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Delephont wrote:
Hopefully others will see the wood for the trees, and realise there are alternatives to GW out there. Once they start getting the support they need, it won't be long before they rival the size and scope of GW.

Quite doubtful on that one. Most gamers are very aware of other games, but they may not appeal to them, and aren't going to get supported just for the reason they aren't GW. An alternative game isn't going to get the support unless they have sculpting, rules, and background that appeal to people leaving GW. There have always been other games, and cheaper model lines. If they were better games, they'd have done better.

Warmachine is growing strongly, with good rules, fluff, and sculpting. The game is gaining support because it appeals to more and more players.

Infinity is hit or miss in most areas. I had no demand for it in my shop, despite supporting the whole line. It eventually all got shipped back and no ones missed it.

This is sad, if it turns out to be accurate then in my part of the world (tasmania) there is no GW store and we can only buy from independant stockists and I know for a fact that with the current price increases thus far for Australia if we then add on extra shipping to our state then 90% of the gamers I know would have no choice but to stop playing as it would effectively price us out of the hobby, not that we're all poor or jobless, far from it, but if it becomes something you need to ask yourself, car registration or a Tac squad? then i'll have to stop.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Asuron wrote:Oh I know it would be colossal, but given that for every release they've done they've ramped up the prices significantly with the noticeable except of Dark Eldar whose prices aren't quite as ridiculous, I honestly think UK and US Prices will take a collossal move forwards and perhaps Aussie prices go back a bit. Just fits with the way I think they operate, based of course purely on my own opinion

Who knows it might not be as bad as we think

I don't think this speculation is particular good for GW, yet they've stoked it by announcing some announcement in the distant future and then misleading or refusing to tell people what the hell is going on, preferring instead to allow a lot of frantic and worried speculation to take over, among customers and retailers.

All this talk of switching over to resin and colossal price increases and preventing retailers sending stuff to certain parts of the world adds up to a lot of uncertainty. GW probably could have handled it better because I can't believe all these rumours are true but any of them could be hugely unpopular and damaging if they don't work out for the company.

GW didn't announce anything to the public. An independent retailer made a post that something "big" was going to be announced and hinted towards a metal to resin switchover, and Mikhaila's confirmed that there will be an announcement and there's a selldown going on.

Delephont wrote:In fact, you tell me when last you could buy a plastic GW mini for less than two pounds.

Five seconds ago.

This may be related to something ghost21 mentioned on warseer about how GW will be doing 'something' soon about the huge price discrepencies in certain markets such as Australia

1.) I am curious to see what legislation permits GW from barring other companies to selling GW product as they see fit. No where on the box have I noted (then again, i haven't really looked) that it says that the contents are not intended for individual resale. My LGS does it, and the set of 4 plastics is more expensive than buying the 12 together boxed.

I did the maths so I know its ridiculous: USD-CAD 36, CAD 44 and AUS-CAD 64. I still fail to see the $8 disparity between CAD and USD prices. Never mind the ridiculous $28 difference from USD to CAD.

2.) For what its worth I offer my services as "agent" to buy discount here and ship south, when and if this does happen...

poda_t wrote:1.) I am curious to see what legislation permits GW from barring other companies to selling GW product as they see fit. No where on the box have I noted (then again, i haven't really looked) that it says that the contents are not intended for individual resale. My LGS does it, and the set of 4 plastics is more expensive than buying the 12 together boxed.

Most legislation is not going to be found on the side of the box.) I know that most game manufacturers stipulate where their distributors can sell to. US distributors mostly can't sell outside of the US. Some are given permisssion to sell to canada or other companies. A lot of the agreements between manufacturers and stores, or distributors and stores, stipulate that product is sold to stores with the intention that they sell to end users and not distribute to other stores. Stores can have restrictions on where they sell product.

This isn't anything really new. Laws are going to vary from country to country. I have no idea on what UK law allows, or disallows, a manufacturer from doing.

all very well, but how can GW monitor all the retailers, and just how will they prove that a retailer has been selling out of their jurisdiction? Take them to court? and then they have to prove that money was lost.... of course, then they fail to take into account that some people just plain wouldnt be buying if it wasnt for those discount retailers.

mikhaila wrote: ...... If they were better games, they'd have done better.

I think you're right, but I disagree with this statement. Being a better or worse game has little to do with how popular it will be....you only need to sample the noise on here regarding the WH40K rules to see that fact. I think the reason why many games don't get the attention they deserve is more due to limited advertising, and peoples general apathy towards trying something new.

poda_t wrote:all very well, but how can GW monitor all the retailers, and just how will they prove that a retailer has been selling out of their jurisdiction? Take them to court? and then they have to prove that money was lost.... of course, then they fail to take into account that some people just plain wouldnt be buying if it wasnt for those discount retailers.

In the EU a trademark or copyright holder can control the export and import of goods from / to the EU, if they wish to

Tried and tested case law, I'm afraid. They dont have to prove any monetary loss. None at all.

Normally its to prevent imports to the EU from cheaper markets. See levi jeans and Tescos.

AlexHolker wrote:

Delephont wrote:In fact, you tell me when last you could buy a plastic GW mini for less than two pounds.

Five seconds ago.

Damn, I knew I went too far with the plastic

This doesn't affect me very much, as I have given up buying GW stuff pretty much completely some time ago. But it does affect my friends, who like their GW product.

Glad to see I made the right decision and purchased Vampire Count miniature substitutes from Mantic and Gamezone recently, rather than buy Tomb Kings which was my original idea.

GW's pricing here in Australia drove me out of the market quite some time ago. Maelstrom helped when I did need some, and now that avenue's gone, I won't be buying from them again.

They'll need to learn a hard lesson from this, and if they choose not to heed it, their loss. I have wanted to check out Infinity for some time, and my group already plays Malifaux, and Warmachine.

The Australian dollar is stronger than it has been for longer than I can remember, and still we pay over 40% more? Forget that. Unless GW brings their Australian pricing back to sensible levels, they won't see another dollar for me.

As it is, Mantic make fantastic miniatures, and at half the cost for a very good VC army. Gamezone fills in the other unit gaps and Avatar's of War gave me my General. Why do I need GW again?

Delephont wrote:

mikhaila wrote: ...... If they were better games, they'd have done better.

I think you're right, but I disagree with this statement. Being a better or worse game has little to do with how popular it will be....you only need to sample the noise on here regarding the WH40K rules to see that fact. I think the reason why many games don't get the attention they deserve is more due to limited advertising, and peoples general apathy towards trying something new.

Quality of the game is always a factor, although it might not be the only factor. Quality may be measured differently by different people. Price, quality of miniatures, style of sculpting. scale, availability of product, availability of players, fluff and stories, and style of game, etc. All of this matters, and matters in different ways to different people.
In the end, people will buy and play what they like. There's some irony in saying that more people like the worse game. The fact that they like it better may make it the better game, at least by their standards.

GW raising prices or making it unavailable except through certain channels may make it a worse game for some people.
or
GW converting to high quality resin models and ramping up the speed of production on new models may make them a better game.

And those are only two of the possible things we may or may not learn on Monday. We really know nothing, it's all rumors at this moment.

AlexHolker wrote:

Delephont wrote:In fact, you tell me when last you could buy a plastic GW mini for less than two pounds.

Five seconds ago.

It's true there are still some box sets like Kroot which are only £20 for 16 models, but you can't make an army out of them. Once you add the rest of the stuff it becomes expensive compared with many games.

There are lots of alternatives. For the price of a Tyranid Monstrous Creature you can buy an entire 15mm army for De Bellis Antiquitatis.

We got a reply from Wayland Games which shows that if this new policy does turn out to be true it would be blatantly illegal:

[url]
http://paintingfrog.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/games-workshops-embargo-part-2/[/url]

Guess we can always hope it's only a rumour. At least till monday!

Delephont wrote:I notice a lot of Aussies stating they would leave the hobby if the rumour works out to be true....

Why not simply start another game?

For most, it would be because other games just don't have the following. We're a big country with a very spread out and fairly small population. Finding other people who play 40K and WHFB is fairly easy. But unless you happen to stumble on one of the few pockets of Warmachine or FoW players (assuming you're actually interested in either of those games), or are just playing at home with a couple of mates and can convince them to start whatever it is you're looking at as an alternative, you're pretty much out of luck down here so far as other games are concerned.

And, of course, if you're playing 40K for the one thing that it does that the other games don't (namely, it's a sci fi game that allows for large army battles) there is no other game to start instead.

40K is large skirmishes, really. If you want big battle SF you have to play Epic or one of the other 6mm or 15mm systems.

Hi,

Any orders this month will not be effected by the affair,
And its all European stockists not just us,
Sadly I cannot comment on the situation until GW announce it publicly, Which should be Monday,
Sorry,
Many thanks,

----------------------------------------------------------------
On 14 May 2011 17:03,
Subject: sales
Telephone:
Query: There have been rumors going around that you will not be able to sell GW products to my country Argentina any more.

As a long time customer i think i have the right to know if my next purchase planed for the 20th of May, will be possible or if i need to take my business some where else.

Please do not answer a run around i will take that as a confirmation of the rumors.

MAELSTROM GAMES

This is a quote from an email i sent maelstrom this afternoon inquiring about this. As you can see from the Bolded segment, Jamie pretty much confirms the rumor.

As the fellow Brazilian player mentioned already, Official local retailers are plain terrible, and that is why they barely exist any more. The Argentine counterpart to this was (may be still is) called Warzone. Besides the fact that they are well known for delayed delivery, not delivering and not giving reimbursements when they dont deliver (at all) these are a few simple price comparisons:

Tactical Squad: GW=23 WARZONE=31.60
Terminator squad: GW=27.7 Warzone=36.87
Land rider: GW=38.5 Warzone=52.67

We have seen this happen before, what ends up happening is, Clones completely destroy the original product market, people use alternative models (which for fantasy at this point in time is basically 70%+ of the range) or drop the hobby all together.

Oh and for the final kick to the teeth, this prices are for stores ONLY, not public, whom can spect an additional charge of course.

Kilkrazy wrote:40K is large skirmishes, really. If you want big battle SF you have to play Epic or one of the other 6mm or 15mm systems.

Well, yeah, you're not reaching army scale unless you're playing Apocalypse... but it's a bigger scale game than any of the other 28-ishmm games out there. I've never been particularly interested in 6mm or 15mm due to the miniatures just not being as pretty. Even aside from quality, there's just something more engaging about the larger minis.

As a way to preemptively boycott this measure, can people that know of shipping websites that allow you to redirect your packages world wide start listing them?.

S I'll still be able to order direct from GWUK and enjoy 40% savings over buying at my local GWOZ store?

GW games are really struggling here ATM.

A heap of long time players switched to warmachine last year.
Many more are bulking out armies with the unbelievably cheap mantic.

GWOZ needs to reallign prices with a drop of 40% so their stores will sell product.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also FWIW I'm a doctor, my wife a nurse, we have a toddler and baby and a small mortgage, and I would struggle to pay GWOZ prices (I've ordered almost everything from US or UK for the last 3 years).

Why we have to get punished for the stupidity of others is beyond me.

I get that from the Labor party and the Greens already...

insaniak wrote:

Delephont wrote:I notice a lot of Aussies stating they would leave the hobby if the rumour works out to be true....

Why not simply start another game?

For most, it would be because other games just don't have the following. We're a big country with a very spread out and fairly small population. Finding other people who play 40K and WHFB is fairly easy. But unless you happen to stumble on one of the few pockets of Warmachine or FoW players (assuming you're actually interested in either of those games), or are just playing at home with a couple of mates and can convince them to start whatever it is you're looking at as an alternative, you're pretty much out of luck down here so far as other games are concerned.

And, of course, if you're playing 40K for the one thing that it does that the other games don't (namely, it's a sci fi game that allows for large army battles) there is no other game to start instead.

Well, lets look at this another way then....you enjoy playing WH40K, which, in the face of things, is a set of rules.....nothing more. If you can drag yourself away, you can pretty much proxy every miniature required for each army....whats the harm, as long as you don't play in a GW store, you're good to go. A previous poster already said he's proxied his entire WHFB army....so whats the difference?

Hell, there's even no reason to bother buying the 6th edition rule set, if you like 5th edition, just keep playing that.

I really feel for you guys, and I know it wouldn't be easy to turn your back on something you have enjoyed for so long, but (assuming the rumours are true) thats what companies like GW, they grab you by the balls and tug till they drop off. At the end of the day, it's your hobby, and you have to find a way to take it back under your control.

insaniak wrote:

shabbadoo wrote: Retailers could just sell incognito on e-bay under another profile. .

Except they wouldn't, as they would still have to trade under their business name (in which case GW would potentially find out about it through the same 'secret shopper' scenario suggested earlier for catching out stores) or trade under a different name (in which case they have to try to explain that little eccentricity to their tax office, and potentially also to whichever government authority in their country overseas business trading regulations).

Well, that's when a friend sets up his own company, and buys from you as a distributor. The distributor sends nothing to the Southern Hemisphere, so GW gets to suck it. Only costs a little bit of time/effort/money to set that up, and GW then has no recourse. Any store that already orders from a secondary distributor could do this.

Delephont wrote:Well, lets look at this another way then....you enjoy playing WH40K, which, in the face of things, is a set of rules.....nothing more. If you can drag yourself away, you can pretty much proxy every miniature required for each army....whats the harm, as long as you don't play in a GW store, you're good to go. A previous poster already said he's proxied his entire WHFB army....so whats the difference?

For me personally, not a lot. Not buying GW miniatures wouldn't necessarily mean not playing 40K.

For a lot of gamers, though, there's a mental hangup about using the 'right' miniatures, or the perception that in order for the game to be playable, it has to be constantly receiving new material. That's a large part of the reason that games like Necromunda have fallen by the wayside... People who bought gangs ten years ago can play the game just as easily now as they did then... but it's a 'dead' game, so nobody plays it.

So if you stop buying stuff from GW, you're left with what is effectively a 'dead' game, unless you're willing to add in your own updates... which most players )from my experience) aren't.

Hell, there's even no reason to bother buying the 6th edition rule set, if you like 5th edition, just keep playing that.

That's certainly an option. And I know there are people out there playing every edition of 40K back to Rogue Trader. But not that many of them. And not being very many of them returns you to exactly the same problem as starting a new game: Finding other players.



All of which is still putting the cart before the horse, though, since we still don't have confirmation that this is even happening. And, frankly, I suspect that a lot of those who claim they would quit if this comes into effect actually wouldn't. We hear the same thing every time GW raises their prices, and have done for 20 years now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

shabbadoo wrote:Well, that's when a friend sets up his own company, and buys from you as a distributor. The distributor sends nothing to the Southern Hemisphere, so GW gets to suck it. Only costs a little bit of time/effort/money to set that up, and GW then has no recourse. Any store that already orders from a secondary distributor could do this.

I think said friend in that case would want to do some serious market research first, before going to the trouble of setting up a business solely to cater to international trade. I would be dubious as to whether it would actually result in enough trade to be viable, to be honest.

Kilkrazy wrote:40K is large skirmishes, really. If you want big battle SF you have to play Epic or one of the other 6mm or 15mm systems.

Shockforce/Warengine can play a 28mm battle around 2x the size of a typical 40k game in the same or less time. It gives up a bit of detail to do it, but the creation rules allow you to make the army you want...which more than makes up for it IMO.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KarlPedder wrote:This may be related to something ghost21 mentioned on warseer about how GW will be doing 'something' soon about the huge price discrepencies in certain markets such as Australia

Raising prices for the rest of the world to make things "even"? Really, would it surprise anyone?

I still hold out hope that this is going to be a whole lot of nothing, or, better yet, a price rationalisation for Aussie prices to bring them in line with the rest of the world. If they did that they'd solve the problem without screwing everyone over.

H.B.M.C. wrote:I still hold out hope that this is going to be a whole lot of nothing, or, better yet, a price rationalisation for Aussie prices to bring them in line with the rest of the world. If they did that they'd solve the problem without screwing everyone over.

Agreed.

shabbadoo wrote:

insaniak wrote:

shabbadoo wrote: Retailers could just sell incognito on e-bay under another profile. .

Except they wouldn't, as they would still have to trade under their business name (in which case GW would potentially find out about it through the same 'secret shopper' scenario suggested earlier for catching out stores) or trade under a different name (in which case they have to try to explain that little eccentricity to their tax office, and potentially also to whichever government authority in their country overseas business trading regulations).

Well, that's when a friend sets up his own company, and buys from you as a distributor. The distributor sends nothing to the Southern Hemisphere, so GW gets to suck it. Only costs a little bit of time/effort/money to set that up, and GW then has no recourse. Any store that already orders from a secondary distributor could do this.

Just not that easy to do. Firstly, there are ways to track and see where product goes to. Secondly, you can't just decide to be a distributor and magically not be accountable for moving product around. Soon as GW figures out who's shiftying product that's going where they don't want, they cut off the source. Saying 'I didn't sell it overseas, my buddy down the street did' doesn't help you a hell of a lot when they cancel your account.

Selling ingocnito on Ebay takes more than just a fake name. It also means shifting product to another geographic location and ship it from there, to hide who bought it originally. People have done it, but they eventually get caught, and shut down. Building up a business based on selling GW, which can get shut down at any moment, isn't a good business practice.

H.B.M.C. wrote:I still hold out hope that this is going to be a whole lot of nothing, or, better yet, a price rationalisation for Aussie prices to bring them in line with the rest of the world. If they did that they'd solve the problem without screwing everyone over.

I hope you're right, H, I really do, but, this is GW we're talking here...

Padre^.

Seems like there is profit to be had in shipping to australia as an unaffiliated middle man!