WarOne wrote:
I'm relatively ignorant to the entire backlash of the Transformers movies, so can you tell me what did the fanbase do exactly to tell Hasbro about what they thought about the movies beside using the internet forums to vent their frustration?

n0t_u wrote:

Those local Australian and New Zealand accounts have worked hard over the years to build up their customer base by word of mouth and running events. As have our Hobby Centres which have recruited tens of thousands of customers through introductory activities, painting lessons and beginners programmes. It’s because we want to have a vibrant customer base in Australia in twenty years time, that we are taking legitimate action now to support local accounts and Hobby Centres.

Way it's going I'll be surprised if they have this customer base at all in 10-15 years. If the prices weren't stupid people wouldn't bother with the two week wait to ship it from across the world and go to these FLGS which seem to be quite uncommon and work by providing more than just GW as they have to keep to the crazy GW prices here which are probably pretty detrimental to these independent stores. They don't need to be lowered to the point where they are really cheap, just balanced more with their overall global pricing. One step at a time really.

The main reason they were probably able to reach those numbers were that they had a monopoly here for a fair while, but now that they don't the market may slip away from them.

But sure keep doing this.

iproxtaco wrote:These "Interweb Mooks" are also GW customers, that should at least garner some respect.

It doesn't take a business expert to see what GW are doing. Sure, you're going to respond by saying that I'm not one hence why I'm uninformed, which isn't exactly true. I'm informed by the posts of people with experience in economics, and I understand and agree with what they say.

Exactly, we don't like the response because we don't agree with the reasons behind GW's moves regardless of who or where it comes from or how it's worded.

I agree to an extent, he should have done what you said, perhaps they would have taken a little more thought about what he said. However, if they just see a wall of criticism they aren't going to take it seriously anyway. GW is of the mind that a few customers writing in represent only those few customers. What Calvin did was give them statistics, however inaccurate and novel they may seem, coming from an internet forum. It should have given them at least an over-view of how people are reacting.

WarOne wrote:
Beast Wars was the start. At first people were skeptical about animal transformations. Little did they know that those would be the glory days of the new Transformers once that series ended and became Beast Machines, followed by the Transformers Armada (got worse at time went on) series trilogy and Transformers Animated (ugh..).

dajobe wrote:Dang, cant believe I actually just read that entire thing...like the thread though and both sides have things that are correct. But the silent majority walking away thing was a cool point. I dont claim to be an expert, i am not claiming i can run a company. I am currently taking economics at University of Wisconsin-Madison. In which I learned about elasticity...models are a very elastic product, they are by no means necessary for survival(techinically). So with higher prices, less are sold, I am not saying that GW should make each model 1 penny because that would also be hard to turn a profit, but there is an equilibrium point on the supply and demand curve, and (i very well could be wrong) i dont believe that they are currently there. Profits are MAXIMIZED at that point. And if GW is currently there, kudos, keep up the good work, and we are wrong. But i am not inclined to believe that if they have been in a decline for the last 5(maybe 10) years

Brunius wrote:I'm sorry, if you people have to take into account the price of tin/plastic, then why do competitors such as privateer press still price their products lower?

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:"GW ARE RUBBISH, SERIOUSLY DO THEY EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING!"

Personally I would like to see some evidence that they actually do know.
They show little evidence of being able to do so, other than "they are a niche market who can charge what they want because a loyal fanbase keeps begging for more."

They take a loyal fanbase for granted and show nothing but disrespect bordering on contempt.
GW management display a mindset that is exploitative. It is simply not good enough to say that that is the nature of business.

It is part of the fault of the long term customers that has brought this about for putting up with it but if any other company behaved like this towards its customers, would you keep buying their products/services?

Apologies if that is emotive, but as I have said elsewhere, I have never known another company behave like GW, so I have nothing else to base the experience on.

Kilkrazy wrote:In my view GW are in decline because they have been forced to price their core ranges above market clearing price to support the expense of their retail chain.

They need the retail chain because it is their only real marketing channel. However, they aren't getting best value out of their retail space because they have a very limited range of products (basically, three products).

I think GW should be publishing and selling a greater variety of games than just WH/40K and LoTR. Give more people more reasons to walk into the shop. Give the staff more products to sell.

The other thing they should do is not piss off veterans. Veterans are a potentially huge source of word-of-mouth promotion and transferral of expertise to new customers.

Kilkrazy wrote:Then their business plan is screwed, because it's entirely based on retail shops selling two basic products.

carmachu wrote:

Do you REALLY want to get into the arguement of how Disney treats its customers, release information, and accessability to its products vs how GW does the same? Because GW will LOSE that arguement hands down.

nkelsch wrote:While GW seems to be doing 'ok' not great, everyone wants to claim credit that every financial problem is a direct result of thier personal gripe with no experience or evidence that it is related to that. 'Fandom knows best' is a disturbing trend on the internet and even if they are right once or twice, usually that is not the case overall. People want whatever benifits them personally even if it doesn't have a valid buisness case that can be supported without damaging the company.

Kilkrazy wrote:Then their business plan is screwed, because it's entirely based on retail shops selling two basic products.

mwnciboo wrote:I think we need to identify more precisely why GW was doing so well in the Late 90's before the Advent of the LOTR. Any Ideas?

Chimera_Calvin wrote:As you may know, GW has recieved a bit of criticism over the last few weeks [/understatement]

Some of that was from me! Hence, I sent a letter to Mark Wells (GW CEO) which I have copied here:

Spoiler:

Dear Sir,
It is with regret that after 23 years of loyal custom I feel compelled to cease purchasing Games Workshop product and look for alternatives elsewhere. Despite the abiding appeal of your games and the settings thereof, I can no longer support a company whose business decisions are so flagrantly to the detriment of their customers.

I appreciate that Games Workshop is a business and must make a profit. I further understand that as a publicly traded company, you have an obligation to your shareholders – but if your decisions (designed it seems purely to prop up short term profit margins) lead to the alienation of your customers and a continuation of the falling sales volume you have experienced for many years, then I see no long term future for the company.

It is a fact – and one that you and your colleagues have stated publicly – that you rely on the goodwill of your customers to advertise your product through word-of-mouth recommendation, yet your actions often indicate nothing but contempt for the hopes and expectations of those customers, as examples:

1. Your ‘Specialist Games’ range has clearly become a dumping ground for games that you no longer wish to support yet are unwilling to remove from sale in spite of repeated claims to the contrary.
2. An inability (or simple refusal) to write balanced and tightly-worded rules to reduce disagreements between players and to facilitate better tournament play, justified by the tired trope that players can create house rules for anything they don’t like – despite the fact that having better rules in no way prevents the creation of house rules by those inclined to do so.
3. A release schedule which consistently leaves some factions without an update for entire editions of their associated game and many units having rules but no representing models.
4. Spates of ‘Cease and Desist’ orders issued by your legal department to companies who are in many cases filling in the blanks left by your release schedule. A classic case of trying to deal with symptoms rather than cause.
5. Paranoid levels of secrecy regarding new releases and increasingly heavy-handed attempts to thwart the release of information, as if having people excited about forthcoming releases and spreading the word about them is somehow detrimental to sales.

Your most damaging decisions, however, have come with price. Like-for-like prices have risen almost 600% over the last 25 years, despite the UK inflation rate running at 160% over the same period. The growth of your company should have led to economies of scale, particularly when associated with a move to cheaper casting materials – first with plastic and most recently with ‘finecast’ resin. However, whilst your plastic kits are cheaper than the metal equivalent of those models, they remain twice (if not more) as expensive as comparable multi-part 28mm plastic kits made by your competitors. In contrast your ‘finecast’ kits are more expensive than their metal equivalents and are receiving worryingly bad reviews from independent sources with regards to their casting quality.

Your latest round of price increases, coupled with the change to ‘finecast’ has led some products to receive an effective 30% price rise – in the current economic climate people simply cannot afford these kinds of increases.

Finally, the embargo on independent retailers shipping outside of the EU has made the hobby prohibitively expensive for many in the affected territories, particularly in Australia and New Zealand. Your public statements regarding independent retailers are frankly offensive – surely all avenues that allow people to participate in Games Workshop’s games and other hobby activities are of benefit as this will grow your customer base? The notion that somehow buying from an online retailer is damaging to ‘the hobby’ is absurd. If it is not economically viable to run Games Workshop stores in certain territories, why not work with local independents or gaming clubs to raise the profile of your games? Simply trying to force people to pay prices they cannot afford will lead to fewer customers and hence less of the ‘local support’ you claim to cherish.

The culmination of all these decisions has reached a head in the last fortnight and has given rise to an outpouring of feeling I have never experienced before. To try and get a measure of the mood of the gaming community I conducted an online poll through the ‘dakkadakka.com’ website (one of the leading online forums for discussion of Games Workshop products) which garnered 565 responses over a 5 day period with the following results:

106 people (18.76%) stated that they had already ceased buying Games Workshop products before the latest price rises, with a further 94 people (16.64%) saying that they would no longer buy in the future.
66 people (11.68%) stated that they would make one last purchase to complete existing projects but would make no further purchases whilst 167 people (29.56%) said they would remain as customers but would spend less in the future than they presently do.
116 people (20.53%) stated that there buying habits would remain unaffected with just 16 people (2.83%) planning to increase their future spending.

In summary 35.40% of customers who responded to this survey will no longer spend money with you, 41.24% will spend less than they had otherwise planned with only 23.36% spending as much or more than before. Whilst an individual letter can be ignored, surely these figures should make you aware of the depth of feeling against your decisions?

In closing, I wish to extend an olive branch. It remains my firm belief that Games Workshop can regain the custom of those like myself who have decided that we can no longer support the company and are looking instead at wargaming pastures new, but only if it is willing to change and truly willing to address the needs and concerns of its customers. I and many others would be happy to engage with you and work with you to overcome these problems, but you must open the door for us to walk through.

Regards,

To which I recieved the following response:

Spoiler:

Thank you for your letter in which you described your concerns regarding Games Workshop’s strategy. You raised a number of issues and I will do my best to address them.

First, as for our product releases and rules, the last thing we are trying to do is treat our customers with contempt. Quite the reverse. Come down to Nottingham and talk to us if you have any doubts on that score. When Jervis says he will speak to anyone regarding their concerns, he is serious about that. I see him most weeks in Bugmans having coffee with experienced customers like yourself to learn what your suggestions are.

The simple fact is that we cannot possibly make everything that every customer wants as there is a limit to how much our Studio can design or our factory make. We have to make choices about what products we release and when. Specialist games is a good example. We would love to have another go at one of these, but there are other exciting projects that we have to deliver first.

That’s not to say they will never be revisited, as we showed with Space Hulk, it’s simply a case of priorities. That’s why we keep them in the range, so that at some time in the future we have the option to come back to them. We are not trying to be disrespectful to fans of these games, many of whom will love the other new stuff we do as well. It’s just that they are not top of the list right now.

As for the legal action we take against infringers, I don’t think we have any choice. They have taken, without our permission, intellectual property which our design teams have taken years to develop and have used it for their own commercial purposes. That is clearly morally and legally wrong. If companies want to make product using our intellectual property then they should approach us for a licence, like Fantasy Flight Games have. Provided they meet our quality standards and our minimum royalty requirements, then we will consider them. But they can’t simply steal from us and expect us to ignore them.

As for secrecy about new releases, what we have found is that the more secret we keep things, the more excitement there is about a launch. Space Hulk was a great example of this, as was Finecast. Some people love to know in advance what is going to happen, of course. But as you point out in your letter, we are a commercial organisation. And what we have learnt is that the more information that is leaked in advance, the weaker the launch. The more secret we keep it, the bigger the launch. We are not being paranoid, it just makes sense for us to do it that way, nothing more than that.

Next let me deal with price increases. We review our pricing each year. In doing so we take into account the costs of designing and making the product, raw material costs, support costs such as staff salaries and rent for our Hobby Centres and of course any quality improvements we have designed into the products.

All of these costs have increased in recent years, particularly raw material costs such as tin and plastic which have increased far faster than our retail prices. The reason that we have been able to absorb much of this cost pressure is that we are constantly investing in technology and training to deliver greater efficiency in our manufacturing and design processes. We have also worked hard to keep our staffing to a minimum in all areas, from hobby centres to production lines to offices.

However, the one area where we will not compromise is quality. Every miniature we have released since you started in the hobby has delivered an improvement in quality. Our plastic sets, paints, scenery and hobby products are incomparable compared to then. I’d argue that our product quality has improved at a far faster rate in recent years than our prices.

Finally, I’m not seeking to offend anyone when I say that European trade accounts have not invested in growing the customer base outside Europe. I’m simply stating the facts. If we had not taken action to enforce our European trade terms, they would have continued to undermine the very accounts you suggest we work with to support clubs in places like Australia and New Zealand.

Those local Australian and New Zealand accounts have worked hard over the years to build up their customer base by word of mouth and running events. As have our Hobby Centres which have recruited tens of thousands of customers through introductory activities, painting lessons and beginners programmes. It’s because we want to have a vibrant customer base in Australia in twenty years time, that we are taking legitimate action now to support local accounts and Hobby Centres.

Hopefully that helps to explain the reasons for each of the decisions we’ve made. I’m sorry that at the moment you are unhappy with us. It certainly wasn’t our intention to upset you. What I hope comes across is that whenever we are faced with difficult choices at Games Workshop, we always seek to do the right thing for the long term. That may make us unpopular with customers from time to time.

However, we believe that the choices we have made will enable us to keep making fantastic miniatures and games with outstanding service from local accounts and Hobby Centres. And, if we keep doing that consistently well over time, in the long term there will continue to be a great Games Workshop for current and future customers to enjoy.

Yours sincerely

Mark Wells

First, apologies for the wall of text but I thought I would be doing a disservice to those interested by paraphrasing what he had to say. As to my feelings?

Well, I have to say I am impressed to have a personal reply - certainly not something I expected, but it is clearly not a standard letter as it addressed everything I said point-by-point. I think I was misinterpreted slightly with regards to copyright infringement - I was pointing out that if GW had done its job properly to start with then aftermarket bits companies would not have arisen in the first place but reading back I don't know if I made that clear enough.

As for the biggies:
All price rises are justified because the quality is universally better...
Secrecy works - it made the release of Space Hulk and Failcost the successes they were... oh wait
Specialist Games are not being ditched 'in case we go back to them later, like Space Hulk'... err, SH was never a Specialist Game and had been officially out of print for years before the splash 3rd edition.
Australia and New Zealand need protecting from those evil European traders or the hobby will disappear down under... what the ?
Games Workshop always takes decisions for the 'long term'...

Back to the drawing board, methinks.

mwnciboo wrote:My personal idealogy is that Mass production = Good. Drive down unit cost, Gamers should be given generic models we can adapt. TACTICAL MARINES are a perfect example, why do we need specific GREY HUNTERS et al, just sell an upgrade sprue for £10 (One for DA, BA, SW, BT IF etc etc). Use the generic Marine pack for all of them as bodies and legs, with specific upgrades from the Sprue packs. Unit Cost in the 1,000,000 and drive the cost of 10 Marines down to £15 and an Upgrade sprue £5 - £10 depending. Do this for every race and you are laughing.

mikhaila wrote:On the subject of pointing us in the direction of Jervis in Bugmans bar, I wonder what would happen if a large number of disgruntled gamers wandered down to Nottingham and started asking a lot of questions?

Probably the same thing that would happen anywhere else: If you were polite and felt like discussing things over a beer, you'd have a good time and get some good conversation, and maybe some answers. And you'd have a chance to give him some feedback.

If you all walked in angry and the entire tone was accusatory, he'd answer a couple of questions and leave.

Kilkrazy wrote:Then their business plan is screwed, because it's entirely based on retail shops selling two basic products.

itsonlyme wrote:

mwnciboo wrote:My personal idealogy is that Mass production = Good. Drive down unit cost, Gamers should be given generic models we can adapt. TACTICAL MARINES are a perfect example, why do we need specific GREY HUNTERS et al, just sell an upgrade sprue for £10 (One for DA, BA, SW, BT IF etc etc). Use the generic Marine pack for all of them as bodies and legs, with specific upgrades from the Sprue packs. Unit Cost in the 1,000,000 and drive the cost of 10 Marines down to £15 and an Upgrade sprue £5 - £10 depending. Do this for every race and you are laughing.

Do you honestly think price is the only reason people are buying less, GW have basically removed everything from the equation that won them a lot of customer loyalty.

mwnciboo wrote:ERRR YES, YES I DO. In fact i would go as far as saying that if a Space Marine tactical box cost £15 i wouldn't care if GW had them made in backstreet sweat shops.

Capitalism my friend, money makes the world go round. If you want Idealogy well your welcome to it, price is the ultimate fixation because it is the ultimate fixation.