GW Insider thinking

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**stonefox**

Found this gem at Warseer. If it's true, it's horrible. It reads like an indoctrination manual for MLM schemes or the Scientology crap.

**Scottywan82**

Hardly horrible. I used to work at a retail store for GW, and yeah, it's in the manual. And derision is heaped on it that is heaped on all employee manuals. Honestly, a show of hands for who has worked retail for more than two years: Do you ever even read the manual?

I should also say that I worked for GW between 2000 and 2001, and the WORDING is even the same. So this is a bit outdated, but hardly brainwashing. I agree, it's a stupid way to run a business, but in retail chains, all the cogs are replaceable, so it's an understandable mentality.

**bigchris1313**

That's incredible.

Made my day.

As a GW customer, I'm a "special" kind of customer!

**Polonius**

Virtually everything that was in there would be true in other industries I've worked in. I sold swimming pools, hot tubs, and related supplies for years, and I would describe many of my customers as "Special" or "unique." So would the guys at the indie record shop, the comic book store, and the gun shop.

While it looks a little bad written down, i doubt anybody that's worked in retail would be shocked by that.

**malfred**

Post is gone. Database error?

**stonefox**

Actually I never read the manual so this is all new to me. I guess it's funny when all the gems are pointed out, though. I know buzzwords are thrown around in business, "unique, synergy, what's right for the company" but I guess you guys are right and it's nothing new.

It still sounds like an MLM/scientology thing though. I won't take that back.

**malfred**

Nevermind. Must have been a server timeout due to
people accessing it.

**malfred**

stonefox wrote:

It still sounds like an MLM/scientology thing though. I won't take that back.

Oh? First hand experience?

**stonefox**

Dad got suckered into the former, friend into the latter. It's hardly a "religion" but I'll refrain from saying anything further about the latter.

Anyway, what's funny are the people who respond seriously about the "unique/special" comments. It's warseer so you get the usual bunch of retards defending or glorifying their hobby (I can't tell if he's serious or sarcastic), which is half the fun of the thread. In either case, it deserves a wisdom of warseer sig change.

**Hellfury**

Tom Cruise is posting on Dakka! OMFGBBQ sauce!!11!1eleventyone!1!1

**malfred**

My dad tried the MLM thing, too with some vitamin franchise.

(now that I know what MLM is...)

I had NO idea he was doing any of this, by the way.

**sebster**

Huh. I always fully expected GW to be a slightly crazy, slightly mercenary, like most middle sized public companies. So I thought this would be an interesting read, maybe even showing GW as more insane and more mercenary than I had thought. So, I prepared to be outraged about all the GW craziness and started reading the quotes cherry picked by someone wanting to have a go at GW and…

All the quotes were reasonable. True even, for the most part.

Outrage over a note saying a niche industry works differently to regular business? It does work differently. The best product development, marketing and pricing strategies are significantly different when you’re talking about a company with small but dedicated market. This is well established business practice.

Outrage over pointing out their customer base is relatively price insensitive? People are spending $60 on four plastic sprues? People building whole new armies after a codex revamp, just to stay ‘top tier’? If that doesn’t say price inelastic I don’t what ever will.

Outrage over a note saying the GW customer base isn’t pretty weird? Well, it is weird. Have you been in a GW store, talked to people in this hobby? It’s full of odd people, people odd enough to spend a fair portion of their time not just painting models and playing games, but posting on internet forums not just about the game, but the company behind the game. We are odd, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but if GW ignored that reality it would be poor business practice.

There is a chance the comment on corporate culture and fitting could indicate a significant problem, but without context its almost impossible to tell. If the comment was directed at retail staff it is perfectly sensible, but if directed at senior management it could indicate a poor, even dangerous corporate culture. But without context it’s all speculation (note the willingness of certain posters to assume the absolutely worst possibility).

Reading the replies on Warseer though… some seriously crazy stuff there. People declaring the chairman has the final say in company management. People talking about corporate politics when they don’t understand the difference between the board and the chairman. People ignoring (or being completely unaware of) basic market segmentation theory, and yet wanting to tell a multinational company how to run its marketing. People taking a word describing a customer attribute and taking it to mean GW thinks all their customers are slowed. People taking a policy on behaviour standards for regular staff and assuming it applies to senior management in order to create some scientology style GW where the Kirby word is law.

I guess at the end of the day GW may or may not be crazy, hopelessly ineffective and just plain evil. But everything quoted from that little manual shows them to be just another run of the mill company. But the eagerness with which geeks will ignore reality so they can protect their own little fantasy world will never cease to amaze me.

**KIL KIL KIL**

I think love of the hobby (yes we called it "the hobby", just like our branch was "the store") can best be summed up as a scenario in which GW folded tomorrow... would you still paint and play? I know I would.

Hell I played Warzone right to the bitter end, and it wasnt even that great!

**Kid_Kyoto**

Just so we all know what's being discussed:

Exquisite Evil writes:

So, after talk of the little red book of GW 'insider knowledge, I managed to get my hands on a copy - BIG thanks to my contact(you know who you are)

After spending sometime reading and analyzing it, all I can say is;

OH DEAR....

After reading this 'manual' (intended for upper staff and investors) I can see just WHY GW are failing horribly.

I can post it here, as that will break warseer rules.

However, what i CAN do is quote some of the great lines in this little 'gem'. I am also open to questions from the more curious of you.

To the fanbois who are going to get offended by what I write here - bear in mind, this was written by the HEAD of GW himself, mr.t.kirby.

For a long time there have been arguements on here regarding GW policies - well no more argueing. Fanbois, simply put - you are so, so wrong.

ok here are a few 'gems';

"Niche businesses are not widely understood.They do not follow accepted business norms"

What a joke - business is business. Until now it has been conjecture that GW has its proverbial head up its proverbial @$$...now its proven.

"Our customers are 'special' and 'unusual' people"

Nice - apparantly we are all special and unusual. If this is the way GW views its customer - it isnt any wonder why we get treat like rubbish!

"In essence what we do is sell the love of a Hobby. Once we have done that Hobbists will buy from us as if they were paying for an ongoing subscription to the Hobby"

Errr NEWSFLASH - GW is not 'The Hobby'! Its funny, I always thought that the GW marketing pushed this knowing that it wasnt true. However, it seems GW actually believe their own hype! Maybe they should take a look at their market share....

On describing Markets;

"-Niche Markets are protected from Macro economic factors"

Sorry to all those who blame GW's fall on the economy - T.K. himself disagrees with you...

"-Niche market customers are dedicated and loyal"

Not if you treat them like idiots and sell them an overpriced subpar product - nope sorry, got that one wrong.

"-Niche markets are relatively price insensitive"

Again got it wrong- with prices at a all time high and sales at a 7 year low - well, it doesnt take a genius eh...

Ok last little bit (for now)when refering to staff;

"Staff can only progress by first becoming a good fit with GW. OUr efforts will be best rewarded by getting those that fit well to be more effective. Highly effective people who dont fit are extremely dangerous and should b re-housed elsewhere ASAP"

And WHAM - one of the fundamental reasons GW are failing. Inept staff. They'd rather train a moron to be a good 'yes man' than a taking a talented individual with new ideas to improve the company!

It basically says- i you dont agree with 'GW' no matter how wrong their practices are - You need to be moved on.

This is the opposite of every good business I know.A SUCCESSFUL business would enquire as to why the person had questions about practices, and if they had a better(workable) practice. These are the types that drive business!

If GW policy is simply - get rid of those that 'dont fit'(ie dont agree with everything 'we' say) then I can see why they are on the slippery slope down the toilet and into the S bend....

Well thats all for now folks.

Discuss away - ill provide more tidbits same time tomorrow

I agree that he's making something out of nothing. I see no cult, nothing egregious in there.

**Therion**

As a GW customer, I'm a "special" kind of customer!

Isn't it nice to see that they actually have a manual that makes fun of their customers. Ha ha! Look at these retards! We can sell anything to them at any price we like!

Well, the bit about GW staff certainly explains to me the day when I half-jokingly asked a red shirt why the super glue bottles GW sells are only half filled and he told me that glue is a dangerous chemical substance and that if the bottles were full they would quickly explode.

ExquisiteEvil on Warseer wrote:"In essence what we do is sell the love of a Hobby. Once we have done that Hobbists will buy from us as if they were paying for an ongoing subscription to the Hobby

I'm happy to see that my so called conspiracy theory has been finally proven to be entirely accurate. In a nut shell GW wants to make overpowered and underpowered units, armies or styles of play in order to keep the player base paying an ongoing subscription to the hobby.

**Hellfury**

KIL KIL KIL wrote:Hell I played Warzone right to the bitter end, and it wasnt even that great!

Blasphemer!

Well, the minis did suck....

**KIL KIL KIL**

The minis DID suck the big one, but they satisfied my more militaristic leanings back then "Red *marines*? gimmie a break..." That was back in the primary color glory days of 2nd ed though haha

back on topic, GW describes it's culis, err customer base as special and unique simply because if someone random asks about the hobby there's more than a little "wtf is that" to overcome expaining it, as opposed to say, ohh snowboarding or cricket.

Saying this is some vast conspiracy to milk gamers of money by upping the price needlessly is ridiculous, many other hobbies are much much more expensive to even BEGIN let alone become obsessed with. I know people who have 50K in sound equipment or off-road bikes alone to give a few examples.

Oh noes, a business... BUSINESS wants to make money? get my sky-fallin brand umbrella! the worlds done turned topsy martha, bring in the cows.

bottom line is if you dont like it, then dont do it.

get into the hobby for fun, stay to bitch, I swear... haha

**sebster**

Therion wrote:Isn't it nice to see that they actually have a manual that makes fun of their customers. Ha ha! Look at these retards! We can sell anything to them at any price we like!

Yeah, this is what I mean. GW make a comment about their fanbase being quite different to the average person on the street. Some people decide to take one possible meaning of the term, and decide GW is abusing their fans.

I mean, honestly, have a good long think about what you're saying. An employee manual is there to make employees operate how GW wants them to operate, so it carries information those employees need to know about the company and about the business it operates in, so telling staff that their customer base is quite different to the average person is an important thing to include. Whereas saying all those people you serve are slowed isn't simply absurd.

But of course you assume the latter meaning, because its the one where GW would look worse. You're so keen to see GW evil wherever possible, good sense and reason have long since been abandoned.

ExquisiteEvil on Warseer wrote:I'm happy to see that my so called conspiracy theory has been finally proven to be entirely accurate. In a nut shell GW wants to make overpowered and underpowered units, armies or styles of play in order to keep the player base paying an ongoing subscription to the hobby.

Or possibly they want to keep people in the hobby, which is really just good business. Bringing out better models, hyping up new units and revised codices, all pretty common business practice. Encouraging people to buy second and third armies to keep them in the hobby is just common sense.

But you're going a step further, claiming GW deliberately works its rules to encourage new sales. For your conspiracy to hold true, you must be able to explain Possessed and Spawn, both with new releases and both with extremely sucky rules. And explain why Falcons were excellent in both the old and new codices. Or that the two brand new armies, Necrons and Tau, meaning lots of sales to anyone wanting to start them, were both considerably average in terms of power. Or explain how 'nidzilla was such an obvious conspiracy to sell 'fex models when it took competitive players so long to catch on to how powerful it could be. Or explain why the GW sprue makers seemed so oblivious that the optimum weapon on TMCs, the devourer, was only included in only of the TMC boxed sets, and only once on the set (resulting in an active secondary market for bits where GW makes no profit).

There is no doubt GW has a market model built around hyping the new models. There's no doubt GW has some pretty loose balance control in its codices. But trying to tie the two together relies on some very selective analysis.

**Iron_Wolves**

So where is my "special little yellow bus" at?

**Therion**

For your conspiracy to hold true, you must be able to explain

I can explain it: Incompetence. They don't always succeed in what they're doing, but the exceptions only validate the rule. GW most certainly alters their rules with the intention of forcing people to buy new models. This isn't a new phenomenon. We've been shaking our heads at the sledgehammer nerfs and buffs for years. If something is too good and a lot of people buy it, they'll make sure it's absolutely worthless soon. They sometimes choose the alternative to nerfing which is to make something else so ridiculously overpowered in comparison that people have to buy it. It wouldn't be enough that Falcons were balanced, because that could mean the players who own Falcons would still be satisfied with their armies and would decide to buy no further models. It wasn't enough at the end of third edition that Rhino Rushes etc were fixed, they had to make them absolutely useless. I could go on for hours.

**H.B.M.C.**

And then there's the third side to it, where they can't nerf something without seriously annoying the fanbase, so they give the unit new options, but make a new model for it so that option is only available on the new models, not on the old.

Example: Plastic Stealth Suits. They couldn't make them useless without angering Tau players. So they gave them all these new options, but the options are only available on the new models, so people have to re-buy something they already own to get those new options.

BYE

**Relapse**

"Staff can only progress by first becoming a good fit with GW. OUr efforts will be best rewarded by getting those that fit well to be more effective. Highly effective people who dont fit are extremely dangerous and should b re-housed elsewhere ASAP"

Where I work, that's the general philosophy, and it has nothing to do with being a yes man. It means all people are pulling in the same direction as a highly trained team, rather than having a group of individuals constantly infighting and getting nowhere. Since our business adopted this method of running we've become far more profitable and tight knit.
I think if you look into any big business, you'll more often than not find that same mind set, in the more successful ones. Nepotism can and does sometimes creep in and hurt the business if it isn't watched out for, but if adhered to correctly, the general idea of this statement from the manual can very much help a company.

**sebster**

Therion wrote:
For your conspiracy to hold true, you must be able to explain

I can explain it: Incompetence. They don't always succeed in what they're doing, but the exceptions only validate the rule. GW most certainly alters their rules with the intention of forcing people to buy new models. This isn't a new phenomenon. We've been shaking our heads at the sledgehammer nerfs and buffs for years. If something is too good and a lot of people buy it, they'll make sure it's absolutely worthless soon. They sometimes choose the alternative to nerfing which is to make something else so ridiculously overpowered in comparison that people have to buy it. It wouldn't be enough that Falcons were balanced, because that could mean the players who own Falcons would still be satisfied with their armies and would decide to buy no further models. It wasn't enough at the end of third edition that Rhino Rushes etc were fixed, they had to make them absolutely useless. I could go on for hours.

Just stop for a second and think about that. GW has large swings and roundabouts in the power of its units. You think this is deliberate, to make people buy stuff. But there’s no consistency between the models GW is trying to sell and the new powerful stuff. So you assume the company is incompetent at its conspiracy, rather than just follow a simple new concept;

GW is quite incompetent at writing rules for highly competitive play. They fail to identify areas of possible abuse, and overreact to abuse once identified. This results in units becoming more and less powerful over time, and changing the most powerful tournament lists.

It’s a simple theory, with no sweeping assumptions. Makes it a little less popular on the internet, but a lot more likely to be true.

**Therion**

GW is quite incompetent at writing rules for highly competitive play. They fail to identify areas of possible abuse, and overreact to abuse once identified. This results in units becoming more and less powerful over time, and changing the most powerful tournament lists.

Well you're seeing all the same facts as I am but coming to different conclusions. You see overpowered units and see them as incompetence in games design. I see the overpowered units as a simple intention to either push the model or push the army or both. When an army has some cheese factor it immediately becomes interesting to a wide audience. People like to win. You see units or armies nerfed to the point they are no longer worth half the points they cost and see it as an overreaction to abuse. I see it as a realisation what the wide audience is playing and as an attempt to make them spend some money. Like I said, it's not enough for GW that the armies that Joe and Bob play now are balanced. GW has to either make their armies underpowered or Joe's and Bob's opposition overpowered in order to make sure that Joe and Bob have to ask their mom for a different army or 1000 points of new models. Like the memo said, they have to pay in order to stay in the hobby. A constant subscription if you will.

**fellblade**

Relapse wrote:"Staff can only progress by first becoming a good fit with GW. OUr efforts will be best rewarded by getting those that fit well to be more effective. Highly effective people who dont fit are extremely dangerous and should b re-housed elsewhere ASAP"

...Andy Chambers, we miss you.

**Sturmtruppe**

I didn't see anything wrong with what I read posted on Warseer. Seems to me, there's a few people in the world who are taking some things out of context, playing the whole conspiracy theory thing. I could be wrong as I've never seen this hidden manual, but it's probably not different from any other kind of "niche" type market.

**Kilkrazy**

Clearly the lads over at Warseer are a bit "special" themselves if they think there's something badly wrong in that manual.

To put their thinking into effect, GW hire staff out of the mining or chip design industries, who have never worked in a creative or retail business, and who hate games, science fiction and model figures.

**sebster**

Therion wrote:Well you're seeing all the same facts as I am but coming to different conclusions. You see overpowered units and see them as incompetence in games design. I see the overpowered units as a simple intention to either push the model or push the army or both. When an army has some cheese factor it immediately becomes interesting to a wide audience. People like to win. You see units or armies nerfed to the point they are no longer worth half the points they cost and see it as an overreaction to abuse. I see it as a realisation what the wide audience is playing and as an attempt to make them spend some money. Like I said, it's not enough for GW that the armies that Joe and Bob play now are balanced. GW has to either make their armies underpowered or Joe's and Bob's opposition overpowered in order to make sure that Joe and Bob have to ask their mom for a different army or 1000 points of new models. Like the memo said, they have to pay in order to stay in the hobby. A constant subscription if you will.

No, I’m seeing the facts and coming to a conclusion. You’re seeing the facts then ignoring half of them to force it all into a conclusion you’d already decided was true.

Now, I’m not saying my conclusion is undeniably true, there’s every chance I’ve missed something or misinterpreted something. But your conclusion is wrong. The only argument for it is that some miniatures improved when new models were released. But then you try to rely on incompetence to explain the large number of models released with very poor rules. Once you’ve accepted GW rules design is incompetent, then incompetence can be used to explain the entire process.

It only becomes more unlikely when you consider there has never been a GW policy statement leaked with anything like an intent to release new models with superior rules. The company leaks like a sieve, except for this one grand conspiracy.

Trying to stretch the quote from memo into supporting that conspiracy is a crazy. It can easily be used to explain well known, observed sales activities we’ve all seen in store. Encouraging people to play games at higher points levels. Encouraging people playing games in store to expand their model ranges with new releases. Encouraging people to try store copies of armies to get them to buy second and third armies. Basic sales strategy, appropriate for a company wide manual. Assuming it has any relation to powering and de-powering units to sell models is wild speculation.

**Kilkrazy**

More likely GW do indeed try to push new models by supporting them with cool rules, but get the rules wrong a lot of the time.

I am sure everyone can find examples from their favourite codex, such as Tau Empire Sniper Drones or Vespids.

**akira5665**

If I did not frequent GW stores so much, and listen to the RS BS, I would say those excerpts are rubbish. Sadly, I don't think they are. Scary.