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.

I think it utterly baffling that one would hand-wave away declining sales as a metric possibly indicating problems while on the other hand declare that profits outstripping that of their competitors is a possible indication that nothing is wrong.

I mean... an elephant with some terminal disease is still going to eat more than a healthy wolf in terms of kg food ingested (even if the kg food is reduced due to the elephant's declining health)! Food consumed is by itself a terrible metric, just as looking at profits in a vacuum is similarly meaningless.

@Az: Responds to your marketing question: You are no longer buying GW kit because:

1. The game sizes are too small for you to use your whole collection. Solution: 5000 point standard games.

2. You are no longer a child / teenager: have grown out of the target demographic / spent your parents into the poor house. Solution: This is not an issue and is part of GW's business plan.

3. You are dead. Solution: This is not an issue and is part of GW's business plan.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

GW's statement that such studies are unnecessary in a niche makes sense once you look at it from that perspective, given that the innate properties of a niche market. GW isn't a new company - it's old, and I can accept the altogether human hubris that they've been in the industry for so long, that they feel their understanding of the market is good enough, and any marginal benefit of conducting further studies is outweighed by the marginal costs.

Ok, let's play a game!

You be GW, I'll be me.

I've got a ~3000pt painted Space Marines army. I've not bought the new book, nor have I bought any kits for it in some time.

Why?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS
You can only answer this question based on information you, as GW, have declared you have on hand, therefore you cannot know anything outside of your own sales data to answer this question.

Easy: I don't work for GW, and won't pretend like I work for GW, so I won't humor your question by pretending to know what data they have and do not have internally.

 TheKbob wrote:

 mikhaila wrote:

Spoiler:

And this is the utter stupidity of GW. They make a decision based off of one reason, and don't look at anything else. Specifically, they don't look at what advertising for a new product does for sales, and how a good release of a new game will increase further sales. If none of your mates are playing a game, do you even care? How about 20 of them just picked up a starter set and are talking about it? Large release events are great advertising.

I beg GW for information, so I can work to advertise their product and sell more. Three weeks out from Age of Sigmar I have no information on the game, don't know the price. I can't schedule or plan an even.

I have zero pre-orders.

Obviously they aren't GW FineFans™

Something something something. Holes.

 mikhaila wrote:
And this is the utter stupidity of GW. They make a decision based off of one reason, and don't look at anything else. Specifically, they don't look at what advertising for a new product does for sales, and how a good release of a new game will increase further sales. If none of your mates are playing a game, do you even care? How about 20 of them just picked up a starter set and are talking about it? Large release events are great advertising.

I beg GW for information, so I can work to advertise their product and sell more. Three weeks out from Age of Sigmar I have no information on the game, don't know the price. I can't schedule or plan an even.

I have zero pre-orders.

What do you mean zero preorders? How can giving you a bunch of post cards with a date and a vague name that could easily just be the next $7 Black Library book to replace all your theoretically sellable books and model kits not bring in folks by the droves? As a collector's model company that just happens to make a game on the side, how come all the collectors aren't frothing at your store's doorstep just to pick up whatever this postcard is alluding to with no further information? Surely keeping everyone is the dark is the key to massive profit... otherwise GW wouldn't be seeing year on year record skyrocketing sales with their new (in game) openness. They won't tell you WHAT you'll be buying but by throwing out any semblance of balance you can be sure to know that you CAN use it (or more importantly buy it).

 warboss wrote:
How can giving you a bunch of post cards with a date and a vague name that could easily just be the next $7 Black Library book to replace all your theoretically sellable books and model kits not bring in folks by the droves? As a collector's model company that just happens to make a game on the side, how come all the collectors aren't frothing at your store's doorstep just to pick up whatever this postcard is alluding to with no further information? Surely keeping everyone is the dark is the key to massive profit... otherwise GW wouldn't be seeing year on year record skyrocketing sales with their new (in game) openness. They won't tell you WHAT you'll be buying but by throwing out any semblance of balance you can be sure to know that you CAN use it (or more importantly buy it).

From the same company that brought you 13 Black Crusades under the same Leadership... Maybe they'll get it right on the 14th try by doing the same thing.

 keezus wrote:

 warboss wrote:
How can giving you a bunch of post cards with a date and a vague name that could easily just be the next $7 Black Library book to replace all your theoretically sellable books and model kits not bring in folks by the droves? As a collector's model company that just happens to make a game on the side, how come all the collectors aren't frothing at your store's doorstep just to pick up whatever this postcard is alluding to with no further information? Surely keeping everyone is the dark is the key to massive profit... otherwise GW wouldn't be seeing year on year record skyrocketing sales with their new (in game) openness. They won't tell you WHAT you'll be buying but by throwing out any semblance of balance you can be sure to know that you CAN use it (or more importantly buy it).

From the same company that brought you 13 Black Crusades under the same Leadership... Maybe they'll get it right on the 14th try by doing the same thing.

I know you're not referring to this, but frankly, the 13th Black Crusade global event, while it had its technical snafus (participation exceeded GW's greatest expectations) was perhaps the best tabletop gaming event I've ever seen done in this industry.

Enigwulf: I participated in that event. Its a shame that GW went back on their word and not only did not advance the storyline in any meaningful way, but made the decision to never hold another event like it again.

 keezus wrote:
Enigwulf: I participated in that event. Its a shame that GW went back on their word and not only did not advance the storyline in any meaningful way, but made the decision to never hold another event like it again.

I do like that the events that transpired are now baked into the lore, however, I was playing Chaos at the time and trollololol'ing as we basically curb-stomped in the early days. Plus we got a 'dex out of it too! If GW actually started from a meaningful date, like the early M41, and had one of these every year or two to advance the storyline, that would've been pretty badass. Alas, such lost potential.

 Enigwolf wrote:

 keezus wrote:
Enigwulf: I participated in that event. Its a shame that GW went back on their word and not only did not advance the storyline in any meaningful way, but made the decision to never hold another event like it again.

I do like that the events that transpired are now baked into the lore, however, I was playing Chaos at the time and trollololol'ing as we basically curb-stomped in the early days. Plus we got a 'dex out of it too! If GW actually started from a meaningful date, like the early M41, and had one of these every year or two to advance the storyline, that would've been pretty badass. Alas, such lost potential.

Errrr... Didn't Chaos win that event overall, not just in the early days? So GW rolled back the timeline to pretend that never happened and hasn't hosted another thing since.

That's hardly including the events in the lore.

 Enigwolf wrote:

 keezus wrote:
Enigwulf: I participated in that event. Its a shame that GW went back on their word and not only did not advance the storyline in any meaningful way, but made the decision to never hold another event like it again.

I do like that the events that transpired are now baked into the lore, however, I was playing Chaos at the time and trollololol'ing as we basically curb-stomped in the early days. Plus we got a 'dex out of it too! If GW actually started from a meaningful date, like the early M41, and had one of these every year or two to advance the storyline, that would've been pretty badass. Alas, such lost potential.

I think the next iteration would have to be 50k, and they'd fill out all the gaps within 10,000 years with "history" Then we'd have 30k, 40k and 50k!

Although the *approach* of the 51st millennium would be cool.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

 keezus wrote:
Enigwulf: I participated in that event. Its a shame that GW went back on their word and not only did not advance the storyline in any meaningful way, but made the decision to never hold another event like it again.

I do like that the events that transpired are now baked into the lore, however, I was playing Chaos at the time and trollololol'ing as we basically curb-stomped in the early days. Plus we got a 'dex out of it too! If GW actually started from a meaningful date, like the early M41, and had one of these every year or two to advance the storyline, that would've been pretty badass. Alas, such lost potential.

Errrr... Didn't Chaos win that event overall, not just in the early days? So GW rolled back the timeline to pretend that never happened and hasn't hosted another thing since.

That's hardly including the events in the lore.

Yeah they did. I still played (was winding down) when the Eye of Terror/13th Crusade was going on, and they made a huge deal about how the outcome could change 40k depending on how it went. And when Chaos just obliterated the Imperial forces in games, they retconned it to never happen because the actual outcome would have basically been the destruction of the Imperium, and the storyline has been frozen at M41.9997 or whatever ever since then.

IIRC the actual outcome would have been Cadia fell, letting the Eye open and allow Abaddon a beeline straight to Terra where he would have killed the Emperor and plunged the Imperium into darkness.

See, that would make for an awesome evolution of the timeline.

The Imperiums forces become fractured cells of resistance against the forces of Chaos.The Imperial Guard attempts to hold what worlds it can as its travel capabilities have been much reduced due to the loss of the astronomicon (or however it is spelled) and forges an alliance with the Tau to give safe harbour to refugees. Meanwhile the Space Marines launch lightning raids on vital points of Abaddons new empire.

The Tau begin to expand outwards, absorbing many formerly Imperial worlds through the offering of protection from Abaddons forces, gaining many human auxiliaries from the Imperial Guard.

With Terra his, Abaddon becomes a new Emperor of mankind, however without the unifying symbol of the Emperor to fight against any more, the forces of chaos start to splinter and fight amongst themselves even more, weakening his rule.

The Eldar remain as enigmatic as ever, working behind the scenes to try and end Abaddons rule and break the forces of chaos.

Dark Eldar continue to do what they've always done.

Meanwhile the Orks come careening into the middle of it all in order to have a damn fine scrap.

The Necrons start to awaken and hit at worlds on the fringes of space. Only vague scattered reports make it back to the leaders of the races.

Meanwhile the Tyranid menace devours worlds as its tendrils start to slowly move towards the core...

MaxT wrote:

We do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants. These things are otiose in a niche.

Thinking about this statement, I'm further convinced that GW does what they love to do rather than what they think their customers would love for them to do.

Essentially, they're saying: "We don't care what the market wants. We build our games the way we want to, and if people want to play in one of our game worlds, they'll give us some money."

Which doesn't offend me in the least. If what they produce is incompatible with what I want, they'll cease to get my money. Whether they want to pay attention to what I want or not is more for their benefit, not mine, though of course, I hope they continue to produce things that I want.

I have largely believed that they could still have the feel of 40k without some of the silliness (inter-faction conflicts) if they advanced the timeline and broke up the Imperium and other factions too. For example:

The Imperium collapses, and thousands of worlds break away into independent city-states or domains. The High Lords maintain control over some systems and constantly call for a new Grand Crusade to reunite the Imperium. The Imperial Fists and their successors, ever loyal, reform the old Legion to reclaim their territories, decrying others as traitors and oathbreakers and proudly pointing to their honor and virtue as proof of their superiority.

The Ultramarines and their successors see the collapse of the Imperium as a sign and under a restore Robute Guilliman form the Dominion of Ultramar, promising a new Imperium in a parallel to the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire.

The more independent chapters like the Space Wolves, Minotaurs and Space Sharks decide to become independent, possibly as mercenaries. Other various chapters choose between the old Imperium, the new Dominion of Ultramar or even form their own independent groups. Dark Angels for example might become their own group with their successors, becoming slightly more sinister in the process as they step up pursuing the Fallen through any means necessary.

You now have a way to explain Marine vs. Marine conflicts without it being handwaved as a training exercise or other silly reason for coming to blows. Guard players can make their own unit with its own history and its own world without worrying about why they would fight Ultramarines.

Similar things can happen with Eldar (some craftworlds become pirates?) and even Tau (as an analogy to the Three Kingdoms of China or the Warring States period of Japan, there could be a third sect that fights against Farsight and the traditional Tau).

I think that would be pretty cool, advance the plot but not take away what makes 40k 40k. There's still the threat of Chaos, Necrons, Tyranids and Orks. Dark Eldar are largely untouched. There can still be constant alliances against common foes, so you can still have Fists + Ultramarines vs. Chaos one week and the next the Fists + Ultramarines clash as they both try to conquer a wayward planet.

 Talys wrote:

MaxT wrote:

We do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants. These things are otiose in a niche.

Thinking about this statement, I'm further convinced that GW does what they love to do rather than what they think their customers would love for them to do.

Essentially, they're saying: "We don't care what the market wants. We build our games the way we want to, and if people want to play in one of our game worlds, they'll give us some money."

Which doesn't offend me in the least. If what they produce is incompatible with what I want, they'll cease to get my money. Whether they want to pay attention to what I want or not is more for their benefit, not mine, though of course, I hope they continue to produce things that I want.

Which, and I'll say it again, unless your passion happens to be really popular with other people, is a fething stupid way to run a business.

Kirby thinks he's Steve Jobs, he's closer to big jobs.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Talys wrote:

MaxT wrote:

We do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants. These things are otiose in a niche.

Thinking about this statement, I'm further convinced that GW does what they love to do rather than what they think their customers would love for them to do.

Essentially, they're saying: "We don't care what the market wants. We build our games the way we want to, and if people want to play in one of our game worlds, they'll give us some money."

Which doesn't offend me in the least. If what they produce is incompatible with what I want, they'll cease to get my money. Whether they want to pay attention to what I want or not is more for their benefit, not mine, though of course, I hope they continue to produce things that I want.

Which, and I'll say it again, unless your passion happens to be really popular with other people, is a fething stupid way to run a business.

Kirby thinks he's Steve Jobs, he's closer to big jobs.

And Steve Jobs made money by looking at good ideas from other places, then putting them into Apple products and jacking the price up.

So Kirby isn't even being a very good Steve Jobs as he doesn't bother to look at what the competition is doing as he doesn't believe there is any competition.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Talys wrote:

MaxT wrote:

We do no demographic research, we have no focus groups, we do not ask the market what it wants. These things are otiose in a niche.

Thinking about this statement, I'm further convinced that GW does what they love to do rather than what they think their customers would love for them to do.

Essentially, they're saying: "We don't care what the market wants. We build our games the way we want to, and if people want to play in one of our game worlds, they'll give us some money."

Which doesn't offend me in the least. If what they produce is incompatible with what I want, they'll cease to get my money. Whether they want to pay attention to what I want or not is more for their benefit, not mine, though of course, I hope they continue to produce things that I want.

Which, and I'll say it again, unless your passion happens to be really popular with other people, is a fething stupid way to run a business.

Kirby thinks he's Steve Jobs, he's closer to big jobs.

Could be. I actually really dislike most Apple products, and really like most GW products, so maybe not a good example for me

Windows guy all the way, man. Surface Pro 3 >>> iPad. Interogator Chaplain >>> Mac!

You get the point though, right?

There no need to post to explain how it doesn't personally apply to you, unless it really is so far removed from your experience you need further information.

 Azreal13 wrote:
You get the point though, right?

There no need to post to explain how it doesn't personally apply to you, unless it really is so far removed from your experience you need further information.

Sure thing, but a better example would have been, Kirby thinks he's Steve Jobs but he's Gil Amelio (Jobs 1997 predecessor who is often credited with running Apple into the ground). Of course, a lesson there is that a big company in dire straights can turn it all around with one hit product.

I'm quite happy with the example I used thanks.

 heartserenade wrote:
Are you implying one can't enjoy painting and collecting miniatures or discussing them in forums if they're poor?

Ha! definitely was not thinking or implying that, replace your word "poor" with "starving" that is what I was saying.
When there is some money to rub together for hobbies that is great, everyone needs recreation.

When discussing starvation, I would sell every model I had to deal with the issue or at least hold off that hardship.
I had a friend getting evicted out of his house and I had to help him move in the night, I had to shake my head at all the extra stuff he had: I would have sold it all.
When it comes to keeping your family housed, clothed and fed: collecting anything seems rather silly.

GW is trying to sell itself as a "premium" collector supplier, I equate no status with purchasing their stuff: do you see enough value to justify the cost?
Most don't.

 Enigwolf wrote:

Sorry, I forgot to elaborate further. The issue that they were facing was that often rules that were leaked were far from complete, and often only represented one set of beta-test options, and did not at all represent the final product that was intended to be released. In that 6-month gap, players would jump-ship to Battletech instead.

Yup, that will happen. Particularly if you don't communicate with your customer base.

Alternatively, when you become aware of the latest leak, you bung a post up on your facebook page, or your official forums, saying 'Hey, folks, we're aware that some information from a play-test version of the upcoming Codex: Mogwai was leaked out into the world. Please keep in mind that this is an early draft, and not necessarily representative of what will make it into the final book.

Oh, and if you're interested in giving your feedback, you can sign up for playtesting at this link...'


Yes, you'll still get the odd rage-quit as a result of information like that getting out. The alternative that we got instead was the 5th edition Codex: Dark Eldar, which was in development for approximately 47 years with players being told next to nothing for years on end. By early 5th edition, Dark Eldar players were quitting because their first generation codex was now 2 editions out of date and there was no sign of a new one actually happening anytime soon.

Keeping people in the dark doesn't build excitement. It just leaves them with no idea of what's being released.

@insaniak: Do you think GW look on "leaks" the same as previews of a movie release?

Where they hope to get a certain number of impulse / pre-order / sight-unseen purchases before the bad press / reviews catch up with it?

I suspect it is a consideration in their sales tactics.

OMG. When does Codex: Mogwai release? Gizmo LoW FTW.

 Talizvar wrote:
@insaniak: Do you think GW look on "leaks" the same as previews of a movie release?

Where they hope to get a certain number of impulse / pre-order / sight-unseen purchases before the bad press / reviews catch up with it?

I suspect it is a consideration in their sales tactics.

I honestly don't think that the current information blackout is anything to do with sales at all, regardless of what Kirby says.

I believe it's solely to do with 'protecting' their IP, by not giving those evil, freeloading third party producers a chance to get the jump on them by releasing alternate versions of upcoming stuff. Which was never actually a massive problem (aside from perhaps in cases like the Thunderwolves, where GW inexplicably waited for approximately a thousand years before releasing their own version), but GW has shown quite conclusively over the last few years that their approach to IP protection is not entirely rational.

 Talizvar wrote:
@insaniak: Do you think GW look on "leaks" the same as previews of a movie release?

Where they hope to get a certain number of impulse / pre-order / sight-unseen purchases before the bad press / reviews catch up with it?

I suspect it is a consideration in their sales tactics.

No, I don't think so. This year's (rules) releases have been very good, in my opinion, and the leaks have been pretty minimal. I think they played around with Eldar (many teasers via White Dwarf) and Space Marines (virtually no teasers at all) to see which is a better strategy.

The people who will buy everything buy everything anyhow. I mean, if you were gonna buy a LE Space Marines codex, it didn't matter if the codex sucked, you were gonna buy it; it's only whether you buy the NEXT LE codex that's impacted if this one sucked. If you are playing the game and playing a faction, let's face it, chances are, you're going to buy your own faction's codex whether it's great or not.

Other than a handful of players, I don't think most now buy all the rules (there are so many that it's hard to even read them all), so it's not like they're going to get extra sales by being secretive.

I don't think most of the player base is as obsessed with knowing what's coming up as the Internet forum population. Of the 7 other people that I game with regularly, 6 of them don't rush out to pick up even their own codex the day the hobby shop puts it on the shelf; they just get one on hold and grab it when that weekend, or whatever.

For me, the rumor-leak-release cycle has some kind of weird, addictive vibe to it.

Thanks Insaniak and Talys.
I keep forgetting that the main defense they have for guarding their IP is releasing a physical model.

I do think that the primary reason for the blackout is to give no warning of any new units coming out so those "freeloaders" do not create another legal tizzy by getting something out first.

I still maintain that some of the excitement dies down a bit the more people know about what is coming out so the rush on release would be less. I wonder if GW has tried intentionally leaking a huge amount of stuff verses almost nothing and had a comparable means of measuring sales.

 Talizvar wrote:
@insaniak: Do you think GW look on "leaks" the same as previews of a movie release?

Where they hope to get a certain number of impulse / pre-order / sight-unseen purchases before the bad press / reviews catch up with it?

I suspect it is a consideration in their sales tactics.

No, they don't want leaks, the intention is that, from the first time you know about it, you can buy (preorder) it. The leaks happen because wd is published out of house (in Poland if I remember correctly) and staff there snap pics before they get boxed and shipped. That's why sometimes it is foreign editions, as the rascals take pics of whatever language version they happen to be packing. That's also why the pics generally come out around a week before actual release, as they are printed as close to shelf date as realistically possible. Now they have an inhouse press that might change, but reprints of hh novels, old omnibuses, whw exclusives, and codexes are probably going to dominate it's use.

Talizvar, the rumor and speculation cycle definitely is an excitement-builder for me.

Most of the apprehension comes from GW's willingness to change design foundations mid-cycle. For sample, 7.0 codexes are generally good and in alignment with each other, and 7.5 (post-Decurion) are in alignment with each other too.

The problem is, the two aren't jus different power levels (which can be tweaked) but also different design philosophies. In 7.0, it was tone things down, get rid of some of the really powerful stuff and de-escalate.

Then 7.5 it was keep things at pre 7.0 levels, fix sone underpowered stuff, and toss in really neat, relatively effective superformations that are both fluffy and strong.

Both are good, but really, until codex DA, we all wondered if everyone was getting the new structure, and if Necron power levels were the new norm. GW could have told us 'yes' without much spoiling anything, and everyone would have been super excited and positive about new codices, instead of, "it's far too soon for CWE/SM codex"

Personally, I love the new codexes, and I wish GW would update everything to 7.5 at that power level. I'd be so happy.

They're incapable. They'll get halfway through '7.5' then 8 will drop and the whole merry go round starts again.

They'd rather manipulate people into buying minor updates that don't fundamentally change anything in the army other than further manipulate model purchases than try and make a product people are excited to buy because of its quality and have people buy loads of models because they're excited to play.