Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 heartserenade wrote:
Because a website, a blog, an FB page selling your stuff online is the only way to interact with customers online. And yes, I was being sarcastic.

Let's compare them to a company that, while really far from perfect, shows more customer interaction than GW: Wizards of the Coast. They have their own forums and they listen to what their customers say, and even though they do not agree with them a lot of times they would at least acknowledge it.

GW does nothing of the sort, and it's a PR disaster. Unannounced price increases, the whole finecast fiasco, the cry of customers for a more balanced ruleset or a codex update: every problem has not been addressed or even a "Hey guys, I'm sorry but we need to increase our prices" "Sorry about a huge amount of miscasts on Finecast, we'll work on that to give you the miniatures you deserve" or even a "Hey, these are the teasers of what we're releasing for the months to come!". Nope. Nada.

I've been in the WotC forums for a long while too and while I saw criticisms, it wasn't this bad. Game designers would address some problems in their official blogs and would explain to their customers why they didn't go in that direction (Mark Rosewater of M:tG does this).

GW might have a good customer service, but they're kinda bad at Public Relations. The internet is not just something you use to sell your stuff online. It's a way to interact with your fanbase and build your reputation in. Not listening or acknowledging or even communicating with your fanbase is not good customer interaction. How do they communicate with their customers? GW shops? Just by reading the forums a lot of people are turned off by GW shops because of staff horror stories, which of course does not apply to all but it still taints GW's image in customer interaction.

*shrugs* If I was running a business I probably want to hear from every single customer either. Imagine the sheer amount of unreasonable whining GW would have to sift through. If a customer base could be trusted to make reasoned arguments and valid points then it would be fine- but as the majority of forums show, that isn't the case.

How often do companies announce price-rises? Does it happen ever? I don't get a 2 month warning when the prices in my local Tesco go- it just happens. Randomly and in no pattern.
At least with GW we know it's going to happen every single June as it has for the past 5+ years.

Balance issues are cried for by the minority- usually the internet minority (which are a hobbyist minority already). In my experience of dozens of gaming groups over many years gaming, most gamers just get on with it, play games and have fun.
As for updates- do you not think GW know when something needs an update? do they look at Tau and think "nobody really wants them updated, it's only been 8 years, we won't bother". I'm sure there are business, financial and inspirational (best for designers to work on something they want to rather than have to) reasons for not doing an army update.

Lack of teasers / short term release schedules is a calculated business decision that seems to be working well. Certainly in areas I play, the level of enthusiasm / suspense / excitement for a new release far exceeds how it used to be when everyone got bored knowing something was coming for 2 months, having already seen, build and played with the new models from the local GW's black box.

Just because these things don't satisfy the internet or veteran community, doesn't mean that the majority of GW customers aren't happy. I mean they're still making money...

In the end, they want to be a company in control of their product- they don't want imput from every idiot with an opinion- and I don't bloody blame them!

Slipstream wrote:
Can someone email this journalist and tell him that he's been slightly misled? For a start, did he not realise that the store manager would probably have been sacked if he'd been identified? As a few have raised already; what customer interaction does the article refer to? Surely not the photocopied bumpf that I've received from Jervis(you know the one, 'I always like to know what's happening in the melting pot of the hobby!')on numerous occasions?

It just seems to be an outline of the company rather than any sort of investigative piece. A moment's poking about online would have taken a journalists to any one of various forums where people complain about the various issues with a company. And while customers moaning about price rises might just make investors roll their eyes, the deluge of reports of poor manufacturing with their Finecast might be of interest to someone looking at how this company value quality against profit for future reference.

 heartserenade wrote:
Bunch of stuff about good PR and Customer Relations from Wizards of the Coast.

You know who could learn a lot about Customer Relations from WotC? THE DAMN COMPANY THAT OWNS THEM. Hasbro's CR is terribad.

"Oh, you have a broken product? Here, have a completely different thing that costs the same amount but isn't the thing you actually wanted and spent money on."

It's £65 for the new starter set, glue brushes and about 10 paints come to around £30 so £100 is almost over-estimating.

I quite like the article, you've got to remember that to most people warhammer is a totally foreign concept that they have no idea about.

I also disagree with the idea of Warhammer being expensive, Yes it is about £300 for a full sized army, books and equipment. But it's a hobby, a PS3 or Xbox and 5 games is around the same price, if you're into music a guitar or amp or drum kit is more than £300, all hobby's cost money, and realistically £300 isn't very much for the ammount of time you'll get enjoyment you'll out of it

 jimiintheskywithdiamonds wrote:
It's £65 for the new starter set, glue brushes and about 10 paints come to around £30 so £100 is almost over-estimating.

I quite like the article, you've got to remember that to most people warhammer is a totally foreign concept that they have no idea about.

I also disagree with the idea of Warhammer being expensive, Yes it is about £300 for a full sized army, books and equipment. But it's a hobby, a PS3 or Xbox and 5 games is around the same price, if you're into music a guitar or amp or drum kit is more than £300, all hobby's cost money, and realistically £300 isn't very much for the ammount of time you'll get enjoyment you'll out of it

Exactly £100.00 for Dark Vengeance plus the Hobby Starter Set. That gives you the rules, two armies and paints, glue, sand, a brush and clippers. Job done!

The store manager was clearly trolling the journalist; it's probably why he requested to not be named.

If GW had a shred of PR sense they would have started following WotC and Rosewater's lead years ago. WotC sifts through those countless, countless forum posts/blogs/emails because if tons of your customer base are all complaining about the same thing, a reasonable company will address that thing. They can address it through R&D or they can address it by explaining why they are doing what they do to their players. Mark Rosewater is a huge asset to WotC just for that, even if he never designed another Magic card in his life.

If players think 6th edition rules are bad, why can't GW have somebody who deigned the rule set write an article publicly explaining some of the choices they made? If Finecast is a debacle, why not let collectors know "Hey, we're aware there's a problem; we're fixing it"? I assume they are just monumentally lazy, but they could be a bunch of 90 year-olds afraid of the computer box...Maybe England doesn't get wi-fi? Maybe they're all in decade-long mourning over Brian Clough?

 Lorizael wrote:

*shrugs* If I was running a business I probably want to hear from every single customer either. Imagine the sheer amount of unreasonable whining GW would have to sift through. If a customer base could be trusted to make reasoned arguments and valid points then it would be fine- but as the majority of forums show, that isn't the case.

And this is different from other hobbies how? It's basically the same for every hobby out there.

How often do companies announce price-rises? Does it happen ever? I don't get a 2 month warning when the prices in my local Tesco go- it just happens. Randomly and in no pattern.
At least with GW we know it's going to happen every single June as it has for the past 5+ years.

CB announced theirs for September and apologized and explained that they've been holding back a price increase for the customer's sake. Doing that with GW would at least earn them PR points, especially now that they have pissed a huge amount of their fanbase.

In the end, they want to be a company in control of their product- they don't want imput from every idiot with an opinion- and I don't bloody blame them!

The point is not to let the customers control the product: the point is to take customer feedback into consideration. As of now, a lot of people likes the game but a lot of people are negative or neutral to the company, which is bad for the company's image. Interacting with the customer is befriending the customer: not communicating with them makes them feel alienated.

@Platuan4th So fething true. Not only in PR, their customer service is bad as well.

tomjoad wrote:
WotC sifts through those countless, countless forum posts/blogs/emails because if tons of your customer base are all complaining about the same thing, a reasonable company will address that thing. They can address it through R&D or they can address it by explaining why they are doing what they do to their players.

This. Objectively I can say there's a lot of problems with M:tG and DnD 3rd/4th editions, but I don't have a problem with how Wizards address their customers.

Well to ballance out the short term gain, (mainly from the new paint range , £2.4M in April 2012 alone!)

Lets look at the long term shall we?

Since the market high in 2003, GW plc has lost 21% of its value.

In the same time period the FTSE 100 companies have made a gain of 45%.

Long term a shortfall of 66%!

Now the 7% increse seems quite good in these hard economic times doesnt it?
However , if you take into account the increase in retail prices, GW plc has falling sales volumes for the 7th year running.
(IF GW plc had consistant sales volumes they would have a turn over of over £140M from last year.And £320M from 2003.)

Raising retial prices to make up falling sales volumes is NOT a long term solution....

Engaging with the customer base in a meaningful way to improve synergy and cost effectivmness is...(Internet forums ,trade shows ,meaningfull market research, open letters to the company etc.)

Paying 200% more for product becase the corperate managment are still too '..fat and lazy..' to change the buisness plan from 1996...is not aceptable to me.

As the B&M stores are GW plc main recruitment and marketing operation.(MrT .Kirby 2005.)

Then moving them to LOW traffic areas away from HIGH traffic areas, reducing the size of establishement to limit playing space, and staff to reduce
the times the shops are open and customer service.
May limit the recruitment and marketing of GW plc...to the point where internet and independant store sales are higher?

Odd how the sales break down dissapeared , and the last one showed B&M stores accounting for just over half sales...
Could it be internet and independant sales have taken over GW own B&M chain.Proving it to be an unecissary burden?

Lanrak, comparing the current share price to a share price 9 or 10 years ago purely based on the value doesnt work, you have to take into account how many shares where in issue then compared to now, thats why one of the main indicators for looking at value of share (not the share value) is earnings per share (basic or advanced) looking at 2002 earnings per share was 28p based on turnover of 105mil, last year earnings per share was 46.8p based on 131mil turnover (I have seen in gw finiancals basic earnings per share stated) just by that (and assuming they havent changed their figures from advanced P/E to basic and many other factors.

But for this instance market capitalization needs to be looked at, not the share price, as I said before it comparing shares 10 years apart doesnt work without other factors, market cap is the amount of shares in issue at the current price total, I cant find any decent figures on 2003 to work how many shares were in issue then.

Basically, in 2003, from what I have found GW done a buy back of shares so they always affects the share price in a upward trend, they also had improved finicals over a 4 year period. But say in 2003 the shares in issue were 20mil and at the moment it is 31.59mil i think the share price now is a lot lot more then 2003 as shown by the market cap.

There may/probably have been share issues over the years which would dilute each share, it 3.30am in the morning so I am rambling a bit and may have got a few things wrong, but the general gist is right that you cant compare shares x years apart

Also saying about paying 200% more for a product, I bet quarter of that is pure inflation

Which means you still have a massive amount of post-inflation price increase. And flat revenues means declining unit sales. Which means some combination of less customers and lower purchase levels per customer.

Since 1996 yes, year on year its varied a lot over the past few years but lets says 2;5% as a guess average for the past 10 year in the uk. But everything your saying is correct but I dont really fancy getting into the gw finances like some of the threads I have seen

Hi MarkyMark.
I quoted 200% more that I need to pay simply based on the infalted price to prop up the B&M stores.
Less than half sales are through the chain of B&M stores, but the B&M stores eat over 50% of the net profit.

Therfore dropping the retail chain to somthing more sensible, ( a few hobby centres like WHW.)
Could let GW HALF retail prices and make more profit!

To put it simply,it when GW focuesed on making great games for gamers , they doubled turn over every 3 years.(Actual customer base growth .)

SInce they have focused on selling toy soldiers to chiuldren, they have lost over half thier original customer base , and just raised prices ever higher to compensate for ever falling sales volumes.

So not doing that great realy are they?

Yes they are probably crying all the way to the bank.

 Lorizael wrote:
£100 will get you Dark Vengeance / IoB / MoM plus the paint/glue/tool set. That is in fact everything you need to be involved in the hobby.

Remember that the hobby community is much larger and more varied than you'll ever see- some people play with starter set for years and choose never to expand further.

@heartserenade; I was being serious.

Starter set, hobby starter, white dwarf and can of primer is what GW considers a starting bundle. But you also need file/exacto knife to clean models and probably some more paints if you want nicer models.

@notprop.
At least they are not banking any of my money, or the £190M from the other gamers and hobbiests that have moved on from GW plc since 2004.

@satur
The only problem with Dark vengance starter set, is it IS on a par with other companies startet sets.SO it offers good value for money.
Then when you want to buy more product from GW plc.Its an even bigger shock!


I hope you all reaslise the RRP price rises will have to increase exponetialy , as the fall in sales volume continues.(Simply due to the distribution of wealth.Less than 5% of the population earn over 2 times the national average wage.)

The reason why GW don't go to London to talk to The City is that almost all the shares are owned by the management and a venture capital firm, so they don't have to.

The reason why they don't talk to veterans on the internet is that the key customers are newbie teenagers buying in the shop, so they don't have to.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The reason why GW don't go to London to talk to The City is that almost all the shares are owned by the management and a venture capital firm, so they don't have to.

The reason why they don't talk to veterans on the internet is that the key customers are newbie teenagers buying in the shop, so they don't have to.

Pretty much that.

The article told me that the current information that I've been gathering for years about the corporation is correct.

 notprop wrote:
Sorry for playing devils advocate: DV + a paint set + a random boxset, all for about £100.

Let's not pretend that it was some wild boast. Not a 2000 point tournament army true, but enough stuff to keep a green hobbiest amused for quite some time.

Threads might be more interesting without nitpicking everything to the nth degree fellers.

Yeah people on the internet are ridiculously picky.

£100 gets you plenty of gak.. Go onto giftsforgeeks.com and you can get the new boxset for what.. £53? Stick some terrain on with it and a paint set, you can get a decent amount of gak for your money.

As I said, I think the reason people go ape gak is because they take the hobby too seriously.. I remember someone whinging about the price of the Dreadknight once, saying something like "ITS WAY TOO EXPENSIVE I NEED TO BUY 8 OF THEM"

Just because you really really really love plastic models, doesnt mean you should have every single model ever made for hardly any money.

The rules GW makes are designed to devalue purchases by making them at least somewhat insufficient for the full experience. The rules are there to put the idea into people's heads that one is not enough and that the initial starter is not enough.

It's sort of a shame GW didn't realize the potential of 40k in 40 minutes. All they did was stick it in the back of one of the rulebooks. They should have, instead, put it in every battleforce along with a quickstart version of the rules and the stats for just the stuff in the battleforce boxes. As well as pamphlets about the codex and the full game/rulebook.

I think one of the barriers that keeps people from staying as their customer for more than a couple years is how long and hard it takes to make a full sized army. Yes, you can play smaller games, but rules modes like 40k in 40 minutes really helped.

This more or less makes GW out to be a rich kid with aspergers.

 heartserenade wrote:
Because a website, a blog, an FB page selling your stuff online is the only way to interact with customers online. And yes, I was being sarcastic.

Let's compare them to a company that, while really far from perfect, shows more customer interaction than GW: Wizards of the Coast. They have their own forums and they listen to what their customers say, and even though they do not agree with them a lot of times they would at least acknowledge it.

GW does nothing of the sort, and it's a PR disaster. Unannounced price increases, the whole finecast fiasco, the cry of customers for a more balanced ruleset or a codex update: every problem has not been addressed or even a "Hey guys, I'm sorry but we need to increase our prices" "Sorry about a huge amount of miscasts on Finecast, we'll work on that to give you the miniatures you deserve" or even a "Hey, these are the teasers of what we're releasing for the months to come!". Nope. Nada.

I've been in the WotC forums for a long while too and while I saw criticisms, it wasn't this bad.

It doesn't look bad, because everyone who gets dissatisfied with WotC, simply leaves. MtG is much easier to walk out from than miniature wargames.

Backfire wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
Because a website, a blog, an FB page selling your stuff online is the only way to interact with customers online. And yes, I was being sarcastic.

Let's compare them to a company that, while really far from perfect, shows more customer interaction than GW: Wizards of the Coast. They have their own forums and they listen to what their customers say, and even though they do not agree with them a lot of times they would at least acknowledge it.

GW does nothing of the sort, and it's a PR disaster. Unannounced price increases, the whole finecast fiasco, the cry of customers for a more balanced ruleset or a codex update: every problem has not been addressed or even a "Hey guys, I'm sorry but we need to increase our prices" "Sorry about a huge amount of miscasts on Finecast, we'll work on that to give you the miniatures you deserve" or even a "Hey, these are the teasers of what we're releasing for the months to come!". Nope. Nada.

I've been in the WotC forums for a long while too and while I saw criticisms, it wasn't this bad.

It doesn't look bad, because everyone who gets dissatisfied with WotC, simply leaves. MtG is much easier to walk out from than miniature wargames.

+ how would you know that there are people leaving, they do not publish public accounts to extrapolate figures from.

The only way is anecdotal observations and store closures, and the latter is always GW's fault so its even harder to say.

Backfire wrote:
It doesn't look bad, because everyone who gets dissatisfied with WotC, simply leaves. MtG is much easier to walk out from than miniature wargames.

Why is it? Because it takes up less space in the back of the cupboard or the bin? It's still hundreds or more pounds of investment put to one side and sold second hand.

Because the Financial times interviewer was a GIRL.... with BOOBS.

She was wearing fantasy armour...

And customer interaction, why of course, GW is busy taking down fan based websites like there is no tomorrow. There really is a massive interaction between GW and say, the blood bowl fans.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Why are they so shy though?

Extra exposure means increased chance of people realizing / criticizing how zero sense they make.
With a niche market they have easier time convincing their mass / fanbase.

Wait, it's as if i was talking about religious cult or something... go figure the 2 fits perfectly xD

Backfire wrote:

It doesn't look bad, because everyone who gets dissatisfied with WotC, simply leaves. MtG is much easier to walk out from than miniature wargames.

Howard A Treesong wrote:Why are they so shy though?

First rule of the GW hobby, don't talk about the GW hobby. Second rule of the GW hobby, don't talk about the GW hobby...

Doooood, stop talking about the hobby!

Backfire wrote:

It doesn't look bad, because everyone who gets dissatisfied with WotC, simply leaves. MtG is much easier to walk out from than miniature wargames.

Factually untrue. Its pretty much the same ease of walking out of both.