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tneva82 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Stuff eBay sellers

I reckon there's a definite market for it. And, a source of interesting and unusual Christmas presents etc.

Don't get counter argument from me! I would love that kind of service myself. Too bad GW probably sees it as competing with itself again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kdash wrote:
If I was too seriously look at making SoB in plastic, I’d have to have solid expected figures way in advance.

Like the moment they released anything for SoB sales blew them by surprise?

Genuine question, as I don’t have any references, and don’t follow the whole argument –

But, what model release blew them away in terms of sales?

Canoness Viridya or Celestine would be my guess?

As for the PoD thing. If you likes it, tells them you likes it. If my idea becomes a popular idea, there's more chance of us getting it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Canoness Viridya or Celestine would be my guess?

As for the PoD thing. If you likes it, tells them you likes it. If my idea becomes a popular idea, there's more chance of us getting it.

The only option i guess is the Canoness, but, i've never seen the model actually used and i thought most saw it was a "collectors" item.

Celestine can't be used as a reference, due to her only being sold as part of the Imperium Tri box set. And even then, it could be argued, brought by a lot of people because of how strong her rules are with all Imperium armies, rather than her being a SoB model.

Sorcererbob wrote:

And why do you think that sisters will be more popular than the lowest-tier? They haven't had a release for years, surely there is no one actually collecting them now.
(/director)

Do you know who was the bottom tier (or damn close to it) and hadn't had a release for years? Tau, prior to their 6th edition codex.

The thing is when armies go without updates to rules for ages; without new models and without company attention people drift away from supporting them. Because of the time invested in building and painting and the cost of models and building an army, many gamers are reluctant to throw good money continually at an army if its simply not performing well in-game and if the company making it are showing signs of not supporting it.

This is not unique to GW - Spartan Games had multiple examples of this taken to the extreme where it wasn't just armies but whole ignored games.


However when the company then shows interest; releases new rules and even a few new models, the interest can rise fast. You bring out of the woodwork many of the former fan-base plus you often gain new fans.


This has happened many times before - Dark Eldar went AGES without a codex and almost vanished. Sisters are likely to be the very same in that all they need is a few new models and updated rules (I would say Sisters does need some plastic if just to help lower their price of entry).



I think GW is trying to move away from this former release pattern because it would leave armies like Sisters, Necrons, Dark Eldar with fewer models, reducing competitive/viable rules and a dwindling sales rate; which then required big investment in marketing, rules and new sculpts/moulds in order to basically restart the release of the faction. Hopefully 8th edition is the real powerful beginning where GW tries to keep most armies on even footing support wise from them - already rules and codex releases have chagned in a big way

 deviantduck wrote:
TV: I'd ignore TV completely. Gun violence/antigun sentiment is at an all time high. Probably not the best time.

Only in the US. In the rest of the developed word we don't have a strong anti-gun sentiment because we don't have a gun violence problem .

 Galas wrote:
I'll love some more female commisars. Theres something... exotic and captivating behind the imaginery of the female fascist officer with an iron fist.

And the commisar clothes fit beautifully well on a female.

Something like this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VakUHHUSdf8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgyH5_JMBts


Can't wait for dem female primaris marine though!

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Sorcererbob wrote:

And why do you think that sisters will be more popular than the lowest-tier? They haven't had a release for years, surely there is no one actually collecting them now.
(/director)

Do you know who was the bottom tier (or damn close to it) and hadn't had a release for years? Tau, prior to their 6th edition codex.

To be honest, I’m not against the idea. And if there is a history of faction recovery generating sales, then all the better. I can’t see why a basic battle sister squad in plastic couldn’t be part of a larger inquisition / custodes / imperium release, and then sales of that kit used to determine if the line should be continued. It seems like a reasonably small risk to approach it like that.

 The Phazer wrote:
Yeesh. This thread.

Trying to take things slightly seriously I wouldn't change much right now, because things are going pretty well, but I'd look into:

1) Tying the videogame IP and miniatures IP more closely together. As much as I love WF, the fact that the Warhammer IP is being used in games and the AoS on the tabletop is a bad idea, business wise. Likewise, key title releases should be tied into miniature support - a DoW release should mean a Blood Raven army book and new support materials. The game box should include a Space Marine sprue and a little booklet. Games are one of your key drivers of bringing people into the IP, but they always feel oddly disconnected from the franchise. Brick and mortar retailers of videogame titles would like it too, it's something to push back against digital sales.

That's a horrible idea. You're tying your sales at the mercy of another entity and pray it doesn't screw up (like, you know, DoW III). Furthermore, an entity that will have a release cycle which you just don't know and whose contents don't match yours! (Because they will work with pre-existing material, and you want to push the new stuff, not pre-existing, already paid for, kits)

2) I'd put more of the Black Library archive titles on to the Kindle platform. I know GW are petrified of other people's platforms, and to some extent they're correct, but for older content that is past it's best sales wise Amazon is literally too big to ignore at this point.

This is sensible and reasonable. Make the older books more accessible.

 Hollow wrote:
That would be terrifying. The vast majority of suggestions made on here are utter dross, my own included!

Back when I played EVE Online, I remember a developer mentioning that if they left development to the players, every ship would powercreep up to a million hit points and 99% resistance to everything.

Letting the public playtest isn't as easy as it might seem. Community feedback on model development was one of the thing Privateer Press changed with Warmachine Mk3. Even though they seem to focus on "give us playtests" and just use the untested feedback forum as a lightning rod for silly suggestions, there's still a lot of people lobbying for their faction and unable to accept when something is too good, heckling battle reports where something is reported as overpowered ("you just lacked skill!"), etc.

And the WM faction communities tend to be much less partisan than 40K ones, if Dakka is any indication.

Sorcererbob wrote:

- Offer a monthly $4 subscription to the core rules in lieu of buying the main book, +$3 for each current codex you subscribe to, plus additional costs that may be associated with legacy/specialty rules. Allow the player to subscribe to the rules that they use.
- Provide a monthly release of rules and points updates (quarterly releases for rules changes, and monthly for errata / points-adjustments). This keeps them subscribing.
- Within that same cost, provide a Battlescribe-like functionality. Put in some additional value-add functionality, like being able to print out unit cards that includes all of the relevant rules, export army lists in PDF, view it on your phone etc.
- Offer a functionality for tournament organisers where players can register their lists. Have the site automatically confirm legality of the list and provide a mechanism for the TO to track success of different players. The goal is to use information gathered through this to drive your rules/points updates.
?

I've been an advocate for a subscription rules service for a long time, $3/codex/month starts to hit very hard for folks with multiple different forces - remember there are 20+ factions out there right now. Given a typical codex last 3-4 years $1/faction/month seems a little more palatable and still earns GW $35-50 for that edition - if not luring to people who don't even play that faction to just grab the dataslates on the app to have them.

A good subscription service typically has tiers, rules and a book or two for $5/mo and then premium for $20/mo with rules and all dataslates. The battlescribe functionality is key, especially if it can remember your units so you can build your dataslates as you build your models and drag and drop them into force org charts. Also key is updating these digital offerings with the FAQ/errata enteries... I hate having a sheet of paper with my digital codex for the errata.

Now, this is player dreaming... if you buy the hard copy book you gain access to the app for free through an access code - similar to buying games on Steam. I like the books, the art, the fluff but don't want it in my gaming app... in the app all i want is rules and dataslates. But I don't want to pay for the same thing twice.

 Elemental wrote:

 Hollow wrote:
That would be terrifying. The vast majority of suggestions made on here are utter dross, my own included!

Back when I played EVE Online, I remember a developer mentioning that if they left development to the players, every ship would powercreep up to a million hit points and 99% resistance to everything.

Very true. Second Life had a "height" characteristic for avatars, and very quickly 90 percent of avatars wound up being 9 or 10 feet tall, (whatever the limit was). Players are generally pretty awful at governing themselves.