreciative of other gamers' circumstances. So while structured - even points-based - games might inherently encourage wham bam thank you ma'am and even page 5 style gaming, like so many others have said I think they're a more stable, inclusive base to work from. You can try to persuade other points-preferring gamers to use them in scenario-based, narrative games; but if that doesn't work then you can at least still get a game, and maybe keep plugging. With AoS, whether persuading points-preferrers or trying to impose some sort of points system, things could be a little more difficult.
I agree with you vermis. Structured/points based games within an organised framework are often far more user friendly, open, and inclusive. my issue in my original post was the dismissal of home brew games because essentially 'we're all strangers in murica' and 'no one knows anyone', so therefore this approach won't work. Bloody hell, it's not hard to trade names and numbers and get a bit organised. You won't get far with a loose collection of individuals with a very narrow approach in anything, so in my mind, it makes sense to build this up into something more and broaden horizons and experiences. I also get 'personal circumstances' - people have friends, family, jobs and careers and can't commit full time to gaming. I run marathons, and I'll often drop out of gaming for months at a time (doing 50miles+ a week along with regular routine means something has to be put on the back burner), but I still make the effort to maintain my contacts and know who's who. Essentially. Communication is the key. And a bit of willingness.
I really hope it fails hard, it might well be the wake up slap Geedubs so desperately needs
This isn't spiteful hate, as a grumpy old codger on the wrong side of 40 I have more or less grown up with Workshop, and it is hard not to love a company that was churning out model soldiers and excellent games during the rise of the computer/console games and the internet age, but of late bouncing from one ill considered idea to the next ate up the majority of goodwill I had , I don't want them to die but I do want them to stop being so pig headed and daft
AoS hopefully might be the last 'bad' game GW releases (well till 40k 8th...) as the Heresy game as I understand it had outside design assistance and is by ancedote a fairly good game
I think the problem is the main rules not the warscrolls. Each unit has good rules and makeup and would work well in a system they all seem to be based off of.
The problem is look through the war scrolls alone, they look fine. Then when trying to add them to the starter box main rules and all goes to hell. There is no way to balance what to take and not to. The main rules are lacking and seem based of the starter box not a whole gaming system.
Ported over from the AoS news thread, in response to Jah:
jah-joshua wrote:
an axe, nor a mohawk, can never be too big, in my opinion...
This is why we can't have nice things.
i love that the minis are like a 3-D comic book image...
You realise that excessive stuff like this helped along the comics crash of the mid-90's? The main reasons were the retailer bubble and the collector fad, but...
...to make matters worse, a lot of the material that was trying to become collectible using these gimmicks was the kind of poorly written Liefeldian rubbish that few believed was worth collecting in the first place.
All of this also impacted the consumer base of the medium, which moved increasingly from the mainstream public to a smaller niche market of fans and collectors. The dominant stereotypes of the readers of this age, fair or otherwise, are of (1) the "comic book teenager", an insecure fan who hated any hint of 'silliness' in his comics and demanded that they be "adult" and taken deathly seriously, even though the shocking content of said comics only implied immaturity; and (2) the "collector" who obsessively and joylessly maintained his collection in pristine condition, with little or no interest in the actual content. Ultimately, the recurring theme of this may seem to be short-term gains that lead to long-term harm for the series, publisher or even industry.
Not a 1:1 comparison to GW and AoS, but there are themes that seem familiar. Especially when you look at two other, overlapping occurences.
much of the content produced during this era is very controversial among comic book fans and is usually (depending on who you ask) considered either a welcome breath of fresh air after the medium languishing so long in its own version of the Animation Age Ghetto, a period of grotesque excess and immaturity...or a little of both.
The resulting material has been hotly contested by fans with regards to its quality... a number of critics argue that in many cases "mature" content was actually closer to "adolescent"; while creators were taking inspiration from The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, many had completely missed the point, focusing merely on the surface details in order to Follow the Leader without coupling them with the depth of narrative and the thematic and psychological complexity that had made these works unique and well received.
in too many cases the works produced during the age were no more sophisticated than or superior to earlier, 'immature' works – merely nastier
many of these events were poorly received by fans, who didn't appreciate their favourite characters being altered beyond recognition
There's a very strange relationship between character/plot development and maintaining the status quo. Changing said status, if done poorly, may result in a Dork Age. A Dork Age is a period in a franchise, especially Long Runners, where there was a dramatic change of concept or execution, usually to stay current, and it simply did not work.
This fundamental change is often an attempt to attract new fans. Unfortunately, that usually does not work. Worse, the change does not go over well with the established fans. Generally, the more dramatically something diverts from its basics, the more likely it's the beginning of a Dork Age.
A new Age in a franchise, intended to bring in new fans but mostly ends up just annoying the old ones. Hm.
'Comic book image' isn't a catch-all term, and some comic book looks are maybe not all that desirable. This new slayer's look, with mohawk and axe turned up to eleven, reminds me of Spawn's Cloak, or Cable's guns, or the average build of superheroes at the time. (male and female) Excessive imagery intended to look kewl, but (badly) veiling a lack of depth in the wider medium, including the image itself.
(Jah, I know you're going to reply about how you love it anyway and you'll buy all the duardin ever and it's actually the best, most successful thing GW ever did, but... take a step back to take a fresh look at it. Can you see the possibility that all this puddle-deep, vastly-priced, kicking-old-fans-where-it-hurts stuff might just go down like a lead balloon, and you'd end up with no new duardin to buy at all?)
I think there were some missteps in the launch window, namely not laying out a way for pickup play and leaving fans of elves/dwarves/orcs/normal humans, the typical fantasy stuff, in the lurch about what was going on with their armies.
That said, GW is putting enormous effort behind this game, and they did not have to do that. Boggles my mind to think this is a lazy money grab. They would not be pouring all these resources into new products and cutting into their 40k display time if that were the case.
I think reviving the dwarf brand next month will help bring more people back, as will getting on with the elves. They're clearly giving it a go here and I think momentum still has time to build. The models are almost too good to fail. As has been said since launch, though, we'll know for sure in a few years.
Mymearan wrote: But I don't think the poll specifically is an indicator either way.
We can conclude that AoS is doing poorly with people who post on Dakka about not liking it. But that's about it.
Zywus wrote: Would you still claim that, nah... we can't know if AoS is doing good.
Yes, and for the same reasons: (1) the purported evidence would be entirely anecdotal and self-selected and (2) the product line is not developed to the point that it can be called a success or failure. You actually give the perfect example:
Zywus wrote: Do you dispute that Betrayal at Calth seem to have been a success when it comes to sales?
Find some global or, heck, even regional sales numbers and I can tell you one way or another. What I can say, in my neck of the woods, at the LGS near me, Calth has done very well in the exact same way the AoS starter did very well.
Kilkrazy wrote: However it's also possible the game will pootle along, selling a reasonable amount of stuff and not costing GW a lot to keep in print, without it becoming a rival to 40K.
And that could still mean it is more successful that WHFB had been since circa Sixth Edition. I mean, like any of this, that is just speculation. It's very reasonable to assume that GW sells AoS to make money. It's speculation, although I think still very reasonable, to assume that one goal of AoS is to make more money than WHFB had been making, which purely as a matter of anecdote seems like a fairly low threshold. But that just goes to show, we have not sufficiently unpacked the concept of success/failure ITT. I reckon that is because the thread is closer to a chance to generate more confirmation bias regarding anecdotes.
While I don't think the poll should be taken as gospel, it does have around 560 votes on it, which is considerably more than the people who actually *post* about it.
But yeah, we're not going to know for sure until we see GW reducing support for it or shops ceasing to stock it. But at this stage, I'm comfortable saying "signs point to yes, AoS is struggling".
I'm aware of confirmation bias, but it does seem to be there's more gamers and even shop keepers pointing out that it's struggling than those saying it's revitalised the community. When the likes of mikhaila says this, it's not really encouraging.
My sources in GW have people looking for ways to polish a turd and sell models. AOS gave them a small bump in fantasy sales, but they lost hugely with no 40k sales in those months. My sales are down 65% for the last 4 months on GW.
Not enough people actually care about AOS. They play some because they have models, but few people are building armies.
Lizarmen codex with no new models? Pretty much tells the story. My sales rep was ok with me not even ordering it.
I could write a 2 page list of reasons why it's failing, but i don't feel like arguing with the "it's only anectdotal evidence" crowd, and don't feel like beating a dead horse. GW found a way to cost me thousands of dollars in sales each month, and has my older WFB customers selling their armies on ebay. Good job GW.
And it's easy to see the negatives when I walk in to my local GW and no one is playing it, it'll take more convincing to show me that it is doing well than it's struggling based on my observations.
I think the volume of anecdotal evidence certainly supports a non-provable conclusion that AOS is struggling.
Which is a shame because there is a lot of good stuff that can be pulled from it and the alternatives (kings of war and "9th age") are IMO both very bland tournament styled games in a market flooded with those type of games.
coldgaming wrote: I think there were some missteps in the launch window, namely not laying out a way for pickup play and leaving fans of elves/dwarves/orcs/normal humans, the typical fantasy stuff, in the lurch about what was going on with their armies.
That said, GW is putting enormous effort behind this game, and they did not have to do that. Boggles my mind to think this is a lazy money grab. They would not be pouring all these resources into new products and cutting into their 40k display time if that were the case.
I think reviving the dwarf brand next month will help bring more people back, as will getting on with the elves. They're clearly giving it a go here and I think momentum still has time to build. The models are almost too good to fail. As has been said since launch, though, we'll know for sure in a few years.
auticus wrote: I think the volume of anecdotal evidence certainly supports a non-provable conclusion that AOS is struggling.
Which is a shame because there is a lot of good stuff that can be pulled from it and the alternatives (kings of war and "9th age") are IMO both very bland tournament styled games in a market flooded with those type of games.
I think there are strong enough signs that, if we were in a position to order the books cracked open, we would want to demand a full investigation.
This comes up again and again. You have to keep in mind that the AoS launch devastated his morale to the point that he logged on to Dakka and confessed to breaking down and crying. He also immediately started offering the starter box at a significant discount on the swap shop here, reflecting his lack of confidence in the product. The guy runs a business with two locations and has a long history of working with GW successfully but by his own account that success has worn pretty thin because GW operates so differently than how it formerly did and this has almost uniformly been at the expense of LGS owners. You need to take his posts with a grain of salt, like you would anything else.
Azreal13 wrote:
I'm suggesting they may have deliberately pursued a dumbed down ruleset as it seems there's a perception nowadays that many younger people don't have long attention spans and are always looking for instant gratification, something a traditional war game doesn't really cater to.
I would say they 'dumbed down' the rules for younger people, period. Inverted commas because, while I don't think modern GW is particularly good at writing rules and these ones are kinda dumb, it's not the same thing as being tailored for children. Same with GW's other core games: theoretically, at least, kids should have few problems soaking up lots of stats and special rules, but have trouble reasoning out and making tactical decisions from the general mechanics. Vice-versa for older gamers. Hence the gravitation away from the heaps of special rules in GW core games. So when one of them turns into a game with four pages of simplified general rules, you're going to get older fans complaining about it. And rightly so.
One big question is whether GW can find enough of a younger audience, in time to save the game.
Torga_DW wrote:To me it sort of feels like they're trying to emulate a video game - the sigmarines respawn, the seraphon are created on the spot from memories, not sure what chaos does (outside the demons) and giving fluff reasons for why it happens that way. Not really my cup of tea, not sure if there's any merit to doing it that way but i presume it's related to their (hopefully they have one) target demographic.
Heh. Good point.
Dr. Delorean wrote:
I don't get the 'they were too lazy to give points' argument, since surely if they were lazy they would've just done nothing.
They'd just sort of let Fantasy die without bringing out anything new or changing the rules at all, just let it slowly peter out over the next few years, a bit like Specialist Games or SoB.
One thing, though: Tom Kirby loves the monies.
Instead, they wrote up brand new rules for every single model they make, spent months on releasing new battleplans, scenarios, and models for the new system, and continue to do so. That takes at least a modicum of effort
From what I've seen of them, 'modicum' is just the word.
Manchu, I actually agree with most of what you say (in your response to my post anyway) especially this:
Manchu wrote:The reason you have to write the word this way, 'competitive,' is because it has been somehow confused for a slur.
Yup. Seems to be one of the catch-all terms used to defend AoS. You don't like AoS - you play to win and hate fun. But while being a gracious player, not deliberately abusing poor rules and not getting hung up about winning are good things, who plays to lose?
This, though...
Now again the idea that points actually contribute to any kind of actual balance (in the sense of controlling for the rest of the game as described above) is really a matter of religious-like faith rather than anything objective. But the association is there all the same, even considering it is mostly a superstition. Gamers feel better about the fairness of a game if they can add up to a rather arbitrary number that happens to be the same as the number someone else summed. The really important role of points, however, is nothing to do with balance; it actually facilitates the list-building "mini game" that so many people enjoy.
This is getting bizarre, and veering towards strawman territory. (If not jumping into it with both feet.) The points about, er, points being arbitrary, nothing to do with balance, and about listbuilding, are understandable if you concentrate on GW's core 2 - particularly 40K. Games where units etc. are regularly imbalanced compared to their points cost; where playtesting anecdotally consists of "eh, it kinda sorta feels like that many points"; and where - as mentioned - it's more about which particular little polystyrene nodules of stats and special rules you take, than about the tactical options made available to you in the general rules.
But other games have more tactical depth, balancing out listbuilding strategy with skill and decisions on the tabletop. Other games are playtested more, or at least they seem to be, going by the openness of some authors of smaller, indy rulesets and companies. Other games have points, and turn out reasonably balanced, and allow gamers to combine that into reasonably balanced points-based lists.
Or at least, I haven't seen so much dissatisfaction about unbalanced points, or this strange view of 'points = poison', in other points-based games. To be honest I've only seen that latter attitude come roaring to the fore since AoS came about. Not even Black Powder's debut triggered such a wave of anti-points sentiment, unless I was especially unobservant. I have to imagine that there's something else behind it.
There may be other ways to balance a game, and all well and good if you have a tight-knit gaming group who love scenarios or piling stuff on a table. But points are the quickest and most convenient method for gamers. The majority of gamers, I'd guess. I don't think they're incompatible with or anathema to scenario gaming, either.
Manchu wrote:I think we can safely ignore a trend in self-selected anecdotes regarding AoS posted on a site focused on 40k. Perhaps this becomes apparent when one considers that the trend in question is perfectly predictable.
Oh come on.
AoS doesn't seem to be selling well because this is just a 40K forum, after all? Hey, was that goalpost always there...?
My sources in GW have people looking for ways to polish a turd and sell models. AOS gave them a small bump in fantasy sales, but they lost hugely with no 40k sales in those months. My sales are down 65% for the last 4 months on GW.
Not enough people actually care about AOS. They play some because they have models, but few people are building armies.
Lizarmen codex with no new models? Pretty much tells the story. My sales rep was ok with me not even ordering it.
I could write a 2 page list of reasons why it's failing, but i don't feel like arguing with the "it's only anectdotal evidence" crowd, and don't feel like beating a dead horse. GW found a way to cost me thousands of dollars in sales each month, and has my older WFB customers selling their armies on ebay. Good job GW.
Sergeant Horse:
Spoiler:
Sergeant Horse wrote: We tried at our store, ran some events, tried to promote it, but it's pretty dead. I have 2 people playing (new players that have never done minis before). Everybody else plays KoW, or if they want skirmish fantasy, they do Frostgrave or Mordheim.
I used to be a HUUUGE Fantasy playing store, with tournaments hitting over 30 and regular play nights with every table full, AoS killed it and every single player moved to Kings of War or quit altogether. In the last few months I've slashed my Fantasy wall by 2/3 and don't even reorder unless it's a special order. That broke my heart personally, I own 8 Fantasy armies.
Personally, I tried AoS, it's ok for what it is, but I played Fantasy for the rule set and world, both are gone. You can say I can just play 8th, but that's not realistic since most gamers move to supported game systems, and KoW has taken over.
Automatically Appended Next Post: That being said, if GW brought out a 9th edition......MONEY.
Automatically Appended Next Post: As to reasons it's failing imo.
It's not as good a mass fantasy game as Kings of War
It's not as good a skirmish game as Mordheim, Frostgrave or any other skirmish game
The Stormcasts are boring. Great models, but boring fluff and with being effectively immortal, there's no fear or connection when they die.
Khorne is also the most BORING of Chaos gods.. Blood blood skulls skulls blah blah blah. Nurgle or Tzeentch would have been way more interesting.
A lack of info on other races is a killer too. I've read the books, listened to the audio books and I'm not impressed with the world at all, it lacks flavor.
Cost doesn't really come into it I find, people who want to will buy the products, people who can't afford to or don't find the value in it, won't.
Reecius:
Spoiler:
Reecius wrote: Yeah, AoS just isn't selling that well for us, we're liquidating our inventory for the time being.
Poll from the AoS section on Dakka about adoption rate:
That's the rub, Vermis! In the AoS section, there was a poll which had these results:
AoS going strong or dying out in your area?
A. Picking up steam. - 24% (135)
B. Definitely less interest as time goes on. 76% (423)
That's over 550 responses. It's people who check an online forum, of course - those are the only people who you can poll without it being a local (or "anecdotal") result!
---
It could be doing well in parts of the UK, or in certain stores in the US... but on the whole, you've got a 3 to 1 ratio of people saying there is a lagging interest in AoS. This close to the launch of such a "flagship" product, that would be why people are saying it's failing. The way GW has positioned it is not to be a small Specialist game type of theirs, but a major line - and indications are people are not adopting it, and even people who considered it are often no longer doing so. GW experienced this recently with The Hobbit, too (seriously - did anyone actually play that?) so they are not unused to the idea - but they blamed that on not owning the IP, hence relegating it to "specialist game" status to focus on their own (new, in this case) IP.
It's interesting to see Reecius mention a lot of interest (and sales) at the beginning, but not continuing on... although mikhaila says it has failed, this seems to match what he experienced a bit at the beginning, too. I know I was certainly interested at the beginning - and am no longer, with everyone I know embracing KoW or moving on to other games.
You can only work with the evidence presented, and there is certainly some evidence to the contrary as posted by several folks in this thread... but at least in the above quotes you have it "straight from the horses mouth" regarding several stores and a rather large poll. Obviously, this is all online, but that's the medium we are using and if you discount anything posted online as suspect then you aren't going to be able to draw anything from this thread, regardless!
Manchu wrote: GW operates so differently than how it formerly did and this has almost uniformly been at the expense of LGS owners.
I disagree with this aspect of your post. GW is exceptional to FLGS. Based on my brother's management of a FLGS, GW has done at least the following: given six-packs of new paints and spray paints to the store for free to help motivate sales of a particular line; given thousands of dollars in "credit" to be used by the store to purchase prize support and store-use terrain and store-use books; given 60 and 90 day terms for new releases; send free replacements when a box type changes; or given credit when a unit box/blister/etc is discontinued; given free promotional items for the store to give away with every GW purchase.
If anything, GW is the best friend of FLGS. Other companies such as Wizkids and FFG offer Organized Play kits but charge for them. GW just gives FLGS free stuff.
those are three store owners though, not really worth much. and like I and others have said that polls have several big problems outlined on the previous page.
You won't see as much dissatisfaction about any game not produced by GW on this site or other GW-centric sites because less people are talking about them. But if you go to a cite where X product line is the focus, you're going to find bitching about X product line. Check out WLG's forum if you want to see how dissatisfied certain people are with their games.
Yes, that goal post has always been there (although it has been consistently ignored) given the sample has always been self-selected.
Manchu wrote: You have to keep in mind that the AoS launch devastated his morale to the point that he logged on to Dakka and confessed to breaking down and crying. He also immediately started offering the starter box at a significant discount on the swap shop here, reflecting his lack of confidence in the product.
That gets my vote for the Best of Dakka 2015. It was very hilarious and very, very sad. I lost count of how many people I told about that.
Judgedoug - Mikhaila would actually often say the same thing, that GW was great to FLGS (although I believe he has said this was much more true in the past, and unfortunately isn't as much currently, regarding freebies / support).
Manchu - I posted the accounts of 3 fairly active store owners who posted in this thread above, and there were at least 2 more who also posted in this thread but aren't as prolific of posters so I can't find them at the moment. I think focusing on any one "anecdote" is a mistake - but the topic of this thread was really to try to discuss if there was a trend of any kind forming. If you discount all evidence shown online, you really aren't going to be able to have a discussion here... online about it.
The metric is also fluid since "failing" could mean all sorts of different things, and as you say, maybe compared to WHFB sales it isn't doing so bad! We'll see... but I think, as I copied in my post above, the weight of evidence that we have available is certainly indicating that it is not selling as well as might be hoped for such a new flagship line. We'll see if the fire dwarfs can turn that around, though - the models at least certainly have my interest
Please keep the original context in mind, I was not comparing GW to other companies in the current timeframe but rather GW 15 or 10 years ago to GW today (because the subject was mikhalia's long relationship with GW).
Manchu, did you see my posts? This isn't just about Mikhaila, and it's actually a little frustrating for you to continue to focus on his account when he posted his genuine feelings... Reecius is mostly an online seller and he is liquidating his stock and certainly hasn't made any negative AoS posts.
I am really glad it's doing well at your and judgedoug's local scene, but I think you might have blinders on a bit if you think you can discount the evidence of the many store owners and others who have posted that it is not doing well for them in their local scenes...
Anyway, I think I've made my point so will bow out for a bit. But if you're not going to at least consider the volume of evidence posted as indicative of a trend, it's really hard to have any kind of online discussion about the possibility of a trend! I bet we could have a good one in-person, at least - maybe if I'm down that way sometime we can do so and I can see the sweet AoS forces you guys have built up
RiTides wrote: If you discount all evidence shown online, you really aren't going to be able to have a discussion here... online about it.
And that is a legitimate conclusion. The question could be (and likely actually is) not answerable by anyone present or, if someone present actually could answer, they would be risking their livelihood to do so. What we have instead is people who, for various reasons, don't like the game piling on about it being a failure and people who do like it opposing that declaration. And given the demographics here, it is likely there are many more folks who will not like AoS (espcially regarding the points issue) than those who do.
Manchu wrote:... when certain backers portray the project creator as infallible up until another backer complains about something in which case they excuse the creator...
Imagine that.
Zywus wrote:
Can you honestly say that you'd say the same thing if it was reversed? If the polls results showed the majority of those answering them were satisfied and known store owners reported that sales was through the roof. Would you still claim that, nah... we can't know if AoS is doing good.
I know that if it seemed like it was doing well, I'd be a lot quieter.
Despairing, but quietly.
auticus wrote:Which is a shame because there is a lot of good stuff that can be pulled from it and the alternatives (kings of war and "9th age") are IMO both very bland tournament styled games in a market flooded with those type of games.
The market is flooded with fantasy mass-combat games?
And, like I've been saying, in KoW's case at least: bland if you like a heap of special rules. Deeper if you like tactical manoeuvre.
Mymearan wrote: those are three store owners though, not really worth much. and like I and others have said that polls have several big problems outlined on the previous page.
If it all so pointless why bother to point it out. If what said online has no base in the really world, why argue about it at all. Instead of just letting the thread die, because why worry about it if all the hater are wrong and just what until the GW report come out. So you can argue "we can't know anything from that".
RiTides wrote: If you discount all evidence shown online, you really aren't going to be able to have a discussion here... online about it.
And that is a legitimate conclusion. The question could be (and likely actually is) not answerable by anyone present or, if someone present actually could answer, they would be risking their livelihood to do so. What we have instead is people who, for various reasons, don't like the game piling on about it being a failure and people who do like it opposing that declaration. And given the demographics here, it is likely there are many more folks who will not like AoS (espcially regarding the points issue) than those who do.
That's a fair viewpoint to take - but it just means you'll not be able to get anything out of this thread (and can't really consider anything discussed therein) other than to say "None of this is valid". Again, that's fair... but it would be nice to at least be able to consider the evidence available for those who do want to try to see if any trend is discernable! And as far as evidence goes, your and judgedoug's local scene is definitely one pointing to the success and adoption of AoS in some areas (especially since yours is an independent scene and not an official GW one).
Mymearan wrote: those are three store owners though, not really worth much. and like I and others have said that polls have several big problems outlined on the previous page.
If it all so pointless why bother to point it out. If what said online has no base in the really world, why argue about it at all. Instead of just letting the thread die, because why worry about it if all the hater are wrong and just what until the GW report come out. So you can argue "we can't know anything from that".
Sorry mate, I work with evidence daily and can't stop myself, I guess you could call it a work-related injury
Please keep the original context in mind, I was not comparing GW to other companies in the current timeframe but rather GW 15 or 10 years ago to GW today (because the subject was mikhalia's long relationship with GW).
Ah, true. I was just contrasting what I *thought* was true about GW for years and years with what I only recently learned about how exceptionally well they treat FLGS.
Honestly, at this point it is all well and good to say that we who think that AoS is failing can't prove it. We can't. But by that same metric no one is able to prove AoS is doing well. In fact you would be even less able to say AoS is doing well given what little information we have. So we can agree we won't know in the short term, which I think we all already have, but if we are talking about the information we have then most of it is pointing to AoS being a sinking ship.
RiTides wrote: And as far as evidence goes, your and judgedoug's local scene is definitely one pointing to the success and adoption of AoS in some areas (especially since yours is an independent scene and not an official GW one).
I almost wish it wasn't true, because I just bought a Nurgle AoS army to go with my Stormcast Eternals and I really really shouldn't be spending that money. But a new league starts in January and I wanna get these guys 100% painted before then... along with my early war Bolt Action German army... and my Gates of Antares Algoryn army... argh
Yes, that's the point jono - you can only work with the information you have if you want to have an online discussion. That's why the poll was interesting, and the store owner accounts (I copied 3 above, but there were several more who also posted and I'll see if I can find) since they are at least looking at it from a "dollars and cents" point of view. We'll see how things play out, but indications so far are not very good - from the poll, it's a 3 to 1 ratio of people saying it has less interest as time goes on.
I certainly think the dwarf release has a chance to change that - I'll be paying close attention to it and hopefully it's awesome even if I'm only possibly after the models and not the rules.
RiTides wrote: And as far as evidence goes, your and judgedoug's local scene is definitely one pointing to the success and adoption of AoS in some areas (especially since yours is an independent scene and not an official GW one).
I almost wish it wasn't true, because I just bought a Nurgle AoS army to go with my Stormcast Eternals and I really really shouldn't be spending that money. But a new league starts in January and I wanna get these guys 100% painted before then... along with my early war Bolt Action German army... and my Gates of Antares Algoryn army... argh
Haha, yes I can relate to that . Our local scene thankfully has caught the Guildball bug at the moment, so it's a lot cheaper than some of the other things we've all dived into together!
jonolikespie wrote: Honestly, at this point it is all well and good to say that we who think that AoS is failing can't prove it. We can't. But by that same metric no one is able to prove AoS is doing well. In fact you would be even less able to say AoS is doing well given what little information we have. So we can agree we won't know in the short term, which I think we all already have, but if we are talking about the information we have then most of it is pointing to AoS being a sinking ship.
I'd call it a ship under construction that has suffered some delays... Perspectives and all it all depends on if you view it as a completely new game that hasn't found its footing or a failed WHFB9.
Mymearan wrote: I'd call it a ship under construction that has suffered some delays... Perspectives and all
That's also fair, Mymearan - will be interesting to see how it goes once the "construction" continues a bit (meaning some releases of something that isn't a darn Stormcast or Khorne model!)
RiTides wrote: you'll not be able to get anything out of this thread (and can't really consider anything discussed therein) other than to say "None of this is valid"
The anecdotes people (including me) are posting are not invalid at all. They are just insufficient to answer the question posed by OP.
Mymearan wrote: I'd call it a ship under construction that has suffered some delays... Perspectives and all
That's also fair, Mymearan - will be interesting to see how it goes once the "construction" continues a bit (meaning some releases of something that isn't a darn Stormcast or Khorne model!)
Indeed.. I guess I could continue the simile by saying that the shipmaster decided it would be a good idea to start building the ship from the wrong end even I, a Stormcast player, am really annoyed by their release strategy.
Please keep the original context in mind, I was not comparing GW to other companies in the current timeframe but rather GW 15 or 10 years ago to GW today (because the subject was mikhalia's long relationship with GW).
Ah, true. I was just contrasting what I *thought* was true about GW for years and years with what I only recently learned about how exceptionally well they treat FLGS.
Sure, imagine the results if we had a Dakka poll about whether GW supports LGS's.
Manchu wrote:... when certain backers portray the project creator as infallible up until another backer complains about something in which case they excuse the creator...
Imagine that.
LOL I included that example precisely to see if someone would un-ironically throw it back in my face.
This comes up again and again. You have to keep in mind that the AoS launch devastated his morale to the point that he logged on to Dakka and confessed to breaking down and crying. He also immediately started offering the starter box at a significant discount on the swap shop here, reflecting his lack of confidence in the product. The guy runs a business with two locations and has a long history of working with GW successfully but by his own account that success has worn pretty thin because GW operates so differently than how it formerly did and this has almost uniformly been at the expense of LGS owners. You need to take his posts with a grain of salt, like you would anything else.
I don't think he's sandbagged AoS through a dislike for GW. I remember him expressing huge frustration in GW for not telling him anything until about a week before launch, giving him no time to prepare. He bought a large batch of Aos, and was working on a tournament system for the launch and/or following weekend. He did everything in his power to boost AoS sales despite GW, and it completely tanked. It's cost him thousands of dollars a month - it's not down to spite on his part, it's down to GW's handling of AoS.
I personally don't blame him for being pissed off at GW; this whole mess could have cost him his businesses.
He's always come across as pretty candid and honest on here, so I've got no reason to disbelieve him.
I'm very keen too to see what the dwarf release is right. It is entirely possible that the game is still just trying to find it's legs and needs a few more releases. If the dwarves come with lots of new models and solid fluff I think it will go a long way to establishing the game. People who are still waiting for their armies to be mentioned will be encouraged by that and wait to see what happens when their race is updated.
The Lizardman release I think turned a lot of people off when they got not a single new model and... fluff that was not what people seemed to be hoping for to word it diplomatically. If the dwarves get a new slayer character, maybe a box of plastic slayers and nothing else it could be taken either way. If it is just the slayer character and the fluff is still vague or changes them drastically it could put off more people. I know I for one and worried about the idea that slayers are now just mercenaries who fight for gold.
Mymearan wrote: it all depends on if you view it as a completely new game that hasn't found its footing or a failed WHFB9
Well said, and actually better said than you may have thought, considering you are contrasting those who aren't sure if the line has failed or succeeded with those who start by assuming it is a failure.
Mymearan wrote: Indeed.. I guess I could continue the simile by saying that the shipmaster decided it would be a good idea to start building the ship from the wrong end even I, a Stormcast player, am really annoyed by their release strategy.
Yeah, and as jono just said this is one I'm very interested to see because the Lizardmen release with no new models was a major turnoff to me - just rebranding the same models as "now in spaaaaace" (in the case of Lizzies) just doesn't do it for me.
But sweet new dwarfs would be much more tempting! If it's just a character, though, that won't be nearly enough imo... so hopefully there will at least be a few new units to show the direction they are headed in for their more traditional fantasy elements (which, lets be honest, is what most people play in fantasy, the sigmarines and khorne warriors are just too similar to one another to carry the line).
Mymearan wrote: it all depends on if you view it as a completely new game that hasn't found its footing or a failed WHFB9.
That, I believe, is just one of the problems AoS encountered - people thought it was Warhammer Next. Hell, I thought it was, too. It's very definitely a new game system completely. I think GW's mistake was releasing warscrolls for backwards compatibility with old Warhammer armies. Warhammer 8 should have been left to ride out the year and die it's long overdue death, while Age of Sigmar was introduced as a brand new game with Stormcast Eternals and Khorne dudes, with the slow release of these rebranded factions and new books and new models. Too many people were upset because either a) they loved Warhammer 8 and it was "replaced" by AoS or b) they didn't care about Warhammer 8 but wanted to jump on the bandwagon from (a).
My speculation regarding seraphon was, maybe the 8th Ed. lizardman release went really poorly relative to the expense of updating the line with new models, in which case the company would be less likely to invest more when reboxing the line with round bases and putting out the battletome.
Mymearan wrote: Indeed.. I guess I could continue the simile by saying that the shipmaster decided it would be a good idea to start building the ship from the wrong end even I, a Stormcast player, am really annoyed by their release strategy.
Yeah, and as jono just said this is one I'm very interested to see because the Lizardmen release with no new models was a major turnoff to me - just rebranding the same models as "now in spaaaaace" (in the case of Lizzies) just doesn't do it for me.
That's not the fluff at all. The lizardmen are all dead. The Seraphon fluff is one of the coolest fluff things in AoS, which is saying a lot, because AoS is the coolest fluff GW has done since the first dozen Horus Heresy novels.
judgedoug wrote: Warhammer 8 should have been left to ride out the year and die it's long overdue death, while Age of Sigmar was introduced as a brand new game with Stormcast Eternals and Khorne dudes
It is pretty interesting when you look back on how there was this very long period of time that the company explicitly labeled THE END TIMES (for crying out loud!) and there were, throughout that period and IIRC a bit before, all these rumors about how the next incarnation of Fantasy was going to be a major, major overhaul. One can guess, the idea at GW was to transition between WHFB and AoS as a narrative. The product line itself was part of the storytelling.
You equated points systems in games to a mythical thing desired by superstitious people.
Close enough.
You won't see as much dissatisfaction about any game not produced by GW on this site or other GW-centric sites because less people are talking about them.
What makes you think I only read Dakka, or GW-centric forums? Even on forums that complain about certain games, I don't see such a proportion complaining about them. Especially not about the common themes of GW complaints.
(E.g. the thing about WLG - I assume Warlord Games - is that if you don't like Bolt Action, or Black Powder, or Hail Caesar, or disruptive changes made to them, or the models available for them, you've got a bit more freedom to search out other WWII, musket, or ancients/medieval games. Possibly even a bit more knowledge of them. Kings of War has started to raise that kind of concept or culture to the general awareness of people wanting to game in the Warhammer setting, but even then Mantic's alternate models don't seem to be an easy alternative.)
Yes, that goal post has always been there (although it has been consistently ignored) given the sample has always been self-selected.
Nnnope. Pretty sure nobody else has tried to argue that the appearance of AoS's poor sales is because this is a 40K site. And despite the name, that's arguable.
That brings up strange implications, or possibly inferences. Are you suggesting that anti-AoS sentiment, and reports of said poor sales, are down to 40K players?
Vermis wrote: Are you suggesting that anti-AoS sentiment, and reports of said poor sales, are down to 40K players?
First, apologies for ignoring the rest of your post. It really seems we are talking directly past each other on those points with little hope of getting back on the same page. But I can answer your question: No. What I am suggesting is, Dakka Dakka attracts a certain demographic of gamers largely characterized by interest in pick-up play so that it is perfectly natural both that there is a low opinion of AoS as a game among our posters and also that our posters are more likely to perceive that AoS is a failure as a product line.
Mymearan wrote: Indeed.. I guess I could continue the simile by saying that the shipmaster decided it would be a good idea to start building the ship from the wrong end even I, a Stormcast player, am really annoyed by their release strategy.
Yeah, and as jono just said this is one I'm very interested to see because the Lizardmen release with no new models was a major turnoff to me - just rebranding the same models as "now in spaaaaace" (in the case of Lizzies) just doesn't do it for me.
That's not the fluff at all. The lizardmen are all dead. The Seraphon fluff is one of the coolest fluff things in AoS, which is saying a lot, because AoS is the coolest fluff GW has done since the first dozen Horus Heresy novels.
They are summoned memories. In a game that already had annoyed people with the idea that the new poster boys don't die but respawn and the bad guys had a literally endless horde they really did not need their 3rd faction to also be unkillable.
Vermis wrote: Are you suggesting that anti-AoS sentiment, and reports of said poor sales, are down to 40K players?
First, apologies for ignoring the rest of your post. It really seems we are talking directly past each other on those points with little hope of getting back on the same page. But I can answer your question: No. What I am suggesting is, Dakka Dakka attracts a certain demographic of gamers largely characterized by interest in pick-up play so that it is perfectly natural both that there is a low opinion of AoS as a game among our posters and also that our posters are more likely to perceive that AoS is a failure as a product line.
I can agree with this. For many in my group, historical scenario-based gaming is where it's at, so points values are totally irrelevant to many of those members anyway. then there's me, and I fancy myself a tournament gamer occasionally (especially with Kings of War), but I also love playing historical scenarios, etc. So pick up and play points games quite literally do not matter to me, as there are plenty of alternatives that I freely enjoy (Bolt Action and GoA being the current favorites). However, AoS is simple, fun, and scratches the itch of Saturday Morning Cartoon Heroic Deeds that Warhammer 8 was turning into anyway. And a game can be finished in 1/8 of the time of any edition of WHFB as well
Manchu wrote: My speculation regarding seraphon was, maybe the 8th Ed. lizardman release went really poorly relative to the expense of updating the line with new models, in which case the company would be less likely to invest more when reboxing the line with round bases and putting out the battletome.
As Mymearan said, their release strategy is baffling - if Lizardmen didn't sell well, why release it as the very first race after the starter set? That would be crazy! Even without models, it took up a release slot in their timeline... and as a result they won't have released any non-Stormcast / non-Khorne AoS models in their launch year.
Regarding telling a narrative with End Times - the same "anecdotal" evidence, but by all accounts I saw End Times was a big success - people loved seeing the narrative advance and the books were really hard to get hold of, along with some of the sweet large kits. The problem, of course, is that after people invested in those expensive books and models, they felt like they had the rug pulled out from under them. Everyone knew a big change was coming to fantasy, but I think it's safe to say AoS surpassed anyone's expectations for how different it truly was.
Judgedoug - I was being a little facetious about the Lizardmen in space and actually am not totally opposed to their background, although I think I would have preferred their warriors to not just be dreams/memories but things like Chakax - the last of their race guarding the precious Slann. Their background was always really cool I think, but the problem with their place in the release order is that there is still no attachment to models dying, they can just make more (like the Stormcasts as well), so from what I've seen people aren't yet getting drawn in to that background like they were quite rabidly (in my experience) for the End Times narrative.
judgedoug wrote: That's not the fluff at all. The lizardmen are all dead. The Seraphon fluff is one of the coolest fluff things in AoS, which is saying a lot, because AoS is the coolest fluff GW has done since the first dozen Horus Heresy novels.
They are summoned memories. In a game that already had annoyed people with the idea that the new poster boys don't die but respawn and the bad guys had a literally endless horde they really did not need their 3rd faction to also be unkillable.
The single most appealing thing about the AoS fluff is that with each book, the storyline advances. Things are happening, and a timeline is progressing.
It is not the last minute of the last century of the last millennia constantly forever, with no storyline advancing. It is not the Old World where the Storm of Chaos happens and then gets retconned. As far as I can tell, it is the only GW game, ever, where the actual plot progresses, other than retcons.
In 40k and Warhammer Fantasy Battles, all armies had an understood unlimited number of guys because nothing was ever going to happen to the storyline that would ever put sales of models in danger.
OgreChubbs wrote: I think the problem is the main rules not the warscrolls. Each unit has good rules and makeup and would work well in a system they all seem to be based off of.
The problem is look through the war scrolls alone, they look fine. Then when trying to add them to the starter box main rules and all goes to hell. There is no way to balance what to take and not to. The main rules are lacking and seem based of the starter box not a whole gaming system.
Indeed, how would you make an army list? You don't see it coming.
Manchu wrote:LOL I included that example precisely to see if someone would un-ironically throw it back in my face.
Ah-HA! I wanted you to pick out the double-standards in my post!
Manchu wrote:
Mymearan wrote: it all depends on if you view it as a completely new game that hasn't found its footing or a failed WHFB9
Well said, and actually better said than you may have thought, considering you are contrasting those who aren't sure if the line has failed or succeeded with those who start by assuming it is a failure.
Manchu wrote:It is pretty interesting when you look back on how there was this very long period of time that the company explicitly labeled THE END TIMES (for crying out loud!) and there were, throughout that period and IIRC a bit before, all these rumors about how the next incarnation of Fantasy was going to be a major, major overhaul.
Assumptions, eh? I always thought that AoS was a completely new game, for the reasons you describe. I was even willing to give it the benefit of the doubt a couple of times (heck, I made a 100+ mile round trip just to see if I could nab the WD with the free sigmarine on the cover [I didn't]) and after it was released and I decided I wasn't going to bother, I still thought it looked like it was going to be a success based on all the excitement about it.
So no, some of us didn't start out from a position of assuming failure, even before it appeared.
AoS is doing a fine job persuading us, all by itself.
Argh, too much internet bickering. Sorry Deadnight, I saw your response. I'll have to look at it later.
RiTides wrote: Judgedoug - I was being a little facetious about the Lizardmen in space and actually am not totally opposed to their background, although I think I would have preferred their warriors to not just be dreams/memories but things like Chakax
I like it. Can't keep those spawning pools from drying up for however long after rocketing off from The Old World. And as a long long long time 40k fan (over 20 years now?) it made me gleeful that the ol' spacefaring Slann bouncing around in Warhammer 3red edition with shuriken pistols and power gloves were returning form whence they came - back to the stars.
RiTides wrote: if Lizardmen didn't sell well, why release it as the very first race after the starter set?
If you don't plan on releasing new models for a faction re-launch, then it is a relatively cheap and easy release in an otherwise busy season.
RiTides wrote: Everyone knew a big change was coming to fantasy, but I think it's safe to say AoS surpassed anyone's expectations for how different it truly was.
Agreed. No one expected points would go away. It was totally shocking. I remember personally thinking they would release something about points eventually.
judgedoug wrote: That's not the fluff at all. The lizardmen are all dead. The Seraphon fluff is one of the coolest fluff things in AoS, which is saying a lot, because AoS is the coolest fluff GW has done since the first dozen Horus Heresy novels.
They are summoned memories. In a game that already had annoyed people with the idea that the new poster boys don't die but respawn and the bad guys had a literally endless horde they really did not need their 3rd faction to also be unkillable.
The single most appealing thing about the AoS fluff is that with each book, the storyline advances. Things are happening, and a timeline is progressing.
It is not the last minute of the last century of the last millennia constantly forever, with no storyline advancing. It is not the Old World where the Storm of Chaos happens and then gets retconned. As far as I can tell, it is the only GW game, ever, where the actual plot progresses, other than retcons.
In 40k and Warhammer Fantasy Battles, all armies had an understood unlimited number of guys because nothing was ever going to happen to the storyline that would ever put sales of models in danger.
It's very easy to make a storyline advance where the "fleshed out" factions have infinitly reusable resources for war (Chaos/Sigmarines/Lizardmen) and there is an infinity of land to pseudo-conquer - this is actually one of the most pressing matters to be explained by AoS fluff - if the realms are infinite or not.
Who cares if Brother Sigmarite Bob/Seraphon Saurus Steve gets a sword through his gut if he'll be back in a week from now? Who cares if the X or Y peninsula is lost if that's just a grain int he infinity of Z realm?
There is no worth to a plot that advances without any palpable consequences are drawn from it.
I mean, compare the importance of the plot advancements in ET compared to the AoS plot advancement?
And why was it that ET caused way more of a reaction? Because the players cared for the characters, for the factions. Every man dying, every dwarf hold falling was a step closer to the End.
There is no such thing in a setting like AoS.
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Manchu wrote: You must loathe 40k. And it seems like you are focusing on fluff rather than gaming. The WM/H fluff seems right up your alley.
And what does 40k/WM/H have to do with this discussion, again?
Edit: As for my stances on the mechanics of Aos, I am sure you can find them on one of the more heated arguments in that specific forum. But to cut it short - I find it simplistic and completely inadequate.
AoS is a 40k-ization of Fantasy as a setting. Previously, Fantasy was this very finite setting where plot progression was very important, like it is in the WM/H fluff. But now, there is all this space where really just about anything could happen, including the games all of us are playing, just like in 40k.
judgedoug wrote: That's not the fluff at all. The lizardmen are all dead. The Seraphon fluff is one of the coolest fluff things in AoS, which is saying a lot, because AoS is the coolest fluff GW has done since the first dozen Horus Heresy novels.
They are summoned memories. In a game that already had annoyed people with the idea that the new poster boys don't die but respawn and the bad guys had a literally endless horde they really did not need their 3rd faction to also be unkillable.
The single most appealing thing about the AoS fluff is that with each book, the storyline advances. Things are happening, and a timeline is progressing.
It is not the last minute of the last century of the last millennia constantly forever, with no storyline advancing. It is not the Old World where the Storm of Chaos happens and then gets retconned. As far as I can tell, it is the only GW game, ever, where the actual plot progresses, other than retcons.
In 40k and Warhammer Fantasy Battles, all armies had an understood unlimited number of guys because nothing was ever going to happen to the storyline that would ever put sales of models in danger.
It's very easy to make a storyline advance where the "fleshed out" factions have infinitly reusable resources for war (Chaos/Sigmarines/Lizardmen) and there is an infinity of land to pseudo-conquer - this is actually one of the most pressing matters to be explained by AoS fluff - if the realms are infinite or not.
Who cares if Brother Sigmarite Bob/Seraphon Saurus Steve gets a sword through his gut if he'll be back in a week from now? Who cares if the X or Y peninsula is lost if that's just a grain int he infinity of Z realm?
There is no worth to a plot that advances without any palpable consequences are drawn from it.
Aye.
I personally love the advancing story behind Warmahordes because it is a well fleshed out setting with established characters I can care about and, and this is the big point to me, each book talks about all the factions, so I have a reason to get it no matter what I play.
The fact that the advancing storyline offers nothing to say, a Dark Elf player, yet is terrible. I have no reason to buy the current books yet. If the next book came out as all about the Dark Elves I am behind on the story and suddenly have a huge pile of very expensive books I need to catch up. It seems like it would have put a lot of people between a rock and a hard place there.
AoS is a 40k-ization of Fantasy as a setting. Previously, Fantasy was this very finite setting where plot progression was very important, like it is in the WM/H fluff. But now, there is all this space where really just about anything could happen, including the games all of us are playing, just like in 40k.
Again, what does it have to do with this discussion? This thread is about AoS and I am expressing my opinions about it, adressing judgedoug's comment about plot progression when compared to FB and how it matters. I couldn't care less about WM/H and I don't really see why you need to point me towards it
RiTides wrote: if Lizardmen didn't sell well, why release it as the very first race after the starter set?
If you don't plan on releasing new models for a faction re-launch, then it is a relatively cheap and easy release in an otherwise busy season.
Cheap and easy doesn't mean you should do it - again, look at the reactions to AoS so far, contrasted to some of the hopeful posts about the dwarf release, even from AoS fans. They really need to diversify, and releasing a faction without new models so early on certainly did not help! Hopefully the dwarf release fixes this, though
Regarding things being immortal, I was referring to drawing people into the background - people get very attached to heroes and struggles that matter, and right now the factions are a bit faceless since the Sigmarines can reincarnate (although there is a bit of cool background to that) and the Lizardmen are memories/dreams, so also a bit faceless. I'm hoping for a famous dwarf warriors leading his flaming slayers into battle, personally
We had been talking about the contrast between End Times and AoS. If there is a setting spectrum from finite to infinite possibility, you would have WM/H toward the former and 40k toward the latter. From End Times to AoS, Warhammer Fantasy made a tremendous leap from the WM/H part of the spectrum to the 40k part. Some folks, like yourself, clearly see this as a flaw but many others see it as a feature. It is definitely a feature of 40k and one the company has been keen to sell over the decades. GW has been less committed to the idea of plot progression, with a few notable exceptions such as (most recently) End Times.
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RiTides wrote: again, look at the reactions to AoS so far
I bought the Seraphon book. Actually it was the first AoS book I bought. I am not even sure I will ever have a seraphon army but the book was so cool I had to have it. That's my reaction.
Yeah, End Times was awesome and (again) almost universally well received. Hopefully that guides some of their decisions going forward with plot progression
Edit: When I'm talking about reactions, I'm referring to general overall reaction (such as when people say a movie released to "high praise" or "rave reviews"). End Times definitely had such a reception! Seraphon did not because there were no models to go along with the book... but again, hopefully they fix that with the dwarf release!
I dunno, I remember a lot of complaining about End Times on this very site and for me personally I just totally dropped out of caring about WHFB during that whole period, not that I ever cared too much about it before. I saw the stuff sit around on shelves but mostly only come in for special orders. And I know my friend just bought all the books for pennies on the dollar when Game Parlor closed.
I guess it's hard to know how to discuss it with you, but I think it's safe to say the reaction to it was very positive (or at least hopeful?). People were concerned about rules, where it was going next, etc... but the books sold like hotcakes in general (any particular store will always have leftover stock, of course). There was tons of chatter about what "9th edition" would look like coming out of it, and they generated a lot more buzz than they had in the years leading up to it.
Azreal13 wrote: I think there's a real nostalgia for End Times now people know what the alternative was!
RiTides wrote: When I'm talking about reactions, I'm referring to general overall reaction (such as when people say a movie released to "high praise" or "rave reviews")
I get what you meant, I am trying to get you to realize that you are mixing up your own perception with an objective fact. Unlike with films, we don't have GW review aggregators. We don't even have proper GW reviewers, for the most part.
RiTides wrote: it's hard to know how to discuss it with you
whew likewise!
Azreal13 wrote: I think there's a real nostalgia for End Times now people know what the alternative was!
100% correct and not just for End Times but also and especially Eighth Edition.
We had been talking about the contrast between End Times and AoS. If there is a setting spectrum from finite to infinite possibility, you would have WM/H toward the former and 40k toward the latter. From End Times to AoS, Warhammer Fantasy made a tremendous leap from the WM/H part of the spectrum to the 40k part. Some folks, like yourself, clearly see this as a flaw but many others see it as a feature. It is definitely a feature of 40k and one the company has been keen to sell over the decades. GW has been less committed to the idea of plot progression, with a few notable exceptions such as (most recently) End Times.
The thing is, 40k can play it quite well as a feature, whereas AoS cannot, because it's focusing too much on the "infinite" parts of it all - the faceless resources for war, the immensity of the realms, the epic combats, etc - and not giving the players a reason to care. Amazingly enough, I do care about my Dark Angels!
GW could very well have learned something from the ET about applying plot progression, but they chose the learn the wrong thing. There's nothing to be gained from plot progression if this is done just for its own sake.
(Be back on this discussion in a few hours, driving back home :p )
And I care about my Bloodbound! I mean, I care about them in the context of a campaign. Being so new, they don't have nearly the iconic resonance of a Space Marine legion. But with the characters that bring some of that relevance with them from the Old World, like Valkia, I have the same feeling.
Just thinking about my last few posts... Manchu, I give up. It's exhausting trying to keep up as you flit from one non-sequitur to another.
"Points are a myth!"
"AoS only seems to be unpopular because 40K players!"
"I assume they're making assumptions!"
"Mikhaila couldn't make AoS sell because he doesn't understand it!"
The problem - part of the problem - seems to be that you're trying to view it in a super-serious scientific way, a way that few others are claiming. Trying to identify every little factor that might skew and invalidate the experiment or survey. (I took zoology at uni, too long ago. I have an inkling of what it's like.) Trouble is you, along with every other pro-AoS and anti-AoS person here, as you've said, can't do that. We all know we have to wait and see solid numbers in January, and the next few reports after that. I'm on the edge of me seat, myself.
But 40K or no, points bias or no, the few solid facts we can grasp about the reaction to AoS go beyond what I personally expected, as moany about the game as I am. The last time I saw anything approaching this was the reaction to 8th ed. (And there were plenty still saying "8th ed is the best ever! Everyone I know plays it!" back then, too.) And I can't believe it's only happening in isolation, here on Dakka. This is not to say "I want it to fail!" or "I knew it'd fail!", but "Blimey! That bad?"
Vermis wrote: as you flit from one non-sequitur to another
Add non sequitur to the words you are misusing ITT.
Vermis wrote: you're trying to view it in a super-serious scientific way, a way that few others are claiming
To quote my old friend HBMC:
H.B.M.C. wrote: You know I'm the last person to defend GW on anything, but I can't just go off what people feel. Reelz before feelz people; let's see some fething proof.
Lots of "feelz" ITT, of course. And the sentiment is negative, just as you would expect it to be from this crowd. After all, people come to Dakka Dakka primarily to discuss games where point valuation and relatively intricate list building are taken for granted.
Elemental wrote: Bearing in mind, of course, that numbers and reports given by gaming store managers don't count as proof because, um, reasons.
As the poster who is a statistician explained, because there are only two or three of them. I would add it is fairly easy to explain their lack of success, as well. Finally, there is also broadly equivalent opposing anecdotal evidence.
We had been talking about the contrast between End Times and AoS. If there is a setting spectrum from finite to infinite possibility, you would have WM/H toward the former and 40k toward the latter. From End Times to AoS, Warhammer Fantasy made a tremendous leap from the WM/H part of the spectrum to the 40k part. Some folks, like yourself, clearly see this as a flaw but many others see it as a feature. It is definitely a feature of 40k and one the company has been keen to sell over the decades. GW has been less committed to the idea of plot progression, with a few notable exceptions such as (most recently) End Times.
The thing is, 40k can play it quite well as a feature, whereas AoS cannot, because it's focusing too much on the "infinite" parts of it all - the faceless resources for war, the immensity of the realms, the epic combats, etc - and not giving the players a reason to care. Amazingly enough, I do care about my Dark Angels!
GW could very well have learned something from the ET about applying plot progression, but they chose the learn the wrong thing. There's nothing to be gained from plot progression if this is done just for its own sake.
...and it doesn't help that they consider "rocks fall, everyone dies" to be epic story telling.
The idea of Tomb Kings being slaves to Nagash put me off the new setting pretty quick.
Grimtuff wrote: Yes, that's how making statements then having something come along to categorically disprove them works.
Think about what you are saying. How would figures coming out in January disprove that we can't know right now in December whether AoS is a success or failure?
I don't know why everyone keeps looking forward to the January statement. They're not going to say anything in there that'll change anyone's mind, guarantee it.
Didn't mikhaila have a brief period of enthusiasm for AoS? I think I remember that, back after the initial shock of what GW had done.
Also, I find it interesting how WHFB has suddenly become a massive money drain since 6th edition to some people (rather than the 'less popular in 8th edition, no making the money 40k does' take that used to crop up a lot); strikes me as very similar to the way points suddenly became the bane of all hobby creativity after AoS axed them.
You want to know why it's failing at these stores. Because most hobby store owners with a few exceptions aren't businessmen. They don't have the professional selling skills to sell water to a man stranded in the Sahara. If all you do is come on the internet and bash a game, I bet that's all you do in your store too. That's a surefire recipe for success. I mean promotion and qualifying customers, whoever heard of that. In reality it's no coincidence that AoS did spectacular at my store, I've sold more copies of that then the store did of Dark Vengeance in it's entire existence. Simply because when I took over as sales manager (right around the time AoS came out) I instituted a no trash talk policy, used promotion, and identified the customers who AoS would be the best fit for. Now my competition down the street sold less than 20, but they constantly bad mouth the game.
No the reason any of the stores is even still in business is because they started in a vacuum and never had real competition. Well guess what, the legion of Grognard loyalists is shrinking and these musty old brick and mortars will eventually be run out by stores like Miniature Market.
Meanwhile I'll keep selling games that I don't like or don't play, because there is a customer out there that wants it.
Spinner wrote: Didn't mikhaila have a brief period of enthusiasm for AoS? I think I remember that, back after the initial shock of what GW had done.
Yes, you remember correctly. He recovered himself and set about to trying to sell the product, including setting up his own balancing rules for organized play, but pretty quickly (or so it seemed to me, I did not go back and look for how much time lapsed) he reported lack of success.
DrNo172000 wrote: because there is a customer out there that wants it
Exactly. Even if the customer doesn't know it yet and a salesman has to explain it to him.
DrNo172000 wrote: Because most hobby store owners with a few exceptions aren't businessmen. They don't have the professional selling skills to sell water to a man stranded in the Sahara. If all you do is come on the internet and bash a game, I bet that's all you do in your store too.
This would indeed be my anecdotal evidence of every game store I've ever stepped into in the last twenty three years I've been visiting game stores along the length of the east coast - except, interestingly, for yours, which is why I game there.
Most FLGS owners are content to sit behind a dusty counter playing some online game and grunting dissatisfaction when someone wants to purchase something; or, hang out in the store bashing someone/something instead of replacing the Glade Plug-ins that expired three months ago.
No the reason any of the stores is even still in business is because they started in a vacuum and never had real competition. .
...you're talking about GW, right?
Yes, you remember correctly. He recovered himself and set about to trying to sell the product, including setting up his own balancing rules for organized play, but pretty quickly (or so it seemed to me, I did not go back and look for how much time lapsed) he reported lack of success.
Seemed to me he reported a lack of interest in people buying it about the time other people reported it. There was general enthusiasm (mixed in with all the other emotions generated by Age of Sigmar) for the starter set - not that I can really understand why, to be fair - and then a whole lot of 'meh' and 'really? They're called boltstormers'?
Spinner wrote: Seemed to me he reported a lack of interest in people buying it about the time other people reported it. There was general enthusiasm (mixed in with all the other emotions generated by Age of Sigmar) for the starter set - not that I can really understand why, to be fair - and then a whole lot of 'meh' and 'really? They're called boltstormers'?
If I walked into my FLGS and drno172000 was badmouthing a miniatures game and literally crying about how awful it was and it was going to ruin my business, I would certainly not have any enthusiasm to purchase the product (and would have burst out laughing). and then if the same person a few weeks later was like "no trust me it's actually not bad!" I would immediately recall the hysterics and decline (and then burst out laughing again)
Honestly that's a huge factor in why GW is on top right now Spinner. They are clearly trying to shift their ways, but that sort of thing is not easy for a business that size.
Elemental wrote: Bearing in mind, of course, that numbers and reports given by gaming store managers don't count as proof because, um, reasons.
As the poster who is a statistician explained, because there are only two or three of them. I would add it is fairly easy to explain their lack of success, as well. Finally, there is also broadly equivalent opposing anecdotal evidence.
This is what's frustrating about this conversation - any evidence is deemed insufficient. There are many more than three (I copied three into my post as a quote for ease of reference only). If it would matter to you, I can find the quotes from the others... but I'm guessing it would not matter.
As for "broadly equivalent opposing anecdotal evidence", what do you mean by "broadly equivalent"? I am genuinely curious. I copied a poll showing 3-to-1 saying it's faring poorly, and in this thread the ratio is at least that for individual posters... if you simply consider this to be a self-selecting group, I still don't know how you could say you have seen "broadly equivalent" evidence here. Or really, anywhere online (since obviously you can't just count your local scene). How can you say they are equivalent... or again, do the numbers / ratios just not matter because you view this as a group not representative enough of?
Spinner, yeah I was modding most of those early threads re AoS and there was a ton of very fierce negativity about the game on here from Day 1 (including by mikhaila). Those opinions have hardened into "facts" by now, as you can see ITT. The current AoS N&R thread (and the previous one) are IMO and IME pretty par for the course in terms of hate/interest ratio for around here, keeping in mind Dakka posters generally never have been and will likely never be as interested in Fantasy as 40k.
RiTides, what frustrates me is that anecdotal is deemed sufficient to support the preexisting conclusion (which is exactly the problem with anecdotal evidence). By "broadly equivalent" I mean of similar statistical irrelevance.
Elemental wrote: Bearing in mind, of course, that numbers and reports given by gaming store managers don't count as proof because, um, reasons.
As the poster who is a statistician explained, because there are only two or three of them. I would add it is fairly easy to explain their lack of success, as well. Finally, there is also broadly equivalent opposing anecdotal evidence.
This is what's frustrating about this conversation - any evidence is deemed insufficient. There are many more than three (I copied three into my post as a quote for ease of reference only). If it would matter to you, I can find the quotes from the others... but I'm guessing it would not matter.
As for "broadly equivalent opposing anecdotal evidence", what do you mean by "broadly equivalent"? I am genuinely curious. I copied a poll showing 3-to-1 saying it's faring poorly, and in this thread the ratio is at least that for individual posters... if you simply consider this to be a self-selecting group, I still don't know how you could say you have seen "broadly equivalent" evidence here. Or really, anywhere online (since obviously you can't just count your local scene). How can you say they are equivalent... or again, do the numbers / ratios just not matter because you view this as a group not representative enough of?
How many stores do you imagine there are that sell AoS? How much of that chunk responded to the poll? Do you really imagine that statistics gathered on a forum no matter how popular can even come close to reflecting total sales across all stores worldwide. I'm sorry not even precious Dakka is that popular.
Manchu wrote: The current AoS N&R thread (and the previous one) are IMO and IME pretty par for the course in terms of hate/interest ratio for around here, keeping in mind Dakka posters generally never have been and will likely never be as interested in Fantasy as 40k.
I have trouble with that, too... in the previous sentence, you mention how negative folks were about AoS on Dakka, and here you say that hate/interest ratio is par for the course!
I've presented as much data as we have available:
- Quotes from 3 regular Dakka store owners (and no wonder others won't post, you and judgedoug pick mikhaila's account half to death when he was just being honest!)
- Results from a poll of 550 people
- We could count up the posts in this thread about stores where it is succeeding or failing to increase the dataset by a lot...?
But in the end, I think you are discounting the numbers because you think Dakka is a self-selecting group that is biased against AoS. That is fine, but it is not fine to pretend the numbers here are "broadly equivalent", or really anywhere online... the backlash against AoS online is intense and the data that we have available, while not sufficient, is definitely not "equivalent" as far as adoption vs rejection goes!
Manchu wrote: The current AoS N&R thread (and the previous one) are IMO and IME pretty par for the course in terms of hate/interest ratio for around here, keeping in mind Dakka posters generally never have been and will likely never be as interested in Fantasy as 40k.
I have trouble with that, too... in the previous sentence, you mention how negative folks were about AoS on Dakka, and here you say that hate/interest ratio is par for the course!
I've presented as much data as we have available:
- Quotes from 3 regular Dakka store owners (and no wonder others won't post, you and judgedoug pick mikhaila's account half to death when he was just being honest!)
- Results from a poll of 550 people
- We could count up the posts in this thread about stores where it is succeeding or failing to increase the dataset by a lot...?
But in the end, I think you are discounting the numbers because you think Dakka is a self-selecting group that is biased against AoS. That is fine, but it is not fine to pretend the numbers here are "broadly equivalent", or really anywhere online... the backlash against AoS online is intense and the data that we have available, while not sufficient, is definitely not "equivalent" as far as adoption vs rejection goes!
550 is tiny sliver of the overall consumer base in hobby games. If all you have is bad statistics then no conclusion should be drawn. There shouldn't be a conclusion of it's successful or not successful. You do not draw conclusions on a small data sample.
DrNo172000 wrote: How many stores do you imagine there are that sell AoS? How much of that chunk responded to the poll? Do you really imagine that statistics gathered on a forum no matter how popular can even come close to reflecting total sales across all stores worldwide.
I hate Quoted For Truth but seriously this is spot on. We have perhaps a dozen people posting the same thing over and over in this thread. a poll created that was basically hate-bait, and the confessions from three FLGS owners that it's not done well and one that says it outsells DV.
RiTides wrote: I have trouble with that, too... in the previous sentence, you mention how negative folks were about AoS on Dakka, and here you say that hate/interest ratio is par for the course!
Read carefully. The first comment relates to launch timeframe of AoS. Second comment relates to current timeframe. This was in response to Spinner's observation about how interest in AoS cooled. Hatred of AoS cooled a bit as well.
RiTides wrote: (and no wonder others won't post, you and judgedoug pick mikhaila's account half to death when he was just being honest!)
I appreciate his honesty because we can see his example for what it is, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
RiTides wrote: but it is not fine to pretend the numbers here are "broadly equivalent"
It is not fine to misread my posts and argue against your own misreadings. My comment about the numbers being broadly similar was in regard to the negative store owner response being statistically insignificant as well as thepostive store owner response being statistically insignificant. And I actually explicitly clarified this when you asked (guess you missed it because of automatic add-on posting).
Spinner wrote: Seemed to me he reported a lack of interest in people buying it about the time other people reported it. There was general enthusiasm (mixed in with all the other emotions generated by Age of Sigmar) for the starter set - not that I can really understand why, to be fair - and then a whole lot of 'meh' and 'really? They're called boltstormers'?
If I walked into my FLGS and drno172000 was badmouthing a miniatures game and literally crying about how awful it was and it was going to ruin my business, I would certainly not have any enthusiasm to purchase the product (and would have burst out laughing). and then if the same person a few weeks later was like "no trust me it's actually not bad!" I would immediately recall the hysterics and decline (and then burst out laughing again)
I probably would too, but I don't remember mikhaila crying in front of customers about how AoS was going to ruin his business. I remember him being upset on here about the direction GW had chosen to go - and he's hardly alone in that. I remember him being frustrated with the way GW was treating him as a store owner. Hard to fault him for that. And I remember him trying to give it a fair chance when he thought it might sell and prove popular. It didn't. If he was an isolated case, you might be able to say 'well, he wasn't trying hard enough', but he's clearly not.
So either all these store owners are the Comic Book Guy or the game just isn't very popular. I haven't heard store owners getting flak for not being able to sell Dreadfleet...
judgedoug - A "dozen" people? I was going through gathering quotes about specific stores from earlier in the thread and had a dozen just from searching for that one term in a couple of pages!
Manchu - Sorry I got a little fired up . By "equivalent" I thought you were including the anecdotal evidence in this thread, which is definitely not equivalent (i.e. 3 to 1 ratio in the poll, and similarly here).
In the end, I know I'm not going to move the needle with you guys, but I just think we need to be honest - there are tons more people posting about how AoS is struggling in their area on Dakka. This might, or might not mean anything - but it is definitely not "equivalent". As long as we're clear on that, I'm happy to agree to disagree
Spinner wrote: Seemed to me he reported a lack of interest in people buying it about the time other people reported it. There was general enthusiasm (mixed in with all the other emotions generated by Age of Sigmar) for the starter set - not that I can really understand why, to be fair - and then a whole lot of 'meh' and 'really? They're called boltstormers'?
If I walked into my FLGS and drno172000 was badmouthing a miniatures game and literally crying about how awful it was and it was going to ruin my business, I would certainly not have any enthusiasm to purchase the product (and would have burst out laughing). and then if the same person a few weeks later was like "no trust me it's actually not bad!" I would immediately recall the hysterics and decline (and then burst out laughing again)
I probably would too, but I don't remember mikhaila crying in front of customers about how AoS was going to ruin his business. I remember him being upset on here about the direction GW had chosen to go - and he's hardly alone in that. I remember him being frustrated with the way GW was treating him as a store owner. Hard to fault him for that. And I remember him trying to give it a fair chance when he thought it might sell and prove popular. It didn't. If he was an isolated case, you might be able to say 'well, he wasn't trying hard enough', but he's clearly not.
So either all these store owners are the Comic Book Guy or the game just isn't very popular. I haven't heard store owners getting flak for not being able to sell Dreadfleet...
Do you imagine not a single one of his customers frequents Dakka? Do you shop there, and have evidence this attitude did not carry into conversations with customers in store?
Actually 550 would be enough to draw some conclusions... If it was a random sample taken from the entire gaming population. As is its enough to draw conclusions about the games perceived popularity among dakka users who read the AoS forum.
Spinner wrote: Seemed to me he reported a lack of interest in people buying it about the time other people reported it. There was general enthusiasm (mixed in with all the other emotions generated by Age of Sigmar) for the starter set - not that I can really understand why, to be fair - and then a whole lot of 'meh' and 'really? They're called boltstormers'?
If I walked into my FLGS and drno172000 was badmouthing a miniatures game and literally crying about how awful it was and it was going to ruin my business, I would certainly not have any enthusiasm to purchase the product (and would have burst out laughing). and then if the same person a few weeks later was like "no trust me it's actually not bad!" I would immediately recall the hysterics and decline (and then burst out laughing again)
I probably would too, but I don't remember mikhaila crying in front of customers about how AoS was going to ruin his business. I remember him being upset on here about the direction GW had chosen to go - and he's hardly alone in that. I remember him being frustrated with the way GW was treating him as a store owner. Hard to fault him for that. And I remember him trying to give it a fair chance when he thought it might sell and prove popular. It didn't. If he was an isolated case, you might be able to say 'well, he wasn't trying hard enough', but he's clearly not.
So either all these store owners are the Comic Book Guy or the game just isn't very popular. I haven't heard store owners getting flak for not being able to sell Dreadfleet...
Do you imagine not a single one of his customers frequents Dakka? Do you shop there, and have evidence this attitude did not carry into conversations with customers in store?
I have been to mikahaila's stores a bunch of times (although not recently unfortunately). What he posts on a forum like Dakka is just his frank thoughts, it has nothing to do with how he sells the game. He certainly wasn't "crying" in front of his customers... instead, I'm sure he was his usual self - an extremely shrewd businessman who enthusiastically gets people into new game systems and is an incredible salesman.
That's part of what got my blood boiling here - acting as if he or other store owners struggling to sell the game are the problem (or the gamers themselves, etc). That said, I think I got a little too heated so apologize for that . Cheers for the lively discussion, Manchu / judgedoug / others! It is definitely valuable to see an opposing viewpoint, especially when you're willing to post it even though it isn't the popular one here.
Well my intent is not to run mikhaila down. But the assumption that if he can't sell it then it is a failure by implication runs other store owners and staff down, too. Plus it is just a bad argument. Mikhaila's customers are probably not a random sampling of the general population, after all. The guy had managed to cultivate a WHFB community when very few others were having any success there. But AoS made having that customer base a liability rather than an asset. Since we're talking about the guy's livelihood as well as decades of emotional investment in the IPs we can understand his reaction. But his reaction also lets us understand something about his viewpoint about AoS.
Spinner wrote: Seemed to me he reported a lack of interest in people buying it about the time other people reported it. There was general enthusiasm (mixed in with all the other emotions generated by Age of Sigmar) for the starter set - not that I can really understand why, to be fair - and then a whole lot of 'meh' and 'really? They're called boltstormers'?
If I walked into my FLGS and drno172000 was badmouthing a miniatures game and literally crying about how awful it was and it was going to ruin my business, I would certainly not have any enthusiasm to purchase the product (and would have burst out laughing). and then if the same person a few weeks later was like "no trust me it's actually not bad!" I would immediately recall the hysterics and decline (and then burst out laughing again)
I probably would too, but I don't remember mikhaila crying in front of customers about how AoS was going to ruin his business. I remember him being upset on here about the direction GW had chosen to go - and he's hardly alone in that. I remember him being frustrated with the way GW was treating him as a store owner. Hard to fault him for that. And I remember him trying to give it a fair chance when he thought it might sell and prove popular. It didn't. If he was an isolated case, you might be able to say 'well, he wasn't trying hard enough', but he's clearly not.
So either all these store owners are the Comic Book Guy or the game just isn't very popular. I haven't heard store owners getting flak for not being able to sell Dreadfleet...
Do you imagine not a single one of his customers frequents Dakka? Do you shop there, and have evidence this attitude did not carry into conversations with customers in store?
I don't, actually. Do you or judgedoug?
I don't but I can imagine there is a strong chance he has customers that do frequent Dakka. There is also a strong chance that he did carry that attitude over. Bashing a product you are about to sell in any way be it internet forum or in person is completely unprofessional. Just think if an franchise owner of a phone store ran around saying the new iPhone was a complete turd and it had him in tears. You will never hear me state whether or not I think AoS, WM/H, Infinity, Gates of Antares, Bolt Action, Battlegroup Kursk, Chain of Command is garbage on a internet forum or in my store. Some of those games I don't even carry.
Yeah, that's all - I would prefer not to "run him down"!
Also, by "move the needle" I simply meant, you've expressed that the evidence we have isn't sufficient in your mind to draw any conclusion from, so there really isn't any way to do that (didn't mean it in the way I think it came across to you).
I'm happy to agree to disagree on what can be drawn from the evidence available online - but just couldn't imagine that you disagree that that evidence is overwhelmingly negative. I see that you acknowledge that now, so yeah, no worries
RiTides wrote: I have been to mikahaila's stores a bunch of times (although not recently unfortunately). What he posts on a forum like Dakka is just his frank thoughts, it has nothing to do with how he sells the game. He certainly wasn't "crying" in front of his customers... instead, I'm sure he was his usual self - an extremely shrewd businessman who enthusiastically gets people into new game systems and is an incredible salesman.
That's part of what got my blood boiling here - acting as if he or other store owners struggling to sell the game are the problem (or the gamers themselves, etc). That said, I think I got a little too heated so apologize for that . Cheers for the lively discussion, Manchu / judgedoug / others! It is definitely valuable to see an opposing viewpoint, especially when you're willing to post it even though it isn't the popular one here.
Here's the thing if you fail to sale a product it is the absolute failure of the business. That's the way it works, you are responsible. SAGA failed when I brought it in, it's not the games fault. I failed to understand my customer base properly and I paid for it. That was a misstep on my ability as a sales manager. Further even giving your frank opinion on an internet forum about a product you intend to carry is unprofessional. It's not about whether this person is a nice guy or not. If AoS didn't do well for him, perhaps he didn't qualify his customer base properly. We have a very casual 40k community, are players are not tournament players. I knew this and I surmised by that metric that AoS would do well I was not wrong.
The real main point here and why I jumped in with what is essentially a troll post is this thread is pointless because no one has access to enough metrics to declare AoS a success or failure.
There are plenty of reasons a product line might not do well for a particular store. I tend to think it has less to do with the owner/staff only and more to do with the community that has evolved at that store. If there is already a strong focus on pick-up gaming at a store, it will be hard to sell AoS to that community because AoS is pretty weak on pick-up gaming. It's not to say that the owner or staff or customers did anything wrong. In fact, for 40k and WHFB that is exactly the kind of community a LGS wants to cultivate and has been for a long time. This is why AoS taking such a radical turn away from that is such a big deal.
Mymearan wrote: Actually 550 would be enough to draw some conclusions... If it was a random sample taken from the entire gaming population. As is its enough to draw conclusions about the games perceived popularity among dakka users who read the AoS forum.
It is not enough to draw a strong conclusion on the health of AoS. The thread is not titled is AoS a failure amongst Dakka users though. The title and many of the post imply that because AoS is unpopular on Dakka it is in the greater market as well. Dakka is not the market.
Mymearan wrote: Actually 550 would be enough to draw some conclusions... If it was a random sample taken from the entire gaming population. As is its enough to draw conclusions about the games perceived popularity among dakka users who read the AoS forum.
It is not enough to draw a strong conclusion on the health of AoS. The thread is not titled is AoS a failure amongst Dakka users though. The title and many of the post imply that AoS because AoS is unpopular on Dakka it is in the greater market as well. Dakka is not the market.
I would disagree Manchu, the owner and any staff responsible for bringing in product lines are at fault. That's not to say it's a bad mark on them as a person. They simply failed to qualify their consumer base, even I have made this mistake which is why I gave the SAGA example.
Well as a someone who gets paid to do that successfully, I understand why you take a hard line on the issue of responsibility. I just want to qualify that this was a tectonic change and store owners who had been doing what was right for selling WHFB were unknowingly creating a customer base potentially hostile to what GW had secretly planned for AoS.
I hear people complaining about how all store owners are selling thousands of models at half price, well after three months of looking I found nothing more then about five percent off.
So if GW has tenthousands stores stocked in canada and three are on here saying it is doing bad thats what nine thousands nine hundred ninetynine doing good? Btw of course online stores are failing Gw said no more selling out of country so there goes the aussies and canadians. I got a easyer time getting things from russia and ukrain then u.k. Us. And the shipping is cheaper.
It helps to keep in mind that there was no 'substantial evidence' that WHF was failing either, until it turned out it was. I think that's the point of this thread - to go through what we knew then and know now and see what can be inferred. I think i read in the last couple pages that end times was well received and universally acclaimed - except that revenue went down while it was being released. Anecdotal evidence is all we have for the most part, and it's certainly not 100% reliable, but that doesn't automatically mean that it's wrong either.
Torga_DW wrote: It helps to keep in mind that there was no 'substantial evidence' that WHF was failing either, until it turned out it was.
The bigger point there is, it's GW who decides what "failing" means rather than us. For people who liked Eighth and managed to get regular games in, I'm sure the game wasn't a failure. For stores like mikhaila's, where there was a viable community for it thanks to hard work, it wasn't a failure.
RiTides wrote: I have been to mikahaila's stores a bunch of times (although not recently unfortunately). What he posts on a forum like Dakka is just his frank thoughts, it has nothing to do with how he sells the game. He certainly wasn't "crying" in front of his customers... instead, I'm sure he was his usual self - an extremely shrewd businessman who enthusiastically gets people into new game systems and is an incredible salesman.
That's part of what got my blood boiling here - acting as if he or other store owners struggling to sell the game are the problem (or the gamers themselves, etc). That said, I think I got a little too heated so apologize for that . Cheers for the lively discussion, Manchu / judgedoug / others! It is definitely valuable to see an opposing viewpoint, especially when you're willing to post it even though it isn't the popular one here.
Here's the thing if you fail to sale a product it is the absolute failure of the business. That's the way it works, you are responsible. SAGA failed when I brought it in, it's not the games fault. I failed to understand my customer base properly and I paid for it. That was a misstep on my ability as a sales manager. Further even giving your frank opinion on an internet forum about a product you intend to carry is unprofessional. It's not about whether this person is a nice guy or not. If AoS didn't do well for him, perhaps he didn't qualify his customer base properly. We have a very casual 40k community, are players are not tournament players. I knew this and I surmised by that metric that AoS would do well I was not wrong.
The real main point here and why I jumped in with what is essentially a troll post is this thread is pointless because no one has access to enough metrics to declare AoS a success or failure.
You say you're a Sales Manager, correct? So, do you own the store or work for the owner? Sounds like you've got everything figured out, though. Maybe some day, you'll own a store of your own, and then you can set the world on fire selling AoS.
I'm not a friend of mikhaila's, and I've never been to his store. But I do think it's a bit shameful that some of you have been permitted to speak as though you know exactly how he runs his business, or in fact, find humor in his misfortune. A guy who loves the hobby, been in the business for around 35 years, and OWNS two successful store locations deserves some respect.
I'm pretty sure I know why mikhaila hasn't responded to any of this nonsense: he's busy being successful, not mocking others who lack his chops.
Torga_DW wrote: It helps to keep in mind that there was no 'substantial evidence' that WHF was failing either, until it turned out it was.
The bigger point there is, it's GW who decides what "failing" means rather than us. For people who liked Eighth and managed to get regular games in, I'm sure the game wasn't a failure. For stores like mikhaila's, where there was a viable community for it thanks to hard work, it wasn't a failure.
True, gw decides if the product line is failing or not. But they'll have their own definition of failure, and we can speculate as to what that may be and how close/far they are from it. Its not a question of "did some people like eighth?" its a question of "did enough people support eight?" and the answer seems to have been: no.
That would be a strawman; indeed, the post you quoted explicitly describes business rather than personal criticism.
@Torga_DW
Agree, it is just speculation. Maybe the GW metric for AoS success is, we need our second line to do better than WHFB 8E. But I doubt it is, we need AoS to outsell 40k or sell to existing 40k players. all speculation either way and not really helpful at all. Oh another similar point is, we don't even actually know if GW considers Eighth a failure -- maybe it did exactly what GW wanted it to, for example keep WHFB coasting along until they have the resources and plans to execute on End Times in preparation for AoS.
Dr. Delorean wrote:I don't get the 'they were too lazy to give points' argument, since surely if they were lazy they would've just done nothing.
They wanted to make money (which is fine), and they wanted to revitalise a brand that was withering on the vine. And, I suspect, they had to be quick about it. Hence 4 pages of rules.
Manchu wrote: Well it's pure ad hominem so entirely safe to ignore.
No it's not. Replace laziness then with 'path of least resistance'. I'd even wager that the people writing the rules weren't given much time to do them, given how GW operates (models are decided upon, given to the rules guys and the rules guys are told how high to jump).
But I'm not going to get into an argument with you Manchu. I no longer have the stamina for that sort of thing. All I want is proof that AoS is failing, 'cause right now I don't see any.
Writing rules is easy.
Balancing them is hard.
So, GW has decided not to bother, and just done the easy part.
TheAuldGrump wrote: GW has decided not to bother, and just done the easy part.
Pretty cunning stuff. I mean, let's say it costs more to do something that is hard than it does to do something that is easy. And let's say, just for the sake of argument, that GW invested in trying to balance WHFB 8E but not AoS. Let's further assume AoS is projected to do better sales in a similar time frame than WHFB 8E. Cutting costs, increasing revenues. Sounds good.
RiTides wrote: I have been to mikahaila's stores a bunch of times (although not recently unfortunately). What he posts on a forum like Dakka is just his frank thoughts, it has nothing to do with how he sells the game. He certainly wasn't "crying" in front of his customers... instead, I'm sure he was his usual self - an extremely shrewd businessman who enthusiastically gets people into new game systems and is an incredible salesman.
That's part of what got my blood boiling here - acting as if he or other store owners struggling to sell the game are the problem (or the gamers themselves, etc). That said, I think I got a little too heated so apologize for that . Cheers for the lively discussion, Manchu / judgedoug / others! It is definitely valuable to see an opposing viewpoint, especially when you're willing to post it even though it isn't the popular one here.
Here's the thing if you fail to sale a product it is the absolute failure of the business. That's the way it works, you are responsible. SAGA failed when I brought it in, it's not the games fault. I failed to understand my customer base properly and I paid for it. That was a misstep on my ability as a sales manager. Further even giving your frank opinion on an internet forum about a product you intend to carry is unprofessional. It's not about whether this person is a nice guy or not. If AoS didn't do well for him, perhaps he didn't qualify his customer base properly. We have a very casual 40k community, are players are not tournament players. I knew this and I surmised by that metric that AoS would do well I was not wrong.
The real main point here and why I jumped in with what is essentially a troll post is this thread is pointless because no one has access to enough metrics to declare AoS a success or failure.
You say you're a Sales Manager, correct? So, do you own the store or work for the owner? Sounds like you've got everything figured out, though. Maybe some day, you'll own a store of your own, and then you can set the world on fire selling AoS.
I'm not a friend of mikhaila's, and I've never been to his store. But I do think it's a bit shameful that some of you have been permitted to speak as though you know exactly how he runs his business, or in fact, find humor in his misfortune. A guy who loves the hobby, been in the business for around 35 years, and OWNS two successful store locations deserves some respect.
I'm pretty sure I know why mikhaila hasn't responded to any of this nonsense: he's busy being successful, not mocking others who lack his chops.
Of course I've got it figured out. I'm a former Marine rifleman. The Corps turns us into infallible killing machines. Whether it's killing bad guys or killing sales numbers.
Manchu wrote: You have to keep in mind that the AoS launch devastated his morale to the point that he logged on to Dakka and confessed to breaking down and crying. He also immediately started offering the starter box at a significant discount on the swap shop here, reflecting his lack of confidence in the product.
That gets my vote for the Best of Dakka 2015. It was very hilarious and very, very sad. I lost count of how many people I told about that.
DrNo172000 wrote:You want to know why it's failing at these stores. Because most hobby store owners with a few exceptions aren't businessmen. They don't have the professional selling skills to sell water to a man stranded in the Sahara. If all you do is come on the internet and bash a game, I bet that's all you do in your store too. That's a surefire recipe for success. I mean promotion and qualifying customers, whoever heard of that. In reality it's no coincidence that AoS did spectacular at my store, I've sold more copies of that then the store did of Dark Vengeance in it's entire existence. Simply because when I took over as sales manager (right around the time AoS came out) I instituted a no trash talk policy, used promotion, and identified the customers who AoS would be the best fit for. Now my competition down the street sold less than 20, but they constantly bad mouth the game.
No the reason any of the stores is even still in business is because they started in a vacuum and never had real competition. Well guess what, the legion of Grognard loyalists is shrinking and these musty old brick and mortars will eventually be run out by stores like Miniature Market.
Meanwhile I'll keep selling games that I don't like or don't play, because there is a customer out there that wants it.
Manchu wrote:@the_Armyman
That would be a strawman; indeed, the post you quoted explicitly describes business rather than personal criticism.
Failing to see the strawman based upon the two quoted Dakka members. I only quoted drno's most recent post, because I couldn't originally be arsed to track down his first comment.
Agree, it is just speculation. Maybe the GW metric for AoS success is, we need our second line to do better than WHFB 8E. But I doubt it is, we need AoS to outsell 40k or sell to existing 40k players. all speculation either way and not really helpful at all. Oh another similar point is, we don't even actually know if GW considers Eighth a failure -- maybe it did exactly what GW wanted it to, for example keep WHFB coasting along until they have the resources and plans to execute on End Times in preparation for AoS.
Which brings us to the question: is AoS doing better than 8th? Which is related to the topic, is AoS failing? The rumours that kicked off the end of fantasy suggested that it was selling extremely poorly compared to 40k, which was the catalyst for removing it. I don't think anyone here is suggesting it should sell as well as 40k does (relatively speaking), but gw seems to be funny about things like that. I think it's more likely that if it was performing as they wanted it to, they would have continued their 'periodic reboot' system for it and wouldn't have replaced it. Looking at the divided playerbase that was created, and the general impression online, i think it's a fair call to say it may be failing.
Torga_DW wrote: Looking at the divided playerbase that was created, and the general impression online, i think it's a fair call to say it may be failing.
Think of it this way, if we assume that the WHFB 8E player base was so small that GW considered the underlying product line a failure then why should GW (or anyone else for that matter) care whether that player base thinks AoS is a failure? It is just as fair to speculate that the business insight was, look making product for these guys is not making us money and there is no reason to believe that it ever will so let's find a new kind of customer, probably someone who cares less about intricate rules (which are expensive to make and which we may just not be good at making) and cares more about our toys (which we are very good at making). So if we're going to ask the group of people that GW basically turned its back on, hey do you guys like this product that totally broke with what you like, we can't be surprised to hear them say, no that product sucks. That's one insight, that we already know the answer to that question when we put it to those folks. The other insight is, those folks not liking AoS may have actually nothing at all to do with how it sells since they are not the target customers.
the_Armyman wrote: only quoted drno's most recent post, because I couldn't originally be arsed to track down his first comment.
Thanks for clarifying although I think DrNo172000 is trying to get at a business criticism in both of the posts you mention.
I think you're splitting some awfully thin hairs, Manchu. Judgedoug has a little chuckle at mikhaila, then his buddy comes into the discussion shortly after telling us about why businessmen in this line of work fail. I've said my peace, I just don't like to see people run down.
the_Armyman wrote: I think you're splitting some awfully thin hairs, Manchu. Judgedoug has a little chuckle at mikhaila, then his buddy comes into the discussion shortly after telling us about why businessmen in this line of work fail. I've said my peace, I just don't like to see people run down.
Full disclosure, both of those guys are my IRL buddies so I read their posts a bit differently, knowing their personalities. But as for running people down, again, for me I just want people to keep in mind that we can't keep pulling the old appeal to authority trick on mikhalia's posts. His experience is from a particular set of circumstances and POV that, to my mind, does not seem like a recipe for success with AoS. As DrNo172000 said, his store (our LGS) had a very casual 40k scene and very little WHFB scene at all. So the prejudice against AoS out of the box that other store owners and staff experienced were not as big of a factor at our LGS.
Torga_DW wrote: Looking at the divided playerbase that was created, and the general impression online, i think it's a fair call to say it may be failing.
Think of it this way, if we assume that the WHFB 8E player base was so small that GW considered the underlying product line a failure then why should GW (or anyone else for that matter) care whether that player base thinks AoS is a failure? It is just as fair to speculate that the business insight was, look making product for these guys is not making us money and there is no reason to believe that it ever will so let's find a new kind of customer, probably someone who cares less about intricate rules (which are expensive to make and which we may just not be good at making) and cares more about our toys (which we are very good at making). So if we're going to ask the group of people that GW basically turned its back on, hey do you guys like this product that totally broke with what you like, we can't be surprised to hear them say, no that product sucks. That's one insight, that we already know the answer to that question when we put it to those folks. The other insight is, those folks not liking AoS may have actually nothing at all to do with how it sells since they are not the target customers.
I agree with what you're saying in theory, but if the old product was removed because it wasn't making enough money, then presumably the new product can also potentially be removed for not making enough money. It very well may be an attempt to focus on the models and not the rules (from what i've read in their annual reports i think that's highly likely), but the question then becomes: will their new demographic perform better or worse than the old one? And the problem here is that it's hard to tell if they even have a target demographic for anything beyond "people who like giving us lots of money". This is where market research is important.
Whether GW's business plan is solid gets us into such rarefied heights of speculation, and is certainly beyond my own skill set and knowledge, that just about any conclusions are possible and they will have more to do with whether a particular poster dis/likes AoS or GW more than anything else. But sure, I am not arguing that AoS could not theoretically (or actually) be a failure. My issues are, we don't know what failure means, we don't know any numbers, we don't have a representative sample, we just really lack any and all of the elements we'd need to come to any kind of meaningful conclusion other than confirmation bias.
the_Armyman wrote: only quoted drno's most recent post, because I couldn't originally be arsed to track down his first comment.
Thanks for clarifying although I think DrNo172000 is trying to get at a business criticism in both of the posts you mention.
I think you're splitting some awfully thin hairs, Manchu. Judgedoug has a little chuckle at mikhaila, then his buddy comes into the discussion shortly after telling us about why businessmen in this line of work fail. I've said my peace, I just don't like to see people run down.
I will admit that my first post is aggressive, I apologize for that. But here's the thing a business is a business, a hobby store shouldn't be run any different. If you know that your customer base loved WHFB and enjoyed the tournament scene, would you have ordered 80 copies? Why not buy into KoW instead which is better suited to the tourney scene anyway.
That's a simple failure to understand the customer base. Heck I even admitted I made the same misstep with SAGA at my store. The difference is I did not do a huge buy in.
Further we don't know why his stores are successful, there are two business in my state that have no idea what they are doing, yet they make a lot of money. One of them even has two stores. This is because they have been open for 30 years. 30 years ago there was no competition in the hobby market. If you want to see the model brick and mortars need to follow if they wish to maintain then look no further than miniature market who is probably making more than all of us store guys talking on here combined.
It is never ever the products fault, especially if you have the power to control what you carry.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Then you mention not wanting to see people run down. Are you going defend the people getting run down because they enjoy AoS? Are you going to defend GW getting run down by numerous people? You going to defend the competitive players who constantly get told they are poor sports cause they want to win? What about the casual ones who get made fun of by the competitive players who are actual poor sports? You might have your work cut out for you on the Internet.
TheAuldGrump wrote: GW has decided not to bother, and just done the easy part.
Pretty cunning stuff. I mean, let's say it costs more to do something that is hard than it does to do something that is easy. And let's say, just for the sake of argument, that GW invested in trying to balance WHFB 8E but not AoS. Let's further assume AoS is projected to do better sales in a similar time frame than WHFB 8E. Cutting costs, increasing revenues. Sounds good.
Except, of course, if it sells worse than Warhammer.
Whoops.
So, cutting costs, and cutting revenues even further... it ended up beng cunning in a Baldrick fashion, perhaps? (Seemed like a good idea at the time... but in reality, not so much.)
The biggest cost in balancing the rules is time... and a willingness to actually listen to your playtesters.
Is there a rule that you can't be positive about something GW does without being a complete dick about it?
Also, none of you guys seem to know anything about how a large business works. A lot of the posts in this thread are pretty hilarious, although unintentionally.
If AoS is an absolute disaster (more like Titanic, rather than stubbing your toe), you'll know in January. If it's anything else, it will take more time. Unless, of course, Rountree gets more chatty than he strictly needs to be. Which is pretty unlikely.
DrNo172000 wrote: It is never ever the products fault, especially if you have the power to control what you carry.
Disagreed.
A store owner may commit the mistake of trying to sell a terrible product, but that still doesn't make the product any less terrible.
AoS is a mediocre product, IMO doomed to fail in the long run unless crucial changes are made to it. A store owner/manager may do it better or worse at trying to sell it to his/her customers, but in the end, as long as said customers have easy access to better alternatives, AoS will fail.
Because it's not only mediocre, it's also expensive as hell. If the three traditional key aspects of a successful product are "good, pretty and cheap", then AoS may only qualify as pretty, and that depending on who you ask (for starters, I'm not really sold on its aesthetic).
Thud wrote: Is there a rule that you can't be positive about something GW does without being a complete dick about it?
Also, none of you guys seem to know anything about how a large business works. A lot of the posts in this thread are pretty hilarious, although unintentionally.
If AoS is an absolute disaster (more like Titanic, rather than stubbing your toe), you'll know in January. If it's anything else, it will take more time. Unless, of course, Rountree gets more chatty than he strictly needs to be. Which is pretty unlikely.
Exactly, game hasn't even been out a year and the doom and gloom prophecies already abound. There's simply no way of knowing how it's doing. I'll be interested to read the next ICV2 quarterly to see if it hit top ten like Armada did its first quarter release.
DrNo172000 wrote: It is never ever the products fault, especially if you have the power to control what you carry.
Disagreed.
A store owner may commit the mistake of trying to sell a terrible product, but that still doesn't make the product any less terrible.
AoS is a mediocre product, IMO doomed to fail in the long run unless crucial changes are made to it. A store owner/manager may do it better or worse at trying to sell it to his/her customers, but in the end, as long as said customers have easy access to better alternatives, AoS will fail.
Because it's not only mediocre, it's also expensive as hell. If the three traditional key aspects of a successful product are "good, pretty and cheap", then AoS may only qualify as pretty, and that depending on who you ask (for starters, I'm not really sold on its aesthetic).
If you choose to carry a bad product whose fault is that?
Keep in mind, I am just assuming your point about balancing for the sake of argument. I don't actually believe it. My theory is, AoS is meant to appeal to a different kind of customer than previously, a customer who was not buying enough to play a rule set that was likely a barrier to others joining up. But sure, AoS could sell worse than Eighth. GW could go bankrupt. Disney could buy the IPs and make Space Marine movies.
Thud wrote: Is there a rule that you can't be positive about something GW does without being a complete dick about it?
Also, none of you guys seem to know anything about how a large business works. A lot of the posts in this thread are pretty hilarious, although unintentionally.
If AoS is an absolute disaster (more like Titanic, rather than stubbing your toe), you'll know in January. If it's anything else, it will take more time. Unless, of course, Rountree gets more chatty than he strictly needs to be. Which is pretty unlikely.
Exactly, game hasn't even been out a year and the doom and gloom prophecies already abound. There's simply no way of knowing how it's doing. I'll be interested to read the next ICV2 quarterly to see if it hit top ten like Armada did its first quarter release.
No indisputable way, but anecdotal evidence is still evidence. January will be the telling moment, although that will be obscured by panic buying and BaC.
DrNo172000 wrote: It is never ever the products fault, especially if you have the power to control what you carry.
Disagreed.
A store owner may commit the mistake of trying to sell a terrible product, but that still doesn't make the product any less terrible.
AoS is a mediocre product, IMO doomed to fail in the long run unless crucial changes are made to it. A store owner/manager may do it better or worse at trying to sell it to his/her customers, but in the end, as long as said customers have easy access to better alternatives, AoS will fail.
Because it's not only mediocre, it's also expensive as hell. If the three traditional key aspects of a successful product are "good, pretty and cheap", then AoS may only qualify as pretty, and that depending on who you ask (for starters, I'm not really sold on its aesthetic).
If you choose to carry a bad product whose fault is that?
Yeah, that's the problem with niche markets in general, and then gw has its own can of worms. Some people make a living off of selling gw products, it's a risky business to be in.
Thud wrote: Is there a rule that you can't be positive about something GW does without being a complete dick about it?
Also, none of you guys seem to know anything about how a large business works. A lot of the posts in this thread are pretty hilarious, although unintentionally.
If AoS is an absolute disaster (more like Titanic, rather than stubbing your toe), you'll know in January. If it's anything else, it will take more time. Unless, of course, Rountree gets more chatty than he strictly needs to be. Which is pretty unlikely.
Exactly, game hasn't even been out a year and the doom and gloom prophecies already abound. There's simply no way of knowing how it's doing. I'll be interested to read the next ICV2 quarterly to see if it hit top ten like Armada did its first quarter release.
That is where the anecdotal evidence comes in - from shop owners, describing sales of the game.
Which have not been at all a rosy description.
The thing about seeing something and thinking 'Hunh, that looks bad' - it often means that it is bad.
And when other people look at it and go 'Hunh, that looks bad' - it often means that you were right.
So, let me put it this way:
Hunh, that looks bad....
Without having access to GW's numbers, I can only go by what I see on a local scale.
On the local scale, the reaction to Age of Sigmar has not been bad - it has been terrible.
Worse, the local Non-Affiliated All GW, All the Time store made the mistake of going deep on the game - though GWis going to give them full credit on the returned games, it does still mean that the boxes have been taking up space that could have been used to make a profit.
The point of having product on the shelves is not to break even, it is to make money.
This causes problems going into the Christmas shopping season - they could generally count on at least a few Warhammer starter boxes selling, while AoS... sells fewer boxes.
On the other hand, they are very happy with the sales and pre-sales of BaC - which more than made up for the losses on AoS.
So, while AoS likely is failing, I do not think that it will noticeably damage GW.
The Auld Grump
*EDIT* Also, where in the world did anyone get the idea that a thread titled 'Age of Sigmar Failing? If So, Why' might be even remotely positive... I have no idea....
Azreal13 wrote: The company that forces you to carry the stock so you can stock stuff that does sell, irrespective of your own desire to carry the line?
DrNo172000 wrote: It is never ever the products fault, especially if you have the power to control what you carry.
Not sure how much of a weekly order must be AoS at this point. Is it just new releases? I know GW sales reps can be flexible on this, as well.
Well, Indys don't have full control over what GW stock they carry, and I'd need some details of the extent of the flexibility to make any call on that (is it yes/no or its it take 5/ok you can take 3 instead?)
So any commentary about how it is the retailer's problem for stocking AOS and not selling it is, at best, tenuous without further information.
I'm also sure that the rules vary depending on the size of your average weekly order.
Even if it's only just new releases, that doesn't make the old stock magically evaporate.
If you choose to carry a bad product whose fault is that?
The company that forces you to carry the stock so you can stock stuff that does sell, irrespective of your own desire to carry the line?
GW does not require you to carry the "best sellers" to carry their stock. What carrying the best sellers does is give you free shipping on any sized order and credit for prize support and the like. In fact you don't even have to get your GW product from them, they just give you the best price.
Further it's not even required to carry GW to be remotely successful. I.E. Cool Stuff and Miniature Market.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Azreal13 wrote: Well, Indys don't have full control over what GW stock they carry, and I'd need some details of the extent of the flexibility to make any call on that (is it yes/no or its it take 5/ok you can take 3 instead?)
So any commentary about how it is the retailer's problem for stocking AOS and not selling it is, at best, tenuous without further information.
I'm also sure that the rules vary depending on the size of your average weekly order.
Even if it's only just new releases, that doesn't make the old stock magically evaporate.
We absolutely do have full control. New releases aren't required to get the "best sellers" deal.
If you choose to carry a bad product whose fault is that?
In this case GW's because they told nobody about their product and stores had to buy it and hope for the best (they knew: it's a new game, and that's it). Somehow nobody can imagine that GW did something wrong when a store owner who manages to survive with two stores (over many years and a changing product landscape) suddenly sees that one company's sales go down by 65% (or something like that) over a few months. It has to be his mismanagement but can't be the product's fault when everything else besides that company's products seem to still sell the same.
What should he have done? Said "no, thank you" and just accepted even more lost sales by default?
And the whole "It is never ever the products fault" bit is just completely naive. As if a store owner has magical powers to sell everything to everyone and consumers are completely brainless drones who will buy anything if only you have somebody to talk them into it. It sounds like you were brainwashed by some ad agency. GW didn't advertise their product (so new players finding their game won't happen that easily), ambushed veterans with a completely new system without any preview or introduction (surely they will just buy it out of habit), told nobody about their product and gave stores nothing to work with and introduce the game (sure they will manage to sell a completely new product within a week of having actual seen it).
These arguments sound like standard marketing 101 drivel. They might make sense if you consider some theoretical economy but in reality there are other factors that contribute to a products sales besides being a great salesman who can "sell anything".
If you choose to carry a bad product whose fault is that?
In this case GW's because they told nobody about their product and stores had to buy it and hope for the best (they knew: it's a new game, and that's it). Somehow nobody can imagine that GW did something wrong when a store owner who manages to survive with two stores (over many years and a changing product landscape) suddenly sees that one company's sales go down by 65% (or something like that) over a few months. It has to be his mismanagement but can't be the product's fault when everything else besides that company's products seem to still sell the same.
What should he have done? Said "no, thank you" and just accepted even more lost sales by default?
And the whole "It is never ever the products fault" bit is just completely naive. As if a store owner has magical powers to sell everything to everyone and consumers are completely brainless drones who will buy anything if only you have somebody to talk them into it. It sounds like you were brainwashed by some ad agency. GW didn't advertise their product (so new players finding their game won't happen that easily), ambushed veterans with a completely new system without any preview or introduction (surely they will just buy it out of habit), told nobody about their product and gave stores nothing to work with and introduce the game (sure they will manage to sell a completely new product within a week of having actual seen it).
These arguments sound like standard marketing 101 drivel. They might make sense if you consider some theoretical economy but in reality there are other factors that contribute to a products sales besides being a great salesman who can "sell anything".
We can agree on one thing GW is terrible at advanced marketing. I tend to hold FFG up as the example of how it's done. However GW reps did in fact give advanced knowledge to retailers, albeit not very much. They also didn't make you buy 80. So it's not a choice of yes or no thank you. It's a choice of how well you think it'll do and placing the appropriate order. As I stated before GW isn't even a necessity. One of our local competitors sells more Malifuax than GW and has MTG pre releases that encroach upon 100+ people. They are very much a competive oriented community and wisely knew not to place a huge order. They instead ordered 20.
Further you're right store owners don't have magic powers (really it's not even the owners responsibility it's his sales manager and GM) and customers aren't drones. Which is why understanding your market is even more critical. I'll go back to the SAGA example our store has a booming Bolt Action community. I noticed that we were the only store that had historicals, so with a gap in the market I tried another historical l. SAGA, it was an utter misstep, I failed to read the community right. I also did not anticipate how difficult it was to get the miniatures. Another factor was price, gripping beast is all metal and so it's expensive and even though our prices are lower than even online retailers it was still a limiting factor. However the caveat was the but in was very small. So even if the decision is made to liquidate it we should still make money. And yes because of my Marine background I believe any failure is a failure of leadership, so SAGA we my fault.
In all honesty sales in a hobby store is very easy, you qualify a customer than make a recommendation. I was a recruiter in the Corps for my b-billet, you want to talk about a hard sell no one wants that product.
@jono: except some people actually do like to play Dreadfleet, and others just want the amazing models in the kit...
it is not all as cut and dried as people try and make it out to be...
some stores are still selling it...
the "stop liking what i don't like" vibe is getting pretty strong these days from the people who are discontent with GW's current direction...
one man's crap is another man's treasure, after all...
there is no one objective right way to enjoy one's hobbies...
vote with your dollar, by not spending it in this case, and support a company that you like...
Copies of Dreadfleet were apparently destroyed because they didn't sell. Users frequently report independents with multiple copies still in stock of this "limited" box.
This is not a ringing endorsement.
This isn't stop liking what I don't like, it's stop trying to persuade people the sky is yellow because you liked the little plastic ships.
Manchu wrote: Gamers feel better about the fairness of a game if they can add up to a rather arbitrary number that happens to be the same as the number someone else summed. The really important role of points, however, is nothing to do with balance; it actually facilitates the list-building "mini game" that so many people enjoy.
I don't especially enjoy list building, but I do like a "fair" competition/game. As arbitrary and imprecise as points can be, I do expect that the game designers (not just some random "other person") would be able to work out relatively fair values, given that they created the mechanics, profiles, etc. When it comes down to it, I know that 40 wounds worth of Goblins aren't going to be the equal of 40 wounds of High Elves, yet I want to be able to play as the former or the latter and be challenged with a chance of victory and of defeat regardless of which side I am fielding. "Just put stuff down and hope for the best" doesn't do that at all.
I completely understand and I have said numerous times ITT that it is a completely legitimate complaint about AoS that it doesn't adequately support pick up gaming. But I honestly think that wasn't an oversight.
Such an interesting thread to read. So many wrong bits of information and assumptions about myself and my business, from people who don't seem to know me or have been to my stores
"AOS gave them a small bump in fantasy sales, but they lost hugely with no 40k sales in those months. My sales are down 65% for the last 4 months on GW. "
"GW found a way to cost me thousands of dollars in sales each month"
Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain
"AOS i had nearly all of mine sold through the store, dakka, and ebay before the shipment came in. I could smell the death on that box from a long way out."
And this were you bad mouth a product line.
What conclusion should be drawn? Also I'm curious how AoS tanked your 40k sales? Why would I want to shop with someone that gaks on products and has a negative attitude? Can you tell me?
I don't know man in the Corps I was taught that any failure is a failure of leadership, and that you should never ever bitch down. Maybe it's just the Marine in me but those are my standards of professionalism. The civilian world might have a different one. And if I've drawn a hasty judgement because you posted some stuff in a fit of frustration and didn't really mean those things I apologize.
At any rate your store, my store, and any other store that posted on here and Dakka itself are not indicative of the market. No metric produced here or store complaint or compliment is reflective of a single thing about AoS's success or failure.
Is it smart business for the employee of one store to come on Dakka to bash the owner of another highly successful store based on little information? Honestly I wonder if the owner of your store would be okay with this?
Three of you are posting from the same local group and for some reason seem to have a chip on your shoulders about Dakka in general (lots of statements like "even precious Dakka" from you, which is out of left field), and by extension mikhaila since a lot of posters here reference him. But I really think you should take a step back, you sound pretty aggressive against someone you've never even spoken to, and are making a ton of assumptions based on very little information - the exact thing you're asking folks who think AoS is struggling not to do.
RiTides wrote: since a lot of posters here reference him
Yeah that is the crux, I think. This tangent started because a poster decided to make an appeal to authority and mikhaila, for better or worse, was the authority in question. It was a bad argument but I understand why the guy made it because mikhaila is an opinion leader around here, including about AoS.
Dakka is not monolithic. Mikhaila, Reecius, and Sergeant Horse were all referenced as store owners, all shared their own experiences.
Dakka is a completely open framework, and things posted here are absolutely reflective of things going on in the market (to the comment that anything posted here is "not reflective of s single thing about AoS's success or failure"). Not totally so, but they are certainly reflective - even your own positive experience is.
Dakka is a sum of its parts, and it's great to have folks with differing views here - again, we're not monolithic, everyone has their own experience and perspective, and sharing it helps frame the rest of ours. It's what makes Dakka and other forums great! So hopefully you continue to participate here... just note a lot of store owners post here and of course everyone's experience will be different depending on their area / playerbase / etc.
DrNo172000 wrote: Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain
Ok I asked this half rhetorically to the thread before but I am going to specifically ask you it now.
Do you blame store owners and GW's salesmen for the failure of Dreadfleet, or was it a bad game that did not sell because it did not appeal to people?
RiTides wrote: Dakka is not monolithic. Mikhaila, Reecius, and Sergeant Horse were all referenced as store owners, all shared their own experiences.
Also DrNo, the idea that nothing posted here "is reflective of a single thing about AoS's success or failure" makes me wonder why bother reading / engaging on a forum (particularly Dakka given some of your comments). Dakka is a completely open framework, and things posted here are absolutely reflective of things going on in the market. Not totally so, but they are. If you think you can't learn a single thing here then there's no point in reading or engaging on Dakka.
I think things can be learned from Dakka, just not the health of a game or certainly not a company. It's a great resource for gamers to share lists, ideas, ask hobby tips and the like, man I've posted on like three different ones today. There seem to be whole threads dedicated to gaking on games simply because people don't like it. The attitude that I don't like it therefore it is gak is so prevalent it's saddening. You know there are a lot of games I will never play because I don't have fun with them, other people do and that's ok! I mean look at the title of this thread or the "Is AoS going to be retconned" thread I mean seriously. These sort of negatives and elitist attitudes are going to drive gamers away from what we do. And the very worst the very worst is to see someone in the business do it. Anyone I sent you a big PM because I don't want to derail this anymore.
A game shop is sort of like a message board in that both attract a certain set of posters/customers. That's really important to take into account when you want to judge a topic or product by how the set views it. For example, you might think hardly anyone likes Napoleonic miniatures wargaming if you were to judge based on the indifference about that hobby on this website or what kind of sales a handful of LGS's that overwhelmingly sell 40k (both in terms of how long they have sold it and how much of it they sell relative to other miniatures games). But of course that conclusion would be totally wrong. You'd be looking in the wrong place for the answer.
DrNo172000 wrote: Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain
Ok I asked this half rhetorically to the thread before but I am going to specifically ask you it now.
Do you blame store owners and GW's salesmen for the failure of Dreadfleet, or was it a bad game that did not sell because it did not appeal to people?
Sales is not just about selling on the spot, it's also about understanding the market and ordering appropriately, if you have an unknown like Dreadfleet or more recently the Assasinorum game you bring in very small quantities, if you do a huge buy in and it flops and now you are out thousands that is 100% managements fault.
Yeah and I edited my post above (and will check the PM!). Honestly it's great to have folks like you posting here that love AoS! It's just that I don't think folks who don't (or think it should be retconned) should be labeled grognards (earlier post) / elitist / etc!
It's great to have folks that play different games / styles / etc, again it's what makes Dakka great. I just hope you see Dakka isn't a monolith, part of the reason AoS is viewed negatively here is because it is in many places, and people post here from many places!
There are positive posters for it too, and both can participate without either being elitist or anything like that. It's just a shame GW didn't introduce the game differently to avoid some of the strife created by replacing one game with a very different one, and thus putting some gamers at loggerheads.
But cheers for your post here (and apologies if anything in mine was too strong) I appreciate the debate and having multiple views definitely makes the forum a better place!
RiTides wrote: Yeah and I edited my post above (and will check the PM!). Honestly it's great to have folks like you posting here that love AoS! It's just that I don't think folks who don't (or think it should be retconned) should be labeled grognards (earlier post) / elitist / etc!
It's great to have folks that play different games / styles / etc, again it's what makes Dakka great. I just hope you see Dakka isn't a monolith, part of the reason AoS is viewed negatively here is because it is in many places, and people post here from many places!
There are positive posters for it too, and both can participate without either being elitist or anything like that. It's just a shame GW didn't introduce the game differently to avoid some of the strife created by replacing one game with a very different one, and thus putting some gamers at loggerheads.
But cheers for your post here (and apologies if anything in mine was too strong) I appreciate the debate and having multiple views Donnelly makes the forum a better place!
No worries man I understand I have a very strong and aggressive personality, it's actually one of the things that helps me sell. Also gamers are extremely passionate folk and temperatures will rise from time to time.
Yeah, gamers are passionate and that's what I love . Cheers for the spirited discussion (and the great PM), the discussion is what makes this place and others like it great! Hope you stick around Dakka - we're not all haters, honest
RiTides wrote: since a lot of posters here reference him
Yeah that is the crux, I think. This tangent started because a poster decided to make an appeal to authority and mikhaila, for better or worse, was the authority in question. It was a bad argument but I understand why the guy made it because mikhaila is an opinion leader around here, including about AoS.
If you are referring to my earlier post where I quoted mik, I wasn't doing it as an appeal to authority, rather I was pointing out that we have examples of store owners who are struggling to move AoS while I haven't seen any store owners talking about how AoS is doing really well for them (maybe I just missed them).
This is why the anecdotal evidence is pointing to AoS failing.
Sure, maybe the Dakka poll isn't all encompassing of the community, but there aren't really any polls that show counter evidence. I can find a couple that paint a similar picture as the Dakka one, only 1 poll I'd consider positive from the boardgamegeek forum which only has 90 respondents. The Dakka poll has the most respondents of any I've seen and frankly I think it's overly dismissive to think those 550 people don't represent at least some slice of the actual community. Even if you consider Dakka an echo chamber of negativity, the number of people voting on the poll is quite a bit larger than the actual posters.
Sure, maybe mik (and the 3 or 4 other store owners that have posted) aren't all encompassing of global sales. But in the absence of store owners providing counter evidence there's not much else to say.
And sure you read all the comments online and you know that it's only a tiny fraction of an even tinier fraction of people making those comments. But then you walk in to your local store and see no one playing AoS, less than was even playing WHFB before, a picture starts to form.
It may be the wrong picture, I don't think anyone is denying that it could be wrong. But sometimes you want to draw a conclusion from limited information and in this case I think the best conclusion is "AoS appears to be struggling".
We'll never know for sure, the next financials might give a bit of an idea but GW released Calth in the same reporting period so we aren't going to know for sure. Even if GW drop AoS in the future we won't know for sure what the cause was, maybe GW never intended AoS to be more than a short run.
Just because we'll never know for 100% sure doesn't mean we can't talk about it or that we can't get some strong hints about what is going on. Even out in the real world you have to often make judgements, make decisions, give advice, etc when you have incomplete information. More often than not you just make educated guesses.
Azreal13 wrote: Copies of Dreadfleet were apparently destroyed because they didn't sell. Users frequently report independents with multiple copies still in stock of this "limited" box.
This is not a ringing endorsement.
This isn't stop liking what I don't like, it's stop trying to persuade people the sky is yellow because you liked the little plastic ships.
what are you even on about???
it is totally neutral to just point out that some people did give positive reviews of the game, and even more had good things to say about the models...
if jono is going to say that a game is crap, as if that is an indisputable fact, i am going to point out that some people disagree...
that has nothing to do with me trying to convince anyone of anything...
i do like the little plastic ships, though...
the box contents were all beautifully done, and the novel is a fun read...
i've enjoyed a lot of the AoS models, too...
as long as the studio continues to do good work, i'll continue to say good things about it, regardless of the bumbling moves of the execs...
Thanks for clarifying your intention. What you wrote, however:
AllSeeingSkink wrote: When the likes of mikhaila says this, it's not really encouraging.
is a textbook appeal to authority.
If you check the last couple of pages, you will find posts from the manager of my LGS where AoS has regular sales. You may have similarly missed those kind of examples in other threads or on other sites.
"AoS is struggling" is one conclusion and although it is impossible for anyone here to prove I have never said it is not true. My contribution has been (a) the evidence we do have is inherently biased, (b) we do not have the information we actually need to answer the question, and (c) the evidence we do have could support alternative conclusions.
DrNo172000 wrote: Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain
Ok I asked this half rhetorically to the thread before but I am going to specifically ask you it now.
Do you blame store owners and GW's salesmen for the failure of Dreadfleet, or was it a bad game that did not sell because it did not appeal to people?
Sales is not just about selling on the spot, it's also about understanding the market and ordering appropriately, if you have an unknown like Dreadfleet or more recently the Assasinorum game you bring in very small quantities, if you do a huge buy in and it flops and now you are out thousands that is 100% managements fault.
So just to be clear you are saying it is the fault of the stores who still to this day have copies of Dreadfleet gathering dust in the back today that they failed to sell the product, not because it wasn't bad but because they ordered too many of an unknown?
DrNo172000 wrote: Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain
Ok I asked this half rhetorically to the thread before but I am going to specifically ask you it now.
Do you blame store owners and GW's salesmen for the failure of Dreadfleet, or was it a bad game that did not sell because it did not appeal to people?
Sales is not just about selling on the spot, it's also about understanding the market and ordering appropriately, if you have an unknown like Dreadfleet or more recently the Assasinorum game you bring in very small quantities, if you do a huge buy in and it flops and now you are out thousands that is 100% managements fault.
So just to be clear you are saying it is the fault of the stores who still to this day have copies of Dreadfleet gathering dust in the back today that they failed to sell the product, not because it wasn't bad but because they ordered too many of an unknown?
My FLGS has four copies of Dreadfleet for some reason. They don't sell because no one wants it. Why they don't want it? That's up to the individual. But I think it's safe to say that most people (not all) think or have heard its a crap game.
I like the movie Pathfinder. It's a crap movie, but I like it. Liking something and thinking its actually good are two separate things. Dreadfleet is a crap game. You may like it, but it's still a crap game. And liking the pretty models says nothing about the game itself. The models may be amazing, but people that want a good game aren't going to buy it.
Age Of Sigmar is failing. I have justified reasons to believe this.
First there's my personal experience. None of the Warhammer Fantasy players or miniature gaming groups in my local area (NONE!) like Age of Sigmar. Now this is in the United States, in a part of the country where GW stores are few and far between and all the gaming is done in peoples houses and FLGS. There are lots of gamers though. I have asked many miniature wargamers (both people I've gamed with and people I don't know) and the owners of the different FLGS in my area. All reactions are universally negative, without any kind of prompting other than "So what about that new Warhammer game?". Profoundly negative. Everybody hates it.
Second, there's common sense. Games Workshop obviously pissed off a huge group of Warhammer Fantasy players. Logically for them to break even they'd have to attract a new customer base equal to the number of customers that have left. To make more money they'd need to attract an even wider audience. Take a look at those prices, the game, the kind of media coverage and general popularity Age of Sigmar has. It's not going great. It makes a certain amount of sense that if you screw over your past customers and replace their favorite franchise with a half baked, poorly developed, piece of gak product you'd fail.
And there's more concrete evidence. I don't have sales figures or anything. But every time I hear another case of the starter set getting heavily discounted because it won't sell or the owner of a gaming store giving an anecdote about how badly it's going it ads another page to the incredible AOS book of fail. And what about the internet? Do you really think the amount of angry craziness and overwhelming negativity that surrounded AOS was just a few trolls? That was the voice of the majority of gamers. And now that it's quieted, don't think that's because people like it or are buying it. They've just moved on. Age of Sigmar sucks.
"AOS gave them a small bump in fantasy sales, but they lost hugely with no 40k sales in those months. My sales are down 65% for the last 4 months on GW. "
"GW found a way to cost me thousands of dollars in sales each month"
Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain
This is a supply issue, resulting from Games Workshop taking a few months off from supplying Mikhaila with new 40k releases. Mikhaila can't make Games Workshop produce new 40k releases to sell to him, so your attempts to blame him for GW's actions are absurd. Even if Mikhaila replaced those lost 40k sales with a substitute, that substitute is inevitably going to be inferior to the status quo, because if it wasn't then 40k would be the substitute and the other product would be the one he sells all the time.
RiTides wrote: Yeah and I edited my post above (and will check the PM!). Honestly it's great to have folks like you posting here that love AoS! It's just that I don't think folks who don't (or think it should be retconned) should be labeled grognards (earlier post) / elitist / etc!
It's great to have folks that play different games / styles / etc, again it's what makes Dakka great. I just hope you see Dakka isn't a monolith, part of the reason AoS is viewed negatively here is because it is in many places, and people post here from many places!
There are positive posters for it too, and both can participate without either being elitist or anything like that. It's just a shame GW didn't introduce the game differently to avoid some of the strife created by replacing one game with a very different one, and thus putting some gamers at loggerheads.
But cheers for your post here (and apologies if anything in mine was too strong) I appreciate the debate and having multiple views Donnelly makes the forum a better place!
No worries man I understand I have a very strong and aggressive personality, it's actually one of the things that helps me sell. Also gamers are extremely passionate folk and temperatures will rise from time to time.
You're definitely right in one sense. I've seen someone have a lump come into their throat, and jaw stick out, when talking about 8th edition being replaced by AoS. A grown man.
But, that is what can happen when you've seen something you've given hundreds of hours of your life to get replaced, and a buzzing, ongoing tournament scene get the legs taken out from under it. I don't think its the fact that GW released a new game, but more that they removed 8th WHFB from sale; it almost inexplicable to me, and I think a lot of people view it as GW just cash hunting at the expense of their long-term/veteran player base. Many of course had a real 'love', and we all know how easily that can then go onto the flip side.
That is the only time I have seen someone get really passionate and upset about wargaming. I think for the most part gamers are creative, patient people (if you dive into it, the hobby requires it). But this was a real ugly move by GW, and its engendered an ugly, heated response from people who are usually pretty calm and just doing something they enjoy; either from those who feel loss and anger, or those who don't and shrug about it. A lot of clash on public forums is the result.
Pacific wrote: You're definitely right in one sense. I've seen someone have a lump come into their throat, and jaw stick out, when talking about 8th edition being replaced by AoS. A grown man.
But, that is what can happen when you've seen something you've given hundreds of hours of your life to get replaced, and a buzzing, ongoing tournament scene get the legs taken out from under it.
Eh, that would have been true about 6, and to some extent, 7. But 8 was on life support and the tournament scene reflected that. they were pale shadows of the massive events in the mid 2000's.
So just to be clear you are saying it is the fault of the stores who still to this day have copies of Dreadfleet gathering dust in the back today that they failed to sell the product, not because it wasn't bad but because they ordered too many of an unknown?
Well, yes, if store owners over-ordered a product that they knew nothing about, that turned out to be something that their customers didn't want, that pretty much is on them.
If the game is bad, then that's certainly the fault of whoever made it. But the choice to stock it or not is entirely the store owner's.
I think that if it is failing, it's just the perfect storm of things both in and out of GW. these are why I think it is on life support in no particular order.
KoW had just enough time out to be poised to take customers who wanted to keep playing a massed fantasy battle.
Current concepts of crowd sourcing and social media in general make it not only possible to both write and play test rules with thousands of people across several countries, but to also make them adapt to any new model from any manufacturer. This makes 9th Age not only possible, but a potential framework to keep themselves proped up. (working in conjunction with model makers to release rules for models in development.)
for the non-massed crowds, there is WM/H for extreme tactical rules, and Frostgrave for a more loose experience. (along with Infinity, Malifaux, and a million kickstarters. Not to mention Osprey seems to crank out books like they are worried print is dying.)
Lack of communication on what was going to be released and when. This would have been a perfect time for GW to issue a letter of intent to players, and let them know what the plan over the next 12 months was going to be. A perfect example is if you like CHoas and picked up the Battletome for Khorne, just to learn that Archaon was coming and would have prefered an undivided list.
Too much focus on the Stormcast Eternals. They got a full army release, while nothing has really come out for any other army aside from Khorne. (I am aware there have been re-pack releases for Sylvaneth, Skaven, and Seraphon but these recived no new models.) I feel it should have dropped with two boxed sets, with two armies in each for for armies total. Skaven and Sylvaneth would have made a great box, they are even shown fighting in the realm of life.
Introducing an entire new realm in which to fight, with sparse details about the nuts and bolts of how life works in Azyrheim or anywhere. Across many novels, three giant sourcebooks, and three army books I still have no clear idea who is doing what and why aside from a Valhalla-esque "eternal war." There is more nuts and bolts information and world building in a single army book form last edition then has been released for AoS so far. Pick up any army book and you learn where they live, who they hunt, who hunts them, motivations, key movers and shakers, pivital battles both won and lost, and how that faction lives.
Loose rules with no errata or FAQ, game breaking warscroll combos, unlimited summoning, fast movement, huge charge radius, and no guide for how to build the army.
Bait and switch with the free rules. The point of free rules was hammered in time and time again by GW, until you find that "out of the box" playing really only works with scenarios. They are either in 80 dollar books which only have a few, or micro-transactions from the app. Battle formations are also treated the same way.
Cost of miniatures. Not only on an individual basis, but going to the website has packages ranging from 300.00-1,500.00 I don't think that looks good to potential new players.
Unclear message to long beards. I think the message could have been handled better. the con showing was pretty sparse, and the rumor that one rep stated that the comedy rules were to make fun of older players was a bad idea. Most older players want to know where their army is in the Realms, or if they are even going to be supported. (As a personal aside I lucked out in this category, I play Skaven. I could not imagine if I played Empire, Brettonia, any Elf Army, or Dwarfs.)
Difficulty playing pick-up games. This usually starts with what a guy in my shop calls the "negotiation phase" of the game. When I go to play, I have to find out how much they brought, what comps they might want to use, what scenario we want to play, how are we going to deploy, and if there are any rules we are not going to use and any that might need to be added
Clear intent what kind of game it is. I feel like it's being pushed as a wargame, when a RPG-style moniker would probably be better served. I've found WAY more traction teaching AoS to tabletop RPG players then I have to wargamers.
Not suited for large public gatherings. GW no longer holds Gamesdays or Grand Tournaments, and AoS is entirely unfit for a competition tournament. It also doesn't have an Apocalypse element, nor does it really work with more then four players.
Hatred of AoS. I add this one because hate for AoS has reached the pitch where it is a clear point of contention working against it. At my local GW a local whale who spends easily 500 a month on product bashes AoS constantly. Not enough to warrant getting tossed, he just grumbles a lot even while playing. New players in general pick up that 40K is the way to go. I've even gotten some good-natured ribbing for playing AoS, which is not so healthy for the game while I'm playing someone that's new to wargaming. All that takes place at an actual GW store with a shopkeep who has no issues telling people to badmouth GW elsewhere and not to discuss other game properties in front of new customers.
Hatred of AoS. I make this point twice. It has gotten to the point where you need to brace yourself before talking about AoS, and I don't mean just on forums. I post on SA, Warseer, and here-By far Dakka is the most AoS friendly. I travel a lot for work and I've learned to not even ask new shops I visit about AoS. not only do they have to feel they have to defend their position to sell or not to sell it, invariably anyone else in the store chimes in and it's obvious that the topic is sensitive. Hell at another local shop I understand the owner has instituted a "no comment" rule on anyone in the store while an AoS game is taking place. He started the rule becuase people would be trying to play AoS and the discussion on the merits of the game would reach an unsavory pitch. I play AoS, I understand it's flaws, but I don't think it should get the sheer animosity it brings.
Battle of Calth. This is the best "bang for your buck" army starter I've seen since the first 30 marine tac box. for 150 dollars you have an army of 38 miniatures that is instantly usable in 40k for around 1,000 points. it fulfills all the basic force organization chart needs, and if you buy two you can field a number of 40k formations. I know its also anecdotal, but it had the exact opposite effect of AoS on the boards, people talking about it flying off the shelf and how many boxes they were gonna purchase. If I were a betting man, I would bet that Battle of Calth will have outsold AoS starter boxes by christmas if it hasn't already. If I was new to the game, I think I would choose 40K over fantasy even if I preferred wizards and dragons, assuming I hung out in a game store for a few hours.
GW drops games that don't match their internal quotas. No matter how much it is or isn't selling, if they dropped WHFB because it wasn't not making enough profit then AoS will need to exceed WHFB sales. If they do not meet the internal sales quotas laid out by the company, then it will either be dropped or changed. Rumors are flying about all the stuff they have in the pipeline for AoS, and I would think they would have a clear arc of what they are releasing no matter what, say one or two years. Once that is done they will evaluate. I think the only thing that would cause a sudden shift was if AoS was a complete disaster, and of course we have no way of knowing if that has happened.
These are just my thoughts. I play AoS, and I do look for ways to constantly improve it without moving into comp territory. For various reasons my only gaming option is a GW store. If I want to play a fantasy game thats wizards and dragons and not tanks and guns, AoS is pretty much the only game in town for me. I wrote this in response to the clear thread title. I do feel like AoS has a lot of potential and there are some facets to it that no other game has really tapped. GW is gambling on something that is so fantastically different then the norm, that I can't help but want to see how it ends. The downside to it being so entirely beyond the pale is that I just don't feel that it will survive without some drastic changes either within the company or with the outside factors. (9th age and KoW continuing to prop up fantasy sales due to the need for figures, that sort of thing.)
I don't think AoS needs to exceed WHFB sales, because it's a lot cheaper to produce.
No rules, no army books, no armies even except the new Sigmarines and some other models like the new Kaos Knights and floating wizard. These are all very expensive, as are the few books available.
I think they can afford to sell a lot fewer units, because the running costs are much lower.
So just to be clear you are saying it is the fault of the stores who still to this day have copies of Dreadfleet gathering dust in the back today that they failed to sell the product, not because it wasn't bad but because they ordered too many of an unknown?
Well, yes, if store owners over-ordered a product that they knew nothing about, that turned out to be something that their customers didn't want, that pretty much is on them.
If the game is bad, then that's certainly the fault of whoever made it. But the choice to stock it or not is entirely the store owner's.
I don't think fault is a good word in this situation, at least as far as the store placing orders.
Managing cashflow and inventory is one of the toughest jobs for a game store. A game store stocks a wide variety of items. You need to, because you can't sell what you don't have, and you want to keep your customers happy.A store has thousands of items in stock. As an example, I'm in the process of cutting my Flames of War inventory back, and we just did a count of what we are keeping. We are getting rid of specialized models, things only used in one of the books, a lot of early war, the non-major powers, and slow sellers. This will leave me with about 360 different blisters, 130 boxes, 20 books, and scenery. Over 400 different items just for one game. Inventory value of about 10k at wholesale.
A store only has so much money to put towards stock, so it can get spread pretty thin. To spread it thicker, to you need more cash. Need to make more money, get more sales. This means you need items that sell more than one copy now and then. Magic is huge for many stores because it's a small amount of items that sell in huge numbers and you turn your cash over and over. In many stores it's Magic that pays the rent and provides the profit that lets them stock other products. You are always looking for new product that you can sell, and a lot of the time it's new product coming out that does best. And of course, you have the least sales data on that new product.
You can extrapolate from similar products, ask for pre-orders from customers, and run events or marketing to hype the product and sell more of it. But really, you'll find out a lot about how that product sells after it hits the shelves. And in the case of GW, we get little to nothing in info ahead of time. (My info 90% of the time is from rumors and posts here on Dakka, not from GW.)
So when new games come out, it's a crapshoot a lot of the time. If you under order, you lose some sales. If you over order, you lose money on non-returnable games sitting in your back room. In some cases you can re-order an item that you run out of. Other times it's gone forever. And if you over order, you can hope to get more sales over time, dump the item at a lesser cost, or find some other channel than your store to sell it.
I and my staff make over 1000 decisions on what to order on new product, every single month. We have overage each month. Minimizing overage works towards maximizing profits. But larger sales also generates more profits. Obviously, the two work against each other. I can minimize lost sales by having stock at hand and raising overage, or minimize overage by selling out of everything and losing sales and profits. No crystal ball to help with finding that sweet spot where it works perfectly.
So the guy who ordered too many dreadfleet. I think that was all of us. It just wasn't that good, didn't have any excitement to it. We all wanted another space hulk, but no one got it. GW destroyed a ton of copies. Retailers have copies gathering dust. Customers got a less than stellar game. But, we didn't know that at the time, when GW reps call and tell you about the awesome new game they have for you. Even with pre-orders, its a guess what you need. I got in 90 of spacehulk and sold them all. I got in 20 dreadfleet and had two left over. A year and a half later i still had those 2 copies. I put them at half off and sold them. Pretty good, all in all.
Now is GW "at fault" for putting out game that didnt sell great? Hard to say. Compared to most boardgames, it actually did sell great. But not compared to Spacehulk. The numbers and data i have on Assinorium make Dreadfleet look awesome by comparison. I order 5 copie at the main store, and 2 at my other store. Sold 1 and 0. 6 copies left. Those eventually went to ebay at cost plus shipping, and all gone now. Was it a good boardgame? Certainly not for the price, based on customer feedback. They didnt want it. 125.00 buys some very nice boardgames. Or several boardgames. Only GW knows how many they actually sold or didn't sell, so it's hard to judge it's success. But it wasn't Space Hulk. It wasn't even Dreadfleet. If it was a bad game, or a failure, yes, GW has only themselves to blame, but it's not easy making games, and not always obvious what is good/not good.
So to summarize that wall of text: For a retailer, over ordering isn't a 'fault', it's just what happens on a continuous basis. Part of the business.
I was going to reply to the same post but I was just going to make a joke about how stores that only ordered 2 copies of dreadfleet and couldn't sell both of them clearly overordered
I think the last episode of Face Hammer had some good points. I recommend the podcast. They're quite liking the game and the growing tournament scene in the UK, but they emphasize there needs to be someone/an organization leading the "baseline rules" charge that everyone can work off of.
For those who still don't think it can be played competitively, I recommend Face Hammer and Heelan Hammer.
There's a great game and great ideas in AoS, and I think there are also some clear flubs in the launch. GW seems fairly dedicated to this project, and I hope it can address the biggest complaints.
I was going to reply to the same post but I was just going to make a joke about how stores that only ordered 2 copies of dreadfleet and couldn't sell both of them clearly overordered
Except that wouldn't really be a joke. If they ordered 2 and couldn't sell them, then they did overorder.
This is the problem with stocking GW currently, as mikhaila mentioned... Because they provide no real pre-order information, stores have to guess whether or not any given product is going to be good, which makes ordering anything at all a bit of a risk.
Frankly, if I was opening a games store tomorrow, I wouldn't even consider stocking Games Workshop product for just that reason.
I was going to reply to the same post but I was just going to make a joke about how stores that only ordered 2 copies of dreadfleet and couldn't sell both of them clearly overordered
Except that wouldn't really be a joke. If they ordered 2 and couldn't sell them, then they did overorder.
This is the problem with stocking GW currently, as mikhaila mentioned... Because they provide no real pre-order information, stores have to guess whether or not any given product is going to be good, which makes ordering anything at all a bit of a risk.
Frankly, if I was opening a games store tomorrow, I wouldn't even consider stocking Games Workshop product for just that reason.
You wouldn't be the first store down here in the merry old land of Aus(tralia) to do that either. I've seen a couple now that don't.
My local Good Games didn't when it opened, nearly a year later it got in a small stand of GW products but it seems like it's been a waste of money for them.
I wonder if this is a uniquely Australian thing at this point or if FLGSs in other places are at the point were they can survive without GW as a games store - not a Magic store?
I just saw the new prices on the Chaos AoS releases...and if anyone wants to know why AoS may be failing...that would be exhibit #1.
The previous plastic Chaos Knight kit came out in 2008 at $25 for 5 Knights, and even with their prices having risen at a rate outpacing that of inflation to $33 in 7 years, they're still only as expensive (as an entire unit) as a single model of their (ostensible) replacement. The Varanguard are $100 for 3. Same material, generally the same unit, granted the new guys are more dynamic and very impressive looking, but not something you couldn't substitute the older guys for.
They're not the same type of unit, though. The Varanguard are more like 3 mounted heroes than Chaos Knights. Edit: That said, I'm in favour of lower prices on everything in general. It would have been nice to buy these guys individually. I think the biggest pricing mistake so far is the Liberators box. I can't see why someone would buy that and not the Judicators/Paladins.
I was going to reply to the same post but I was just going to make a joke about how stores that only ordered 2 copies of dreadfleet and couldn't sell both of them clearly overordered
Except that wouldn't really be a joke. If they ordered 2 and couldn't sell them, then they did overorder.
This is the problem with stocking GW currently, as mikhaila mentioned... Because they provide no real pre-order information, stores have to guess whether or not any given product is going to be good, which makes ordering anything at all a bit of a risk.
Frankly, if I was opening a games store tomorrow, I wouldn't even consider stocking Games Workshop product for just that reason.
They do make it tough. For example, Betrayal at Calth. The monday before pre-orders went up, i got this email: b
- A bit of product info: Isn't it great, blah blah blah! (Less info than on Dakka, actually.)
-"Don't tell anyone about this until it goes on the GW website on FRIDAY"
-We need pre-orders by WEDNESDAY
-We think you should take 70 of this 150.00 Boardgame. Your cost: 5700 dollars. Non returnable.
Now, in reality, faced with this, i expect most stores started polling their regulars and trying to get any sort of numbers together in a hope of guessing demand.
I was told that GW reps had something come back to haunt them, namely Assassinorum. Many stores did poorly with it, and didn't trust Betrayal, ordering just a couple. There was a list up on the GW site showing the stores who had the advance copies of the game to demo for a week. This was about 2 dozen in the country. Only 3 in the NE area. Those were the stores ordering 70 copies. Go back a decade and I think that number could have been 10 times as many retailers ordering 70. It's hard to trust GW with nearly 6 grand of your money these days.
Betrayal, by the way, fails as a boardgame. No boardgamer will spend 150 dollars and then spend hours putting together little army men. But as a starter army for 30k it rocks. Models are great, and lots of them.
I have to wonder at the internal workings at GW and FW. They had to do a boardgame to make 30k figures? How much better would this have been minus the boardgame plus the FW 30k rules in SC? How many would they sell? How many players would then drop hundreds on FW?
I almost wonder if GW have noticed the success of all of the various miniature boardgames kickstarters, and have decided that emulating that model is the way of the future?
insaniak wrote: I almost wonder if GW have noticed the success of all of the various miniature boardgames kickstarters, and have decided that emulating that model is the way of the future?
If so, GW failed to get the key point that Kickstarters are pre-orders.
Pure speculation but I think GW is skeptical about the "traditional" (last 20 years or so) model of how and where people play their games. I doubt releasing AoS without points-based list building was either an oversight due to incompetence or laziness. They may be hedging for a future where customers shop mostly online and do most of their gaming at home with friends.
I mean, it really makes no sense to judge BaC as a board game against the larger board game market. This is apparent to anyone here who thinks about it for more than a moment. I think it's also apparent to folks working at GW. So why sell models to miniatures gamers under the guise of a board game? Simple: it is actually a miniatures game with a lot of the "traditional" elements cut out because maybe it is not designed for a system of pick up play at the LGS ... just like AoS. And like AoS, the "traditional" elements have been replaced with something else which is a lower barrier to play.
Manchu wrote: They may be hedging for a future where customers shop mostly online and do most of their gaming at home with friends.
I don't really see how it's hedging for the future to not have points based list building. If they thought most people do their purchasing online and gaming at home with friends... hedging would be still having points in case they were wrong.
I think it's the lack of hedging that has most people surprised. Even if they expect most gamers to be gaming at home with friends it's a gamble to write the game to be inappropriate for pick ups.
Friends playing at home shouldn't care whether a game has points or not. A lot of my games in the first few years of wargaming (mid to late 90's) were with friends at one of our homes and we mostly just ignored the points system anyway.
Manchu wrote: Pure speculation but I think GW is skeptical about the "traditional" (last 20 years or so) model of how and where people play their games. I doubt releasing AoS without points-based list building was either an oversight due to incompetence or laziness. They may be hedging for a future where customers shop mostly online and do most of their gaming at home with friends.
I mean, it really makes no sense to judge BaC as a board game against the larger board game market. This is apparent to anyone here who thinks about it for more than a moment. I think it's also apparent to folks working at GW. So why sell models to miniatures gamers under the guise of a board game? Simple: it is actually a miniatures game with a lot of the "traditional" elements cut out because maybe it is not designed for a system of pick up play at the LGS ... just like AoS. And like AoS, the "traditional" elements have been replaced with something else which is a lower barrier to play.
If true, I guess it would go to show how out of touch GW is with gamers. Their is realy two distinct groups of gamers, and lumping the store gamers in with the home gamers is a huge mistake. It's the gamers who play in stores that help intro the game, and spread the game via-word of mouth.
Making games that discourage you from playing in a pick-up environment, leaves the store gamers to wither on the vine and go to other game systems. It is the completle repeat of the mistakes they made with specialist games.
Hedging could be the wrong word. Replace it with planning. What I am getting at is, GW could be saying, here's where we are with this older approach and we don't think that market is growing or can be grown adequately and so we need a different approach. Many of us here, posting in a thread like this, are going to have trouble seeing this because we're part of the market I am suggesting GW is less interested in and turning away from, so of course all of this looks like folly to us. This fits pretty well with GW's turn away from the LGS, too.
About "friends playing at home" not caring about points ... well points are part of the rules of games that use points. And, as discussed earlier ITT, people tend to voluntarily submit to the rules of games they purchase despite nobody coming to their house to make them do it. This makes sense: they bought the game after all, of course they probably intend to use it as directed. If you're having trouble imagining this point from the perspective of a miniatures gamer, then try thinking about it from the perspective of a board gamer where learning and following the rules is a central part of the activity.
@Lockark
When you say GW is out of touch with gamers, you're assuming that gamers are a monolithic group. My speculation assumes the opposite, there are many kinds of gamers. Moreover, I am suggesting that perhaps GW does not see in-store pick-up play as key to their success going forward. If GW is out of touch with a market segment it no longer views as central, well, that's understandable. It isn't impossible that GW is in touch with the segment they believe is key to their success ... and that this segment does not include us. Plus, perhaps it is us who are out of touch with how the market is changing, because we're the ones insisting that AoS is flawed because it does not conform to the structure and received wisdom of the past 20 years. In fact, we are the ones who are in effect saying GW should be doing things like it is still 2000.
Friends playing at home shouldn't care whether a game has points or not. A lot of my games in the first few years of wargaming (mid to late 90's) were with friends at one of our homes and we mostly just ignored the points system anyway.
Your experience is very different to mine, then. The guys I started out with might have chosen to skew points one way or the other as appropriate for a scenario, or to allow a generous leeway when list building, but having a points system in place still gave a starting point.
If AoS had been my introduction to miniature wargaming, I have no idea how we would have gone about actually setting up a game with no way of knowing how to balance units against each other.
People blaming bad sales of AoS in particular on store owners/ managers/ salesmen should aply to GW asap. And feel bad.
Really how desperate can you get, those were a sad few pages to read.
A good game, especialy from GW, would sell crazy amounts even if the salesman was a nerdraging misanthropist stinking of fish and spitting on the copies while talking.
If you want to believe that in the world where even 40k is loosing sales because of garbage rules and crazy prices, where whfb died of similar reasons, that a new game with even worse, extremly shallow rules and crazier prices that managed to piss off players like nothing ever in GW history and is not advertised will suddenly flourish, well freedom babe. Noone says you cant believe Putin and Obama are reptillian.
I always hated their rules but was such a GW fanboy anyway that I still bought a Dreadfleet box. And still was ready to start AoS after it was made known that it was built on the ashes of the old world. The rules were too much though, not even the lack of points but the mindlessness it reeked of, and managed to make me stop buying 40k as well not to mention killing all the brand loyalty of mine, really I had GW imprinted on the back of my skull for 20 years. Must be some bad salesman somewhere I guess.
If so, GW failed to get the key point that Kickstarters are pre-orders.
And I keep wondering whether those putting in their 'pre-order' realize that kickstarter is not a pre-order system but a way of contributing too something that may not succeed. It may not happen much, but I can never help but be amazed at kickstarters that go wrong and the reactions of those who were part of it, clearly not grasping that that it was not simply a pre-order system.
The idea that games should just sell, absent any salesmanship, is perhaps all too much in evidence in many a LGS and could in part explain why one can always count on a given example to carry MtG and 40k while just about everything else is hit or miss.
TheWaspinator wrote: Are you seriously claiming that the company that called market research otiose has some revolutionary vision of the future of their market?
No, just that they possibly think they have some revolutionary vision of the future of their market.
I think GW has a fair idea of how they intend to make money in the coming years and that their plans are based on more knowledge, experience, and insight about doing so than anything exhibited around here, naturally, considering no one posting ITT is in anything like the position of the decision makers at GW. Somewhere between them being utter morons on the one hand and serenely infallible on the other lays the truth and I very much suspect, I suppose to the chargrin of many posters, that they are not anything like the morons many of us guess or would maybe even like to think they are. With that in mind, it seems entirely reasonable to me that the company believes its future does not lay in plugging on with the way things have been since, say, circa 2000 -- even if anything but the style of that period give or take five years on either side has become unimaginable for a niche within a niche within a niche. Oh and:
Manchu wrote: The idea that games should just sell, absent any salesmanship, is perhaps all too much in evidence in many a LGS and could in part explain why one can always count on a given example to carry MtG and 40k while just about everything else is hit or miss.
Forgot to mention, this may also be a reason why the LGS appears to figure less and less in GW's business model.
Manchu wrote: The idea that games should just sell, absent any salesmanship, is perhaps all too much in evidence in many a LGS and could in part explain why one can always count on a given example to carry MtG and 40k while just about everything else is hit or miss.
Unfortunately, it would also seem to be the philosophy that GW themselves are subscribing to, since dropping a new game on the market with no real preview phase gives salespeople no opportunity to be familiar enough with the product to actually sell it. If relies on people being excited enough about the fact that GW have released something new to buy it without caring whether or not it's good.
Because the primary issue is whether or not it will sell. Whether a game is "good" is entirely a matter of taste. Effective salespeople constantly sell things they don't think are good. In any case, I don't want to get into defending GW's news blackout policy because frankly I don't understand it and it frustrates me. But I will say that the GW rep for my LGS called the store management and explained the key features of AoS before the store ordered any copies. It was the rep's job to get the store to carry the product. It was the managers' job to determine whether that was appropriate for the dimensions of their business and, if so, to what extent. Given there is a conflict of interests here, this kind of interaction is not going to be totally transparent. Even so, this is frankly a lot more communication than a LGS seems to have (in my very limited knowledge) with virtually any other publisher, including WotC and certainly FFG.* I think this is probably wandering a little away from the point, I just want to explain that sales = good is at least as true as good = sales, it's sort of a matter of which side of the cash register you are on.
*As an example, guess how my LGS found out Target would be exclusively carrying the new X-Wing starter at launch? That's right, a Target ad.
If AoS had been my introduction to miniature wargaming, I have no idea how we would have gone about actually setting up a game with no way of knowing how to balance units against each other.
If you are being introduced to mini wargaming then you probably have no minis worth worrying about, and therefore no reason to be worried about points. Most point systems are based around games of a certain size, where certain assumptions can be made as to your ability to have a balance of unit types. It wouldn't matter if there was a great points system if the 20 infantry you had was playing against your friend who only had some armor. You might even outpoint him, but if you don't have the anti armor weapons you are in trouble.
That was my early wargaming. If the games I played had points I don't remember, it was just a case of field what you could. After those games you built up an idea of 'value' through actual experience. Kids are richer nowadays, but back when I was knee high to a grasshopper you saved and bought your next model/unit either because you liked it or because, from experience, you knew you needed it to counter your friends tank.
As for scenario/setup, again it was just stick down your models, put down some terrain (card hills, railway models buildings, paper mache stuff etc) andplay. Some blue tape would make a river, and the person with less stuff would defend that or something. Kids for the most part have the great imagination and do not really need set scenarios, that seems to be something that comes to some as they get older.
There may be a difference in what you expect in your introduction. IME kids (who are the usual age group for 'intro to wargaming') are able to have fun irrespective of some awesome balance system in the intro phase. The get to play with their cool minis and grasp that their lack of balance isn't down to points but down to not even having the models that they need.
I'm seeing Kids/Teens as being the intro age. Are you thinking more adults get introduced to wargaming, and that they lack that 'just play' mentality?
Manchu wrote:
About "friends playing at home" not caring about points ... well points are part of the rules of games that use points. And, as discussed earlier ITT, people tend to voluntarily submit to the rules of games they purchase despite nobody coming to their house to make them do it. This makes sense: they bought the game after all, of course they probably intend to use it as directed.
As a counter point, we play some games primarily 'At home' and points never really factor into it, I've been playing flames of war for three years now, and I couldn't tell you the points costs of a single unit in that game.
'Use it as directed' outside of 'organised play' is kind of open ended when gw and other companies (I have a link to a privateer press insider article where they say the same thing) for example often have the caveat that 'if you don't like it, then agree with your friends and change it'. I mean. We're creative In terms of writing our lore for our dudes and naming them. We are creative in terms of painting our dudes. The idea that there is 'one true way' to actually play 'as directed' with our dudes strikes me as illogical - being creative with the hobby doesn't necessarily stop at the point where you put your stuff on the tabletop.
Manchu wrote:
I think GW has a fair idea of how they intend to make money in the coming years and that their plans are based on more knowledge, experience, and insight about doing so than anything exhibited around here, naturally, considering no one posting ITT is in anything like the position of the decision makers at GW. Somewhere between them being utter morons on the one hand and serenely infallible on the other lays the truth and I very much suspect, I suppose to the chargrin of many posters, that they are not anything like the morons many of us guess or would maybe even like to think they are.
I don't necessarily agree. I think internal gw corporate culture subscribes to a particular worldview and narrative that is not necessarily in sync with what is out there. There is an official gw attitude, and thinking outside that gets you fired. I don't think they're the idiots people like to imagine them to be, but at the same time, I think their success is far less to to with their strategic vision and their views for the future often times are disconnected from the reality. The idea that they have a hidden cache of knowledge, experience and insight and a plan that we're just not seeing is a bit dishonest and disrespectful to folks. Ive seen enough comments from former staffers and former 'names' like Pete Haines that do suggest a culture that is not necessarily forward thinking but rather 'keep them in line and doing what they're told'. Look at the 'amusing gw anecdote' on the dakka discussions subfforum.The people who make the decisions there often are not the gamers. This is not necessarily a bad thing (too much blue sky thinking is never good, and frankly, the design studio has been quite ill disciplined and inconsistent in terms of their approach to the game as well) but I think within gw, it leans far too much one way to be healthy. The design studio is in essence the promotions division. I don't think the design studio gets the creative freedom they need to make really exciting moves any more(bar make more space marines). Gw is a hire and fire company where often management will bust your chops just to prove that they're the ones with the biggest balls. All quotes apparently attributed to Pete Haines by the way...
Friends playing at home shouldn't care whether a game has points or not. A lot of my games in the first few years of wargaming (mid to late 90's) were with friends at one of our homes and we mostly just ignored the points system anyway.
Your experience is very different to mine, then. The guys I started out with might have chosen to skew points one way or the other as appropriate for a scenario, or to allow a generous leeway when list building, but having a points system in place still gave a starting point.
If AoS had been my introduction to miniature wargaming, I have no idea how we would have gone about actually setting up a game with no way of knowing how to balance units against each other.
I should clarify, when I said "a lot of my games in the first few years" I didn't mean "that's where we started".
We started off playing by the points, built our armies by the points but we were such a small group that after a while the games became predictable and we noticed the same people losing and the same people winning. So we started mixing it up by altering the points, swapping armies, inventing new scenarios and negotiating what we took instead of trying to reach a certain points level.
If the game had no points values to begin with, that totally would have sucked IMO.
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Manchu wrote: About "friends playing at home" not caring about points ... well points are part of the rules of games that use points. And, as discussed earlier ITT, people tend to voluntarily submit to the rules of games they purchase despite nobody coming to their house to make them do it. This makes sense: they bought the game after all, of course they probably intend to use it as directed. If you're having trouble imagining this point from the perspective of a miniatures gamer, then try thinking about it from the perspective of a board gamer where learning and following the rules is a central part of the activity.
I've only observed that attitude in pick up games where it's not possible to realistically negotiate the rules. "Playing with friends at home" to me = playing with people I know reasonably well and communicate with more frequently than just some person I'm playing a pick up game with (otherwise I tend to not invite them to my home to begin with ).
When I'm playing with friends it usually goes something like this...
Friend 1: "That rule really sucks"
Friend 2: "I don't mind it, but we can change it for the next game"
After a while you are constantly changing the rules, inventing new scenarios, adjusting the points levels because you don't think certain units are fair. That's the advantage of playing with friends.
Playing pick up games is also fun but a nightmare when you have to negotiate things all the time.
Exactly. A points system can be ignored or altered as the players sees fit.
A system without any balancing mechanism just leaves it entirely up to the players... And if the players lack experience with the system, that's a difficult thing to expect them to do.
Deadnight wrote: The idea that there is 'one true way' to actually play 'as directed' with our dudes strikes me as illogical
The good news is AoS may be right up your alley, if you like the models. Well, of course, I was not arguing at all that there is One True Way. I'm making the much more sensible point that people who buy a ruleset very often intend to play by that ruleset.
Deadnight wrote: I think internal gw corporate culture subscribes to a particular worldview and narrative that is not necessarily in sync with what is out there.
This certainly could be the case but then again it could also be the case in many settings such as a message board.
Deadnight wrote: The idea that they have a hidden cache of knowledge, experience and insight and a plan that we're just not seeing is a bit dishonest and disrespectful to folks.
This is really putting words into my mouth. First, what is hidden? The only thing hidden is what we may not have the capacity to see thanks to, as you put, perhaps subscribing to a particular worldview and narrative that is not necessarily in sync with what is out there. For example, to suggest that GW is operating without any plan is pure foolishness. The notion that its staff have no knowledge or experience is roundly laughable. OTOH, I do agree with you after reading anecdote after anecdote over the years from various levels of GW staffers that there is corporate rigidity at odds with the spirit, as it were, of this funny little hobby of ours and no one can accuse GW at any level of always making the best or wisest decisions.
All of this is exactly suitable for the design of AoS:
AllSeeingSkink wrote: "Playing with friends at home" to me = playing with people I know reasonably well and communicate with more frequently than just some person I'm playing a pick up game with (otherwise I tend to not invite them to my home to begin with ).
When I'm playing with friends it usually goes something like this...
Friend 1: "That rule really sucks" Friend 2: "I don't mind it, but we can change it for the next game"
After a while you are constantly changing the rules, inventing new scenarios, adjusting the points levels because you don't think certain units are fair. That's the advantage of playing with friends.
Playing pick up games is also fun but a nightmare when you have to negotiate things all the time.
By contrast, AoS is not suited to pick-up play. Again, I doubt that is a coincidence. Now, if what you're describing is what GW designed AoS to do, who GW designed AoS for, where, when, etc, what conclusions can we draw about GW's attitude toward the future of pick-up play to its business model?
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't think AoS needs to exceed WHFB sales, because it's a lot cheaper to produce.
No rules, no army books, no armies even except the new Sigmarines and some other models like the new Kaos Knights and floating wizard. These are all very expensive, as are the few books available.
I think they can afford to sell a lot fewer units, because the running costs are much lower.
That's true, I also didn't factor in that they don't need designers and developers for AoS at this point, just the staff needed to produce the books.
With no points play testing is not required either, so they save on the man hours needed to do that.
One factor I did realize though is shelf space. That was supposed to be one of the big reasons to put SG in one umbrella and no longer carry them in stores, and I would imagine that if AoS was less profitable than WHFB they would slowly reduce AoS stock in stores to make room for new products.
Deadnight wrote: The idea that there is 'one true way' to actually play 'as directed' with our dudes strikes me as illogical
The good news is AoS may be right up your alley, if you like the models. Well, of course, I was not arguing at all that there is One True Way. I'm making the much more sensible point that people who buy a ruleset very often intend to play by that ruleset.
With respect, what you said earlier was to Try to dismiss the notion that folks at home don't care about points, and still intend to play the game 'as directed'. Hence the 'one true way'. I'm presuming it's the Internet, and tone/intent doesn't always translate well, but your point is still not necessarily accurate, regardless of it being 'a sensible point' or not. We've bought games for our group (firestorm armada, drop zone commander, flames of war, infinity etc) and we don't necessarily 'intend' to play by that rules set - more often that not its pick the elements we like. Run with them. And then add in our own stuff on top of it.
About "friends playing at home" not caring about points ... well points are part of the rules of games that use points. And, as discussed earlier ITT, people tend to voluntarily submit to the rules of games they purchase despite nobody coming to their house to make them do it. This makes sense: they bought the game after all, of course they probably intend to use it as directed.
And no. Aos is not right up my alley. For several reasons. Number one is I think the models are lazy, boring, uninspired and I dislike the squat, misshapen and out of proportion dimensions of the models. Second reasons is the price point is frankly, ridiculous for some of the newer stuff. Third point is I dislike the rules mechanics. Waterweed down 30year old wfb mechanics -'roll on 3s and 4s'. Which, to be fair, is fine for what it is. But I've been playing that game engine since I was a kid - I'm not interested in playing another slight variation on the same old thing. If gw had used the lotr 'engine' as the baseplate for Aos, then we'd be having a completely different conversation. simply put, war gaming mechanics have moved on. And there have been far more interesting rules sets designed over the last thirty years that simply using the core warhammer Dna yet again. Beyond this, the whole 'discuss with your opponent what to bring, brew up an interesting scenario' stick of Aos - well, I do that anyway. And with for what I regard to be far more interesting game systems. So Aos offers me nothing that I don't already do. Coupled with rubbish (IMO) models, price point and mechanics - really for me there is no point going there.
Deadnight wrote: I think internal gw corporate culture subscribes to a particular worldview and narrative that is not necessarily in sync with what is out there.
This certainly could be the case but then again it could also be the case in many settings such as a message board.
Undoubtedly. Perception bias and confirmation bias is a thing. It's why I'm quite sceptical of anecdotes myself. I remember before I moved to the UK from Ireland, I played 40k. And wanted to play warmachine. But from what I could see there was no player base, so stuck with 40k. Ask the 40k players, there was only 40k. Now I accidentally got found out as a prospective warmachine player (long story there) and fell into a warmachine playing group that I'd never known existed. They were like oil and water with the gw players I knew - they simply didn't mix and neither was aware of the other. So when folks tell me '[game x] isn't played around here', I don't necessarily see that as an accurate viewpoint. From their perception it may be, but often there is more to the story than just that.
Then again, with regard to gw, there are enough examples and indications out there that suggest a level of hostility and contempt for their consumer base, and in terms of higher direction with the studio, there is a viewpoint of aiming for what they want the gaming ecosystem to be, rather than dealing with what it actually is. Remember, gw don't necessarily talk to us - they've closed a lot of the avenues for feedback (arguably with some decent reasons behind it - we can be a toxic lot) and do a lot of things in house, which reinforces this cultural barrier between How they perceive things to be, and how things actually are. Play testing was a perfect example - I remember when they shut down the external play testing groups at the dawn of fifth (not that they really listened to them before then either!)
Deadnight wrote: The idea that they have a hidden cache of knowledge, experience and insight and a plan that we're just not seeing is a bit dishonest and disrespectful to folks.
This is really putting words into my mouth. First, what is hidden? The only thing hidden is what we may not have the capacity to see thanks to, as you put, perhaps subscribing to a particular worldview and narrative that is not necessarily in sync with what is out there. For example, to suggest that GW is operating without any plan is pure foolishness. The notion that its staff have no knowledge or experience is roundly laughable. OTOH, I do agree with you after reading anecdote after anecdote over the years from various levels of GW staffers that there is corporate rigidity at odds with the spirit, as it were, of this funny little hobby of ours and no one can accuse GW at any level of always making the best or wisest decisions.
It was expanding on a point rather than trying to 'put words in your mouth' - you claimed gw potentially had more knowledge, experience and insight than us. Hence hidden knowledge beyond our grasp. And i often get this 'well you just don't see the bigger picture' Argument from folks (not you, by the way - in real life people) who rather dictate rather than discuss, and being honest, I don't put much stock in it as a vehicle for an argument.
To the other points - gw have a plan, but like I said, it often comes across that their plan is based on what they want their player base/customers to be, rather than dealing with what's actually there. And oftentimes they seem to come across as not understanding their own industry. They know x sells, they don't know why x sells. This is changing though. Slowly.
Staffers do have knowledge and experience, but often the shot callers are those for whom 'the game' isn't the driving priority, and that knowledge and experience is basically chucked aside in favour of deadlines, and corporate direction. Remember. Hire and fire company. Toe the line or that manager will bust your balls and you will be out on your ear.
By contrast, AoS is not suited to pick-up play. Again, I doubt that is a coincidence. Now, if what you're describing is what GW designed AoS to do, who GW designed AoS for, where, when, etc, what conclusions can we draw about GW's attitude toward the future of pick-up play to its business model?
The conclusions suggest a lack of understanding of their player base and how they play, versus how they want their player base to play. Pick up play shouldn't necessarily be the default (as opposed to free form game building) but there are big advantages and appeal to just being able to turn up and get on with it rather than requiring negotiation, compromising etc.
...It's why I'm quite sceptical of anecdotes myself. I remember before I moved to the UK from Ireland...
Made me giggle a bit.
As for the debate on how AoS is doing, I honestly think this is a toss up. I don't think the loud gamers are the largest sources of income for GW. Nothing suggest we would be, and here I'm speaking as a former clerk and a current consumer. We are still a large segment of the market, and GW really should be listening to us. Especially since we are a huge part of their marketing strategy. So by pissing the hardcore gamers off, there is no way they aren't losing potential revenue.
Question is - If this is a long term strategy, will it work? Fantasy grew a lot over the years, and then it started to decline. Maybe not as much in the tournament scene, but definitely in sales. Resales and copies have no doubt hurt GW too, and the fact that a large segment have turned to 40k hasn't helped either. Maybe GW is thinking a bit like they do on Wallstreat. Cash out before the bubble truly bursts, and invest in another long term business. Even if some people don't like AoS, it still has a potential to grow as a new interesting game that is MUCH easier to get into. We also have to acknowledge that boardgames are growing each year and are competing for gamers attentions. Especially because of the convoluted rules of warhammer that haven't changed much in 20 years.
There are so many things to consider, and even if the salesnumbers of early next year aren't great, it means nothing in the grand scheme of things. All we can do is cast our votes with our money, and even though I hate that GW reset the world, I have stil put more money into fantasy than any other year. Alot of my local nay-sayers have very good points about why AoS is a problem, but what stands out the most to me is that they hardly ever bought any new models for fantasy, and they didn't really buy paints either. And that is why their votes in all honesty counts for less.
Interesting debate, but I'm not sure what it acomplishes. We are probably not changing anything and it honestly feels like the community is taking a bigger hit than GW from all this bickering.
My wallet is buying AoS and paints and old WHF for the first time ever.
Now, if we could make combat more simple like the just release Horus Heresy Calth and print the warscrolls onto standard size cards (MtG), I'd be all set.
I think some people are misunderstanding my point about it is the stores responsibility to sell items. People keep harping on well the product is just bad. I will repeat sells is not just selling the product but understanding what to bring in and how much. Now that's not to say that you won't ever bring in something that is just a shelf dog. That actually needs to be factored into the equation, there is always going to be some loss and there is a right and wrong way to handle that. Sometimes you can even turn it into a gain. I'm going to give a real life example of the most successful store I'm aware of Miniature Market, they may be the most successful hobby retailer in the US, though that's just my anecdotal opinion and shouldn't be taken as gospel. Anyway on to the example.
When the Force Awakens core set came out for retailers other than Target, I decided check MMs stock level because I'm always curious of their buying trends. I didn't get around to it until 2 days after the release date, they had 1805 in stock at that moment. That's on top of every other restock and new release they ordered that week (a store that carries roughly 30k uniques according to them) so they probably have considerable buying power. Now lets contrast that with the release of Gates of Antares, they brought in roughly 5 of each item and on top of that they didn't even bring in every item. Pretty low for a company that has the enormous buying power. This was a brand new X-Wing core set based on a movie that's probably going to break all the records is pretty much a guaranteed seller. Gates however is a relative unknown, so by bringing in only a few if it flops and they don't sell a single item from the line then the loss is negligible.
Now an example of how to handle overage and turn it into future revenue, MM had a large stock of Halo Fleet Battles (a game I didn't even bring in because I did not believe I could sell it based on my market) they set it to 40% off but only existing items and not the new items they had up for pre-order. Now I can tell you at 40% off they were still making a profit per item, though the margin was probably in the range of about 10% or so. It's difficult to tell because distributors will give a much greater price break based on your volume of order from them, at least the ones I deal with. So how did this help them turn overage into a positive. Well they created a ton of new players by offering it at a discount (most of the clearance items sold out), they also created instant data for how much they should order of new releases. Even if those who bought the existing items had only a 50% retention rate that's quite good and will lead to future sales. This doesn't even factor in the people who will show it to their friends and then tell them about the sale. Friends who then may love the game and become new customers.
This is why I say the onus is on the store. It is hard decisions to make, it does require a lot of research some of which is unorthodox. It sometimes also just takes a gut feeling. You win sometimes you lose sometimes, but you absolutely must be aware of and attempt to control all the outside factors possible. That is your job as the business owner, GM, order minion or whoever.
Manchu has mentioned that GW seems to believe that the LGS is not the future, I'm sort of on the fence on that one. I do agree that the traditional brick and mortar is 100% a dying model, it has been for many retail markets and the hobby market will be no different especially as it continues to see growth. There's a couple of reasons for this, the growing market means that more and more people who are not let's say your "traditional" gamer are getting into board games, minis, rpgs and the like. This isn't 30 years ago, the people shopping today expect a certain thing. They expect uniforms, they expect to be greeted and engaged, they also do not like to pay MSRP. The "traditional" brick and mortar lacks these things, being a passionate hobbyist isn't enough anymore. The MSRP is itself the biggest limiting factor to a buy in form a customer. After all how many of us complain about GW prices? So why is it the online retailer can overcome these obstacles much easier, well for one they have less overhead, for instance miniature market has one store front and then they have a warehouse to store their massive quantities, their play space also is not impressive. As far as customer service goes they have much less hurdles to jump, when I shop online I don't have to worry is a store employee going to make me angry with poor professionalism (we've already established that my standard is apparently unbearably high). Nope I just click on an item then check out. They also have a much longer reach, they don't need to only generate money off their local environment, they can reach anyone anywhere. These things combine allow them to offload a huge volume, that volume in turn allows them to sell everything below MSRP. I've seen them sell MTG boxes at 90 a pop, even less if you buy by the case! The lower MSRP in turns allows for even greater volume.
Lastly someone mentioned that demos are a good reason to believe the "traditional" LGS is not going to die out. Well I disagree because the majority of new players are not brought in by a demo. They are brought in by a friend. Friends get more people into gaming then anything else. Now don't take that as don't do demos, they are critical if you do have a front. But we all better start combining that front with an online store, and no eBay and things like it don't count. We as retailers are going to have to adapt or die.
Here's my problem with GW, GW doesn't allow online sells, not in the states anyway. Miniature Market actually dropped them a few years ago, you used to be able to call in and order stuff at 25% off. I think that's telling that a massive retailer like that just doesn't want to deal with them. Clearly they have come to conclusion that 40k is a bad product for their market. That's why I question whether GW actually understands the market fully, even if they do see the online as the future. At least not the American market, they seem to want to force you to buy local to them.
Lastly let me post on topic here, AoS has been very successful for my store. I don't think that is indicative of the greater market though, I stated before that we have a very casual player base that sort of eschews tournament play. They like the narrative experience. Even the 40k events we have are all narrative based. That's what they want, many of them even strongly state that GW games have no place in tournament play. So I cater to that. I think had I had a large tournament player base, especially a fantasy one, I would have pushed AoS considerably less and pushed KoW considerably more. I just think it's impossible to tell if AoS has been a failure in the greater market. Also what do we mean by failure, a failure for GW or a failure in relation to other games. I think that AoS could out sell KoW for instance and it's still possible it was a failure for GW. I'm not sure how much has been sunk into it by GW.
If so, GW failed to get the key point that Kickstarters are pre-orders.
And I keep wondering whether those putting in their 'pre-order' realize that kickstarter is not a pre-order system but a way of contributing too something that may not succeed. It may not happen much, but I can never help but be amazed at kickstarters that go wrong and the reactions of those who were part of it, clearly not grasping that that it was not simply a pre-order system.
That is the theory. The practice is that wargamers see it as a pre-order system, then get angry when the project doesn't work out, as happens all too often. Anyway, part of the reason why Kickstarters are popular is because players can see what is going to be offered before it is available, which GW no longer allow you to do.
Back to the topic of points, as a long term historical (and SF/Modern) player, I have always played games with and without points with friends at home and at clubs.
I don't see why people buying things online should change the perception of whether points are good or bad. It seems to me that online is just a better version of old-fashioned mail order from magazine adverts.
"AOS gave them a small bump in fantasy sales, but they lost hugely with no 40k sales in those months. My sales are down 65% for the last 4 months on GW. "
"GW found a way to cost me thousands of dollars in sales each month"
Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain
This is a supply issue, resulting from Games Workshop taking a few months off from supplying Mikhaila with new 40k releases. Mikhaila can't make Games Workshop produce new 40k releases to sell to him, so your attempts to blame him for GW's actions are absurd. Even if Mikhaila replaced those lost 40k sales with a substitute, that substitute is inevitably going to be inferior to the status quo, because if it wasn't then 40k would be the substitute and the other product would be the one he sells all the time.
I don't think it's a good idea or model to rely on new releases for the bulk of your sales for a miniatures game. New customers are preferable in my mind, note I count getting someone into a new army for a game they already play as part of that. I aim for at least 60% of my miniatures sales to come from new players, their buy in is higher and their subsequent purchases will be higher as well then say a customer that has been playing a miniatures game for a few years. This is especially so if you implement programs to achieve a high retention rate. This is do to the simple fact most people will just stop at a certain point with an army. Further GW hasn't always had such an aggressive release schedule. Just seems like a bad idea to bank on new releases.
DrNo172000 wrote: I don't think it's a good idea or model to rely on new releases for the bulk of your sales for a miniatures game. New customers are preferable in my mind, note I count getting someone into a new army for a game they already play as part of that.
DrNo is 100% correct here. Don't rely on the new stuff to excite your customers; rely on the stuff your new customers are going to need. A funny story: A few years ago, I worked for a game store that was trying to cater to a growing Warmachine crowd. The number one complaint from the customers was the lack of product; we didn't stock the starter boxes or important models for each faction, so the existing players had no choice but to direct new and potential players to the Internet to buy their models. Owner decides he's sick of hearing the complaints and wants to spend some money to stock Warmachine. I e-mail him my list of recommended products that I knew our customers would buy; starter boxes for new players, important units/solos for each of the factions that existing players would buy on a whim, etc.. Instead, the owner phones up his distributor and says "I want you to send me 4 copies of every new Privateer Press release going forward," thinking stocking miniatures was really that simple. This was back when Privateer Press was releasing the colossals and reboxing their cavalry. So we got 4 copies of some of the most expensive miniatures in their line that nobody wanted to buy locally at full MSRP; we didn't get any starter boxes or miniatures good for impulse buys. Long story short, the players were disgusted by the owner's ignorance and our store kinda became the laughing stock of the local miniatures scene. All of those players left to play at different stores that actually stocked the product they wanted and listened to their customers. As far as I know, that product is still on the shelf, at 30% off MSRP.
On topic, Age of Sigmar didn't fail locally as much as it didn't arrive at all. No one plays miniatures at the LGS; they don't even stock Games Workshop products there. It's just not as profitable as Magic. Of the other stores I've visited that do stock Games Workshop and have active miniatures players, I've heard that people have been buying it and are even playing games in the store. But it sounds like it's just small groups of friends that play other games together as well, like 40K. And I think that's what we're going to see with AoS; it's a game you play with your buddies, not a game that lends itself to pick-up games between strangers at the LGS. You need to have that one guy - that alpha gamer - who gets so excited about Age of Sigmar, that he's able to convince his friends to buy into it as well and show up to the store to play. If you don't have that guy in your store, the game's gonna flop.
Atolyr wrote: You need to have that one guy - that alpha gamer - who gets so excited about Age of Sigmar, that he's able to convince his friends to buy into it as well and show up to the store to play. If you don't have that guy in your store, the game's gonna flop.
This is a really strong point. This is why there used to be Outriders, why PP has Pressgangers and WLG has Sarges. IMO this is necessary for pretty much any game that isn't 40k, including AoS. But if AoS is not meant for store play, I guess it would not make sense for GW to set up this kind of support. It's a really interesting line of thought. I wonder if this could be an issue with there being so little in the way of clubs here in the US? Or maybe the new Outrider is the one man of the one man store? It's really hard to say.
AoS did poorly around here. A few starter sets were bought by a handful of players and a few games were played by those guys but it just didn't catch on. I picked up my buddy's starter set for $75 after he built both sides but just couldn't bring himself to paint or put any more effort into the game. Not sure if he even rolled dice with those minis.
Once I get my stuff painted up I plan on bringing both sides to the LGS to try the game out.
GW still allows internet sales from other retailers in the US. They just can't have an online shopping cart. The Warstore still has a big section on their site explaining the process that includes 20% off---customers just have to call their order in and have to either use the warstore spreadsheet of what they offer and/or window shop on GW's site first to get an idea of what they want.
I'll be quick in this post since this is from my phone and I hate typing on this thing. In my own little section of NJ in Maplewood age of sigmar has died completely - what is ironic is that it sent even more people to play 8th edition warhammer in the store. Hell every Friday there are three tables of fantasy going with people waiting - and it's supposed to be 40k night
With talking with others as well as observing my own opinion - ALL GW had to do was fix two things: first, fix the magic spells rather than phase (essentially give maximum amount of dice for certain spells or tone down certain spells.... Purple sun cough cough - but keep the randomness (probably even generate psychic dice like 40k)); secondly, fix the idea of ranks giving stubborn (therefore cavalry still has an impact if it flank charges). Hell if anything we rarely house rule if at all that's how much we like 8th
Another thing they could have done to help age of sigmar would be to JUST GIVE SOME DAMN POINTS.
I just keep going back to the fact that the AOS starter is already at clearance pricing online. Seriously, you can get them for $60 on eBay right now. That's fairly solid evidence that the game has tanked.
"AOS gave them a small bump in fantasy sales, but they lost hugely with no 40k sales in those months. My sales are down 65% for the last 4 months on GW. " "GW found a way to cost me thousands of dollars in sales each month"
Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain
This is a supply issue, resulting from Games Workshop taking a few months off from supplying Mikhaila with new 40k releases. Mikhaila can't make Games Workshop produce new 40k releases to sell to him, so your attempts to blame him for GW's actions are absurd. Even if Mikhaila replaced those lost 40k sales with a substitute, that substitute is inevitably going to be inferior to the status quo, because if it wasn't then 40k would be the substitute and the other product would be the one he sells all the time.
I don't think it's a good idea or model to rely on new releases for the bulk of your sales for a miniatures game. New customers are preferable in my mind, note I count getting someone into a new army for a game they already play as part of that. I aim for at least 60% of my miniatures sales to come from new players, their buy in is higher and their subsequent purchases will be higher as well then say a customer that has been playing a miniatures game for a few years. This is especially so if you implement programs to achieve a high retention rate. This is do to the simple fact most people will just stop at a certain point with an army. Further GW hasn't always had such an aggressive release schedule. Just seems like a bad idea to bank on new releases.
While I'm not suggesting it's a good idea to build a business around the idea of new releases, isn't that where a huge amount of the money lies?
I know on video games the vast majority of profit for any given game comes in the first week. I'm sure wargaming isn't as extreme as video game publishers market more aggressively, but I'm sure sales are still skewed massively to the first week of release. From GW's own sale figures that were released from the chapterhouse case a decent chunk of sales (half or more) occur in the first year and if I were to hazard a guess I'd say it's biased toward the first month. I know when the Imperial Knight came out my local FLGS had a stack of about 10 of them, most of them were gone in the first week, a couple sold in the 2nd week and the last 2 were sitting around for a few months.
It doesn't seem like a good idea to bank on new releases, but it also seems like a bad idea to not try and get the most out of them. That's why I hear wargames stores owners bitching about GW more than any other company when it comes to not getting enough advance information, not enough time to figure out how many to order and not good reliability on preorders. The only real complaints I hear about other companies are general supply issues, I'm sure that's partly because Australian distributors are struggling these days (I hear a lot of complaints from store owners about how customers can buy stuff online from overseas shipped to their door for a similar price to the store can get it wholesale from the local distributor AND get it more reliably as well).
As an aside, my local hobby store owner (not wargames, but remote control cars/planes, finescale models, etc) was talking about how the new stuff is often the thing that draws people in even if they end up buying something else. Things like having the newest scalextric set or airfix big kit in the window he gets people coming in to check it out and then somehow manages to sell the old scalextrix sets or an old airfix big kit that's been sitting on the shelves for years to them instead I know that's not as relevant to the discussion at hand but I found it interesting none the less.
The GW's I visit tend to treat AoS abit like a shameful thing. Its always on the furthest board away from the entrance or facing away from the store front, nobody ever trys to sell you on the game. nobody's yet tried to get me to buy anything AoS and I never see people buying it, sometimes the boxes are just piled up on the floor in the back because they can't shift it.
If this is GW we're talking about what hope do independent sellers have shifting the stuff. AoS on whole just doesn't look like a good seller and falls in line with the hobbit.
"AOS gave them a small bump in fantasy sales, but they lost hugely with no 40k sales in those months. My sales are down 65% for the last 4 months on GW. "
"GW found a way to cost me thousands of dollars in sales each month"
Where you clearly blame GW, rather than taking responsibility as a business owner. Is blaming other companies par for the course? How is that smart business? Please explain
This is a supply issue, resulting from Games Workshop taking a few months off from supplying Mikhaila with new 40k releases. Mikhaila can't make Games Workshop produce new 40k releases to sell to him, so your attempts to blame him for GW's actions are absurd. Even if Mikhaila replaced those lost 40k sales with a substitute, that substitute is inevitably going to be inferior to the status quo, because if it wasn't then 40k would be the substitute and the other product would be the one he sells all the time.
I don't think it's a good idea or model to rely on new releases for the bulk of your sales for a miniatures game. New customers are preferable in my mind, note I count getting someone into a new army for a game they already play as part of that. I aim for at least 60% of my miniatures sales to come from new players, their buy in is higher and their subsequent purchases will be higher as well then say a customer that has been playing a miniatures game for a few years. This is especially so if you implement programs to achieve a high retention rate. This is do to the simple fact most people will just stop at a certain point with an army. Further GW hasn't always had such an aggressive release schedule. Just seems like a bad idea to bank on new releases.
While I'm not suggesting it's a good idea to build a business around the idea of new releases, isn't that where a huge amount of the money lies?
I know on video games the vast majority of profit for any given game comes in the first week. I'm sure wargaming isn't as extreme as video game publishers market more aggressively, but I'm sure sales are still skewed massively to the first week of release. From GW's own sale figures that were released from the chapterhouse case a decent chunk of sales (half or more) occur in the first year and if I were to hazard a guess I'd say it's biased toward the first month. I know when the Imperial Knight came out my local FLGS had a stack of about 10 of them, most of them were gone in the first week, a couple sold in the 2nd week and the last 2 were sitting around for a few months.
It doesn't seem like a good idea to bank on new releases, but it also seems like a bad idea to not try and get the most out of them. That's why I hear wargames stores owners bitching about GW more than any other company when it comes to not getting enough advance information, not enough time to figure out how many to order and not good reliability on preorders. The only real complaints I hear about other companies are general supply issues, I'm sure that's partly because Australian distributors are struggling these days (I hear a lot of complaints from store owners about how customers can buy stuff online from overseas shipped to their door for a similar price to the store can get it wholesale from the local distributor AND get it more reliably as well).
As an aside, my local hobby store owner (not wargames, but remote control cars/planes, finescale models, etc) was talking about how the new stuff is often the thing that draws people in even if they end up buying something else. Things like having the newest scalextric set or airfix big kit in the window he gets people coming in to check it out and then somehow manages to sell the old scalextrix sets or an old airfix big kit that's been sitting on the shelves for years to them instead I know that's not as relevant to the discussion at hand but I found it interesting none the less.
No you should certainly get the new releases, and GW is absolutely terrible at advanced warning, which coupled with an extremely aggressive release schedule can be frustrating. However in terms of Wargames the new customer always has the biggest buy in. Rules, codex, an army. You'll even have some that get into it buy a codex then buy a complete 2k list in one purchase. I like to do escalation leagues though because a little bit at a time is easier for people to swallow. On top of this the more new customers you generate and maintain means the more you'll get out of those new releases.
DrNo172000 wrote: I don't think it's a good idea or model to rely on new releases for the bulk of your sales for a miniatures game. New customers are preferable in my mind, note I count getting someone into a new army for a game they already play as part of that. I aim for at least 60% of my miniatures sales to come from new players, their buy in is higher and their subsequent purchases will be higher as well then say a customer that has been playing a miniatures game for a few years. This is especially so if you implement programs to achieve a high retention rate. This is do to the simple fact most people will just stop at a certain point with an army. Further GW hasn't always had such an aggressive release schedule. Just seems like a bad idea to bank on new releases.
That's an interesting point of view. I see the point of people buying new armies spending more, but my two FLGSs and my local GW seem to survive on a dedicated veteran customer group for Warmahordes, Magic and 40k. In fact the one I would guess is the most successful of the three (recently bought the store next door for gaming space) isn't in a high foot traffic area at all, I wouldn't imagine many new people even finding it.
Anecdotal proof may mean nothing in the grand scheme of things but in the bubble i live in, it means everything, from the Japanese and foreigners i know in the kinki (kansai) area only one bought Aos.
And I care about my Bloodbound! I mean, I care about them in the context of a campaign. Being so new, they don't have nearly the iconic resonance of a Space Marine legion. But with the characters that bring some of that relevance with them from the Old World, like Valkia, I have the same feeling.
(back from the weekend with a colicky toddler)
But the things is, can you care for them without Valkia, who is clearly a product of the Old World? What new Bloodbound/Sigmarine chars do bring such relevance?
...and it doesn't help that they consider "rocks fall, everyone dies" to be epic story telling.
The idea of Tomb Kings being slaves to Nagash put me off the new setting pretty quick.
Imho, the three first ET books were actually quite okish - I didn't even mind the way they dealt with the Elvish... "situation" and one of my favorite HE chars kickin' it (Eltharion). The true issue came to the fore when they went full on kablooey on everything.
A few major plot changes would be nice, and they could even be undone in the longterm- there could've been a campaign focused on Settra's reclamation of Khemri (with or without Chaos), on the War of Heraldry itself, etc etc...
TBH the new characters are about equivalent with older ones (it's not like any of them are particularly brilliant). OIder ones simply have the advantage of being familiar already.
TBH the new characters are about equivalent with older ones (it's not like any of them are particularly brilliant). OIder ones simply have the advantage of being familiar already.
It's true that while one can't make exactly a Khornate character the epitome of depth, the previous setting's characters weren't that bad. Not Pullitzer material, but nothing to look away from, even if heavily based on existing tropes/stereotypes.
Sure and the new ones are of equivalent quality. Like any GW fluff concept, they need to age into status. GW stuff always seems kind of silly at first but you grow used to it and develop affection for it over time.
Manchu wrote: Sure and the new ones are of equivalent quality. Like any GW fluff concept, they need to age into status. GW stuff always seems kind of silly at first but you grow used to it and develop affection for it over time.
And that is just another of the many blunders made by GW regarding the Fantasy situation, really. I will be very curious as to what they will make the dwarves like, though.
How many people were bored and fed up with the Olde World?
The introduction of the AoS fluff seems to be based on GW's desire to create watertight trademarks and so on, rather than because readers were demanding a complete new background for games.
Kilkrazy wrote: I remember that too, and of course it is simple to update a PDF. GW did update the rules to correct the bonus victory conditions very quickly. (The victory conditions for outnumbered armies.)
But really, there isn't very much that needs to be clarified or corrected in the rules. (Short of a massive re-write, at any rate.)
Kilkrazy wrote: How many people were bored and fed up with the Olde World?
The introduction of the AoS fluff seems to be based on GW's desire to create watertight trademarks and so on, rather than because readers were demanding a complete new background for games.
Exactly. Looking at the naming... conventions, it's obvious this is their flipping the bird to Chapterhouse and other 3rd party dealers more than anything else.
Kilkrazy wrote: How many people were bored and fed up with the Olde World?
The introduction of the AoS fluff seems to be based on GW's desire to create watertight trademarks and so on, rather than because readers were demanding a complete new background for games.
Exactly. Looking at the naming... conventions, it's obvious this is their flipping the bird to Chapterhouse and other 3rd party dealers more than anything else.
And that in itself is not really going to help a lot. Chapterhouse only got into that mess because they were pretty much shameless If they had kept a lower profile nothing would have happened.
Kilkrazy wrote: How many people were bored and fed up with the Olde World?
The introduction of the AoS fluff seems to be based on GW's desire to create watertight trademarks and so on, rather than because readers were demanding a complete new background for games.
Exactly. Looking at the naming... conventions, it's obvious this is their flipping the bird to Chapterhouse and other 3rd party dealers more than anything else.
That really doesn't make any sense though because wasn't the outcome of the CH case that it is fine for 3rd party dealers to say "compatible with Seraphon models from Games Workshop" as long as they weren't advertising it as "This is a Seraphon model".
Kilkrazy wrote: How many people were bored and fed up with the Olde World?
The introduction of the AoS fluff seems to be based on GW's desire to create watertight trademarks and so on, rather than because readers were demanding a complete new background for games.
Exactly. Looking at the naming... conventions, it's obvious this is their flipping the bird to Chapterhouse and other 3rd party dealers more than anything else.
That really doesn't make any sense though because wasn't the outcome of the CH case that it is fine for 3rd party dealers to say "compatible with Seraphon models from Games Workshop" as long as they weren't advertising it as "This is a Seraphon model".
Pretty much. And they can go for even more bland descriptions like "compatible with most X/Y scale fantasy miniatures".
That has always been true but GW obviously didn't understand the legal position going into the Chapter House case, and maybe they have learned nothing from it.
Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:I didn't even mind the way they dealt with the Elvish... "situation"
You're dead to me.
Kilkrazy wrote:How many people were bored and fed up with the Olde World?
*Sits on hands*
I've said it before: it was the best thing they had left. That maybe didn't cost an arm and a leg.
AllSeeingSkink wrote:That really doesn't make any sense though because wasn't the outcome of the CH case that it is fine for 3rd party dealers to say "compatible with Seraphon models from Games Workshop" as long as they weren't advertising it as "This is a Seraphon model".
Kilkrazy wrote:That has always been true but GW obviously didn't understand the legal position going into the Chapter House case, and maybe they have learned nothing from it.
Aye, that. I've gotta be honest, I have trouble believing Kilkrazy's quote and the claim it's (partly) why they torched the old world and came up with different (differently unprotectable) names. It's plainly obvious to internet chatterers - surely GW has to get it, too? They can be dim, but that dim?
Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:I didn't even mind the way they dealt with the Elvish... "situation"
You're dead to me.
Hey! I didn't say I liked it. I said I didn't mind I mean it still had potential for further genocide and it's still better than blowing up the entire fething world....
Kilkrazy wrote:How many people were bored and fed up with the Olde World?
*Sits on hands*
I've said it before: it was the best thing they had left. That maybe didn't cost an arm and a leg.
AllSeeingSkink wrote:That really doesn't make any sense though because wasn't the outcome of the CH case that it is fine for 3rd party dealers to say "compatible with Seraphon models from Games Workshop" as long as they weren't advertising it as "This is a Seraphon model".
Kilkrazy wrote:That has always been true but GW obviously didn't understand the legal position going into the Chapter House case, and maybe they have learned nothing from it.
Aye, that. I've gotta be honest, I have trouble believing Kilkrazy's quote and the claim it's (partly) why they torched the old world and came up with different (differently unprotectable) names. It's plainly obvious to internet chatterers - surely GW has to get it, too? They can be dim, but that dim?
The Chapterhouse mess was ridiculous on 2 fronts - CH for being so flagrant, but also because GW had no choice not to react. American TM law is a different, far more aggressive beast than Europe - to my understanding in Europe once a TM or equivalent has been awarded, it's pretty much sacrosanct. In the states, if you don't challenge infringements then you are effectively judged to be endorsing them if others follow suit.
If they hadn't gone after Chapterhouse then it would have been potentially disastrous for the IP, and then share price...
You only have to look at the perpetual cycle of litigation between Apple, Samsung and Google for an example of IP policing that only really benefits lawyers.
The first End Times book, Nagash, was okay-sh. And even that one had the clear reek of Wardian taint among its pages.
It quickly went downhill after that one, though. When asked about the (severe) inconsistencies in the story, one of the writers admitted they had been given two months or so to write some of the books. So they had little to no time to do the usual reference checks and proof reading. I'm actually inclined to believe that's how GW works nowadays in an overall sense: stupidly tight deadlines that lead to no checking and no proof reading. Explains a lot really.
The AoS fluff I've read so far strikes me as incredibly bland and boring. Not saying the old Fantasy fluff was full of masterpieces, but at least there were parts of it where you could say the writer at least had been somewhat inspired that day.
GW's view is that no-one should be allowed to buy any models you could use in one of their games except from GW. Therefore 3rd party companies should not be allowed to make compatible models. The problem is they can. Therefore the solution is that they should not be allowed to call them compatible models. But this is not the law on names and trademarks.
GW have trademarked the newly invented name "Ratiocinator" for a new type of Sigmarine for the Games and Toys category.
This means no-one is allowed to make a model for a tabletop wargame and call it a Ratiocinator. But Hyundai can make a car called a Ratiocinator, Nestle can make a chocolate bar called a Ratiocinator, and Chapter House can make a spare part to fit Ratiocinators, say a new shield, and describe it as "Compatible with GW's Ratiocinator(tm) models".
The place that the new names have some value is in establishing the coherent identity of AoS fluff as distinct from WHFB fluff.
Korinov wrote: The first End Times book, Nagash, was okay-sh. And even that one had the clear reek of Wardian taint among its pages.
It quickly went downhill after that one, though. When asked about the (severe) inconsistencies in the story, one of the writers admitted they had been given two months or so to write some of the books. So they had little to no time to do the usual reference checks and proof reading. I'm actually inclined to believe that's how GW works nowadays in an overall sense: stupidly tight deadlines that lead to no checking and no proof reading. Explains a lot really.
The AoS fluff I've read so far strikes me as incredibly bland and boring. Not saying the old Fantasy fluff was full of masterpieces, but at least there were parts of it where you could say the writer at least had been somewhat inspired that day.
Agreed, and it's reflective of GW overall. I really enjoy really reading GW's old fluff, in stuff from like WHFB 3E, 40k 2E, up through probably WHFB 7E and 40k 4E. After that it starts to become increasingly recycled, unimaginative, and one-dimensional. A couple of things in the End Times were interesting, but it lacked that "spark" of older stuff. The AoS fluff has just come off as bad internet fanfic. Everything sounds like it was named by an overactive 12 year old, and the stories just really feel like someone copy-pasted some bits of old Warhammer fluff onto a template design to copy what made Space Marines popular in 40k in an almost carbon-copy like manner.
RoperPG wrote: The Chapterhouse mess was ridiculous on 2 fronts - CH for being so flagrant, but also because GW had no choice not to react. American TM law is a different, far more aggressive beast than Europe - to my understanding in Europe once a TM or equivalent has been awarded, it's pretty much sacrosanct. In the states, if you don't challenge infringements then you are effectively judged to be endorsing them if others follow suit.
If they hadn't gone after Chapterhouse then it would have been potentially disastrous for the IP, and then share price...
That is entirely not the core of the Chapterhouse case - that was the ability to advertise your products as being compatible with another company's products - and Chapterhouse overwhelmingly won, costing Games Workshop millions of dollars in litigation and proving that it did not own the copyright for things such as "Halberd" and the iron cross. This is why they, as well as anyone else, can advertise "Chaos Space Marine Compatible Bits", much like I can buy a "Mitsubishi 3000 GT compatible carbon fiber hood". Regardless, WTF is Chapterhouse doing in this thread?
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Kilkrazy wrote: How many people were bored and fed up with the Olde World?
Bored with? Me. It was the coolest thing ever in the 90's, loved that GW was advancing the plot in the mid 2000's, and then they retconned it all and began morphing it into a supermagic steampunk ball of nonsense. I love the Old World of Warhammer 3rd through 6, of Warhammer Roleplay First and Second edition... that's the true Old World. Gnarly, deadly, dark, treacherous, shadow. Not the hot steaming pile of garbage mess that the fluff had become by the latter half of 7th and all of 8th. Much like with 40k, GW could not make any significant plot advancements without pissing off it's customer base (or at least the vocal ones on forums) by weakening or strengthening any particular faction, so any advancements (Storm of Chaos, much like the 40k Eye of Terror worldwide campaign) had to be retconned constantly.
The best thing to happen to Warhammer was the End Times and Age of Sigmar. Otherwise we would have had the same stagnant Warhammer world that we've had since 1982 whose only advancement would be in how many times any plot advancement could be quickly hushed and forgotten and how many new regiments/unit types could suddenly appear out of nowhere - oh gak, well of COURSE the Empire always had demigryph knights! The Empire always had clockwork steam powered steeds!
judgedoug wrote: Regardless, WTF is Chapterhouse doing in this thread?
The CH issue is seen (rightly so, imo) as the true motive for the renaming and rebranding of GW's fantasy line - AoS. That's why.
So you believe that the entire reason - nay, "TRUE MOTIVE" - that Age of Sigmar exists is because of the Chapterhouse case? The case that proved for the ten thousandth time that you can manufacture aftermarket parts that say "compatible with"?
While that absolutely makes sense for the renaming of the generic factions into Duardin and Seraphon, etc, just for the purposes of copyright-able names (versus the generic "Dwarves" and "Lizardmen"), I am still allowed to (and have the full force of the legal system behind me) make a piece that says "compatible with Age of Sigmar Stormcast Eternal Liberator".
But, again, just repeating here, the Chapterhouse case is the TRUE MOTIVE for Age of Sigmar. Yes? The entire reason it exists?
judgedoug wrote: The best thing to happen to Warhammer was the End Times and Age of Sigmar. Otherwise we would have had the same stagnant Warhammer world that we've had since 1982 whose only advancement would be in how many times any plot advancement could be quickly hushed and forgotten and how many new regiments/unit types could suddenly appear out of nowhere - oh gak, well of COURSE the Empire always had demigryph knights! The Empire always had clockwork steam powered steeds!
The worst thing to have ever happened to WHFB was AoS - it's an half arsed attempt to drive sales by using 40k's best selling range (Space Marines) to appeal to excitable younger audiences and people who have trouble controlling impulse buying urges.
The only achievement of AoS was to effectively split the WHFB community in two and to drive a wedge between GW and yet more of their player err... sorry "customer" base. Ain't that an achievement?
judgedoug wrote: Regardless, WTF is Chapterhouse doing in this thread?
The CH issue is seen (rightly so, imo) as the true motive for the renaming and rebranding of GW's fantasy line - AoS. That's why.
So you believe that the entire reason - nay, "TRUE MOTIVE" - that Age of Sigmar exists is because of the Chapterhouse case? The case that proved for the ten thousandth time that you can manufacture aftermarket parts that say "compatible with"?
While that absolutely makes sense for the renaming of the generic factions into Duardin and Seraphon, etc, just for the purposes of copyright-able names (versus the generic "Dwarves" and "Lizardmen"), I am still allowed to (and have the full force of the legal system behind me) make a piece that says "compatible with Age of Sigmar Stormcast Eternal Liberator".
But, again, just repeating here, the Chapterhouse case is the TRUE MOTIVE for Age of Sigmar. Yes? The entire reason it exists?
I believe so, yes. And as I said before - AoS as a whole provides more than enough proof of GW's incompetence in oh so many levels.
judgedoug wrote: The best thing to happen to Warhammer was the End Times and Age of Sigmar. Otherwise we would have had the same stagnant Warhammer world that we've had since 1982 whose only advancement would be in how many times any plot advancement could be quickly hushed and forgotten and how many new regiments/unit types could suddenly appear out of nowhere - oh gak, well of COURSE the Empire always had demigryph knights! The Empire always had clockwork steam powered steeds!
The worst thing to have ever happened to WHFB was AoS - it's an half arsed attempt to drive sales by using 40k's best selling range (Space Marines) to appeal to excitable younger audiences and people who have trouble controlling impulse buying urges.
The only achievement of AoS was to effectively split the WHFB community in two and to drive a wedge between GW and yet more of their player err... sorry "customer" base. Ain't that an achievement?
I suppose GW could have continued to polish it's biggest turd - but Warhammer 8 was such a bad game that was trying it's hardest and failing utterly to pretend to be a good game, and the Warhammer world was getting so stupid. So, so stupid.
Just kill it and let it live in our memories. At least Age of Sigmar has embraced the fact it's a Saturday Morning Cartoon, whereas Warhammer was like if Game of Thrones left HBO to become a CW show.
But there will always be people who refuse to believe Warhammer had become utter gak: that "think aos will get retconned" thread is like a circle jerk of butthurt WHFB players reading their own fanfic.
judgedoug wrote: The best thing to happen to Warhammer was the End Times and Age of Sigmar. Otherwise we would have had the same stagnant Warhammer world that we've had since 1982 whose only advancement would be in how many times any plot advancement could be quickly hushed and forgotten and how many new regiments/unit types could suddenly appear out of nowhere - oh gak, well of COURSE the Empire always had demigryph knights! The Empire always had clockwork steam powered steeds!
The worst thing to have ever happened to WHFB was AoS - it's an half arsed attempt to drive sales by using 40k's best selling range (Space Marines) to appeal to excitable younger audiences and people who have trouble controlling impulse buying urges.
The only achievement of AoS was to effectively split the WHFB community in two and to drive a wedge between GW and yet more of their player err... sorry "customer" base. Ain't that an achievement?
I suppose GW could have continued to polish it's biggest turd - but Warhammer 8 was such a bad game that was trying it's hardest and failing utterly to pretend to be a good game, and the Warhammer world was getting so stupid. So, so stupid.
Just kill it and let it live in our memories. At least Age of Sigmar has embraced the fact it's a Saturday Morning Cartoon, whereas Warhammer was like if Game of Thrones left HBO to become a CW show.
But there will always be people who refuse to believe Warhammer had become utter gak: that "think aos will get retconned" thread is like a circle jerk of butthurt WHFB players reading their own fanfic.
Replacing a turd with a bigger turd will only attract the applause of Coprophiliacs
It is certainly easier to remember something fondly when it's gone. I feel a kind of nostalgia for the Old World now completely unsupported by any affection for it circa 2014.
Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote: Replacing a turd with a bigger turd will only attract the applause of Coprophiliacs
Shrug, I thought Age of Sigmar was absolutely utter gak until I saw others playing it, and then played it myself, and realized it's a really goddamn fun little skirmish game. It's the first fun thing GW has made since shedding all of their veteran games designers in the late 2000's.
