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hobojebus wrote:
Global numbers are the only deciding factor and we know those are bad.

Evidence, please.

We don't know global numbers as GW don't report sales per game.

Their revenue was almost static in the previous six monthly report that covers the first few months of AoS. It's possible that 40K utterly collapsed, and AoS sold like gangbusters, or that AoS was a total failure, and 40K increased sales 20%, and we could not tell that from this report.

hobojebus wrote:
How your local store does isn't relevant one store can't prop up the company.

Global numbers are the only deciding factor and we know those are bad.

Except, we don't really 'know' this. Folks might suspect, and folks might be right to an extent, especially considering how traumatic aos's birth screams were (slannesh had nothing on this baby, and slannesh killed the eldar empire when it was born!).

For example, there is the argument that considering how poorly wfb was doing for years, one can assume that 40k was carrying the lions share of the cash generating side of the business and that wfb, was to all intents and purposes irrelevant to the situation. By this, any reductions in profits or sales will land squarely on 40ks shoulders, for the most part. Aos, under this argument, essentially gets off Scott free, and only has to sell 'more than zero' to be cash positive and to be a net contributor to the company. It's development costs were not massive. It doesn't have to be the number two in the industry, it just has to make enough to be positive, and carve out a niche that that expand in the future.

I don't think this scenario is entirely true myself, but I think there is some truth in it.

Aos will never be the number two game in the industry. I even question if it will be a very 'visible' game, especially on the flgs front. considering that it is not really suitable for tournaments and pugs that represent a lot of the actual table top gaming that flgs's do. But I do think it's the kind of game that gets played by folks at home with their mates, or by parents with their kids. And this non-flgs gaming is, despite what some people believe, or want to believe, quite common. It's just not visible. I do think Aos is aimed it squarely at a particular niche, and while it is a rather 'specialised' niche, I think it does have potential to grow. But this will be a more long term thing, which is why I think go are playing the long game with this. But that could just be the optimist in me. The cynic says that if gw sees it struggling, they'll take it out the back and shoot it, and bury it next to wfb with a marker that says 'here is our fantasy range. It came, it did well for a while, we're not gonna bother any more'.

As far as the FLGS front goes, AOS can never succeed because on the FLGS front the games that are demanded are tournament games and pick up games leaning toward a competitive bend.

The pattern that emerged a few months ago is that Age of Sigmar is absolutely not failing, but its not being played at FLGS stores (at least in the states).

Because its not being played at FLGS stores, a lot of people feel its failing, because that is to many people the majority of exposure that they get to games.

Its being played quite a bit at GW stores. Maybe not all GW stores, but all the instances on the facebook groups that are active are almost exclusively played at GW stores, and never played at FLGS stores.

Home and club play seems to be the norm in the UK, while shop based play seems to be more common in the USA. I am judging by the comments of DakkaDakka members.

The thing is that GW can control the play in their shops, while home and clubs are prone to the heresy of playing games that aren't from GW, so in one way it's a bit silly for GW not to encourage pick-up games.

Maybe they feel a points system isn't necessary for PUG.

Well, AOS isn't making the ICv2 list.

http://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/33912/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-fall-2015

40K is also no longer on top.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
Well, AOS isn't making the ICv2 list.

http://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/33912/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-fall-2015

40K is also no longer on top.

This excludes all of GWs store/web sales, right?

"...we interviewed distributors, manufacturers, and retailers, then aggregated the information into a single ranking."

 ShaneTB wrote:

 TheWaspinator wrote:
Well, AOS isn't making the ICv2 list.

http://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/33912/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-fall-2015

40K is also no longer on top.

This excludes all of GWs store/web sales, right?

"...we interviewed distributors, manufacturers, and retailers, then aggregated the information into a single ranking."

Yes, but it also means that GW is losing ground outside of their own stores (web or physical). Now, if this is actually what they want... we don't know.

auticus wrote:
As far as the FLGS front goes, AOS can never succeed because on the FLGS front the games that are demanded are tournament games and pick up games leaning toward a competitive bend.

The pattern that emerged a few months ago is that Age of Sigmar is absolutely not failing, but its not being played at FLGS stores (at least in the states).

Because its not being played at FLGS stores, a lot of people feel its failing, because that is to many people the majority of exposure that they get to games.

Its being played quite a bit at GW stores. Maybe not all GW stores, but all the instances on the facebook groups that are active are almost exclusively played at GW stores, and never played at FLGS stores.

When you consider that in most states there is maybe 1 or 2 gw and literlly dozens of FLGS, not having a presence there is a big deal, especially since GW's are also usually tiny little 1 man stores. GW has removed themselves from that competition, I seriously doubt the bulk of mini gamers would be "At home only" * not that anyone has stated such* but this is whats unhealthy for the game in the short and long run. as for the game being a failure, to the world at large maybe, in my home state it absolutely is a failure, in some places its doing ok, but the bar is actually set by GW, if they feel its doing great, then it is, even if it leads them to close their doors or get bought out.

It is a "deal" to the extent that 40K used to be higher up the ranking, and GW used to have higher sales revenues.

It's true that ICV2 only surveys indie shops and distributors in the USA.

That said, GW have spent several years trying to take sales away from such outlets and concentrate them in their own outlets. The result of this is that 40K used to be higher in the ICV2 ranking and has dropped. GW's reported sales revenues also have dropped. This seems to indicate that GW just lsost sales by trying to cut Indies out of the picture.

None of this means that AoS is doing well or badly. We don't even have an objective or metric to tell us what "doing well" means, let alone data on how AoS is tracking.

GW's plan might be;
Year 1: Lose £10 million launching the game.
Year 2: Break even.
Year 3: Make a £10 million profit.
Year 4: Make a £20 million profit now the setup costs for the moulds have been amortised.

That might be their plan, but they might roll a one

 Kilkrazy wrote:
We don't know global numbers as GW don't report sales per game.

Their revenue was almost static in the previous six monthly report that covers the first few months of AoS. It's possible that 40K utterly collapsed, and AoS sold like gangbusters, or that AoS was a total failure, and 40K increased sales 20%, and we could not tell that from this report.

You know it was licensing not model sales that kept them static, they've stopped caring about their IP and are selling it to anyone without care for quality.

Bols reports all their sources say the same thing AoS isn't selling, icv2 doesn't even have it on their radar.

Shops across the US have mountains of the starter marked with massive discounts some up to 50% and they can't get rid of it.

At stock holders meetings they don't talk about how well it's selling instead they mention how many white dwarfs people bought and refer to it as a "long term investment" which is double talk for it being a failure.

They can't even sell 1000 limited edition books for any army.

Seriously the picture can not be clearer.

Maybe, just maybe, it's because GW really does view AoS as a long term investment. I don't know, but I find it a little silly when people are essentially saying, "Your anecdotal information isn't true, because the anecdotal information of my three mates and I is true. . .because there are more of us talking about it." Squeeky wheel gets the grease, or in this case the thread topics and articles.

I really think that GW could do well in the US with their current strategy if they actually manned their stores properly and made them a little bit bigger. No, I don't think every gaming store needs 8+ gaming tables, but 4 would be nice.

 Coldhatred wrote:
Maybe, just maybe, it's because GW really does view AoS as a long term investment. I don't know, but I find it a little silly when people are essentially saying, "Your anecdotal information isn't true, because the anecdotal information of my three mates and I is true. . .because there are more of us talking about it." Squeeky wheel gets the grease, or in this case the thread topics and articles.

I really think that GW could do well in the US with their current strategy if they actually manned their stores properly and made them a little bit bigger. No, I don't think every gaming store needs 8+ gaming tables, but 4 would be nice.

yeah, I think that last part is key, GW isnt doing well because their stores are in bad spots, poorly manned, and tiny.

AOS is doing alright in my local group, its the perfect sit around have a beer on and push some plastic across the table kind of game with great accessibility, heck even my wife is getting into it.

Using wounds as a point system is fine and free rules without needed to lug around a book is nice, couple printable pdfs and call it a day.

hobojebus wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
We don't know global numbers as GW don't report sales per game.

Their revenue was almost static in the previous six monthly report that covers the first few months of AoS. It's possible that 40K utterly collapsed, and AoS sold like gangbusters, or that AoS was a total failure, and 40K increased sales 20%, and we could not tell that from this report.

You know it was licensing not model sales that kept them static, they've stopped caring about their IP and are selling it to anyone without care for quality.

Bols reports all their sources say the same thing AoS isn't selling, icv2 doesn't even have it on their radar.

Shops across the US have mountains of the starter marked with massive discounts some up to 50% and they can't get rid of it.

At stock holders meetings they don't talk about how well it's selling instead they mention how many white dwarfs people bought and refer to it as a "long term investment" which is double talk for it being a failure.

They can't even sell 1000 limited edition books for any army.

Seriously the picture can not be clearer.

Royalties income went up about £900,000. That was enough to turn a small downturn into a small upturn, until constant currency turned it into a small downturn anyway. However, the total of royalties was pretty negligible compared to the rest of the revenue which derives mainly from game sales and isn't split into 40K versus AoA. In other words, revenue from game sales was about static and we can't tell how well the two main game systems are doing individually.

In GW's business model, any new game system is a long term investment. The AoS rules and starter box are a bit like a PS4. GW don't expect to make a profit if you buy that and stop. They expect you to go on buying more units and books for several years to come, and to get your friends involved as well. (Network gaming.)

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I very much doubt that. One of GW's strengths is that they can do everything in house apart from printing.

They can do that now too, they bought the equipment last year.

The success of the game needs longer than a year to determine. It needs time for the resentment of whfb ending to clear, to establish it's own range of miniatures, to fully address and revamp the range of factions etc. When more work is done, and more of the old factions have been addressed and everything is clearer, we will start to get a better idea of it's success. Something like this isn't a failure just because it isn't immediately successful.

That said, from a person pov, I think that, once it has had that time, it won't be the success that was hoped for.

You sell the most in the first 2-3 months of a products life, if it's not selling well then it never will.

The idea that GW wants slow build up is ridiculous AoS was meant to be a smash hit that had people spending cash on any big monster they wanted.

Eight months in its selling less than the game it replaced and is mocked across the internet.

They won't even demo the game at convention's they attend.

It's a flop and it'll be abandoned like lotr before it once they have released the stuff already made.

How much AoS is being played is only ever a proxy for how well it is doing from a GW financial perspective.

If everyone is just using existing models to play AoS (or buying old models) and don't pick up the new ones then that is disaster for GW given that they seem to be incapable of bringing significant new blood into the game. It means the investment into the new moulds, design, books etc won't claw back their costs for a long period of time.

As a rule I generally use the number of painting blogs as an indication as to how well sales of certain miniatures have gone. The more popular models will have more plogs etc. Most of the AoS painting I have seen are all of older miniatures and much fewer of the newer miniatures. This might also imply that people could be converting previously purchased models for WFB (or ebay models) rather than shelling out on the more expensive new models.

A big test is going to be how well the rumoured next boxed set sells. The initial starter set sold well because of the unknown and the game was new. If as rumours suggested sales of AoS tanked after the initial early flurry and that continues with the new boxed set then I expect we will see some repercussions. Realistically the recent move away from Ltd editions to soft back army books (which were shown in hardback form on the website) might be an indicator that GW are scaling back some of their (non-miniature) production of AoS as that is likely to be easier to implement earlier than the miniatures which likely have been planned several years in advance.

I never said they wanted a slow build up, of course they would want a smashing success. Doesn't mean that not getting one equals long term failure.

And it isn't universally true about selling more of a product in the first three months. GW would have sold more space marines last year than they did when released in the 80's (not that I'm trying to suggest AoS should be given 30 years to achieve 'success').

 JamesY wrote:
I never said they wanted a slow build up, of course they would want a smashing success. Doesn't mean that not getting one equals long term failure.

And it isn't universally true about selling more of a product in the first three months. GW would have sold more space marines last year than they did when released in the 80's (not that I'm trying to suggest AoS should be given 30 years to achieve 'success').

From the data that was presented in the chapterhouse lawsuit we know that a huge proportion of every new kits sales are in the first month. Tactical marines are an exception I'm sure, but things like those new space wolf werewolves, I wouldn't find it hard to believe that in the next year they will sell less than 10% of the number sold the week they hit shelves.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
I never said they wanted a slow build up, of course they would want a smashing success. Doesn't mean that not getting one equals long term failure.

And it isn't universally true about selling more of a product in the first three months. GW would have sold more space marines last year than they did when released in the 80's (not that I'm trying to suggest AoS should be given 30 years to achieve 'success').

From the data that was presented in the chapterhouse lawsuit we know that a huge proportion of every new kits sales are in the first month. Tactical marines are an exception I'm sure, but things like those new space wolf werewolves, I wouldn't find it hard to believe that in the next year they will sell less than 10% of the number sold the week they hit shelves.

Did the chapterhouse numbers ever have actual kits on it? The charts I've seen only had codices, army books and rule books, not kits.

Granted, I believe they *probably* are biased toward their release, but I didn't think that was something we knew so much as guessed.

Uh... I thought it did but my memory not as reliable as I'd like it to be at 1am .....

I'd be surprised if that amount of information was made public. I'm not arguing that new products don't perform best whilst new though, I just mean that the game needs time to grow, if it is going to. The fact that many players haven't needed to buy anything at all to play it won't have helped its initial sales performance.

I find interesting the fact that people come here and claim its not going well as much as those saying its doing great... all based in pretty much just personal opinions.
yes you can have an educated opinion about things if you look closely into patterns and GW reports but even those are totally inaccurate since they do not specify product lines or trends etc.

So in short no one, outside a small group inside GW, knows the real factual numbers and for that all we do here is - wild speculation... sometimes loaded with biased personal beliefs.

Makes a fun read though.

So let me start and say that I have no clue if its doing well or not and to be blunt, it does not affect me slightly, it does not put food on my table I have no shares so the success/failure of this product does not concern me. I love the minis and Im totally on top of AOS, love it and 20 years ago it would be more problematic, but today? Nopes... Seen to many good minis and games vanish only to be replaced with something else, sometimes better.
As long as Im having fun with this today I really do not care how things evolve outside my little enjoyment bubble. Example: soon enough I will start some projects with my Rackham minis and will have fun with a product from a decade extinct game/company. You may say wouldn't it be better if they carried on doing what you like? Thats not how things evolve in time and rackham was an already mutated beast ( doing PPP crap). Things changed and things are changing with GW too.

Which brings me to my own personal wild speculation regarding GW and AoS.

GW is changing in bits and drabs, still making huge mistakes but unlike a few years ago they are adapting to a changing fanbase. It looks like with the proliferation of skirmish ventures on the market, the closed box boardgames Kickstarter success, the casual gamers having multiple systems the consumer never ending search for the bargain and above all the fast pace news in the internet age when news today are old tomorrow are making an impact at GW.

We have seen GW adapting to some of these things, AoS is not a massbattle game and I would say you do not need the silly amount of minis WFB did, so its a clear approach to skirmish level gaming... GW is releasing closed boardgames to go with their minis and reeditions of oldies to ride the boardgaming wave... GW is selling you bargains today with start collecting range, I never remembered such deep discount before... they know this will probably tempt you to buy lots of small armies rather than just one massive one and AoS with alliances flexibility does accentuate that direction, we also have freeee rules. FInally the weekly WD and new releases keeps GW on top of the news for a full month. All these are clear changes and AoS accentuates them perfectly.

So yeah I see gw doing these things and also doing huge fails too, price creep on the non boxed set deals does not help keeping people interest, not using the internet to its full potential delays their market penetration, dumping WFB fluff was unnecessary/risky, lack of communication, no presence in the industry events... and I could be here all day

Fact is AoS is a huge change from WFB and I believe that its GW answer to their ever changing fans. I also believe that it was a venture SO BADLY handled that its landing faced avalanches of critiques and rage. I dont think it sold well at all, would be surprised otherwise, but the new start collecting armies, free rules, new factions etc will make this slow burner spark in the future.

Either way I will continue with my figmentia for many years to come, regardless of company success or demise.

We could speculate/debate that why is GW suddenly changing? is it because they are being proactive or rather that losing sales is no longer sustainable?

 jonolikespie wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
I never said they wanted a slow build up, of course they would want a smashing success. Doesn't mean that not getting one equals long term failure.

And it isn't universally true about selling more of a product in the first three months. GW would have sold more space marines last year than they did when released in the 80's (not that I'm trying to suggest AoS should be given 30 years to achieve 'success').

From the data that was presented in the chapterhouse lawsuit we know that a huge proportion of every new kits sales are in the first month. Tactical marines are an exception I'm sure, but things like those new space wolf werewolves, I wouldn't find it hard to believe that in the next year they will sell less than 10% of the number sold the week they hit shelves.

I don't remember anything like that in the Chapter House docs, but, however, GW are releasing a new kit and book practically every month for AoS.

I have seen some games at the local GW, but pretty much everywhere else around here its dead. Mostly, because of the rules and the backlash from killing off WFB.
I played one game, and its not my cup of tea. I stay with Warhammer. Thats it.

The handling was horrible and the pricing for the Stormcast boxed units is stupid. Some of the new start collecting sets--nearly a year later--for established armies are good value assuming you are a fan of GW and want to play AoS with them. The recent dwarves also seem like a bad presentation.

Had they introduced the rules (with points and non-points options) and not killed off the WFB world, it would have gone orders of magnitude better for them. The rules themselves are as serviceable and solid as 5th editon 40k or 6th or 7th edition WFB. Lots of people won't see that because of the non-pointed army building and the admittedly goofy base measuring thing---and the whole bad handling of the WFB ending that pissed them off in the first place.

I've managed to convince one other player to play the starter box with me, using both full armies included with the box. His conclusion was that the armies felt pretty balanced and that the rules were as good as what's been offered before/currently. Battleshock, in itself, is a pretty cool mechanic that helps speed games along.

I dont know, it kinda feels AoS is a bit on the upswing, just a bit. Vets like me are SLOWLY coming over. The sad thing is, GW could easily bring AoS up WHFB numbers by simply catering to a very large group (at least here in the states) that is the pick up gamers. Most of us dont have time to devote to a gaming group and pick up games were huge in Los Angeles California. And I mean HUGE. We had the biggest bunker stateside and it was always packed up until they shut it down. What the pick up gamer wants is points. We dont need tourney level rules or point structures. But what we do need is a quick way to set up a fairly balanced game vs a stranger. The whole talking it out bit just doesnt work in a pick up game. Ive yet to see it work anyhow.

So points. AoS needs it even if just to recapture the pickup market stateside. The point haters could still not play with them. Everyone wins.

What the pick up gamer wants is points. We dont need tourney level rules or point structures. But what we do need is a quick way to set up a fairly balanced game vs a stranger.

You don't need points then, you just need a set scenario that is reasonable balanced. Just as points are based around a set scenario (usually the battle line on a clear table) and don't balance other scenarios.

I haven't tried it properly yet, but the scenario that GW seem to be using at some of their events or for the school league may work, or be the basis of such a 'standard' scenario, limited turns and max model count, with only a few turns to make victory points, but with the weaker side having extra ways of making victory points, and to a larger amount the weaker he is.

Worry less about having 'equal' armies and more about how you win the game, and whether that has some mechanism for not wanting to deploy every awesome model you can lay your hands on.