Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
Playing armies in store that aren't being bought or are for sale in store? Ban them right there and then. No different from turning up with WM/H stuff and expecting to play it.

Technically true. However that doesn't mean it's not a dumb analogy.

What happens when you tell your regular customers their army is no longer allowed in store?
They leave.

You never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever want to give people a reason NOT to come to your store in retail.


Forgeworld is a part of Games Workshop, the money that FW take in goes to GW.
Yes it might suck for the store if they aren't hitting their targets because people have bought elsewhere, but if you go down the road of 'you didn't buy it from me you can't play here' where do you stop?

Lets say he still doesn't hit his target, what's next, should he ban people from using the direct only items they can't buy from him? Second hand models? Old OOP kits that can't be bought anymore? Dusty old collections from people returning to the game? Any models that doesn't have a receipt from his store?

The 'you didn't buy it here so you can't use it' mentality is toxic to a community. Ultimately will lead to people simply going somewhere they can play, and as much as people might want to think 'good ridden to them, they bought nothing so they were simply a waste of space' having customers in your store is always good as it gives you the chance to sell them impulse buy items. A decent manager should be able to strike up a fluff conversation and turn that into a BL book sale, or talk them into a blister here and there. I can't believe there are people out there who spent literally zero dollars in their stores. But even then, if they leave and go play in their garage or another store, you risk paying customers following. You risk having an empty, sad looking, store that does not entice people in from off the street instead of a store full of people clearly having fun and actively showing off the product you're trying to sell. You risk anyone those people bring into the hobby via word of mouth (still GWs biggest advertising tool) bringing them in via a method other than your store, potentially missing out on hundreds or thousands of dollars.


Bad for the players, bad for the store, sounds like a dumb manager.
/rant

jonolikespie wrote:
I'd say that sounds likely, but unless OP is a personal friend with his local manager that's not really his problem.

It's a problem for all the 30K players, though.

this is just going to kill the community at that store

Just as dead as if the store closed because no managers could make their targets there.

jonolikespie wrote:
What happens when you tell your regular customers their army is no longer allowed in store?
They leave.

When 90% of resident gamers just use models that have to be bought outside the store, at least going by Bottle's OP, it might be a stretch to call them customers. In a dispassionate viewpoint they're unavailable resources, or potential resources, or whatever. They're there, but the manager can't benefit from them. They're effectively nonexistant and irrelevant at best, burdens and space-hoggers at worst.

It does sound bad though, doesn't it? Banning a gamer's minis and shoving them out of the shop? It's nothing new. I've first-hand experience of that, when GW simultaneously banned SGs and chucked the then-current batch of veterans out of the Belfast shop, way back when. TBH, best thing that might have happened to my hobby.

You never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever want to give people a reason NOT to come to your store in retail.

People setting up a table in the middle of the shop and displaying what are, to the manager's situation, effectively a competitor's products, might be one.

Forgeworld is a part of Games Workshop, the money that FW take in goes to GW.

Yes it might suck for the store if they aren't hitting their targets because people have bought elsewhere

That's a problem with the tragedy of the commons example, isn't it? Bit difficult to be all swept up in the cause of the greater good when the 'greater good' cans you for not being mercenary enough. What makes the manager's livelihood less important than grown guys who apparently can't organise anywhere else to play with their toy soldiers?

but if you go down the road of 'you didn't buy it from me you can't play here' where do you stop?

Lets say he still doesn't hit his target, what's next, should he ban people from using the direct only items they can't buy from him?

If a good many core or high-end kits for the given army can still be bought in-store, it's not quite the same thing.

Second hand models? Old OOP kits that can't be bought anymore? Dusty old collections from people returning to the game?

If 90% of gamers in a shop use second hand minis, you have a point. Dusty old collections might be similarly uncommon, with a lessened impact because the old armies aren't displaying products that can be easily bought elsewhere. And might not be all that more desirable to younger gamers jonesing for grav-sleds and centurions anyway. Then, especially with the grand tradition of GW rules churn, there's a chance those old armies might yet be added to with in-store purchases.

The 'you didn't buy it here so you can't use it' mentality is toxic to a community.

There's a train of thought that GW shops don't exactly foster healthy gaming communities anyway. Prolific ones, definitely, but...

Ultimately will lead to people simply going somewhere they can play, and as much as people might want to think 'good ridden to them, they bought nothing so they were simply a waste of space' having customers in your store is always good as it gives you the chance to sell them impulse buy items.

What if they're only buying FW 30K models?

A decent manager should be able to strike up a fluff conversation and turn that into a BL book sale, or talk them into a blister here and there.

A decent manager should realise what 90% of their regulars are buying and playing, and a blister here and there is probably not going to hit many targets.

But even then, if they leave and go play in their garage or another store, you risk paying customers following.

The ones who don't play 30K, or kids and parents coming in for birthday presents etc.?

You risk having an empty, sad looking, store that does not entice people in from off the street

Much as it stung us at the time, GW Belfast quickly filled up again.

instead of a store full of people clearly having fun and actively showing off the product you're trying to sell.

What, Forgeworld minis?

You risk anyone those people bring into the hobby via word of mouth (still GWs biggest advertising tool) bringing them in via a method other than your store, potentially missing out on hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Welcome to Dakka. Let me tell you about this company called Games Workshop...

Alternatively, given the phobia of gamers to even look at a game unless a dozen people within a hundred yards already play it, if the word of mouth from 90% of those gamers is "I love 30K! Look at this badass FW model!", how do you think that might play out?

Bad for the players, bad for the store, sounds like a dumb manager.
/rant

Not really, not really, and... not really.

I'm not saying it's an ideal situation, far from it, and there's a lot of supposition on both sides here, IMO; but whatcha gonna do? Something has to give, somewhere.

Theres a limit on Forgeworld models to use at the GW where I go, plus you need to ask beforehand. The Manager told me they could get quite a fuss over things if they get caught by the higher ups with lots of people prancing with FW models around as they don't get sold in their stores. Kinda logical to me, you ain't playing things like Magic or Warmachine there either.. that would be plain stupid... You know, it's a thing called logic.

 jonolikespie wrote:

What happens when you tell your regular customers their army is no longer allowed in store?
They leave.

You never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever want to give people a reason NOT to come to your store in retail.

What do you call people that don't buy in your store then? They aren't customers then. The managers rather keep their job...

OP, which store is this (asking for a friend... )?

Ok do people actually think that driving away potential customers when you already can't hit your targets and when the company as a whole is trying to GROW could be an even remotely good idea.

Once again, these people are potential customers. Does removing them somehow directly increase sales? Of course not. You are losing at least some potential sales for what gain? Not to mention the ill will this will cause which is already a huge problem for GW when it comes to word of mouth.

Then how does pushing people away from the GW ecosystem help them grow? These people are buying FW and playing it in a GW store, directly contributing to Games Workshop. Pushing them out has the potential to lose them as customers. Again, what gain is there for a potential loss?

Best case scenario here is what, the manager frees up space in his store?

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Theres a limit on Forgeworld models to use at the GW where I go, plus you need to ask beforehand. The Manager told me they could get quite a fuss over things if they get caught by the higher ups with lots of people prancing with FW models around as they don't get sold in their stores. Kinda logical to me, you ain't playing things like Magic or Warmachine there either.. that would be plain stupid... You know, it's a thing called logic.

What's 'logical' about not getting to use GW models in a GW store?

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Theres a limit on Forgeworld models to use at the GW where I go, plus you need to ask beforehand.

Where is this store?

 Bookwrack wrote:

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Theres a limit on Forgeworld models to use at the GW where I go, plus you need to ask beforehand. The Manager told me they could get quite a fuss over things if they get caught by the higher ups with lots of people prancing with FW models around as they don't get sold in their stores. Kinda logical to me, you ain't playing things like Magic or Warmachine there either.. that would be plain stupid... You know, it's a thing called logic.

What's 'logical' about not getting to use GW models in a GW store?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

I don't get turned away from a Toyota dealership if I take my Scion in for service because ultimately they are the same company. These policies by GW (not selling FW in GW stores, or allowing FW purchases made in store to count towards a store's sales goal) and the policies of individual store managers (not allowing FW in stores) are pants on the head STUPID. Why should a customer have to sit down and perform mental gymnastics before bringing their GW items into a GW store to paint or play?

There is no logic here, other than GW's own brand of "logic" regarding competition between themselves.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
Playing armies in store that aren't being bought or are for sale in store? Ban them right there and then. No different from turning up with WM/H stuff and expecting to play it.

Technically true. However that doesn't mean it's not a dumb analogy.

What happens when you tell your regular customers their army is no longer allowed in store?
They leave.

No, they buy another army as they love space marines and want to play them.

It's a result of stores that sell GW product competing with each other. If they don't move as much GW product as the other store then they get penalized. So, any activity that doesn't result in them selling GW product is discouraged.

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
Playing armies in store that aren't being bought or are for sale in store? Ban them right there and then. No different from turning up with WM/H stuff and expecting to play it.

Technically true. However that doesn't mean it's not a dumb analogy.

What happens when you tell your regular customers their army is no longer allowed in store?
They leave.

No, they buy another army as they love space marines and want to play them.

That would be GW view on it and AOS new space marines seem to back this up.

Not even painting? Come on, that's just ridiculous.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Bookwrack wrote:

What's 'logical' about not getting to use GW models in a GW store?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Unless they're not actually 'mainstream' GW models that you can buy or order in-store.

I don't get turned away from a Toyota dealership if I take my Scion in for service because ultimately they are the same company.

I'll bet when you're considering a new car, those individual guys on commission would much rather you bought a Toyota, though.

And in the meantime, could you please stop driving your Scion round and round the lot, honking your horn?

Wonderwolf wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
As I understand things, GW are bringing FW models into their shops as a standard stock item, so it won't make sense to ban them from play in the same shop.

The rumour keeps appearing, but I think it is highly unlikely.

They'd have to cast hundreds of FW models (which are hand-cast, lots of man-hours there) to stock all the stores with a sizable FW range, even as they shrink stores, reduce shelf-space with multi-multi-multi-part kits and ever more direct-only stuff. And they have to keep doing that with new Forge World releases, creating an enormous pile of unsold FW-stock sitting ... somewhere .. for a lot of money.

Doesn't add up. If there really is a kit they want to have sitting in all stores, it's probably more economical to make a plastic-mould for it and sell it under the GW-main brand.

Agreed. Enter the plastic 30K sprues we've seen...

Many companies would benefit from learning that what you incentivise is what you get. It may not be what you wanted, but it's what you got.

If GW incentivise sales of 'main range' in store to the exclusion of everything else, that is what they will get.

Just to clarify, the new manager seems like a great guy and he has lots of experience at different stores apparently. So I just thought it odd to find FW getting banned bar special events.

You pick up a white dwarf or warhammer visions in store and see Forgeworld models plastered across the pages. But don't think about bringing those models in here....

The regulars I'm talking about are all ideal GW customers in my opinion. They were the 40k scene, then were the 8th Edition WHFB scene (all bought in store) and are now going through a 30k phase. Most don't seem into AoS like me, so maybe it's a ploy to get a bigger scene going, but as some have FW models in their fantasy armies and 40k armies too, it doesn't seem like it'll win many friends.

 BrookM wrote:

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Theres a limit on Forgeworld models to use at the GW where I go, plus you need to ask beforehand.

Where is this store?

It's Rotterdam. They do have FW ina display case. But actual gaming with FW stuff, you'll need to ask first. At least that's what the current manager asked me to do when I brought some FW Chaos stuff some time ago. It's okay, as long you don't go overboard there.

It's the same with specialist games, you won't be able to play those in store either... even though it IS a GW product. You can paint everything there as far as I know but now play them out in the open.

Mind, that happened quite a few months ago, don't know how it is now. I assume the same.

Yup, I would call corporate, or write them a letter (not an email). They won't listen to the idea that they need to write Faqs that would take any of us three hours per rulebook tops, but they will listen when it means money in their pocket (and Forge world's money is their money).

Bottle wrote:Just to clarify, the new manager seems like a great guy and he has lots of experience at different stores apparently. So I just thought it odd to find FW getting banned bar special events.

You pick up a white dwarf or warhammer visions in store and see Forgeworld models plastered across the pages. But don't think about bringing those models in here....

The regulars I'm talking about are all ideal GW customers in my opinion. They were the 40k scene, then were the 8th Edition WHFB scene (all bought in store) and are now going through a 30k phase. Most don't seem into AoS like me, so maybe it's a ploy to get a bigger scene going, but as some have FW models in their fantasy armies and 40k armies too, it doesn't seem like it'll win many friends.

Name. The. Store.

The Grumpy Eldar wrote:

 BrookM wrote:

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Theres a limit on Forgeworld models to use at the GW where I go, plus you need to ask beforehand.

Where is this store?

It's Rotterdam. They do have FW ina display case. But actual gaming with FW stuff, you'll need to ask first. At least that's what the current manager asked me to do when I brought some FW Chaos stuff some time ago. It's okay, as long you don't go overboard there.

It's the same with specialist games, you won't be able to play those in store either... even though it IS a GW product. You can paint everything there as far as I know but now play them out in the open.

Mind, that happened quite a few months ago, don't know how it is now. I assume the same.

Thank you for that.

 Vermis wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Bookwrack wrote:

What's 'logical' about not getting to use GW models in a GW store?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Unless they're not actually 'mainstream' GW models that you can buy or order in-store.

And who made that decision? GW corporate. The current policies separating the two product lines (FW and GW) which produce products for the same games are wholly GW's doing. So, where is the logic in this divide? Further, where is the logic in implementing and maintaining that divide when GW staff are turning away GW customers because said customers are using products produced by GW (FW) for use in GW games?

 Vermis wrote:

I don't get turned away from a Toyota dealership if I take my Scion in for service because ultimately they are the same company.

I'll bet when you're considering a new car, those individual guys on commission would much rather you bought a Toyota, though.

Again, a "problem" that was wholly created by GW. The commissions gained by GW store managers from in-store FW products could exist if GW was interested in doing so. But GW isn't interested in doing so and have now created a climate in some of their stores where customers have to be mindful of which GW products are eligible to be used in a GW store.

Do you still not see the dumpster fire of logic at play here?

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
Playing armies in store that aren't being bought or are for sale in store? Ban them right there and then. No different from turning up with WM/H stuff and expecting to play it.

Technically true. However that doesn't mean it's not a dumb analogy.

What happens when you tell your regular customers their army is no longer allowed in store?
They leave.

No, they buy another army as they love space marines and want to play them.

Or they sell off their Dark Angels on eBay, and are never seen in GW again.

Care to guess which one I would choose?

The Auld Grump - because yet another reason to stay away from GW is always a good idea....

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Thank you for that.

Well, I do have to say... That's the store I frequently go to. Not the store OP is talking about though. Don't know which store OP is talking about.

Isn't there a mindset amongst some 30k guys that 30k is superior to 40k sort of like the warmahordes guys. And might not some be inclined to actively discourage people from playing 40k because 30k is so much better. That attitude could be bad for the Manger in particular and maybe even the player base in general. Could be a reason to ban them. OP doesn't say things are like that so they probably aren't, but there could be good reasons for discouraging a group of 30k guys.

It seems like GW lets their different parts fall into competition in an unhealthy way rather than supporting each other. For example, if a manager encourages someone to buy Forgeworld, that customer goes away and buys it online GW get money but that manager gets nothing but a customer that left empty handed, and it's raw sales that keep him in his job, a job that has a high turnover rate for those that didn't cut it. It understandably means that some managers are inclined to actively discourage purchasing products like FW because it's making harder for them to meet *their* targets which for them take priority.

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:
Isn't there a mindset amongst some 30k guys that 30k is superior to 40k sort of like the warmahordes guys. And might not some be inclined to actively discourage people from playing 40k because 30k is so much better. That attitude could be bad for the Manger in particular and maybe even the player base in general. Could be a reason to ban them. OP doesn't say things are like that so they probably aren't, but there could be good reasons for discouraging a group of 30k guys.

Even if that is the case of one product being superior to the other both products are still produced by the same company. A company shouldn't divide its customer base and ostracize paying customers from its retail locations because those customers favor one product the company offers over another product.

People keep bringing up playing other games in a GW store (like Warmahordes) while ignoring that 30k and 40k are made by the same company! The only competition here is the manufactured competition GW has created by stubbornly enforcing the divide between FW and GW retail.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
It seems like GW lets their different parts fall into competition in an unhealthy way rather than supporting each other. For example, if a manager encourages someone to buy Forgeworld, that customer goes away and buys it online GW get money but that manager gets nothing but a customer that left empty handed, and it's raw sales that keep him in his job, a job that has a high turnover rate for those that didn't cut it. It understandably means that some managers are inclined to actively discourage purchasing products like FW because it's making harder for them to meet *their* targets which for them take priority.

But that strategy worked so well for WotC with D&D 4th edition.... (WotC has since bought a clue - and 5th no longer frames that mentality.)

The Auld Grump

I'm still waiting to hear what benefit this move brings in other that a rather far fetched hope people will just buy a new army to play in store.

The Grumpy Eldar wrote:

 BrookM wrote:

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
Theres a limit on Forgeworld models to use at the GW where I go, plus you need to ask beforehand.

Where is this store?

It's Rotterdam. They do have FW ina display case. But actual gaming with FW stuff, you'll need to ask first. At least that's what the current manager asked me to do when I brought some FW Chaos stuff some time ago. It's okay, as long you don't go overboard there.

It's the same with specialist games, you won't be able to play those in store either... even though it IS a GW product. You can paint everything there as far as I know but now play them out in the open.

Mind, that happened quite a few months ago, don't know how it is now. I assume the same.

I'd say its slightly different with specialist games, as they're not being sold any more in any format. But yeah, a bit strange that you need to ask to use products from the same company in your game.

Gordon Shumway wrote:Yup, I would call corporate, or write them a letter (not an email). They won't listen to the idea that they need to write Faqs that would take any of us three hours per rulebook tops, but they will listen when it means money in their pocket (and Forge world's money is their money).

It's the same problem though: they've already got your money from the sale, why do anything more? The potential risk of further sales? You're not their target customer if you think that. There, there. There's the door.

If bringing business away from stores is really a problem, then why to just sell Forge World in GW stores? In fact, I've heard they're doing exactly that with plastic Horus Heresy. They already sell black library and GW, so why not Forgeworld? I must say, I have never experienced the problem of Horus Heresy being banned. In fact, my local store has Horus Heresy campaigns and tournaments, which got me into playing Sons Of Horus in 30K. So, it seems like the solution to the problem of Forgeworld taking business away from GW is to just sell Forgeworld in GW stores and not keep it exclusively online.

This is what you get when you over-emphasize individual sales quotas without regard for the effect on the company as a whole. It's kind of stupid that these managers get punished if players want to order stuff online FROM THE SAME COMPANY.

I was expecting to read about some kind of split between the GW and Forgeworld.

I suppose it's a bit like Lexus and Toyota, you wouldn't go into one dealership expecting to see products belonging to the other. (Let's disregard the Citroen and DS situation.)

Back in 2002 I tried to use my Tyranids with armorcast models in the GW store on 8th street in new york city. I was told that they weren't allowed. My friend went back to that store around 2005, and was allowed to use his Armorcast models. That pissed me off.

I've never stepped into a GW store since that day, and except for one army, the 12ish armies I have collected since 2002 I have done exclusively through trades or 3rd party online stores.

GW lost a customer that day, and since, I have got other people not to play GW games.

Oh well.

 BuFFo wrote:


I've never stepped into a GW store since that day, and except for one army, the 12ish armies I have collected since 2002 I have done exclusively through trades or 3rd party online stores.

GW lost a customer that day, and since, I have got other people not to play GW games.

Oh well.

Not really, while you don't give them your money directly you are still lining their pockets.

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Thank you for that.

Well, I do have to say... That's the store I frequently go to. Not the store OP is talking about though. Don't know which store OP is talking about.

Yes, that was understood. Thank you.

I do want the OP to name the store they are referring to though. They can do so in private message should they wish.

Buffo don't fool yourself - everytime you buy some GW product it's a win for them.

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:
Isn't there a mindset amongst some 30k guys that 30k is superior to 40k

No.

Although I have heard oft repeated on these boards that 30K, being marines v marines, has ended up being a much better _balanced_ rule set than standard 40k.

And while I certainly can't speak for every 30K players, I'm going to guess that the majority of them are like the ones I know, who have mixed a good number of plastic kits amongst the resin, simply for the sake of their poor wallet.

As a side not, GW's policy that web orders you have delivered to your local GW store, even ones you place INSIDE the very store itself for stuff that GW doesn't put on the shelves, has always been pants on head stupid.

Seems like to me there should be a computer terminal that only allows access to GW/FW sites. There, if a player doesn't find what they want, they can order from the terminal and have it delivered to the store. This could also benefit the store in that when a customer purchases something this way, it gets reflected on their sales of that day. So, this way, yes you can bring FW models in because they would technically sell FW models, in a roundabout way.

Otherwise, banning FW models in store when there is no actual way for them to sell FW models doesn't seem unreasonable. They want to get people buying from the store and if people get hooked on buying something you can't provide, you still don't have a customer...You possibly have an angry customer, which can be worse.

GW seems to be about the "buy it from me, now" way of business in their stores. So GW doesn't really care if a manager does the right thing and helps someone find a way to buy the Warhammer product they want, because that doesn't make them money now.

So in short, not surprised and can't blame them. They want money, not loyalty.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
It seems like GW lets their different parts fall into competition in an unhealthy way rather than supporting each other. For example, if a manager encourages someone to buy Forgeworld, that customer goes away and buys it online GW get money but that manager gets nothing but a customer that left empty handed, and it's raw sales that keep him in his job, a job that has a high turnover rate for those that didn't cut it. It understandably means that some managers are inclined to actively discourage purchasing products like FW because it's making harder for them to meet *their* targets which for them take priority.

But that strategy worked so well for WotC with D&D 4th edition.... (WotC has since bought a clue - and 5th no longer frames that mentality.)

The Auld Grump

Interested in hearing D&D 4th ed parallel explained a little more, please.

He might not like it, but banning GW models from a GW store is asinine. Call corporate and talk to them. FW is GW. Simple as that.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
He might not like it, but banning GW models from a GW store is asinine. Call corporate and talk to them. FW is GW. Simple as that.

Er no, unfortunately it isn't. HQ will support the store manager, it is their shop to run as they think best. There is not a corporate line on this, and the manager's decision is final. Stores want to sell FW, but as they apparently cannot manufacture fast enough to stock the stores, at the moment it is not sold in stores. It is a SHOP, and you cannot blame the manager for wanting to sell products. No one has any entitlement to be able to game in a store, regardless of how much you have spent with the company. The price buys you the models, not a guaranteed venue in which to game. Wherever you choose to game comes with certain necessities, joining a club? Membership and weekly fees. Playing at home? You need to provide space, a table and terrain. Want to play in store on a decorated table with lots of terrain with no financial commitment? Well then the cost is you advertising a product to help the store make further sales. If the store manager is happy that FW being played won't be detrimental to sales then that's their business, but as long as the stores are essentially citadel stores, you can't reasonably complain that they want to promote citadel products.

 ProtoClone wrote:
They want money, not loyalty.

Which is an ass-backwards way of doing things. It's very hard to persuade people to give you money for non-essential goods without engendering some sense of loyalty in them.

In fact, I'd suggest that it's brand loyalty (from an ever-shrinking group of customers) that's keeping them profitable (albeit with signs that the amount of profit is in steady, if unspectacular, decline).

So actions like those described in the OP that jeopardise that loyalty are incredibly short sighted and counter productive.

Business as usual then.

 JamesY wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
He might not like it, but banning GW models from a GW store is asinine. Call corporate and talk to them. FW is GW. Simple as that.

Er no, unfortunately it isn't. HQ will support the store manager, it is their shop to run as they think best. There is not a corporate line on this, and the manager's decision is final.

Have you ever tried to contact GW HQ and gotten a response to that effect?

I would think in this case, HQ would want you buying products regardless of where they come from, the store manager would want you to buy GW products specifically because that's how they make their money.

My local GW manager is quite happy with FW stuff. His displays feature several FW products, right at the top of one of the cabinets is a Forge World Bloodthirster, he has several other FW models in there, I'm pretty sure I've seen more than 1 FW titan in the display window. I've seen photos on the store's FB page of games that included FW models and I've chatted to him in the past about FW products and he's always been enthusiastic about them.

I can understand why some store managers might not be happy about not being able to stock FW stuff, but it is a very arse about way of doing things to ban them. I reckon FW customers are usually big spenders who are likely to buy lots of regular GW stuff as well if it takes their fancy.

privateer4hire wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
It seems like GW lets their different parts fall into competition in an unhealthy way rather than supporting each other. For example, if a manager encourages someone to buy Forgeworld, that customer goes away and buys it online GW get money but that manager gets nothing but a customer that left empty handed, and it's raw sales that keep him in his job, a job that has a high turnover rate for those that didn't cut it. It understandably means that some managers are inclined to actively discourage purchasing products like FW because it's making harder for them to meet *their* targets which for them take priority.

But that strategy worked so well for WotC with D&D 4th edition.... (WotC has since bought a clue - and 5th no longer frames that mentality.)

The Auld Grump

Interested in hearing D&D 4th ed parallel explained a little more, please.

The point of similarity is that, like GW, WotC created a deliberate separation between 4e and all of the previous editions - driving a wedge into their own market in the process.

When working on 4e D&D, WotC made a decision to remove backwards compatibility from the game - in an effort to force their market to buy all new materials*.

Ignoring their playtesters in the drive to the new system. (Which led to some immense errata - among other things completely revising the skill challenge DCs.)

They went so far as to tell DMs to not bother trying to convert their own settings, but to just start over - and then put their money where their mouth was, and completely revamped the Forgotten Realms setting.

Sales for 4e peaked early and faded fast - it turned out that insulting your customer base was not a good idea, and that backwards compatibility was actually something that drove the market. Sales for the revamped Forgotten Realms was, in particular, much worse than projected.

Even the sales of the novel series dropped.

Enter Pathfinder - which revamped the 3.5 D&D architecture, but remained backwardly compatible, so folks could easily convert older material.

Pathfinder managed to grab a large number of disgruntled D&D players and GMs, and took the #1 position from WotC.

WotC has since realized that they made some mistakes - and 5e went to the other extreme, attempting to make it very easy to convert older material.

Deliberately driving a wedge between the editions calved the market, rather than solidifying WotC's position. In effect, the opening salvo of the 3.x v. 4e edition war was fired by the company that had made both editions.

The Auld Grump

* The flagship of this new material was supposed to be the digital initiative DDI - which ended up costing WotC more money than it made. I still think that the basic concept behind the DDI was a solid one, but the execution was fatally flawed.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I can understand why some store managers might not be happy about not being able to stock FW stuff, but it is a very arse about way of doing things to ban them. I reckon FW customers are usually big spenders who are likely to buy lots of regular GW stuff as well if it takes their fancy.

That's the key thing though.

The OP stated that there are people starting 30k. 30k can be done without ever buying a single GW item, unlike adding in FW models to an existing army--and it's one of the worst-kept secrets out there that you can get knockoff FW stuff at dirt cheap prices, so the argument of "FW customers buy from GW still" might not be as grounded as you think.

I know of at least two people, locally, who had a pretty extensive knock-off FW collection and would brag about it.

@ allseeingskink I'm ex-staff so I know that that will be the response.

You have to remember it's the store manager's income that rides on the success of the store, and a decent store manager can potentially earn over double their salary if they are growing the store. It's the guys' mortgage payments, food, bills etc on the line for them. I believed that a few FW models was ok, I could sell tactical squads, paints and glue etc off the back of other customers seeing them. However, a full game of 30k with models, books etc that I can't sell? No way. If a new or returning hobbyist saw it and decided that's what they want, I've just given away a customer I need in my store. Yes the company as a whole doesn't loose out, but that store and that manager will, and that is their priority. They aren't measured on the companies performance, just on their own.

You know what happened when a company I worked for started offering online deals it was either impossible or pointless for us to match in store?

The staff spoke up and it got changed.

Shame the toxic GW culture doesn't allow for this and would just result in people getting fired and management continuing to construct an environment where it competes with itself.

Is that ignorance or just a desire to have another moan at gw Az? Internally they are far from toxic, they are very positive and supportive of their staff. The only change that needs making in that regard is upping manufacturing so that a premium, high priced range that people clearly want to buy is available in the store, at least to order if not on the shelf. Then the issue is moot as stores would be able to sell 30k, and would therefore be happy for it to be played.

Simply an opinion formed by such gems as

Games Workshop Careers Website wrote:People who don’t fit or who ‘play’ at fitting, will be unhappy. We are pretty tolerant and you may be able to get away with it for a while, but you will still be unhappy.

and

Tom Kirby wrote:Our biggest risk is the people we employ

Plus numerous anecdotes, some from former staff members themselves, where staff who were arguably doing a fantastic job got screwed over because an extra 5% now is oh so much more important than building a foundation for an extra 25% next year.

Oh, and the other occasions where it has been apparent, either through direct reporting or logical deduction that HO, or elements of it, are an echo chamber.

Hell, look at the comedy that was the Kirby replacement process for all the evidence you need of that.

I don't think there is a problem with being upfront about what you want in a member of staff. The whole fit thing is essentially about passive aggressive behaviour, that's what they really don't want and that's what they mean about not being able to hide it for long.

A lot of people have lost jobs at HQ because of the streamlining, which has affected some decent people. If I went back I would never go to HQ, as job security isn't something you can take for granted. A lot of people obviously resented being made redundant from a company they loved, but that's the modern world, and gw are far from the only company to have made such decisions.

 JamesY wrote:
I don't think there is a problem with being upfront about what you want in a member of staff. The whole fit thing is essentially about passive aggressive behaviour, that's what they really don't want and that's what they mean about not being able to hide it for long.

Then they need to rewrite that, because I, and pretty much every other person it's ever come up in conversation with before you, takes it to mean "do it our way or feth off."

I think you have to read it in a very charitable frame of mind to come to your conclusion, doubly so when you consider that doesn't really need to be explicitly stated, and applies for pretty much any job.

It's not my opinion, I've been through the interview and feedback process and found out through conversations with personal. It isn't an our way or high way statement, if anything it's more like a handy excuse to say no without having to give a genuine reason. As I've said before, they are genuinely great to work for, as long as you enjoy working hard. But if you want to coast by and aren't 100% on it, then someone will ask why, and you might find yourself out the door.

 JamesY wrote:
I don't think there is a problem with being upfront about what you want in a member of staff. The whole fit thing is essentially about passive aggressive behaviour, that's what they really don't want and that's what they mean about not being able to hide it for long.

A lot of people have lost jobs at HQ because of the streamlining, which has affected some decent people. If I went back I would never go to HQ, as job security isn't something you can take for granted. A lot of people obviously resented being made redundant from a company they loved, but that's the modern world, and gw are far from the only company to have made such decisions.

Most people take that line in regards to the front line workers, who are the ones we see the most. Alot of people's experience has been GW will drop people who give legit good customer service skills, for people who have better sales numbers. The problem is sales numbers aren't a good gage of customer service, since they are inflated with 1st time customers. People who have good sales numbers alot of times aren't good at KEEPING thows customers.


Their are also two stores in my citiy and I've seen this happen at both. It's anecdotal evidence at best, but this is a pattern that ALOT of people perceive at their local GW stores.


Your experience sounds to be different, since it sounds like you were more involved with HO.

 JamesY wrote:
It's not my opinion, I've been through the interview and feedback process and found out through conversations with personal. It isn't an our way or high way statement, if anything it's more like a handy excuse to say no without having to give a genuine reason.

But then it's completely redundant, because you're not obliged to give a genuine reason for not employing someone, and even if you were "we don't think you're a good fit" is perfectly legitimate. Equally, unless there's been a change in the last couple of years I've missed, you're entitled to show anyone the door for any reason in the first year before the various protections kick in, so it doesn't even make sense for anyone employed.

As I've said before, they are genuinely great to work for, as long as you enjoy working hard. But if you want to coast by and aren't 100% on it, then someone will ask why, and you might find yourself out the door.

Like every other private sector company ever?

Like I said, if it is intended the way you're claiming, it is an utterly redundant statement.

I still fail to see how kicking people out of the store, even if those people don't buy anything, increases sales... Other than the very unrealistic GW mentality of "the hobby is buying product from us" mentality where if you invalidate someone's army they are of course going to just buy another without a second through.

 jonolikespie wrote:
I still fail to see how kicking people out of the store, even if those people don't buy anything, increases sales... Other than the very unrealistic GW mentality of "the hobby is buying product from us" mentality where if you invalidate someone's army they are of course going to just buy another without a second through.

Same way people playing only 30k with FW model increases sales for that store.

Az I agree, it is redundant, I'm not trying to defend it being there. I can speculate that it refers to the old days of virus bombing, and is trying to reassure people that that no longer happens as they are trying harder to find the right people, but I know that that would never occur to an outsider, so it is meaningless.

@ Lockart I was in retail, but in Nottingham so went to HQ every now and again to help out at events and got to know a lot of people.

JamesY wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
He might not like it, but banning GW models from a GW store is asinine. Call corporate and talk to them. FW is GW. Simple as that.

Er no, unfortunately it isn't. HQ will support the store manager, it is their shop to run as they think best. There is not a corporate line on this, and the manager's decision is final. Stores want to sell FW, but as they apparently cannot manufacture fast enough to stock the stores, at the moment it is not sold in stores. It is a SHOP, and you cannot blame the manager for wanting to sell products. No one has any entitlement to be able to game in a store, regardless of how much you have spent with the company. The price buys you the models, not a guaranteed venue in which to game. Wherever you choose to game comes with certain necessities, joining a club? Membership and weekly fees. Playing at home? You need to provide space, a table and terrain. Want to play in store on a decorated table with lots of terrain with no financial commitment? Well then the cost is you advertising a product to help the store make further sales. If the store manager is happy that FW being played won't be detrimental to sales then that's their business, but as long as the stores are essentially citadel stores, you can't reasonably complain that they want to promote citadel products.

JamesY wrote:@ allseeingskink I'm ex-staff so I know that that will be the response.

You are incorrect.

FW sales are contributing to the bottom line of the company these managers work for. FW outsells BL and is seeing consistent year on year growth. Sales of FW miniatures directly contribute to this managers income.

If someone 'high up' knew a store manager was prohibiting someone from bringing in and showing off their Games Workshop Forge World miniatures to protect their own (entirely misguided) sales agenda, they'd be in for a very swift talking to.

There is a very definite line on this.

For the record, I don't believe we will see FW being sold over the counter, that wing does not have enough logistic resource to carry that out. We might be seeing something else though soon, something that would make any individual with delusions of grandeur trying to 'ban' FW in a quite impossible situation...

Ok. Contact HQ. Head of UK sales is a chap called Grant Peacey. See what response you get.

Noir wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
I still fail to see how kicking people out of the store, even if those people don't buy anything, increases sales... Other than the very unrealistic GW mentality of "the hobby is buying product from us" mentality where if you invalidate someone's army they are of course going to just buy another without a second through.

Same way people playing only 30k with FW model increases sales for that store.

If there are people in your store who do not play the games you have on offer you can at least sell them paints, glue, white dwarf, ect. God forbid they might actually be the kind of customers that GW claim are their core demographic who will pick up a new release just because it looks cool and they want to paint it instead of the 20% of customers who care about gaming.

If these people are removed from your store you can't even offer them a white dwarf every week.

 jonolikespie wrote:

Noir wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
I still fail to see how kicking people out of the store, even if those people don't buy anything, increases sales... Other than the very unrealistic GW mentality of "the hobby is buying product from us" mentality where if you invalidate someone's army they are of course going to just buy another without a second through.

Same way people playing only 30k with FW model increases sales for that store.

If there are people in your store who do not play the games you have on offer you can at least sell them paints, glue, white dwarf, ect. God forbid they might actually be the kind of customers that GW claim are their core demographic who will pick up a new release just because it looks cool and they want to paint it instead of the 20% of customers who care about gaming.

If these people are removed from your store you can't even offer them a white dwarf every week.

How does that offsets they losses of model sells to new players that want to play the same game as everyone else. In this case 30K and it models that the store not just doesn't but can't sell.

ProtoClone wrote:Seems like to me there should be a computer terminal that only allows access to GW/FW sites. There, if a player doesn't find what they want, they can order from the terminal and have it delivered to the store.

There is, supervised by staff. At least in my local, so I assume it's widespread. Problem is, it doesn't 'only allow access to GW/FW sites', it only allows access to the main GW site. Tried checking the BL site in-store one time, just to check if a new book was out yet, and clicked the link at the bottom of the GW main page. Denied! Sorry, GW prime stuff only.

So FW products, unavailable in-store, unavailable to be ordered in-store. Might be a daft situation but not the fault of the manager whose neck is on the line.

jonolikespie wrote:I still fail to see how kicking people out of the store, even if those people don't buy anything, increases sales...

More people have space to play, less distraction from non-citadel armies? It's pretty easy to see.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
FW sales are contributing to the bottom line of the company these managers work for... Sales of FW miniatures directly contribute to this managers income.

Holy moley.

It's not going to directly contribute to his income, especially if he loses his job because he can't meet his targets, because most of the people clogging his tables are using nothing but minis that can't be bought in-store.

There is a very definite line on this.

Where?

jonolikespie wrote:
If there are people in your store who do not play the games you have on offer you can at least sell them paints, glue, white dwarf, ect...
If these people are removed from your store you can't even offer them a white dwarf every week.

Ching ching!

 JamesY wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
He might not like it, but banning GW models from a GW store is asinine. Call corporate and talk to them. FW is GW. Simple as that.

Er no, unfortunately it isn't. HQ will support the store manager, it is their shop to run as they think best. There is not a corporate line on this, and the manager's decision is final. Stores want to sell FW, but as they apparently cannot manufacture fast enough to stock the stores, at the moment it is not sold in stores. It is a SHOP, and you cannot blame the manager for wanting to sell products. No one has any entitlement to be able to game in a store, regardless of how much you have spent with the company. The price buys you the models, not a guaranteed venue in which to game. Wherever you choose to game comes with certain necessities, joining a club? Membership and weekly fees. Playing at home? You need to provide space, a table and terrain. Want to play in store on a decorated table with lots of terrain with no financial commitment? Well then the cost is you advertising a product to help the store make further sales. If the store manager is happy that FW being played won't be detrimental to sales then that's their business, but as long as the stores are essentially citadel stores, you can't reasonably complain that they want to promote citadel products.

+1

This guy gets it. The store is the manager's field. As long as it is fruitful and productive, the lord cares not for how he comes by his bounty.

 jonolikespie wrote:
I still fail to see how kicking people out of the store, even if those people don't buy anything, increases sales... Other than the very unrealistic GW mentality of "the hobby is buying product from us" mentality where if you invalidate someone's army they are of course going to just buy another without a second through.

I'm also waiting for an answer to this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Noir wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Noir wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
I still fail to see how kicking people out of the store, even if those people don't buy anything, increases sales... Other than the very unrealistic GW mentality of "the hobby is buying product from us" mentality where if you invalidate someone's army they are of course going to just buy another without a second through.

Same way people playing only 30k with FW model increases sales for that store.

If there are people in your store who do not play the games you have on offer you can at least sell them paints, glue, white dwarf, ect. God forbid they might actually be the kind of customers that GW claim are their core demographic who will pick up a new release just because it looks cool and they want to paint it instead of the 20% of customers who care about gaming.

If these people are removed from your store you can't even offer them a white dwarf every week.

How does that offsets they losses of model sells to new players that want to play the same game as everyone else. In this case 30K and it models that the store not just doesn't but can't sell.

What losses? Does GW somehow lose money because someone bought FW?

heartserenade wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
I still fail to see how kicking people out of the store, even if those people don't buy anything, increases sales... Other than the very unrealistic GW mentality of "the hobby is buying product from us" mentality where if you invalidate someone's army they are of course going to just buy another without a second through.

I'm also waiting for an answer to this.

Well there was this:

Vermis wrote:

jonolikespie wrote:I still fail to see how kicking people out of the store, even if those people don't buy anything, increases sales...

More people have space to play, less distraction from non-citadel armies? It's pretty easy to see.

But are you left with a situation where people walking into the store now buy a 40k army from the store rather than a 30k army online, or are the people not entering the store at all and being convinced by their friends to buy a 30k army to play in their garage?

I would suspect that word of mouth recruiting does a lot more for the store than general foot traffic given the smaller, out of the way locations that GW stores are now in. If someone is telling their friend how great the game is and that they should try it and taking them to a GW store, then you can sell hard to them. If they play in their garage and tell their friend how great the game is, that friend is not going to ever enter the GW store.

 Lockark wrote:

Most people take that line in regards to the front line workers, who are the ones we see the most. Alot of people's experience has been GW will drop people who give legit good customer service skills, for people who have better sales numbers. The problem is sales numbers aren't a good gage of customer service, since they are inflated with 1st time customers. People who have good sales numbers alot of times aren't good at KEEPING thows customers.

I agree with everything you say, with the perfect manager being someone who is good at drumming up first time customers AND who provides good service.

But there's one caveat: in my area, the GW store is great for recruiting people into the hobby (it's in a good location, accessible, bright, has a lot of stock, nice looking tables and lots of painted GW models, and all that wonderful stuff). But a huge number of people who get into the hobby end up buying from an independent within a few months anyways, because the price difference is just way huge -- especially if the individual has a car. It's compounded by GW having lightning fast delivery to the store for special orders. For example, I want a $100 box of models that an independent doesn't have on hand, but the GW does. I can have it today at the GW for $100, or I can have it for $70-$80 at the indy store in like... 2 days.

Now, on *one* product, like a starter box, oh well. But if you're investing in 40k, and it's box after box after box... well, most people will take the discount. Even people for whom money isn't really a problem, it means that for whatever amount of money, you get more stuff.

 jonolikespie wrote:
But are you left with a situation where people walking into the store now buy a 40k army from the store rather than a 30k army online, or are the people not entering the store at all and being convinced by their friends to buy a 30k army to play in their garage?.

Chances are the latter will happen. Which is no loss to the store, since those new players are also going to buy their 30K miniatures online instead of through the store.

At the same time, the tables in the store are now being used by other customers with armies made up of miniatures that can be purchased in store, which means those tables are now actually functioning as intended - as advertising for the products the store sells.

But are there actually people waiting to use these tables with 40k armies or will they sit empty?

You remove the tables and replace them with more product to sell. If they're not doing what they're intended to do (act as in-store advertising to get new customers into the game and drive sales among your existing customer base), then the floor space is wasted and the game tables should be treated as any other underperforming product line and replaced with one that performs.

Except that's not how they're intended to work. They're not intended to provide a play space for gamers while simultaneously acting as advertising (any more) they're supposed to act as a showcase and provide a space for demo games.

As a key part of the GW plan to hook people into the two birthdays and a Christmas they're after, they're not going anywhere and an empty table just means space to demo without the inconvenience of having any sort of gaming community getting in the way.

Who says they're not intended to act as advertising? Just because they don't say so doesn't make it true. There's no better advertising than showing other people having fun, and if you buy our product you can have fun too.

 jonolikespie wrote:
But are there actually people waiting to use these tables with 40k armies or will they sit empty?

That still works. If nobody is playing on them, they can just use them for display, or running demos.

Either of those are preferable (for the retailer) to showcasing product in-store that can't actually be bought in-store. Sending potential sales to another wing of the company may not be the last thing that the store guy wants to do, but it's going to be way down towards the pointy end of the list... because it's the sales through his store that determine how long he gets to keep his job.

To be fair, you can buy GW plastics for use in 30k. Leman Russes, Land Raiders, Rhinos, Predators, Vindicators, Terminators and Scouts come to mind.

Do the stores that disallow Forgeworld products also disallow discontinued GW miniatures?
Because if I bring in my 1990s Imperial Guard army, all but 60pts of that can not be bought from them any more.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Do the stores that disallow Forgeworld products also disallow discontinued GW miniatures?
Because if I bring in my 1990s Imperial Guard army, all but 60pts of that can not be bought from them any more.

Why would it not be allowed, the whole point of the ban is to sell 40k over 30k by showing 40k played not 30k.

Noir wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Do the stores that disallow Forgeworld products also disallow discontinued GW miniatures?
Because if I bring in my 1990s Imperial Guard army, all but 60pts of that can not be bought from them any more.

Why would it not be allowed, the whole point of the ban is to sell 40k over 30k by showing 40k played not 30k.

Because the point raised repeatedly in this topic was that there's a downside to customers witnessing people using or painting products that cannot be obtained in the store.
30K vs 40K is much less of a pertinent issue when plastics are incoming.

No I'm pretty sure the point is the manager only wanting games played in the store, where if some would like to play that game. They don't have to go some where else to get them. Some may try to twist it but that is the point.

Playing 40k with old models still sells 40k.

The point is that the manager is trying to stop people painting or playing with models he can not sell.

He can not sell OOP miniatures any more than he can sell FW.

There is no difference.

This also leads us down the path of miniatures bought at 10% off at the FLGS down the road, or bought 10 years ago and gathered dust on a shelf, or from eBay or other guys in the local community looking to sell an army.
The manager is trying to make it so that the models being painted or played with in store have been bought from him, which is a slippery slope.

 Bottle wrote:
Our new manager has now essentially banned all Forgeworld models from being played or painted in store.

If I owned any FW models and played at that store, I would call GW Corporate, ask them why the store manager has a "no FW" policy.

A mass phone campaign of complaints over not being able to use the GW product at the GW store should do wonders in having things changed.

Preferably by having idiot boy put out on the streets in favor of someone who is more accommodating.

This really isn't something anyone deserves to lose their job over, especially as single-man-store GW managers are up against it to keep theirs to begin with. Let's not get too pitchforks and torches here.

And yes, jonolikespie hit what I'm getting at, there.

Although I would argue it's less about the personal ego of who made the sale, and more that like eating a banana in a florist, if a customer asks what's going on, it's difficult to steer that into a sale.
Arguably something you bought in store two weeks ago is no longer making him or her an active profit, but it can be redirected into one.

 jonolikespie wrote:
The point is that the manager is trying to stop people painting or playing with models he can not sell.

He can not sell OOP miniatures any more than he can sell FW.

There is no difference.

This also leads us down the path of miniatures bought at 10% off at the FLGS down the road, or bought 10 years ago and gathered dust on a shelf, or from eBay or other guys in the local community looking to sell an army.
The manager is trying to make it so that the models being painted or played with in store have been bought from him, which is a slippery slope.

One helps sell a game and product they can buy in the store one does not simple really, the second part of your post is just trolling and you know it.

You know what also helps selling product?

Having people in store to sell to.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Because the point raised repeatedly in this topic was that there's a downside to customers witnessing people using or painting products that cannot be obtained in the store.
30K vs 40K is much less of a pertinent issue when plastics are incoming.

Even less of an issue of FW products can be ordered to/through GW stores.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
This really isn't something anyone deserves to lose their job over,

The hell it isn't. The store exists to support the Customers who actually bought product. If the manager isn't doing that, absolutely, he should lose his job.

JamesY wrote:A lot of people obviously resented being made redundant from a company they loved, but that's the modern world, and gw are far from the only company to have made such decisions.

Isn't that true. I've done work for companies that make *billions* of dollars; they have so much cash on hand that there are literally no companies they want that they can acquire, yet they still "streamline". The other perspective, of course, is that having too many people not doing useful things decreases everyone's productivity and efficiency, and some of those people should never have been hired anyways.

Regardless, that's the world we live in now: stand out, make yourself useful, better yet, truly valuable, or you might be looking for a new job, no matter the company.

JamesY wrote:You have to remember it's the store manager's income that rides on the success of the store, and a decent store manager can potentially earn over double their salary if they are growing the store. It's the guys' mortgage payments, food, bills etc on the line for them. I believed that a few FW models was ok, I could sell tactical squads, paints and glue etc off the back of other customers seeing them. However, a full game of 30k with models, books etc that I can't sell? No way. If a new or returning hobbyist saw it and decided that's what they want, I've just given away a customer I need in my store. Yes the company as a whole doesn't loose out, but that store and that manager will, and that is their priority. They aren't measured on the companies performance, just on their own.

This is actually a pretty fair point. There are also independent stores that don't allow you to play games that they don't sell. For instance, I recall a local store that did mostly trading cards and a little bit of PP. If you wanted to play 40k there, they'd politely ask you not to. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, either.

I think fielding FW units in a 40k game (like a couple of knights and a deimos pattern, for instance) should be treated differently than a group playing 30k, though, and it should really the manager should just use their best judgement. Either way, there's a correct, polite and respectful way to explain it to the customer, who should be mindful of how things work from the manager's perspective.

JamesY wrote:For the record, I don't believe we will see FW being sold over the counter, that wing does not have enough logistic resource to carry that out. We might be seeing something else though soon, something that would make any individual with delusions of grandeur trying to 'ban' FW in a quite impossible situation...

This is actually a crazy situation. What should a business do if demand is so high that it exceeds not just supply, but supply constraints (for example, the life of a master)? I wince at the answer, because I like my Forge World products, and they're probably as much as I'd like to spend on models ($20 for 10 heads? Wow!). But.... The obvious answer is... raise the price until there is an equilibrium. Mark it up at the by whatever they can get away with... as long as people will buy so much stuff that you can't make enough, the business solution is to just take the money from the people willing to pay the MOST money. *groans*

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The store exists to support the Customers who actually bought product. .

SInce when?

A store exists to sell product. Providing gaming space for customers to use is just a bonus, and is done because it can bring in extra sales. It's not an obligation. The store isn't required to provide for you for evermore just because you bought something from them.


And, of course, that's beside the point where Forgeworld is concerned... If you're only buying 30K products from Forgeworld, you aren't a customer of a store that doesn't sell Forgeworld product.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:
This is actually a crazy situation. What should a business do if demand is so high that it exceeds not just supply, but supply constraints (for example, the life of a master)? *

Outsource to China, discover the hard way that outsourcing to China without adequate oversight results in poor quality control, unexpected delays and the sudden appearance of unauthorised recasts on the market, pull everything back in-house and try to forget that the whole mess ever happened while carrying on with just keeping up with demand as best you can and reporting any Chinese sellers on eBay offering cheap product so that they can be reported... appears to be the option that Forgeworld chose.

Still waiting to see what they do next

Talys wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Because the point raised repeatedly in this topic was that there's a downside to customers witnessing people using or painting products that cannot be obtained in the store.
30K vs 40K is much less of a pertinent issue when plastics are incoming.

Even less of an issue of FW products can be ordered to/through GW stores.

They cannot here. You cannot use the FW website on their computers, either. It is blocked.
(As is my experience in August, through from 2014, I could be out of date if it's been rectified in September).

JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
This really isn't something anyone deserves to lose their job over,

The hell it isn't. The store exists to support the Customers who actually bought product. If the manager isn't doing that, absolutely, he should lose his job.

It absolutely is not. He is not endangering, insulting, cheating or otherwise causing harm to a customer. He is not taking money or time from them under false pretences, he is not damaging their possessions or impinging their actual rights.
It deserves an honest looking into by higher ups and correcting if it's not company policy.
To render someone unemployed is needlessly bloodthirsty over a strange and easily clarified decision.

Noir wrote:
No I'm pretty sure the point is the manager only wanting games played in the store, where if some would like to play that game. They don't have to go some where else to get them. Some may try to twist it but that is the point.

Playing 40k with old models still sells 40k.

So does playing 30K, given the number of 40K models I see people use in it.

 Bookwrack wrote:

Noir wrote:
No I'm pretty sure the point is the manager only wanting games played in the store, where if some would like to play that game. They don't have to go some where else to get them. Some may try to twist it but that is the point.

Playing 40k with old models still sells 40k.

So does playing 30K, given the number of 40K models I see people use in it.

If the OP is correct then not at the store we are talking about.

Noir wrote:

 Bookwrack wrote:

Noir wrote:
No I'm pretty sure the point is the manager only wanting games played in the store, where if some would like to play that game. They don't have to go some where else to get them. Some may try to twist it but that is the point.

Playing 40k with old models still sells 40k.

So does playing 30K, given the number of 40K models I see people use in it.

If the OP is correct then not at the store we are talking about.

Nowhere in the OP does it say that players are not using 40K figures.
It merely says "some" are exclusively playing 30K. A second interpretation of phrasing is that "some" are exclusively using FW.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

Noir wrote:

 Bookwrack wrote:

Noir wrote:
No I'm pretty sure the point is the manager only wanting games played in the store, where if some would like to play that game. They don't have to go some where else to get them. Some may try to twist it but that is the point.

Playing 40k with old models still sells 40k.

So does playing 30K, given the number of 40K models I see people use in it.

If the OP is correct then not at the store we are talking about.

Nowhere in the OP does it say that players are not using 40K figures.
It merely says "some" are exclusively playing 30K. A second interpretation of phrasing is that "some" are exclusively using FW.

Since the ban is on FW models, I think it is pretty safe to stand by my post.

It is entirely possibly and often financially requisite for the average player to include 40K models in a 30K army. Especially as some units I am told, do not yet have a FW release.
You may stand by your post, but it is an assumption.

I'm merely saying we don't know for certain that folk were fielding a suitcase full of resin without a single current GW product.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
This really isn't something anyone deserves to lose their job over,

The hell it isn't. The store exists to support the Customers who actually bought product. If the manager isn't doing that, absolutely, he should lose his job.

So when you buy trainers you expect the retailer to provide you with somewhere to run? A store is there to sell products, not provide a refuge in which to use your purchase. It's a huge bonus that in gw stores you are able to do your hobby. It's a privilege, not an entitlement to be taken for granted.

Remember when once upon a time the use of GW stores actually was a justification for their high prices?

 jonolikespie wrote:
Remember when once upon a time the use of GW stores actually was a justification for their high prices?

I don't recall that ever being a thing, no.

 insaniak wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Remember when once upon a time the use of GW stores actually was a justification for their high prices?

I don't recall that ever being a thing, no.

It wasn't true, but it was an argument that some made. I even heard GW staff making the argument.

FW products still need glue and paint.

He can't sell the models, but he could still make money out of it.

Banning them imo does nothing to help the store's sales.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Remember when once upon a time the use of GW stores actually was a justification for their high prices?

I don't recall that ever being a thing, no.

It wasn't true, but it was an argument that some made. I even heard GW staff making the argument.

Yeah I've often heard it used by GW staff. Dunno what HQ think of it, but the staff definitely tried to use it as an excuse to shift product.

I know some people don't care about gaming at GW stores, but it is definitely a selling point for many people. It's where I played 90% of my games in the first few years I was in the hobby.

jonolikespie wrote:The point is that the manager is trying to stop people painting or playing with models he can not sell.

He can not sell OOP miniatures any more than he can sell FW.

There is no difference.

Except one can lead to a sale of the bigger, flashier, updated 40K models, and one can't.

So y'see, a difference.

I've told you this earlier, Jono. Is there some selective blindness going on?

JohnHwangDD wrote:If I owned any FW models and played at that store, I would call GW Corporate, ask them why the store manager has a "no FW" policy.

And they'd probably reply back "cos we pay our valued employee and GW family member to make loadsamoney by selling the products available from that store. If he doesn't we'll kick da bum to the kerb! Ell Oh Ell Smiley Face!"

Preferably by having idiot boy put out on the streets in favor of someone who is more accommodating.

... who'll then be put out on the streets because he lets his customers go buy FW models instead of what he sells.

jonolikespie wrote:You know what also helps selling product?

Having people in store to sell to.

If most of them are using armies that are mostly composed of online-only FW models, it almost amounts to the same thing as 'having no people in store to sell to'.

Buttery Commissar wrote:
Although I would argue it's less about the personal ego of who made the sale, and more that like eating a banana in a florist, if a customer asks what's going on, it's difficult to steer that into a sale.

Yup!

Buttery Commissar wrote:They cannot here. You cannot use the FW website on their computers, either. It is blocked.
(As is my experience in August, through from 2014, I could be out of date if it's been rectified in September).

Yup! I mentioned this already, too. And I tried looking at the BL site in-store sometime this year, maybe 4-5 months ago.

Big Blind Bill wrote:FW products still need glue and paint.

He can't sell the models, but he could still make money out of it.

Ching ching!

"We saw that profits at your branch have fallen off quite a bit. We're just calling you to find out why that might be."

"Oh! Well... most of the regular customers are buying Forgeworld models online instead of the stuff I have here. But don't worry! I sold three whole bottles of glue to them, this month!

"Ah, well that's okay then! That's what we put you there for..."

Banning them imo does nothing to help the store's sales.

I think it's a sign of the grip GW have on some gamers' psyches that the GW store is seen as some hallowed, inviolable gaming space, set apart for a select few. Like some version of Cheers where everyone knows your name, that must have the same Cliffs and Norms for years on end, who have plastic crack poured down their throats instead of beer. (But, by crikey, you can bet no-one's allowed to run a tab)

If FW armies are banned in that shop, maybe the 30K players will start playing 40K again. Maybe they 'll take a snit and walk out. Maybe that'll leave the shop bereft and empty. But y'know what I think will happen? The shop will fill right back up again.

 Ghaz wrote:
Who says they're not intended to act as advertising? Just because they don't say so doesn't make it true. There's no better advertising than showing other people having fun, and if you buy our product you can have fun too.

An unintended biproduct of having tables in store, not their primary use.

If the primary intention was to use them as a means of advertising through other people playing (and not staff members demoing to newbs) then they wouldn't be 4x4 (if that) ROB boards in stores that barely have enough room to accommodate them.

One doesn't showcase ones product by showing it in a limited way. I've always maintained that GW would be better off with fewer WHW style stores than the litany of broom closets that comprises their current portfolio, but that isn't what they do.

Vermis, from what I'm peripherally aware of, and having seen our local manager blasted out of the airlock despite his increase in sales over the previous one, there is an intensely competitive push for sales in each shop, that reportedly does not take prisoners.
There is little interest in gradual audience building, only direct results, according to him as he was let go. Of course an individual does not necessarily represent anything but a single case.
Yea, the "bums on seats = sales" ideal doesn't fly, our store was never empty, and it did not save him.

However I don't feel that's solely what is at play here, so to speak. Without asking the individual at Bottle's store, there's no guarantee as to why this decision was made.


I agree with querying this idea that the player in any way can make demands of the play space.
The store does not sell FW items. It doesn't sell Early Learning Centre plastic trucks either. If they do not support either of these items in store, the only difference is that one fits thematically with the creations of the parent company.
Here's the thing: GW don't owe us a game of any kind in the building.
It's not a cinema, buying our toys there doesn't guarantee you anything else.
They owe us courteous service, a healthy environment if we are purchasing their goods, to follow trade laws and respect our consumer rights.

If the staff are not handling your money or your property, that is where their actual obligation ends.
The moment you sit on one of their plastic stools or put your figures down, we're in their playground, quite literally.

Ching ching!

"We saw that profits at your branch have fallen off quite a bit. We're just calling you to find out why that might be."

"Oh! Well... most of the regular customers are buying Forgeworld models online instead of the stuff I have here. But don't worry! I sold three whole bottles of glue to them, this month!

"Ah, well that's okay then! That's what we put you there for..."

Please turn your attention to this page....: http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Painting-Modelling

Besides, even if the paint and other accessories were not as highly overpriced as GW's other products, some money beats no money.
If a store bans FW products, and somebody has/wants a FW army, then it is unlikely this policy will change their minds. They will just game elsewhere.

If I had invested money in a FW army (hell, even a single unit come to think of it, when you consider the prices) and was then told I couldn't use it in the shop belonging to the company I had bought it from, then I wouldn't be inclined to go back.

Buttery Commissar wrote:Vermis, from what I'm peripherally aware of, and having seen our local manager blasted out of the airlock despite his increase in sales over the previous one

Blimey!

However I don't feel that's solely what is at play here, so to speak. Without asking the individual at Bottle's store, there's no guarantee as to why this decision was made.

Agreed. I know we're all indulging in rampant speculation here (hurrah internet!), though there are some factors (like your info) and a couple of my own first-hand experiences that suggest desperate targets probably have an influence.

Big Blind Bill wrote:
Please turn your attention to this page....: http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Painting-Modelling

And? Look at this 'un.

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warhammer-40-000

You might have to replace them every so often (more often than other paint ranges), but you might make a better (and demanded) profit off one gamer buying a couple of ~£30 (at least) kits a month than a couple of ~£30 paint-sets-worth of pots a couple of times a year.

some money beats no money.

'Some money' from the same old bunch is not good enough. 'No money' from the same old bunch won't matter much when a brand new bunch strolls in.

If a store bans FW products, and somebody has/wants a FW army, then it is unlikely this policy will change their minds. They will just game elsewhere.

If I had invested money in a FW army (hell, even a single unit come to think of it, when you consider the prices) and was then told I couldn't use it in the shop belonging to the company I had bought it from, then I wouldn't be inclined to go back.

If you buy little other than FW models, I'm sure they'll miss you.

This is what I'm talking about, what BC is talking about. This is what people don't get. This is not Sam trying to coax Norm back to the bar because they're buddies. You're only a valued customer as long as you keep putting money in the till. Their till. The manager's till. The definition of a customer.
You're not indispensable. Maybe if a shop builds up a bad reputation over years, that'll chase enough customers away to ruin it; but any manager who'd let that happen should rightly be long gone anyway. But don't think for a minute that you suddenly leaving the shop with your mass of non-citadel minis, even with a bunch of other gamers, will absolutely signal it's death. There are a lot of other gamers and potential gamers who will gladly fill your space around those tiny demo tables, as long as GW itself lasts. I know what I'm talking about. I've said it before. It's been a good few years since 'my' set of vets and our non-core models were turned out of our local GW. These days there are times I'd have trouble getting into the shop, it's so packed out. Even soon after the event, it was packed out with gamers I didn't recognise. GW moved on, and I feel very fortunate that it made some of us move on too.

I mean, what, do you think each GW shop has had it's same small bunch of regulars for the past 30 years or something?

 jonolikespie wrote:
You know what also helps selling product?

Having people in store to sell to.

Or not having it shut because they only want one guy there and he has to go out by law for lunch and close shop. The amount of times they've missed a random impulse sale from me because of that and it being closed on Mondays for some reason.

Thanks for all the comments guys. I'm not naming or shaming the store because I really like playing there and play all my AoS in there.

Funny thing with the OOP model debate is I'm currently painting up a Dwarf Cannon from BFSP in the store :-p

I think I find the FW ban more strange than a 30k ban, because it penalizes all the 40k players and AoS players who have added some nice units to their army too.

The manager is experienced from a number of previous stores, and seems like an alright guy. Maybe just stuck inbetween the rock and a hard place GW have created with crazy targets and no FW delivers in store.

 Bottle wrote:
The manager is experienced from a number of previous stores, and seems like an alright guy. Maybe just stuck inbetween the rock and a hard place GW have created with crazy targets and no FW delivers in store.

Not naming and shaming my local one-man-store either, but the manager there had pulled something like a 20 or 25% sales increase on the previous guy in well under a year, and was still let go due to not hitting sales targets. Everyone was astounded. Considering we got a new manager every rotation, I can only speculate that those targets are not vastly adjusted to accommodate such things.

If this is true, then the pressures must be very hard on them.

I've always fancied working for GW, but I wouldn't view it as a long term career move due to how high the goalposts seemingly are.

It may not just be a case of hitting those targets, but also hitting those targets by selling very specific items, mainly their starters above all else alongside those new weekly releases.

New product sales aren't measured. Core games, hobby starter sets and intro activity are all measured. If a store is smashing targets but not selling starter sets, they are heading towards a quiet period. If sales are good and intro activity is high, the store will grow.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
This really isn't something anyone deserves to lose their job over, especially as single-man-store GW managers are up against it to keep theirs to begin with. Let's not get too pitchforks and torches here.

And yes, jonolikespie hit what I'm getting at, there.

Although I would argue it's less about the personal ego of who made the sale, and more that like eating a banana in a florist, if a customer asks what's going on, it's difficult to steer that into a sale.
Arguably something you bought in store two weeks ago is no longer making him or her an active profit, but it can be redirected into one.

Yes, this really is something that he deserves to lose his job over.

Because he is hurting the bottom line.

My own reaction would be to not buy from the store, and let everyone that I know not to buy there either.

And unlike the OP I would put the location of the offending store right in the thread.

For every person turned away, it is reasonable to expect that there will be an equal number walking away.

Each one of whom might have spent money.

The Auld Grump

Depends how you go about it. Saying no to FW isn't the same as banning the player. They would still be welcome to play 40k or AoS. If they only play 30k, it won't affect their bottom line beyond the occasional paint pot. And I'm sorry to say grump, you moaning to friends about how you feel wronged by a legitimate decision wouldn't influence their spending as much as you would hope, if at all.

Put your pitchfork away, Bottle has already said there'll be no naming and shaming of an otherwise amenable person.

This is not a transgression against someone actually purchasing from the store, and if it's hurting GW's bottom line, it'll come up in his performance review.

Wishing someone to lose their job in a recession over an online interpretation of a situation that we do not know both sides of is mildly ridiculous at best, and unpleasant at worst.

Buttery Commissar wrote:Put your pitchfork away, Bottle has already said there'll be no naming and shaming of an otherwise amenable person.

Oh, but what is the fun without the outrage!

Really, the only reason that the manager should be warned is if he's breaking GW's rules that say that FW games are permitted. If such rules don't exist (and I think JamesY is in a pretty good position to know ), they've broken no rules, so why would they lose their job?

Now, on the other hand, I don't think there's anything wrong politely suggesting to GW HQ that it would be to the company's benefit if Forge World games (30k) could be played in Games Workshop stores. It DOES help the company's bottom line.

JamesY wrote:Depends how you go about it. Saying no to FW isn't the same as banning the player. They would still be welcome to play 40k or AoS. If they only play 30k, it won't affect their bottom line beyond the occasional paint pot. And I'm sorry to say grump, you moaning to friends about how you feel wronged by a legitimate decision wouldn't influence their spending as much as you would hope, if at all.

There are other games, too! For instance, last year, there was a Space Hulk set all ready to go on a table in our neck of the woods (in the GW store). Models -- some painted -- tiles and everything. No obligation. I mean, what else could you ask for? I'm sure they'd be cool with Execution Force, any of the WD magazine games, etc.

Kind of beside the point... but is this really even a "thing"? Half of the 30k collection is a PITA to transport, and the models are expensive as all hell. You'd think that two people with their thousands-of-dollars armies with any number of ginormous, fragile resin models would rather game somewhere else like a semi-private gaming club or each others' homes. Among other things, most stores max out at 6x4 tables, and if you have big armies/big models, 8 and 12 foot tables is kinda where you want to be, right? Not to mention, being able to leave your models there afterwards if you have to is a huge advantage.

Disallowing forgeworld would feth over every;

30k Player
Red Scorpions Player
CSM Player
Space Sharks Player
Salamanders (to an extent) Player
Player who likes cooler tanks
People who like huge greater daemons

Profit still goes to HQ and gets reallocated anyhow so IDK why they're complainong.

And? Look at this 'un.

You are clearly missing the point.
You tried to make a joke about hobby supplies not paying the bills, when clearly there is money in it.

This is what I'm talking about, what BC is talking about. This is what people don't get. This is not Sam trying to coax Norm back to the bar because they're buddies. You're only a valued customer as long as you keep putting money in the till. Their till. The manager's till. The definition of a customer.

I really don't think you understand business.
You are applying GW's own short sighted business mentality to this.

Just because a customer doesn't want to buy or play non-FW today, doesn't mean that he won't in the future. He is still a potential customer.
You talk about these hypothetical new guys coming in and spending money, but it is existing customers that make a business both reliable and profitable.
Short term vs long term planning, you got to keep the customer base happy.

Pushing potential customers away from a store, because they bought one of your products at another branch, is bad business. Plain and simple.
If you let people come and play in the store, they are more likely to buy things than if they didn't.

rowboatjellyfanxiii wrote:

Space Sharks Player

Does FW really sell space sharks parts? O.O Does anyone actually PLAY space sharks? Has anyone actually EVER played space sharks?

Man, I haven't heard about them for like, decades, and remember laughing so hard when I saw them somewhere way back.

Edit: apologies in advance if I have offended any Space Sharks players All in jest and fun.

Forge World doesn't use the Space Shark name, instead calling them Carcharodons.

I realy dislike how some people insist "30k" is a separate game from "40k" that can't cross over. That's like saying Warmachine and Hoards should never be played together.


As for the space sharks. They never realy made anything for them beside this fellow.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-DE/Tyberos-The-Red-Wake

But supplement rules for codex:SM to represent them are available from forgeworld.

 JamesY wrote:
Depends how you go about it. Saying no to FW isn't the same as banning the player. They would still be welcome to play 40k or AoS. If they only play 30k, it won't affect their bottom line beyond the occasional paint pot. And I'm sorry to say grump, you moaning to friends about how you feel wronged by a legitimate decision wouldn't influence their spending as much as you would hope, if at all.

Kinda off topic, but I don't think you're in a position to tell him what his friends would do. You don't know him. You don't know his friends. If I tell my friends that something is bad and they should stay away from it, they would do so because they trust me and we have more or less the same values we uphold. And I would do the same if the case was reversed.

Now I'm not saying I'll tell my friends to boycott a store. But if I stop playing at a store my friends would stop going there as well, because you know, we enjoy each other's company.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

And? Look at this 'un.

You are clearly missing the point.
You tried to make a joke about hobby supplies not paying the bills, when clearly there is money in it.

This is what I'm talking about, what BC is talking about. This is what people don't get. This is not Sam trying to coax Norm back to the bar because they're buddies. You're only a valued customer as long as you keep putting money in the till. Their till. The manager's till. The definition of a customer.

I really don't think you understand business.
You are applying GW's own short sighted business mentality to this.

Just because a customer doesn't want to buy or play non-FW today, doesn't mean that he won't in the future. He is still a potential customer.
You talk about these hypothetical new guys coming in and spending money, but it is existing customers that make a business both reliable and profitable.
Short term vs long term planning, you got to keep the customer base happy.

Pushing potential customers away from a store, because they bought one of your products at another branch, is bad business. Plain and simple.
If you let people come and play in the store, they are more likely to buy things than if they didn't.

Pretty much. Surely, having a customer who buys the occasional pot of paint AND potentially will buy 40k models in the future is a whole lot of gak better than having no fething customers.

To get new blood, you need a community to pull people. Where are these hypothetical new customers who will only buy 40k come from? Out of thin air?

We are speaking as though Bottle's gaming group could somehow wipe out the economy of a store by leaving.

Say you have an active gaming group or two at a GW store, you're talking low thirties to maybe fifty people max, unless it's in a major UK city. My old local peaked at mid twenties for AoS evening events this summer.
Even if every single one of those people literally take their toys home and leaves, I cannot believe that it is going to kill a store. In the long term, that many people will likely drop out of the hobby locally across the year anyway. And to damage the store noticeably you'd have to assume that they were solely bankrolling it to begin with.

Where are these hypothetical new customers who will only buy 40k come from? Out of thin air?

Off the top of my head, Christmas, birthdays, parents, mothers and fathers in law, school leaving presents, folk like me who put online orders in using the store till to pay them a little homage... Folks who're working but like to drop in and pick items up. I'm sure that JamesY could tell us a little about the average demographic if he has time or inclination to revisit that thought-space.

Another threat to GW is damage to their image and reputation if people complain and it's misconstrued as that manager not holding up their ideals of treating customers fairly or warmly in store.
I have once put in a legitimate written complaint about staff (repeated damage to items entrusted to a manager), and it was taken very seriously. I would hesitate to invoke that upon anyone without good reason.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
We are speaking as though Bottle's gaming group could somehow wipe out the economy of a store by leaving.

Say you have an active gaming group or two at a GW store, you're talking low thirties to maybe fifty people max, unless it's in a major UK city. My old local peaked at mid twenties for AoS evening events this summer.
Even if every single one of those people literally take their toys home and leaves, I cannot believe that it is going to kill a store. In the long term, that many people will likely drop out of the hobby locally across the year anyway. And to damage the store noticeably you'd have to assume that they were solely bankrolling it to begin with.

Warning: anecdotal evidence ahead. Local FLGS we used to frequent shut down. This was back when I was playing MtG competitively, and our group goes there daily. The manager changed, and were kinda pugnacious. We left as a group and started playing in a different store. The other regulars soon followed because it's fun playing with more people. Last time I saw the store the tables are empty during a Friday night (which should be full because of Friday Night Magic). It closed a month after.

Now I don't know how much impact of us leaving as a group caused on the stores finances, but I'm pretty certain it's a huge chunk since we're also the ones bringing new blood to the group.

Another threat to GW is damage to their image and reputation if people complain and it's misconstrued as that manager not holding up their ideals of treating customers fairly or warmly in store.

Whether we believe that banning 30k from the store is a fair decision or not (for the record, I'm pretty neutral about it), it's pretty obvious that it will affect the 30k players negatively and it would affect the image and reputation of the store if they start talking about it. Why make enemies with potential customers (who actually obught GW products, no less) if the image and reputation of the store is that important? In my opinion, the manager has the right to ban what he/she wants and there is nothing morally wrong about it. I just don't think it's a good decision from a business standpoint.

@ heartsrenagade. I am in such a position. 16 yrs of retail, and 10 in management, I have seen countless customers making the same claim when an issue hasn't been resolved the way they want. Never makes a difference. If it's a legit decision, and not the staff being rude or breaking trade law, then why would a friend not buy something that they need/want just because you didn't like that decision?

 heartserenade wrote:
Whether we believe that banning 30k from the store is a fair decision or not (for the record, I'm pretty neutral about it), it's pretty obvious that it will affect the 30k players negatively and it would affect the image and reputation of the store if they start talking about it. Why make enemies with potential customers (who actually obught GW products, no less) if the image and reputation of the store is that important? In my opinion, the manager has the right to ban what he/she wants and there is nothing morally wrong about it. I just don't think it's a good decision from a business standpoint.

As a counter example...

The manager lets people play anything on his tables. Because he has terrain and a good meeting point, lots of his former 40k customers start playing Warmachine. They still buy them occasional 40k set once in a blue moon, and they buy dice and glue and paints.
If he stopped them playing Warmachine there, would he be justified? The Warmachine group would suffer, the players might be angry at the store, and he might lose a few sales. But no-one would claim they have a right to play WMH there, or that its necessarily a good business decision to let people play there.

From the manager's point of view, people playing 30k in the store, or playing with oop models or forgeworld models, may as well be playing Warmachine or X-Wing. From his point of view, the gaming space in the store exists to encourage in-person sales to him at the store, to help his sales numbers and his job.

If you want to blame anyone, its the head office GW people, not the store manager. They're the ones setting sales targets for each store and ensuring that each store should be profitable.

Personally, I think the purpose and aim of the GW stores should be to promote the GW hobby in general rather than to individually generate profit. Its entirely possible that a GW store that individually makes 50k loss per year, could be the nexus of 100k sales through the Webstore and independents. The GW store should function more as advertising or value-add than a profit-maker in its own right. Then it would make sense to allow 30k and Forgeworld as it exposes people to the wider world of GW products. But while the store managers have a mandate to hit sales targets, their personal goals are at odds with (what I think should be) GW's goals.

I feel like you might be overestimating the demand for GW products... People certainly don't need them.

 JamesY wrote:
@ heartsrenagade. I am in such a position. 16 yrs of retail, and 10 in management, I have seen countless customers making the same claim when an issue hasn't been resolved the way they want. Never makes a difference. If it's a legit decision, and not the staff being rude or breaking trade law, then why would a friend not buy something that they need/want just because you didn't like that decision?

16 years of retail and you know his friends and their dynamic, somehow? Like that specific group, you know them and how they behave and how they listen to each other? That's like saying you know all about a specific relationship because you're a divorce lawyer. That's plain arrogance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Trasvi wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
Whether we believe that banning 30k from the store is a fair decision or not (for the record, I'm pretty neutral about it), it's pretty obvious that it will affect the 30k players negatively and it would affect the image and reputation of the store if they start talking about it. Why make enemies with potential customers (who actually obught GW products, no less) if the image and reputation of the store is that important? In my opinion, the manager has the right to ban what he/she wants and there is nothing morally wrong about it. I just don't think it's a good decision from a business standpoint.

As a counter example...

The manager lets people play anything on his tables. Because he has terrain and a good meeting point, lots of his former 40k customers start playing Warmachine. They still buy them occasional 40k set once in a blue moon, and they buy dice and glue and paints.
If he stopped them playing Warmachine there, would he be justified? The Warmachine group would suffer, the players might be angry at the store, and he might lose a few sales. But no-one would claim they have a right to play WMH there, or that its necessarily a good business decision to let people play there.

The problem with this example is that it is considered rude in general to bring a competitor's products inside another store. You don't buy Mcdonald's and eat it inside Starbucks without ordering anything. So playing Warmahordes inside a GW store is understandly banned. No one will be upset. Banning playing GW products inside a GW store, however, will irritate people.

And from the POV of the bottom line of the store (ie, the manager trying to keep his job), Forgeworld products may as well be a competitor's products. You can't buy them in the store. The store doesn't get any money from pointing you towards them.
It might irritate people who've gotten used to doing things the old way... but they shouldn't have expected to be able to do things that way in the first place.

 heartserenade wrote:

The problem with this example is that it is considered rude in general to bring a competitor's products inside another store. You don't buy Mcdonald's and eat it inside Starbucks without ordering anything. So playing Warmahordes inside a GW store is understandly banned. No one will be upset. Banning playing GW products inside a GW store, however, will irritate people.

Alright, sorry. I couldn't resist. We all know that Burger King bought Tim Hortons, right? About eleven and a half big ones, it cost them (billion dollars).

So this would be like taking a triple whopper, fries, and XL coke into a Tim Hortons and chowing down because Timmies is a cooler place to hang out, has better tables and nice plugins for your laptop. Afterwards, maybe you'll even buy a donut for dessert. Either way, it's going to BK's bottom line, so the Tim Hortons manager should be all cool with it, right?

Essentially, the problem is that the GW manager doesn't see FW product as GW product. He (she) sees FW product as a competing product made by another company with common ownership, separate management, and separate distribution.

 Talys wrote:
Essentially, the problem is that the GW manager doesn't see FW product as GW product.

The problem is that the customer doesn't see it that way. That was my point.

If the customer does see eye to eye with the manager, he/she wouldn't dare playing FW in a GW shop in the first place, the same as people instinctively knowing it's rude to play WMH inside a GW store. Thus the customer is more likely to act more negatively, compared to a customer who wants to play WMH in a GW store. THIS IS WHY WE'RE TALKING ABOUT IT, because there's no discussion to be had if it's okay playing WMH in a GW store.

Honestly, people. Reading comprehension.

heartserenade wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
We are speaking as though Bottle's gaming group could somehow wipe out the economy of a store by leaving.

Say you have an active gaming group or two at a GW store, you're talking low thirties to maybe fifty people max, unless it's in a major UK city. My old local peaked at mid twenties for AoS evening events this summer.
Even if every single one of those people literally take their toys home and leaves, I cannot believe that it is going to kill a store. In the long term, that many people will likely drop out of the hobby locally across the year anyway. And to damage the store noticeably you'd have to assume that they were solely bankrolling it to begin with.

Warning: anecdotal evidence ahead. Local FLGS we used to frequent shut down. This was back when I was playing MtG competitively, and our group goes there daily. The manager changed, and were kinda pugnacious. We left as a group and started playing in a different store. The other regulars soon followed because it's fun playing with more people. Last time I saw the store the tables are empty during a Friday night (which should be full because of Friday Night Magic). It closed a month after.

Now I don't know how much impact of us leaving as a group caused on the stores finances, but I'm pretty certain it's a huge chunk since we're also the ones bringing new blood to the group.

I think you answered why that store failed. Totally different really as the manager is said to be a nice good guy.

Noir wrote:


I think you answered why that store failed. Totally different really as the manager is said to be a nice good guy.

Fair enough. The point I was trying to make is that gamers leaving in droves out of the store could shut a store down, but you were right that it might be irrelevant since their manager seems to at least not be an ass.

I think the biggest issue from my point of view in this thread is the misconception of what store gaming space is actually for.

In a GW store the gaming space is fundamentally advertising space. It's the only real advertising GW do even if they say they don't do any.

The gaming tables are there to promote both new and core product and generate sales by showing potential new customers how GW games work.

GW stores are not games clubs and in fact GW would very much like you to all play at home which is why it produces games tables and scenery. I know that isn't practical for most people, I live in London so certainly can't have a games table at home however GW doesn't see it that way and rather you gamed at a club if you can't game at home.

The point is there seems to be a perception that GW stores are a place to hang out and play games - they are not.

The games tables are primarily for promotional purposes, to run intro games or to promote products sold in store.

The fact that most GW managers will let you use their tables for anything else is a privalege, not a right.

I don't mean to sound harsh but I worked as a GW store manager for 9 years and worked as a retail manager for another 16 years for other companies and it frustrates me with the whole "customer is always right" argument.

GW stores are a business just like any other and the store manager needs to run a tight ship and more importantly make high volume sales of core product.

FW items are not (yet) core products and do nothing to promote the manager's sales so he is well within his rights to say people can't use them.

I think a blanket ban is a bit much, having FW upgrades on GW models couldn't hurt his sales targets but I suspect the blanket ban in this case is due to the prevalence of 30K gaming in his store.

I know what I have said above has already been said and many may disagree but the point is the manager has the right to disallow any sort of gaming in his store if he feels it isn't promoting sales. That's what the gaming tables are there for.

StraightSilver wrote:
The point is there seems to be a perception that GW stores are a place to hang out and play games - they are not.

And I think this is a misconception. I don't care that they aren't. They were. By not allowing it now they earn ill will from their customers.
Regardless of if that comes form the local manager or HQ, they offered a service once and are not now so customers may well refuse to spend money there because of that.

Playing in store is not a privilege, but neither should a store feel entitled to someone's money over an online store if they are not offering some sort of service online stores don't.

 heartserenade wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Essentially, the problem is that the GW manager doesn't see FW product as GW product.

The problem is that the customer doesn't see it that way. That was my point.

If the customer does see eye to eye with the manager, he/she wouldn't dare playing FW in a GW shop in the first place, the same as people instinctively knowing it's rude to play WMH inside a GW store. Thus the customer is more likely to act more negatively, compared to a customer who wants to play WMH in a GW store. THIS IS WHY WE'RE TALKING ABOUT IT, because there's no discussion to be had if it's okay playing WMH in a GW store.

Honestly, people. Reading comprehension.

People who buy Forge World products know what they're getting into. They're not first time gamers or hobbyists, they're usually not first time GW customers, and they know the difference between Forge World and Games Workshop. The distinction is pretty clear if you've dumped enough money to actually play a real game of 30k. Well, anyways, it's clear enough to everyone whom I have ever known who buys any amount of FW models. And you know, they can't play in most FLGS either.

But again, it's no different than the Burger King manager being cool with you having a Tim Horton's donut in his store, but not cool with you having your whole mean purchased from a competitor. He's not getting any credit, he's gotta clean up after you, and you're taking up space from someone who he could be making money off of. It doesn't matter if the manager understands that BK bought out Tim Hortons because everyone saw it on the news.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Regardless of if that comes form the local manager or HQ, they offered a service once and are not now so customers may well refuse to spend money there because of that.

Playing in store is not a privilege, but neither should a store feel entitled to someone's money over an online store if they are not offering some sort of service online stores don't.

But you know, sometimes things change?

You are absolutely right, though, that the store isn't entitled to anyone's money. They have to earn it, by providing some combination of a desirable product, customer service, and environment. If a customer doesn't feel there's any value to the store, of course, they should go elsewhere.

So far as 30k goes, you don't have much of a choice: if you want it, and live anywhere other than driving distance to Nottingham, you have to buy it online

 Talys wrote:
People who buy Forge World products know what they're getting into.

That they'll be told they can't use the products made by GW in GW stores because the manager is a dick?

No Talys. There's no "getting into" something when you buy FW. It's not a risk vs reward proposition, and any stigma placed upon FW models is asinine.

HBMC pretty much said what I want to say. Again, this wouldn't be an issue if it's clear cut that you can use FW in a GW store. BECAUSE OTHER GW STORES ALLOW FORGE WORLD. It's not something FW buyers "know they're into", whatever that means.

Well, I will certainly not blame the manager. He's trying to handle the insanity from higher ups, mainly.

This just shows how much pressure the managers get in first line - for wages not that high when compared to the level of responsabilities. That's the real sadness, here.

 heartserenade wrote:
HBMC pretty much said what I want to say. Again, this wouldn't be an issue if it's clear cut that you can use FW in a GW store. BECAUSE OTHER GW STORES ALLOW FORGE WORLD. It's not something FW buyers "know they're into", whatever that means.

My local GW is thankfully a pretty chill place that lets me use non GW paints if I want to hang out and paint there, my local Battle Bunker is an absolutely atrocious store I'd never willingly hang out in with the current staff, but they love their FW there and use it all the time.

If either store told me FW was now banned I'd legitimately be shocked and I can absolutely tell you no one around here would ever expect that they couldn't use FW in store.


edit:
As a matter of fact that is so absurd I just have to say that hell no, FW is no different from any other product in that I would feel perfectly justifiable walking into a store and playing it. Just because I might have bought something online does not mean I would ever feel bad about playing it at my FLGS. I have no personal rule about only playing models I bought from a store on their tables, and I would never expect a store to implement that policy.

Offering tables is a service, that service is something that a local store can do to increase the value of their product that they can't sell as cheaply as an online store. Nowhere is it explicitly stated that you can only use models you bought in store on store tables, tables are not a reward. If it were explicitly stated I'd probably dust my hands of a store and walk away on principal as they are no longer offering them as a service and there is no longer anything to make their product more appealing than the ones you can buy online at a greater discount.


I suppose I am the same with charging for tables too, once a store starts that then the tables are removed from the equation for me and I'll just buy from whoever is cheapest then pay to play on a table and not feel bad about never buying actual models from the store. I used the table, and I paid for it, I have fulfilled my obligations to the store for using their space.

/rant

Just to muddy the waters further, you can currently return BL books and unopened FW kits to GW stores for store credit.

I accidentally ended up with two copies of a very pricy anthology (2nd was a present from a well meaning parent) and thought I'd have to truck it back to HQ. Nope. Local manager explained they can take in those products there.

...

I got nothing.

 Talys wrote:
People who buy Forge World products know what they're getting into.

Wow, what the feth is it with you?

Noir wrote:

 BuFFo wrote:


I've never stepped into a GW store since that day, and except for one army, the 12ish armies I have collected since 2002 I have done exclusively through trades or 3rd party online stores.

GW lost a customer that day, and since, I have got other people not to play GW games.

Oh well.

Not really, while you don't give them your money directly you are still lining their pockets.

Not at all.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Buffo don't fool yourself - everytime you buy some GW product it's a win for them.

Maybe, but my money went into the pockets of people like me.

But I get what you guys are saying. Just because I take part in the hobby, I give GW free advertisement, give my opponents reasons to buy models themselves, etc....

I guess just by existing, I give GW money, but I am fine with giving them these phantom side dollars instead of the tens of thousands of dollars I would have given them directly over the past 15ish years.

 BuFFo wrote:

Noir wrote:

 BuFFo wrote:


I've never stepped into a GW store since that day, and except for one army, the 12ish armies I have collected since 2002 I have done exclusively through trades or 3rd party online stores.

GW lost a customer that day, and since, I have got other people not to play GW games.

Oh well.

Not really, while you don't give them your money directly you are still lining their pockets.

Not at all.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Buffo don't fool yourself - everytime you buy some GW product it's a win for them.

Maybe, but my money went into the pockets of people like me.

But I get what you guys are saying. Just because I take part in the hobby, I give GW free advertisement, give my opponents reasons to buy models themselves, etc....

I guess just by existing, I give GW money, but I am fine with giving them these phantom side dollars instead of the tens of thousands of dollars I would have given them directly over the past 15ish years.

Or by buying second hand, you take an army someone doesn't want, and they then go and buy a new army from GW using your money

 JamesY wrote:
Depends how you go about it. Saying no to FW isn't the same as banning the player. They would still be welcome to play 40k or AoS. If they only play 30k, it won't affect their bottom line beyond the occasional paint pot. And I'm sorry to say grump, you moaning to friends about how you feel wronged by a legitimate decision wouldn't influence their spending as much as you would hope, if at all.

It's only a legitimate decision if you're the mental cases in charge of GW.

It's an understandable decision in the sense that GW have taken retail target culture and amplified it to such a ridiculous degree that a manager of one of their stores feels it's necessary to ban some of his own company's products from his store to try and salvage his own career, but that doesn't make it justifiable.

As for this kool-aid fuelled idea that stores are there to sell-sell-sell and graciously permitting the peasants to play games within their hallowed walls is a privilege for which we should be eternally grateful; utter manure. Manure because the stores are ostensibly GW's primary form of marketing and "buy our stuff then eff-off" is hardly positive optics(and given that their second form of marketing is ostensibly word of mouth, "whine all you want, I bet none of your mates care, har har" is a hilariously counter-productive attitude, but given the company's other blunders I wouldn't be surprised if it's one you picked up from them). Manure because, contrary to the belief seemingly instilled in GW managers at the reeducation centres, the company is not entitled to anyone's money, if a manager can't figure out a way to get most of the community in their store to buy non-FW stuff that's their failing not the customers', and banning the use of those purchases in a desperate attempt to force the customers' hands is merely compounding that failure. Manure because the only people at fault for the creation of the perception among gamers that gaming in store is a core service not a gracious optional extra is GW themselves who spent the last 30 years building up their "hobby centres" as one-stop-shops for all things GW, including gaming, and still use that rhetoric even after they stopped supporting stores in the ways necessary to actually let them deliver the advertised experience.

It's a shame that GW treats their staff so poorly that some feel the need to resort to this kind of absurdity, but just because it's possible to sympathise with someone's motivations doesn't mean we have to accept the actions which result are just.

 statu wrote:

 BuFFo wrote:

Noir wrote:

 BuFFo wrote:


I've never stepped into a GW store since that day, and except for one army, the 12ish armies I have collected since 2002 I have done exclusively through trades or 3rd party online stores.

GW lost a customer that day, and since, I have got other people not to play GW games.

Oh well.

Not really, while you don't give them your money directly you are still lining their pockets.

Not at all.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Buffo don't fool yourself - everytime you buy some GW product it's a win for them.

Maybe, but my money went into the pockets of people like me.

But I get what you guys are saying. Just because I take part in the hobby, I give GW free advertisement, give my opponents reasons to buy models themselves, etc....

I guess just by existing, I give GW money, but I am fine with giving them these phantom side dollars instead of the tens of thousands of dollars I would have given them directly over the past 15ish years.

Or by buying second hand, you take an army someone doesn't want, and they then go and buy a new army from GW using your money

Ding, ding, ding, And we have a winner.

Trasvi wrote:
And from the POV of the bottom line of the store (ie, the manager trying to keep his job), You can't buy them in the store. The store doesn't get any money from pointing you towards them.
It might irritate people who've gotten used to doing things the old way... but they shouldn't have expected to be able to do things that way in the first place.

Of course they should. They're buying in a GW store using GW models and buying more GW products from the store. That latter fact seems to keep getting deliberately ignored.

I have yet to meet face to face anyone with a 30K army who had the money and inclination to go all FW., who back their Contemptor dreads up with the standard ones, and need more rhinos and land raiders to taxi their guys around in. Those are all sales that the manager is driving away, and even more if those players leave the store completely.

Forgeworld products may as well be a competitor's products.

They're simply not.

The issue isn't what the guys gaming with are using, or what they have bought either online or in store.

The issue is with other, potentially new, players wandering into the store and saying "Hey that looks cool, what is it and where can i buy it?".

The store manager then has to explain that the Contemptor Dreadnought is only available via the FW website and he loses sales.

On the other hand if he has a 40K game or an AoS game running on those tables he can make sales off new customers either with a starter set, or selling some of the cool models people have seen in store.

StraightSilver wrote:
The issue isn't what the guys gaming with are using, or what they have bought either online or in store.

The issue is with other, potentially new, players wandering into the store and saying "Hey that looks cool, what is it and where can i buy it?".

The store manager then has to explain that the Contemptor Dreadnought is only available via the FW website and he loses sales.

On the other hand if he has a 40K game or an AoS game running on those tables he can make sales off new customers either with a starter set, or selling some of the cool models people have seen in store.

GW employees are particularly adept at 'guiding' new people's purchases. Wouldn't be all that hard for him explain that a beginner set would be the way to go, and that FW stuff is for more advanced players who are comfortable with the basic units.

On the other hand, the more people who visit a store = more free advertising, both from other people seeing them play, and also through what they say to their friends.

 Bookwrack wrote:

Trasvi wrote:
And from the POV of the bottom line of the store (ie, the manager trying to keep his job), You can't buy them in the store. The store doesn't get any money from pointing you towards them.
It might irritate people who've gotten used to doing things the old way... but they shouldn't have expected to be able to do things that way in the first place.

Of course they should. They're buying in a GW store using GW models and buying more GW products from the store. That latter fact seems to keep getting deliberately ignored.

I have yet to meet face to face anyone with a 30K army who had the money and inclination to go all FW., who back their Contemptor dreads up with the standard ones, and need more rhinos and land raiders to taxi their guys around in. Those are all sales that the manager is driving away, and even more if those players leave the store completely.

I've met at least one or two people who have gone really heavy on FW stuff(one was a DKOK player).

And they haven't actually gone "all FW", but rather have gone Far East World with a smattering of FW--and bragged about it no less.

Forgeworld products may as well be a competitor's products.

They're simply not.

When you're talking about conversion kits or things that are part of "regular" 40k? You're absolutely right--for the most part, they're complementary products.
When you're talking about things like the Space Marine Armor Marks? Not really.
As of right now, someone who wanted to could likely make an entire 30k Space Marine army without purchasing anything but Drop Pods(if they have them; I have paid zero attention to 30k beyond the models) in plastic.

 BrookM wrote:

 Talys wrote:
People who buy Forge World products know what they're getting into.

Wow, what the feth is it with you?

He is the one percent.

The Auld Grump

@ heartsrenagade the habits of one specific group of friends that don't conform to typical spending patterns would only be a concern to a retailer if they were in a very precarious position. In a store that's running well they wouldn't be noticed.

It is also a very good way to put yourself in a precarious position.

The Auld Grump

Damn, while I understand GW stores and their playing tables are more of an advertisement place for their products rather than places to play games in with friends (no matter what GW propaganda says) banning FW is just silly. Only serious hobbyists buy FW minis since theyre rather expensive and such a person is usually ready to buy more gw stuff either now or in the future. That is extremely short-sighted by GW.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
It is also a very good way to put yourself in a precarious position.

The Auld Grump

Indeed.

I might have already said it in this thread but it is a very GW attitude to just assume there will be customers and sales to replace the ones lost by this move.

 BrookM wrote:

 Talys wrote:
People who buy Forge World products know what they're getting into.

Wow, what the feth is it with you?

What are you talking about? They're among the most expensive models that one can buy, most vehicles are difficult kits with dubious instructions, and you have to buy many models separately for chassis/weapons/supporting weapon configurations (meaning you can't buy the kit, and then choose; you have to choose and buy the parts separately). Even basic infantry often require you to buy multiple, expensive kits. The models themselves, while intricate and detailed, are resin and not easy to work with. They take 3x longer to clean up and prep as compared to GW plastics. The books (rules) are extremely expensive by most standards. You can't buy the products anywhere but online and in person at Nottingham. An army will easily take many times the cost of a 40k army, perhaps even 10x the cost of a WMH army. And the armies are very difficult to transport if you have any of the larger titans.

Forge World is not someone's first game. It doesn't matter if you're a millionaire or a dedicated hobbyist working for an average wage: nobody starts wargaming with 30k.

So like I said: before someone who gets into Forge World games (and I don't mean 1 pack of shoulder pads or 1 sicaran tank...), they know what they are getting into. You get into 30k armies because you think their models are super-duper, or because you specifically want to play 30k. In either case, there's no way someone goes and blows thousands of dollars for just a couple of carrying cases of models without knowing what it is they're getting themselves into. "Who am I playing with?" and "Where are we going to play?" are two key questions to be answered before such an investment, because 30k players don't exactly fall off of tries.

 JamesY wrote:
@ heartsrenagade the habits of one specific group of friends that don't conform to typical spending patterns would only be a concern to a retailer if they were in a very precarious position. In a store that's running well they wouldn't be noticed.

You didn't answer the question, though. I didn't ask if a store is running well, or if it is a concern to a retailer.

Check what I asked again, then answer. Here, let me quote it again unless you forgot.

16 years of retail and you know his friends and their dynamic, somehow? Like that specific group, you know them and how they behave and how they listen to each other? That's like saying you know all about a specific relationship because you're a divorce lawyer. That's plain arrogance.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:

 BrookM wrote:

 Talys wrote:
People who buy Forge World products know what they're getting into.

Wow, what the feth is it with you?

What are you talking about? They're among the most expensive models that one can buy, most vehicles are difficult kits with dubious instructions, and you have to buy many models separately for chassis/weapons/supporting weapon configurations. Even basic infantry often require you to buy multiple, expensive kits. The models themselves, while intricate and detailed, are resin and not easy to work with. They take 3x longer to clean up and prep as compared to GW plastics. The books (rules) are extremely expensive by most standards. You can't buy the products anywhere but online and in person at Nottingham. An army will easily take many times the cost of a 40k army, perhaps even 10x the cost of a WMH army. And the armies are very difficult to transport if you have any of the larger titans.

Oh for the love of everything that is holy, we're talking about using FW models in a GW store, not how expensive or how difficult resin is.

Is buying FW and not being able to use it in a GW store, when most GW stores allow FW, something that a buying FW customer is "getting into?" What does having difficult, expensive kits got to do with not being able to use them in a GW store? Shouldn't it be MORE allowed since they're more expensive?

I don't get the logic here.

 heartserenade wrote:

Oh for the love of everything that is holy, we're talking about using FW models in a GW store, not how expensive or how difficult resin is.

Is buying FW and not being able to use it in a GW store, when most GW stores allow FW, something that a buying FW customer is "getting into?" What does having difficult, expensive kits got to do with not being able to use them in a GW store? Shouldn't it be MORE allowed since they're more expensive?

I don't get the logic here.

Like I said, before you invest thousands of dollars into a game with difficult to build and expensive models, you figure out who and where you're going to play. Since the game is obviously not sold at a GW store, it would behoove you to ask them first.

Again, I said, FW customers know what they are getting into. They are not newb gamers. They will have figured out where to play long before blowing a few thousand dollars. This is not someone buying a starter box and then going, dammit, they won't let me play here!!

 Talys wrote:

Like I said, before you invest thousands of dollars into a game with difficult to build and expensive models, you figure out who and where you're going to play.

Funny how one would expect you can play GW games with GW products in a GW store. The store permitted FW models before in the past, or have you missed that? Clearly the players have done the "figuring out where to play" part.

 heartserenade wrote:

Is buying FW and not being able to use it in a GW store, when most GW stores allow FW, something that a buying FW customer is "getting into?" What does having difficult, expensive kits got to do with not being able to use them in a GW store? Shouldn't it be MORE allowed since they're more expensive?

I don't get the logic here.

Quite frankly, I think you're not grasping why what Talys and others are saying is a thing because of this line you made:

Is buying FW and not being able to use it in a GW store, when most GW stores allow FW,

There is no corporate policy that someone coming in with a FW store has to be allowed to play with it in their shop. Managers are, from what has been said here, allowed to make a judgement call.

I can't comment on the OP's situation as I don't know the situation at their shop firsthand, but I can think of a ton of reasons why a manager might disallow FW armies.
Keyword there: "ARMIES". Not "models", but whole armies.

One reason that immediately comes to mind is the 30k players might have been talking about purchasing models via recasters or suggesting that avenue to new customers. If that's the case, I can almost guarantee you that the manager would shut down any attempts to organize 30k stuff.
Another reason that comes to mind is that the 30k players might never actually buy anything there but expect to be given priority for gaming space or trying to organize big huge 30k games(things that make the store very little/no money).

I would not be surprised to find out that the 30k players might have been doing something that the manager caught wind of and decided to shut it down before things escalated or got out of his ability to exert too much control.

 Talys wrote:
Like I said, before you invest thousands of dollars into a game with difficult to build and expensive models, you figure out who and where you're going to play. Since the game is obviously not sold at a GW store, it would behoove you to ask them first.

Except GW managers come and go like the wind. Rarely have I started an army and had the same manager by the time I've finished it (only the most recent manager at the closest GW store has lasted a significant period of time).

You could very easily buy in to FW with the plan of playing it at a local GW thinking it's all GW so you should be able to play it in a GW store AND having been told by the GW staff that you can play with it and then turn around and not be able to play with it when the next manager rocks up.

FW stuff is even advertised in the publications that are sold at local stores, it's not hard to get the impression that you should be able to play with them in stores. Most customers probably don't realise (and shouldn't have to realise) that GW managers are often surviving off the skin of their teeth rather than GW stores being a haven for all GW products including FW.

IMO it would be best if GW just made a globally consistent policy on it and allow stores to be a point of ordering FW with free shipping, but they probably won't. I don't think they spend enough time doing the requisite local level market research to make the most out of their stores (which includes using them as a platform for FW stuff).

@ heartsrenegade you are missing my point, not the other way around. When customers don't get what they want, saying that they will tell everyone they know how crap you are, and how they are going to tell everyone they know not to shop with you is a face saving statement to try and reclaim a false sense of power. It is normally empty, but even when people do moan to others, I have never seen it affect the till (although I have always had growth as a manager). So no, I don't have an intimate knowledge of auldgrumps mates and how dearly they uphold each others principles, but I do know that that one group of people making a decision to boycott the store wouldn't affect it for long, if at all. Tbh, if a group had that sort of sense of entitlement and attitude, their absence might well help the store grow (and that is absolutely not a snide dig at you auldgrump).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Talys wrote:
Like I said, before you invest thousands of dollars into a game with difficult to build and expensive models, you figure out who and where you're going to play. Since the game is obviously not sold at a GW store, it would behoove you to ask them first.

Except GW managers come and go like the wind. Rarely have I started an army and had the same manager by the time I've finished it (only the most recent manager at the closest GW store has lasted a significant period of time).

heartserenade wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Like I said, before you invest thousands of dollars into a game with difficult to build and expensive models, you figure out who and where you're going to play.

Funny how one would expect you can play GW games with GW products in a GW store. The store permitted FW models before in the past, or have you missed that? Clearly the players have done the "figuring out where to play" part.

This, really, is my point. By "them", incidentally, I meant Forge World, not the GW store (sorry for the ambiguity). To me, a logical way of researching where to play would be first to ask Forge World if one my play their games at GW stores, even though GW can't stores can't sell them -- since FW is a GW subsidiary, right? A logical answer from FW would seem to be, "it's up to the GW manager".

Assuming the person isn't totally knew in the GW world, they know that being a GW manager is generally not a lifelong career. So a reasonable person would expect that perhaps with this manager it's cool, with another it's not.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
IMO it would be best if GW just made a globally consistent policy on it and allow stores to be a point of ordering FW with free shipping, but they probably won't. I don't think they spend enough time doing the requisite local level market research to make the most out of their stores (which includes using them as a platform for FW stuff).

I agree! I think JamesY said earlier that this is supposedly because GW couldn't keep up with demand if they did this, under the current manufacturing process. Which is nuts, IMO But there is no doubt in my mind that I would buy a ton more FW stuff, if I could order/pick up at a GW store with no shipping hassles.

 Kanluwen wrote:
I would not be surprised to find out that the 30k players might have been doing something that the manager caught wind of and decided to shut it down before things escalated or got out of his ability to exert too much control.

Except that is complete speculation on your part.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JamesY wrote:
@ heartsrenegade you are missing my point, not the other way around. When customers don't get what they want, saying that they will tell everyone they know how crap you are, and how they are going to tell everyone they know not to shop with you is a face saving statement to try and reclaim a false sense of power. It is normally empty, but even when people do moan to others, I have never seen it affect the till (although I have always had growth as a manager). So no, I don't have an intimate knowledge of auldgrumps mates and how dearly they uphold each others principles, but I do know that that one group of people making a decision to boycott the store wouldn't affect it for long, if at all. Tbh, if a group had that sort of sense of entitlement and attitude, their absence might well help the store grow (and that is absolutely not a snide dig at you auldgrump).

Isn't retail 101 that a customer will tell like 3x as many people about a negative experience as they would a positive, so if like GW you operate primarily on word of mouth you absolutely can not afford to annoy an significant portion of the people in your store.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:

This, really, is my point. By "them", incidentally, I meant Forge World, not the GW store (sorry for the ambiguity). To me, a logical way of researching where to play would be first to ask Forge World if one my play their games at GW stores, even though GW can't stores can't sell them -- since FW is a GW subsidiary, right? A logical answer from FW would seem to be, "it's up to the GW manager".

Assuming the person isn't totally knew in the GW world, they know that being a GW manager is generally not a lifelong career. So a reasonable person would expect that perhaps with this manager it's cool, with another it's not.

Were people able to play FW products intheir local store at the time of purchase?
Yes.
Can they currently play previously purchased FW products in that same store?
No.

It is entirely unreasonable to say these people should have seen this coming. And given how few (if any besides this one) mangers actually do have a problem with FW there would never even be a reson to suspect this might happen. Seriously, is this normal in Canada, because it sure as hell ain't in Australia.

If GW were more adaptable they could even use our store to experiment with Forgeworld deliveries or 30k stock.

Just to clear up some of the speculation. It is all Forgeworld models that are disallowed not just 30k or 30k armies. The only FW items allowed are upgrade kits (e.g. Carnifex crushing claws).

The 30k players already have extensive 40k and WHFB armies. Many of these armies also include FW models. From the comments of some, they weren't so upset about not being able to play 30k in store anymore as they all play it out of store. It was the FW models for 40k and AoS they were disappointed about as these two games they only play in store.

I just can't understand why, for example, a Night Goblin player couldn't field the cool FW Night Goblin Boss on Cave Squig with his army...

It feels like a blanket ban to push 30k out the store, which I guess is being done because they don't contribute to targets, but the repercussions are quite big.

This core group bought a lot of stock. Their 30k is largely pure FW. Their 40k and WHFB is largely bought in store.

Maybe they are close to the end of the customer lifecycle with so much stock already bought, but the old adage states it is 10x cheaper to keep an existing customer than it is to find a new customer, right?

 Bottle wrote:
So I've been back into the hobby for almost a year now, and spend quite a lot of time at my local GW.

In that time there has been 3 managers, and all have had a different policy on Forgeworld models. That they even need a policy struck me as odd at first. Anyway, I just sit on the sidelines because I don't own any Forgeworld models.

Our new manager has now essentially banned all Forgeworld models from being played or painted in store. As 90% of the regulars are currently 30K mad, some exclusively playing 30k and buying Forgeworld, it was a surprising decision by the store manager.

Why do you think GW managers always have to have policies on Forgeworld? Is it head office applying pressure? Are all GW stores the same with this disapproval of FW? Why would a store want to discourage the playing and collecting of it's luxury models?

And I guess this discussion goes further into GW and FW's relationship. Why is it so perculiar?

hes a store owner first and foremost, if he doesnt sell products to people that come into his store he doesnt stay open that is fact not fiction. he isnt able to control his prices he has to sell whatever the company tells him too. if people are bulk buying forgeworld and playing nothing but 30k in his store he isnt making a sale off forgeworld products. he doesnt sell them and he doesnt see a dime from those sales. in addition if a customer comes in and sees someone assembling/painting/playing models not available to him on the store shelves at all then he will likely ask questions and then consider going and buying/playing those things instead thus costing him sales.

its simple logic, this is likely effecting his buisness so he has barred it from the store because it has become just as you have said an epidemic. hes a store owner first and your friend second, and if he has to close his doors because everyone buying forgeworld instead of GW products then everyone loses.

He's not a store owner, he's an employee, and the truly stupid thing here is that the discussion exists at all.

@ jonolikespie giving bad service isn't the same as saying no. You can't play specialist games in the stores for the same reason that you can't play 30k. It's a reasonable trade off for a free gaming environment that you are using products that helps support the store you are in.

 ionusx wrote:

hes a store owner first and foremost, if he doesnt sell products to people that come into his store he doesnt stay open that is fact not fiction.

And we are customers first and foremost, as crass as it might seem to say we have no obligation to care about his job. We want value for money, and removing in store gaming removes value.

 JamesY wrote:
@ jonolikespie giving bad service isn't the same as saying no. You can't play specialist games in the stores for the same reason that you can't play 30k. It's a reasonable trade off for a free gaming environment that you are using products that helps support the store you are in.

Except people could come in and use GW models they'd bought at a discount online and there wouldn't be a damn thing the manager could do about it, so there's no guarantee of support.

In fact, it is possible that someone using FW getting all their supplies from the store actually contributes more than someone who plays a purely GW made army who buys all elsewhere.

It is a stupid and arbitrary situation which the company needs to address, opening up in store terminals to FW would be all it would take.

 Azreal13 wrote:
He's not a store owner, he's an employee, and the truly stupid thing here is that the discussion exists at all.

Too true

Sad that these guys are that scared of losing their jobs they do these kind of things.

 JamesY wrote:
@ jonolikespie giving bad service isn't the same as saying no. You can't play specialist games in the stores for the same reason that you can't play 30k. It's a reasonable trade off for a free gaming environment that you are using products that helps support the store you are in.

I'd actually expect to be able to play a specialist game in store since they are GW but more importantly I don't see any trade off involved with free use of tables. I don't see any implied obligation to support a store I use the tables of. I go to a store to play games and while I am there I am very likely to buy something because, well, I am there and the stock is there. Tables get people in the store, that is the extent of the obligation in my opinion. I do support my local stores, but that is an entirely selfish decision because I want my local store to stay around.
That's capitalism

The way fw works in my gw is you buy gw vouchers in store the pop over to nottingaham and buy fw. Its great beacuse you help the store and anoy the feth out of the guys in notting ham when you pay for your titan in a hunderd vouchers.

I just updated the title to reflect that this is the case in a singular store... it may be the case in some others, but it certainly isn't a policy of GW in general as far as I can tell (these things can very dramatically from store to store, but this is the first I'd heard of this kind of restriction occurring).

It's just dumb to bann FW stuff from your store - i know it's not easy to be a GW red/blackshirt, as you need your sales, but that's not the right way ...

 Azreal13 wrote:
He's not a store owner, he's an employee, and the truly stupid thing here is that the discussion exists at all.

And, further, an employee of the same company that makes the materials that he is banning.

The Auld Grump

 e.earnshaw wrote:
The way fw works in my gw is you buy gw vouchers in store the pop over to nottingaham and buy fw. Its great beacuse you help the store and anoy the feth out of the guys in notting ham when you pay for your titan in a hunderd vouchers.

Haha we used to do that, until we sent a guy up there with about a grands worth of vouchers, and head office called the manager to have a go. Worst part was a guy was about to buy a thunderhawk from Nottingham, and went in to get the vouchers the day after the manager got a bollocking, so instead of going to warhammer world, he spent the money on models from the store




Also I can't help but wonder if people's opinions on this are different, as a result of the parent company being called Games Workshop. If the parent was called GW, but the store was called Warhammer, for example, would that change some of the arguments in favour of forgeworld being played in store?

 Talys wrote:
What are you talking about?

Right backatcha!

 Talys wrote:
They're among the most expensive models that one can buy, most vehicles are difficult kits with dubious instructions, and you have to buy many models separately for chassis/weapons/supporting weapon configurations (meaning you can't buy the kit, and then choose; you have to choose and buy the parts separately). Even basic infantry often require you to buy multiple, expensive kits. The models themselves, while intricate and detailed, are resin and not easy to work with. They take 3x longer to clean up and prep as compared to GW plastics. The books (rules) are extremely expensive by most standards. You can't buy the products anywhere but online and in person at Nottingham. An army will easily take many times the cost of a 40k army, perhaps even 10x the cost of a WMH army. And the armies are very difficult to transport if you have any of the larger titans.

And what has any of this got to do with people using FW models in a GW store?

 Talys wrote:
So like I said: before someone who gets into Forge World games (and I don't mean 1 pack of shoulder pads or 1 sicaran tank...), they know what they are getting into. You get into 30k armies because you think their models are super-duper, or because you specifically want to play 30k. In either case, there's no way someone goes and blows thousands of dollars for just a couple of carrying cases of models without knowing what it is they're getting themselves into. "Who am I playing with?" and "Where are we going to play?" are two key questions to be answered before such an investment, because 30k players don't exactly fall off of tries.

What's this got to do with 30K now? FW make more than just HH stuff. And again, what has any of this got to do with using FW models in a GW store?

You seem to be under the (utterly false) perception that buying more fiddly FW models means that the people buying them are somehow taking a big risk by 'getting into' FW, and that they should know beforehand that by starting down this dark FW path that it will forever dominate their in-store playing destiny. Consume them it will!

Bollocks!

They're just miniatures, and the idiotic idea that people buying them should somehow 'prepare' for how they're going to use them is just daffy.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You seem to be under the (utterly false) perception that buying more fiddly FW models means that the people buying them are somehow taking a big risk by 'getting into' FW, and that they should know beforehand that by starting down this dark FW path that it will forever dominate their in-store playing destiny. Consume them it will!

I think that most people who play 30k either have friends highly invested in 30k, or for the reasons that I listed (prices, difficulty of models, availability, etc.) they started with some other GW game like 40k. For these people, there should be an understanding of the relationship between GW and FW. And before you buy into a few thousand bucks of models and books, it would certainly be to your advantage to verify where and with whom you will play. Maybe in your neck of the woods, it's easy to find a 30k pickup game; it sure is not here.

It's really not that complicated

By the way, I don't think it's a "big risk" getting into FW. But it IS a big outlay of cash. And modelling wise, it is NOT easy (not if you want anything remotely resembling a functional, average-size 30k army). Where 40k and AoS give you nice diagrams of CAD-rendered diagrams that Ikea would be proud of, FW gives you photocopies and parts lists that amount to, "go look on the website and make these parts look like that!". I said that it's for more informed, more experienced and advanced gamers. Or ones that are guided there by friends who are already well entrenched in it, in which case, they'll get the low down from them. Age of Sigmar starter set, 30k is not.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jonolikespie wrote:

It is entirely unreasonable to say these people should have seen this coming. And given how few (if any besides this one) mangers actually do have a problem with FW there would never even be a reson to suspect this might happen. Seriously, is this normal in Canada, because it sure as hell ain't in Australia.

Honestly, I have no idea. I only know like, three people here who collect 30k in sufficient models to field an army and I have never known anyone who wanted to play it in a GW store. It just doesn't come up. But like I said, the experience would suck anyways. The tables are too small for armies with Revenant Titans and Reavers and all the wonderful gigantic stuff that begs for a table bigger than 6x4. At the GW stores here, the tables can't be combined, either (they're heavy, solid, and lipped).

I mean, yeah, I get your point: one day, you can play there, the next day, you can't, and that sucks. I think it also depends on what the first manager said when asked. There are a whole host of possible answers to, "Can we play 30k at GW stores?" that range from, "Yes!" to, "It's kind of a grey area, but go ahead."

When I got my Deimos Predator it had an easy to follow instruction guide. Besides, it's not like most Forge World products are hard to assemble.

 JamesY wrote:
@ heartsrenegade you are missing my point, not the other way around. When customers don't get what they want, saying that they will tell everyone they know how crap you are, and how they are going to tell everyone they know not to shop with you is a face saving statement to try and reclaim a false sense of power.

So how many products out there have tarnished reputations because of bad customer feedback? Currently I'm employed as an in-house graphic designer for a company who maanges social media content of various products, and negative backlash affects sales a lot.

It might not make the store close, but it WILL affect sales.

And honestly, how hard is it to spell heartserenade? You're British and you've spelled my name wrong every dang time. Serenade is an English word.

So no, I don't have an intimate knowledge of auldgrumps mates and how dearly they uphold each others principles

Thank you. That is what I asked.

Kanluwen wrote:There is no corporate policy that someone coming in with a FW store has to be allowed to play with it in their shop. Managers are, from what has been said here, allowed to make a judgement call.

Question: Are FW armies usually allowed in most GW stores? Yes or no.

 heartserenade wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:There is no corporate policy that someone coming in with a FW store has to be allowed to play with it in their shop. Managers are, from what has been said here, allowed to make a judgement call.

Question: Are FW armies usually allowed in most GW stores? Yes or no.

Maybe?

Unless you have intimate knowledge to the contrary, as far as I am aware it simply comes down to "Does the manager allow it or not?".

 Talys wrote:
We all know that Burger King bought Tim Hortons, right?

I remember when Wendys bought Tim's. Sad that they're now under BK, but I went the better part of a decade having to subsist on Krispy Kreme instead of Timbits.

Anyhow, my local GW store has a terminal to web order stuff ship to store, and they used to sell FW stuff that they had bulk shipped to the store. I bought a FW model from my local GW store. Now, if they told me I couldn't play it there, I'd be kinda pissed about that. Same if they banned me from using the various (now OOP) metal models I had special ordered into the store.

But then, I don't play at the GW store, and I don't really buy GW stuff, so it doesn't really matter.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:There is no corporate policy that someone coming in with a FW store has to be allowed to play with it in their shop. Managers are, from what has been said here, allowed to make a judgement call.

Question: Are FW armies usually allowed in most GW stores? Yes or no.

Maybe?

Unless you have intimate knowledge to the contrary, as far as I am aware it simply comes down to "Does the manager allow it or not?".

Isn't the presence of this thread an indication that this is something rare? If this is common occurence, we wouldn't be discussing it.

But I guess avoiding the answer makes it look better for you.

 Talys wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You seem to be under the (utterly false) perception that buying more fiddly FW models means that the people buying them are somehow taking a big risk by 'getting into' FW, and that they should know beforehand that by starting down this dark FW path that it will forever dominate their in-store playing destiny. Consume them it will!

I think that most people who play 30k either have friends highly invested in 30k, or for the reasons that I listed (prices, difficulty of models, availability, etc.) they started with some other GW game like 40k. For these people, there should be an understanding of the relationship between GW and FW. And before you buy into a few thousand bucks of models and books, it would certainly be to your advantage to verify where and with whom you will play. Maybe in your neck of the woods, it's easy to find a 30k pickup game; it sure is not here.

It's really not that complicated

By the way, I don't think it's a "big risk" getting into FW. But it IS a big outlay of cash. And modelling wise, it is NOT easy (not if you want anything remotely resembling a functional, average-size 30k army). Where 40k and AoS give you nice diagrams of CAD-rendered diagrams that Ikea would be proud of, FW gives you photocopies and parts lists that amount to, "go look on the website and make these parts look like that!". I said that it's for more informed, more experienced and advanced gamers. Or ones that are guided there by friends who are already well entrenched in it, in which case, they'll get the low down from them. Age of Sigmar starter set, 30k is not.

You're not even having the same conversation as the rest of us are you?

 heartserenade wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:There is no corporate policy that someone coming in with a FW store has to be allowed to play with it in their shop. Managers are, from what has been said here, allowed to make a judgement call.

Question: Are FW armies usually allowed in most GW stores? Yes or no.

Maybe?

Unless you have intimate knowledge to the contrary, as far as I am aware it simply comes down to "Does the manager allow it or not?".

Isn't the presence of this thread an indication that this is something rare? If this is common occurence, we wouldn't be discussing it.

But I guess avoiding the answer makes it look better for you.

No it means the OP had not had this happen at the GW he goes to. Nothing else about how rear it is has been established.

And maybe is a answer as we don't know one why or the other it is the only real answer possible. You deflection was a nice try, even if it failed.

I'm probably talking out of my ass when I say this but maybe part of the reason stores ban Forge World is so that they aren't advertising products they can't sell. People playing games in a store are basically doing advertising to anyone who is coming in to browse. What if someone comes in, sees a Sicarian and really likes? He can't get it from the store so he goes online to buy it potentially costing the store sales it would've otherwise had. He may have bought a Predator otherwise, for example, but liked what the Sicarian did better.

This may not be a problem for the company as a whole but for the manager who's job depends on how much plastic crack he can shift it does matter where the sales come from. People playing with stuff bought from other source isn't a big deal since they are advertising product that the manager can sell right there and right then.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Talys wrote:
We all know that Burger King bought Tim Hortons, right?

I remember when Wendys bought Tim's. Sad that they're now under BK, but I went the better part of a decade having to subsist on Krispy Kreme instead of Timbits.

So...that really isn't you in your avatar pic, is it?

Maybe the GW Store Manager doesn't know that FW is realyl just another part of...GW?

Noir wrote:


No it means the OP had not had this happen at the GW he goes to. Nothing else about how rear it is has been established.

And maybe is a answer as we don't know one why or the other it is the only real answer possible. You deflection was a nice try, even if it failed.

Base it on your personal experience, then. Is banning FW products in a GW store something to be expected? On all the stores you've been to, how many bans FW?

I really like it that you guys don't want to answer that question directly. Who's deflecting now?

I think this is an extremely uncommon thing, though - I had never heard of a GW store doing that.

The majority of tournies allow FW now and that sets the tone for casual play here much more than what a single GW store manager decided to implement for in-store gaming. This is more like a store that charges for playing there, and that usually doesn't help in the long run - the same is likely true here, imo.

rowboatjellyfanxiii wrote:
Profit still goes to HQ and gets reallocated anyhow so IDK why they're complainong.

Well, the store manager would be complaining because the sale goes to Forgeworld rather than to the store...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lockark wrote:
I realy dislike how some people insist "30k" is a separate game from "40k" that can't cross over. That's like saying Warmachine and Hoards should never be played together..

Sure. Well, aside from the fact that Warmachine and Hordes were specifically designed to work together, while 30K was designed as a separate (but similar) game.

 heartserenade wrote:

Noir wrote:


No it means the OP had not had this happen at the GW he goes to. Nothing else about how rear it is has been established.

And maybe is a answer as we don't know one why or the other it is the only real answer possible. You deflection was a nice try, even if it failed.

Base it on your personal experience, then. Is banning FW products in a GW store something to be expected? On all the stores you've been to, how many bans FW?

I really like it that you guys don't want to answer that question directly. Who's deflecting now?

If I never walked into a GW since FW was a thing because LGS are better, it would be hard to answer, wouldn't you think. But, as there has not been a bunch of people coming in to say one way or the other we can't know. As you pointed out without intiment knowledge none of us can know. And no the small amount in this thread can't prove one way or the other.

So answer your own question how many have you beento that do.

 heartserenade wrote:

Base it on your personal experience, then. Is banning FW products in a GW store something to be expected? On all the stores you've been to, how many bans FW?

I really like it that you guys don't want to answer that question directly. Who's deflecting now?

How many different GW stores do you think people go to? I'm not really sure what answer you're expecting.

From online discussion over the years (I've only been into a handful of actual GW stores in the last 20-ish years, and only ever played a single game in one... in 1995), the various policies on gaming in GW stores have varied wildly over the years, with differences from store to store and from country to country. Some allow free gaming, some only allow demo games. Some allow unpainted models, some don't. Some allow third-party conversions or models, some don't. Some allow Forgeworld, some don't.

So to answer your first question, yes, at the very least the banning of Forgeworld shouldn't be any more unexpected than any other policy that a store manager chooses to put in place.


Whether or not it's a good policy ultimately comes down to what effect it has on sales... and only the store in question is going to be able to tell you that.

 Azreal13 wrote:
You're not even having the same conversation as the rest of us are you?

Well he's exhausted from all that energy he uses moving goal posts, so we can forgive him the occasional oxygen-deprived moment of nonsense.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

You are applying GW's own short sighted business mentality to this.

Just because a customer doesn't want to buy or play non-FW today, doesn't mean that he won't in the future. He is still a potential customer.
You talk about these hypothetical new guys coming in and spending money, but it is existing customers that make a business both reliable and profitable.
Short term vs long term planning, you got to keep the customer base happy.

Pushing potential customers away from a store, because they bought one of your products at another branch, is bad business. Plain and simple.
If you let people come and play in the store, they are more likely to buy things than if they didn't.

Ummm, can I just say how ridiculous it is for you to be incredulous about people applying GW logic to a GW decision in a GW store? That's like saying "your honour, sure this is an American defendant in an American court on trial for a crime committed in America, but who the feth are you to insist we follow U.S. law?!"

Bottom line, I don't agree with a lot of GW's business decisions or their continued forced segregation of mainstream and FW stuff. Just because it's a silly decision though, doesn't mean it isn't the one they've made and it doesn't mean that a shop manager can flout the rules because he doesn't want to be mean. GW proudly do NO market research, meaning that there is NO data accurately depicting how many customers are gamers, or how many of those gamers only play 40K, or how many of them own FW stuff as well, or how many use a GW shop as their main location for games.

Having said all that, I don't own any FW stuff. If I could more easily get/ order it at a GW shop then I almost certainly would own several kits.

 heartserenade wrote:

Noir wrote:


No it means the OP had not had this happen at the GW he goes to. Nothing else about how rear it is has been established.

And maybe is a answer as we don't know one why or the other it is the only real answer possible. You deflection was a nice try, even if it failed.

Base it on your personal experience, then. Is banning FW products in a GW store something to be expected? On all the stores you've been to, how many bans FW?

Personal experience?
The first manager at my local GW had a "no Forge World, period" policy.
The second manager didn't care, and the current manager asks that people do not bring in full armies of nothing but FW models and does not object to their rules being used, but if you want to do so you have to bring the book with you.

Armies where you have conversion kits, shoulderpads, etc from FW? Perfectly fine as well.
OOP models from GW? Fine and dandy!

I really like it that you guys don't want to answer that question directly. Who's deflecting now?

It's not really deflection to point out that different stores have wildly different policies.
We go through this whole nonsense every time that somebody's local GW has some kind of change to their allowances whether it's a new manager or an old manager going powerhungry.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:

Noir wrote:


No it means the OP had not had this happen at the GW he goes to. Nothing else about how rear it is has been established.

And maybe is a answer as we don't know one why or the other it is the only real answer possible. You deflection was a nice try, even if it failed.

Base it on your personal experience, then. Is banning FW products in a GW store something to be expected? On all the stores you've been to, how many bans FW?

Personal experience?
The first manager at my local GW had a "no Forge World, period" policy.
The second manager didn't care, and the current manager asks that people do not bring in full armies of nothing but FW models and does not object to their rules being used, but if you want to do so you have to bring the book with you.

Armies where you have conversion kits, shoulderpads, etc from FW? Perfectly fine as well.
OOP models from GW? Fine and dandy!

I really like it that you guys don't want to answer that question directly. Who's deflecting now?

It's not really deflection to point out that different stores have wildly different policies.
We go through this whole nonsense every time that somebody's local GW has some kind of change to their allowances whether it's a new manager or an old manager going powerhungry.

And in 7 pages of this discussion this appears to be the second GW store mentioned that has this policy, kinda telling ain't it?