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 TimmyMWD wrote:
Seriously, some of you wish tournaments wouldn't accept the assistance? That this is some conspiracy to drive 3rd party miniatures out?

To be fair, it's not that big a leap of logic, given that it's exactly what GW have done in the past, and they have a much bigger problem with third party miniatures these days.

Having said that, it's also a perfectly reasonable expectation for GW stores and GW sponsored events to only allow GW miniatures.


The thing is, GW's current 'standing' with certain elements of the community is entirely a thing of their own creation, through their actions over the last few years combined with their more or less complete PR blackout. So it's not really surprising that some people now view whatever they do with a certain amount of cynicism.

Returning to supporting the tournament scene would be a very big step in reversing that, by showing that just maybe they do still give a damn about the community.

nkelsch wrote:

Hell, we could even see the return of the 'nationwide campaigns' which don't reward 'winning a tourney' but games played, product bought, whatever.

I am now completely convinced you need to get a job in GW corporate , you'd be a good "fit"

 TimmyMWD wrote:
And I'll be completely honest with you, some of the responses in this thread are sadly confirming GW's thoughts that they "can't win." \

It's definitely possible to "Win" with most of the player base, but, when you're starting from a position where a large section of your player base is extremely cynical about your motivations, the way to win is to do good things and keep doing them despite people being cynical. One act will not change most peoples attitudes, but if GW is consistent and works positively with tournaments, eventually the majority of people will come around.

If they see people are cynical at the start and decide to throw it in the too-hard basket, however, then yeah, there's no way to win like that and the effort was pointless. It took a fair bit of time for GW to earn the animosity that people have against them, it'll take equally long for trust to be established, but that time and effort would definitely be worth it in the end.

I went to the Bugeater GT this year, and as the previous 2 I have attended it was fantastic. I was glad GW provided support to such a great event as the Bugeater. This tournament is directly helping a local high school fund a debate team that is very deserving of our help. It also allows the GT to have an extremely large space to use!

What GW gets out of it remains to be seen, but I know the direct result from me will be starting another army. I finished my Inquisition army and I do not really "need" anything for my other 3 armies. My buddy won one of the drawings for a torox and will now be building a complete Scion army to add to his IG. I picked up a gift cert for the local flgs and used it to buy a box of grey knights.

So for the low cost of a box of grey knights, I am now inspired to pump $400-500 into finishing off my new army for next years Bugeater!!

I hope they keep it up. I also hope TO's use the Bugeater format of raffling off the prizes so more of the player base gets rewarded. Con of the North does that at the large RTT and it is a great system as opposed to just giving the winners a pile of stuff.

Great job GW, you have my loyalty.

Josh Dunn

It seems to have become impossible to discuss any aspect of GW nowadays without GW being criticised and people leaping to GW's defence on the grounds that it has become impossible to discuss any aspect of GW nowadays without people leaping to criticise them.

Back on topic, I think for GW to help promote tournaments is a good step in reaching out to what was once an important section of the fan base.

GW has become to wargamers what EA is to computer gamers. The hate has moved beyond logic and reason and has now entered that strange region where its blind hate - when a company can literally do nothing without being criticized. GW could start giving money to the poor, curing cancer and rehoming lost kittens and people would still say that all those activities are the root of all evil.

Having worked for them and knowing quite a few HQ folks. I can tell you. No such thing as bad press in their eyes. The threads about GW products a biggest and longest all the time. We on the boards are constantly foaming at the mouth about EVERYTHING they do. They are fore front all the time.

Having been in the business side of the counter for well over 20 years as well I can flat out tell you, that in my experience most of the guys who are the most vocal detractors still by a ton of product. The anti GW mantra has been "pricing them selves out of business" for well over 10 years now but I still see guys walking out of all sorts of shops with truck loads of new product. Its nuts.

So with GW not running games days and scaling back %95 of thier shops to 1 man stores in small spaces, they have plenty of money to give prize support out that cost them pennies to do. Makes perfect sense.

TO's get it while you can cuz I have no faith in events not to swindle and miss use what they have and GW to pull the plug again. Oh and not gonna see them providing battle board support either. The shipping back and forth would be cost prohibitive and the guy who painted all the stuff up for Games Day and such is no longer with the company.

GW is kinda like that rich relative you love to hate, Ya really cant stand em but your nice enough to them cuz you know they all bring ya great stuff.

 Captain Vyper wrote:


So with GW not running games days and scaling back %95 of thier shops to 1 man stores in small spaces, they have plenty of money to give prize support out that cost them pennies to do. Makes perfect sense.

It doesn't work that way. GW has to cut cost because they sell less and in order to counter that downward trend and maintain their profit, they gotta cut down on the cost part of the equation.

Sigvatr don't forget that there is also a recession going on along with increases in living costs, shop rental and raw materials. For a company of GW's size those increases result in ever higher and higher overheads - remember they don't farm out production to china and work in the UK so the cost for their wages is going to be higher than a company which uses Chinese factories for production.

So its not just that the market has changed and there is now more competition than ever before, but also that the economy has changed.

 TimmyMWD wrote:
And I'll be completely honest with you, some of the responses in this thread are sadly confirming GW's thoughts that they "can't win." \

This is a "forging the narrative" excuse.

Much better to throw up your hands and cry "it's too hard" than acknowledge that if there is ill will, skepticism or bad feeling towards GW, it is almost exclusively down to their own actions, and almost entirely within their power to change it.

 azreal13 wrote:

 TimmyMWD wrote:
And I'll be completely honest with you, some of the responses in this thread are sadly confirming GW's thoughts that they "can't win." \

This is a "forging the narrative" excuse.

Much better to throw up your hands and cry "it's too hard" than acknowledge that if there is ill will, skepticism or bad feeling towards GW, it is almost exclusively down to their own actions, and almost entirely within their power to change it.

Gotta say that the response was about what I'd expected. Not what I'd hoped for but I'd forgotten that GW could give out hundreds and have hookers giving BJ's and people on the internet would claim it was to get us or smash 3rd party modelers.

Oh well. As someone who reported a TO back when GW was trying to jumpstart the independent tournament for basically swindling them (turned out it wasn't just the one "event" I attended) I'm just happy to see them supporting the tournament/event scene in any way. I like the idea of having to have an existing trade account in good standing vouche for you. Would solve the majority of the issues that happened the first time around.

Guess we'll have to wait and see the end result. But the shorter term result could and should be better terrain and an easing of the burden on the smaller event TO's.

 TimmyMWD wrote:

That being said, they are literally testing the waters with this. And I'll be completely honest with you, some of the responses in this thread are sadly confirming GW's thoughts that they "can't win." Seriously, some of you wish tournaments wouldn't accept the assistance? That this is some conspiracy to drive 3rd party miniatures out? Granted, several others seem happy that this is happening, but if the folks at GW read that people are upset that they gave away free prize support with no strings attached ... well ... good luck convincing them they need to support the community.

Well, its really simple.
Option A: GW supports tournaments unconditionally. - Yay for GW, who doesn't like free loot?
Option B: GW enforces rules. Be it a percentage of models or parts that must be GW, be it Terrain, be it dice or the mandatory use of the whippy stick to measure distances. In that case, GW can go rot in pond. I'm cool with it if they themselves organize tournaments or make special tourneys along the lines of "1000 pts this months new release unbound armies"-stuff that of course requires you to get the new models. But if tournaments that allowed 3rd-party minis become restrictive, that's just another reason to shame GW and rightly so.

 Hulksmash wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 TimmyMWD wrote:
And I'll be completely honest with you, some of the responses in this thread are sadly confirming GW's thoughts that they "can't win." \

This is a "forging the narrative" excuse.

Much better to throw up your hands and cry "it's too hard" than acknowledge that if there is ill will, skepticism or bad feeling towards GW, it is almost exclusively down to their own actions, and almost entirely within their power to change it.

Gotta say that the response was about what I'd expected. Not what I'd hoped for but I'd forgotten that GW could give out hundreds and have hookers giving BJ's and people on the internet would claim it was to get us or smash 3rd party modelers.

Oh well. As someone who reported a TO back when GW was trying to jumpstart the independent tournament for basically swindling them (turned out it wasn't just the one "event" I attended) I'm just happy to see them supporting the tournament/event scene in any way. I like the idea of having to have an existing trade account in good standing vouche for you. Would solve the majority of the issues that happened the first time around.

Guess we'll have to wait and see the end result. But the shorter term result could and should be better terrain and an easing of the burden on the smaller event TO's.

Granted, there'll always be an element where everything is never good enough. But all consumer orientated companies with any sort of high profile within their respective market will suffer with that to a degree.

What GW need to focus on, and apparently don't seem that concerned about losing, are the middle ground attitude customers who are perhaps not engaged fully with their product right now, but are perhaps relatively low hanging fruit with regard to becoming fully re-engaged again. I'd be willing to bet that those sort outnumber the hardcore "haters" (who often will be people who just simply have to be counter-culture elitists in a lot of cases and never worth the resources and effort to try and "convert") by tens to one.

 Hulksmash wrote:
But the shorter term result could and should be better terrain and an easing of the burden on the smaller event TO's.

To be completely fair, my LGS is small and just recently (late last year) started carrying GW products. And he's already gotten quite a bit of Terrain given to him by GW. So I can see that they're starting to turn around, but there's a lot of cynicism they brought on themselves that they have to get over.

 Overread wrote:
GW could start giving money to the poor, curing cancer and rehoming lost kittens and people would still say that all those activities are the root of all evil.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Gotta say that the response was about what I'd expected. Not what I'd hoped for but I'd forgotten that GW could give out hundreds and have hookers giving BJ's and people on the internet would claim it was to get us or smash 3rd party modelers.

If you were actually telling the truth, you would not need to hide behind such idiotic hyperbole. Why not settle for something more sensible, eh? "GW could go back to charging 15 pounds for 10 infantry, abolish the trade embargo and make Games Day more than a glorified shop with an entry fee, and people would still hate them!" Or would that force you to admit in your heart of hearts that the GW of today will never be as good as even the GW of four years ago, and that that might be why we don't trust their motives?

Bullockist wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

Hell, we could even see the return of the 'nationwide campaigns' which don't reward 'winning a tourney' but games played, product bought, whatever.

I am now completely convinced you need to get a job in GW corporate , you'd be a good "fit"

Just pointing out that most GW 'organized events' and 'store prizes' within GW stores for the past few years revolved around:

"Buy this months new release, paint it and you gain an in-game advantage at our organized events."
or
"Buy this months new release, paint it and you can enter a painting contest."

Basically telling people, if you want to win the prize support at a GW store, you should have bought the new release and painted it.

It wouldn't be that hard if they did a global campaign or even narratives or tourneys to say 'this month, everyone can take one of the following 100 point units from Codexrks" and then provide a list of the new releases... So it is then a tourney but literally everyone in the tourney is going to dig up 100$ to make sure they have those extra 100 points and their free unit.

They have even done in the past where wacky tourney events had special characters, So it may even be as simple as 'buy one of this months 10-15$ ICs and use him in tourneys across america this month!'

This is the type of stuff an 'organized play' system can accomplish when not being beholden to competitive play.

But it is clear that GW is just throwing product out right now, not looking to implement such a system. Which I think can be seen as universally good.

Wow, I didn't expect that reaction... to both Hulk and the TO.

As a mid-level tournament player, I have never ever won a prize that wasn't paint or theme related. I have won a few of those, and it was thrilling, but basically prize support isn't why I attend tournaments (if it was, I'd usually have a terrible time ).

My take is that I want tournaments to remain independent. I didn't think that would garner such responses... so if you'd share, I'd like to get further thoughts from you on it.

Reading the comments of the TO here, I can see that if they get free prize support, they can put money into other things, like upgrading their terrain... and I hadn't considered this. It is an excellent point. But I'm surprised that you bristle at the idea that GW could try to exert some kind of influence over events it provided support to... as insaniak says, they did so in the past, and PP normally does so.

I'm not sure why expressing that resulted in the reaction that it did... it seems to be a reasonable thing to worry about. Personally, I'd rather pay a bit higher entrance fee than have to worry about that, which I had to do in the past.

So all that to say... I think both sides of the coin are worth considering here... and to say, we shouldn't discuss the possibilities because GW might see and cut off support? Come on, man... if they really cared what normal gamers think, they wouldn't have sued Chapterhouse or done a million other bad PR moves.The possible carrot of them offering "free stuff!" is not reason to not discuss them... and I'm really not concerned with what GW thinks- I wanted to see what TOs thought about GW's involvement in their events.

I can imagine that most would love to have the extra support, so that part is really good... but I think it is reasonable to wonder if it might not always come with no strings attached, given history and other gaming company examples.

So, yeah, I guess I'm surprised you're not more worried about it Hulk, with the kind of armies you tend to field. I thought we'd be on the same page of this one, so what am I missing? Support for tournies is good, but it's reasonable to be cautious about this, right... or am I just completely missing the mark somehow?

If a TO wants support from GW he will have to accept and abide by any terms that GW might choose to attach to the provision of support.

A TO wanting to run his event independently can set any terms he likes regardless of GW.

It is hard to imagine that GW will end up ruling all the tournaments.

"That being said, they are literally testing the waters with this. And I'll be completely honest with you, some of the responses in this thread are sadly confirming GW's thoughts that they "can't win." Seriously, some of you wish tournaments wouldn't accept the assistance? That this is some conspiracy to drive 3rd party miniatures out? Granted, several others seem happy that this is happening, but if the folks at GW read that people are upset that they gave away free prize support with no strings attached ... well ... good luck convincing them they need to support the community. "

This and this 1000 times. GW got out of the outrider program because people were abusing it and the same problem with event support. Let's try to be positive and hope the mentality of GW continues with a support and growth attitude.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If a TO wants support from GW he will have to accept and abide by any terms that GW might choose to attach to the provision of support.

A TO wanting to run his event independently can set any terms he likes regardless of GW.

It is hard to imagine that GW will end up ruling all the tournaments.

This pretty much summed up my reply a lot more concisely so I didn't bother posting it. Basically it's a good thing even if there are strings attached.

And Fishboy summed it up pretty well too. At least regarding the US.

 TimmyMWD wrote:
That being said, they are literally testing the waters with this. And I'll be completely honest with you, some of the responses in this thread are sadly confirming GW's thoughts that they "can't win." Seriously, some of you wish tournaments wouldn't accept the assistance? That this is some conspiracy to drive 3rd party miniatures out? Granted, several others seem happy that this is happening, but if the folks at GW read that people are upset that they gave away free prize support with no strings attached ... well ... good luck convincing them they need to support the community.

And I have spoken with several TOs who really hope this takes off. Being able to get access to that much support would allow them to refurbish terrain, or upgrade to a better facility, or what have you. If this takes off it is a win-win for everyone.

Thank you for replying with this, it is ridiculous the crap I started reading in this thread before getting to your post. I would hope that the people who posted about conspiracy theories or GW trying to buy market share take this opportunity to maybe question there deep seeded negativity, but I doubt that will be the case. Lets just hope that GW doesn't take them seriously and they don't spoil it for everyone yet again.

Hulk, that makes total sense, and thanks for the PM reply on this, too.

Bodazoka- There are a lot worse things posted about GW online; the idea that what anyone posted in this thread would "spoil" anything for anyone is a bit ridiculous.

bodazoka wrote:

 TimmyMWD wrote:
That being said, they are literally testing the waters with this. And I'll be completely honest with you, some of the responses in this thread are sadly confirming GW's thoughts that they "can't win." Seriously, some of you wish tournaments wouldn't accept the assistance? That this is some conspiracy to drive 3rd party miniatures out? Granted, several others seem happy that this is happening, but if the folks at GW read that people are upset that they gave away free prize support with no strings attached ... well ... good luck convincing them they need to support the community.

And I have spoken with several TOs who really hope this takes off. Being able to get access to that much support would allow them to refurbish terrain, or upgrade to a better facility, or what have you. If this takes off it is a win-win for everyone.

Thank you for replying with this, it is ridiculous the crap I started reading in this thread before getting to your post. I would hope that the people who posted about conspiracy theories or GW trying to buy market share take this opportunity to maybe question there deep seeded negativity, but I doubt that will be the case. Lets just hope that GW doesn't take them seriously and they don't spoil it for everyone yet again.

That's not exactly a criticism or a conspiracy. Essentially every day to day act of every business is geared towards this, directly or indirectly.

It's great that GW is venturing this way again. I only hope that the support doesn't come with onerous obligations or conditions. Every step forward should be encouraged on its own merit I think, despite GWs other shortcomings. This is good any way you cut it.

nkelsch wrote:

And PP has crushed 3rd party models with thier policies and they are mostly enforced.

Steamroller 2014 Kit wrote:Model Conversions - Players must be unambiguous about model representation. The following rules must be followed when using converted models in organized play. These rules are meant not to limit a player’s modeling options but rather to allow creativity without generating an environment that could become confusing during game play. At his discretion, an EO can make exceptions to these rules to approve any reasonable conversion.

Bolding is Privateers, not mine. Curse those PP evildoers! They're crushing 3rd party models by explicitly putting the authority to allow them in the hands of Event Organisers! Nefarious indeed!

 RiTides wrote:
Hulk, that makes total sense, and thanks for the PM reply on this, too.

Bodazoka- There are a lot worse things posted about GW online; the idea that what anyone posted in this thread would "spoil" anything for anyone is a bit ridiculous.

I'm sure it all adds up at the end of the day, Dakka plays no small part in the internet negativity towards GW.

bodazoka wrote:
I'm sure it all adds up at the end of the day, Dakka plays no small part in the internet negativity towards GW.

I'd say that GW plays a much larger part in the internet negativity towards GW.

Or, to put it another way, stop victim blaming.

Did nobody invite Bodazooka to the meeting where we all agreed to trash GW and everything it stood for at every opportunity?

No?

Guys! Seriously, how can we perpetrate a massive conspiracy if we don't TELL people about it?!!

My bad, azrael, I totally forgot

I agree this is a good thing as it stands now. I hope that continues!

I don't understand. A lot of people chided GW for not supporting the tournament scene. So how come this was never brought up until now about GW being swindled so that is one of the reasons whey they quit.

This is big news why they left. Why not bring it up and not before, or nobody knew why GW stopped supporting the tourney scene?

Davor wrote:
I don't understand. A lot of people chided GW for not supporting the tournament scene. So how come this was never brought up until now about GW being swindled so that is one of the reasons whey they quit.

This is big news why they left. Why not bring it up and not before, or nobody knew why GW stopped supporting the tourney scene?

This is the problem with GW not having any real PR setup, No explanation was ever given as to why GW stopped supporting events, so it was left up to the community to speculate... and so obviously some of the speculation wasn't too flattering for GW.

Mind you, 'Some people are abusing the system, so we're just canning the whole shebang' probably wouldn't have been well-receive, either, If a few TO's rorting the system was really the reason for GW pulling tournament support, I expect that people would have preferred if they had looked (or at least made the appearance of looking) for some way to overhaul the system to make it less abuse-prone...