First announced for Kill Team (and reported in the relevant thread), but figured as it’s not limited to KT, it was worth making a dedicated thread. Relevant section in bold.
Warhammer Community wrote: We’ve all been there on pre-order day – we set our alarm, logged into our Games-Workshop.com account, and braced ourselves to set the world speed record for adding items to a cart… all in the hope of getting that awesome new launch box. And we’ve probably all missed out on something we really wanted because we weren’t fast enough, the doorbell rang, our cat spilled coffee on the keyboard, or scalpers got there first.
Well, not this time!
Running out of stock sucks. We know we’ve let you down in the past – so we’re going to do something about it, right now.
This weekend, Games Workshop is making a promise to everyone who orders Kill Team: Octarius during the pre-order weekend – we guarantee you’ll get a copy. Simple!
So, feel free to answer that doorbell or take your cat downstairs knowing you don’t need to scour the internet and pay some dirty scalper a cut just to get the latest boxed set.
Everyone who pre-orders a copy of the new Kill Team this weekend will get one.
Now, Kill Team: Octarius is the first time we’re making a pledge like this. We’ve made absolutely loads of copies… but we’ve been wrong about demand before! So, just rest assured, if you order one on the pre-order weekend, we’ll get it to you.
There’s some nuance here… we’ll be shipping them out first come, first served. If you get in late, it might just take longer to get them to you… potentially several months longer – but you WILL get your copy.
Going forwards, we’re looking at ways we can make sure you don’t miss out on other awesome box sets too. So if, for instance, there was a sweet new Black Templars launch box on the horizon (just imagine that!) then that also sounds like the sort of box we’d want to make sure you could all get your hands on.
But for now, set that alarm… for any time that suits you over the weekend, and brace yourself for Kill Team: Octarius.
Wha-Mu-077 wrote: So, they KNOW about Scalper bots, but don't implement anything to prevent them?
This seems like a better long-term strategy. Scalper bots will continue to evolve to get around whatever tech solution they roll out. By making supply elastic, scalpers will have a much smaller market to serve – namely those who have an incredibly high time premium. This seems like a great solution, IMHO. As the potential profit drops, scalpers will fall away, so more people should get their boxes in a decent time frame. Well done GW!
Wha-Mu-077 wrote: So, they KNOW about Scalper bots, but don't implement anything to prevent them?
Scalper bots are an issue with all online stores with limited products, shoe and technology suppliers have been trying to deal with them for years (at huge expense) but as soon as they implement additional securty measures, the bots find a way around them.
I am not saying that GW shouldn't be doing more to try and stop basic ones but this is an area where the bot developers can react much faster than the anti-bot store fronts.
Wha-Mu-077 wrote: So, they KNOW about Scalper bots, but don't implement anything to prevent them?
Something like, uh... eliminating the reason to scalp stuff in the first place? Yeah, shame they don't do something like produce a copy for each order instead of limiting the orders... oh wait.
Seriously, can't you pester any other forum? We get it you hate the company. Nobody cares.
Why would they implement anything that keeps away scalper money? The important part of that phrase is money. Why would they care where the cash comes from?
By doing this they get to:
Be the heroes
Minimize risk of over production and storage
Maximize profit since these are direct orders
Lower competition from secondary sales of books and models by saturating the market
SamusDrake wrote: Hows about showing the Warhammer Quest players the same courtesy...
I feel like Cursed City is an exception, as annoying as it is to say that.
Indomitus got a made to order, because all those models got separately releases.
Everything in Kill Team is getting a separate release.
The only thing we got from Cursed city was Radukar's court. No heroes, no goons, no objectives, etc. It probably isn't too hard for GW to make made-to-order models when they've got everything they need sitting in separate boxes. With Cursed City, they'd need new boards, new everything, pretty much.
the cursed city debacle was a problem with supplies and everything.
Apparently there where sets left unassembled in warehouses because they couldnt get certain parts. Or buying more of the tiles would have been prohibitively expensive, resulting in a nearly 500$ price tage for the game.
hotsauceman1 wrote: the cursed city debacle was a problem with supplies and everything.
Apparently there where sets left unassembled in warehouses because they couldnt get certain parts. Or buying more of the tiles would have been prohibitively expensive, resulting in a nearly 500$ price tage for the game.
I don't blame them for that (well, I got my copy, but I hoped for the expansions). I guess their original plan was having Cursed City as an available box set with some expansions over the months culminating in the release of the Soul Blight battle tome. Well, it wasn't to be.
Their reaction with deleting their own comments was bad style though.
Tell GW. I’m absolutely with people upset at Cursed City being so hyped, then disappearing like a fart in a wind tunnel.
But we need to tell GW there is still demand. That’s the best way to convince them there’s still money to be had from a Made To Order run.
Enough of us have done that already, and made the message very loud and clear. GW has clearly not forgotten as they are still running articles for the game in WD months after it was discontinued...
hotsauceman1 wrote: the cursed city debacle was a problem with supplies and everything.
Apparently there where sets left unassembled in warehouses because they couldnt get certain parts. Or buying more of the tiles would have been prohibitively expensive, resulting in a nearly 500$ price tage for the game.
I don't blame them for that (well, I got my copy, but I hoped for the expansions). I guess their original plan was having Cursed City as an available box set with some expansions over the months culminating in the release of the Soul Blight battle tome. Well, it wasn't to be.
Their reaction with deleting their own comments was bad style though.
Printing the tiles, even in limited/short runs could not have been that expensive. Printing can be expensive, but never that expensive, additionally, with the demand for the game, they could have gambled on a larger order of tiles to bring the cost down and acquired more other elements to make full games for a Made to Order run.
My guess on the whole situation is, there was a major F up somewhere along the lines in regards to ordering/manufacture, GW believes the supplier is in the wrong, the supplier believes GW are in the wrong and the silence is because lawyers are drawing battle lines currently and have instructed GW to do so.
I wouldn't say they got it sorted out. If I order on the weekend of pre-order, I'll have no idea whether I'm going to get my order on release, or have to wait several months for it. I don't think I'd want it knowing I had to wait several months for it. But I'll have to order having no idea if I'll have to wait several months or not.
Albino Squirrel wrote: I wouldn't say they got it sorted out. If I order on the weekend of pre-order, I'll have no idea whether I'm going to get my order on release, or have to wait several months for it. I don't think I'd want it knowing I had to wait several months for it. But I'll have to order having no idea if I'll have to wait several months or not.
it's going to be fairly straightforward to have a pop up or similar once the 'in hand' stock is sold out
and if they don't they'll be swamped with 'where is my order' questions from those who don't read the small print so i'm sure they will do so
now if they're opening it up to independants stores too that's where the problem will be as they'll have to keep an account of who ordered when, and stop staff handing over boxes to their mats or just whoever moans loudest when customers come in to collect them
The interesting thing for me is the whole “looking into stuff for other releases”.
Given Beast Snaggas contained a limited edition (but unnumbered) Codex? That could be a hurdle, as getting a reprint done is going to be the slow bit, compared to finding production time to pump out new sprues.
But it’s a good step. I’d genuinely like nothing more than for GW to make the Loot Group largely defunct, because it means Scalpers are heavily dissuaded.
I welcome this step, just like I welcomed the early confirmation that the Octarius box would not include exclusive miniatures. The less ways to get FOMOed in the ribs, the better.
Printing the tiles, even in limited/short runs could not have been that expensive. Printing can be expensive, but never that expensive, additionally, with the demand for the game, they could have gambled on a larger order of tiles to bring the cost down and acquired more other elements to make full games for a Made to Order run.
My guess on the whole situation is, there was a major F up somewhere along the lines in regards to ordering/manufacture, GW believes the supplier is in the wrong, the supplier believes GW are in the wrong and the silence is because lawyers are drawing battle lines currently and have instructed GW to do so.
What makes me laugh is that they quite happily carried on printing Blackstone Fortress instead, even though it's an older game thats had its run. If they could only do one game, surely it would make sense to allocate the resources to the newer product instead?
Couldn’t scalpers just cancel their orders if they don’t get their product in the first release? If so, they can still sell to the impatient if the scalpers get stuff first. Then someone who would pay more and preordered but wants it now just cancels their order if it’s taking too long to arrive.
Yeah but scalpers aren't going to get anywhere with that. Sure they have copies earlier but if you've paid the money and you have to wait a month or 3, are you going to say to your dumb idiot self, "HEY, this isn't good enough I'll buy from this scalper I hate and give them more money instead of waiting a bit".
If scalpers then cancel their orders that just moves people up the queue.
It's a good move. Life must be great for you if GW is all you have to bitch about.
privateer4hire wrote: Couldn’t scalpers just cancel their orders if they don’t get their product in the first release? If so, they can still sell to the impatient if the scalpers get stuff first. Then someone who would pay more and preordered but wants it now just cancels their order if it’s taking too long to arrive.
It’s still reducing their market - and what sort of mark up they might be able to get away with.
Because if can pay £125 and wait, would I really pay double that just to get it now?
The most sought after aspects of the box are the DKoK. You also (if you have a bit of common sense) will not be able to get a hold of enough of them at a reasonable price to build that Krieg army you want from just this set alone, meaning you are already in the waiting game to build your new force, and since they're getting released separately in the future, you will also be inclined to wait to see what else comes with them.
Scalpers are daft to think they will actually make money from this, or even enough to make the effort worthwhile, and anyone who actually goes against the grain (not being patient) and purchasing from them, they are just as much of a problem for the hobby as the scalpers themselves.
Printing the tiles, even in limited/short runs could not have been that expensive. Printing can be expensive, but never that expensive, additionally, with the demand for the game, they could have gambled on a larger order of tiles to bring the cost down and acquired more other elements to make full games for a Made to Order run.
My guess on the whole situation is, there was a major F up somewhere along the lines in regards to ordering/manufacture, GW believes the supplier is in the wrong, the supplier believes GW are in the wrong and the silence is because lawyers are drawing battle lines currently and have instructed GW to do so.
What makes me laugh is that they quite happily carried on printing Blackstone Fortress instead, even though it's an older game thats had its run. If they could only do one game, surely it would make sense to allocate the resources to the newer product instead?
How do you know they’ve done another print run on Blackstone? They could be just selling from stock. How do you know the parts are coming from the same suppliers? Can’t just flip at the drop of a hat.
Don’t get me wrong, they deffo fethed up the Cursed City release, but supply and manufacturing is a bit more complicated than “just make more duh”.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
endlesswaltz123 wrote: The most sought after aspects of the box are the DKoK. You also (if you have a bit of common sense) will not be able to get a hold of enough of them at a reasonable price to build that Krieg army you want from just this set alone, meaning you are already in the waiting game to build your new force, and since they're getting released separately in the future, you will also be inclined to wait to see what else comes with them.
Scalpers are daft to think they will actually make money from this, or even enough to make the effort worthwhile, and anyone who actually goes against the grain (not being patient) and purchasing from them, they are just as much of a problem for the hobby as the scalpers themselves.
It’s made it so that scalping carries a real risk of not making money. Before this announcement, they’ll have lost a bit on some releases, made bank on others, but clearly a general profit. This makes the sums much harder.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
H.B.M.C. wrote: "It took us a few years and lots of insta-sold out boxes to get our gak together, but we think we've finally got it sorted out!"
Now, does such a guarantee apply to all places where this can be ordered, or just those coming from the company storeGW website?
99% this will be from their website only. Any other way is a monster of a logistical nightmare.
I was actually quite confident I'd be able to place my preorder in time, but this is very good news to everyone who is stuck with a smaller distributor.
How do you know they’ve done another print run on Blackstone? They could be just selling from stock. How do you know the parts are coming from the same suppliers? Can’t just flip at the drop of a hat.
Don’t get me wrong, they deffo fethed up the Cursed City release, but supply and manufacturing is a bit more complicated than “just make more duh”.
Because I contacted GW last november if BSF was discontinued( everyone and their dog believed it had been so, and I was told "nope, you won't get a copy now - its gone. You've missed out." ) and they replied "we are printing more copies as we speak and hope to have them available this side of christmas". I got my copy in time for christmas.
Since then its constantly been in and out of stock, which is safe to assume they have carried on printing new copies as they did last november.
And MaxT, it is not a case of "just make more, duh." I posed an intelligent question; why carry on printing a game past its sell by date in favour of a new product, especially one that ties in with a new AoS faction?
Printing the tiles, even in limited/short runs could not have been that expensive. Printing can be expensive, but never that expensive, additionally, with the demand for the game, they could have gambled on a larger order of tiles to bring the cost down and acquired more other elements to make full games for a Made to Order run.
My guess on the whole situation is, there was a major F up somewhere along the lines in regards to ordering/manufacture, GW believes the supplier is in the wrong, the supplier believes GW are in the wrong and the silence is because lawyers are drawing battle lines currently and have instructed GW to do so.
What makes me laugh is that they quite happily carried on printing Blackstone Fortress instead, even though it's an older game thats had its run. If they could only do one game, surely it would make sense to allocate the resources to the newer product instead?
they may well have had a stock of the difficult (ie paper stuff they don't make in house) in stock, so all they needed to do was make more sprues which isn't a huge deal especially if there was machine time booked for a cursed city reprint that got scrapped as seems likely
they may well ave had a stock of the difficult (ie paper stuff they don't make in house) in stock, so all they needed to d was make more sprues which isn't a huge deal especially if there was machine time booked for a cursed city reprint that got scrapped as seems likely
Hmmm...yes, that certainly could be a possibility. Must have been a hellva stock they had lying around.
The CC mess does have a lot of hallmarks of a contract dispute on the bits GW don’t make tbh:
-Complete radio silence on anything to do with it and quiet withdrawal of the marketing. GW have understocks all the time and they usually say something about it.
-The fact that initially the Social Media team seemed to have no idea what was going on.
-The rumours of partial boxes lying all over GW’s warehouse [maybe filled with just the bits GW make?]
-The sudden appearance of the enemies for sale with the SGL release when it took ages before the released the BSF ones and when they were already releasing another version of the boss. [maybe to sell the overstock of models vs boxes?]
So the solution to what is not possible to fulfil on the initial stock is to start another production wave, that can take several months.
I guess it's another baby step in the right direction? Awaiting months is not something Im willing to do though, sorry.
I really could care less about multimillion dollar companies that produce toys but struggle to figure out demand, its their problem so fix it. As a client I want to go to X store or online and pick up say Killteam or cursed city or whatever games from normal instore stocks... Going into longwinded efforts to secure a copy of a silly game on a particular time period and then potentially waiting several months is just not worth my time.
The problem is not fixed its just extended. Meanwhile they have my money there.
I missed the Beast Snagga Box two times and now they're telling me this?
I don't care if it needs time, this year I waited 4 months for my DG Codex to arrive and 6months for a made to Order Nazgul (actually I've been waiting about 10years for that model to be available again ) . My pile is big enough to bridge times like that .
Lord Zarkov wrote: The CC mess does have a lot of hallmarks of a contract dispute on the bits GW don’t make tbh:
-Complete radio silence on anything to do with it and quiet withdrawal of the marketing. GW have understocks all the time and they usually say something about it.
-The fact that initially the Social Media team seemed to have no idea what was going on.
-The rumours of partial boxes lying all over GW’s warehouse [maybe filled with just the bits GW make?]
-The sudden appearance of the enemies for sale with the SGL release when it took ages before the released the BSF ones and when they were already releasing another version of the boss. [maybe to sell the overstock of models vs boxes?]
Exactly, and such contracts it's not actually that easy or in your best interest to just sign a contract with another company to make the specific bits, most likely there's an exclusivity clause beyond all but the most unforeseen circumstances that the supplier will make those parts i.e. if the factory burned down, they'd be allowed to go elsewhere. So if GW did go to a new supplier, they'd probably find themselves in a counter legal battle...
However, in regards to your final point, I've been patiently waiting for the heroes to be released also and they have not been, so it may not be that (or the heroes were always going to be game exclusive but the enemies were not?)
NAVARRO wrote: So the solution to what is not possible to fulfil on the initial stock is to start another production wave, that can take several months.
I guess it's another baby step in the right direction? Awaiting months is not something Im willing to do though, sorry.
I really could care less about multimillion dollar companies that produce toys but struggle to figure out demand, its their problem so fix it. As a client I want to go to X store or online and pick up say Killteam or cursed city or whatever games from normal instore stocks... Going into longwinded efforts to secure a copy of a silly game on a particular time period and then potentially waiting several months is just not worth my time.
The problem is not fixed its just extended. Meanwhile they have my money there.
If only demand was so easily judged.
Look at GW’s recent financials (freely published and freely available).
Then understand they order stuff waaaaaaay in advance - especially when elements of the overall set are coming from overseas (COVID be damned, that’s an idiot Brexit Bonus).
Supply is inherently reactive, unless you don’t care about unsold stock - and no business wants unsold stock, because that’s just lost money. And when you’re seeing the growth GW has seen? Yeah. Good luck getting that right, outside of the topic of this very thread.
privateer4hire wrote: Why would they implement anything that keeps away scalper money? The important part of that phrase is money. Why would they care where the cash comes from?
Scalpers do hurt GW's income.
See a Scalper buys a limited product at X price.
They then put it up for sale at 4X price.
Any customer who buys the 4X price product was obviously willing to give GW the same X price. So GW gains no additional revenue.
However the customer who pays the 4X price now has 3X of income which isn't going to GW, its going to the scalper. That's 3X of money that most likely would have been spent on other GW products.
So GW doesn't lose money on the product itself, they lose money on the other products the customer would have bought with their money. This, of course, assumes that not every buyer of scalped products is money rich to the point where the price has no impact on their spending rate. Which I'm sure does apply to some, just not very many, customers.
The other impact is that the more stock they run out of the more money GW has to spend paying support staff to answer tickets and deal with social media fallout and such. Which is a minor loss of income considering most of those are long term contracts, but it is a working cost.
In the end this scheme allows GW to produce for the market demand, esp in these times where GW's ability to predict market sales rate is clearly hampered. This plan works greatly in GW's favour as when the sales are high GW gets to make maximum sales; whilst if/when the sales spike they are on starts to dwindle as people "get back to normal life"; it scales down instantly for GW. So its a win win for GW. Customers willing to wait months for Indomitus has clearly shown GW management and accounting that its a viable option which doesn't harm their long term sales potential and indeed might help it. Even if they have to wait, a customer who has Indomitus in the bag is going to grab the codex and support products even whilst waiting. Meanwhile the customer who missed out on a one time order is a customer more likely to be a bit jaded/bitter and not to spend out.
This is a win win for everyone (save the scalpers) involved Great move by GW!
NAVARRO wrote: So the solution to what is not possible to fulfil on the initial stock is to start another production wave, that can take several months.
I guess it's another baby step in the right direction? Awaiting months is not something Im willing to do though, sorry.
I really could care less about multimillion dollar companies that produce toys but struggle to figure out demand, its their problem so fix it. As a client I want to go to X store or online and pick up say Killteam or cursed city or whatever games from normal instore stocks... Going into longwinded efforts to secure a copy of a silly game on a particular time period and then potentially waiting several months is just not worth my time.
The problem is not fixed its just extended. Meanwhile they have my money there.
If only demand was so easily judged.
Look at GW’s recent financials (freely published and freely available).
Then understand they order stuff waaaaaaay in advance - especially when elements of the overall set are coming from overseas (COVID be damned, that’s an idiot Brexit Bonus).
Supply is inherently reactive, unless you don’t care about unsold stock - and no business wants unsold stock, because that’s just lost money. And when you’re seeing the growth GW has seen? Yeah. Good luck getting that right, outside of the topic of this very thread.
Exactly. GW's sales last year DOUBLED at the very least with some products going way beyond that. GW had no way on Earth to predict the Pandemic nor that the reaction to it would be a mammoth sales spike beyond anything they've ever seen. Even without factory limitations, their sales rate has been insane over the last year and a half or so. All totally unpredictable and its likely to remain so for a good few more years before things settle. Sure GW might have known that hobbies do well in a disaster, but nothing like as well as they have done during the Pandemic.
The other addition to the above is, killteam is a game, that they want people to invest in, if the entry to it is far too high, there are people that will never enter into it, meaning that potential customer is not tapping into another of their potential revenue streams, or the first stream that could lead to additional streams.
There's a reason they've been throwing absolutely loads of money at AoS and producing frankly better models than 40k, they want the 40k crowd to finally buy in... I'm honestly nearly tempted to do so, finally just on the quality of the models... However, if for some reason scalpers had control of the start collecting boxes, or dominion or whatever, there is no chance I will ever dive in, and if I do dive in, that will end up being thousands of pounds of revenue coming their way over the next 5 years, just from me.
This isn't concerts and gigs where ticket sales have to be finite due to venue restrictions on crowd sizes, if the demand is there, in theory GW should and will want to supply it.
NAVARRO wrote: So the solution to what is not possible to fulfil on the initial stock is to start another production wave, that can take several months.
I guess it's another baby step in the right direction? Awaiting months is not something Im willing to do though, sorry.
I really could care less about multimillion dollar companies that produce toys but struggle to figure out demand, its their problem so fix it. As a client I want to go to X store or online and pick up say Killteam or cursed city or whatever games from normal instore stocks... Going into longwinded efforts to secure a copy of a silly game on a particular time period and then potentially waiting several months is just not worth my time.
The problem is not fixed its just extended. Meanwhile they have my money there.
If only demand was so easily judged.
Look at GW’s recent financials (freely published and freely available).
Then understand they order stuff waaaaaaay in advance - especially when elements of the overall set are coming from overseas (COVID be damned, that’s an idiot Brexit Bonus).
Supply is inherently reactive, unless you don’t care about unsold stock - and no business wants unsold stock, because that’s just lost money. And when you’re seeing the growth GW has seen? Yeah. Good luck getting that right, outside of the topic of this very thread.
Like I said its not my problem to solve is it? Thats why theres experts to be hired by those highly successful companies... Besides this problem has been a thing before current particular environment.
Im a simple client and this communication seems to think Im willing to, say thank you, for GW efforts to hold my money for undetermined number of months...
NAVARRO wrote: So the solution to what is not possible to fulfil on the initial stock is to start another production wave, that can take several months.
I guess it's another baby step in the right direction? Awaiting months is not something Im willing to do though, sorry.
I really could care less about multimillion dollar companies that produce toys but struggle to figure out demand, its their problem so fix it. As a client I want to go to X store or online and pick up say Killteam or cursed city or whatever games from normal instore stocks... Going into longwinded efforts to secure a copy of a silly game on a particular time period and then potentially waiting several months is just not worth my time.
The problem is not fixed its just extended. Meanwhile they have my money there.
If only demand was so easily judged.
Look at GW’s recent financials (freely published and freely available).
Then understand they order stuff waaaaaaay in advance - especially when elements of the overall set are coming from overseas (COVID be damned, that’s an idiot Brexit Bonus).
Supply is inherently reactive, unless you don’t care about unsold stock - and no business wants unsold stock, because that’s just lost money. And when you’re seeing the growth GW has seen? Yeah. Good luck getting that right, outside of the topic of this very thread.
Like I said its not my problem to solve is it? Thats why theres experts to be hired by those highly successful companies... Besides this problem has been a thing before current particular environment.
Im a simple client and this communication seems to think Im willing to, say thank you, for GW efforts to hold my money for undetermined number of months...
And those experts have advised this course of action.
The other would be GW over-ordering and potentially having too much stock that doesn't sell. Whilst GW have a huge safety net in that their products generally don't devalue and are not required to be fast sellers. If they get too many shelved products that means there's a LOT more money for them sitting on shelves not selling. If that happens too often it means their cash flow slows down even if their sales are good. Slower cash flow means less money to actually get enough orders to produce supply; it means less money for side projects; for core products and more. So it hamstrings them.
for GW this is actually worse because they typically avoid any form of loan. So they won't just get a loan to cover short term cash flow issues, they just wait or scale back until they muscle through it. Short term that means losing sales; long term it means they are in a robust condition whenever there's a downturn as they can just scale back without issues; whilst if you take out big and many loans you can end up with lots of repayments you have to keep making and can't scale back on.
Well I'm happy for this, I'm hopeful on getting it from the FLGS on the morning, but I know now I can 100% get a copy if I'm not fast enough, and if its the same as the 40K box my FLGS might be able to get it on discount for that as well.
NAVARRO wrote: So the solution to what is not possible to fulfil on the initial stock is to start another production wave, that can take several months.
I guess it's another baby step in the right direction? Awaiting months is not something Im willing to do though, sorry.
I really could care less about multimillion dollar companies that produce toys but struggle to figure out demand, its their problem so fix it. As a client I want to go to X store or online and pick up say Killteam or cursed city or whatever games from normal instore stocks... Going into longwinded efforts to secure a copy of a silly game on a particular time period and then potentially waiting several months is just not worth my time.
The problem is not fixed its just extended. Meanwhile they have my money there.
If only demand was so easily judged.
Look at GW’s recent financials (freely published and freely available).
Then understand they order stuff waaaaaaay in advance - especially when elements of the overall set are coming from overseas (COVID be damned, that’s an idiot Brexit Bonus).
Supply is inherently reactive, unless you don’t care about unsold stock - and no business wants unsold stock, because that’s just lost money. And when you’re seeing the growth GW has seen? Yeah. Good luck getting that right, outside of the topic of this very thread.
Like I said its not my problem to solve is it? Thats why theres experts to be hired by those highly successful companies... Besides this problem has been a thing before current particular environment.
Im a simple client and this communication seems to think Im willing to, say thank you, for GW efforts to hold my money for undetermined number of months...
And those experts have advised this course of action.
The other would be GW over-ordering and potentially having too much stock that doesn't sell. Whilst GW have a huge safety net in that their products generally don't devalue and are not required to be fast sellers. If they get too many shelved products that means there's a LOT more money for them sitting on shelves not selling. If that happens too often it means their cash flow slows down even if their sales are good. Slower cash flow means less money to actually get enough orders to produce supply; it means less money for side projects; for core products and more. So it hamstrings them.
for GW this is actually worse because they typically avoid any form of loan. So they won't just get a loan to cover short term cash flow issues, they just wait or scale back until they muscle through it. Short term that means losing sales; long term it means they are in a robust condition whenever there's a downturn as they can just scale back without issues; whilst if you take out big and many loans you can end up with lots of repayments you have to keep making and can't scale back on.
Sorry I dont know if experts advised this or something else because they are not the ones making the final decisions are they?
Regarding your hypothesis yes it could be something like that or maybe its something else, I mean, I dont work for GW so I dont pretend to know how they are operating or even what their bottom-line goals and challenges are... Does their internal struggles influence my purchases? No, I dont have shares either.
If you want people playing a game you need to sell the game and make it widely available in the first place, failing that for whatever reason and they lose my money.
Like@ endlesswaltz123 said this is not a gig ticket that only makes sense on one Saturday morning preorder and if you miss it you cant play KT for god knows how long or if at all.
I actually think there will be PLENTY of copies of kill team, and it will be a minority that will be waiting a few months for their order.
As I said in the other thread, the real hot topic items in it are the DKoK and you will need a hell of a lot of them to do an army with anyway, most people will wait, not many will be buying multiple sets of this, mainly because of the amount of terrain and how much that is a part of it's fairly high price.
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Argive wrote: more open longer lead time.
Allow people to pre-order
make anough to meet demand.
Its almost like what a logical company would do..
The only improvement for us as customers would be to do a 3 month pre-order window, but then, many people will bail out before then, and GW would struggle to keep the hype going into release, which isn't an improvement for GW so we get this and...
I like this method, make a lot of copies to meet demand, however, if demand is exponential, there is a way for customers to still play the game. It would be especially good if they released the rules to these players digitally and gave them a voucher to redeem a measuring thingy in a GW store for free so they could play the game with other kill teams till the box set actually arrives.
I think the months long wait phrases are to cover logistical challenges in getting stuff around the world. If you live in the uk, I can be pretty sure it won't months, but if you're up in the highlands of Vietnam it might take that long go percolate though the logistical systems and get to your door, so they state the worse case up front so we're pre warned, and hopefully its it that long
xerxeskingofking wrote: I think the months long wait phrases are to cover logistical challenges in getting stuff around the world. If you live in the uk, I can be pretty sure it won't months, but if you're up in the highlands of Vietnam it might take that long go percolate though the logistical systems and get to your door, so they state the worse case up front so we're pre warned, and hopefully its it that long
It's also due to production issues, if you'll rememebr when Indomatus was re-released in made to order it took GW a bit of time to produce the boxes. I imagine GW's already gearing up to produce more of kill team but at the same time people whose order is moved to MTO are almost assuredly going to have to wait
Well, they've chosen to focus their business model on products that they know people won't actually want months from now. That's the main reason this is a problem in the first place. They can't just make enough of them, because then some people might actually buy it a few months from now. That doesn't work with their business model, because they need you to be buying the next new thing then. Which might just be this terrain or the DKoK models in their own separate boxes.
Glad to hear they're going to make Kill Team available to everyone who wants it. I admit I was expecting another Cursed City snafu given how they tried to cover their tracks after that event rather than admit they screwed up.
Yeah this is a good move by GW, I clap for them for this. They should have been doing this from the start when this fomo crap was pooping all over the fans. Screw the dirty scalpers and I hope they sit on their scalped boxes they buy till they rot.
If only certain electronics could do something like that, we might see these scalping turds curtailed back to high end sneakers and other things I couldn't care less about.
AngryAngel80 wrote: Yeah this is a good move by GW, I clap for them for this. They should have been doing this from the start when this fomo crap was pooping all over the fans. Screw the dirty scalpers and I hope they sit on their scalped boxes they buy till they rot.
If only certain electronics could do something like that, we might see these scalping turds curtailed back to high end sneakers and other things I couldn't care less about.
yeah I was hoping when they announced indomatus was gonna be made to order it pushed a few idiot scalpers into bankrupcy. Generally I'd never wish a bad thing on another human being but I WILL wish for Karma to bite and bite hard
Marshal Loss wrote: As positive a change as can be expected from GW. Took them long enough to do something of the sort
Better late than never. Hopefully it proves successful enough to become a standard feature.
Aside from rulebooks that are required for a tournament within weeks of release, I see no reason to "need" a product immediately. Won't lose a night's sleep over waiting a few more months for something.
Plus, anything that harms scalpers is always welcome.
And odds are the months waiting won't be usual. More of GW safeguarding themselves to ensure there won't be complains about GW failing to uphold to promise if demand IS so big it literaly will take months.
If they had said "within month" and then it takes 2 months it will cause bigger uproar(negative) than if they say "even if it takes months" and then they deliver within month.
I guess this might also put off scalpers, as they’ve no guarantee their order will be fulfilled from stock.
Certainly, if someone is ordering large numbers and I was GW, I’d probably hoof them to the back of the queue. Their 20 copies are better served going to 20 individuals, no?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I guess this might also put off scalpers, as they’ve no guarantee their order will be fulfilled from stock.
Certainly, if someone is ordering large numbers and I was GW, I’d probably hoof them to the back of the queue. Their 20 copies are better served going to 20 individuals, no?
Why? GW gets the money eitherway. And makes twice the money if all the regular copies get scalped and regular people have to have them made-to-order afterwards.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I guess this might also put off scalpers, as they’ve no guarantee their order will be fulfilled from stock.
Certainly, if someone is ordering large numbers and I was GW, I’d probably hoof them to the back of the queue. Their 20 copies are better served going to 20 individuals, no?
Hopefully yes but unfortunately the problem with scalpers is that people do buy from them no matter how ridiculous the prices are.
Like I said this will only extend the problem since say if you cant preorder the product because, life, and if product is not on the shelves then scalpers will be there with something ready for you to buy.
Everyone that manages to preorder cool beans how about MR Jon Smith that got into the hobby a couple months later and sees people playing KT and wants to do that? How about Lil Tim that sees his friends playing KT and wants that box for Christmas?
Stores and online store needs to be stocked for that and for me that would be the normal solution to the freaking Scalpers.
Good news, let's hope this initiative works out - I'll remain cautiously optimistic. Never been a big fan of limited edition "exclusive" stuff anyway, it's not a very consumer friendly approach and it inevitably leads to abuse by scalpers and middle men.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I guess this might also put off scalpers, as they’ve no guarantee their order will be fulfilled from stock.
Certainly, if someone is ordering large numbers and I was GW, I’d probably hoof them to the back of the queue. Their 20 copies are better served going to 20 individuals, no?
Hopefully yes but unfortunately the problem with scalpers is that people do buy from them no matter how ridiculous the prices are.
Like I said this will only extend the problem since say if you cant preorder the product because, life, and if product is not on the shelves then scalpers will be there with something ready for you to buy.
Everyone that manages to preorder cool beans how about MR Jon Smith that got into the hobby a couple months later and sees people playing KT and wants to do that? How about Lil Tim that sees his friends playing KT and wants that box for Christmas?
Stores and online store needs to be stocked for that and for me that would be the normal solution to the freaking Scalpers.
But is there's sufficient demand later for scalpers to be worth it...
GW sells out majority of sprues of kit within months. After that it's trickle sales.
Lil Tim wanting christmast old box long out of sale are in minority. It's trickle of trickle. Are scalpers sitting with storage sitting on spaces for couple box a year rate sell? Storing something isn't free for scalpers either.
This might even only work whilst the numbers are currently growing - ergo that the made-to-order amounts are large enough to make it economically viable to make further orders from overseas. I'm guessing they'll have to play it close so that if the numbers start coming down (ergo GW estimates demand better and demand might lower from artificial inflated values that they are now) they can shut down the scheme if the numbers of made-to-order dip below certain thresholds.
With the safety net that, long term, they will likely profit more from the direct sales increases offered in the now; giving them a cushion of a few orders under-size in the future without losing out long term.
So this might well become a scheme that vanishes in the future. Then again these made to order sound like they are coming with regular shipments anyway (hence the few months wait time) so it might well hardly impact them at all; its just a different take on how to market and sell their products.
This is a good move in my opinion. I'd already decided not to bother with Kill team despite wanting it, as I can't be faffed with all the ordering palaver. This has changed my mind.
Wha-Mu-077 wrote: So, they KNOW about Scalper bots, but don't implement anything to prevent them?
You can't scalp a product that anyone can go order at MSRP.
If a few people get it on launch, and most have to wait several months for it, then you can.
people are a lot less willing to spend absurd amounts of money on an item when they can get it for less with some patience
Really? Because the situation with PS5s and graphics cards says otherwise.
True, but at the same time those products are somewhat limited shelf life (at some stage they become "old"). They are also enabler products - you can't play any ps5 games until you've got the ps5 - sort of similar for the graphics card.
Killteam, whilst technically essential to play with those armies, doesn't stop you buying and playing with other models/armies as you wait. So you can spend less on getting them and more on getting something else - since the most active GW fans are already part of the wargaming ecosystem and so already have more than enough things to spend the rest of their money on to cover them.
The number of people hwo only want killteam and who will only play killteam with those two (or one half) forces from the set is much much smaller.
BrianDavion wrote: I dunno the Ork terrain might appeal to a number of people too
For me the terrain is the main reason to buy the box. Sure, kommandoz are cool models and having kill team flying around as board game is nice, but I don't really need any of the stuff on the day it's released.
To me this solution is absolutely fine, I'm guaranteed to get my box and that's all I wanted.
I think it's a good promise. But I'd prefer if they did a separate M2O run.
It seems a little dishonest and scummy to be selling people a conventional pre-order then "surprise! you were too slow, now you gotta wait months!".
Also, it's only for that first weekend. When the preorder is two whole weeks, again it seems pretty scummy trying to rush people to buy quick for FOMO.
I'm guessing this is just a first test of the concept. Depending on the response, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole preorder period will be covered for future products.
Very glad to see this. Though, I wish they could just announce things more than 2 weeks in advance EVER. I'm guessing it's too hard to do that accurately. Still shocked they don't go the way of the Gamestop preorder, months and months in advance.
axotl wrote: Very glad to see this. Though, I wish they could just announce things more than 2 weeks in advance EVER. I'm guessing it's too hard to do that accurately. Still shocked they don't go the way of the Gamestop preorder, months and months in advance.
They could easily do it.
They don't because they don't want people to withhold buying one release with the intention of buying the next one they know they want. That's why they're always vague about stuff.
axotl wrote: Very glad to see this. Though, I wish they could just announce things more than 2 weeks in advance EVER. I'm guessing it's too hard to do that accurately. Still shocked they don't go the way of the Gamestop preorder, months and months in advance.
They could easily do it.
They don't because they don't want people to withhold buying one release with the intention of buying the next one they know they want. That's why they're always vague about stuff.
This. They used to announce products months in advance.
axotl wrote: Very glad to see this. Though, I wish they could just announce things more than 2 weeks in advance EVER. I'm guessing it's too hard to do that accurately. Still shocked they don't go the way of the Gamestop preorder, months and months in advance.
They could easily do it.
They don't because they don't want people to withhold buying one release with the intention of buying the next one they know they want. That's why they're always vague about stuff.
They couldn't easily do it. Well not accurately. Their logistics are a mess currently. They would have to sort out the warehouse move and factory expansion to really be able to do that (then you have the issue of would they for the reason you post).
They're really not that much of a mess.
And they absolutely know exactly far more than 2 weeks in advance. If anything their release is behind the logistics, meaning it's a purely self-imposed delay.
They mentioned like two weeks ago boxes of Killteam were already in Australian warehouses. How long before that did they arrive, we don't know.
So no, GW is absolutely no doing the best they can.
They're doing the best for their sales, nothing more, nothing less.
You may well know better than me. I am stuck with second hand info from friends who are GW managers and one that consults for companies in that area. As I understand it the expansion in factory and warehousing space on site and in the new second site has not gone smoothly, weekly or predictable deliveries aren't able to be programmed and instead its as and when (including on days when one man shops are meant to be closed) and trade accounts have no certainty on orders being fulfilled, amounts being randomly adjusted (down) and many staples being regularly out of stock.
They've always known months in advance when things would release. We know this because white dwarf is finalized months in advance, and until the most recent incarnation, a big part of each white dwarf was showing all the new releases for that month.
The truth is the business model has changed so now they need to sell you the hot new thing every week. They don't want you to know about the thing you really want coming out in a couple of months, because then you might just buy that instead of buying the thing they are releasing now, then also buying the thing you really wanted later.
All the demand for their stuff seems to be front-loaded. How much Idoneth Deepkin stuff do you think they are selling now, for example?
kirotheavenger wrote: So no, GW is absolutely no doing the best they can.
They're doing the best for their sales, nothing more, nothing less.
It also means that they put out Pariah Nexus and those less-content/higher price Killzone boxes knowing full well they were about to completely invalidate them very quickly with this new KT release.
1. GW releases stock for online purchase at preset time.
2. Gamers start buying however scalpers with pre-programmed bots buy stock faster than they can.
3. Scalpers sell stock at inflated prices and only a relative handful of gamers get items near release at marked price.
4. GW slowly sells produced stock over time.
GW's takeaway - a massive spike in early sales and a trickle of sales after.
Gamers takeaway - generally not good.
New Model
1. GW pre-releases stock for online purchase on a buy first get first basis.
2. Gamers start buying however scalpers with pre-programmed bots buy stock faster than they can.
3. Scalpers sell stock at inflated prices and only a relative handful of gamers get items near release at marked price.
4. GW slowly ships pre-sold stock over time.
GW's takeaway - a massive spike in early sales and not a lot else, but they get all monies up front.
Gamers takeaway - same as above.
If the newer releases aren't limited like the previous one were, then the level of supply vs demand isn't the same. The only thing they've got to bank on is time, and how much patience people have.
So they sell to people who are impatient, rather than people who were unable to purchase one.
Yeah at least I then have the option of inflated scalper price (but likely much less of a premium), vs get it later on down the road. Which works pretty okay for me, as I'm not a gamer. It's at least some improvement, and the FOMO reduction alone will lower my bloodpressure.
The_Real_Chris wrote: You may well know better than me. I am stuck with second hand info from friends who are GW managers and one that consults for companies in that area. As I understand it the expansion in factory and warehousing space on site and in the new second site has not gone smoothly, weekly or predictable deliveries aren't able to be programmed and instead its as and when (including on days when one man shops are meant to be closed) and trade accounts have no certainty on orders being fulfilled, amounts being randomly adjusted (down) and many staples being regularly out of stock.
Ignoring any software issues, the new warehouse and factory weren't designed with covid in mind either. So even with their ample expansion GW has had issues with not having enough staff working at the same time in the same space. I would wager packing and warehousing is the big issue and that machine output isn't as big an issue. However you can't have your machines just piling up material for packing.
I am also aware that one of their existing factories had power supply problems and I don't know if the local grid can give GW all the power it needs.
At the very least once GW can work without coivd safe work practice we might see them stabilize. Though their new factory might just let them tred water rather than soar above their demand for a while. A lot hinges on how much of the covid lockdown sales surge remains.
By doing this preorder system they can know better how much to short the stores. Set more aside for online sales and cut mom and pop out of the picture. Selling more at full retail than at the discount they sell to mom and pop= more money straight into GW pockets.
Made to orders in the past have run through 3rd parties - I believe Indomitus did. GW might have to rework some things to do custom orders or such but it could be fully possible.
I am also aware that one of their existing factories had power supply problems and I don't know if the local grid can give GW all the power it needs.
I had heard the power supply was an especially sore point (though I was amused at the announcement of solar power on site being spun for green reasons, not just to get more power!) with management as it was apparently linked to plot size and the street level infrastructure. So the new set up just down the road gets to have power as its another site, even though its from the same source and network!
Albino Squirrel wrote: They've always known months in advance when things would release. We know this because white dwarf is finalized months in advance, and until the most recent incarnation, a big part of each white dwarf was showing all the new releases for that month.
The truth is the business model has changed so now they need to sell you the hot new thing every week. They don't want you to know about the thing you really want coming out in a couple of months, because then you might just buy that instead of buying the thing they are releasing now, then also buying the thing you really wanted later.
All the demand for their stuff seems to be front-loaded. How much Idoneth Deepkin stuff do you think they are selling now, for example?
White Dwarf is not finalized months in advance, its finalized weeks in advance. This has been discussed and explained numerous times for various reasons, but the most obvious is thanks to one of James Hewitts interviews where he discussed how the original Adeptus Titanicus reveal in White Dwarf was pulled just a few weeks before it went onto shelves. Having firsthand knowledge of how GTM gets published (not sure if thats something you'd be familiar with in the UK, but its basically an industry periodical for all the other tabletop publishers out there that aren't big enough to have their own magazines, though more oriented towards retailers than consumers in terms of soliciting new releases, etc), you're really only looking at ~6-8 week lead times - which is probably longer than what White Dwarf has to deal with, because GTM has to compile articles from hundreds of different sources vs White Dwarf being an in-house organ.
As for the months long wait, production takes time, I think you guys have an unrealistic concept/understanding of how these things work, its not as easy as "put those molds out on the assembly line and bang out a few dozen boxes in a week". Things like the boxes, rulebooks, cardboard components, etc. need to be outsourced, a lot of it comes from China - even if it didn't they are working to someone elses schedule and most of these places (in China, the UK, US, etc.) have months long leadtimes due to backlogging work. Its not like GW can call up "print-r-us" and have a production run of 10,000 copies of a rulebook scheduled to print next day.
axotl wrote: Very glad to see this. Though, I wish they could just announce things more than 2 weeks in advance EVER. I'm guessing it's too hard to do that accurately. Still shocked they don't go the way of the Gamestop preorder, months and months in advance.
They announced this product over a month ago, they announce lots of things in advance of a one to two week window. Is that not enough? What do you gain by having a multi-month long pre-order window to sit and wait for them to deliver something to you? As I'm guessing I'm the only one amongst this group who actually has first hand knowledge of manufacturing, supply chains, and the tabletop gaming industry, let me just say that this is another area that you guys seem to have an unrealistic concept/understanding of how it works. Very little of this stuff gets warehoused for anything other than the bare minimum amount of time needed to sort/ship out products from distribution hubs, etc. All of this is done basically as a revolving door - it gets manufactured, assembled, palletized, containerized, loaded onto a ship, shipped, unloaded, de-containerized/de-palletized, packed for distribution, and shipped to your stores/doors, in-and-out as quickly as possible - it costs money to sit on product and no business in the industry wants to incur that cost. Until a product is actually at a distribution center or warehouse, you generally have no idea to forecast a release date on it, even without COVID and a global shipping crisis/container shortage. There are high-likelihood potential delays at every step of the way, whether it be delays loading/unloading a vessel, freight being lost at sea (happens more often than you realize), delays getting something unloaded, customs clearing delays, trucking/rail delays, etc. No major player in the industry really announces dates for release anything more than a few weeks in advance (and often 2-3 weeks seems to be the safe limit, anything more than that and you're going to miss your release schedule more often than you miss it). The closest thing you'll get to a longer term forecast is stuff from companies like Asmodee who will give you a release quarter months in advance - more often than not (even in the best of times) they miss those forecasts by months - admittedly recently they've started forecasting release dates about a month in advance instead, but its extremely hit or miss on a lot of products in terms of whether or not they make those timelines (more often than not the releases are delayed in some regions and not others).
So yes, GW is absolutely doing the best they can.
Theophony wrote: By doing this preorder system they can know better how much to short the stores. Set more aside for online sales and cut mom and pop out of the picture. Selling more at full retail than at the discount they sell to mom and pop= more money straight into GW pockets.
And this is just laughable tinfoil hat theory. This isn't how distribution works. When you're talking tens or even hundreds of thousands of boxes of product, they would need more than two weeks to move inventory allocations around. This stuff is all happening at different warehouses and shipping hubs. Its not like they have a stack of boxes that they pull copies from for all of their sales channels. GW is already taking preorders for the T products from retailers, right now. AGW is already boxing up orders for those retailers, as well as its own official stores, right now. lot of those retailerorders will balready e on trucks by the time the online preorders go live this saturday,. A lot of retail stores will be sitting on boxes of inventory for 10+ days prior to street date because of how early GW begins shipping these major releases. This wouldn't be possible if GW was waiting to see how many copies it could sell online first, at least not without a time machine, because many of these shipments need to be on trucks well before online sales go live in order for that to happen.
1. GW pre-releases stock for online purchase on a buy first get first basis.
2. Gamers start buying however scalpers with pre-programmed bots buy stock faster than they can.
3. Scalpers sell stock at inflated prices and only a relative handful of gamers get items near release at marked price.
4. GW slowly ships pre-sold stock over time.
GW's takeaway - a massive spike in early sales and not a lot else, but they get all monies up front.
Gamers takeaway - same as above.
Am I missing anything here?
yes, step 3 is incorrect, or rather not fully correct, as the scalpers who do buy the set find that a significant segment of their resale market as already got the product at marked price, in a needs merely to wait for shipping to catch up. thus, the only people who actually pay scalper prices are those who, for whatever reason, are desperate for the product right now and willing to pay almost any price for that, which is a much, much smaller market. Everyone else, who just wants the product, doesn't have to pay the scalper price.
The FOMO/ "pay my price or don't get it at all" element that drives people to the scalper is gone, they can get it cheaper than him, so why pay his stupid markup, especially when thier is zero grantee he can get you it faster than GW direct.
the scalpers know this as well (they have access to the same made to order announcements as we do, after all), which means they wont buy as much product because they anticipate a much smaller scalper market, which will also improve availability for normal customers.
and, given the aforementioned lead times on shipping, its fairly likely that the stock being sent for physical retail is already en route or in location, so most stores that were planning on stocking this should be getting supplies. I cant guarantee they didn't plan this months in advance and short-stock the physical retailers in anticipation of primarily online sales, but i dont think they'd do that too much, at least for this specific release, as it'd make more sense to leave store stocks at near normal levels as a control to then adjust store stock levels for future releases of this type based on data form the KT21 release.
"the scalpers who do buy the set find that a significant segment of their resale market as already got the product at marked price, in a needs merely to wait for shipping to catch up"
I don't see many people buying this knowing they have to wait months to get it. So if someone wants it while it's still relevant, they're still going to have to buy from the scalpers. And there's no less incentive for the scalpers to buy up as much as they can. It'll still sell.
Albino Squirrel wrote: "the scalpers who do buy the set find that a significant segment of their resale market as already got the product at marked price, in a needs merely to wait for shipping to catch up"
I don't see many people buying this knowing they have to wait months to get it. So if someone wants it while it's still relevant, they're still going to have to buy from the scalpers. And there's no less incentive for the scalpers to buy up as much as they can. It'll still sell.
its a starter set, when would it not be relevant? why would it stop being relevant because it takes a few weeks to get to you? its not like the models inside have a shelf life that expires.
- parts of the original products are not available stand-alone
as long as everything from a box is available on its own as well as the discounted box, scalping does not work
with the original box gone and the stand alone prices being much higher, scalpers make money and the community is happe
(in this case, everyone who wants the Krieg models might still buy from a scalper as it is cheaper than getting the Box and might be cheaper than the GW release for those models)
Albino Squirrel wrote: "the scalpers who do buy the set find that a significant segment of their resale market as already got the product at marked price, in a needs merely to wait for shipping to catch up"
I don't see many people buying this knowing they have to wait months to get it. So if someone wants it while it's still relevant, they're still going to have to buy from the scalpers. And there's no less incentive for the scalpers to buy up as much as they can. It'll still sell.
its a starter set, when would it not be relevant? why would it stop being relevant because it takes a few weeks to get to you? its not like the models inside have a shelf life that expires.
They said months, not weeks. Will you order this now if you won't get it for several months? I doubt many people will.
I've ordered several of the character models and print on demand books GW has done. Each one having several months of wait which I was happy to wait for until they arrived.
I won't be ordering Killteam because I don't want to own it. But for future products this is a great policy for me to not have to worry. If 3rd party stores get in on it too you can bet if there's a product like Cursed City - ergo one that sells really well - then they will likely order more "made to order" as well for supply in a few months time.
Here in México, one independent retailer still has around ten Beast Snagga boxes, despite Orks not being a popular army for an already unpopular hobby...
Still sucks that the entire Americas (see everything south to 'Muhrica) has to wait from midnight to 6 a.m. to pre-order, instead of just wake up and order alongside USA and Cánada.
On other news, as a CF enthusiast, I'm glad for the BT brothers, and as someone who badly wants to start a NL army, I'm bloody jelly.
Albino Squirrel wrote: "the scalpers who do buy the set find that a significant segment of their resale market as already got the product at marked price, in a needs merely to wait for shipping to catch up"
I don't see many people buying this knowing they have to wait months to get it. So if someone wants it while it's still relevant, they're still going to have to buy from the scalpers. And there's no less incentive for the scalpers to buy up as much as they can. It'll still sell.
its a starter set, when would it not be relevant? why would it stop being relevant because it takes a few weeks to get to you? its not like the models inside have a shelf life that expires.
They said months, not weeks. Will you order this now if you won't get it for several months? I doubt many people will.
What does it matter if it spends months in my pile of shame versus months in a virtual pile of shame?
My sense is that the meta-chasers who need the models *RIGHT NOW* are much fewer than number than inveterate hoarders who see discount boxes as a permission structure to buy into new armies, expand existing forces, etc.
- parts of the original products are not available stand-alone
as long as everything from a box is available on its own as well as the discounted box, scalping does not work
with the original box gone and the stand alone prices being much higher, scalpers make money and the community is happe (in this case, everyone who wants the Krieg models might still buy from a scalper as it is cheaper than getting the Box and might be cheaper than the GW release for those models)
Your first point is not quite right.
Scalpers work if:
- The original product is not available anymore or there is suitable uncertainty as to when you will be able to acquire the product in the future.
Again, refer to the PS5, graphic card situation. Also refer to scalpers buying up toilet roll and sanitisation products last year. Nobody was worried that they wouldn't ever be able to buy toilet roll or hand sanitiser ever again, they were worried they couldn't get it right now when they wanted/needed it.
Sure, people could just wait it out. But tabletop gamers aren't stereotyped as having great impulse control, even by ourselves. We don't refer to our hobby as plastic crack for nothing, there is a grain of truth in there. It is also what GW's marketing and release strategy relies/preys on.
Albino Squirrel wrote: "the scalpers who do buy the set find that a significant segment of their resale market as already got the product at marked price, in a needs merely to wait for shipping to catch up"
I don't see many people buying this knowing they have to wait months to get it. So if someone wants it while it's still relevant, they're still going to have to buy from the scalpers. And there's no less incentive for the scalpers to buy up as much as they can. It'll still sell.
Then that's on them. If people are so impatient that they can't wait then they deserve to lose that money.
I believe some of the bigger toilet and sanitizing product hoarders got taken to court and products redistributed.
And yep it all depends; a model can sit in a build pile for years and never be built and lot lose value; toilet roll you kinda need it when you need it all the time so if you run out its an immediate need.
Albino Squirrel wrote: "the scalpers who do buy the set find that a significant segment of their resale market as already got the product at marked price, in a needs merely to wait for shipping to catch up"
I don't see many people buying this knowing they have to wait months to get it. So if someone wants it while it's still relevant, they're still going to have to buy from the scalpers. And there's no less incentive for the scalpers to buy up as much as they can. It'll still sell.
its a starter set, when would it not be relevant? why would it stop being relevant because it takes a few weeks to get to you? its not like the models inside have a shelf life that expires.
They said months, not weeks. Will you order this now if you won't get it for several months? I doubt many people will.
What does it matter if it spends months in my pile of shame versus months in a virtual pile of shame?
My sense is that the meta-chasers who need the models *RIGHT NOW* are much fewer than number than inveterate hoarders who see discount boxes as a permission structure to buy into new armies, expand existing forces, etc.
And yet I bet you still buy things the week they are released, and they do actually sit on your pile of shame for months. If the people who buy things "RIGHT NOW" were really as rare as you think they are, these things wouldn't sell out in a few minutes. Those hoarders with the big piles of shame still impulse buy the stuff when it comes out instead of waiting until they actually need it. Obviously. That's why they have the big piles of shame. So I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
Albino Squirrel wrote: "the scalpers who do buy the set find that a significant segment of their resale market as already got the product at marked price, in a needs merely to wait for shipping to catch up"
I don't see many people buying this knowing they have to wait months to get it. So if someone wants it while it's still relevant, they're still going to have to buy from the scalpers. And there's no less incentive for the scalpers to buy up as much as they can. It'll still sell.
its a starter set, when would it not be relevant? why would it stop being relevant because it takes a few weeks to get to you? its not like the models inside have a shelf life that expires.
They said months, not weeks. Will you order this now if you won't get it for several months? I doubt many people will.
What does it matter if it spends months in my pile of shame versus months in a virtual pile of shame?
My sense is that the meta-chasers who need the models *RIGHT NOW* are much fewer than number than inveterate hoarders who see discount boxes as a permission structure to buy into new armies, expand existing forces, etc.
And yet I bet you still buy things the week they are released, and they do actually sit on your pile of shame for months. If the people who buy things "RIGHT NOW" were really as rare as you think they are, these things wouldn't sell out in a few minutes. Those hoarders with the big piles of shame still impulse buy the stuff when it comes out instead of waiting until they actually need it. Obviously. That's why they have the big piles of shame. So I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.
They buy discount stuff from GW because they know GW prices will only go up from there. So in the long run its cheaper for them. GW products don't devalue over time and most go up. That said it makes little difference if its sitting in their collection or if its sitting in a to-be-made list. They've got their product and discount. Waiting for it isn't a huge issue. The "need to buy it" is satisfied. The market that's smaller are the "need to buy and build/play/use it now" group. Who don't just want it for the discount, but becauase they want those models/game right now on release day
The assumption people will just "wait it out" is hilarious, given how every box with limited models in it in the vein of Piety and Pain sells out in seconds, even if everyone knows all the "unique" models in it are going to be avalible separately in a few months.
What does it matter if it spends months in my pile of shame versus months in a virtual pile of shame?
Haha, this tickled me and perfectly describes my experience during lockdown. I've frequently had to wait many months for stuff I've order to turn up due to supply issues and it has never mattered - whatever the logistics issues affecting GW products they remain less than my own logistics issues in terms of the speed I can assemble and paint things. I just split the order into two parts and cracked on with painting the stuff that was in stock whilst I waited for the rest to turn up. With the lack of gaming opportunities during lockdown it wasn't like I had an immediate need for anything. From that perspective having to maybe wait a few months for a kill team box to turn up doesn't really matter to me as long as I have the guarantee that I've secured one.
Well, you're probably right about that, Overread. In a lot of cases, it is just the buying of the stuff that gives the high, even if you won't get it for months. That's why Kickstarters can do so well, when you don't get anything for years usually.
However, given that this also comes with the game rules, it's not exactly the same. If someone is buying this because they actually want the game (as opposed to just wanting the models and terrain), they won't want to wait months to be able to play the game.
Now, what percentage of GW customers actually play the games vs just collecting and painting the models? I don't know.
If I had to put my scalper hat on (and I have no idea what their overhead, margins, or expected return on investment is), I can still see there being an incentive for scalpers to buy, purely to part out and sell individual models / sprues / terrain / books / etc on the secondary market. Even if they sold everything at slightly less than the MSRP for the individual components, they could still turn something of a profit (seeing that these boxes provide something around 50% discount in value). And that's assuming they don't sell for more than MSRP in the weeks leading up to the individual releases. Someone who is only interested in the DKoK models might not buy the full set for $200, but just the DKoK models for $80-100? Could be worth the price to not wait for a standalone release (which could very well be longer than waiting for the MTO sets to arrive.
So in short, they could part out the unavailable contents (models and terrain) for much higher than MSRP, available contents (books) for less than MSRP, and then whatever doesn't sell by the time the models and terrain are released standalone, the price goes down to below MSRP (assuming there is enough stock at retailers to not justify keeping the price high). Either way, seems like they make money, just depends on if it's a lot or a little, which limits the risk of not selling everything at scalper prices. Someone who actually does this for a living and knows the numbers could make a completely rational business decision to still invest in buying boxes with the intent to part out and scalp.
So my fear is that, if this is in fact true, GW will reduce the discount value of their boxed sets to prevent competition with the standalone releases as the second hand market is flooded with sets that have been parted out. I still remember just how much cheaper parts of the Indomitus set were going for when compared to the MSRP of the standalone unit releases (Necron Warriors anyone?).
If GW wasn’t so predatory, it would do preorders about 3 months ahead of time so that if they got in a large number, they’d have time to fill all those preorders at the point of release.
I expect we’ll see this more from them, it’s about the 4th time they’ve expanded the initial lot (Shadow Armageddon, Indominus, this).
I don’t see it stopping or reducing the scalping, but possibly make it worse. The scalpers buy up the current stock, and now you have to either wait on your hands for three months (and I imagine several people will just “get bored” or frustrated waiting for it and cancel), or give in and buy it from scalpers at the higher price.
Stormonu wrote: If GW wasn’t so predatory, it would do preorders about 3 months ahead of time so that if they got in a large number, they’d have time to fill all those preorders at the point of release.
I expect we’ll see this more from them, it’s about the 4th time they’ve expanded the initial lot (Shadow Armageddon, Indominus, this).
I don’t see it stopping or reducing the scalping, but possibly make it worse. The scalpers buy up the current stock, and now you have to either wait on your hands for three months (and I imagine several people will just “get bored” or frustrated waiting for it and cancel), or give in and buy it from scalpers at the higher price.
How is doing preorders 3 months ahead of time any better than orders taking a few extra months to be shipped? Either way you're waiting. I like the current method, as I don't want to have to wait for every new release. The current method (besides for a few standout cases), you do orders on sturday, you get the product the following Saturday. I wouldn't want to order everything months ahead of time, that's crazy.
Albino Squirrel wrote: "the scalpers who do buy the set find that a significant segment of their resale market as already got the product at marked price, in a needs merely to wait for shipping to catch up"
I don't see many people buying this knowing they have to wait months to get it. So if someone wants it while it's still relevant, they're still going to have to buy from the scalpers. And there's no less incentive for the scalpers to buy up as much as they can. It'll still sell.
its a starter set, when would it not be relevant? why would it stop being relevant because it takes a few weeks to get to you? its not like the models inside have a shelf life that expires.
They said months, not weeks. Will you order this now if you won't get it for several months? I doubt many people will.
I wasn't intrested in the box set myself (don't collect or plan to collect either faction), if/when i get into KT it will be via the stand alone box, but thats a cop-out answer, so to answer the question asked:
Yes, I would wait 2 months to get it at £125 instead of 2 weeks at £300 (or whatever the normal and scalper prices are). because I have limited funds i can dispose of into plastic crack, so I want to maximise ROI, and spending twice as much for the same is not that. for that extra money I could get MORE plastic crack.
I dunno, I think i'm older than the median age of most warhammer players, maybe my impulse control is better than the best.
Any firm can fall apart, even Disney could collapse in on itself. Heck who remembers Kodak - they were once THE name in photography film production. They were huge and had a far reaching grasp. Digital came along and Kodak were not fast enough to change and now they are a shadow of their former selves supplying an ever more niche market of film photographers as digital has taken over entirely. Sure film is unlikely to vanish and Kodak have survived, but they are nothing like they were and could easily have fallen entirely.
So yep firms can fail and sometimes they don't even have to do anything wrong or be miss managed. A supply issue with plastic; a national outcry; a sudden competitor that just undercuts them and does everything better etc...
There are loads of ways firms can dwindle, fall and implode or fragment or such. History is full of them.
GW are big but they could still fall; though I honestly hope they do not. I love what they produce and right now they are a powerful force at recruiting new wargamers into the hobby (a lot of other firms are just recycling existing customres/fans)
Overread wrote: Any firm can fall apart, even Disney could collapse in on itself. Heck who remembers Kodak - they were once THE name in photography film production. They were huge and had a far reaching grasp. Digital came along and Kodak were not fast enough to change and now they are a shadow of their former selves supplying an ever more niche market of film photographers as digital has taken over entirely. Sure film is unlikely to vanish and Kodak have survived, but they are nothing like they were and could easily have fallen entirely.
It’s worse than that. Kodak had amazing digital camera tech years before anyone else. Their R&D was cutting edge. But as a business they didn’t do much with the tech as a huge chunk of their revenue came from selling and developing film, not cameras. They didn’t want to change, and the rest is as you say.
Yeah there's more than a few tales of firms who have sat on new tech and not pushed for change because of the huge investment and change to their working operation. Which is fine until someone else gets the same or similar tech and pushes their way into the market.
Sony unsettled both Canon and Nikon a few years back as Sony wanted a serious slice of the camera market. So they sunk insane money into sensor development to the point where they outstripped the other two. Canon stuck to their guns; Nikon just bought sony sensors to put in their cameras. The result is that Canon and Nikon now have to share some serious percentages of the market with Sony.
Again no one did anything "wrong" (though you could argue Nikon and Canon were happy playing sensor hop-scotch with who had the best on the market); then suddenly from outside another firm pushes its way into the market.
Indeed with GW there are some who think 3D printing could be that very same risk for GW. Not high risk today, but at some point in the future it could change the whole market in a way GW can't adapt too or might not choose to adapt too. Although personally I think GW are quite safe until 3d printing is "plug and play" levels of friendly and perhaps even then are safe until the resins are a lot less dangerous than they are now (home 3D printing is not really for kids)
Stormonu wrote: If GW wasn’t so predatory, it would do preorders about 3 months ahead of time so that if they got in a large number, they’d have time to fill all those preorders at the point of release.
I expect we’ll see this more from them, it’s about the 4th time they’ve expanded the initial lot (Shadow Armageddon, Indominus, this).
I don’t see it stopping or reducing the scalping, but possibly make it worse. The scalpers buy up the current stock, and now you have to either wait on your hands for three months (and I imagine several people will just “get bored” or frustrated waiting for it and cancel), or give in and buy it from scalpers at the higher price.
How is doing preorders 3 months ahead of time any better than orders taking a few extra months to be shipped? Either way you're waiting. I like the current method, as I don't want to have to wait for every new release. The current method (besides for a few standout cases), you do orders on sturday, you get the product the following Saturday. I wouldn't want to order everything months ahead of time, that's crazy.
I think the idea is that preorder that is 90 days before release would allow more people to have their stuff on release date. As it stands, some people who order on the weekend starting the made to order will have to wait weeks longer than someone who ordered two minutes before they did.
Indeed with GW there are some who think 3D printing could be that very same risk for GW. Not high risk today, but at some point in the future it could change the whole market in a way GW can't adapt too or might not choose to adapt too. Although personally I think GW are quite safe until 3d printing is "plug and play" levels of friendly and perhaps even then are safe until the resins are a lot less dangerous than they are now (home 3D printing is not really for kids)
Wouldn't the scenario of a competitor utilising a new production method which allows them to match or exceed GWs quality while undercutting them on production costs and therefore price be the more likely scenario, considering the previous examples you raised.
A big part of the problem is that GW never discount its products. If they made more stock and get stuck with some unsold boxes, they could recoup their lost by selling them at a discount.
But it's been a policy for GW to never do any discounts, and i think it's one of the reason why they constantly underproduce
Pariah Nexus gave me hope that at least some GW customers have become woke and are no longer willing to be held in the yoke of ya gots ta buy dis overpriced joke.
One way to get a company to discount their stuff or change their marketing is to not buy what they are selling. There is a collective way to change GW from the outside in.
Indeed with GW there are some who think 3D printing could be that very same risk for GW. Not high risk today, but at some point in the future it could change the whole market in a way GW can't adapt too or might not choose to adapt too. Although personally I think GW are quite safe until 3d printing is "plug and play" levels of friendly and perhaps even then are safe until the resins are a lot less dangerous than they are now (home 3D printing is not really for kids)
The wildcard with 3d printing is that it doesn't have to be plug and play and 90% of people don't have to own one.
The tech just needs to hit the point where print farms can churn out masses of minis at good quality, reliably and quickly, so people without printers start buying them at low prices. The revolution doesn't involve many people actually buying or using a printer themselves.
Automation and reliability are key, something like the FDM belt printers that continually churn out masses of the same model with much need for maintenance or oversight (but for resin) would be the game changer. Practically that means automatic bed detachment, wash and cute which we are likely to see in some form soon, albeit at high prices (formlabs have the best option at current, no gloves or need to remove from build plate required, auto drains and recycles IPA 70 times, not cheap but as close to automatic + minimal biohazard as it reasonably gets right now).
Of course, GW could provide services like custom print-to-order minis, advanced hero creator 3d apps, scan your face and put it on a model etc. to stay in the game and add value if it adapts.
At current the phrasing of printing = piracy they're putting out suggests that lawsuits and other methods (possibly rules only included in the box on a card, with a unique QR code to mark them as official etc.) will be the route taken instead. Possibility a combination with a CCG model with randomized stats/abilities when purchasing a model, requiring an AR app to play... who knows where the hobby will be in 20 years?
streetsamurai wrote: A big part of the problem is that GW never discount its products. If they made more stock and get stuck with some unsold boxes, they could recoup their lost by selling them at a discount.
But it's been a policy for GW to never do any discounts, and i think it's one of the reason why they constantly underproduce
The used to in the nineties. 3 for 2 and stickered discounts on blisters.
I don't want GW to fail. But I desperately want them to have some real competition.
I got the impression that FFG (now AMG) was becoming a bit of a rising star, but they have some serious problems with stocks levels and such, and Disney broke a lot of enthusiasm for Star Wars so I think my dreams have been dashed.
Expansion is the huge problem - a lot of firms in miniatures have a huge issue shifting from smaller scale, where they often use metal or resin, to large scale production. Not just in material and production costs, but also staffing, warehousing, distribution etc....
It highlights any weaknesses in their current workflow and company; it can often rely on overseas production which can come with a huge raft of nightmares and issues of their own - especially as miniature wargame customers are very picky and won't accept fails or faulty products so any minor error (which if you're casting in China might affect a whole shipment) is going to get spotted.
More than a few firms have got bigger and bigger and then just crumbled.
streetsamurai wrote: A big part of the problem is that GW never discount its products. If they made more stock and get stuck with some unsold boxes, they could recoup their lost by selling them at a discount.
But it's been a policy for GW to never do any discounts, and i think it's one of the reason why they constantly underproduce
The used to in the nineties. 3 for 2 and stickered discounts on blisters.
That was the conversion from lead to white metal if I believe, not exactly common discounts as it was for a specific purpose.
GW now keeps its resin as special 'get what was once OOP' orders now, which I suppose they will use to shift a fair bit of the resin stock at some point as opposed to the made to order approach they use now.
Sorry, I meant to make a point of stating the finecast that was already OOP, or removed from sale, the old calgar(s) for example, though I suppose a few may still be knocking around in stores here or there.
Overread wrote: Expansion is the huge problem - a lot of firms in miniatures have a huge issue shifting from smaller scale, where they often use metal or resin, to large scale production. Not just in material and production costs, but also staffing, warehousing, distribution etc....
It highlights any weaknesses in their current workflow and company; it can often rely on overseas production which can come with a huge raft of nightmares and issues of their own - especially as miniature wargame customers are very picky and won't accept fails or faulty products so any minor error (which if you're casting in China might affect a whole shipment) is going to get spotted.
More than a few firms have got bigger and bigger and then just crumbled.
This. Plus, unlike GW many companies tend to borrow money to expand, which can be risky if the expansion doesn’t go as well as hoped. It wasn’t the reduced income which messed up the High Street in 2008, so much as the companies being unable to service their debts. Had those debts not existed? They might’ve been able to ride it out better.
GW really are a unique beast in this regard. Not only do they own pretty much their entire supply chain? But they’ve rarely if ever borrowed money to expand their business (they did borrow at one point, but if memory serves that was to pay dividends to share owners?). So when things go south in a general economic sense, GW are about as insulated as they can be, as a slowing in sales has a lesser impact.
A total collapse will of course spell trouble, but that’s not happened. At least not yet.
For others to get to GW’s size? That’s expensive. Like, really expensive. That money has to come from somewhere.
I'm fairly convinced that at some point, GW will switch to a licensing model for 3D printing, but the technology is not there yet, and when it is there, it will be like performance PC's for gaming, it will be very expensive hardware wise to support the model printing to GW standards at first, at which point I'd expect them to dip their toe in, allowing some printing of products but slowly transition to it fully, bare specific things.
They may also choose to not license some models as a means to keep their investment in their supply chain ticking over and making them money, however this will be more dependent on the quality of recasting at that point...
In some regards, what I believe Teslas main business aim is to be at some point, licensing their electric car tech to other companies, and maybe building some cars here and there for the ultra high end market. You can make the money still without having to commit to wholesale manufacture.
How is the technology not "there yet"? We have multiple players who print everything they use for 40k. Especially for guard players 3D printing is vastly superior to buying citadel models unless you are looking for some of the iconic vehicles.
kirotheavenger wrote: They still sell Finecast, and apparently even 1 or 2 metals, on regular order.
I assume the metals are just backstock that hasn't yet shifted!
I'm sure GW isn't sitting on thousands of unsold skaven metals. They have just kept the metal casting machine around and its profitable on the small scale (by GW standards) to keep those metals in the system for popular armies that didn't transition to finecast.
And yep the issue as I see it with expansion is that companies can't profit enough easily to get the money themselves (or to easily get investors on board) to pay for a BIG expansion in their operations; but at the same time if they don't get bigger expansions they run out of the ability to service the growing market they have. It's a huge minefield and its ever so easy to make mistakes. GW also got a lot of bonuses being "first" for a lot of things and they've done things that are now much harder to impossible for other firms (heck they've made the highstreet actualyl work for them which is something a LOT of other firms can't make right esp in this internet era)
Jidmah wrote: How is the technology not "there yet"? We have multiple players who print everything they use for 40k. Especially for guard players 3D printing is vastly superior to buying citadel models unless you are looking for some of the iconic vehicles.
I've bought quite a few high level bits here and there that are 3D printed. They do not come near GW level of plastic for the most intricate of detail as of yet, so no, the technology is not there, yet.
Just to add to this, find me a person who can print a model on par with Be'lakor (or even just recast Be'lakor on a 3D printer) to the exact same standard of quality as GW and crucially, without an obscene level of cleaning of the model (anything more than cleaning mould lines from the plastic model, so an hour) and I will apologise and admit I am wrong.
Jidmah wrote: How is the technology not "there yet"? We have multiple players who print everything they use for 40k. Especially for guard players 3D printing is vastly superior to buying citadel models unless you are looking for some of the iconic vehicles.
for the same reason not everyone is resin casting with silicon molds
buying a master model for 10€ and start casting a 40k army, you are never coming close to the price you would pay for original models
yet it is not that easy as it sounds and the same for 3D printing, specially if you buy 3D render only without supports or "how to print" guide or any details for which scale/materials they are designed
buy the file and print an army is the same as buy a master and cast an army
both is cheaper than buying from GW, but both need time and experience and as soon as you go into "mass" production time is the critical point
needing 20 days of printing time to get an army done is still something were most people rather pay the higher price
(same as pre-painted resin terrain sells, because ready to play is worth the higher price for most people)
and than we are not even talking about Miniatures being able to fail months after they were printed, specially larger ones because of wrong settings/washing/printing method for the resin used
Jidmah wrote: How is the technology not "there yet"? We have multiple players who print everything they use for 40k. Especially for guard players 3D printing is vastly superior to buying citadel models unless you are looking for some of the iconic vehicles.
There's a few aspects to consider:
1) Sculptor skill - right now a lot of the 3D sculptors are from videogame and art design backgrounds, not model making backgrounds. This REALLY shows in the style of model that they design. They can be very artistic, but can also be near impractical/impossible to actually paint. Some might be exceptionally fine with detail which is great for display, but impractical for gaming with. Some don't even own a 3D printer nor do their own supports so even the 3D design can have issues with regard to being supported and printed. 3D printers can do a lot, but they have weaknesses too - eg everything that faces the build plate will have slightly less crispness of detail than those facing away - if you factor this into designs and parted components you can work with the printer; if you don't think of it at all you can have nightmarish models to support.
Another area I see issues with is clipping - in 3D games detail clipping isn't really "seen" as a problem. However for wargames having parts clipping into other parts does show and can be a huge detracting feature
2) Printers are not plug and play. You can't just turn them on and print; you've got to set things up right. Failures can be caused by a whole list of things and sometimes its near impossible to work out what caused a specific failure - you just have to problemsolve by eliminating each potential variable.
3) Printers take time - this is being improved, but its also still a slow process. For production you need a lot of printers running to equal just 1 plastic injection moulding machine. Each printer also requires calibration, monitoring, refilling with resin etc.... Models also need washing, removing from supports and then washed material processing for safe disposal
4) Printers are more toxic. You have to wash prints, that washing liquid needs processing before safe disposal no matter if its IPA or water.
5) You still have to clean the model after its printed, which is the same as a plastic bought model.
In the end I've got a printer and I can print awesome stuff with it; but I can still go to a shop, buy a GW model and have it build faster than I can print it. I still have to work with materials and go through the same cleanup process to get the model read to paint and play with. Furthermore GW REALLY knows what they are doing. Their designs work; their sculpting achieves a uniform appearance and level of skill and in the end the plastic is nice to work with. 3D printer designers are still getting there - some are there, some are working their way their. Some will honestly never get there.
In the end I see 3D printing a less of a revolution and more of a companion. It won't replace GW it will work alongside. At least until such time as the technology is safe, clean, plug and play levels of simple etc....
Finding minis for 3d printing is also quite difficult.
In this hobby people are obviously looking for minis for their 40k armies.
You can't just search "Ultramarines Space Marines" and bam, there's a whole load of awesome 3d sculpts for you to print.
They're all under weird names like "omega space soldiers" from one person, then "ultra void marines" from the next guy.
Multiple times I have gone searching for something, spending several hours, and come up empty handed. Then several months later by sheer happenstance I'll find exactly what I wanted, often too late as I've pursued other means.
Or, I could visit the GW site and go "yeah I'll take those".
flaherty wrote: ...fewer than number than inveterate hoarders who see discount boxes as a permission structure to buy into new armies, expand existing forces, etc.
That is not a pile of shame, that is my collection...
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KillerAngel wrote: If I had to put my scalper hat on (and I have no idea what their overhead, margins, or expected return on investment is)...
For general speciality retail 50% of sale price is ok, 55% is pushing it. Less for virtual shops, but even then they may well be seriously undervaluing their time compared to just working in a shop...
I think GW must still be casting some things in metal. For example, the Dark Angels Grand Master Azrael was out of stock for a while, and now it's back. And it is metal. So presumably they must have made some.
Jidmah wrote: How is the technology not "there yet"? We have multiple players who print everything they use for 40k. Especially for guard players 3D printing is vastly superior to buying citadel models unless you are looking for some of the iconic vehicles.
I've bought quite a few high level bits here and there that are 3D printed. They do not come near GW level of plastic for the most intricate of detail as of yet, so no, the technology is not there, yet.
Just to add to this, find me a person who can print a model on par with Be'lakor (or even just recast Be'lakor on a 3D printer) to the exact same standard of quality as GW and crucially, without an obscene level of cleaning of the model (anything more than cleaning mould lines from the plastic model, so an hour) and I will apologise and admit I am wrong.
This is spot on.
I think the likely way this will go is Forgeworld beginning to offer .STL files of the Titans. Printing Titan scale pieces avoids a lot of the small detail issues that are a limitation of SLA printers. Forgeworld customers are used to fixing air bubbles, sawing off resin gates, straightening warped parts, etc. so the extra work to clean 3-D models won't seem like as big a deal. In many ways, 3D printing Titans would lead to higher quality results!
And while they have high prices, the Titans are a relatively low volume seller. I'm pretty confident that the value to GW's stock in announcing that they're adopting 3-D printing as part of their workflow would be greater than the contribution margin they get from that product line.
I see this has stopped being a conversation about GW's new pre-order plan and has turned into yet another retread of the same "3D printing's going to kill GW stone dead. Any minute now!" thread that I've been reading on forums like this for 20+ years.
Nazrak wrote: I see this has stopped being a conversation about GW's new pre-order plan and has turned into yet another retread of the same "3D printing's going to kill GW stone dead. Any minute now!" thread that I've been reading on forums like this for 20+ years.
Actually my point was more of that people buy GW models because they like what they are offering, while armies with ancient or bad models (eldar, IG) already flock to 3D printing and get better results.
But I seem to have stung a bee nest of people with a hard-on for hating on 3D printing so I lost interest in the discussion and didn't bother to explain.
kodos wrote: buy the file and print an army is the same as buy a master and cast an army
both is cheaper than buying from GW, but both need time and experience and as soon as you go into "mass" production time is the critical point
I've been casting models for years, and just got a resin 3D printer, and already the 3D printer is monumentally easier to set up and less labor-intensive than casting anything.
It may not be 100% plug-and-play yet, but at this point there is way less of a learning curve to 3D printing than to traditional casting, so I don't think equivocating the two is valid.
I don't hate 3D printing in the least - I just don't see it as necessarily the thing that's going to topple GW. At least not without a lot of advance and it might be that some elements remain inherent problems unless you start spending really serious money on top end machines and resins (ergo by which point the saving is lost)
kodos wrote: buy the file and print an army is the same as buy a master and cast an army
both is cheaper than buying from GW, but both need time and experience and as soon as you go into "mass" production time is the critical point
I've been casting models for years, and just got a resin 3D printer, and already the 3D printer is monumentally easier to set up and less labor-intensive than casting anything.
It may not be 100% plug-and-play yet, but at this point there is way less of a learning curve to 3D printing than to traditional casting, so I don't think equivocating the two is valid.
3D printing is easier for sure on the basic labour as you can cast more models in a single part than with casting and also less space needed
yet you need to do more work in the model design which is partly done by others if you buy the files but than there can be the issue that those are not ready to print for your printer and material
it is still a hobby on its own and not just a supply for gaming aids everyone can do for cheap
it is not there yet to replace HIPS, and I doubt it ever will
kirotheavenger wrote: They still sell Finecast, and apparently even 1 or 2 metals, on regular order.
I assume the metals are just backstock that hasn't yet shifted!
I'm sure GW isn't sitting on thousands of unsold skaven metals. They have just kept the metal casting machine around and its profitable on the small scale (by GW standards) to keep those metals in the system for popular armies that didn't transition to finecast.
There was a rumour years ago that GW got rid of all their metal casting equipment (and according to some: metal miniatures too), which has been incredibly persistent despite having been proven wrong numerous times since.
Not only are made-to-order figures regularly metal (typically if that was the last material they were available in before being discontinued), various products in especially the Middle-earth line have returned to regular stock, in metal, after years of being sold out and completely unavailable. I think it's safe to assume they didn't just happen to find a pile of brand-new blisters in a dusty box in a dark corner of the warehouse every time that happens. They're not alone either. Steel Legion minis are still available as metal too. As is an Ork Warboss, and until very recently DeffKoptas (now out of stock/production).
Overread wrote: I don't hate 3D printing in the least - I just don't see it as necessarily the thing that's going to topple GW. At least not without a lot of advance and it might be that some elements remain inherent problems unless you start spending really serious money on top end machines and resins (ergo by which point the saving is lost)
The only thing to topple GW is GW.
As for the printers, I have both a PLA (ENDER3) for terrain and an Anycubic Photon Mono for miniatures. the Ender3 was less than $200 over a year ago and the Anycubic with a wash station/ curing machine and a KG of Resin was $325. 99% of the files I have are free. I use a 10+ year old desktop that isn't good for anything else, but still can run these programs fine. I am not a computer person at all, I have very little video gaming experience, but the programs are very intuitive. The new scanners that are out are going to make copying models insanely easy. While the good ones are still really expensive, the technology prices keep dropping quickly. The Ender3 that I bought on sale for $200 last year is constantly on sale for $159 and the Anycubic photon Monos are always on sale as well.
GW can adapt to the 3d printing, or they can be hindered by it. By the time they get a new model to the public it is a very short time till there is a 3d version of it which is very similar if not a direct scan of it. Painted up, most gamers would not be able to tell you which is which. There are scans of the Titans out there already, I have seen them at my local shop next to a FW version and I couldn't tell the difference until they told me which was which.
GW can wind up like Kodak, having all the best technology and sculptors, but they are pricing themselves out of the market. How much do the sprues cost? The production runs are so low because they are pumping out so many different items at such a fast pace. I don't know the solution to their future, I don't spend that much time on it. Made to order SOUNDS like A solution, but I don't think it will be the right one. Not being able to order consistently from my local shop because they cannot guarantee orders is not a good way to represent your brand. I personally don't mind waiting a couple months to get some things as I am not one to buy everything as soon as it comes out, but when I want to buy it I really want it on the shelf. I will not buy an inflated priced copy from a scalper though.
Not only are made-to-order figures regularly metal (typically if that was the last material they were available in before being discontinued), various products in especially the Middle-earth line have returned to regular stock, in metal, after years of being sold out and completely unavailable.
Though it does seem a bit random what material they come back as. Like, Durburz the goblin king came back as metal but the moria goblin drum came back as resin and I'm pretty sure they both went OOP around the same time.
Honestly, this "3d printing revolution will kill GW" stuff is really laypeoples opinion that don't really understand the technology, processes, economies of scale, industry, etc. Its an opinion that almost universally comes from *consumers* who bought a 3d printer and are using it to print stuff they found online, rather than *professionals* who actually work in the 3d printing, tabletop, and manufacturing industries.
As someone who checks all three of those boxes, anyone who approaches the topic from that standpoint immediately strikes me as somewhere between extremely naive and horrendously stupid. Thats a "followers opinion", just like Nickelback being a terrible band, pineapple not belonging on pizza, etc. Its a trendy thing for people to latch onto and say and repeat without ever putting any real amount of thought or effort into trying to understand why or how, and enough people do so that it has become a self-reinforcing belief. People can make comparisons to Kodak, Blockbuster, etc. until they are blue in the face but those comparisons fail to understand the differing dynamics in the various scenarios and the underlying technological currents that paved the way for those things to occur and the obstacles that exist for 3d printing to do the same to GW (or really any other business in the industry).
Even if the technology suddenly became what everyone seems to think it might become (it won't - theres numerous hard physical limitations to the various technologies involved that make that desired reality essentially impossible, though there is still dramatic room for improvement), it wouldn't really impact GWs business any more than recasting, alternative mini/bits casters, competing wargames/rpgs, or video games have (which is to say - not much in the grand scheme of things).
The only way things turn out differently is basically if theres a major culture shift in views towards piracy and an incredible weaking of IP protections - otherwise the boundaries of IP are shoring up GWs moat. Otherwise, Althammer 40k minis will never become as accessible or as accepted as GWs own minis are in the market, the "cult of the new" will keep people with 3D printers suckling at the teet of this weeks newest releases and preorders from GW, etc. etc. etc.
GW can wind up like Kodak, having all the best technology and sculptors, but they are pricing themselves out of the market.
They aren't. A cursory look at the other companies in the same market shows they don't particularly stand out. It might feel bad if you're trying to put together a 2000 point army, but on a model/box basis, they're not particularly exceptional. People are commenting on the $15 character minis in the D&D thread (vs GW prices for single characters), but ignoring the 5 for $50 orc box. PP, SW, Wyrd, they're on GW's price range- part of the same market.
That doesn't including single figure RPG minis, but those have been dramatically lower than the wargames market for decades (see Reaper minis).
Voss wrote: It might feel bad if you're trying to put together a 2000 point army, but on a model/box basis, they're not particularly exceptional.
That's kinda the point, at least historically with GW models you're expected to buy many to build an army. The more models you need the cheaper they should get because with injection moulded plastic models, the cost of pumping out a few extra sprues is next to nothing.
The cost of an individual model needs to recoup the development costs, setting up the tooling, distribution and so on. Once those things are in place, the cost of actually manufacturing a model is next to nothing. If a typical force only consists of 20 models, those costs need to be divided over 20 models. If a typical force consists of 100 models, then the cost per model should reduce.
this is an old point, GW has model prices for a skirmish game, the rules are written on a single model bases for a skirmish game
but they advertise mass battle games
now having the mix between skirmish, RPG and mass battle is what makes the big GW games unique on the market, there are all sort of problems coming with it, and the pricing is one of them
but GW also wants to be the premium brand, and while they are ahead 5-10 years in plastic model technology with their models being 20 years on the market other companies can and have closed the gab (if you are 5 years behind, you make better models than GW in those ranges that are 6 years or older, which is also a reason why we see new Marines and Stormcast all the time, the Poster boys need to show the latest technology and cannot be the models that are behind other companies, while no one cares if Mantic or WGA make better Imperial Guard models)
3D printing works because the premium GW price is high enough
as soon as there is a change to that, either because less models are needed, a shift in pricing for mass battles, or GW doing stupid things and stop being the dominating brand than 3D printing is not the cheap alternative any more
Not only are made-to-order figures regularly metal (typically if that was the last material they were available in before being discontinued), various products in especially the Middle-earth line have returned to regular stock, in metal, after years of being sold out and completely unavailable.
Though it does seem a bit random what material they come back as. Like, Durburz the goblin king came back as metal but the moria goblin drum came back as resin and I'm pretty sure they both went OOP around the same time.
Normally just depends on the last material they were available in before - I don't think Durburz ever "transitioned", while the drum probably became Finecast at some point, included in one of the "command" boxes with a captain and shaman probably? Or was Durburz ever resin too? I barely kept track at the time, and the passing of time hasn't helped...
There are a few exceptions though... Boromir (in heavy armour) definitely became Finecast, yet is listed as metal now in the new 3-pack. Most newly repackaged ones are an eclectic mixture however, like Gandalf the Grey, or the new Ringwraith packs which mix resin and metal casts (again, because only some of these sculpts ever became resin, and only those came back in resin). What I wouldn't give for them to all return in metal though; would buy a truckload of High Elf spearmen and probably start a Fiefdoms army with immediate effect. Anyway...
People still on the "technology is just not there yet" with 3D printing bust me up. Obviously, no matter what expertise they claim to have while on the internet, they aren't familiar with it.
At the end of the day GW is mom's home cooking to some people, and nothing else is going to satisfy. And when you're spending that much on little plastic men you've got to emotionally justify it somehow.
frankelee wrote: People still on the "technology is just not there yet" with 3D printing bust me up. Obviously, no matter what expertise they claim to have while on the internet, they aren't familiar with it.
At the end of the day GW is mom's home cooking to some people, and nothing else is going to satisfy. And when you're spending that much on little plastic men you've got to emotionally justify it somehow.
So can you just buy printer,plug in, install software with just "yes yes yes" level installation, open file, press button to print copy, have it with zero configuration needed and have 3d print with no more cleaning up to do than with plastic mould line removal and exact same detail quality?
frankelee wrote: People still on the "technology is just not there yet" with 3D printing bust me up. Obviously, no matter what expertise they claim to have while on the internet, they aren't familiar with it.
At the end of the day GW is mom's home cooking to some people, and nothing else is going to satisfy. And when you're spending that much on little plastic men you've got to emotionally justify it somehow.
So can you just buy printer,plug in, install software with just "yes yes yes" level installation, open file, press button to print copy, have it with zero configuration needed and have 3d print with no more cleaning up to do than with plastic mould line removal and exact same detail quality?
No need to tinker with printer settings etc?
I mean, I can only speak for myself, I'm kinda bright, have experience working in labs where some precision and forethought is required, so that may not be everyone, but yeah. 3D printers mostly come all put together, your average bit of office furniture requires more work to get put together for use. Using a slicer and filling in 3 to 4 boxes with numbers that people on the internet will happily give you so your resin prints come out just right, really isn't that hard. And cleaning them up is actually faster than removing mold lines. It's a different process yes, because they're a different form of production, but again, maybe it's over some people's heads, but rinsing models in alcohol for 20 seconds then pulling off supports is pretty easy for the vast majority of people.
I was actually speaking to the quality and the ability of 3D printers to reproduce GW models. Are they the exact same quality to a microscope? No. Are they the exact same quality to your human eye if you're forced into a blind "taste test"? Yes. Could someone get one of GW's stl files, print it off, slip it into their army they use at the game store, and completely fool you and all your friends? Of course. Could a Phrozen Sonic Mini make any of GW's fancy models? Easily. None of that is really even up for debate in the 3D printing world.
Now, it's not for everybody. Not everybody knows how to cook even though kitchens are pretty standard in homes and it's not hard to boil water or fry something. But will this technology, which is nonetheless very easy to use and produces high quality miniatures, put tremendous pressures on mini manufacturers with boutique prices? It's beyond question it will. Doesn't take 100% of Games Workshop fans to adopt it, it probably will require something more like 10% to absolutely change their world.
frankelee wrote: At the end of the day GW is mom's home cooking to some people, and nothing else is going to satisfy. And when you're spending that much on little plastic men you've got to emotionally justify it somehow.
GW = going into a restaurant ordering a full course dinner
3D printing = making a full course dinner at home with a microwave
just because there are people who can make the perfect dinner with it that is better and cheaper than what the restaurant offers, does not mean everyone can buy a microwave doing the same by pressing start
frankelee wrote: People still on the "technology is just not there yet" with 3D printing bust me up. Obviously, no matter what expertise they claim to have while on the internet, they aren't familiar with it.
At the end of the day GW is mom's home cooking to some people, and nothing else is going to satisfy. And when you're spending that much on little plastic men you've got to emotionally justify it somehow.
So can you just buy printer,plug in, install software with just "yes yes yes" level installation, open file, press button to print copy, have it with zero configuration needed and have 3d print with no more cleaning up to do than with plastic mould line removal and exact same detail quality?
No need to tinker with printer settings etc?
I mean, I can only speak for myself, I'm kinda bright, have experience working in labs where some precision and forethought is required, so that may not be everyone, but yeah. 3D printers mostly come all put together, your average bit of office furniture requires more work to get put together for use. Using a slicer and filling in 3 to 4 boxes with numbers that people on the internet will happily give you so your resin prints come out just right, really isn't that hard. And cleaning them up is actually faster than removing mold lines. It's a different process yes, because they're a different form of production, but again, maybe it's over some people's heads, but rinsing models in alcohol for 20 seconds then pulling off supports is pretty easy for the vast majority of people.
Thing is you've skipped a few key steps. Those online numbers only work as a starting point. Indeed if you want those easier/faster to clean supports you'll be using more lighter and thinner heavies in general which means your exposure has to be spot on otherwise you'll risk increased failure. So now you've got a few calibration prints to make
Along the way you'll hit issues - its too hot or too cold; the heating isn't the right sort of heating; the humidity*; the specific mix of the bottle of resin you're using; the printer you're using
Some resins, such as ZMud do require a different setup of supports, adding more light ones, in order to print reliably. Water washable resins are often weaker for hollowed prints (again requiring more support to avoid tearing/warping). Some printers give more force on the pull and can require some adjustment. Heck the Sonic Mini 4K has a raft of issues due to its Z axis being a bit weaker than it should be (they've actually released an upgrade/fix kit for it which is online now from them or going to distribution and being sold in a few months).
Not to mention settings found online vary from someone who HAS done testing and has a solid work process to someone who just printed something and plugged in some values they found/got a gut instinct for. You have to understand what kind of raft setup you want; if you're going to use fast or slow lift speeds; about the lift-speed deadzone (between >50 and <180-240).
So yes in theory they are simple, but they are also complex.Another issue is that a lot of fails look the same or similar. Even to the experienced it can be hard to tell with some fails so you have to basically check-list things to doublecheck what might be the cause even down to a slight element of chance (its not true chance, but its variables that don't repeat reliably and might be one-offs).
*this appears to be a variable but I've not really read of anyone doing any reliable testing
JWBS wrote: The only person that ever told me he was bright was incredibly drunk at the time he said it.
If you're not old enough to know alcohol brings out the truth, then there's nothing I can do for you mate. You've just got to get out there and live some more.
frankelee wrote: People still on the "technology is just not there yet" with 3D printing bust me up. Obviously, no matter what expertise they claim to have while on the internet, they aren't familiar with it.
At the end of the day GW is mom's home cooking to some people, and nothing else is going to satisfy. And when you're spending that much on little plastic men you've got to emotionally justify it somehow.
So can you just buy printer,plug in, install software with just "yes yes yes" level installation, open file, press button to print copy, have it with zero configuration needed and have 3d print with no more cleaning up to do than with plastic mould line removal and exact same detail quality?
No need to tinker with printer settings etc?
I mean, I can only speak for myself, I'm kinda bright, have experience working in labs where some precision and forethought is required, so that may not be everyone, but yeah. 3D printers mostly come all put together, your average bit of office furniture requires more work to get put together for use. Using a slicer and filling in 3 to 4 boxes with numbers that people on the internet will happily give you so your resin prints come out just right, really isn't that hard. And cleaning them up is actually faster than removing mold lines. It's a different process yes, because they're a different form of production, but again, maybe it's over some people's heads, but rinsing models in alcohol for 20 seconds then pulling off supports is pretty easy for the vast majority of people.
Thing is you've skipped a few key steps. Those online numbers only work as a starting point. Indeed if you want those easier/faster to clean supports you'll be using more lighter and thinner heavies in general which means your exposure has to be spot on otherwise you'll risk increased failure. So now you've got a few calibration prints to make
Along the way you'll hit issues - its too hot or too cold; the heating isn't the right sort of heating; the humidity*; the specific mix of the bottle of resin you're using; the printer you're using
Some resins, such as ZMud do require a different setup of supports, adding more light ones, in order to print reliably. Water washable resins are often weaker for hollowed prints (again requiring more support to avoid tearing/warping). Some printers give more force on the pull and can require some adjustment. Heck the Sonic Mini 4K has a raft of issues due to its Z axis being a bit weaker than it should be (they've actually released an upgrade/fix kit for it which is online now from them or going to distribution and being sold in a few months).
Not to mention settings found online vary from someone who HAS done testing and has a solid work process to someone who just printed something and plugged in some values they found/got a gut instinct for. You have to understand what kind of raft setup you want; if you're going to use fast or slow lift speeds; about the lift-speed deadzone (between >50 and <180-240).
So yes in theory they are simple, but they are also complex.Another issue is that a lot of fails look the same or similar. Even to the experienced it can be hard to tell with some fails so you have to basically check-list things to doublecheck what might be the cause even down to a slight element of chance (its not true chance, but its variables that don't repeat reliably and might be one-offs).
*this appears to be a variable but I've not really read of anyone doing any reliable testing
Yeah. I know you went through all that earnestly, but who are you trying to convince? Sure, you can pixel bitch around to find potential problems, everybody doing 3D printing has dealt with them, they're not that hard.
You know if you try to put together a GW mini you've got to look in the instruction booklet to know what pieces to put together, but one time a guy in Cardiff bought a box and it was missing the booklet! So that's the end for him. And did you know you have to clip them off the sprues, but what if you clip it and it goes flying across the room and you can't find it, well there you go, your purchase is ruined, your foray into Warhammer is over. And then as you put the model together you've got to be able to think in 3 dimensions, not everybody can do that, so there goes half the market. And then to actually hold the model together you've got to use glue, so that requires a trip to the specialty shop. And then if you try to use glue you can get your fingers stuck together, well that'll end your mini making day, won't it? And then after you have the model put together, all those joint lines ruin the whole thing. They look like garbage, the whole mini looks like garbage. And if you want to solve that problem you'll need green stuff, good look finding that if the world is currently suffering a shortage of it. And if you have some you've got to knead it together before it'll even work, how do you do that?
frankelee wrote: People still on the "technology is just not there yet" with 3D printing bust me up. Obviously, no matter what expertise they claim to have while on the internet, they aren't familiar with it.
At the end of the day GW is mom's home cooking to some people, and nothing else is going to satisfy. And when you're spending that much on little plastic men you've got to emotionally justify it somehow.
So can you just buy printer,plug in, install software with just "yes yes yes" level installation, open file, press button to print copy, have it with zero configuration needed and have 3d print with no more cleaning up to do than with plastic mould line removal and exact same detail quality?
No need to tinker with printer settings etc?
With my Photon mono...basically yes.
Clean up is a bit more than GW plastic, but not more than FW resin. Give it a soak (Sure I'm using IPA instead of soapy water, but really) and then sit it in some nice light to dry and harden up. Not more difficult than cleaning mold lines or drilling bolter barrels. Funny enough, some of the models I have printed have the bolter barrels already hollowed out.
Stop trying to make 3D printing sound like a full time profession that you have to go to school and get a degree in. There are some parts which take time to learn, but just like painting and learning how to do it correctly it takes time and experience.
Here (on the right) is my first resin print from my Anycubic Photon Mono. I did not run a start up, I did not print their test prints that come preloaded, I plugged it in added resin and hit start.
The model on the left was the exact same model printed with my Ender3 PLA printer. Obviously you can see the detail levels are different, the resin ones are much better. Like most of my projects, I have not finished painting it, but here it is with some Contrast paints applied.
I'd put that up against any models made by GW. Plus it is all one piece, no mold lines to file and fill. it snapped off it's supports without tools and I didn't have to sand down the burrs from the sprue. While it is a patreon model from Titan-Forge, they take the time to pre-support all their newer models and have them ready to print AND also give you the files unsupported incase you want to do other things or use not standard settings.
Let's get back to the topic of GW made to Order now. Thanks.
with the average GW customer being unable to build models without a booklet, no matter how easy it looks like for others
(I just bought the Mantic GCPS Mule out of curiosity because lot online reviews complained that it is nearly impossible to build because there is no booklet in the box, took me 10 minutes including removing mold lines and test fit without glue)
for those people this is a different hobby, easy to build, paint and play
3D printing is already too much work and too complicated to replace HIPS for GW's the main target group
3D printing will replace papercraft, classic foam terrain building and lasercut/mdf terrain in the long run (outside the niche were you need to advantage of other materials as base)
but models for the average wargamer?, only if the requested size and time period is not available as otherwise it is cheaper to buy the models
and for the average GW customer, way to complicated and time consuming
JWBS wrote: The only person that ever told me he was bright was incredibly drunk at the time he said it.
If you're not old enough to know alcohol brings out the truth, then there's nothing I can do for you mate. You've just got to get out there and live some more.
Person who jumps on a thread to throw around some not-so-veiled insults and believes In vino veritas describes themselves as "kinda bright".....
with the average GW customer being unable to build models without a booklet, no matter how easy it looks like for others
(I just bought the Mantic GCPS Mule out of curiosity because lot online reviews complained that it is nearly impossible to build because there is no booklet in the box, took me 10 minutes including removing mold lines and test fit without glue)
for those people this is a different hobby, easy to build, paint and play
3D printing is already too much work and too complicated to replace HIPS for GW's the main target group
3D printing will replace papercraft, classic foam terrain building and lasercut/mdf terrain in the long run (outside the niche were you need to advantage of other materials as base)
but models for the average wargamer?, only if the requested size and time period is not available as otherwise it is cheaper to buy the models
and for the average GW customer, way to complicated and time consuming
3D printing will hurt every wargame but Games Workshop. If you're playing other wargames, you're already far more aware/willing to try 'alternatives' than the vast majority of people. The great irony of the "3D printing will kill/hurt GW!" meme is that it's far more likely to further consolidate their stranglehold on wargaming because the other games are bleeding money to printers whilst most GW customers, most of whom won't even buy non-Citadel paints, keep handing it over to them happily.
JWBS wrote: The only person that ever told me he was bright was incredibly drunk at the time he said it.
If you're not old enough to know alcohol brings out the truth, then there's nothing I can do for you mate. You've just got to get out there and live some more.
I remember it quite vividly despite being quite drunk myself. He used that word instead of a more usual synonym and I thought to myself "Lol what a tool" and perhaps something in my expression gave away my thought or maybe he just had the same thought because he immediately said "Oh wow that was a douchey thing to say" and I agreed and we both laughed (I was laughing mostly with him but also a little at him too ofc).
JWBS wrote: The only person that ever told me he was bright was incredibly drunk at the time he said it.
If you're not old enough to know alcohol brings out the truth, then there's nothing I can do for you mate. You've just got to get out there and live some more.
No, it fething doesn't. Reducing inhibitions doesn't mean that the stuff a person says or does is the truth.
Psychedelics also reduce people's inhibitions but we don't believe a tripping person when they tell us they can fly and want to get on the roof of the house to show us.
If you pre-order, and aren't one of the lucky ones who get theirs shipped straight away, can you cancel? And how do you find out - by email after paying?
If you pre-order, and aren't one of the lucky ones who get theirs shipped straight away, can you cancel? And how do you find out - by email after paying?
Yes, this would be my concern as well. Are they going to tell you when you order that the in stock copies have sold out and you'll be waiting months for yours? If not, once you find out later will you be able to cancel? They didn't bother to explain that.
frankelee wrote: Are they the exact same quality to your human eye if you're forced into a blind "taste test"? Yes. Could someone get one of GW's stl files, print it off, slip it into their army they use at the game store, and completely fool you and all your friends? Of course. Could a Phrozen Sonic Mini make any of GW's fancy models? Easily. None of that is really even up for debate in the 3D printing world.
You need glasses. Thats an entirely debatable point, or rather you're right that its not debatable, because you're just wrong.
I can, and have, spotted 3d printed painted minis with absolute ease from across the table. Its even easier when you pick them up, theres a readily apparent difference in weight, and you can feel a textural/structural difference (even through paint) on the mini itself. This isn't really unique to me either, everyone in my group seems to be able to recognize the 3d printed knockoffs with relative ease - and I say this as someone who has 3d printed minis on a Phrozen Sonic 4k and mixed them into my squads of GW official minis. Nobody is fooled.
Yeah. I know you went through all that earnestly, but who are you trying to convince? Sure, you can pixel bitch around to find potential problems, everybody doing 3D printing has dealt with them, they're not that hard.
You know if you try to put together a GW mini you've got to look in the instruction booklet to know what pieces to put together, but one time a guy in Cardiff bought a box and it was missing the booklet! So that's the end for him. And did you know you have to clip them off the sprues, but what if you clip it and it goes flying across the room and you can't find it, well there you go, your purchase is ruined, your foray into Warhammer is over. And then as you put the model together you've got to be able to think in 3 dimensions, not everybody can do that, so there goes half the market. And then to actually hold the model together you've got to use glue, so that requires a trip to the specialty shop. And then if you try to use glue you can get your fingers stuck together, well that'll end your mini making day, won't it? And then after you have the model put together, all those joint lines ruin the whole thing. They look like garbage, the whole mini looks like garbage. And if you want to solve that problem you'll need green stuff, good look finding that if the world is currently suffering a shortage of it. And if you have some you've got to knead it together before it'll even work, how do you do that?
Guys, get real.
For someone who claims to be bright you really aren't demonstrating it if you thought this was anything approaching a reasonable or convincing point to make. Check your logical fallacies next time.
I wouldn't. Its a nice sculpt, sure, and the print looks good, sure, but its - in my opinion - not up to par with GWs minis in any appreciable way. The only 3d printed minis I've seen which I'd say are actually superior to GWs plastics come off of printers that cost significantly more than anything we're discussing in this thread (and when I say significantly more, I mean add 2-3 zeroes on to the end of the price of the printers we've named here).
with the average GW customer being unable to build models without a booklet, no matter how easy it looks like for others
(I just bought the Mantic GCPS Mule out of curiosity because lot online reviews complained that it is nearly impossible to build because there is no booklet in the box, took me 10 minutes including removing mold lines and test fit without glue)
for those people this is a different hobby, easy to build, paint and play
3D printing is already too much work and too complicated to replace HIPS for GW's the main target group
3D printing will replace papercraft, classic foam terrain building and lasercut/mdf terrain in the long run (outside the niche were you need to advantage of other materials as base)
but models for the average wargamer?, only if the requested size and time period is not available as otherwise it is cheaper to buy the models
and for the average GW customer, way to complicated and time consuming
3D printing will hurt every wargame but Games Workshop. If you're playing other wargames, you're already far more aware/willing to try 'alternatives' than the vast majority of people. The great irony of the "3D printing will kill/hurt GW!" meme is that it's far more likely to further consolidate their stranglehold on wargaming because the other games are bleeding money to printers whilst most GW customers, most of whom won't even buy non-Citadel paints, keep handing it over to them happily.
Are you just making gak up? I play a *lot* of wargames from a lot of different publishers and designers. On the whole, I've seen less 3d printed minis/parts in those other games than I have seen in GWs games, the only exception to that being certain periods and scales of historicals, and arguably sometimes the Star Wars games (despite how common Mels Miniatures, etc. seem to be in the online communities, I've yet to actually encounter anyone who owns anything other than the official FFG miniatures for these games). On the whole (again with the possible exception of Star Wars), fans of fantasy/scifi games by smaller publishers seem to be generally more willing to buy the official minis and less interested in 3d printed ones than the GW community is.
MaxT wrote: You can always cancel your order prior to shipping
In which case surely scalpers are still going to be a problem? There will still be people prepared to pay a premium to have theirs now rather than wait.
MaxT wrote: You can always cancel your order prior to shipping
In which case surely scalpers are still going to be a problem? There will still be people prepared to pay a premium to have theirs now rather than wait.
And I have had people offer me $5 more than the cost of the pizza I was carrying out of a Dominos because they didn't want to wait the 10-15minutes for one to cook. There is always someone willing to pay a little extra for the time saved. (Also the person didn't even know what type of pizza it was, so that speaks a lot to instant gratification) There will always be scalpers, if this helps to limit the number that we face and diminishes the out of stock issue in any way then its a benefit.
Arbitrator wrote: 3D printing will hurt every wargame but Games Workshop. If you're playing other wargames, you're already far more aware/willing to try 'alternatives' than the vast majority of people. The great irony of the "3D printing will kill/hurt GW!" meme is that it's far more likely to further consolidate their stranglehold on wargaming because the other games are bleeding money to printers whilst most GW customers, most of whom won't even buy non-Citadel paints, keep handing it over to them happily.
from the people I know who own one ore more printer, their use them for GW models, or scale/theme that is not available
something like 2mm Napoelonic, fantasy asian armies, historical indian armies
French-Indian/Seven Years War, people use the metal models, no matter if 28 or 10mm because they are cheaper and more accurate
cheap and good 3D files for historical armies outside of niche settings? there are none
if I want to print Austrians in 28mm for the 7YW the only ones available have the quality of Warlord plastics (means using the same models for all nations with different box art), or less different models than the metal ones on the market
I am just better of buying the metal ones and be done
I miss the heady days when I was one of the worst and most contentious posters on these forums. Leave it to the young to outdo their predecessors in all things, I suppose. The villainy I and others like me taught them, they have executed.
chaos0xomega wrote: You need glasses. Thats an entirely debatable point, or rather you're right that its not debatable, because you're just wrong.
I can, and have, spotted 3d printed painted minis with absolute ease from across the table. Its even easier when you pick them up, theres a readily apparent difference in weight, and you can feel a textural/structural difference (even through paint) on the mini itself. This isn't really unique to me either, everyone in my group seems to be able to recognize the 3d printed knockoffs with relative ease - and I say this as someone who has 3d printed minis on a Phrozen Sonic 4k and mixed them into my squads of GW official minis. Nobody is fooled.
<rolls to disbelieve>
...right
Are you maybe talking about fdm printed stuff here? (I know you say you have phrozen sonic printed miniss, but still) Because I've made masters for moulds with resin printers and I can 100% assure you that the ones from the mould look, if anything, coarser than the master.
I'va also printed whole Epic and Warmaster armies that, if anything, are much better than any original minis.
with the average GW customer being unable to build models without a booklet, no matter how easy it looks like for others
(I just bought the Mantic GCPS Mule out of curiosity because lot online reviews complained that it is nearly impossible to build because there is no booklet in the box, took me 10 minutes including removing mold lines and test fit without glue)
for those people this is a different hobby, easy to build, paint and play
3D printing is already too much work and too complicated to replace HIPS for GW's the main target group
3D printing will replace papercraft, classic foam terrain building and lasercut/mdf terrain in the long run (outside the niche were you need to advantage of other materials as base)
but models for the average wargamer?, only if the requested size and time period is not available as otherwise it is cheaper to buy the models
and for the average GW customer, way to complicated and time consuming
3D printing will hurt every wargame but Games Workshop. If you're playing other wargames, you're already far more aware/willing to try 'alternatives' than the vast majority of people. The great irony of the "3D printing will kill/hurt GW!" meme is that it's far more likely to further consolidate their stranglehold on wargaming because the other games are bleeding money to printers whilst most GW customers, most of whom won't even buy non-Citadel paints, keep handing it over to them happily.
There is a difference between miniature manufacturers and games companies. Printing will benefit games companies because it means they don’t need to shell out on manufacturing kit to make models to play their game with. There is a full set of STL models being used by a random manufacturer to support the game. You can also order physical models with of them.
Saw this had reached seven pages, came in to drink the rage of GW haters. Disappointed. The whole first page only has like one hate-boner post and a lot of people responding to it reasonably. Then I discover the discussion spirals off topic and THAT is why there is so much discussion. Smh black knights need to step it up.
To me the contention that 3d printed miniatures aren't good enough is absurd. As someone who owns dozens if not hundreds of hand-sculpted metal sculpts from the 80s and 90s that are really often quite crude or have some compromises, I've never considered them to be flawed by their imperfections. At the end of the day they're still just figurines. A metal, resin, or plastic ork with an outrageous machinegun in his hand will never be "real".
The emphasis on "fooling" people with 3d printed miniatures likewise baffles me. Unless we're engaged in some kind of a counterfeiting or defrauding scheme, the provenance of our pieces should never be obscure. The only yardstick by which a miniature's appearance can be judged (contests of painting and modeling skill notwithstanding) is whether or not its owner is satisfied with it, and, for gaming pieces, whether or not it's modeled appropriate to a particular ruleset's accepted baseline (for things such as scale and base size) and the general notions of good sportsmanship and fair play.
chaos0xomega wrote: You need glasses. Thats an entirely debatable point, or rather you're right that its not debatable, because you're just wrong.
I can, and have, spotted 3d printed painted minis with absolute ease from across the table. Its even easier when you pick them up, theres a readily apparent difference in weight, and you can feel a textural/structural difference (even through paint) on the mini itself. This isn't really unique to me either, everyone in my group seems to be able to recognize the 3d printed knockoffs with relative ease - and I say this as someone who has 3d printed minis on a Phrozen Sonic 4k and mixed them into my squads of GW official minis. Nobody is fooled.
<rolls to disbelieve>
...right
Are you maybe talking about fdm printed stuff here? (I know you say you have phrozen sonic printed miniss, but still) Because I've made masters for moulds with resin printers and I can 100% assure you that the ones from the mould look, if anything, coarser than the master.
I'va also printed whole Epic and Warmaster armies that, if anything, are much better than any original minis.
In terms of 6-15mm stuff I'll give you that 3d printed minis look better than anything I've seen produced in metal (debatable on plastic, I'll have to do some comparisons with some of the plastic warlord 15mm acw minis I have sometime).
But in this case we're comparing resin 3d prints to GWs plastic, not cast resin. Cast plastic has much higher surface fidelity than resin does (although a high quality resin cast has much sharper edges than plastic does, 3d printed resin edges in my opinion aren't as sharp as cast resin).
Agamemnon2 wrote: To me the contention that 3d printed miniatures aren't good enough is absurd. As someone who owns dozens if not hundreds of hand-sculpted metal sculpts from the 80s and 90s that are really often quite crude or have some compromises, I've never considered them to be flawed by their imperfections. At the end of the day they're still just figurines. A metal, resin, or plastic ork with an outrageous machinegun in his hand will never be "real".
I think we're crossing some wires here. The "good enough" contention from earlier discussion was more about whether or not 3D printing tech was at a point where it would have mass market applicability (i.e. the masses would find it easier and more convenient to 3d print miniatures vs ordering plastic injection miniatures). The current discussion is more along the lines of overall quality comparison/value judgement of a 3D printed mini vs a GW plastic injection mini. If you're able to recognize and render a value judgement that your metal minis from the 80s/90s were crude and imperfect, then you're able to understand the discussion being had about how resin 3d printed minis compare to injection molded plastic ones in terms of quality. One position is that they are very closely comparable, to the point that 3d printed resin minis could be indistinguishable from GWs minis once painted, etc. The opposing position is that that is a gross exaggeration and there are noticeable differences in quality between them and spotting printed minis isn't particularly difficult.
Only thing I can say about that is that many of the latest GW minis painted on their page are actually 3d prints. Some have quite noticeable steps. I've noticed some myself when perusing GW's page, but apparently spikey bits did an article, so here:
Albertorius wrote: Only thing I can say about that is that many of the latest GW minis painted on their page are actually 3d prints. Some have quite noticeable steps. I've noticed some myself when perusing GW's page, but apparently spikey bits did an article, so here:
I'm well aware, thats hardly new news - they've been using 3d printers for almost a decade now to print prototypes, its fairly standard in the miniatures industry. In GWs case though, they are using some of those extremely expensive printers I mentioned before, not a hobbyist grade printer for a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.
You will also note, as you just pointed out, that even with those high end industrial pritners which run tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that its still pretty easy to identify the indicators of it being a printed mini.
chaos0xomega wrote: I'm well aware, thats hardly new news - they've been using 3d printers for almost a decade now to print prototypes, its fairly standard in the miniatures industry. In GWs case though, they are using some of those extremely expensive printers I mentioned before, not a hobbyist grade printer for a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.
You will also note, as you just pointed out, that even with those high end industrial pritners which run tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that its still pretty easy to identify the indicators of it being a printed mini.
Yes, of course, but not, as you said, "with absolute ease from across the table". That is simply, in my experience, not true.
As for those Deathtroopers, its pretty easy to tell they are 3d prints - they look nothing like the actual deathtrooper sculpts made by FFG. Since nobody else is allowed to produce them as FFG has an exclusive license, theres really only one source for them.
chaos0xomega wrote: As for those Deathtroopers, its pretty easy to tell they are 3d prints - they look nothing like the actual deathtrooper sculpts made by FFG. Since nobody else is allowed to produce them as FFG has an exclusive license, theres really only one source for them.
I... that's not the point. I like them because they look nothing like the ones from FFG. They're alternate sculpts. The fact that you can tell they're not the official ones don't mean they're bad, or even that they're prints, they could exactly as well be cast.
If your comments above that you could tell them apart from across the board is because they're different... I don't believe they have merit, TBH.
chaos0xomega wrote: I'm well aware, thats hardly new news - they've been using 3d printers for almost a decade now to print prototypes, its fairly standard in the miniatures industry. In GWs case though, they are using some of those extremely expensive printers I mentioned before, not a hobbyist grade printer for a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.
You will also note, as you just pointed out, that even with those high end industrial pritners which run tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that its still pretty easy to identify the indicators of it being a printed mini.
Yes, of course, but not, as you said, "with absolute ease from across the table". That is simply, in my experience, not true.
I mean, some of the preview minis GW has shown are very, very painfully obvious. In some cases, the stairstepping/layer lines are the first thing I notice, so yes - from across the table.
And again the quality on those prints is significantly higher than the prints that 99.9% of the people on this board and in this community have access to.
chaos0xomega wrote: As for those Deathtroopers, its pretty easy to tell they are 3d prints - they look nothing like the actual deathtrooper sculpts made by FFG. Since nobody else is allowed to produce them as FFG has an exclusive license, theres really only one source for them.
I... that's not the point. I like them because they look nothing like the ones from FFG. They're alternate sculpts. The fact that you can tell they're not the official ones don't mean they're bad, or even that they're prints, they could exactly as well be cast.
If your comments above that you could tell them apart from across the board is because they're different... I don't believe they have merit, TBH.
The discussion is about whether or not the print would be indistinguishable from GWs own minis (or in this case FFGs). For that to be the case requires the mini to be identically sculpted and identically posed, etc. otherwise being able to disguise the prints becomes irrelvant. Knowing what the official minis are supposed to look like is basically key to that process.In this case, its actually the high quality of the prints that give it away. The official death trooper minis are that soft plastic pvc restic type material - the edges are soft and the details aren't as well defined or crisp. On these the edges are sharper/crisper and the details are better defined than on FFGs own minis. Its hard to judge this relative to a plastic injection mini, as there isn't a plastic injection deathtrooper to compare it to, but I would say that there is an apparent surface roughness on areas of these minis which would not be found in plastic injection minis (particularly on "foreheads" and the topsides and business ends of the gun barrels, as well as on the big pauldrons), a few spots where the geometry wouldn't be reproduceable in plastic in a single piece, the puches on the shoulder of the mini on the left look a bit wonky (hard to tell if its a sculpt issue or a print issue though), what looks to be layer lines on the flap of the pouch in the crotch region of the mini with the visor as well as on the fingers hes holding to his head, the inside corner edge of his left gauntlet is also soft, especially towards the bottom you can kind of see what looks to be a slight deformation in the geometry. There also appears to be some geometry issues on the model to the left of that guy, on the strap/armor reinforcement strip or whatever it is on its thigh (it looks kind of like it didn't print round but instead as a polygon, this might be a sculpt issue). Admittedly on this one I probably wouldn't be able to tell from across the table if they were sculpted to match FFG, etc. but if FFGs were HIPS instead, I'd guess it would be a bit more obvious, just based on the softness of some of the details and areas of rough surface texture.
I do have to say I like the left thigh of the mini on the left - weird thing to say, but the combination of the texture and the way its painted looks almost lifelike.
(this was in reference to the original phot of the painted guys, I'll review the new photos shortly)
Wha-Mu-077 wrote: So, they KNOW about Scalper bots, but don't implement anything to prevent them?
Something like, uh... eliminating the reason to scalp stuff in the first place? Yeah, shame they don't do something like produce a copy for each order instead of limiting the orders... oh wait.
Seriously, can't you pester any other forum? We get it you hate the company. Nobody cares.
You care enough yo nake this comment. Tbh, the scalping of this kind of things would be more easily solved by not making them limited deals, tbh.
GW needs to back away from their self imposed time line on how long an edition should last. If a rule book is good leave it alone. They are trying so hard to pump stuff out that they are weakening their products. I know it's about profits but they will just drive people away. I saw a video yesterday where one of the new Killteam books might as well of had a whole section of blank pages in it for the lack of information about model entries. You spend 200 dollars US and the first thing you will have to buy is a new book in six months. A game should come with everything it needs to play the game.
I know it's about profits but they will just drive people away
Hasn't happened yet. GW got lot smarter about using addictive tactics straight out of video game industry to keep people invested since the days of Kirby's Endless Price Rise.
It does hit them in another way--they are out of stock of a broad swathe of product people want to buy. My flgs cannot get the full-priced unit boxes it's ordering because GW is so busy producing limited discount boxes.
I know it's about profits but they will just drive people away
Hasn't happened yet. GW got lot smarter about using addictive tactics straight out of video game industry to keep people invested since the days of Kirby's Endless Price Rise.
It isn't like a single release hits and the customer hive mind decides that is too much. A few individuals may drop off, mainly negative sentiment builds and people start pushing off purchases or just downloading rules in lieu of buying them, third party counts-as miniatures increase in popularity over actual GW models. When things get to the point of large numbers of people outright leaving a game they have invested hundreds of hours and currency in, that is when things have gone from bad to critical.
I know it's about profits but they will just drive people away
Hasn't happened yet. GW got lot smarter about using addictive tactics straight out of video game industry to keep people invested since the days of Kirby's Endless Price Rise.
Have their volume of sales increased over the last few years?
I thought their approach to the business was increasingly as a luxury product, where they sold at higher prices to less people and their margins were higher per unit sold.
If that is the case, it would make sense as to why they're going to with this FOMO-driven model of product release.
GW's fewer customers paying more for less, and also order from us directly because we want 100% of the sale not 50% or otherwise our stock may collapse, feels like the sort of thing that depends on never sailing into troubled waters to work.
I have no doubt these limited release big boxes bring them in tremendous amounts of money, which is why they're switching to doing them every time they have a new product. But while the crowd of consumers they're selling these to are essentially immune to concerns of price and value, there remains the risk that something else will turn them off (like a shiny object in their field of vision).
frankelee wrote: GW's fewer customers paying more for less, and also order from us directly because we want 100% of the sale not 50% or otherwise our stock may collapse, feels like the sort of thing that depends on never sailing into troubled waters to work.
I have no doubt these limited release big boxes bring them in tremendous amounts of money, which is why they're switching to doing them every time they have a new product. But while the crowd of consumers they're selling these to are essentially immune to concerns of price and value, there remains the risk that something else will turn them off (like a shiny object in their field of vision).
I think GW's customer base is pretty much physically incapable of buying anything that GW doesn't make at large. Given how everything they make keeps selling out, even with everything that recently happened, i think GW's customers will stay with them forever.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I think you are incapable of understanding that a lot of people genuinely enjoy GWs products and find them to be worth the price.
Yes, because it sounds extremly unreasonable to me.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I think you are incapable of understanding that a lot of people genuinely enjoy GWs products and find them to be worth the price.
Yes, because it sounds extremly unreasonable to me.
Then why are you in GW threads on a mostly GW site?
I mean if you really dislike them not just as a business but in terms of product value for money then why torment yourself and others?
I don't like some of the designs of Kingdom Death models but I don't run around finding every KDM thread and complaining about them or saying they aren't worth it all the time. Same I'm not a fan of Kings of War designs, but I don't rush around in their threads complaining about it. I just let those who do like those designs like them and enjoy them and enjoy talking about them etc....
You seem to spend ages just complaining and griping and whining about GW
I don't like some of the designs of Kingdom Death models but I don't run around finding every KDM thread and complaining about them or saying they aren't worth it all the time. Same I'm not a fan of Kings of War designs, but I don't rush around in their threads complaining about it.
you may not do it, but others are
if you are in a more generic forum, this happens often
I have enough people in another forum who always complain about the bad models for Kings of War because those people are there for different reasons, happen to come across the discussion because of the it was under "recent topics" and it happen
but this is also the big difference of forum to other social medias like Facebook or Reddit, it happens that people who are not inside the specific bubble are joining the discussion
and this is a good thing
NinthMusketeer wrote: It's not a good thing when, by his own admission, he cannot distinguish the difference between subjective and objective. Then it's just gakposting.
So do as I did and put the little troll on ignore.
It never ceases to amuse me that people are so deluded they simply cannot fathom the possibility of me actually holding these beliefs and choose to, again and again, dismiss me as a troll.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I think you are incapable of understanding that a lot of people genuinely enjoy GWs products and find them to be worth the price.
Yes, because it sounds extremly unreasonable to me.
GW does a lot of things right. And as regards price for a bit of plastic which keeps me entertained, to me right now it‘s less relevant than the time I have invest building and painting.
I‘ll wait and see with the new Kill Team for now. It has potential, but the lack of list building and mixing of units turns me off atm. Though Tyranids and regular Guard do not look too bad. Maybe pick it up for the books & terrain if I see it somewhere cheap (GW cheap, that is).
But Wha-Mu, I don’t get why you invest so much time & energy attacking a toy company and its customers. It looks slightly obsessive, and with the Cursed City saga was a bit silly. I‘d be interested to know the reason, if you would share that. Did they step on your toe at some point?
Wha-Mu-077 wrote: It never ceases to amuse me that people are so deluded they simply cannot fathom the possibility of me actually holding these beliefs and choose to, again and again, dismiss me as a troll.
Maybe consider an alternate definition of troll, where it's not about you lying about your beliefs, but that you are seen as just trying to stir up controversy and reactions rather than contribute to a discussion.
Kanluwen wrote: Or maybe people think you should just stop hateposting about GW stuff in GW threads and find something you like to talk about instead?
Is it possible to love the game/world and hate how GW operates?
Yes, but sometimes you have to realise that complaining about it in a forum won't change the company. So you either have to live with your demons or move onto companies, lores and games that you do love. Or at least not hate.
Personally I don't mind what anyone loves or hates, but I do feel bad about those people who come to a community (online, or in person) who can only (or mostly) only find a way to connect by complaining/hating. I also think that within Warhammer we, as a community, have developed an attitude of "hating GW" as being part of the hobby in a social/community sense. It's so casually thrown around that its accepted and that doesn't just influence ourselves but new generations coming in. By all means be critical, but the blind GW "hate" has grown into its own, scary thing.
It saps a persons enjoyment of what they do love because they continually read and repeat the hate/dislike around about the company. It derails threads, it dominates discussions, it gets in the way of enjoyment.
I like a nice rant or a complaint or debate; but at the same time I feel like we've built ourselves this tower of hate/dislike so high that its all some can see. I'd rather see people at least start threads on the lore they love to talk about it. To talk about the latest book they read or the bit of lore they love or the bit they'd love to see developed or their own fanfiction. I'd love them to post their latest posted model; their latest conversion; photos of their last game etc... That, I feel, is far better and healthier to engage with on a regular basis.
In the end I try to say what I say to make the people who are hating perhaps pause and question why they are saying what they say where they say it. Hating on GW (or anything) on a forum won't change the thing they hate; complaining that GW charges too much on Dakka won't make GW charge less or change. It can vent some frustration, but only when its done in healthy moderation.
Hobbies are something we choose to do. We make that choice to involve them within our lives totally freely. It's our time, our hobby and I just feel some are missing out on so much real enjoyment by hyper-focusing on the negative and bringing it into social groups which then dominates discussions.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I think you are incapable of understanding that a lot of people genuinely enjoy GWs products and find them to be worth the price.
And it's also possible to believe the former without believing the latter.
Wha-Mu-077 wrote: It never ceases to amuse me that people are so deluded they simply cannot fathom the possibility of me actually holding these beliefs and choose to, again and again, dismiss me as a troll.
Maybe consider an alternate definition of troll, where it's not about you lying about your beliefs, but that you are seen as just trying to stir up controversy and reactions rather than contribute to a discussion.
Wha-Mu, delusion has nothing to do with it. I can quite easily accept that you genuinely hold these beliefs. Frankly, I'm convinced of it.
I dismiss you as a troll because vomiting forth all that loathing and hate is all you do. What I can't imagine is hating something so much that you're willing to pour this much energy into pissing into the wind. The level of vitriol you put forth isn't likely to win you many converts, so it just comes off as hate for hate's sake.
You need a hobby, pal, because this one ain't working out for you.
Personally I don't mind what anyone loves or hates, but I do feel bad about those people who come to a community (online, or in person) who can only (or mostly) only find a way to connect by complaining/hating. I also think that within Warhammer we, as a community, have developed an attitude of "hating GW" as being part of the hobby in a social/community sense. It's so casually thrown around that its accepted and that doesn't just influence ourselves but new generations coming in. By all means be critical, but the blind GW "hate" has grown into its own, scary thing.
On the one hand, I can empathize with where I believe this is coming from. I can understand wanting to go online and have a safe space to be surrounded only by agreeing voices. It would be much easier and I feel it would probably contribute more to one's own excitement.
On the other hand, I don't think you're being reasonable in your framing of people who are critical of GW as a company. You call it blind hate, but that's a unfair way to frame it. There is a lot to be critical about in the way GW does its business these days.
Personally I don't mind what anyone loves or hates, but I do feel bad about those people who come to a community (online, or in person) who can only (or mostly) only find a way to connect by complaining/hating. I also think that within Warhammer we, as a community, have developed an attitude of "hating GW" as being part of the hobby in a social/community sense. It's so casually thrown around that its accepted and that doesn't just influence ourselves but new generations coming in. By all means be critical, but the blind GW "hate" has grown into its own, scary thing.
On the one hand, I can empathize with where I believe this is coming from. I can understand wanting to go online and have a safe space to be surrounded only by agreeing voices. It would be much easier and I feel it would probably contribute more to one's own excitement.
On the other hand, I don't think you're being reasonable in your framing of people who are critical of GW as a company. You call it blind hate, but that's a unfair way to frame it. There is a lot to be critical about in the way GW does its business these days.
I don't think anyone is saying you can't criticize what GW does. Personally, I've even hated a number of things they did - WHFB 8th edition drew a lot of ire from me.
But be honest: some people take their hate to whole different level, and it isn't healthy for anybody.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It does hit them in another way--they are out of stock of a broad swathe of product people want to buy. My flgs cannot get the full-priced unit boxes it's ordering because GW is so busy producing limited discount boxes.
With the exception perhaps of combat patrols, the only unit box GW has put out in recent memory that would have impacted individual kits is Hexfire - and in the case of GK and TS its more likely they are out of stock for reboxings than because they dumped all their sprues into a discount box. All the other discount boxes released for the last several months have otherwise been sprues unique to that box (similar to Indomitus) or not otherwise released. So, that being the case... #doubt.
frankelee wrote: GW's fewer customers paying more for less, and also order from us directly because we want 100% of the sale not 50% or otherwise our stock may collapse, feels like the sort of thing that depends on never sailing into troubled waters to work.
GWs revenue growth has outpaced the growth in its prices for the last 3-4 years, so it isn't possible that they are making more money from fewer customers paying more for less - mathematically its simply not possible for that to be true relative to GWs pricing.
I have no doubt these limited release big boxes bring them in tremendous amounts of money, which is why they're switching to doing them every time they have a new product. But while the crowd of consumers they're selling these to are essentially immune to concerns of price and value, there remains the risk that something else will turn them off (like a shiny object in their field of vision).
As someone who buys multiples of these things every time they release, the rate of release on them has actually slowed down relative to pre-covid era, i.e. they are releasing fewer of these big boxes rather than more.
Wha-Mu-077 wrote: It never ceases to amuse me that people are so deluded they simply cannot fathom the possibility of me actually holding these beliefs and choose to, again and again, dismiss me as a troll.
Emotionally healthy and mentally stable people don't generally spend as much time and energy as you do shitposting about something that makes them as miserable as 40k/GW seems to make you. So either you're a troll, or you should consider seeing a mental health professional and see if they can help you work out whats making you so unhappy.
Personally I don't mind what anyone loves or hates, but I do feel bad about those people who come to a community (online, or in person) who can only (or mostly) only find a way to connect by complaining/hating. I also think that within Warhammer we, as a community, have developed an attitude of "hating GW" as being part of the hobby in a social/community sense. It's so casually thrown around that its accepted and that doesn't just influence ourselves but new generations coming in. By all means be critical, but the blind GW "hate" has grown into its own, scary thing.
Spot on. I posted something similar in another thread, but basically its become cool and trendy to hate on GW. The majority of the people doing it are active GW customers, often running out to buy the very thing that they are bitching and complaining about online. Logically speaking, if they actually disliked the game/minis/rules/business/community, etc. as much as they pretend to, then they wouldn't be shoveling pocketfulls of cash across it on a regular basis. So either they are shitposting for the sake of shitposting because its become the prevailing attitude within the community (and indeed this is what I experienced with WHFB before the community turned fully toxic and began to intentionally drive new players away by telling anyone who expressed any amount of interest how awful the game was) or we just have a lot of miserable addicts in the community that have the same relationship with GWs plastic as alcoholics due with liquor and drug addicts do with coke/meth/heroine, etc.
On the other hand, I don't think you're being reasonable in your framing of people who are critical of GW as a company. You call it blind hate, but that's a unfair way to frame it. There is a lot to be critical about in the way GW does its business these days.
Sure, but theres a difference between being critical and being a hater. Theres quite a few members of this section of the online community (referring to dakka) who have what seems to be a healthy relationship with GW - i.e. they are here because they enjoy the game/lore/minis or whatever but recognize that GW is a flawed business and levy valid criticisms at GW or its products, etc. when its relevant and/or necessary to do so. Then there are quite a few people who seem to exist only to hate on it all, stir the pot regularly, and get giddy with excitement and glee as they jump from one controversy or scandal to another, and spend the majority of their time in discussion threads specifically revolving around those scandals/controversies, or trying to drag scandal/controversy into other discussion even when there is no reason to do so.
Take this very thread for example. Whats it about? GW committing to make sure everyone who wants a copy of Kill Team will be able to get one. Thats a good thing, right? But what have the last few pages of discussion really been about?
-3D printing putting GW out of business (some people seem to really actually *want* this to happen)
-GW doing FOMO stuff (even though the made to order commitment would be the opposite of FOMO)
-GW intentionally limiting the preview/preorder/release window for products in some sort of bizarre conspiracy to frontload all of its sales and/or screw over its customers
-GW encouraging scalping (even though they've instituted various electronic measures and policies which would seem to be squarely pointed at combating scalping activities)
-a conspiracy about how GW is making more money by selling fewer products to fewer customers at a higher price (flies squarely in the face of known reality that indicates that GWs customer base actually grew and more people were buying more products)
the last one in particular - i am constantly surprised and dismayed by the degree of mental gymnastics that some of the more conspiracy-minded haters on this board jump through in order to justify their hatred of the company by concocting scenarios in which GW is a malfeasant moustache-twirling villain very intentionally engaging in nefarious wrongdoing in the pursuit of profit at the expense of its fans and customers. The thread about SODAZ and GW animators is a good one, where a few dakkites insisted that GW offering animators job opportunity was a bad thing and that in reality GW was holding a metaphorical gun to these animators heads and blackmailing them to produce content under threat of legal action, even though the various animators own statements indicated that GW was actually being rather lovely about the whole thing and giving them an incredible opportunity that they would be crazy not to take advantage of (and in one case, an animator actually politely declined GWs advances and was allowed to leave their content online without issue). And thats just the tip of the iceberg as to how crazy some of these conspiracy theories get.
Personally I don't mind what anyone loves or hates, but I do feel bad about those people who come to a community (online, or in person) who can only (or mostly) only find a way to connect by complaining/hating. I also think that within Warhammer we, as a community, have developed an attitude of "hating GW" as being part of the hobby in a social/community sense. It's so casually thrown around that its accepted and that doesn't just influence ourselves but new generations coming in. By all means be critical, but the blind GW "hate" has grown into its own, scary thing.
On the one hand, I can empathize with where I believe this is coming from. I can understand wanting to go online and have a safe space to be surrounded only by agreeing voices. It would be much easier and I feel it would probably contribute more to one's own excitement.
On the other hand, I don't think you're being reasonable in your framing of people who are critical of GW as a company. You call it blind hate, but that's a unfair way to frame it. There is a lot to be critical about in the way GW does its business these days.
As the other said, my point isn't that we need to shut down any criticism of GW's activities, just that the community, esp the online one, has a very unhealthy negative lean at present and the community needs to really address it and balance it out. As noted right now there are hot-button topics that can fast derail any thread, even a very positive one into a long negative debate. These repeat over and over (eg balance has been going for 30 years!) and they don't actually generate any net gain at the end of them.
As noted above there can be an easy tipping point where new people get turned away because of the negativity. When you join a community of hobby fans on a forum or group for that hobby you expect that most will enjoy the hobby. That they'll be positive, engaging, supportive, motivating and in general the majority of content will be upbeat. If you instead find lots of lingering arguments, fights, complaints etc... slipping in all over the place that makes you wonder if its really any good.
It's not about shutting down critical thoughts, its about taming them and balancing them out. Heck perhaps its also about finding ways to pool certain critical viewpoints and present them in ways that GW might be receptive to hearing so that we might actually promote change. Rather than just whining on forums that generates zero feedback and zero positive end result.
GW is acting stupid and still doing very well and selling their stuff
this is the main reason why we have this controverse discussion as by usual buisness logic or market situation GW should be already out of buisness and any other company acting that way is
hence why "evil" GW is a thing, as there must be some evil background plan that keeps them running because being successful despite being stupid is something many people cannot get behind
there is no evil plan, to big coorporate fooling us, GW just don't know what they are doing or why they sell their stuff (starting from not knowing how to write rules to ot knowing how many copies of box need to be made to fullfil the demand)
it happens from time to time that they do something which gives them a hint what might not work, but they often draw the wrong conclusions from it (Cursed City for example)
Vorian wrote: Or, as a counter point, GW know what they are doing and the random people on a forum complaining from the outside don't.
Well, GW sure is large enough to not really know what they are doing sometimes. The „problem“ here is mostly that acting clumsy does not get punished because their stuff still sells really well. And when you have a perceived success story, there is no internal pressure to learn lessons.
I really wish their rules writing was better. And payment for (some of) their staff - and both are likely related.
Vorian wrote: Or, as a counter point, GW know what they are doing and the random people on a forum complaining from the outside don't.
Well, GW sure is large enough to not really know what they are doing sometimes. The „problem“ here is mostly that acting clumsy does not get punished because their stuff still sells really well. And when you have a perceived success story, there is no internal pressure to learn lessons.
I really wish their rules writing was better. And payment for (some of) their staff - and both are likely related.
Tbh, if i got paid as much as GW's rules writers do, i probably couldn't be bothered either.
They are obviously not perfect, as no company will ever be. But their performance has been incredible so they are clearly getting the majority of things right.
Some of the previous posters have said it already, but a lot of the criticism that comes out is pretty ridiculous and will have almost no effect on their sales at all.
Considering what you get in the box (fairly good deal to me in terms of terrain, gaming board/tile as well as the miniatures, as well as getting the box set for around £100 with 3rd party sellers...) there are already plastic octarius DKoK squads on eBay with bids of £50+..... And the Ork Kommandos £40+ as well as the terrain (just the plastic) also being £40+, all with around £5 of shipping on top.
I guess this hasn't helped deter scalpers all that too much, maybe their profit margins aren't as high but they look like they are going to be making some money still... What a shame.
I also understand that some people won't have the money to buy the full box set, but seriously, £50+ just to get one squad, just wait people, you'll pick the box up for around £35, or £28 from 3rd parties with just a little bit of patience, it's better for your pocket in the long run, in fact, with waiting you'll be able to buy 2 boxes from a 3rd party for that money.
EDIT: Even less than that if the cadians with the new sprue are anything to go by, I didn't realise they were only £29 RRP.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: I guess this hasn't helped deter scalpers all that too much, maybe their profit margins aren't as high but they look like they are going to be making some money still... What a shame.
Which is odd given it hasn't even sold out yet in the US, UK or EU. The only one that I can see that's listed as unavailable is the French language one (maybe DKOK are big in France?) and in Oz because of the COVID situation many 3rd party stores are sold out (they haven't released stock through official channels yet, which has pushed everyone to the 3rd parties).
Vorian wrote: They are obviously not perfect, as no company will ever be. But their performance has been incredible so they are clearly getting the majority of things right.
Some of the previous posters have said it already, but a lot of the criticism that comes out is pretty ridiculous and will have almost no effect on their sales at all.
which is the point, things they do wrong don't affect their sales but for different reasons
New Kill Team having garbage rules but each new Box comes with new models people are waiting for a long time that are not available outside the box, and it will sell
the conclusion is that no mistakes were made because otherwise it would not sell
than people not playing Eldar because you need ~100€ for a single Kill Team and the conclusion is that no one likes Eldar in KT hence they are never part of a Box
while at the same time, no one likes classic fantasy hence a small run of Cursed City is enough and the single print run will last for years
by "GW knows what they are doing" we have also the secret plan that new models get better rules to sell more, until we get garbage rules for new units (so GW for sure knows and just decided that they don't want to sell this model)
Looking forward to the shitshow of The Old World were GW will for know what to do and underestimate the demand for the things that people want while at the same time overproducing stuff no one is going to buy
it just proofs that there is no secret plan behind anything GW does
they just throw enough gak on the wall and some if it sticks
this is were the argument comes from that GW is missing on sales by doing what they are doing and that they could have made much more money otherwise
but therefore they need to know what and why they sell in advance
and this is what they don't know because no company would intentional miss on profit
PS: and we know more or less what was going on with CC GW decided on a number of boxes, ordered the cardboard stuff from China to fill that amount, but underestimated the demand of the game and is not going to take the risk to order more from China for another run
while the models are done in house and there is no problem in making more
and instead of saying that mistakes were made they thought it is better to act like it never happened (not necessarily for the community but company intern for the guy deciding on the number to order from China)
Kirby was absolutely correct when he said most peoples favourite part of the hobby is buying new things. I don't know why he caught so much flak for it.
Remember that even during the 'dark age' of his reign, GW was still making a profit into the millions.
kodos wrote: it just proofs that there is no secret plan behind anything GW does
they just throw enough gak on the wall and some if it sticks
this is were the argument comes from that GW is missing on sales by doing what they are doing and that they could have made much more money otherwise
but therefore they need to know what and why they sell in advance
and this is what they don't know because no company would intentional miss on profit
PS: and we know more or less what was going on with CC GW decided on a number of boxes, ordered the cardboard stuff from China to fill that amount, but underestimated the demand of the game and is not going to take the risk to order more from China for another run
while the models are done in house and there is no problem in making more
and instead of saying that mistakes were made they thought it is better to act like it never happened (not necessarily for the community but company intern for the guy deciding on the number to order from China)
No, that's what people have guessed. Maybe that is the case, maybe it isn't. That doesn't explain it properly for me, but the actual reason is also immaterial.
Its also not necessarily a problem for GW (other than ill will which is impossible to quantify). If they have continued to sell out their entire production capability at the same profit margin then it won't have mattered to them at all.
Given that their producing capabilites seem to be their problem rather than demand, I'd guess that's the case.
We've also had 30+ years of experts telling us how bad GW rules are. I'd suggest GW have a proven track record of releasing rules that are good enough for their purposes.
GW has also proven that if the rules are too bad, sales collapse over night
proven the theory that people buy only their models and not "models for their games" wrong
rules need to be good enough to get people playing and leaving a promise for improvement to keep the with the game (wait for the new Codex/Edition hype)
kodos wrote: GW has also proven that if the rules are too bad, sales collapse over night
proven the theory that people buy only their models and not "models for their games" wrong
rules need to be good enough to get people playing and leaving a promise for improvement to keep the with the game (wait for the new Codex/Edition hype)
What's your definition of "proven", "too bad", "collapse" and "overnight", in this context?
I can't think of a single GW product that was ever 'Dead on Arrival', or killed an existing line instantly. Unless you mean the powershift in armies as new codices are released, but that's just tournament meta, you couldn't call it a collapse.
It is 'only' £29 RRP when compared to GW's other sets.... Point taken though, I remember £12 (may have been £10 to start) Tactical squads in 3rd edition...
But again, the Tactical Squad has gone through two more revisions since 3rd Ed. In fact, a lot of the Marine plastic line has been replaced twice in that time.
well, than AoS sales must have been so high on release that GW decided to take a 180° turn on the rules and replace the CEO because they were not able to fulfill the demand and rather changed the game to something that sold less than to produce more
I can't think of a single GW product that was ever 'Dead on Arrival', or killed an existing line instantly. Unless you mean the powershift in armies as new codices are released, but that's just tournament meta, you couldn't call it a collapse.
I cannot help if no one remember AoS before the first GHB was released
Warmaster is always mentioned as the big fail that was DoA and only 10 people ever played, when people ask why GW is not re-releasing it like the other old specialist games
yet it is forgotten as soon as the discussion comes to "did GW ever made a mistake"
What happened to Kerrunch?
Dreadfleet must have been big success too as well as Inquisitor
Did having no points probably affect sales? Sure, it was unpopular.
Changing that was obvious because it basically only had up sides for GW.
What's at issue is that sales collapsed due to rules. That's just an unsupported statement on many levels.
Inquisitor lasted quite a while, don't think that or Warmaster could be described as failures (and Warmaster rules are generally thought of highly, so if it did fail it probably would not support the theory it was due to rules).
Dreadfleet probably could be described as a failure, but again, can you put that down to rules? Probably only in the sense that it wasn't Man o' war and even that is just more guesswork from us all.
I can't think of a single GW product that was ever 'Dead on Arrival', or killed an existing line instantly. Unless you mean the powershift in armies as new codices are released, but that's just tournament meta, you couldn't call it a collapse.
I cannot help if no one remember AoS before the first GHB was released
Warmaster is always mentioned as the big fail that was DoA and only 10 people ever played, when people ask why GW is not re-releasing it like the other old specialist games
yet it is forgotten as soon as the discussion comes to "did GW ever made a mistake"
What happened to Kerrunch?
Dreadfleet must have been big success too as well as Inquisitor
Dreadful fleet was a big sales mistake in that they changed the scale from Man O war, then made an absolutely dire set of rules, so no reason to buy it for the rules or the models. (Literally one mission at the end was roll a D6, 4+ to win.) Large amount of unsold stock exists to this day in some small shops... (the sea mat was good though).
Warmaster was profitable, and incidentally is objectively the best wargaming ruleset they have ever made, being very successful in Ancients, Medieval, WW2, Cold War and a not so successful Sci-fi conversion. It just wasn't as popular as Epic (which is what was expected - indeed when Epic A was released sales in the first quarter were 400% of Warmaster with a far more limited set of models) and worse had low profitability baked into it. The model design was great but murder on moulds, so quality control was a pain and new moulds were needed after a relatively few spins massively driving up costs. The issue there was its return wasn't high enough and it started the fears of SG stuff cannibalising their own sales. THis ultimately killed off SG stuff for a while following a soft relaunch of BFG in America where while overall sales were up, 40k sales dropped by almost as much leaving a situation of increased costs for similar sales and a worse return overall for the company.
Someone posted above about companies never turning down profit. They do, all the time, for a whole host of reasons. Damaging future sales or current % profitability is a couple of them. In short its often better to make a bigger profit on a lower turnover.
You had the perfect storm of kicking their entire WHFB fanbase between the legs, the hugely negative press that brought even from people who weren't WHFB fans - if you're willing to take 1/3 of your core game's out back and blow it's brains out, who's to say they weren't going to do the same thing if AoS wasn't successful? - and most importantly the rules were practically non-existent. The entire relaunch hinged on Ground Marines being popular enough a concept to bring over 40k players and hope that WHFB players would be more loyal to the Games Workshop brand than rank and file fantasy.
AoS owes it's success to two factors. 1) GHB actually gave people what they'd been begging for since Day 1 (points). 2) The 8th edition of 40k revitalised a massive amount of 'good will' towards GW as a whole, which also meant people were willing to give AoS more of a shot by proxy, particularly from people who still had WHFB armies but still couldn't comprehend the idea of playing anything that wasn't a Games Workshop branded game.
Ask any LFGS owner and they'll more than likely tell you that AoS's launch box sets were gathering dust so high that it still puts Dominion (SELLING FAST!) to shame.
Vorian wrote: You're changing your argument.
Did having no points probably affect sales? Sure, it was unpopular.
Changing that was obvious because it basically only had up sides for GW.
What's at issue is that sales collapsed due to rules. That's just an unsupported statement on many levels.
points were not the only thing that changed, but what else was the reason that AoS did not sell until the rules were changed if it was not the rules?
or is you argument that AoS must have sold well and the change just increased the sales because we don't have numbers for low sales?
than what was the reason for the big change at GWHQ if not the low sales for AoS?
and no, my argument is still the same
AoS crashed on release because of the rules, and this crashed caused all sort of changes at GW
regular FAQ/Errata, interaction with the community, at least trying to make playable rules for their games happened because AoS did not sell with the initial rules released
Automatically Appended Next Post:
The_Real_Chris wrote: Warmaster was profitable, and incidentally is objectively the best wargaming ruleset they have ever made, being very successful in Ancients, Medieval, WW2, Cold War and a not so successful Sci-fi conversion. It just wasn't as popular as Epic (which is what was expected - indeed when Epic A was released sales in the first quarter were 400% of Warmaster with a far more limited set of models) and worse had low profitability baked into it. The model design was great but murder on moulds, so quality control was a pain and new moulds were needed after a relatively few spins massively driving up costs.
I know, it is just that in nearly all other topics if people talk about failed games that Warmaster is mentioned as the prime example, except this time were GW never had any failed game at all and even the (wrong) example of Warmaster was not a thing
Vorian wrote: You're changing your argument.
Did having no points probably affect sales? Sure, it was unpopular.
Changing that was obvious because it basically only had up sides for GW.
What's at issue is that sales collapsed due to rules. That's just an unsupported statement on many levels.
points were not the only thing that changed, but what else was the reason that AoS did not sell until the rules were changed if it was not the rules?
or is you argument that AoS must have sold well and the change just increased the sales because we don't have numbers for low sales?
than what was the reason for the big change at GWHQ if not the low sales for AoS?
and no, my argument is still the same
AoS crashed on release because of the rules, and this crashed caused all sort of changes at GW
regular FAQ/Errata, interaction with the community, at least trying to make playable rules for their games happened because AoS did not sell with the initial rules released
You still have no idea if it crashed, how it compared to Warhammer before or what any changes before or since were due to.
I also have no idea so won't go writing nonsense pretending I do.
All I can see is GW basically continually selling out everything it can produce and announcing record revenue and profits.
Re: Warmaster, depends on what your definition of success or failure is. It died along with all the specialist stuff and obviously not all that can be described as a failure given the amazing sales on their return.
But even if we imagine Warmaster was a failure, the one thing you couldn't blame it on would be the rules - which as stated were generally looked upon very well.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: None of this is absolutely anything to do with GW's made to order promise for Kill Team and the effect that has had (namely on scalpers).
It seems like they haven't had to dip into the MTO promise at all, so I guess either the promise worked and scalpers stayed away, or maybe GW overestimated the popularity and there was no risk of it selling out.
Yeah, though as stated on the previous page, eBay would suggest scalpers are still making coin. I also think it was potentially poor timing for the pre-order/release.
End of the month is fine for the release, but the middle of August, a typical holiday period that is expensive, I wonder how many people felt they couldn't afford to pre-order at the moment, maybe not a huge amount, but potentially enough to creep into a perceived overstock.
Finally, and baring in mind I have ordered two sets, maybe the price was prohibitive enough for some customers to not order multiple sets like many usually do (I've been extremely tempted to order a third today, but I've held off).
endlesswaltz123 wrote: Yeah, though as stated on the previous page, eBay would suggest scalpers are still making coin.
I checked ebay and it didn't seem like there were a ton of scalpers up, only a few, and not tons sold, so I don't know if they're really making much off it.
There'll always be a few weirdos who will pay a big price for something, but it doesn't seem like ebay is crawling with Kill Team scalpers at this point.
Or maybe I'm just missing the listings you're referring to.
So long as the release is limited then scalpers will make money. The further away we get from the release, the more they can charge. GW can try whatever antics they want, until they change the basic dynamics of the release being limited, then scalping will bring in money.
If the box is available as MTO and you have X days to order a thing you will be guaranteed a copy of, then IMO that's not limited. I'd argue it isn't even FOMO since we know the Kommando's and DKoK minis will also be available separately. So at most you'll miss out on Ork modular terrain which while cool, isn't really the selling point of the box.
Gert wrote: If the box is available as MTO and you have X days to order a thing you will be guaranteed a copy of, then IMO that's not limited. I'd argue it isn't even FOMO since we know the Kommando's and DKoK minis will also be available separately. So at most you'll miss out on Ork modular terrain which while cool, isn't really the selling point of the box.
kodos wrote: GW has also proven that if the rules are too bad, sales collapse over night
Did that ever actually happen?
ever heard of the first Version of AoS?
this was not selling until they added something that at least looked like rules to the game
Somewhat a case in point:
First red dot is release of AoS. Second red dot is when points were added. Blue dots are half year reports. 40K 8th came in on the green dot and wouldn't have reported sales until the FYE, so the circled area encompasses whatever sales bump AoS getting points had. But do note that WHC come online at the magenta dot as well as a lot of hyped 40K releases so it's quite hard to discern the real impact. In either case the stock prior was very, very flat.
Gert wrote: So to recap, the DKoK, Kommandos, terrain, and rule book will all be available separately. Which leaves, what? The board and maybe a mission booklet?
I dunno if the Octarius book will be available separately?'
Reviews have said that the Octarius book is basically what outlines how you should be playing the game, and currently it's only in the boxed set.
Gert wrote: So to recap, the DKoK, Kommandos, terrain, and rule book will all be available separately. Which leaves, what? The board and maybe a mission booklet?
I dunno if the Octarius book will be available separately?'
Reviews have said that the Octarius book is basically what outlines how you should be playing the game, and currently it's only in the boxed set.
It probably will be, since one of the incentives to buy it will be the Missions inside utilising the Ork terrain. It also contains the Veteran Guard and Kommando rules (for KT anyway). I imagine GW will want you spending an additional £30 for those as well as your actual, separate box of them.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: And where did that chart come from, given GW don’t, and have never, published by system sales results externally?
Sorry - to be clear that's just a stock price overlayed with events.
On the green dot GW reported 158M up from 118M ( 2016 ), 123M ( 2015 ), and 123M ( 2014).
Now I will say that before WHC the half year report of May 16 to Nov 16 was up to 70M from 55M so there was a significant bump after AoS points, but before WHC. Some of that could have stull been 40K given the supplement frenzy in that timeframe.
Gert wrote: So to recap, the DKoK, Kommandos, terrain, and rule book will all be available separately. Which leaves, what? The board and maybe a mission booklet?
I dunno if the Octarius book will be available separately?'
Reviews have said that the Octarius book is basically what outlines how you should be playing the game, and currently it's only in the boxed set.
Wouldn't be shocked if the Octarius stuff ends up in the Octarius book...or if they'll do "Kill Team" dedicated branded boxes.
Gert wrote: If the box is available as MTO and you have X days to order a thing you will be guaranteed a copy of, then IMO that's not limited. I'd argue it isn't even FOMO since we know the Kommando's and DKoK minis will also be available separately.
To me, FOMO means there is a relevant amount of sales happening due to that fear of mission out; as in those sales would not have occurred otherwise. That is the whole point after all; to generate additional sales.
Do we really think there are a decent number of people buying these limited boxes who would not have if they weren't limited? The only block I see would be scalpers, who aren't in the FOMO category.
Personally I feel it is just that launch boxes are a great way to drive hype and get a lot of product into the community in a burst (which drives community engagement). There is no sinister ulterior motive. But there are a lot of people who want there to be. Especially now with the whole debacle around warhammer+ and content creators people are unhappy with GW and are actively looking for more reasons to justify that. So they see malice where there is none, peers who like GW become brainless sheep, and so on.
But taking a step back it's pretty funny, because there is a laundry list of legitimate criticisms to level against GW that so often go unmentioned in favor of the flavor of the month accusation. Maybe they fear missing out on the latest insult?
It hurts immediate sales when you announce everything will be available separately and a new box is coming every 3 months.
I appreciate the honesty from GW for once. Instead of getting pissed off because we missed something, or paying for things we perceive as having no value (terrain,rules,tokens,models). We can just wait.
kodos wrote: GW has also proven that if the rules are too bad, sales collapse over night
Did that ever actually happen?
ever heard of the first Version of AoS?
this was not selling until they added something that at least looked like rules to the game
Somewhat a case in point:
First red dot is release of AoS. Second red dot is when points were added. Blue dots are half year reports. 40K 8th came in on the green dot and wouldn't have reported sales until the FYE, so the circled area encompasses whatever sales bump AoS getting points had. But do note that WHC come online at the magenta dot as well as a lot of hyped 40K releases so it's quite hard to discern the real impact. In either case the stock prior was very, very flat.
This chart is entirely useless for evaluating the direct financial impact of a game or product line on GWs business operations, stock performance is not directly tied to a companies financial success, there are many companies out there that have their ticker price *drop* despite increases in revenues and sales due to perceived future headwinds, etc. making future growth seem unlikely and thus triggering selling action, etc. I.E. "correlation does not equal causation" when it comes to ticker price.
An actual accounting of GWs financial reporting is more helpful, and conveniently has been floating around online for quite some time:
Theophony wrote: And where are the markers for the revenue brought in as they shilled all the video game licenses and black library with H.H. Books?
They don't usually break out BL revenue at all, but thats irrelevant anyway because the HH series had been going for basically the entirety of that timeline.
The video game license shilling is basically irrelevant, the revenue generated from licensing in total was about 1.5 million GBP in 2015, 6 million in 2016, 7.5 million in 2017, 9.9 million in 2018 (which is where the timeline ends). Since then its grown to around 16.5 million GBP, but still only a miniscule fraction of GWs total revenue.
So the main Octarius orders (delivery on the 28th) are out of stock. I'm surprised the "made to order" version isn't back up and taking orders, at least for the next week.
Breotan wrote: So the main Octarius orders (delivery on the 28th) are out of stock. I'm surprised the "made to order" version isn't back up and taking orders, at least for the next week.
Gert wrote: If the box is available as MTO and you have X days to order a thing you will be guaranteed a copy of, then IMO that's not limited. I'd argue it isn't even FOMO since we know the Kommando's and DKoK minis will also be available separately.
To me, FOMO means there is a relevant amount of sales happening due to that fear of mission out; as in those sales would not have occurred otherwise. That is the whole point after all; to generate additional sales.
Do we really think there are a decent number of people buying these limited boxes who would not have if they weren't limited? The only block I see would be scalpers, who aren't in the FOMO category.
Personally I feel it is just that launch boxes are a great way to drive hype and get a lot of product into the community in a burst (which drives community engagement). There is no sinister ulterior motive. But there are a lot of people who want there to be. Especially now with the whole debacle around warhammer+ and content creators people are unhappy with GW and are actively looking for more reasons to justify that. So they see malice where there is none, peers who like GW become brainless sheep, and so on.
But taking a step back it's pretty funny, because there is a laundry list of legitimate criticisms to level against GW that so often go unmentioned in favor of the flavor of the month accusation. Maybe they fear missing out on the latest insult?
100%. The boxes are essentially GW's method of discounting – Dual boxes (quarterly sale), Christmas bundles (annual sales), and launch boxes (whatever you call a sale that happens 2 out of every 3 years), with Broken Realms/Apocalypse/etc. combos sprinkled in on occasion.
I think people's frustration was that these customer appreciation discounts were being hoarded/scalped by people who saw it primarily as a way to soak fans financially. This MTO promise is a great way to split the baby – fans get a realistic crack at the savings while GW doesn't have to offer the discount in perpetuity. For all the flak GW has caught over animations and their treatment of staff, this is a good example of how to do things right.
Gert wrote: So to recap, the DKoK, Kommandos, terrain, and rule book will all be available separately. Which leaves, what? The board and maybe a mission booklet?
Gert wrote: So to recap, the DKoK, Kommandos, terrain, and rule book will all be available separately. Which leaves, what? The board and maybe a mission booklet?
Discount.
Yea, and I wouldn't call the Kill Team box at official GW price much of a discount.
Gert wrote: So to recap, the DKoK, Kommandos, terrain, and rule book will all be available separately. Which leaves, what? The board and maybe a mission booklet?
Discount.
Yea, and I wouldn't call the Kill Team box at official GW price much of a discount.
Checked up how much books etc cost? Add to that terrain and models. Compare to kt price. There's your discount.
This chart is entirely useless for evaluating the direct financial impact of a game or product line on GWs business operations, stock performance is not directly tied to a companies financial success, there are many companies out there that have their ticker price *drop* despite increases in revenues and sales due to perceived future headwinds, etc. making future growth seem unlikely and thus triggering selling action, etc. I.E. "correlation does not equal causation" when it comes to ticker price.
An actual accounting of GWs financial reporting is more helpful, and conveniently has been floating around online for quite some time:
For GW it does more so, because they pay dividends and higher sales pays a better dividend thereby boosting stock. That chart agrees with mine. Stock and revenue were really flat until WH:C and/or AoS and/or 40K campaigns lifted sales. Honestly I'd go with WH:C being the biggest driver.
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Great move by 
