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I could actually appreciate that GW have so engrained FOMO in their customer base that it becomes harder to predict how many copies they need to last more than an hour, but still not be stuck with a giant pile of product.

Think about it, if a large portion of your customer base has FOMO then a large portion of your sales are going to be in the first couple of hours if nor minutes after release. After that, sales just trickle in for the next few weeks and indeed the rest of the product's life.

So while it might seem GW is massively underestimating demand, an alternative explanation is that it's entirely possible that there's a fine line between "preorders sold out in an hour" and "too much stock that it's costing them money".

While GW could of course make enough for everyone, realistically they only want to make as much as they can sell and no more since they don't want piles of unsold product lying around.

Often when the preorders sell out you'll find stores here and there that still have stock weeks or months later anyway.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
Yes, I am for real. Because I heard that exact quote over the phone between my local store owner and his GW rep. The rep said "We had no idea that there would be THIS much of an interest in the product and we're scrambling to fill orders as we speak. I know that you ordered 10 boxes, however I can only send you four."

You actually believed that? That's the worst BS corporate ass covering excuse that could ever exist. GW knew exactly how popular this would be thanks to previous Quest sales.

Expect we’ve seen them increasing sales by a huge amount since the last one was released.

Boxed Games are planned well in advance, so it’s easy for them to under produce. Hence the need for them to just bloody tell us, nice and straight, whether or not they’ll be producing more.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
Yes, I am for real. Because I heard that exact quote over the phone between my local store owner and his GW rep. The rep said "We had no idea that there would be THIS much of an interest in the product and we're scrambling to fill orders as we speak. I know that you ordered 10 boxes, however I can only send you four."

You actually believed that? That's the worst BS corporate ass covering excuse that could ever exist. GW knew exactly how popular this would be thanks to previous Quest sales.

Expect we’ve seen them increasing sales by a huge amount since the last one was released.

Boxed Games are planned well in advance, so it’s easy for them to under produce. Hence the need for them to just bloody tell us, nice and straight, whether or not they’ll be producing more.

I never said they didn't under produce, I said that the rep is spewing corporate BS to cover that fact. There's a reason GW reps have a bad reputation.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
Yes, I am for real. Because I heard that exact quote over the phone between my local store owner and his GW rep. The rep said "We had no idea that there would be THIS much of an interest in the product and we're scrambling to fill orders as we speak. I know that you ordered 10 boxes, however I can only send you four."

You actually believed that? That's the worst BS corporate ass covering excuse that could ever exist. GW knew exactly how popular this would be thanks to previous Quest sales.

Expect we’ve seen them increasing sales by a huge amount since the last one was released.

Boxed Games are planned well in advance, so it’s easy for them to under produce. Hence the need for them to just bloody tell us, nice and straight, whether or not they’ll be producing more.

They have been selling out their boxed sets for years...One would think they would kinda figure it out by now...Which they have. which is why they produce this much and not more.

Except of course numbers are deliberately kept low.

And yet sometimes they still have boxes that appear not to sell. Consider the Slaanesh and Khorne box from a few years back that didn't seem to sell out for ages and yet had no bad content within it and a lot of good - new fiends, new hounds, the only (at the time) ranged unit for Slaanesh (without using a spell).

 Overread wrote:
And yet sometimes they still have boxes that appear not to sell. Consider the Slaanesh and Khorne box from a few years back that didn't seem to sell out for ages and yet had no bad content within it and a lot of good - new fiends, new hounds, the only (at the time) ranged unit for Slaanesh (without using a spell).

That's not quite comparable to a board game with exclusive miniatures, is it?

Anyone who believes GW actually didn't expect Cursed City to be so popular is a fool that deserves to be parted with their money by GW.

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Anyone who believes GW actually didn't expect Cursed City to be so popular is a fool that deserves to be parted with their money by GW.

It's not that people didn't expect GW to expect Cursed City to be popular.

Most of us expected GW to sell out on the pre-order week. Even if GW were running at full capacity (which they are very very far from right now). However we expected it to be a product with a several year lifespan with regular restocks during that period; and for that to be an open fact GW would easily confirm and reinforce through their community contact points. Instead we've had this hazy series of messages which at the same time suggest restocks are just a long way off or that its a one time product or that the product will return but in a changed form. Cryptic answers by community reps who are either as clueless as customers and are just repeating what the store page shows; or who are forbidden from elaborating further.

The result is what should be a clear bit of information is now muddled. The worrying thing is all signs pointed to a medium term product, but this sudden silence is hinting that perhaps it was a one time deal. Which leaves those hwo didn't panic on the pre-order day or who are short of money right now in an annoyed position.

 Overread wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
Anyone who believes GW actually didn't expect Cursed City to be so popular is a fool that deserves to be parted with their money by GW.

It's not that people didn't expect GW to expect Cursed City to be popular.

Most of us expected GW to sell out on the pre-order week. Even if GW were running at full capacity (which they are very very far from right now). However we expected it to be a product with a several year lifespan with regular restocks during that period; and for that to be an open fact GW would easily confirm and reinforce through their community contact points. Instead we've had this hazy series of messages which at the same time suggest restocks are just a long way off or that its a one time product or that the product will return but in a changed form. Cryptic answers by community reps who are either as clueless as customers and are just repeating what the store page shows; or who are forbidden from elaborating further.

The result is what should be a clear bit of information is now muddled. The worrying thing is all signs pointed to a medium term product, but this sudden silence is hinting that perhaps it was a one time deal. Which leaves those hwo didn't panic on the pre-order day or who are short of money right now in an annoyed position.

None of which would be a problem if GW were not lying and didn't purposefully under-produce every box set and then come up with a lazy excuse every time.

Gone off the UK webstore.

Whoopsie!

 Arbitrator wrote:
Gone off the UK webstore.

Whoopsie!

Yeah, was about to post the same but wasn't sure if it was just me. Doesn't appear in searches and if I go back to my orders and click it I get "404 error expunged from records".

This is annoying as I usually use the high def webstore images for painting references and use the 360 degree views to be able to see the back of the models. Bugger.

 Arbitrator wrote:
Gone off the UK webstore.

Whoopsie!

IF it actually is a limited-time box, then it might be one of GW's stupidest and most donkey-cave decision of the past few years.

Massive preview for the game. Weeks of articles showing off minis and components. It's own swanky website. A how to play video produced in studio during a time when the UK is pretty much in lockdown.

Sold out in 2 minutes. Never to be produced again?

I don't buy it.

Yup, it disappeared from the webstore in Belgium too.

I'm a GW fanboy and even I find this completely ridiculous.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Massive preview for the game. Weeks of articles showing off minis and components. It's own swanky website. A how to play video produced in studio during a time when the UK is pretty much in lockdown.

Sold out in 2 minutes. Never to be produced again?

I don't buy it.

It's GW so in contrast to GW's actual products, I'd buy it

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Massive preview for the game. Weeks of articles showing off minis and components. It's own swanky website. A how to play video produced in studio during a time when the UK is pretty much in lockdown.

Sold out in 2 minutes. Never to be produced again?

I don't buy it.

Well, not buying is indeed the problem.
But yes, that they pushed it as hard as they did for the (apparent) handful of copies they made is just... inconceivable.

---
I'm baffled, to be honest. I half expect a Space Hulk situation where they mysteriously 'find' more copies laying around somewhere. Several times.

But, producing more seems the more sane and rational prospect. This isn't a Dreadfleet disaster or Pariah Nexus or a Versus box where the goal is to push exclusives sales or get rid of old stock pushed by new characters.

It was simply another Warhammer Quest box. That's all they've ever said. Its becoming a PR fail solely because they're failing to clarify, or at least yammer out a passable excuse. Even 'blah, blah Covid and shipping delays, but in X weeks/months...' would go a long way. Or just, 'yeah, we done goofed, sorry.' But the lack of anything is bad form, and making it worse.

Voss wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Massive preview for the game. Weeks of articles showing off minis and components. It's own swanky website. A how to play video produced in studio during a time when the UK is pretty much in lockdown.

Sold out in 2 minutes. Never to be produced again?

I don't buy it.

Well, not buying is indeed the problem.
But yes, that they pushed it as hard as they did for the (apparent) handful of copies they made is just... inconceivable.

---
I'm baffled, to be honest. I half expect a Space Hulk situation where they mysteriously 'find' more copies laying around somewhere. Several times.

But, producing more seems the more sane and rational prospect. This isn't a Dreadfleet disaster or Pariah Nexus or a Versus box where the goal is to push exclusives sales or get rid of old stock pushed by new characters.

It was simply another Warhammer Quest box. That's all they've ever said. Its becoming a PR fail solely because they're failing to clarify, or at least yammer out a passable excuse. Even 'blah, blah Covid and shipping delays, but in X weeks/months...' would go a long way. Or just, 'yeah, we done goofed, sorry.' But the lack of anything is bad form, and making it worse.

They also pushed Indomitus pretty hard, stating several times, that it was limited but they had made enough copies that everyone would get one. We all know how that turned out.
GW is either massively underestimating demand or lockdowns and shipping delays are hindering the amount of copies they can produce, be it the models made in the UK or the other components printed in China.

GW have been aware of issues with production meeting demand for a LONG time, that's why they've spent a lot of money on building and outfitting a new LARGER factory location to use in addition to the current one.

I believe there was an intention for it to have gone live last year, however obviously that got held up pretty dramatically.

They're running well below their 2019 capacity anyway with Covid restrictions, quite aside from the fact they'd planned to have more than double that capacity by now and all of their product release planning will have been based around at least most of that capacity being available. On top of this they need to maintain production of existing lines to replenish stock levels of those.

On top of this their sales are running at around 25% up year on year.

They simply don't have production available for all of their kits right now, so they're trying to make enough of each new thing to be able to release products in the planned order and get back to their intended release schedule.

Anyone who thinks that GW are intentionally limiting production and sales volumes on some of these items by the amounts that would be required to have so many people unable to buy and selling out within a couple of hours on most releases is kidding themselves.

GW aren't choosing to not get your money out of spite, anyone suggesting anything along those lines is deluded.

Rik

FWIW, the online store (in Germany) where I usually get my GW stuff wrote that GW already underestimated the Piety & Pain battlebox demand massively, so they might indeed be in a ... not so good place regarding their logistics right now. That's no excuse for doing terrible PR, however :p

 Hanskrampf wrote:

GW is either massively underestimating demand or lockdowns and shipping delays are hindering the amount of copies they can produce, be it the models made in the UK or the other components printed in China.

Or they're exploiting FOMO as they've done countless times before

Right now, Quest needs something to make up for this serious disappointment. If Cursed City was a victim of bad timing, then maybe they should just keep BSF printing off for a little longer and give players a new expedition and characters, in either White Dwarf or the community site.

But if BSF suddenly disappears without something to take its place then that would be really awful for Quest players, and especially at a time when local gaming tables are still closed.

 Overread wrote:
And yet sometimes they still have boxes that appear not to sell. Consider the Slaanesh and Khorne box from a few years back that didn't seem to sell out for ages and yet had no bad content within it and a lot of good - new fiends, new hounds, the only (at the time) ranged unit for Slaanesh (without using a spell).

The boxes that don't sell tend to have some sort of flaw- The absurd price of Blood of Phoenix, the demons-only content of the box set you mentioned, Feast of bones having old ogre models and the incredibly divisive OBR...

Yeah, and as stated previously, there's a difference between a versus box and a complete new game. If im not mistaken, the only game box that didn't sold well was dreadfleet. Seems like it traumatised big ol GW

GW have a few other things to contend with as well as COVID.

The change over to their new stock management system hasn't gone as planned and they have had to draft in help from a third party.

They also haven't moved into their new stock management hub in Leicester yet which means they are in a bit of a tricky situation managing stock levels due to space constraints.

Add in delays caused by COVID and the Ever Green Suez fiasco and you have a perfect storm that might be affecting them more badly than previously thought.

However, there's no reason they couldn't communicate this, unless they are worried about it affecting share prices.

I do believe Cursed City will come back, I just don't think even GW know when.

I'm not too up on GW's production methods but is there any reason that, if this is a genuine mistake, they couldn't just do another run anyway?

Only time, as the cardboard is produced overseas.

recaf wrote:
I'm not too up on GW's production methods but is there any reason that, if this is a genuine mistake, they couldn't just do another run anyway?

Yes, but if its printed material (including the boards), that means booking time with a printer. That's usually done in advance, most 'for rent' presses operate in a busy queue.

That'd be the only acceptable delay for the current silence, in my mind- if they're trying to schedule a time frame for reprints and don't want to say anything until they can give a hard date (keeping in mind printing/shipping printed materials to them/putting it all together in boxes/then shipping out again). Though a quick post that they're trying wouldn't go amiss.


---
Though if they just want to sell the miniature sprues as part of the Soulblight release, I wouldn't object to that, either. Assuming they're priced like Cultists of the Abyss and not the absurd pricing of the Indomitus sprues, of course. Those prices still make me laugh, partly because I saw five actual Indomitus boxes on the shelf yesterday.

Which also feeds into why this situation is so frustrating. 5 Indomitus, 2 Lumenith, 1 each of Shadow and Pain, Aetherwar, Blood of the Phoenix, all on the shelf at a store. But no Cursed City. Strange that I can still find so many 'limited run' products...

If I were GW, I would be tempted to accept the win and move on too. Selling out is not exactly bad for business if the amount of copies sold was enough to turn in massive profit. I think it was.

jullevi wrote:
If I were GW, I would be tempted to accept the win and move on too. Selling out is not exactly bad for business if the amount of copies sold was enough to turn in massive profit. I think it was.

I mean aside from the backlash they'll get from the community over this.

Which could be worse than Indomitus. Indomitus was big partly just because it was basically a huge massive discount boxed set, same as the others. This is a boxed game so far as we know if you don't get it the models within are likely to not be reprinted again and sold by GW - let alone the game components as well. It's the difference between a short term discount set - where its annoying if it runs out but not the end of the world - and a limited product where the actual product won't return again to the market.


One of them people can get over, they can grump about it, but in the end GW can just release the models and people settle down.
The other people won't get over and will complain each and every time GW puts up an expansoin or talks about it.




I wonder if they'll sell the set again at a higher price; or perhaps split the contents over two or more packs and raise the price that way. That would mean that its not a limited run, but that this first discounted set is.

Well, this is news? Disappointed to see it won't be coming back, I was planning on this being a big project in the future, guess that won't be happening!

EDIT: Whoever is in control of the account is burying the reply in a mass of retweets which isn't on either, so here is the link so you can share and discuss: https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1382721048332939266