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Green Blow Fly wrote:Apoc is okay but there are a lot more people playing in tournaments.

G

what do you base this on?

I'm pretty sure its actually more people play "friendly" pickup games at a store or at home, then a percent play apoc, and a smaller percent play tournies....

I know that there are more people turned up for the apoc night last friday than went down to GT from our store....

Mod: OK I got an alert on this thread.

If anyone is found ragging on JohnHwangDD or any users, steps will be taken.

Remember Rule no.1

Keep the discussion polite, please!

I haven't read the article but I know(from previous WD)it can be dry and rather stupid at times,to be polite!

Kilkrazy wrote:Remember Rule no.1

Don't talk about Dakka Dakka?

The tournament scene drives the vast majority of my purchases, but i'm under no illusion that I'm mainstream. Apoc is just as niche as the tournament scene- vets using the toys they would probably have anyway.

It's all about the never ending stream of 12 year olds as far as sales go- the screaming hordes you see in any GW shop at the weekend.

A couple of years ago in a seminar at the UKGT, Jervis all but admitted to me that the reason WD is so full of drivel is that it's aimed squarely at the newer gamers- the kiddies. Why bother with decent articles when the kids wont get it anyway?

The tournament scene helps to market the game, they does not mean that the majority of sales come from people playing tournament... it means that the thought of knowing about the tournament scene encourages people to buy more. If you know GW then you know that it is all about more sales.

G

OddJob. wrote:A couple of years ago in a seminar at the UKGT, Jervis all but admitted to me that the reason WD is so full of drivel is that it's aimed squarely at the newer gamers- the kiddies. Why bother with decent articles when the kids wont get it anyway?

Brilliant.

Translation (for the kiddies):

"Why write big words when retards will buy our bs, cockamamy anyways?

Look, shiny stuff! You are now so distracted that you won't mind me stealing your wallet in exchange for piss-poor product design to use your new shiny toys with!

Don't do that! That's wrong! You can't play with your dollies that way, slow!"

Green Blow Fly wrote:Apoc is okay but there are a lot more people playing in tournaments.

G

You sure about that? There might be more people that you know playing tournaments, but without hard evidence to back up that assessment, it's nothing more than pure speculation.

Even GW themselves have said the tournament player is a minority as far as numbers and such.. Care to share your proof?

Green Blow Fly wrote:I have played some of the developers and I found them to be very competitive and loose with the rules. They want to win and would at times attempt to bend the rules for an advantage. This whole ivory tower thing comes across as a total facade to me. In fact Alessio won the Italian GT one year which is extremely competitive and his first claim to fame which got him some notice from the head office. I find Jervis to have his head up in the clouds completely out of touch with how the actual majority plays. Campaigns are for background and story telling, certainly not one off games and competitive tournament play. Nothing sells the game more than tournaments and that is the key driving force behind the GT system, RTTs and other annual events such as the Ard Boyz.

G

Why do you think he's out of touch? Why do you think he even wrote it? GW is the mini selling terminator. It doesn't play games. It doesn't do tournaments. It sells miniatures. It'll rip you heart out and use to it cool metal molds! Thats what it does. THATS ALL IT DOES!

(wow thats weird even for me. I think someone spiked the coffee this morning).

two_heads_talking wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:Apoc is okay but there are a lot more people playing in tournaments.

G

You sure about that? There might be more people that you know playing tournaments, but without hard evidence to back up that assessment, it's nothing more than pure speculation.

Even GW themselves have said the tournament player is a minority as far as numbers and such.. Care to share your proof?

This guy brings a point that seems so far to be missed here.

That is everyone's opinion is based entirely on our perception. And that perception is based entirely on the group we play with day in and day out, and the places we go to play.

For big time tournament players, we see mostly tournament people and so assume the majority of players must be tournament driven.
For the casual gamers, we see these gamers meeting at other people's houses and getting together to play at non-competitive driven stores.

Basically these two groups seldom meet. (Not saying we don't play with either of them, and big stores often have plenty of both, but our perception is based off what we see and experience and *not* reality)

The facts are: GW has said on a few occasions that the tournament player spending was a 'fraction' of their (GW) income. And GW has admitted several times that Apoc (a casual gamers niche) was a *huge* success. There is no doubt GW would miss the tournament player income if they would all of a sudden lose it. But, honestly, you have to ask yourself, as a company GW is more interested in the money than the game, and if that was true; then they will go where the money is: And that is in selling minis and pushing the 'collectors' interest' in the hobby.

You have to admit that tournament players build one army around a FOC and only buy minis that they will only play with in that list. A collector type player (read casual) will try to buy many different FOC builds for the same army, and that is whom GW has their sights set on.

Sidstyler wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:Remember Rule no.1

Don't talk about Dakka Dakka?

No, don't talk about #2.

"Why write big words when retards will buy our bs, cockamamy anyways?

Look, shiny stuff! You are now so distracted that you won't mind me stealing your wallet in exchange for piss-poor product design to use your new shiny toys with!

Don't do that! That's wrong! You can't play with your dollies that way, slow!"

Re-quoted because, well, its awesome and my 14 year old would say its NOT lame (the highest compliment).

OddJob. wrote:Apoc is just as niche as the tournament scene- vets using the toys they would probably have anyway.

QFT. The demands of Apoc are such that they'll only ever be a small minority of overall games played. Even if you're playing in a basement, too many people don't have 7 hours to set aside and won't feel like dragging 7,000 pts of stuff to someone's house all the time.

Another side point here is that I've heard plenty of basement players carp about GW rulesets, prices, etc. The idea that everyone in basement-land is just hunky-dory with all things GW is also a fallacy.

And Cruentus nailed it. Jervis needs to understand that his role is giving us products to buy and use...not be the world police on HOW we use it. I like Jervis, but he talks out of both sides of his mouth. He talks a lot about "giving the game back to the players", etc., but is also the first to criticize when he believes players are playing "wrong."

There aren't right or wrong players...just players. Most product people would strive to have their products appeal to the widest possible audience, rather than pick a side and try to browbeat the other side into using the product like their counterparts.

Look, I enjoy the hobby, and although I do participate in tournaments, I'm not an ubercompetitive type. But IMO Jervis crosses the line too often when he actually criticizes a segment of his customers. He's a heckuva nice guy, but he sure has a knack for sounding as if he's riding one very high horse...

Basement-land vs. the Tournament Empire.

I love it.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:Nothing sells the game more than tournaments

Aside, of course, from Apocalypse, which bends tournaments over the table and pounds away until the cows come home.

The very idea that Tournaments drive more sales than Apoc is completely ludicrous. Tournaments stop well short of a single FOC, with a max of 3 Heavies all told. Apoc pushes for Datasheet upon Datasheet, each with 3 Heavies / whatever. And then there are the Superheavies which aren't playable in Tournaments at all, but seem to be selling like hotcakes...

No, it's abundantly clear that Apoc is the clear seller of 40k.

____

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Apoc is a Marketing Clinic. One thing that people seem to forget when they are analyzing the Game Designers' stupidity is that the company is driven by sales, not by the desire to produce the perfect rules. Frankly, it's in their best interest to keep producing rules with flaws, so they can continue to release new sets to "get it right."

After saying all of that, the models and the art are what got me into 40K and keep me buying. Apoc has made me want to buy Forgeworld stuff in a way I never wanted to before.

WOW... You all got that out of that article?

There is no comparison between ways to play the game. And it isn't about an either/ or.


The game is not balenced, the inherent flaws are built into the system to ensure that people continue to buy buy buy, and "WAYS TO PLAY" aren't so much as important as that people ARE playing.

You can't argue that one way is more important or "Better". Thats about as relevent as saying "My dog's better then your dog, boo hoo.."

The article in question only affirms that they need to remove this guy from the equasion and look for some fresh talent. NO company worth thier salt keeps a detractor like this guy on the books and profits. He needs to stop putting his "Idea of How its "Supposed" to be", and define his so called "vision" so we can just get the pink slip ready for his old demented ass.

Personally, if any one of you would have posted that about your product, and put that thought to paper, you would be out of a job within the week.

I basicly got a guy thumbing his nose at the players, and then telling the unwashed masses that they are all wrong.

This article reminds me of the story The Emperor's new cloths.

Yes, Jervis, you are naked, and swindled.

I also think that Apoc is less widely played due to the reasons cited -- the amount of time, space and models it needs -- and probably as much or more played by vets who have large collections.

From a marketing viewpoint, though, it sells a lot of books and kits.

No-one, including GW themselves really has a good knowledge of the entire GW userbase. They don't collect age or intended use data when selling models.

They used to collect this information yearly through a White Dwarf competition.

I suspect any deviation from their viewpoint of how Games Workshop should be is viewed with distain by decision makers in GW. This latest Standard Bearer ‘article’ sounds like more evidence of this mindset

I am a competitive tournament player.

I have no problems playing the game how Jervis and the designers want it to be played... as long as they write how they want it to be played in a rulebook and not a Standard Bearer article.

If you don't want players to play with two squads of Nob Bikers, write the rules that way.

If you don't want players to spam the most optimized unit in the codex, don't make the it such an obvious choice.

It is the failure of the developers, not the players that the game is not being played as they intended. If they cannot get across, how they want the game to be played in the rule set, then they have failed. A vague, highly subjective, "The Most Important Rule = Be Excellent to Each Other" is a failure. I am one of the best sportsman in my area. I always let opponents move units they forgot after they've started shooting, give them the benefit of the doubt in ambiguous LOS issues, I never do a D6 roll off, because if its that close, I let my opponent have it. But I also try and build and bring the most broken list I can squeeze out of the codex.

Game rules are supposed to tell us how to play, not some a standard bearer article.

Grot 6 wrote:Personally, if any one of you would have posted that about your product, and put that thought to paper, you would be out of a job within the week.

Isn't that kind of the interesting part, though? I mean, people call Jervis a corporate lackey for his SB articles. But it seems to me the guy's really putting his opinion out there. If he was really giving the corporate view, you'd think he'd write how tournaments are GREAT and how basement gaming is GREAT and how pickup games at stores are GREAT, and how you really can't go wrong with GW games because they're simply GREAT in every situation. Not to psychoanalyze the guy, but maybe he feels guilty (for some reason) about his role in promoting and expanding the GT scene back in the '90s. Because he sure seems on a Jerry McGuire mission to "fix" the hobby, even if it doesn't really need fixing.

Then again, maybe it's all a bunch of hot air to get readers riled up, like most opinion columns. I mean, look at the CSM codex. You can't tell me that stripped-down thing wasn't written with competitive gamers in mind. Non-competitive fluff gamers almost certainly would have preferred the huge number of options in the previous codex. Also, when they kill a list like LatD, the designers often cite problems with design resources, playtesting time, etc. in keeping variant lists afloat. So on at least some level, they must want balance and suitability for pickup gaming in the armies they design. And if it's a bunch of hot air, that'd probably explain why management doesn't get upset with him...they don't take it seriously either.

Whatever. Like I've said before, I really don't hate GW and I enjoy their products. But I know I'll never understand them for as long as I live. It sure is one weird company.

Green Blow Fly wrote:The tournament scene helps to market the game,
it means that the thought of knowing about the tournament scene encourages people to buy more.
If you know GW then you know that it is all about more sales.

Are you sure you're talking about the same GW that we're talking about? As far as I've ever seen, GW is pretty much only about more sales. GW has been this way ever since 4th Edition (40k), and the seeds were planted well into 3rd. The idea that GW isn't all about more sales really hurts your credibility here.

Anyhooo... All told, the Tournament scene probably hurts marketing the game just as much as it helps:

1. You must have 1500 / 1750 / 1850 / 2000 pts of stuff, fully-painted in order to play. That's an extremely high bar for a new player. Unlike, say "Pro" RC, it is physically impossible to drop $500+ Friday night, and be ready to rock first thing Saturday morning (yeah, I did this when I got into R/C - bought a Pro kit and built it overnight for racing the next day). If someone's built a tournament army, from scratch, within 10 hours (I got some sleep between marching out of the shop and rolling back in the next day), I'd love to see it.

2. You must pay more to play. Most RTTs have a minimum charge of $20 or so. For major events, expect anywhere from $40, $50 or more. For a GW GT, I think that's over $100. You know, I can play *golf* for less cash. Hobby store RC racing was FREE, BTW...

3. You must reserve an entire day to play 3 "competitive" games. At an average of 2 hours per game, plus an hour setup and teardown, that's 7 hours total. For reference, that round of golf finishes in 6 hours on a "slow" public course.

4. You will play against primarily competitive tournament types, who will do everything in their power to rip your army a new one. If your army's not good, be prepared to have your teeth kicked in all day. Also, they're going to pull all kinds of tricks on you that you couldn't ever have imagined, because they know all the "loopholes" and "combinations" in their army books.

I dunno about you, but Tourament play would seem to be pretty daunting to a n00b coming into the GW Hobby, and I'm pretty much certain that the GW stores don't mention this kind of thing in their demo games of ~500 pts per side.


As for buying more, Touranament play only encourages buying a specific set of things that are "good". Now if, by "more", you mean, buying those things that become good due to metagame shifts when the edition or Codex changes, I guess that's fair. But that trades against Apoc kits and Datasheets coming out. But if you look at Dakka, there are multiple Superheavy Companies out here. Each of them is similar spend to a Touranment army, yet has no playability in a Tournament context.

____

gorgon wrote:QFT. The demands of Apoc are such that they'll only ever be a small minority of overall games played. Even if you're playing in a basement, too many people don't have 7 hours to set aside and won't feel like dragging 7,000 pts of stuff to someone's house all the time.

The last Apoc game I played was a garage game of 4500 pts per side (3x 1500 vs 2x 2250), and we finished in under 5 hours, including shooting the breeze during setup and breaking for lunch. Apoc is a team game, and you rarely need to bring more than 2500 pts of your own. As it's a team game, it's pretty easy to incorporate a small player of 500 pts or 1000 pts into the mix.
____

Grot 6 wrote:I basicly got a guy thumbing his nose at the players, and then telling the unwashed masses that they are all wrong

Hey, as the lead designer, he's entitled to take the game in a different direction.

It's really no different than the head of a tobacco company telling kids not to smoke, or the head of Ford SVO telling guys that street racing is "bad".
____

Kilkrazy wrote:I also think that Apoc is less widely played due to the reasons cited -- the amount of time, space and models it needs -- and probably as much or more played by vets who have large collections.

From a marketing viewpoint, though, it sells a lot of books and kits.

And that's the one thing that really matters. Also, GW has a bunch of Apoc-specific kits that really help them gauge sales.

Cheese Elemental wrote:I still like WD...

I like him too, he's a pretty cool guy.

But I don't bother buying it because I can browse in the store.

Wait, what?

John: I see your points about tournament gaming, but I think it's overstating things to say that it hurts marketing the game. Presented as an option, particularly given the range of tournaments that are offered, only expands the world of the hobby.

Most stores run small, low cost, no paint requirement tournaments on a semi-regular basis. I don't see how that can possibly hurt interest.

Stressing the tournament scene at the expense of casual gaming would be a bad thing, of course, but that's not what anybody is advocating, i don't think.

Centurian99 wrote:As much as I love tournaments...I've got to agree with John that it's a ludicrous idea that tournaments drive massive sales.

Take a GT like Baltimore. 120 40K players, 120 Fantasy Players, 20 LotR players. That's 260 players total. Best-Case, each player purchases a new army for that tournament.

That's 260 armies.

I've built numerous GT-armies...they usually end up between $400-$750 per army, once they're complete and tournament ready. So we'll say $600/army.

260 armies at $600 each is $156,000. Now, that may sound like a lot...but for a company like GW, it really isn't.

And that doesn't even consider the costs of the second-hand miniature market which I would imagine are actually pretty pretty big.

Polonius wrote:John: I see your points about tournament gaming, but I think it's overstating things to say that it hurts marketing the game.

Oh, unquestionably, it's (grossly) overstated, but nomoreso than the notion that Apoc requires 7 hours and 7000 pts each.

The reality that consumes the vast middle ground has a lot of overlap between structured ("tournament") and semi-structured ("Apoc") play.

Just as you see mini 1k RTTs, I see small 1v1 2k/side Apoc games at the Bunker.

IMO, Apoc is inherently more compelling, because people like their Baneblades and other toys.

Let's get back to ripping Jarvis...

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:Let's get back to ripping Jarvis...

G

Why would you rip on Jarvis? Jarvis is awesome, even if he does want to nail Aunt May.

Ew. With hotties like the Wanda and Janet out and about the mansion, he'd do better wanting one of them.

Kilkrazy wrote:I also think that Apoc is less widely played due to the reasons cited -- the amount of time, space and models it needs -- and probably as much or more played by vets who have large collections.

From a marketing viewpoint, though, it sells a lot of books and kits.

No-one, including GW themselves really has a good knowledge of the entire GW userbase. They don't collect age or intended use data when selling models.

The Gw stores certainly collect name and address (or at least they did when I worked there) and email address with each purchase. it's also a tool used to help a mom or dad track the spending trend of their child. A wife could ask staff what her husband buys, so she can get an appropriate gift for him too. And I am sure Gw uses it for their own purposes.. Of course, we didn't ask for age, but it was obvious to us if it was being used by the purchaser of it was going to be a gift for someone else.

*Rant Mode On*

This is why I will never understand Jervis, I mean I am a tournament player but I also own a large collection of stuff for both WFB and 40k (3 armies for each at the moment with another 2 being considered planned) if I want I can slap down 10,000pts of Chaos Space Marines on the table with 3000pts of Guard supporting it so its not as if I can't play Apoc I just fail to see what is wrong with the FOC way and just using multiple FOC (which I still do, but of course its MY hobby) he goes on about playing the game his way as if its the only way the last time I checked it was MY hobby, not his its up to me what I put in MY army not what he uses in his as if thats the template that all marine armies must be built like.

Perhaps he could write a useful article for a change and not force me the play MY hobby his way, I mean I got crucified at a small tourny get together a few weeks ago for bringing 2 Vindicators but the GW Manager running the event passed over a 3 Monolith Nightbringer Army, I just asked to have a quick chat with him when the day was over and we shook hands like gentlemen, I just can't stand this over zealous YOU WILL PLAY THIS WAY OR NOT AT ALL approach I am seeing from GW atm its quite disheartening its always been MY hobby so whats to stop me going about doing it MY way and not Jervis' way without being publicly called out like I am the Anti Christ, i've seen it happen alot lately and its really quenched my love for the hobby.

*Rant Mode Over*

JohnHwangDD wrote:
____

Kilkrazy wrote:I also think that Apoc is less widely played due to the reasons cited -- the amount of time, space and models it needs -- and probably as much or more played by vets who have large collections.

From a marketing viewpoint, though, it sells a lot of books and kits.

And that's the one thing that really matters. Also, GW has a bunch of Apoc-specific kits that really help them gauge sales.

For the sake of scientific accuracy, the sales of Apoc-specific kits only tell them the sales of Apoc-specific kits, not whether or how much people are actually playing the Apoc rules. (Ditto for the rules, actually. I bought Cities of Death and never played it.)

A sale is still a sale, of course.

I do feel you have a bit of a chip on your shoulder regarding tournaments.

The typical player contribution to a team game of Apoc of 2,500 points is significantly more than you need for a tournament or a normal game of 40K.

GW's raison d'etre is to sell figures. There's absolutely no reason to suppose that GW would not like to promote tournaments involving large armies. They've been promoting tournaments for decades. They've also promoted big games such as their huge Tank Bash games a couple of years ago.

I do not say this in order to further an agenda of tournament vs Apoc. They both have their place in the 40K universe, as does Cities of Death, and revised Kill Team and 40K in 40 rules. I think setting one against the other is fruitless.