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X Wing I'd class a bit like the Lord of the Rings models for GW - it got loads of people in because of the films, but only because of the films. XWing were also prepainted so a lot of the hobby side is lacking. It's a miniature wargame, but its very different in its core to hobby model wargames.


I do agree, the UK scene is likely different, but I'd argue even in the USA whilst DnD/MTG are getting people into the shop/geek scene - I'd bet its GW that is drawing them into wargames more so than others. Though there is likely room for more local variation and local stores could push another game hard.

 warboss wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Anyone know the underlying figures and metrics?

The data is self-reported by retailers, distributors, and publishers, as well as (more recently) Kickstarter sales. The placement correlates to dollar sales, North American market only. Not everyone self-reports (GW does not, so this is based only on self-reporting of retailers sales of GW product and whatever few wholesalers/third party distributors for their products which still remain). In other words, its not really useful or accurate reporting. In this case Battletechs placement is skewed against otherwise incomplete data from other product ranges by the massive kickstarter they just ran. I know Wizkids does self report, and I believe Catalyst does as well, from what I understand AMG/Asmodee only partially reports data (like GW they are protective of their data) and provides an at-best incomplete picture of things. icv2 attempts to guess and estimate their data gap, but it doesn't seem to be very accurate.

In general, I don't put a lot of stock into icv2's reporting data. There was a point where they reported X-Wing was outselling 40k - I can assure you that *never* actually happened and that at its peak X-Wings *worldwide* sales didn't even equal GWs reported sales revenues attributable to the North American market.

Not to put too fine a point on it but you're countering collected anecdotal data with "trust me, bro". I don't know you personally but did you work for Diamond or one of the two companies in question at the time? For what it's worth, I actually agree with you by the way from the simple practical perspective that there simply wasn't enough to purchase for a new player (and that's before considering the massive out of stock periods lasting months after each wave) during the height of the Xwing boom compared with 40k to oversell it globally or even just in the US. Buying a full 40k single army of decent size (2k pts) costed more back then than buying multiple of every ship for every faction in the game (and again that's assuming you can find them all in stock at the same time). Maybe if they had been able to meet the massive unexpected demand during those critical initial years then it might have but I doubt it outsold 40k nationally/globally though I do believe it did so at some stores.

In general I can't really give you much more than trust me bro. What I will say is my SO worked for one of the aforementioned companies and knew key people at the other entities referenced (amongst others) who were privy to this information, though they really only shared that info with me after they left the entities in question, as my SO and them kept in touch and occasionally cross paths with them as they mostly still work in the industry, etc which means I get to meet all sorts of cool people and have cool conversations with them when I tag along at conventions .

In this case the person in question is someone who would definitely know and also someone you may have heard of. The conversation arose because I've been long skeptical of the x-wing outsold 40k claim (and found data to corroborate that it was likely not true, see here - https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/330/799950.page#11190754). The person I spoke with was able to say in rough round numbers what the sales topped at during their time with the company (basically from cradle to grave of FFGs tenure with the game) and that they doubted that it was enough to beat 40k. Pulling up GWs financial report from that year to cross-reference was not at all difficult to do from there.

 Overread wrote:
I do agree, the UK scene is likely different, but I'd argue even in the USA whilst DnD/MTG are getting people into the shop/geek scene - I'd bet its GW that is drawing them into wargames more so than others. Though there is likely room for more local variation and local stores could push another game hard.

Not in my experience. GW has the biggest single share but nowhere near an exclusive share. When I'm in a non-GW store it's usually about a 40/60 split at best between people playing GW and other games miniatures games (with CCGs being at least 10x as many people). The 60-75% non-GW stuff is randomly split between MCP, WM/H, WWII games, etc, and all of them seem to get about the same level of bystander interest. And store layouts seem to reflect that distribution. Most stores I've been in feature non-GW products in the most prominent shelf spots, with several of them having large sections dedicated to each non-GW game and a few random GW kits on a back shelf out of the way of everything important.

That's part of why I wasn't surprised to see D&D miniatures up near the top of the list. One of the stores I've been in most recently had multiple racks of D&D stuff right up front as soon as you walk in the door and you're not doing that with a slow seller.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

deano2099 wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Another vote here for "X-wing was an amazing game killed by a scummy sales model and cash grab edition change"

But had FFG just gone "X-Wing is done, we've released everything and don't think it needs any more ships, but we'll keep printing everything as long as you keep buying it" then it would also be dead. "Oh they stopped supporting it". cf. Imperial Assualt.

Why should it be a dead game if everyone is having fun with the game as it currently is? The obsession with the new content treadmill is baffling.

I don't know. I mostly do board gaming. Wargaming is just a side-hobby for me. I'm always playing "the exact same game with the exact same options every time". I cannot really understand this community and the way something gets jettisoned the second it stops being supported. "There's a new version of Kill Team and it's worse!" Well then play the old version. But people don't.

I suspect a huge part of it is community and group based. Boardgamers have always been acustomed to finding their own spaces to play, arranging their own meet-ups, paying to hire out space or doing deals with pubs or whatever to get regular nights going. Some stores might run open game nights sometimes, but it's also understood that if you go to those, you should at some point buy something from the store, otherwise it isn't sustainable. All this takes effort, but people do it because, outside of playing at home, it's the way you build a community.

Whereas I think wargamers expect to have it done for them. Because for new games, for games when they can still sell you product, that's what happens. The stores run game nights because they know they have new stuff to sell you that you're going to want. Publishers support these game nights with organised play support and promotions as it's good for them as well. So it's expected. So when a game stops releasing new product, the organised play disappears, and the stores start running different games instead. And rather than go "well, we want to keep playing this, so lets organise" it's easier for that established community to go "I guess we'll play this new game now instead". And I think a lot of that is fed by most wargames not being good enough for anyone to really care that much if they go away. And when one is, the community do step up (see: Blood Bowl).

I will give that it's harder to do. Board game communities can grow fast as there's very little barrier to entry. Anyone with a basic level of comprehension can come to a board game night and play something. They don't need to be able to build models or paint, and the rules for a lot of games can be taught very quickly.

But ultimately, it comes down to where the community-building happens. If it's done by the players, the players lead it, and the players can direct it wherever they want, because it's done *for* them. If it's done by the stores, or the publisher, it's being done to sell product - directly or indirectly. So if you want that, you're going to need to buy stuff. And if you stop buying stuff, they will have to find ways to make you buy stuff.

This whole notion of "I don't want to have to pay a tax to keep playing. But I do want game nights and tournaments organised for me" is just never going to work. No-one is going to give you a lifetime of access to free gaming space, tables, opponents, tournament prizes and community just because you spend £300 on an army five years ago.

 Overread wrote:
X Wing I'd class a bit like the Lord of the Rings models for GW - it got loads of people in because of the films, but only because of the films. XWing were also prepainted so a lot of the hobby side is lacking. It's a miniature wargame, but its very different in its core to hobby model wargames.

The Star Wars sequels showed few space battles, so showed nothing to spill into X-Wing games.
There was Rey in the Falcon and Poe over the lake in 'SW7', and the bombers and 'out of fuel' in 'SW8'. The last 2 were one-sided big-ship fights, which are more Armada than X-Wing.
Solo had a bit (heavy bombers appeared), and 'Rogue One' was an attack on a gate.
So, it's no wonder that X-Wing has not fared well since the prequels.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 warboss wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Anyone know the underlying figures and metrics?

The data is self-reported by retailers, distributors, and publishers, as well as (more recently) Kickstarter sales. The placement correlates to dollar sales, North American market only. Not everyone self-reports (GW does not, so this is based only on self-reporting of retailers sales of GW product and whatever few wholesalers/third party distributors for their products which still remain). In other words, its not really useful or accurate reporting. In this case Battletechs placement is skewed against otherwise incomplete data from other product ranges by the massive kickstarter they just ran. I know Wizkids does self report, and I believe Catalyst does as well, from what I understand AMG/Asmodee only partially reports data (like GW they are protective of their data) and provides an at-best incomplete picture of things. icv2 attempts to guess and estimate their data gap, but it doesn't seem to be very accurate.

In general, I don't put a lot of stock into icv2's reporting data. There was a point where they reported X-Wing was outselling 40k - I can assure you that *never* actually happened and that at its peak X-Wings *worldwide* sales didn't even equal GWs reported sales revenues attributable to the North American market.

Not to put too fine a point on it but you're countering collected anecdotal data with "trust me, bro". I don't know you personally but did you work for Diamond or one of the two companies in question at the time? For what it's worth, I actually agree with you by the way from the simple practical perspective that there simply wasn't enough to purchase for a new player (and that's before considering the massive out of stock periods lasting months after each wave) during the height of the Xwing boom compared with 40k to oversell it globally or even just in the US. Buying a full 40k single army of decent size (2k pts) costed more back then than buying multiple of every ship for every faction in the game (and again that's assuming you can find them all in stock at the same time). Maybe if they had been able to meet the massive unexpected demand during those critical initial years then it might have but I doubt it outsold 40k nationally/globally though I do believe it did so at some stores.

In general I can't really give you much more than trust me bro. What I will say is my SO worked for one of the aforementioned companies and knew key people at the other entities referenced (amongst others) who were privy to this information, though they really only shared that info with me after they left the entities in question, as my SO and them kept in touch and occasionally cross paths with them as they mostly still work in the industry, etc which means I get to meet all sorts of cool people and have cool conversations with them when I tag along at conventions .

In this case the person in question is someone who would definitely know and also someone you may have heard of. The conversation arose because I've been long skeptical of the x-wing outsold 40k claim (and found data to corroborate that it was likely not true, see here - https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/330/799950.page#11190754). The person I spoke with was able to say in rough round numbers what the sales topped at during their time with the company (basically from cradle to grave of FFGs tenure with the game) and that they doubted that it was enough to beat 40k. Pulling up GWs financial report from that year to cross-reference was not at all difficult to do from there.

Even taking the relatively “trust me, bro” info? We know GW themselves don’t partake in ICV2.

With that in mind, we can use GW’s published annual results to get an idea of what sort of info isn’t included in ICV2 rankings.

From this year’s annual report - https://assets.ctfassets.net/ost7hseic9hc/3Bxadr0YTIX0hGl1H7DPGe/8e1361726a8e0c8dfef9bcdae8299480/2022-23_accounts_-_final.pdf

Scroll to page 65, where we get a breakdown of GW’s income by region (UK, US, Oz etc) and by sales channel (Retail, Online and Trade).

From there, we can get a rough idea of what sort of percentage of overall sales ICV2 is privy to - though as ever, not broken down by game or system.

2022/2023, North American Trade totalled £112.8m. North American Retail (selling through GW’s own stores) was £41m, and North American Online was £35.7m. For, if me sums aren’t wonky? Makes for a total North American income of £189.5m. Of which 59% came from Trade.

Assuming all their Trade sales were therefore reported? That’s still 41% of North American sales being not being taken into account, let alone the remaining global sales which *quick calculation, cribbed from the same page* £445.4m total, less North American Retail….75% of GW’s overall income not being reported.

Now of course, ICV2 has the same access to the info I just vomited up, because it’s publicly available, so there is every chance there’s some accounting for it. Which is why I asked in the first place. Certainly one could look at the reports they receive, and apply any given “by system” percentage to GW’s own figures. Not necessarily a safe assumption like, but as noted, with GW not offering a “by system” breakdown, still more accurate than a wild stab in the dark.

Conversely though? I don’t recall FFG selling directly, and they definitely don’t have their own Retail stores. Which suggests ICV2 likely takes into account a higher percentage of X-Wings overall sales, and the same for others, again not allowing for companies with their own direct sales websites.

deano2099 wrote:
This whole notion of "I don't want to have to pay a tax to keep playing. But I do want game nights and tournaments organised for me" is just never going to work.

A tax to keep playing is not the same as buying stuff. What killed X-Wing wasn't some entitlement to a free game, it was that the tax to keep playing was just that: a tax. FFG demanded that you spend hundreds of dollars to buy new copies of game components which existed for the sole purpose of being a proof of purchase token in official events, getting nothing at all in return except for the ability to continue playing the game. It's like if every chess organization declared that you are banned from participating in chess tournaments unless you buy a new board every month and submit your receipts when you sign up. Want to keep using your old board because it's identical to the new one? Too bad, no game for you.

If FFG had simply continued to put out legitimate products the game would have survived a lot longer. Stores would have kept selling new products like ships from the new movies and players would have felt that they were continuing to get value for their money. But instead FFG got greedy and went for a shameless cash grab, killing their cash cow in the process.

No-one is going to give you a lifetime of access to free gaming space, tables, opponents, tournament prizes and community just because you spend £300 on an army five years ago.

Why not? I might have bought my stuff five years ago but the new customer who buys the game because I'm there to play with is spending money currently. This is part of why GW ran into so much trouble a few years ago, they focused entirely on new customer sales because that's where the most direct revenue came from and forgot that if a potential new customer walks into the store and sees empty tables instead of a thriving community they're going to walk right back out without buying anything. And that's not even considering the fact that most games have more than a single army to buy and a player who continues to be engaged may decide to buy another army for that game. Or to pick up a different game while they're in the store.

But really stores need to shift to a business model of making money on selling an experience instead of relying on people feeling charitable enough to buy in-store instead of from an online discount store. Maybe that's direct fees for table use, maybe that's having food and drink options (real food and drinks, not just a few bags of chips), maybe that's regular events run at a profit, but even customers who aren't buying anything for the game they're playing should be bringing in money.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I don’t recall FFG selling directly

They did.

ThePaintingOwl wrote: But really stores need to shift to a business model of making money on selling an experience instead of relying on people feeling charitable enough to buy in-store instead of from an online discount store. Maybe that's direct fees for table use, maybe that's having food and drink options (real food and drinks, not just a few bags of chips), maybe that's regular events run at a profit, but even customers who aren't buying anything for the game they're playing should be bringing in money.

Quite so.

You want your customers to valued. So use your store well. Your customer may or may not have gaming space at home. But you do. That in itself is a resource. Run or host tournaments. Have a painting table and encourage a mutually supportive community. Ideally, you want your store to have activities showing off the hobbies you’re selling. And for heaven’s sake? Invite People! Actively promote what’s going on in-store. Let folk know. Maybe print a flyer. Doesn’t have to be owt fancy. Or I suppose in t’modern day, use one of them fancy new fangled FB pages to list upcoming events, even if by event we purely mean “these evenings are for gaming”.

Because if you’re running a shop? You gotta engage with your customer base.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Because if you’re running a shop? You gotta engage with your customer base.

Unless you're GW, then you can have the parent company cover all the store's losses because you don't want to admit that the US market isn't like the UK market and merely offering a place to buy products is not giving anything of value. There's a reason every GW store I've ever been in has been an absolute ghost town.

It honestly baffles me how many game groups and store game groups don't make use of FB/Twitter. Or they started, made 5 posts and then gave up once 5 people turned up.

Meanwhile the ones I see growing, thriving and improving are using resources like that all the time. Even if your group doesn't use FB to organise, you need A public spot for new people to find you and to find your group active and engaging and doing things. When you find a FB and the last post was 3 years ago that suggest the group is dead and buried or not working well or something. Even if the reality is the group is doing well.


Again we hit that wall that so many don't want to put the time in or don't know how to put the time in to help grow things.

From clubs to stores.

 Overread wrote:
It honestly baffles me how many game groups and store game groups don't make use of FB/Twitter. Or they started, made 5 posts and then gave up once 5 people turned up.

Or even a simple website. It's amazing how many times I've tried to look up information about a store and found things like an event calendar that hasn't been updated since 2016. This is really basic stuff that shouldn't take more than 15 minutes a week by one employee.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
This whole notion of "I don't want to have to pay a tax to keep playing. But I do want game nights and tournaments organised for me" is just never going to work.

A tax to keep playing is not the same as buying stuff. What killed X-Wing wasn't some entitlement to a free game, it was that the tax to keep playing was just that: a tax. FFG demanded that you spend hundreds of dollars to buy new copies of game components which existed for the sole purpose of being a proof of purchase token in official events, getting nothing at all in return except for the ability to continue playing the game. It's like if every chess organization declared that you are banned from participating in chess tournaments unless you buy a new board every month and submit your receipts when you sign up. Want to keep using your old board because it's identical to the new one? Too bad, no game for you.

Didn't stop people playing with whatever they wanted outside of official events though did it? And yet, people didn't. But yes, you're right, it was a tax. But you say it got you nothing in return. Right after you say exactly what it did get you: entry into official events. Chess organisations don't make you buy a board, no. Because that's not how they get you to pay for their events. They get you to pay by paying an annual membership fee instead. But they still get you to pay. Indeed, as an annual membership fee it is far more like a "tax" than a one-off purchase of an upgrade kit.

No-one is going to give you a lifetime of access to free gaming space, tables, opponents, tournament prizes and community just because you spend £300 on an army five years ago.

Why not? I might have bought my stuff five years ago but the new customer who buys the game because I'm there to play with is spending money currently. This is part of why GW ran into so much trouble a few years ago, they focused entirely on new customer sales because that's where the most direct revenue came from and forgot that if a potential new customer walks into the store and sees empty tables instead of a thriving community they're going to walk right back out without buying anything. And that's not even considering the fact that most games have more than a single army to buy and a player who continues to be engaged may decide to buy another army for that game. Or to pick up a different game while they're in the store.

While I think there's some merit to this point, it's massively over-stated. And also comes with an element of balance to it. Yeah, if there's no-one in, I'll walk right back out. But on the other hand, if all the tables are full and there's no space for me to play, I'll also walk right back out. And yeah, if you're a charismatic, outgoing person who, upon seeing a new person entering the store and taking an interest will go "hey, you can come watch a bit if you want" and talk to that person about how the game works then, yeah, you're helping sell the game. In my (limited) experience that's not 90% of wargamers. (And I count myself in that 90%, it's not a dig - but no-one is going to watch me playing a game and go "I want to be like him")

But really stores need to shift to a business model of making money on selling an experience instead of relying on people feeling charitable enough to buy in-store instead of from an online discount store. Maybe that's direct fees for table use, maybe that's having food and drink options (real food and drinks, not just a few bags of chips), maybe that's regular events run at a profit, but even customers who aren't buying anything for the game they're playing should be bringing in money.

Yup, and we're starting to see that transition in the board gaming world from gaming stores to gaming cafes becoming more of a thing. But that business model is *hard* to do well. And with wargaming you're looking at tables twice the size that only support two players rather than four. So per square foot/customer you're using 4x as much. It's whether the market would sustain the cost that would come with that - especially as for new players, that's then on top of actually buying the kit.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Overread wrote:
It honestly baffles me how many game groups and store game groups don't make use of FB/Twitter. Or they started, made 5 posts and then gave up once 5 people turned up.

Or even a simple website. It's amazing how many times I've tried to look up information about a store and found things like an event calendar that hasn't been updated since 2016. This is really basic stuff that shouldn't take more than 15 minutes a week by one employee.

My FLGS doesn’t even have a physical notice board.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Overread wrote:
It honestly baffles me how many game groups and store game groups don't make use of FB/Twitter. Or they started, made 5 posts and then gave up once 5 people turned up.

Or even a simple website. It's amazing how many times I've tried to look up information about a store and found things like an event calendar that hasn't been updated since 2016. This is really basic stuff that shouldn't take more than 15 minutes a week by one employee.

Yeah I can get how it happens with some game clubs because you can easily end up with no one organising things or one person doing everything and they have to do it in free time that already gets eaten up organising everything else; but for a store it should be a no-brainer to have an up to date website and online presence today. Even if you aren't selling online (or selling much online) its the resource everyone uses today to find stuff.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
And is there reason xwing is different to gw games where sales aren't frontloaded?

I am highly skeptical of GW's claims about front-loading. GW tries to argue two contradictory things: that the majority of their business is selling to new customers, and that new kit releases are highly front-loaded. The two things can't both be true. If new customers are the majority then GW should see consistent sales across time as new players keep generating steady demand for the entire product line. If sales are front-loaded it has to be because the majority of sales are to established customers, the people who already have the back catalog and only buy new releases. And we know that GW's actions with running their retail chain support the belief in new customers being the focus, making it likely that the front-loading argument is a self-serving rationalization for the content treadmill.

Not necessarily. It depends on the ratio between new customers (however GW defines "new") and established ones. New customers likely spread their spending across GW's entire range for a given game, which is extensive. Their actual effect on the total percentage of a given item sold is likely quite low. Additionally, many new customers will only buy a handful of things before moving on. OTOH, established customers are more likely to buy the new release and given that any new customers will spread their purchases across every item it's not too much of a stretch to imagine a situation where the established players account for the majority sales of new kits, but don't need to buy much else, while new players account for a greater total spend but that spend is much more spread out, possibly even in ways that wouldn't seem entirely rational to established customers.

Put another way, if established customers spend X in a given month and new customers spend 3X, it's likely the majority of established customers spending is on the new release. So almost all of X for them is on new releases. But new customers just buy whatever takes their fancy and it can easily be the case that even with triple (or more) of the spending power they spread it out so much that their individual contribution to a given kit's sales is minimal.

Slipspace wrote:
Put another way, if established customers spend X in a given month and new customers spend 3X, it's likely the majority of established customers spending is on the new release.

But that divided spending is happening for the entire life of a kit. 3X divided among the entire range might not be much for an individual kit this month but that kit will be getting a share of 3X every month for the next 10-20 years. By the time GW retires the kit the accumulated share of 3X would far outweigh the initial one-time X. GW's claimed math just doesn't add up. Either the front-loading effect isn't as strong as GW claims or the new customer share isn't as large.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

deano2099 wrote:
Right after you say exactly what it did get you: entry into official events.

That you also had to pay an entry fee to get into, on top of buying all the new components. The components were a tax in addition to the cost of the events themselves, not a ticket into the event.

But on the other hand, if all the tables are full and there's no space for me to play, I'll also walk right back out.

Why would you do that? Tables become available if you wait and a store that busy is a sign that you'll easily be able to find people to play with. That seems like a very self-destructive attitude to have.

And yeah, if you're a charismatic, outgoing person who, upon seeing a new person entering the store and taking an interest will go "hey, you can come watch a bit if you want" and talk to that person about how the game works then, yeah, you're helping sell the game. In my (limited) experience that's not 90% of wargamers. (And I count myself in that 90%, it's not a dig - but no-one is going to watch me playing a game and go "I want to be like him")

Then our experiences are the opposite. In my experience most people are willing to do at least some amount of explaining how the game works and how cool it is, unless the newbie is walking into a tournament where everyone is on a clock to finish their games.

Lots of GW "new releases" are discount boxes too, so that heavily weights things. And of course they sell out fast. Whereas new players aren't likely to luck into getting a discount box on launch week and end up buying from the regular, more expensive range.

chaos0xomega wrote:
In general I can't really give you much more than trust me bro. What I will say is my SO worked for one of the aforementioned companies and knew key people at the other entities referenced (amongst others) who were privy to this information, though they really only shared that info with me after they left the entities in question, as my SO and them kept in touch and occasionally cross paths with them as they mostly still work in the industry, etc which means I get to meet all sorts of cool people and have cool conversations with them when I tag along at conventions .

In this case the person in question is someone who would definitely know and also someone you may have heard of. The conversation arose because I've been long skeptical of the x-wing outsold 40k claim (and found data to corroborate that it was likely not true, see here - https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/330/799950.page#11190754). The person I spoke with was able to say in rough round numbers what the sales topped at during their time with the company (basically from cradle to grave of FFGs tenure with the game) and that they doubted that it was enough to beat 40k. Pulling up GWs financial report from that year to cross-reference was not at all difficult to do from there.

Fair enough. Like I said, I actually agree that I don't think it actually outsold 40k worldwide though it did likely beat 40k in sales in some stores though. And, with subsequent conversation since it was initially mentioned, it's good to point out again that the ICv2 rankings are collated subjective polls of independent stores that aren't meant to reflect direct to consumer sales by companies (like with GW and their large online and company store presence). The data is far from perfect but it's frankly the best we have publicly available.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

ThePaintingOwl wrote: But really stores need to shift to a business model of making money on selling an experience instead of relying on people feeling charitable enough to buy in-store instead of from an online discount store. Maybe that's direct fees for table use, maybe that's having food and drink options (real food and drinks, not just a few bags of chips), maybe that's regular events run at a profit, but even customers who aren't buying anything for the game they're playing should be bringing in money.

Quite so.

You want your customers to valued. So use your store well. Your customer may or may not have gaming space at home. But you do. That in itself is a resource. Run or host tournaments. Have a painting table and encourage a mutually supportive community. Ideally, you want your store to have activities showing off the hobbies you’re selling. And for heaven’s sake? Invite People! Actively promote what’s going on in-store. Let folk know. Maybe print a flyer. Doesn’t have to be owt fancy. Or I suppose in t’modern day, use one of them fancy new fangled FB pages to list upcoming events, even if by event we purely mean “these evenings are for gaming”.

Because if you’re running a shop? You gotta engage with your customer base.

Of course then you'll be paying price of a codex in couple gaming nights

deano2099 wrote:I don't know. I mostly do board gaming. Wargaming is just a side-hobby for me. I'm always playing "the exact same game with the exact same options every time". I cannot really understand this community and the way something gets jettisoned the second it stops being supported. "There's a new version of Kill Team and it's worse!" Well then play the old version. But people don't.

I suspect a huge part of it is community and group based. Boardgamers have always been acustomed to finding their own spaces to play, arranging their own meet-ups, paying to hire out space or doing deals with pubs or whatever to get regular nights going. Some stores might run open game nights sometimes, but it's also understood that if you go to those, you should at some point buy something from the store, otherwise it isn't sustainable. All this takes effort, but people do it because, outside of playing at home, it's the way you build a community.

Whereas I think wargamers expect to have it done for them. Because for new games, for games when they can still sell you product, that's what happens. The stores run game nights because they know they have new stuff to sell you that you're going to want. Publishers support these game nights with organised play support and promotions as it's good for them as well. So it's expected. So when a game stops releasing new product, the organised play disappears, and the stores start running different games instead. And rather than go "well, we want to keep playing this, so lets organise" it's easier for that established community to go "I guess we'll play this new game now instead". And I think a lot of that is fed by most wargames not being good enough for anyone to really care that much if they go away. And when one is, the community do step up (see: Blood Bowl).

I will give that it's harder to do. Board game communities can grow fast as there's very little barrier to entry. Anyone with a basic level of comprehension can come to a board game night and play something. They don't need to be able to build models or paint, and the rules for a lot of games can be taught very quickly.

But ultimately, it comes down to where the community-building happens. If it's done by the players, the players lead it, and the players can direct it wherever they want, because it's done *for* them. If it's done by the stores, or the publisher, it's being done to sell product - directly or indirectly. So if you want that, you're going to need to buy stuff. And if you stop buying stuff, they will have to find ways to make you buy stuff.

This whole notion of "I don't want to have to pay a tax to keep playing. But I do want game nights and tournaments organised for me" is just never going to work. No-one is going to give you a lifetime of access to free gaming space, tables, opponents, tournament prizes and community just because you spend £300 on an army five years ago.

This is all good stuff, but the last bit is really the key.

Skinnereal wrote: So, it's no wonder that X-Wing has not fared well since the prequels.

I think that more iconic ships from the sequels could have bought the game time, but this really is simpler than people want to accept. X-wing started out as a really good game. it had great fundamental mechanics, and was fun, easy to get to the table, and fairly cheap. As time went on, those basic mechanics showed a relatively limited design space, which meant that new ships and/or cards were often simply better or worse than current stuff, instead of being different. People bought it, because especially for the early waves the ships were iconic. FFG adopted the old decipher model of balancing things by introducing new stuff later instead of fixing what's broken. This obviously culminated in releasing key cards with the epic sized ships in a pretty blatant and gross money grab.

Warmachine, guild ball, and X-wing all went through the same cycle of bloat and imbalance, with X-wing having the additional ticking clock of being licensed IP with a limited pool of possible options.

Scott wrote:
Alpha Strike is an excellent modernization of the BattleTech franchise. I won't be playing Classic again, it is a slog.

I desperately want something between the two. Classic is a slog, but Alpha Strike is way over simplified. I'd love to see something that played about a Lance worth on each side, though the existance of Stars makes the exact scale kind of hard to pin down. Probably easier to do in the more modern eras where IS/Clan mechs are closer in tech.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

I am highly skeptical of GW's claims about front-loading. GW tries to argue two contradictory things: that the majority of their business is selling to new customers, and that new kit releases are highly front-loaded. The two things can't both be true. If new customers are the majority then GW should see consistent sales across time as new players keep generating steady demand for the entire product line. If sales are front-loaded it has to be because the majority of sales are to established customers, the people who already have the back catalog and only buy new releases. And we know that GW's actions with running their retail chain support the belief in new customers being the focus, making it likely that the front-loading argument is a self-serving rationalization for the content treadmill.

I think what it means is that the majority of their sales are people that buy discount vs starter boxes and never actually expand on it.

Yeah- I don't really see how GW can be doing selling primarily to new gamers and also selling tons of every new release without steady sales after.

- I know that a lot of companies have had to deal with front loaded sales due to changes in the way distribution works

(More new games are coming out than before, and distributors have a hard time freeing up shelf space for everything- so they front load their orders and mostly don't reorder, making it harder for older products to get onto retail shelves. But GW have historically dodged that obstacle by maintaining their own distribution channels)

 Tamereth wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Makes me so sad that X-Wing isn't even on the radar anymore (or Star Trek Attack Wing).

X-Wing is such a great game, it deserved a far better fate than what it has become.

Both of these died locally when they did their edition changes, and tried to force people to spend money to keep playing with the models they already had. Its a real issue for any game that requires accessories unique to each model to play, then you change the rules so you need different ones.
I know personally when x-wing 2.0 came out I price up how much the conversion packs would cost and hitting £400 just for cards and tokens, and knowing it didn't 100% match all of my collection I stopped playing, as did many others.

For star trek attack wing I actually liked the rules changes, but suddenly all new releases had the ships / upgrades massively cheaper than the old sets and there was no update to re-cost the old stuff. So you couldn't play competitively unless you replaced your collection. I went from playing in a tournament a month (and ranking top 10 in the UK) to boxing my stuff up in the loft.

Glad to see battletech doing well, the recent kickstarter making millions show how popular its become.

Definitely in my experience a LOOOOOT of GW-competitor games just "snap off" and die instantly the first time they try to do something GW-fully, like force an edition change that invalidates a ton of players' existing collections.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LunarSol wrote:

Scott wrote:

I think what it means is that the majority of their sales are people that buy discount vs starter boxes and never actually expand on it.

Well, yeah, GW is almost certainly now a bundle-box company first and foremost and the individual kits are the cherry on top.

That's just efficient injection molding manufacturing practice. Always sell bundles so that you can minimize machine changeovers.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


I am highly skeptical of GW's claims about front-loading. GW tries to argue two contradictory things: that the majority of their business is selling to new customers, and that new kit releases are highly front-loaded. The two things can't both be true. If new customers are the majority then GW should see consistent sales across time as new players keep generating steady demand for the entire product line. If sales are front-loaded it has to be because the majority of sales are to established customers, the people who already have the back catalog and only buy new releases. And we know that GW's actions with running their retail chain support the belief in new customers being the focus, making it likely that the front-loading argument is a self-serving rationalization for the content treadmill.

It's true. There were some documents released accidentally in the Chapterhouse case a few years back and their sales numbers show that for new releases - huge spikes which then tail off.

Or, it was at least true a decade ago, and I doubt much has changed.

We don't know for sure what that means for customers, but it's possible it's mostly new customers who are sold the new thing when they walk into the store, and existing customers who are excited for a new release.

Ashitaka wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


I am highly skeptical of GW's claims about front-loading. GW tries to argue two contradictory things: that the majority of their business is selling to new customers, and that new kit releases are highly front-loaded. The two things can't both be true. If new customers are the majority then GW should see consistent sales across time as new players keep generating steady demand for the entire product line. If sales are front-loaded it has to be because the majority of sales are to established customers, the people who already have the back catalog and only buy new releases. And we know that GW's actions with running their retail chain support the belief in new customers being the focus, making it likely that the front-loading argument is a self-serving rationalization for the content treadmill.

It's true. There were some documents released accidentally in the Chapterhouse case a few years back and their sales numbers show that for new releases - huge spikes which then tail off.

Or, it was at least true a decade ago, and I doubt much has changed.

We don't know for sure what that means for customers, but it's possible it's mostly new customers who are sold the new thing when they walk into the store, and existing customers who are excited for a new release.

Things may have changed more than we might think.

Covid clearly worked for GW, and hopefully the wider industry*. Most of the world staying in meant folks turned back toward time consuming hobbies like TTWG. With many returning from a relative standing start, older kits may well have seen a surge in sales as folks built armies entirely from the ground up.

This is purely speculation, and even if it’s right, it doesn’t mean a paradigm shift overall.

*because competition is good for everyone.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Ashitaka wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


I am highly skeptical of GW's claims about front-loading. GW tries to argue two contradictory things: that the majority of their business is selling to new customers, and that new kit releases are highly front-loaded. The two things can't both be true. If new customers are the majority then GW should see consistent sales across time as new players keep generating steady demand for the entire product line. If sales are front-loaded it has to be because the majority of sales are to established customers, the people who already have the back catalog and only buy new releases. And we know that GW's actions with running their retail chain support the belief in new customers being the focus, making it likely that the front-loading argument is a self-serving rationalization for the content treadmill.

It's true. There were some documents released accidentally in the Chapterhouse case a few years back and their sales numbers show that for new releases - huge spikes which then tail off.

Or, it was at least true a decade ago, and I doubt much has changed.

We don't know for sure what that means for customers, but it's possible it's mostly new customers who are sold the new thing when they walk into the store, and existing customers who are excited for a new release.

Things may have changed more than we might think.

Covid clearly worked for GW, and hopefully the wider industry*. Most of the world staying in meant folks turned back toward time consuming hobbies like TTWG. With many returning from a relative standing start, older kits may well have seen a surge in sales as folks built armies entirely from the ground up.

This is purely speculation, and even if it’s right, it doesn’t mean a paradigm shift overall.

*because competition is good for everyone.

The Chapterhouse case happened at a low point for GW. They streamlined their company books by cutting expense after expense until there was nothing left to cut- and then the company just started sinking due to not having all of those other things they used to have. And ironically, they spent massive piles of cash to take Chapterhouse to court.

During that low point, I fully expect that the people buying GW were almost exclusively adding to their army.


After Tom Kirby left and Kevin Roundtree took over as CEO, they quickly changed their anorexic company policies and took their market share back again.

Today- I'd expect them to still have big initial sales followed by a longer slump, but probably not quite as pronounced as before.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Covid clearly worked for GW, and hopefully the wider industry*. Most of the world staying in meant folks turned back toward time consuming hobbies like TTWG. With many returning from a relative standing start, older kits may well have seen a surge in sales as folks built armies entirely from the ground up.

This is purely speculation, and even if it’s right, it doesn’t mean a paradigm shift overall.

*because competition is good for everyone.

Unfortunately I think the disruption in global shipping was pretty crippling to the wider industry. The new model seems out of reach to most of the low/mid tier companies that were thriving before and is likely why we're really seeing things consolidate around large public options like GW and Asmodee.

Not just shipping - increased utility (electric) as well as raw material costs are also causing pains.

But they are pains the entire nation is feeling - ergo the whole cost of living crisis which is causing everything to get more expensive. Heck eating out now for 5 people can easily go over £100 for a single course and drink.

Does GW still have US based plastics manufacturing or is it entirely UK based now in that regard? I know they did some low quality terrain in China years ago but haven't followed their manufacturing since.

 warboss wrote:
Does GW still have US based plastics manufacturing or is it entirely UK based now in that regard? I know they did some low quality terrain in China years ago but haven't followed their manufacturing since.

GW's USA production was very short lived and is closed up now and has been for a long time. Everything is UK based now except for Terrain which is produced in China. I believe Endless Spells and a few other kits are also produced in China.

Otherwise GW houses most of the production in the UK in house. About the only thing they've never managed to bring in house is cardstock and printing and part of that is because the west has mostly abandoned it as a manufacturing base. So not only is equipment expensive to setup, but there's also not going to be the knowledgebase, experience base and supply chains to make it an easy transition over simply ordering from China/India