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Hulksmash wrote:Not in Cali. Unless they give them permission to leave for 30 minutes for lunch and close the store for 2 10 minute breaks a day they are going to need to have 2 employees. Dang state labor laws anyway

Hulksmash, this is exactly what the small GW does near me (closes for 45 minutes from 2:00-2:45 for the manager's lunch, since he operates the store alone). They're also closed on Mondays.

It's kind of a turn off... I've taken to going to the GW in a mall, which is further away, but has good hours, and there's always at least 2 employees working, usually with a third either working or just hanging out there. It's nice to have more staff to ask things, or in my case since we're playing in a league night, to run things.

I was especially disappointed in the smaller store when I decided to play the GW North American tournament game there- the manager called a guy for me to play (since only 3 of us had signed up) and the guy brought an illeagal army! I didn't find out until after the game... and that was an official event. Major bummer and makes me want to go to the larger GW stores in the area, where there's more than 1 staff member working at a time.

Ya before they closed this year the two shops around me would "close" for the managers lunch.


Which really sucked if you were driving in from out of town to meet someone for a game only to find the store closed fro 45 min. (happened to me twice)

Lets look at it this way. The hobbie has always been about us. Not to sound big headed but it is us. What we model what we kit out. When we play who we play with.

IMHO GW has forgot this long ago and did like every money hungry big biz did and pushed away gamers with higher and higher prices.

Its not so much that they over extended as they forgot a cheap (fill in the blank) will sell to loyal gamers who want the next awesome model for their armies.

When you think about it we have many outlets to put our money into. Why should we bother to buy a model thats overpriced and we know most are. When the same money buys more in another game system,

Good news is if they do go under our models will be worth more.. hehehehe

Well, they're not going under anytime soon, imho. Just cutting store hours is a cost saving move, not anything signaling real trouble.

Personally, I know GW thinks I am expendable, but I enjoy the hobby and so I'll keep on playing it . That part I can do regardless of the company's attitude or corporate practices. Those really don't affect me too much, except when I read on tha intarwebs11!1, and sometimes in the staff's attitude in the store- but they need to make money, so I don't begrudge it too much.

I do think cutting the hours (and locations) isn't a very good idea... like I pointed out, it's already caused me to play at a different GW store, and if that one did similarly, I might need to search out a FLGS (haven't found one yet) to play at.

I'm hoping they shift their focus back to private retailers, like during their Golden Age in the 90's.

what is this "UK model" this Kirby individual is trying to shoehorn in the U.S.?

terminus wrote:I'm hoping they shift their focus back to private retailers, like during their Golden Age in the 90's.

what is this "UK model" this Kirby individual is trying to shoehorn in the U.S.?

What exactly was this golden age? Why happened in it that made it so "golden".

It was a hobby by hobbyists for hobbyists.

Then towards the end of 2nd edition, Andy Chambers proclaimed that hobbyists have jobs, bills, and girlfriends, plus tons of models already, so the company shifted gears towards dumber, simplified rules targeted at churning through kids with mommy's credit card.

Then, as the miniature market grew and competitors appeared, GW didn't want to share shelf-space with "the upstarts", and changed their policies to strangle private and online retailers in favor of their own proprietary stores where it's all GW, all the time, and may god have mercy on your soul if you mention another system because GW sure as hell won't.

Eventually the company evolved into the distant (some would say clueless) corporate behemoth we know so well, driving the original hobbyists/designers out, or marginalizing them to specialty games and Fanatic (which inevitably they also canned), and replaced them with smiling, suit-wearing, corporate shills that wouldn't know respect for their customers from their donkey-caves.

jbunny wrote:

mattyboy22 wrote:

Balance wrote:

Chapterhouse wrote:OH I want to see the loss from theft numbers that occur with one person running a store..

Nevermind outside theft, internal theft will be nuts as well.

Internal theft would be easy to identify...

I'm guessing this would have to be part of a program to reduce the store to little more than pure stores, removing the 'community' aspects.

When you do inventory once a year, you can work there for 6 months and quit with a whole bunch of free armies.

I worked for companies that had a policy that if a manager quit the company would preform a mini inventory to make sure they were not stealing anything on the way out.

Unless GW changed its policy, that's not applicable!


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skrulnik wrote:I would think that GW would do what they can to make the stores the "Go To" place for their product.

But they seem to undercut their own retail wherever they can, what with no shipping and "Direct" items that you have to buy online.

Direct only items should be in the shops. It gives the impulse buyer with online experience a reason to go to the physical shop.

It is still "Direct" from GW. I can't get it from a OLGS or FLGS.

Cutting the morning hours on weekdays makes sense, but the late Saturday start is dumb.

Also, the one staff per shop will bite them more than it saves, IMO. The local GW is usually packed enough that 2 staff are too busy to nadle everything.

With one staffer, people will just leave without buying.

File this under "worst ideas ever" right next to Crystal Pepsi and Battlefield Earth.

On an unrelated note. Mr.Kirby was at the US Bunker a few weeks ago, and now some REALLY good employees are now gone.

terminus wrote:It was a hobby by hobbyists for hobbyists.

Then towards the end of 2nd edition, Andy Chambers proclaimed that hobbyists have jobs, bills, and girlfriends, plus tons of models already, so the company shifted gears towards dumber, simplified rules targeted at churning through kids with mommy's credit card.

Then, as the miniature market grew and competitors appeared, GW didn't want to share shelf-space with "the upstarts", and changed their policies to strangle private and online retailers in favor of their own proprietary stores where it's all GW, all the time, and may god have mercy on your soul if you mention another system because GW sure as hell won't.

Eventually the company evolved into the distant (some would say clueless) corporate behemoth we know so well, driving the original hobbyists/designers out, or marginalizing them to specialty games and Fanatic (which inevitably they also canned), and replaced them with smiling, suit-wearing, corporate shills that wouldn't know respect for their customers from their donkey-caves.

AMEN!

hungryp wrote:

terminus wrote:It was a hobby by hobbyists for hobbyists.

Then towards the end of 2nd edition, Andy Chambers proclaimed that hobbyists have jobs, bills, and girlfriends, plus tons of models already, so the company shifted gears towards dumber, simplified rules targeted at churning through kids with mommy's credit card.

Then, as the miniature market grew and competitors appeared, GW didn't want to share shelf-space with "the upstarts", and changed their policies to strangle private and online retailers in favor of their own proprietary stores where it's all GW, all the time, and may god have mercy on your soul if you mention another system because GW sure as hell won't.

Eventually the company evolved into the distant (some would say clueless) corporate behemoth we know so well, driving the original hobbyists/designers out, or marginalizing them to specialty games and Fanatic (which inevitably they also canned), and replaced them with smiling, suit-wearing, corporate shills that wouldn't know respect for their customers from their donkey-caves.

AMEN!

Amen to what. That is a big bunch of revisionist thinking with Rose tinted glasses. I have been in this hobby in the UK 2/3 ed and the US through 3/4/5. For a start AC was just a designer. Second, 2ed was a total CF that made it very difficult to attract friends in it to play. The easier rules in 3ed brought new blood into a hobby that was getting quite staid - 3ed rules were simplied but they weren't dumb. 2ed was a set of the clunkiest slowest ruleset going and full if characters that were way over powered often resulting in immovable force meeting unlimited force.

GW only put roadblocks in internet sales in the US because the US competition laws suck. Also, I guarantee you will find very few brick and morter stores that are unhappy with the anti-internet biase GW has in the US.

Do you actually think that if there was sufficient margin in Specialist Games etc they would have kept it on rather than kill it? I have NEVER seen a game of Epic played in store, very few games of Mordium and only occasional games of Bloodbowl - usually played by people who have a full set of mini's who aren't buying anything. I haven't played BFG in 2 years. This is no different to a car company killing of a loved brand that is just taking too much effort and resources for very little return.

He may have been just a designer, but he was the first to espouse that theory (I wish I still had his internal company memo that got circulated around).

While retailers don't care about their web shenanigans, they continuously made things hard for private shops, making it difficult to acquire new stock or placing ridiculous artificial requirements such as amount of shelf space that must be dedicated to GW-only, or minimal distance between GW stock and that of rival companies, or limiting what kind of promotions they could run. I know because I worked at an LGS through most of highschool, and have been listening to the managers bitch about GW for over a decade since (I say managers because these are guys that ran multiple stores all over the south east United States, and still meet every other year for their own mini-40k/WFB tournament/convention).

And 2nd edition was a rich and detailed game, and while things could get out of hand, there was nothing that couldn't be solved by a vortex grenade. My best memories of 40k games come from those times, and if you played games large enough to mitigate those super characters, or simply played without characters at all (like a larger-scale necromunda basically, where the grunts were the characters), it was a very rewarding experience. I'm sorry you and your friends lacked the imagination to make it work for you, so you needed everything to be standardized and identical, and let dice decide the outcome of games.

And the specialist games were among the best systems ever released by GW (Epic was way better than 40K, Warmaster was way better than WFB, Necromunda was way better than Mordheim or that bs LotR they publish now, even Battlefleet Gothic had its appeal), and during those systems' release and brief product support, they often eclipsed the flagship games in number of people playing. But GW adopted the same policy of pushing a product hard to churn through as many customers as possible, and then abandon it. You don't think people quit those games because support for them became non-existent? They never even finished some of the promised product lines. The same mentality exists now: rumors abound they have redesigned the whole DE range but fear putting in into production due to slow sales of DE in recent years. Hmm, do you think that has to do with the complete and utter lack of attention or new releases for over a decade? Naaah, it must be because people only want Spess Mahreenz.

So I may be viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses, but you need to get off GW's dick.

2nd was f'd up. Third was a pretty balanced, decent game. With 4th and 5th, the rules have been dumbed down a little each time, but the worst part has been most armies taking a step further from balance and closer to ZOMGIWINXORS-Hammer with every release.

terminus wrote:He may have been just a designer, but he was the first to espouse that theory (I wish I still had his internal company memo that got circulated around).

No he wasn't. That theory was esposed by senior management way before AC - things had already been positioned that way. The usual GW "we are a hobby/ we are a professional company" swings and roundabouts had all ready happened several times.

While retailers don't care about their web shenanigans, they continuously made things hard for private shops, making it difficult to acquire new stock or placing ridiculous artificial requirements such as amount of shelf space that must be dedicated to GW-only, or minimal distance between GW stock and that of rival companies, or limiting what kind of promotions they could run. I know because I worked at an LGS through most of highschool, and have been listening to the managers bitch about GW for over a decade since (I say managers because these are guys that ran multiple stores all over the south east United States, and still meet every other year for their own mini-40k/WFB tournament/convention).

Funny. We never had any problems in the UK getting stock or having deliveries on time. Often, in my experience, LGS often complain about getting stock are usually the worst run. We never missed a payment and we were well stocked. We got freebies and help - heck the even offerred to send staff round to help build terrain.

And 2nd edition was a rich and detailed game, and while things could get out of hand, there was nothing that couldn't be solved by a vortex grenade. My best memories of 40k games come from those times, and if you played games large enough to mitigate those super characters, or simply played without characters at all (like a larger-scale necromunda basically, where the grunts were the characters), it was a very rewarding experience.

Rewarding? We are talking about toy soldiers right? As for games, had more fun playing non-GW games.

I'm sorry you and your friends lacked the imagination to make it work for you, so you needed everything to be standardized and identical, and let dice decide the outcome of games.

oooooh classy. The bitter and twisted 2ed guy speaks. Yawn. Been hearing the same old crap about 2ed for years. Curious - you still play it? Virtually everyone I knew ditched it gleefully (both US & UK)

And the specialist games were among the best systems ever released by GW blah blah blah blah

Yes they were. But no-one bought them outside of the initial release year. You seem to think a company is obligated to keep producing everything it makes. It didn't sell. In the UK, everytime there was a sale (yes going back that far) all the Epic blisters were in the bargin bins and still they didn't sell. Like I say - I have NEVER seen a game of Epic played in a store and that is in two countries and mutliple stores.

So I may be viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses, but you need to get off GW's dick.

Awesome. Not only do you have a faulty memory you are stupid enough to make staements with out checking up first. Just ditched all my GW stuff except for some DE stuff for 40k and my ogres. In the past 6 months I have bought exactly 2 WD's and a couple o'pots of paint. May I ask you what you have bought? As per usual the rabid anti-GW-fanboi goes to the fanboi accusation. So amusing.

Bought as far as GW products go? There was some fool on Bartertown selling Death Korps models for 30% off, which I jumped on. Other than that, I just traded a lot of my old unused models from the 90s and extraneous stuff from Hordes to fill out my IG. We actually do still occasionally play 2nd edition 40k and Necromunda (hell, last New Years' we busted out the Rogue Trader book, now there's a clusterfeth of rules) when the old gang gets together, but sadly we all live in different cities now.

Not that I have much time for gaming being at the hospital 60+ hours a week. When I do have the time (whole week off, woo!), 5th edition is all the locals play. Thankfully, I tolerate/enjoy the 5th edition rule-set for the most part (couldn't stomach 3rd after the codexes started coming out, and liked nothing about 4th), minus "true" LOS and some of the particulars of vehicle rules. WM is about the only product I actively buy models for these days, and even then only the brand new stuff that no one is trading on B-town. Don't get me wrong with the "Golden Age" comment; GW was better then than it is now, but it certainly wasn't perfect. Even PP, who are 100x superior as a company aren't perfect, although I'd love for them to buy out GW.

And I take offense at the slight against the LGS's management It's been around for over 20 years, and has only ever grown and prospered, when such shops are closing down all over the place every single day. Maybe (more like undoubtedly) GW treats the UK stores better due to your proximity (they don't seem to be pulling out of the UK stores like they did with Canada and are doing with the US), but here in the States they gave us nothing but trouble.

"Checking up first"? Forgive me for not running a background check first before making an assumption about some guy defending GW on the internet. If you trying to clarify your position as one not defending GW's (d)evolution as a company, but rather that they suck now and have always sucked, then fair enough. And on that note, GW paints suck, and White Dwarf is a $9 catalog of advertisements. I didn't think it could get any worse from the Fat Bloke era, but it has.

I had it confirmed for me today that GW Regional Manager positions are being eliminated, so I'm wondering how GW will enforce cleanliness and other chain-wide standards in their stores after that. The events calendar and the concept of having events for all three game systems every weekend in the stores is also apparently being chucked out as well, so it will be interesting to see how many community members in each store continue or not to show up on weekends. This all will certainly have at least a minor impact on the community building efforts of the past few years. This is getting weirder by the minute.

terminus wrote:I'm hoping they shift their focus back to private retailers, like during their Golden Age in the 90's.

what is this "UK model" this Kirby individual is trying to shoehorn in the U.S.?

They are actually going off the Japan sales model, which is BY FAR AND AWAY their most profitable market, from a percentages point of view (not from total sales, which is still dominated by the US).


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terminus wrote:
And the specialist games were among the best systems ever released by GW (Epic was way better than 40K, Warmaster was way better than WFB, Necromunda was way better than Mordheim or that bs LotR they publish now, even Battlefleet Gothic had its appeal), and during those systems' release and brief product support, they often eclipsed the flagship games in number of people playing. But GW adopted the same policy of pushing a product hard to churn through as many customers as possible, and then abandon it. You don't think people quit those games because support for them became non-existent? They never even finished some of the promised product lines. The same mentality exists now: rumors abound they have redesigned the whole DE range but fear putting in into production due to slow sales of DE in recent years. Hmm, do you think that has to do with the complete and utter lack of attention or new releases for over a decade? Naaah, it must be because people only want Spess Mahreenz.

Wow, where have you been gaming? I've been in GW since 3rd was released (bought my first stuff the week after 3rd hit the stores), and in ALL THAT TIME, I've never EVER seen Epic, Warmaster, or Gothic played in a store. Sure, i knew people who had it, and played it in their garage, but those people had grey Grizzly Adams beards with permanent mustard stains, wore leather bicycle gloves and 80's mesh sleeveless t-shirts, and you could tell they were on their way to the store because the paint started peeling off your models 15 minutes before they got their from their impenetrable aura of BO.

Come to think of it, all they do when they visit the store is alment about the good ol' days too, before they truck back to their mothers' basements.

Necromunda and Bloodbowl and Mordheim were all legit systems, but their big problem is that they were unprofitable. How many bloodbowl players do you know that buy new miniatures on any kind of frequent basis? How many models do you need to have for Necromunda? I've been playing my Necro campaigns with the same 9 models for about 7 years.

How dare a company try to remain solvent or even *GASP!* profitable in these hard economic times.

You want to go live under a rock and remember the good old days of horrible body order in a dungeon of an independent retailer that stank of the most stale cigarette smoke imaginable and play games with the most ass-tastic models ever produced? That's your right, and I wish you a good time doing so. Enjoy your games of Epic, I truly hope you do.

But to blast a company for keeping their bottom line as their top priority is ABSOLUTELY MORONIC, especially in today's financial climate.

I'm not talking about major supports and launches for all these games, they cut even the rudimentary support of Fanatic (which was basically articles on how to convert gak they wouldn't make models for, and things in a similar vein). Don't want to publish a magazine? Go online. But no, everything they release is just BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY!

I'm not blasting them for trying to remain solvent either, I just think they are going about it the wrong way. For example, look at Privateer Press. They are absolutely exploding as a company, and yet they aren't throwing up their own stores all over the place, they communicate with their audience, and provide constant events, tournaments, and a league system, all with prize support, and now a newly redesigned league system with new missions, prizes, and new rules for existing models that they make available to their customers free of charge (gasp!). You know, all of the things GW has all but phased out (at least in North America).

PP are able to turn a profit by keeping their players interested in the game, as opposed to the GW mentality of "buy this newest thing, then GTFO". My hope with this downsizing that GW is doing, is that they are trying to return to that same style where they provide the product and support (in form of events, campaigns, tournaments, etc), and let the actual local stores do most of the selling and recruiting. Trying to become the only source of their own models was the dumbest thing they ever did. Think about it, if you've never played a miniatures game before, but you play CCGs, or collect baseball cards, or simply read comic books or watch anime, and you walk into an LGS (that usually carries most, if not all of those things), and see a bunch of people having fun with 40K and maybe even a demo table, there's a good possibility you could get hooked. But if there is a store that only deals in their particular product, that you have no innate interest in and have never heard of before, what are the odds you'll stop in and drop a few hundred on an army?

And yes, there are a bunch of those old filthy bastards, but most of them play ancient board games from the 80s no one has ever heard from, or some historic recreation games with little lead markers for troops. Any decent store has a rule about B.O., it doesn't need the shiny corporate spit-polish to attract a good audience. The stores that have sloppy management, and are frequented by such lowlives usually end up shutting down. What are the stores that succeed doing? Well, they stick GW in a small corner somewhere, and focus on competitor games and other product lines. Either way, not good for GW.

I'm not blasting them for keeping their bottom line as their top priority, I'm blasting them for having their heads so far up their asses, that they come right back out of their necks again, except this time with their eyes and ears plugged with gak.

At least U.S. wise, it is an interesting read on the GW page regarding Real Estate. Despite the diminishing numbers of employees at stores, it appears they are looking to expand in the U.S.

When they announced the cancellation of all 2010 tournaments, they said they had something special in store for 2011. I hope whatever it is they are doing succeeds, because honestly I've invested too much time and money into their products over the years not to want them to prosper and expand (if only for more people to kick around with my apparently cheesy IG codex).

My god this is depressing...

BrassScorpion wrote:I had it confirmed for me today that GW Regional Manager positions are being eliminated, so I'm wondering how GW will enforce cleanliness and other chain-wide standards in their stores after that.

Fear will keep the local stores in line.....

I find it funny many people here keep saying GW just selling their own product is a bad business. Really? I guess that is why they are still in buisness and you are complaining about them.

There is this GW store in a big shopping Center. I swored up and down, it would only lat 6 months because any shot that opened up in the exact spot didn't last for more than 6 months. Well 10 years later they are still there. If the buisness didn't work, I don't think they would still be there for 10 years or more. Espically where rent is very expensive, and they survive for 10 years or more. So they must be doing something right.

So the buisness of them selling their own product does seem to be making them lots of money. It might not make any sense, but it does work. Otherwise the store wouldn't have lasted this long as it did.

Wow,

What is even more interesting is people chiming in saying I have been playing since 3rd edition, yadda yadda. Playing since 3rd edition doesnt give you much insight, as the model for the company changed around that time. You didnt see what was happening before and how successful it was.

I was working and playing in a store at 2nd edition. I remember when Necromunda and Battlefleet Gothic came out in my store. We would have weekly tournaments and league play for those games all the time, and it was always busy.

Then GW started getting greedy and the 12 store chain here in Dallas said "adios" GW.

Honestly I dont know why GW shut down support for those games. It could not have been very expensive (most of them were metal kits, low to start to produce and make).

I know they brought in money to for the company, its just like all of the sudden they got lazy and said they did not want to work on them.

Happygrunt wrote:On an unrelated note. Mr.Kirby was at the US Bunker a few weeks ago, and now some REALLY good employees are now gone.

Pardon my barging in with a first post but wait what? US Bunker as in the Chicago (actually Downer's Grove) Bunker? From what I've been told, that's the biggest bunker in the US. Also, the area has some REALLY good employees at the other stores, and one in particular, I haven't seen the past two times I've been in, though he's still listed as the manager on the GW website. Instead, the regional manager was running the store (on Battle Missions release day).

One thing to think about is that Many Gamestops here in the US operate with only one employee shifts, but during peek hours ( Lunch , Drive home, and weekends) they have a change over period where there can be 2-3 employees in store.

In most Metro areas only the "hub" store has more than one employee all day, now around the holidays that is a different story.

RTBlank wrote:

Happygrunt wrote:On an unrelated note. Mr.Kirby was at the US Bunker a few weeks ago, and now some REALLY good employees are now gone.

Pardon my barging in with a first post but wait what? US Bunker as in the Chicago (actually Downer's Grove) Bunker? From what I've been told, that's the biggest bunker in the US. Also, the area has some REALLY good employees at the other stores, and one in particular, I haven't seen the past two times I've been in, though he's still listed as the manager on the GW website. Instead, the regional manager was running the store (on Battle Missions release day).

Probably Glenn Burnie.

As a returnee to GW games after a long hiatus and NEVER having had a local GW store (not even in Orlando, 3 hours away) this is an interesting thread.

While retailers don't care about their web shenanigans, they continuously made things hard for private shops, making it difficult to acquire new stock or placing ridiculous artificial requirements such as amount of shelf space that must be dedicated to GW-only, or minimal distance between GW stock and that of rival companies, or limiting what kind of promotions they could run.

This is pretty much the norm in all retail. My anecdote is old but I remember working in a music store that didn't carry Fender direct. The reason was that Fender, Ibanez and Peavey all had huge yearly agreements. If they had carried Fender, they couldn't have afforded to carry the other two. There are also similar stipulations in many retail tenant agreements. That is why malls have the big anchor stores on opposite ends and you rarely see 2 pizza joints in the same shopping mall.

Personally, I think that GW stores are a bad idea. I'd wager that there is more value in subsidizing LGS ability to hold events and grow the game. Very few companies in any sector successfully design, produce AND retail their own products.

yay! I was wondering how long it would take this thread to turn into a trolling flamefast...

Personally, I'm glad 2nd edition is long gone... "OK I'm done moving. Let's stop playing with our army men for a minute and play cards. Ok, done, time to shoot stuff lemmie grab my tape measure... Wait, anyone seen my wargear cards? the were here a second ago..."

The games & rules are always gonna be messed up to some degree and you can't make everyone happy. I don't play for the rules I play for the models and the models are the better now than they ever have been.

But, on topic.. it does kind of suck that they're cutting back but it's a sign of the crappy economic state we're in all around. It worries me a bit because I am planning to open a game store one day, not soon but in a while. Sometimes I wonder if this is a good time to start a biz or if I should just shelf my plans and keep the dead end day job...

Necros wrote:
Sometimes I wonder if this is a good time to start a biz or if I should just shelf my plans and keep the dead end day job...

Both.
Ideally you want to be able to open a store and still have your dead end day job to help supplement your income for a few months.