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.

@cincydooley they have been doing that plane ticket deal since the beginning two years ago. Believe it or not their are less painting entries at adepticon since coolmini started crystal brush by a large amount.

I really have to think that the idea of them believing that Games Day just isn't important when you're a toy company has to be the case. I've never been to a GD (never saw the point in paying to be advertised to) so I don't know how good the shows were back when they WERE worth something, but I just can't see how GW can't look at Blizzard and steal something back from them: BlizzCon.

That's an example of a single company putting on a convention just for their works and making it into a huge deal. I don't have any idea what kind of profit that event turns, but it's just amazing the kind of enthusiasm it churns up amongst the fans of their games. I really just don't get how a weekend full of playing games, watching concerts, costume contests and the Golden Daemon award ceremony to wrap it all up CAN'T work.

EDIT: OK, turns out BlizzCon is a fairly substantial Loss Leader for Blizzard, and there's no WAY that GW would see something that can't actually turn a profit as a good idea, even if it drums up serious enthusiasm for their games.

The thing is, for a company with a product range like GW, there's no reason for it to be a loss leader. All it would take is to run sales like they used to for store grand openings (Buy 2 get one free, or percentage off vouchers and the like) and the retail section would go nuts. A lot of fans would happily pay the price of admission just to stock up.

I know some of the overseas GDs incorporate GTs into their Games Days, which is another obvious way of boosting attendance. GW Oz has never done this, which is just crazy. Although given their current direction even further away from tournament support than ever before, that's not even going to be considered as an option by current management.

And hell, just giving people something worthwhile to see... The overseas GDs used to generate a certain amount of buzz because there would always be news form the Games Dev seminars, and sneak peeks at upcoming releases... For Oz, thanks to some crappy timing, the news and releases that we got at our GD were already covered weeks or months previously at the other GDs... so there was nothing new to see.

But again, since GW have decided that showing your customers what you are working on is bad for sales, that's also off the table.

So yeah, given the current direction of GW, maybe Games Day is just a relic whose time has passed.

Padre wrote:Because of the way GW carry on, and in light of the bad blood they seem to be trying to create between themselves and their customer base.... would anyone really want an "official" prescence?

Every customer is a potential critique, so GW should go the whole way and avoid all contacts with customers, esp. close all stores

Magc8Ball wrote:OK, turns out BlizzCon is a fairly substantial Loss Leader for Blizzard, and there's no WAY that GW would see something that can't actually turn a profit as a good idea, even if it drums up serious enthusiasm for their games.

In fact, selling free 30 minutes and 500 texts per month with your mobile phone contract is a major loss leader.
Why do telephone companies do it anyway? To get new customers and make some marketing.

How shocking.

THe bigger loss would be the close down of some really popular painting circuits, I mean you may not like GW products, or philosophy etc but their painting comps were very visible and important for the painters showcase their work.
How many painters started their own business with ( I have x gd statues etc)?

There is a entire subculture that started and lives around GD's painting comps and if this turns out to be true it's a major blow to them, in fact its going to be a major blow for GW Hobby...

True; to some extent the European guys also compete at GDUK, but each competition had its own flavour - there is a definite set of styles used by the top French, German and Spanish guys, and in judging.

I was actually present when a painter at GDUK (2010 I think) was told their entry was 'too french'!

It'll be a shame to see these go, GD entries are always what inspire me to try new things...

Gd 2013 will be very different this year.

I was talking to the guy who organised last years GD's world wide... this year will not be at the NEC, will be much smaller and is planned to be an "experienece" rather then just a bunch of screaming kids.

Brian is a good guy, cares passionatly about the hobby and the gammers and he was quite up beat about the planned changes....

Druidic wrote:
Gd 2013 will be very different this year.

I was talking to the guy who organised last years GD's world wide... this year will not be at the NEC, will be much smaller and is planned to be an "experienece" rather then just a bunch of screaming kids.

Brian is a good guy, cares passionatly about the hobby and the gammers and he was quite up beat about the planned changes....

I sincerely hope so. Since the bean counters took over, it's been a sad state of affairs.

 NAVARRO wrote:


There is a entire subculture that started and lives around GD's painting comps and if this turns out to be true it's a major blow to them, in fact its going to be a major blow for GW Hobby...

That being said, I've heard that there is a .. how to put this.. certain amount of hand-shaking that goes on behind the scenes at a Games Day painting comp, to the point where a lot of the 'big names' had stopped attending. Make of that what you will, I haven't attended the show personally for years so am going purely off what I have heard 2nd hand.

I think though most people would have a hard time attending Games Day once they have been to the show at Salute in any case. These days the only real reason to go to a GD is for the big displays - you don't get any new product announcements, there are no sales, and the most exciting stuff coming out of GW, from FW and BL, is better served by one of their own open days.

I'd still love to see what happened with the coverage of the GD USA last year. We took best community table, got to sit down with Phil and Jeremy, had pics taken of our table and still no recognition on the website.

I e-mailed my contacts about club tables this year and got kickbacks from their exchange server stating that they no longer work there etc...

woops sorry, thread necro. saw this linked in another thread, thought it was still active.

 Kroothawk wrote:

Padre wrote:Because of the way GW carry on, and in light of the bad blood they seem to be trying to create between themselves and their customer base.... would anyone really want an "official" prescence?

Every customer is a potential critique, so GW should go the whole way and avoid all contacts with customers, esp. close all stores

Magc8Ball wrote:OK, turns out BlizzCon is a fairly substantial Loss Leader for Blizzard, and there's no WAY that GW would see something that can't actually turn a profit as a good idea, even if it drums up serious enthusiasm for their games.

In fact, selling free 30 minutes and 500 texts per month with your mobile phone contract is a major loss leader.
Why do telephone companies do it anyway? To get new customers and make some marketing.

Sorry to go a bit OT, but is that true about the mobile phone thing? I was under the impression that when phone companies said stuff like that they were factoring in their bizarro-world "opportunity cost metrics" regarding someone using free minutes on the network that could be paid minutes, rather than just their actual costs like infrastructure maintenance, marketing etc etc(since bandwidth itself costs nothing).

 Kroothawk wrote:
GW anti-marketing will only stop, when all traces of GW's existence are deleted from public memory. Don't ask why, must make sense to their higher management.

Seriously, they deleted their own forums. Block comments and make their videos private on youtube, block any interaction on Facebook. They don't advertise at all outside of their own hobby stores. They've actually committed to not having any exposure outside of their stores whatsoever. It's mind-boggling how they think any of this stuff can be a good idea.

Hint GW. When your social media spaces are overrun with negative feedback, you might want to, you know, listen to it? Instead of plugging your ears and going "NANANAAN I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!!"

Confirmation that GD France and Spain are gone this year. That leaves only GD UK, GD Germany and GD Italy.
Prices for GD Germany go up 66% to 50€, with only half the number of tickets than last year.
So extreme price hike, less revenue and less customers. Sounds like GW, right?

Zaphod Beeblebrox over at Warseer wrote:Hey guys...

Rumormill had it right!

The Games Day Germany will take place on August 11th, 2013 - in the same 'old' location - the Gürzenich in Cologne.
Ticket prices will be increased to 50€ from 30€ and tickets will be LIMITED to 2000 (there were allegedly 4000+ visitors last year).
There will only be this one ticket type.

Other than UK and Germany there will be NO OTHER European Games Days. Sorry, Italy... After France and Spain you are number 3.
Correction: Germany AND Italy will be held. I forgot that the UK does not belong to continental Yurp.

I got all of the information from an internal memo. That, however, is a wall of text. Like really a lot - so since it does not really add any additional information to the above information (other than maybe a good read), I put it on my blog. If you care to read it, go here: http://masterminis.blogspot.de/2013/04/games-day-germany-august-11-2013-but.html , but again, there is not much additional info in there.
(...)
More interestingly, there is NO GD Mini NOR the t-shirt with the ticket. So basically all it gets you is entry right.
(...)
The internal memo says that the GD Mini will be first shown at GD US on July 27th in Tennessee.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Confirmation that GD France and Spain are gone this year. That leaves only GD UK, GD Germany and GD Italy.
Prices for GD Germany go up 66% to 50€, with only half the number of tickets than last year.
So extreme price hike, less revenue and less customers. Sounds like GW, right?

Same deal as GD-US then, more or less...

I saw the the GD France entries in WD, from what I can see GD France seems to have the best entries. It's a lose not having it anymore.

 Magc8Ball wrote:

That's an example of a single company putting on a convention just for their works and making it into a huge deal. I don't have any idea what kind of profit that event turns, but it's just amazing the kind of enthusiasm it churns up amongst the fans of their games. I really just don't get how a weekend full of playing games, watching concerts, costume contests and the Golden Daemon award ceremony to wrap it all up CAN'T work.

Actually, minus the concerts, you just described the Games Days of yore.

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:
I saw the the GD France entries in WD, from what I can see GD France seems to have the best entries. It's a lose not having it anymore.

The French Gamesday produced the best work year after year since its inception. The honorable mentions there were typically better than the Gold awards you'd find at the UK one by far. Now that its been closed the quality of the models in the website's showcase is going to take a down turn. I'm sure that Europeans will fork out to come to the British Gamesday, but I doubt that the quality of the pieces on show there will increase greatly as a result. =/

When each country had its own GW website, the one by GW France was the best as well. Extensive conversion guides, nice diorams. Now gone.

The concern will be that with the european games days going away and the number of tickets for the other games day becoming more limited (by some reports) there will be a real struggle for some people to get tickets to any games days that are still run. French/Spanish people hoping to get to the UK games day will be competing with UK gamers for however many tickets are available

Maybe GW are responding to the moaning I've seen on this very site

about the games days being over run with 'kids' and therefore not as fun for the experienced gamer as they were in the 'old days'

High ticket prices are certainly likely to remove a lot of the young (and those not as committed to GW)

(although I suspect GW has done this to save cash, and possibly because they have fewer store staff to draft in rather than anything else)

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

High ticket prices are certainly likely to remove a lot of the young

Hasn't stopped the masses of pre-teens at anime conventions, not gonna stop them being at Games Day.

This is great news.

Bunch of blind bats!

50 euro?

I will be at Salute next week for a fraction of that and with plenty of goodies... so pardon my french but GW can stick the GD up their asses.

I will miss the French and Spanish Golden Demons. They really were the best pieces of artwork out there, a great loss.

 Kroothawk wrote:
When each country had its own GW website, the one by GW France was the best as well. Extensive conversion guides, nice diorams. Now gone.

GW Australia had a pretty good site too...I recall using some tutorials from there to do a Custodes army with Heresy era land speeders and all...really miss all the old sites, all that good information which went away...

Cologne is usually very pleasant in August. If the Altstadt festival is happening the same weekend, I might venture to German Games Day again this year.

I enjoyed it last year in spite of the crushing crowds. Less tickets is a boon in my opinion.

THIS SUCKS! The French painters always put up the most inspiring models from any GD. It will be a loss to the community as a whole. As a aspiring painter I think they set the bar for quality and concept. I haven't seen many french posts I would like to hear how they feel and what there plan is.

 Kroothawk wrote:
GW anti-marketing will only stop, when all traces of GW's existence are deleted from public memory. Don't ask why, must make sense to their higher management.

I suspect GW is run by 12 year olds with aspergers.

 battlematt wrote:
THIS SUCKS! The French painters always put up the most inspiring models from any GD. It will be a loss to the community as a whole. As a aspiring painter I think they set the bar for quality and concept. I haven't seen many french posts I would like to hear how they feel and what there plan is.

This is great news, as it removes a level of painting that new customers felt was prohibitively high and set goals beyond their abilities. Instead we'll be able to highlight models painted using the GW paint range systems, simply using only GW paints, brushes and basing materials. Removing the fear and pressure of seeing actual artistic endeavor and replacing it with soothing and attainable mediocrity.

My god, this sucks. As a 17 years old hobbyist on occasion, this really sucks. Where am I supposed to get 50 euros, just to get inside? And I have to pay at least 20 euros for the train! This really is bad news.