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Yeah, no.
I'm not buying this. I doubt GW could do ANYTHING about this anyway. Not that I'm a lawyer, but it would be new to me that some random company can command independent shops whom and whom not they may sell their stuff.

Hi...

I was the OP on Warseer... Believe me, I thought this was BS too, since the rumour started based on a single store. When Maelstrom got involved and didnt deny it outright, I was worried... and after THIS:

Re: GW embargo to the southern hemisphere?

Guys,
I thought I'd better just add something here before we are misquoted or misrepresented - I'm not saying that's happening in this thread, I just want to make sure that doesn't happen!

Games Workshop told me their new terms and conditions regarding trade accounts on Wednesday, but they have asked me to not reveal what was said until Monday the 16th of May, which is when they will reveal them to the general public. At that point we will inform all our customers what is happening.

Cheers

Rob
Maelstrom Games Ltd

That is pretty much as close to saying "It's true" as they can go without confirming it...

Welcome Jmmelo.

Whilst I accept what you're saying, I still don't believe it. Whilst you're right, it does SUGGEST it's true, Maelstrom also stated how their hands are tied and they can't say anything; this would surely work both ways.

Ultimately, I'd advise everyone just wait 3 days...

This is starting to have truly awful ring of truth to it...

I wonder sometimes why GW seem to be so desperate to ruin their own business - don't they know more than 95% of their customers (based on an average of 11 straw polls I've seen, not stastically accurate but it will be in that ballpark) were introduced by a previous existing customer (friend/relative/colleague etc)?

The more they alienate the community the more the community will cease doing business with them and move first to not recommending GW, then actively discouraging people from GW.

This must hurt their eventual bottom line far more than independant resellers. Come on GW, grow a brain before our hobby completely goes to the dogs.

Kanluwen wrote:

kronk wrote:Man. I would say BS to this rumor, but since they won't allow on-line retailers to use a shopping cart for their stuff....

I hope this isn't true for my buddies down under.

That's a US only policy, which was a misguided attempt to curtail online discounters here in the US.

It did a decent job of cleaning out the discounters that never filled orders though.

(emphasis mine)

I gotta say, man. Just when I think I've seen Games Workshop do something that even Kanluwen couldn't apologize for.... you go shine through. Truly I have underestimated you.

Well, MG posts on Dakka, so I would imagine they could be brought in to comment.

Maybe they'll fix the AUS prices...



Nah...

I was actually paying more attention on the "I thought I'd better just add something here before we are misquoted or misrepresented - I'm not saying that's happening in this thread, I just want to make sure that doesn't happen!" part...

That sounded a lot like "OK, the cat is out of the bag, but let's just make it clear that WE didn't say anything, in case GW's lawyers come calling!"

If say Terminators are £27.70 in the UK, what would the prices be if we had the same kind of prices that Australia has?

Ouze wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

kronk wrote:Man. I would say BS to this rumor, but since they won't allow on-line retailers to use a shopping cart for their stuff....

I hope this isn't true for my buddies down under.

That's a US only policy, which was a misguided attempt to curtail online discounters here in the US.

It did a decent job of cleaning out the discounters that never filled orders though.

(emphasis mine)

I gotta say, man. Just when I think I've seen Games Workshop do something that even Kanluwen couldn't apologize for.... you go shine through. Truly I have underestimated you.

Drop Zone Games.

/thread

I should also say that one thing that gets forgotten about is that during that time period, there were a lot of US based discounters that never filled orders, just took your money and then later on gave you a sob story about how they're some garage business and their wife had just died or some other garbage to try to draw out the process and ensure you didn't keep questioning them.

Their businesses were a fraud and the only reason they got in on the pie was that it was easy to set up a shopping cart, harder to run a mail order system like The Warstore started out doing before you could append a GW order to your normal orders.

Ghost21 had dropped this hint on Warseer that something was amiss on May 11th:

ghost21;5502025 wrote:ive noticed certain countries get stung on the old conversion (or gws equivilent, sufice to say something is bieng done about this. yes you can pm me about it but im not at liberty to post here)

Honestly I think it has something to do with this:

From my Miniwargaming newsletter:

"Is Games Workshop discontinuing metals?

Ever since Games Workshop stopped selling their metal miniatures to retailers, there have been a lot of rumours as to whether they were getting rid of metals altogether.

The last time I spoke with my trade representative (who apparently is the last to know of any changes) he said that all he was told was that all the metal miniatures were being "repackaged."

Whether that means giving them better blisters (let's face it, the current blister packaging sucks), or whether they are switching from metals to something else (perhaps resin), he has no idea.

Having said that, we have placed all of the GW metals in clearance in anticipation of these changes, so you get to save because of it (whatever "it" is)."

They could just want to slim down on stock going out to get ready for a new packing push. From a retail standpoint it makes sense to limit old stock to special order.

JMMelo wrote:
That is pretty much as close to saying "It's true" as they can go without confirming it...

You might be right. I'm not saying you're wrong.

However, I also heard that there was supposed to be an announcement on Monday concerning the plastic/metal issue and what they're going to do with the recently "Pulled from FLGS availability" miniatures and their availability to everyone.

Revarien wrote:Honestly I think it has something to do with this:

From my Miniwargaming newsletter:

"Is Games Workshop discontinuing metals?

Ever since Games Workshop stopped selling their metal miniatures to retailers, there have been a lot of rumours as to whether they were getting rid of metals altogether.

The last time I spoke with my trade representative (who apparently is the last to know of any changes) he said that all he was told was that all the metal miniatures were being "repackaged."

Whether that means giving them better blisters (let's face it, the current blister packaging sucks), or whether they are switching from metals to something else (perhaps resin), he has no idea.

Having said that, we have placed all of the GW metals in clearance in anticipation of these changes, so you get to save because of it (whatever "it" is)."

They could just want to slim down on stock going out to get ready for a new packing push. From a retail standpoint it makes sense to limit old stock to special order.

I hadn't even considered that possibility. That is an interesting coincidence that both announcements are being made on Monday.

And today is Friday the 13th!!!!!111111pi

DOOOOOOOOM!

I was about to say something like "It doesn't make sense, by what logic would GW think this is a good idea?" .. then I remembered it was GW, and logic doesn't apply.

First... I don't believe this.

Second... I keep seeing about how doing this will hurt GW's bottom line, but does anyone truly know what kind of profits they make from southern hemisphere countries? While I'm as ignorant to that answer as the rest. I'm inclined to believe that the profits are slim to none. Not to be a dick, but when was the last time anyone passed a GW or LGS while traveling through Cambodia or Nigeria?

(edit) I'm excluding Australia and New Zaeland.

Okay so essentially some 3rd party in the UK now has to take over the shipping to down under? So the market will be forced to create a second layer of handling to increase the cost slightly to the consumer at no additional benefit to GW?

Wtf is wrong with with the people at GW?

oni wrote:First... I don't believe this.

Second... I keep seeing about how doing this will hurt GW's bottom line, but does anyone truly know what kind of profits they make from southern hemisphere countries? While I'm as ignorant to that answer as the rest. I'm inclined to believe that the profits are slim to none. Not to be a dick, but when was the last time anyone passed a GW or LGS while traveling through Cambodia or Nigeria?

(edit) I'm excluding Australia and New Zaeland.

Well, they're going to lose the profits from every person in the Southern Hemisphere who doesn't buy from GW. They'll inevitably re coop some of this from people sticking with the hobby, but a lot of people will just stop buying any Warhammer at all and go for the cheaper, available hobbies. It will harm GW.

Just Dave wrote:Maelstrom also stated how their hands are tied and they can't say anything; this would surely work both ways.

I don't see why: if there was nothing to this rumour, this means it has nothing to do with GW's actual plans, which means GW has no reason or justification for stopping Maelstrom from debunking it.

iproxtaco wrote:If say Terminators are £27.70 in the UK, what would the prices be if we had the same kind of prices that Australia has?

They'd be about 48.4 pounds.

AlexHolker wrote:

Just Dave wrote:Maelstrom also stated how their hands are tied and they can't say anything; this would surely work both ways.

I don't see why: if there was nothing to this rumour, this means it has nothing to do with GW's actual plans, which means GW has no reason or justification for stopping Maelstrom from debunking it.

iproxtaco wrote:If say Terminators are £27.70 in the UK, what would the prices be if we had the same kind of prices that Australia has?

They'd be about 48.4 pounds.

£48!? If this becomes a reality, if it's possible people can buy through me because £48 is plain robbery.

Well, music industry and movie industry get away with regional marketing so there is no reason why GW shouldn't get away with it...

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:

Darkness wrote:If this is the case, I'm willing to bet that that it is only a matter of time before we lose all online stores.

This is my greatest fear, I've not mentioned it, but it has crossed my mind on more than one occasion.

I believe this is enough money to be made that it would go underground, with GW forced to chase countless Ebay style sellers (which would cost a lot more money).

Also, making it more difficult for your customer's to buy your product is not a recipe for success. Such restrictions will only result in an erosion of indie support for GW, thus further restricting distribution and thus further eroding sales.

Never mind the affect such a move would have on customer good will.

Finally, there are the possible legal hurdles such a policy would face.

By the way, something similar exists in the Beauty Products industry. It's called diversion. From what I understand, for every unauthorized seller that is forced to close or stop selling product, 3 more pop up, even with the much larger resources those manufactures can and do bring to bear.

Here in Brazil this came as a double whammy. First we heard that GW has started talks with a local retailer known for bad deals, rarely delivering orders and serially running away with the money while dropping sob stories about taxes and border controls.

Then we learned of GW's upcoming colonialist gambit. People are already dismayed and frustrated. Seems Warmachine is about to gain hundreds of new hobbyists in Brazil alone. I started Warhammer 40k a year ago, and have a CSM army and a starting Dark Eldar list. Guess it's not going to happen anymore.

Dracos wrote:Okay so essentially some 3rd party in the UK now has to take over the shipping to down under? So the market will be forced to create a second layer of handling to increase the cost slightly to the consumer at no additional benefit to GW?

Wtf is wrong with with the people at GW?

Yep, you'll get a couple of companys that buy stuff from the net then ship it on to Aus.

Like your own personal shopper...

I'm willing to buy a packaging reformat, if that turns out to be what's going on. The blisters could be vastly improved.

If I were an Australian gaming group----I would consider opening a 'gaming franchise' and buying wholesale from a distributor (Unless they are blocking distribution points too).

Duncan_Idaho wrote:Well, music industry and movie industry get away with regional marketing so there is no reason why GW shouldn't get away with it...

That's based on copyright. Resale of physical products is a different area of law.

Set(Flag.Farfetched = True)

GW switches over to resin from metal models. Resin melts/deforms at relatively low temperatures compared to their current plastics and metals. Shipping from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere may involve small, thermally-vulnerable shipments spending a fair amount of time in the tropics. This would increase the number of problem resin models in the hands of these customers, decreasing customer satisfaction, reducing acceptance of a new product, and increasing costs of shipping replacement product.

Again, really far--fetched, but it's what went through my head.

H.B.M.C. wrote:The way I'm reading it means that stores like Wayland and Maelstrom would be forbidden from filling orders made out by people in places such as Australia.

and I'm wondering - HOW exactly? Sales info is a pretty confidential stuff - how on earth would GW check where a retailer sends stuff?