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I recently visited GW Leicester and noticed the store was a great deal smaller despite being in the same location - When i asked what had happened I was told a partition wall had been introduced to "create a convenient storage area downstairs " and free play gaming tables have been reduced to just one !

This week i found out that Wakefield GW store is also "downsizing" and will have 3 intro tables NO painting table and NO free play tables , the excuse given is " this allows us to concentrate our efforts on new gamers and help them into the hobby "

I throw this open to the gaming community - Is this becoming a trend of GW stores ?

My two cents worth - what is the point of bringing new gamers into "the hobby" if you then cut them off with what is to me an attitude of "take your stuff and get the hell out of our store" - i see GW in danger of becoming the " unfriendly local gaming store "

Your thoughts

Apologies to mods if this is in the wrong section

In Atlanta, GA USA they opened a new GW store not too long ago and it's exactly like you described.

Two demo tables with the starter sets from Warhammer & 40k on them, a small painting station in the corner (used mostly by employees) and they focus on getting new people into the hobby.

They do demo games of 500 points only.

Is that the Games Workshop City Walk store? I keep meaning to visit and check it out, just haven't gotten a chance yet.

I did visit the one in Mall of Georgia a million years ago, and thought it was pretty small; then again, it was in a mall, so I'm sure rents must have exorbitant.

 Mr. Grey wrote:
Is that the Games Workshop City Walk store? I keep meaning to visit and check it out, just haven't gotten a chance yet.

I did visit the one in Mall of Georgia a million years ago, and thought it was pretty small; then again, it was in a mall, so I'm sure rents must have exorbitant.

It is, the owner is a guy named Kenny and he's a great guy. It's just a really small store. A lot of people play at Giga-Bites Cafe in Marietta since they have 12 tables set up for table top gaming. At Giga, Wednesday is 40K and Thursday is Fantasy usually with pick up games on the weekends.

Is this Greystorms?

If you go in and use the free tables/paints a lot it will be worse,

If you go in and buy stuff the store having a stock area will be better as they are far more likely to be able to supply what you want

(and I suspect it may mean they can have fewer staff to supervise a 'smaller store')

As for new players I've always found GW stores are far more receptive to geniune newbies than FLGS which are far more likely to have an established clique who know the owner and clog up the tables (may not be the same everywhere, but that's been my experience)

From what I've seen of the recently opened GW shop in Kansas City, and what's been insinuated by the operators, the small intro stores are to basically gauge market saturation and drum up interest in under served regions. My guess is that if they generate revenue they either stay or upsize at the end of the lease, or if they don't they move out.

Where is the problem with this? Cutting down on loitering is what a lot of stores do. And businesses calculate how much money they make per square foot. There is no requirement for them to have excessive amounts of gaming space for people who complain about the prices and buy online, now is there?

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:


As for new players I've always found GW stores are far more receptive to geniune newbies than FLGS which are far more likely to have an established clique who know the owner and clog up the tables (may not be the same everywhere, but that's been my experience)

If like me you can't get to our local gaming club (work nights) and we have no independent within 30+ miles (that i know of) i only have the GW store to game in and this new " noob only " policy is a killer

There was a store opened up in the suburbs, a few years ago, when they were semi-interested in doing business in French. They found out that parents would just dump their kids there with no money and come pick them up hours later.

Smart parents, finding free babysitters.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Where is the problem with this? Cutting down on loitering is what a lot of stores do. And businesses calculate how much money they make per square foot. There is no requirement for them to have excessive amounts of gaming space for people who complain about the prices and buy online, now is there?

Is that what the OP was complaining about - a lack of space to loiter and complain about GW while in a GW store?

Probably not...

He might be upset that his "FLGS" just got a bit unfriendly, and maybe he's short of gaming space now?

Who knows...

I believe that any store that is not battle bunker size will either be shut down or if possible, downsized to these this mini store concept.

Reason: Profitability by reduction of staffing, less store hours, less use of utilities, etc. Besides raising prices to obscene levels in June, how else are you going to make profit with your declining customer base?

Looks good on the bottom line when you do your quarterly financial reports. And that is what share holders thinks.

The point is that a GW store is purely there to show the hobby to new customers. It's not to provide a gaming club or loitering space.
The idea is that a GW introduces new people to the games, shows them how to get started and takes them through to becoming an independant gamer. At which point they're encouraged to join/create a local gaming club or school club. That way the store can get on with finding more new players.

 darkangels_rule wrote:
I recently visited GW Leicester and noticed the store was a great deal smaller despite being in the same location - When i asked what had happened I was told a partition wall had been introduced to "create a convenient storage area downstairs " and free play gaming tables have been reduced to just one !

This week i found out that Wakefield GW store is also "downsizing" and will have 3 intro tables NO painting table and NO free play tables , the excuse given is " this allows us to concentrate our efforts on new gamers and help them into the hobby "

I throw this open to the gaming community - Is this becoming a trend of GW stores ?

My two cents worth - what is the point of bringing new gamers into "the hobby" if you then cut them off with what is to me an attitude of "take your stuff and get the hell out of our store" - i see GW in danger of becoming the " unfriendly local gaming store "

Your thoughts

Apologies to mods if this is in the wrong section

The purpose is, the exposure in advertisement.
Sure the customer will no doubt never contribute to THAT store directly, but they'll just buy it online.

And with the constant GW price increase? You can bet they already took that into account,
now buying even at 25% off is no different than purchasing from full price 1-2 years ago.

Thats the direction GW is going.

Which is odd because you need someone somewhere to offer you space for "normal" games,

 Symbio Joe wrote:
Which is odd because you need someone somewhere to offer you space for "normal" games,

Why would it be odd? it fits in their sales model of "catering to new customers."
Isnt it more than a coincidence everything they have been doing the past 5 years fits that?

New customers
New shinny things
No one to complain about prices because they havn't been in the game long enough
No need to cater to vets because " we dont make much profit off them anyways".

Its like factory assembly, just keep feeding the new ones, throw out the old and stale.

I think there might be a slight problem with introducing someone to a hobby and then sending them on their way. If you go to another store that has more room and the same stuff as GW then why ever go back to GW? Plus all the other games that will be at an independent store that might take sales away from GW in the long run.

Rotgut wrote:
I think there might be a slight problem with introducing someone to a hobby and then sending them on their way. If you go to another store that has more room and the same stuff as GW then why ever go back to GW? Plus all the other games that will be at an independent store that might take sales away from GW in the long run.

Another store? As in another store that carries GW products?
You know GW have the confidence they ARE THE $**t ?
Thus even if people play and buy GW at Indie stores, GW IS STILL MAKING MONEY.

Think of GW mini stores as billboards.
They hit you OOMF with the product image, entices you to get it ,
do they fill in the rest with product info and which mall to purchase it in?

Nope, not necessary nor does it fulfill the purpose

Downsizing is never a marketing decision. However, that garbage spin they gave you was.

Best check their financial information and see if anything indicates that they're downsizing for that much, much more plausible reason.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Where is the problem with this? Cutting down on loitering is what a lot of stores do. And businesses calculate how much money they make per square foot. There is no requirement for them to have excessive amounts of gaming space for people who complain about the prices and buy online, now is there?

What do you think the problem is. Maybe the OP wanted to have gaming space and now he's losing that gaming space? He didn't say it was a problem from GW's perspective, he said it was a problem from his perspective. Get a grip. People see things from their perspective and they calculate benefits based on what they get out of it, not by how a bunch of corporate accountants see things.

The new GW in our city only has 2 tables and is pretty crammed. It is a small store in a strip mall with just enough wall space to place all their merch.

GW's are really not "game stores", they are stores that sell a game.

This isn't new news. This was talked about years ago already. One other factor with the reduced footage, a lot of malls in the US charge you based on both sales an square footage. The local GameStop pulled out of the mall near me despite being being next to a major university with 30,000+ students. It was the only video game store in a 5 mile radius and was normally packed at any major launch. Talking with one of the employees who had been reassigned to another store, the large square footage multiplied with high sales factored rent caused the rent to become astronomical.

Lets get people into a game and then give them nowhere to play it. Better yet, lets make it so they don't play in our shops, but play in wargaming clubs where they'll be introduced to other systems. New gamers are quite open, so I would suppose that if they were introduced to another game early on that was cheaper and had the same gamer base they'd take it up instead. The purpose of tables in GW stores was to prevent this, but now they're essentially giving up their monopoly over the younger gamers (ie the infamous day care center of GW shops).

To follow on with this I would note that my local GW's gotten a policy that you have to book a table hours in advance to play on it. In addition to this you're only alloud to watch a game if all parties have agreed to this. The later point doesn't sound so bad, but I was rather rudely told to "feth off" essentially by a pair of gamers when I happened to look over at their game whilst shopping (and the staff agreed with them). Meh, if it brings more people to clubs that isn't an issue I guess, at least there the guys with their heads up their butts are mildly told to grow up or leave. =P

Years ago, GW stores didn't have tables at all. The trend to have gaming table in stores has been growing for some time, both in GW stores and independents. It's much more prevalent in the US now, where all retailers discuss the value of OP (organized play) and how to set up programs. It's strange that GW is getting away from that in their own stores.

silent25 wrote:
This isn't new news. This was talked about years ago already. One other factor with the reduced footage, a lot of malls in the US charge you based on both sales an square footage. The local GameStop pulled out of the mall near me despite being being next to a major university with 30,000+ students. It was the only video game store in a 5 mile radius and was normally packed at any major launch. Talking with one of the employees who had been reassigned to another store, the large square footage multiplied with high sales factored rent caused the rent to become astronomical.

Exactly. And devoting a lot of floor space to open game tables for loitering is sometimes not an option, evem for the Godzilla of game companies...

The retail business equivalent of reconnaissance forces? Seems like a good idea.

This is happening all over Australia.

It started with all stores (except the main hub city store) being closed on their two 'laziest' days. Now a good majority of stores are moving out of the shopping centres (due to rising rents and Westfield's ridiculous terms and conditions) and downsizing into small 1-2 man stores with the exception of the very busiest ones (of which there may be a handful at most.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Where is the problem with this? Cutting down on loitering is what a lot of stores do. And businesses calculate how much money they make per square foot. There is no requirement for them to have excessive amounts of gaming space for people who complain about the prices and buy online, now is there?

well the problem i see is this. with few tables that means few players= less incentive to buy into a hobby that is already hard to get into if you dont know a community of players. the only example i can give is the local one that works like so

GW recently opened a store in OK, which has 2 tables (from what im told, haven't felt the need to visit myself) and the same if not lesser selection from our FLGS that has been in business for a long time. now GW is aggressive in salesmanship, but the FLGS doesnt even need that kind of sales tactic. with so many players regularly hanging out there, many will try to sell you models just to get you to come and play with us. so the players become the salesman, and when someone walks in looking to buy GW products, its more encouraging to see players playing on one of the many tables (we have 6 preset with 2 more if tournament turnouts are good) knowing that there is a thriving community of sorts to play with.

 d-usa wrote:
The new GW in our city only has 2 tables and is pretty crammed. It is a small store in a strip mall with just enough wall space to place all their merch.

GW's are really not "game stores", they are stores that sell a game.

Yes right, they haven't been the former for many years. These latest changes are just pushing things further along that path.

If you are serious about gaming, and want the best playing environment, GW should be further along the list of choices some way after a club/FLGS or your own garage or basement.

My local store had got cut down to a one-man store - two out of three of the employees were transferred to another store. Also my local store is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Over the years I've seen people excuse GW prices in part because they provide a game centre and support the local gaming area and allow people to use their equipment and table space. Though I can't stand the idea of playing in a GW store myself.

I guess that argument is dying a bit if they don't even try to support gaming, the tables being there only to sell to new customers. What purpose does a GW store achieve now in the hobby? Many independents now have greater floorspace and gaming areas, gone are the days when the local hobby shop was a pokey, cluttered little shop the size of my bedroom.

If you increasingly can't game at GW stores why would there be customer loyalty to actually buy from GW stores, and why would anyone still feel the necessity to be GW pure? As you only need to jump through that hoop if you want to play in their stores which they don't want any more.

Sure GW, get people into the game, sell them a box and send them away. Then they can go to a proper store and buy a load of other models and play some real games.

agree totally with Howard on this.

also if you guys want another report of downsizing, Bedford was downsized in store size in the spring. reduced tables from 2 6x4 + 1 4x4 plus 4x4 intro table split in 2 for 40k, fantasy. to 1 of each and the intro board