DiscoVader wrote:

And welcome (back) to Dakka!

Slacker wrote:There's a problem with that-Games Workshop doesn't actually run any events in the United States aside from Gamesday, and that requires you to spend an inordinate amount of money that goes *directly* into GW's pocket in order to attend. That completely negates the entire point of a boycott.

Slacker wrote:Well, honestly, the better goal would be to generate so much mail and phone traffic that investors find out and spike the stock price. THAT is the more effective way to get results. Nothing is going to have a more serious impact on what we want to do than negatively impacting Games Workshop's stock price. Nothing.

Slacker wrote:Oh, of course. I'm honestly not sure how one could actually get this into the media, short of a significant letter writing campaign or something on the internet going viral. Don't get me wrong, my blog post is doing rather well in terms of getting reposted, but it's not doing *that* well. Thoughts?

Slacker wrote:Certainly a large group protesting outside of Gamesday might have an impact, but that's in the summer, and may well be too late to be effective. There's no significant Hobby Centers here in New York to protest outside of-the two GW run stores in the City are literally bad jokes, and when I said they would fit in our LGS's storage closet, I wasn't exaggerating very much. Certainly combined they have less floor space then the basement, which is solely used as a storage room. Not much of a point in protesting out in front of them. I think in the interim before Gamesday, some sort of combined phone call/letter writing campaign coupled with trying to get a media spotlight on the issue may be our best bet.

Alfhedil wrote: irregardless

Might want to tighten up the spelling and punctuation before sending.

Thrax wrote:

Slacker wrote:Hey all, I had an account here a long time ago, apparently lost to the Warp. I lurk here, post on Warseer. HBMC and I go waaay back over on Spacebattles. I've been following the conversation on this entire debacle and wrote an editorial for a blog/podcast I'm a part of here in New York, Tabletop Hooligans. Incorporated into it is some stuff I've seen in some threads here on DakkaDakka, and I wanted to post a link here to give everyone an opportunity to see it. I specifically wanted to thank to guys who posted the customer service numbers and the UK mailing addresses for Games Workshop. Who knows, maybe we can make a difference.

Have a look and let me know what you think.

http://tabletophooligans.com/?p=241

Fantastic. This is exactly what I was hoping to see. Everyone that cares about their hobby needs to get serious, right now, if they expect to be able to enjoy it for even another year. GW is headed for a trainwreck and clearly they need some collective input to "right the ship" if you will.

People need to stop posting internet flames, stop whining within the walls of their FLGS, and start making the types of positive contributions, such as this article suggests, that will bring our hobby back from the brink.

Some of you may not yet be convinced that things are truly all that bad, or that they will ever be - but if you sit this out, you will find that this is not a all-of-a-sudden thing, and GW is literally taking our hobby away from us. With their latest garbage they've effectively taken half the globe out of the hobby via pricing it beyond people's means. With these yearly price hikes, this WILL BE THE REST OF US before you realize it.
Act now. Be courteous and mature. Tell GW you're walking away until they address the community in a way that is more than patronizing, and let them call your bluff. Stand firm. They won't last a year if we all cut back. Their stock will slip and they will re-evaluate this strategy.

Your alternative is to wait. To wait and enjoy the same fate as Australia and NZ in a few more years, when a box of tactical marines costs as much as a battleforce.

Trust me, I am not normally someone to "call people to arms" over the internet - but if you sincerely care about this hobby even a little, you need to follow through with due diligence and do what you can, legally and maturely, to protect your investment in it.

shingouki wrote:

Thrax wrote:

Slacker wrote:Hey all, I had an account here a long time ago, apparently lost to the Warp. I lurk here, post on Warseer. HBMC and I go waaay back over on Spacebattles. I've been following the conversation on this entire debacle and wrote an editorial for a blog/podcast I'm a part of here in New York, Tabletop Hooligans. Incorporated into it is some stuff I've seen in some threads here on DakkaDakka, and I wanted to post a link here to give everyone an opportunity to see it. I specifically wanted to thank to guys who posted the customer service numbers and the UK mailing addresses for Games Workshop. Who knows, maybe we can make a difference.

Have a look and let me know what you think.

http://tabletophooligans.com/?p=241

Fantastic. This is exactly what I was hoping to see. Everyone that cares about their hobby needs to get serious, right now, if they expect to be able to enjoy it for even another year. GW is headed for a trainwreck and clearly they need some collective input to "right the ship" if you will.

People need to stop posting internet flames, stop whining within the walls of their FLGS, and start making the types of positive contributions, such as this article suggests, that will bring our hobby back from the brink.

Some of you may not yet be convinced that things are truly all that bad, or that they will ever be - but if you sit this out, you will find that this is not a all-of-a-sudden thing, and GW is literally taking our hobby away from us. With their latest garbage they've effectively taken half the globe out of the hobby via pricing it beyond people's means. With these yearly price hikes, this WILL BE THE REST OF US before you realize it.
Act now. Be courteous and mature. Tell GW you're walking away until they address the community in a way that is more than patronizing, and let them call your bluff. Stand firm. They won't last a year if we all cut back. Their stock will slip and they will re-evaluate this strategy.

Your alternative is to wait. To wait and enjoy the same fate as Australia and NZ in a few more years, when a box of tactical marines costs as much as a battleforce.

Trust me, I am not normally someone to "call people to arms" over the internet - but if you sincerely care about this hobby even a little, you need to follow through with due diligence and do what you can, legally and maturely, to protect your investment in it.

ive just wrote a couple of letters which should be winging their way to hq by tomorrow.

oni wrote:Someone get Anonymous to take down their web store. That will hurt profits.

Slacker wrote:HBMC and I go waaay back over on Spacebattles.

Alfhedil wrote:

Slacker wrote:Well, honestly, the better goal would be to generate so much mail and phone traffic that investors find out and spike the stock price. THAT is the more effective way to get results. Nothing is going to have a more serious impact on what we want to do than negatively impacting Games Workshop's stock price. Nothing.

As would bad press, and I mean, admit it, we Americans get riled up as it is over "Wall-Street screwing the poor", if the media got a hold of this and ran with it, GW would have bigger worries. This is of course before you take into account that most Americans who would see such a news story would instantly be offended by "Some foreigners" ripping off the "honest working joes" of America, irregardless of the fact that you needed more money to play warhammer than most would think of spending on plastic space soldiers.

Slacker wrote:Well, there wasn't *much* of a discussion, but I felt the need to acknowledge what little there was. There's actually more going on now at Stardestroyer on the topic I started when I posted my article on the topic, but *eh*.

Dear Mr. Wells.

As a long time Games Workshop customer, due to your recent policy announcements, I feel compelled to write to you in order to voice my concerns about the hobby's medium to long term health.

I've been a customer since 2nd Edition Warhammer 40 000. Coming from this old school of gamers, I learned early on to adopt a "pay where you play" mentality. After all, if you didn't support your local gaming establishment in exchange for using its facilities, there was no guarantee that it would continue to operate. As such, I support any action by Games Workshop to support their retail chain and brick and mortar independent retailers. Without any doubt, the face of gaming has changed greatly since that time, and with the prevalence of the internet, so has the worldview of most gamers. When I first joined the hobby, gamers were once concentrated around their local game stores to meet like-minded individuals. Those stores not only provided a place to play, but a venue to hang out, swap ideas, show off your new conversion or paint scheme or learn new tactics, modeling and painting techniques. These days, you can do almost all of that over the internet, and gamers definitely feel less of an attachment to their game stores. The one thing that game stores offer that cannot be replaced by the internet is playing physical games and the running of events. In my experience, it is this "value added" approach that draws gamers to the stores and keeps them coming back. Over the years, your Games Workshop retail chain performed an excellent job of providing this value added experience, as did White Dwarf magazine. This brings me to the first of my concerns.

The move to one man stores greatly concerns me as this seems to run contrary to the value-added store based model. While they may have been a necessary cost cutting measure, the one man stores can only offer the full hobby experience to fewer customers due to limits on what one staffer can do at one time, at reduced hours. A strong indicator is the stark change from painted preview models to unpainted preview models. In addition, the changes over the last few years to how information is released via trade services to the retail chain, independent retailers and the general public also troubles me. New product was once announced far in advance through White Dwarf magazine. As of late, staffers seem to be informed of new developments mere weeks before they hit the streets. This lack of information and inability to speak to rumours is frustrating to both the staff and the customers, and undermines the value of the stores as a source of information.

At its core, the main "value" of the Games Workshop hobby is providing a great modeling experience and gaming with like minded individuals. As such, attending events are one of the biggest value-added aspects of the hobby. Sadly, there has been a significant decrease in the number of official Games Workshop events held across North America over the last several years, from dozens to just Games Day in Chicago. Leagues, tournaments with limited edition tournament prize support and battle tours seem to be a thing of the past. It is with fond memories that I recall the amazing Dark Eldar slave raid table that the Canadian retail team made for Canadian Games Day back in the late 90's. It is with pride that I display on my shelf my Games Workshop Rogue Trader sportsmanship plaque that I won back in the early 2000's. It is with a sense of accomplishment that I entered the Warpstone painting contests at your Conflict events. It was with excitement that I fought to repel the Thousand Sons from the Eldar webway during the Eye of Terror battle campaign. These events all added richness and value to the Games Workshop hobby. Maybe they put a drain on company resources during a critical time, but I feel their absence makes the hobby a poorer place, and I am genuinely saddened when I think of the gamers that never knew this time.

Before the Oakville Battle Bunker was closed in Canada, I was disappointed to find that this store did not stock the entire range and that customers would still have to special order in the ever growing list of "direct only" and "specialist games" models. To me, this seemed counterintuitive as the "Battle Bunker" series of stores always had a kind of mystique as a kind of gaming Mecca, second only to the Nottingham HQ - which justifiably or not, raised my expectations of the services that it would offer. While it may not make financial sense to stock all the stores with the full range, has there been any thought to having regional flagship stores which do stock the entire range? While the online shipping options are very fast, there is something about being able to walk in to a location and be able to pull product directly from a shelf.

Finally, I'd like to touch briefly on some of the complaints written by Australian gamers over your decision to limit sales from UK retailers to the Eurozone. Again, I think that price is not so much the issue as perceived value. The internet has brought gamers together like never before, and made gamers acutely aware of what is happening in other parts of the world. While I appreciate the explanation that it costs more to run operations in Oceana, this does nothing to change the reality that buying at Australian MSRP is numerically poor value when compared to the rest of the world. As a Canadian gamer, I certainly understand where they are coming from, as Canadian prices are significantly higher than US MSRP, despite being directly adjacent to, having a stronger dollar and sharing the same regional and supply arms of Games Workshop as the United States. Due to the gamers’ disposition towards immediate gratification, one might expect that most web sales come from those without easy access to a local store. (Granted, Direct Services does muddy the waters a bit). Perhaps a possible solution is to separate the web store arm from the regional arms, allowing for more standardized pricing, pegged against the GBP and/or US dollar with bi-annual adjustments for currency fluctuation.

That aside, the quality of your models has never been better. It is with some anticipation that my gaming group awaits the release date of the Finecast line. Hopefully some conversion kits such as alternate heads and weapons packs are in the works. However, I think that the tipping point is fast approaching where selling on the quality of the models alone is no longer provides enough value in the minds of the consumer. We remain hopeful that under your leadership, we can look forward to a return the days of sneak peeks of incomplete concepts to capture our imaginations, more contests to stoke our creativity and increased corporate run events to satisfy our competitive itches.

Here’s to the hope that we’ll soon return to a Golden Age of Gaming.

Respectfully yours.