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Posted By Necros on 01/07/2007 6:43 PM
(...) since price hikes haven't killed GW in the last 13 years that I've been playing, I doubt they will anytime soon.

There is a problem with this kind of "logic": it implies that there is no upper limit to the price GW may ask for a miniature.

Even the most diehard GW fan (I'm writing in broad terms here, don't take it personnally Necros) should agree that this upper limit does exist. If a space marine squad costs as much as a PS3 game, would it be over the top? If not, what about a month's rent? A used car?

Sure, this price is clearly a personal matter - each gamer has his spending habits and a specific budget for gaming. Some of us can afford to pay much, much more for GW products (Forgeworld is a brand specifically created for them) but on the other hand, many find that GW products are too expensive for their taste, and quit - or refuse to join. Perhaps GW itself could live on a market where half a dozen customers pay the price of a castle for a miniature box, but most of us will quit earlier.

GW priced itself out of the hobby, and the new thing is that sales curves are showing the limit has been reached. Any price adjustment should be carefully considered in regard to the number of players giving up the hobby - or joining the competition.

Posted By Osbad on 01/08/2007 1:29 AM
Something struck me about GW's business model. It's the whole "income stream" thing:

What I mean is that I expect a "typical" wargamer/customer to not just buy one or two items and then not buy any more. Instead I would expect a wargamer to make a whole string of purchases over a period of time - probably several years.

This means that a gaming company probably has fewer customers per £1 than your typical manufacturing company.

Normally a manufacturer would expect to sell one or two items to a customer and never see them again until those items wore out.

This means that "customer loyalty" is a prime asset for GW or PP or whoever.

It strikes me that with GW's turnover vaporising like it is, then due to whatever reason - prices rising, perceived lack of quality in product, etc., etc., then this is the nub of the problem.

Once GW lose a customer, then pretty much he is lost for good. They haven't just not sold that one item he walked into the store to get and changed his mind about - they have also lost everything else he was going to buy over the next 10 years!

Don't forget the couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff that he's going to be offloading for cheap on eBay. Indirectly affecting sales of fresh new models that are exactly the same!

Like I said before, they spend too much on getting the initial recruit and their starter splurge and do very little to keep them in order to get stable income from their hobby. Shame

GW's vehicles are priced simliarly and less then many comparable plastic model kits. I find that the models that are expensive are the characters etc. Ragnar Blackmane used to be 5 bucks, now he is 15. But all in all...compared to what seems to be the most popular game competing, Warmachine, and even with others....are the prices REALLY too expensive?

Over approximately 20 years, the rise in the price of a plastic space marine has outpaced inflation by a factor of 2.7.   Forget the comparison with other miniature companies (who likely are just following GW’s lead), the fact is that GW’s product is looking increasingly expensive when compared with other products, BIG E.G. computer games.  

 

The other thing is that you need more models to play 40k these days, so the increased cost is even more noticeable.  

Posted By BF44042 on 01/08/2007 2:36 AM
Like I said before, they spend too much on getting the initial recruit and their starter splurge and do very little to keep them in order to get stable income from their hobby. Shame

I totally agree.

Its a realy travesty that they ignore core gamers and vets.

Hobby centres? Yeah right...

Posted By Gundammecha on 01/08/2007 4:41 AM

Posted By BF44042 on 01/08/2007 2:36 AM
Like I said before, they spend too much on getting the initial recruit and their starter splurge and do very little to keep them in order to get stable income from their hobby. Shame

I totally agree.

Its a realy travesty that they ignore core gamers and vets.

Hobby centres? Yeah right...

Looks like Kirby agrees with you:

www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml

"We have not been paying enough attention to the hobbyists.  We need to get back to our bread and butter," said Ted Kirby, chairman and chief executive of Games Workshop.

He's read Lotr. Must be some osrt of intellectual.

Haha, that article didn't even get Tom Kirby's name right, must have been written by a GW staffer!!!

Posted By General Hobbs on 01/06/2007 9:26 PM

GW's vehicles are priced simliarly and less then many comparable plastic model kits.

Calling BS here as this is absolutely not the case. Even using Tamiya, one of the premier plastic model kit manufacturers, their closest equivalent scaled kits (1/48; and even the larger scaled 1/35 ones) are going to be anywhere from 20-50% cheaper while also being better engineered, finer detailed, having more parts and generally being a better purchase than any GW vehicle kit from a modeling perspective. For example, the 1/48 KV-2 is $30 retail, while it's equivalent would be GW's $40 Leman Russ. And this despite GW having the income stream Osbad mentioned where GW expects customers to buy multiples of the same kit for their army (and if they don't, they charge out the wazoo for it, ie: character models that are $20 while a similar "trooper" is $5 or less).

Posted By Osbad on 01/08/2007 1:29 AM

This means that "customer loyalty" is a prime asset for GW or PP or whoever.

It strikes me that with GW's turnover vaporising like it is, then due to whatever reason - prices rising, perceived lack of quality in product, etc., etc., then this is the nub of the problem.

Once GW lose a customer, then pretty much he is lost for good. They haven't just not sold that one item he walked into the store to get and changed his mind about - they have also lost everything else he was going to buy over the next 10 years!

Of course, often it isn't going to be as stark as that. There'll be a period of reduced sales before the customer gets disenchanted completely. But over time this is what is going to happen.

Something I heard is that GW commissioned their own customer loyalty survey a few years ago and discovered that in the UK they expected to only retain 20% of new customers after two years, while in the US it was an even more dismal 10% over one year. That is a terrible, terrible customer retention rate and I can't imagine it's gotten any better. Kirby's remarks only reinforce how out of touch they are with the crisis underway.

Unlike the gripes of yesteryear, which were largely unfounded, never before has GW had such a drastic decline in sales and profts. In fact, this looks to be the first year since they went public that they might not post any profits at all. And they have nobody but themselves to blame.

Posted By Osbad on 01/08/2007 1:29 AM
Oh, and by the way, whoever blames LotR for GW's downfall blows so much smoke:
The "talent" that worked on LoTR was either recruited new (Mat Ward & Adam Troke), was contract labour (Perry Twins), or sucked (Gary Morely). The only "GW talent" that was diverted temporarily to LotR was Brian Nelson. So Yah Boo Sucks to that comment!!

The only "problem" LotR caused GW (apart from giving them a massive cash windfall to squander on Directors' bonuses) was that the sales generated by the success of it masked the fact that sales of their other lines were dwindiling fast! That is a management mistake, not a product-line one.

Quoting this for truth. The LotR license acquisition was a brilliant move completely and utterly squandered by senior management incompetence.

I'd heard the "two-year drop-off" statistic quoted by GW before but wasn't sure where it came from. Interesting that it was GW's own stats.

Given that what GW are supposedly selling is the chance to participate in a hobby, that they can only persuade so few to actually take up that hobby much beyond the time it takes them to assemble their first boxed set is not a measure of success by the standards of any dispassionate observer surely?

Given that survey must be a year or two old now, then presumably things are even worse now. (They've got to be otherwise turnover would be increasing, not decreasing).

I'm sure that customer retention report is at least a year old if not longer which does not bode well at all. Especially in a market where the competition isn't making the same mistakes (ie: Battlefront, Rackham and Privateer Press have all had explosive growth for several years in a row). The prices are bad enough but the institutionalized arrogance and contempt for their customer base only exacerbates the situation.

Right, and what has the cost of manufacture and materials done? I have to assume that injection molding has only gotten cheaper and faster thanks to improvements in the technology.



Why aren't we focusing more on this? It seems to me that the explosive growth of other miniatures companies shouldn't be taken as proof that GW should be exploding as well, but instead as a reason why they're not.

I'm not sure how it is for everyone else, but time, not money, is the major bottleneck on my miniatures expenditures. I spend only as fast as I need to in order to have models to paint. If I painted faster, I'd spend faster. If I decide I need a Warmachine army, that's probably 6 months of my time that will go to painting it, and thus that won't go to GW.  There's no real limit on how much money people can have, but there is a limit on time.  At most, people can paint 24/7...  I suppose it doesn't matter what your limiting factor is, but the bottom line is that other companies are taking market share away from GW. There's really nowhere else for it to come from.

Companies never want to cut costs. They never want to lay off employees, send their molding overseas, etc. etc. I think GW is absolutely at a point where this needs to happen. It's not a great time for miniatures games in general. With the sorts of computer gaming experiences available, miniatures are in for a fight even in the best scenario. But when you lose your monopoly, and now have serious competitors, you really need to get serious, and accept that it might mean a reduction in your staff. The fact that GW's sales are falling is understandable, and perhaps not something they can avoid. The fact that they're not responding appropriately is.

They need to downsize and run more efficiently.

Posted By Phryxis on 01/08/2007 11:56 AM

ie: Battlefront, Rackham and Privateer Press have all had explosive growth for several years in a row

Why aren't we focusing more on this? It seems to me that the explosive growth of other miniatures companies shouldn't be taken as proof that GW should be exploding as well, but instead as a reason why they're not.

Depends. If most of the explosive growth is just cannibalizing GW's customers and market share rather than a genuine expansion of the market, then it's hard to blame GW for not exploding.

It points to an entirely different problem.

While I don't play FOW or other games such as Warlord or Confrontation, I will comment on what I see as the strengths of some of these games, especially Warmachine, when compared to GW games as they exist at this point.

First off, I have been playing GW games of various ilks since the mid eighties and have seen them grow and expand into the nightmarish company they are today.

What I see as their biggest problem it that they have not changed with the times. Where other companies have changed their business model away from the 'codex' style schedule, GW has stuck to it with a vengence. FOW and Warmachine both are following a model that, while not new, is more successful and competitive in the current gaming market. By releasing sourcebooks and rules additions that cover several factions/countries within the same volume, these companies keep their customer base constantly engaged in purchasing and expanding.

By using the 'codex' style of production, GW leaves large numbers of their customers idle as they wait for their favorite army to be 'redone' or 'revised'. A good example are Ork players, who for whatever stupid reason, are still waiting after 7 years for a new codex. These idle customers are very likely to move on to other games and companies rather than wait for GW to get thier act together. What GW lacks is a coherent vision of their game system and how their various 'races' fit into the overall background.

What I would like to see is GW make a sea change and release basic troop types and characters in one volume with the rules that are needed to play. This would allow them to fine tune the rules as a whole for all of the armies rather than the adhoc rules creation that they currently use.This would solve a lot of balance problems as well as give equal representation to all of the armies and keep their customers interested.

I doubt that this will happen because to do so would mean admitting that senior management have made grave mistakes in not changing with the market. It's a bummer really as I have enjoyed thier games for the most part. Unfortunately for them the folks a PP seem to have grasped the changing market and they are now sucking up my descretionary funds.

I have a feeling GW does this because there has been proof that many die-hard
players buy into other armies while waiting for a codex. Or at least, that's the
way things were until the current explosion of alternative gaming systems.

Now people stable, almost mainstream options. They don't have to buy Black
Templar figs even if they don't want to.

That's my theory, at least as it applies to me. I got into 40k to play with Eldar,
and have bought different miniature armies over the years, but never took
big plunges. I stopped buying so many things because Warmachine got me,
and so I wasn't inspired to expand into other codex armies. Now that Eldar
is out, I do have a backlog from my brother who quit 40k, so I should be
happy with not buying GW stuff for now.

That's just me, though.

I'd agree with you on that, Blackspade and Malfred. I know after painting a certain amount of one particular type of thing I just *need* to pick up something else for awhile, simply to keep me interested and give me some change. In a world where GW was the only game in town that would mean buying other armies. But when a person can get started in Hordes or Confrontation for just $60 plus a rulebook instead, well, it's easy to see why that approach doesn't work so well anymore.

I don't think codexes are the problem per se, but rather the clustering of releases for products. Instead of being able to look forward to something new for, say,  Vampire Counts every 3-4 months ( a new character sculpt, a new sprue to customise the look of your troops, new bats to replace the old ones, etc.), a person has got to wait many many years since they release it all in a flood with the updated book. Which is plenty of time to go looking around at other games. A trickle of new things every few months would go a long ways to retaining your attention. I think GW is beginning to learn this and is in the very first stages of realising this. Or maybe not.

But I wouldn't say codexes and army books are all bad. Confrontation 3.5 is a total mess. It might not seem bad when you are just starting but as a person who's been playing since 2 was new, I know. The cards and their points values are just plain out of whack now, and not just the old ones. Each rules upheaval has made certain things either totally worthless or exceedingly capable for their cost. C3 made Griffon Duelists pretty laughable. C3.5 brought them back. But now Mystic Warriors, who were always very good in C3, are much too good in the hands of someone smart in C3.5, and mages in general are so much better than their warrior character counterparts in C3.5 there's little reason to take the latter over the former. Points costs need some radical rebalancing.

I think AT-43 is going to be the first game to get the longevity aspect of things absolutely right. Profiles are contained on cards. However, points costs are going to be listed seperately (until the full rules arrive in March or so, points costs for the few things available are listed on a thread in the forum and in the Cry Havoc! publication). Whenever there is a major rules upheaval, all points costs can be adjusted as well without invalidating your old cards and your old models.

I'm not sure which way works best. I think it's more the quality of the execution.

I was thinking, just a moment ago, that I don't like the "one codex at a time" approach, and would perfer the PP "across the board" style of releases but I dunno... There're a few issues that come to mind...

First, I'd be very annoyed if I just got done doing 20 Eldar Rangers, when it turns out that they're releasing new sculpts next month. When you go with a Codex release, you have a better idea of what's going to get redone and when.

Second, I tend to paint whole armies at once. While I know the feeling of wanting to do do something different, I also REALLY want my army to look consistent and uniform. If I've done half of my Blood Angels, I might be very tired of red at that point, but I've got the technique down, the color combinations memorized, the general "feel" of what to do, etc. If I stop for a few months, then come back, will I be able to assure consistency? With my Dark Angels, which I painted in 3rd Edition, I found I wanted to change elements of the list in 4th. The new models I painted, a year or two after the originals, simply looked different. Nothing that really stands out on the table, but my style had progressed, the colors were slightly different, to the point that I noticed it and it made me a little irritated. Even though the newer models were better painted, I'd almost prefer that they were more consistent. In any case, I don't think I'd be very likely to go modify finished models with a new custom sprue. Instead, I'd just be pissed it wasn't around when I would have loved to use it.

As much fun as it is to blame the pricing for the slide in GWs numbers, I feel that online games have made a much larger impact on GW, and non-electronic gaming in general.  Simply put many kids are opting to play console games online, WoW, or another computer online game.  They're cheaper, much more heavily advertised, and require no time investment.  Theres a reason GW has been investing more in electronic games, they know where the real money in gaming is.

-Accident

One problem: GW's target market are people who can't afford their product.

Ooops.

Yea, but mommie and daddie have a credit card, and if little johnnyfockstick whines enough, they'll get it for him.

Uhhh...

Other than that, you're right, but damn, dude, play WoW.

Yeah I was waiting for someone to make a crack about time requirements and WoW.  What I mean when I say no time requirement is that after the game is installed, you can immediately start playing.  Theres nothing to paint, assemble, you don't need terrain etc.  It is instant gratification which is a huge sell when you're talking about kids who tend to have rather limited attention spans.

-Accident

For at least some consumers of the hobby, this is true.

For me, I came to GW as a place to get cool models to paint, mostly for use in DnD games. Only after some time did I decide I needed to actually paint an army and play.

So, for at least some people, you can get immediate gratification, since the point of the hobby is painting.

But, again, I think you're totally correct that computer and console games are going to beat out miniatures gaming for kids' focus.

 

Just some general points:

1. I agree that video games hurt GW more then anything.

2. GW's target audience are people who want to play GW games. If you do, then you find a way to afford it.

3. I have seen model kits going for 50+ dollars. Granted, those are high end kits, but that still put sthem in the same range as GW.

4. I know maybe 5 people who play Warmachine. I know a couple hundred who play GW. I think its competition only in certain areas. Kinda like saying segways are competing with cars.

5. I agree that GW should do more to keep vets in the game. Americans thrive on competition....look at the Magic card scoring system and Heroclix and all that. GW should do something similar to give vets bragging rights....

 

 

 

 

But price is ALWAYS a factor I would argue.

I agree that perhaps all of the things listed in the posts above are eroding GW's sales - PP, Rackham and MP having games systems/models that are more attractive for many people; alternative sources of supply being available ever more easily via the internet; youthful fadishness and lack of attention span making computer games more attractive than painting up an army for kiddies; etc. etc.

But price affects everything because in all of these decisions about whether you spend your wedge on GW's products or on something else you are running a little calculation through your head: "will I get more fun for my money if I buy this or if I buy that?"  If money was not a factor then you'd just go ahead and buy everything.  If GW's models (for the sake of argument) cost just 1 penny each then even if you'd got fed up to the back teeth with 40k you'd snap them up just on the off- chance.  I reckon the price (which informs the "value for money" we feel we have received) pretty much comes into any decision.

There is a cogent argument that time is the limiting factor - and that is true.  As a father of 3 young kids, it is certainly my own major constraint as to how much painting and assembling of models (of whatever kind) I do.  However, price is still a major factor.  Not because my funds are limited (I have more than enough spare cash to build a backlog that would last me decades, even at GW, Rackham and PP's prices), but because I don't want to waste it.  I could buy X models from GW and feel I would get a certain level of value from them or I could by X models from an alternative company and feel I was going to get more value (or arguably less of course, depending on your p.o.v.).  In any case, while it is not the limiting factor (i.e. I will still be buying X number of models, whatever the cost), because I feel I will get better value from the alternative company's products - either because for a similar price they deliver more fun, or they deliver similar or less fun, but at a much lower cost.

No one likes feeling ripped off.

For some that point may have been reached years ago, for others it may still have to happen.  But it is a simple law of economics, even Bill Gates doesn't like paying more than he feels something is worth!

Never has competition for the wargamers money been more fierce.  GW need every weapon in their armoury to fight their corner.  By keeping their prices high, they are really painting themselves into a corner in that regard.

Anyhow, before I end the post, another point that came up in this thread is that allegedly the UK economy has had a bad few months, and GW's last quarter sales woes are symptomatic with the UK retail sector as a whole.  That simply isn't true:

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6243541.stm

In the UK retail sector as a whole: "takings in December were up 2.5% compared with a year ago".  What is true though is that the performance was patchy.  Retailers that saw successful trading were those prepared to bring forward sales and offer discounts.... oh.  Oops!

No prizes for guessing why GW's December sales were disappointing then...

Well the problem of the TT-market is at the moment that all competitors fight about the seem pool of gamers and that´s going on for years. What all companies were not able to reach was: the folks outside the already established gamer pool. So, every customer gained was a customer lost to any other company. While not bad it also creates a problem, how often can we get players to switch system, and there are more companies on the market than back in the 90´s.

I think it was the right decision Rackham made when deciding to go with the AT43-concept. It is the first major try to get players from outside the pond. And as it looks all other companies have at least accepted that this is a direction thy must at least try to go. Mongoose and Rackham do their first steps and while others might avoid their mistakes they might also get fewer pieces from the new cake if they do not come out with something similiar in 2007/8.

AT-43 does seem to be going down a storm. I have yet to try it, but will do soon. So far feed back seems universally good - the painting quality seems good enough not to alienate those with high standards, and the gameplay seems pretty fun from the reviews I've read.

With those factors in its favour, it should do well with the "new starters".

I would be amazed if GW doesn't come out with something similar at some point. It's got to be attractive to the novices. Everyone (me included and I love painting now) was intimidated by the prospect of painting up even a small army the first time around!

Of course GW have a track record on focussing everything on traditional 40k and WFB. But those are dwindling assets. They've *got* to break out.

Maybe we are seeing signs of renewed diversification with the pending re-release of Talisman (their first boardgame in absolutely ages) and with the revision of BFG, the new rulebookbeing made available via their stores and not just online. We'll see.

For me, there are 3 things GW have to do to retain market share in the face of vigorous competition from the likes of AT-43:

1/ reduce prices drastically somehow and NOW before their fanbase has walked altogether.  Sales/bulk discounts, anything to reward the dedicated fan who pays through the nose as things stand.

2/ Reinvigorate 40k and WFB. They've got to somehow tighten up their systems without alienating their existing fans. Who wants to read a thick rulebook and 17 army books just to play a simple game these days? That for me is as big an obstruction to new entrants to the hobby as painting is, and one of the scoring points of WM. Maybe a "Warhammer Lite" or something. However they do it, it has simply *got* to be done IMHO. Their old core systems are bloated, old-fashioned and unwieldy and falling apart under their own weight.

3/ Diversify. All their eggs are in one basket (well, OK, 3 baskets). Their main competitive advantage these days is their store network. Yet they only have their "core" stuff for sale at them. They need to get more variety in stock so that they attract more customers. Show off their Specialist games, and Forgeworld, and the new Talisman etc. Radically I would love them to also sell other manufacturers' games. They need to embrace their comepetition instead of pretending it doesn't exist. If they *truly* had faith in their own product they would encourage players to try other systems, take their cut of the profit of the sale, safe in the knowledge the customer would keep playing GW games as well. As things stand the "tribalism" they encourage of "GW only" is just slitting their own throat!

And finally, not one of my "key-three", but just a plea from the heart: for goodness sake clamp down on the insane mouthbreathers that all too often pollute their stores. Also, train their staff in effective low-impact sales techniques instead of winding them up on caffeine. The retail environment has to be attractive to work properly and no one except the insane wants to be bounced up to by tigger and pestered. Nor do they want to be bored to tears by a sticnky fellow-customer. Make the wearing of under-arm deodorant compulsory and tone down the sales pitch FFS!

Heh. Just my 2p anyhow

Significantly that story fails to mention the substantial increases in pre-Christmas discounting, to which many analysts attribute the increase in high-street sales. Effectively, the sales season was moved ahead of Christmas this year, so its somewhat premature to conclude that Christmas was a success on the high street, and Analysts will be looking very carefully to see how this impacts on results for January and February. In this sense I think Kirby is right, in that the demand for hobby figures is not seasonal, and entering into some kind of discounting competition effectively devalues the product.

Edit: Agree with your subsequent comments, particularly on lack of new product development and customer service issues

 

Posted By torgoch on 01/09/2007 3:27 AM

In this sense I think Kirby is right, in that the demand for hobby figures is not seasonal, and entering into some kind of discounting competition effectively devalues the product.

It is an interesting issue.  Clearly GW used to hold sales and now they don't.  I accept that Kirby may well have a valid point and have found that many people were deferring full price purchases in order to wait for sales coming up.

My feeling though is that many people are like me and will only buy at a discount.  I find full price GW stuff to be too poor value for money and so would only by direct from GW now if they offered some form of discount.  It's either discount or no sale at all, not a case of discounted sale now or full price sale at another time for me.

The report seems to indicate that pre-Christmas retail sales held that mold.  Shops that discounted well, sold well, those that didn't discount well, didn't perform well either.

Something I never understand about the "GW sales are not seasonal" point though is that from their own admission GW sales clearly are seasonal - they advertised like crazy in WD and in WDOnline for the Christmas market - my inbox got something like 5 or 6 "WDOnline" spam emails in the run up to Chrimbo.  Many people buy their kids stuff as Christmas presents.  As well, many more kids get cash for Christmas and look to spend it on something on Boxing Day.  GW potentially offering poor value for money compared to a discounted Playstation game or something is a missed opportunity.: "Hmm, do I develop my Eldar army, or do I snap up that half-price video game I always wanted...?"

I really think Kirby has got the "no sales" policy very, very wrong for the current commercial reality.  It may have been right 5 or 6 years ago, but nowadays retailing is a dog-eat-dog world.

Still, I'm not the one who's salary depends on GW's turnover, so I guess he knows better than me...

I think it was the right decision Rackham made when deciding to go with the AT43-concept. It is the first major try to get players from outside the pond.

 

Heroquest and Space Crusade were basically doing that, and they did it very well.  I doubt Hasbro would be willing to repeat the venture with GW.  However, GW have the clout now to do it themselves.  Maybe they should note that one thing those game used was TV advertising.  Relying solely on word of mouth advertising seems less wise when there are many gamers willing to slag you off at every opportunity.

Osbad's pretty much got the analysis right in that GW needs to not only invigorate their core lines of WFB and 40K by tightening the rules structure and reviewing their release structure, but also in their need to diversify their product range. Many many specialist games such as Mordheim, Necromunda Blood Bowl etc are FANTASTIC games that don't cost a lot to get into and can reach outside of the current pool of hobbyists/gamers in order to bolster their bottom line as well as potentially introducing them to the main lines. As it stands, LOTR is the worse introduction to the GW hobby as its a dead end. There is no logical progression once you've got all the models that you wanted and really, how much fun IS reenacting scenes from the movie anyway? Why would anyone spend $100 to get those extra models JUST to be able to play Scenarios 5 and 13? Sure it has SOME replay value but the game dynamic isn't as elegent and esoteric as say Chess to warrant endless runs at it to 'get better'. Whereas using the specialist games range to get people into the GW universe and thus drive the imagination and interest at a low cost is what is needed here.

The strength of the hobby is that it is one of the few things out there that still tickles our imagination and engages our interest in much the same way as a book but adds a very thoroughly fulfilling tactile dimension to the expression of such imagination through miniatures that a videogame, cd or dvd simply lacks. Once GW actualy realises that THAT is the biggest strength they have, they must act on creating a vision for the HOBBY and defining what its future is THEN building a profitable and sustainable business model to fulfill that vision.

Posted By Bombot on 01/09/2007 5:25 AM

I think it was the right decision Rackham made when deciding to go with the AT43-concept. It is the first major try to get players from outside the pond.

 

Heroquest and Space Crusade were basically doing that, and they did it very well.  I doubt Hasbro would be willing to repeat the venture with GW.  However, GW have the clout now to do it themselves.  Maybe they should note that one thing those game used was TV advertising.  Relying solely on word of mouth advertising seems less wise when there are many gamers willing to slag you off at every opportunity.

They had a MASSIVE opportunity to do external advertising and that was LOTR and the subsequent Battlegames of Middle Earth magazine which for some completely slowed reason were not sold in stores, nor was it promoted at all after about several weeks after its launch. In the world of expensive mass marketing campaigns, those were freebies and they squandered it by creating a LOTR game in the same mould as their WFB and 40K lines. What they should have done was to have created a pre-painted or at least snap together set with all the things that you need to build and paint with a playing mat and even simpler rules that could be mass marketed and sold outside of GW stores and then gradually released similar expansions for them along with the movies. What they needed was an innovative and good value for money product that won't tie them down, gave them mass exposure to the hobby on the back of a pop cultural juggernaut as well as lining their pockets with cash because such a game is not 'hobbycentric' and would appeal even more to the kiddies or indeed any fan of LOTR who'd buy it as just another form of merchandise.

After that, they can of course introduce higher quality metal models that brings this game more into line with the rest of the hobby but only for the nice things such as characters or monsters but still easier to construct and paint than their current line. I believe that would ultimately have been more beneficial to the company than the way the actually went about it.

A niche hobby such as Warhammer can't afford mass advertising on its own, the market simply isn't there to sustain it with such large overheads. It needs a mass product/s that ties in with their core products of WFB and 40K (say from the same universes etc) that is sold outside of GW and is classed more as toys/games in order to support such advertising for those said products which would then lead exposure for the hobby. They can start with Talisman and work on others. I mean they're called GameS Workshop, they should constantly create new and innovative games to statisfy the mainstream in order to introduce people to their traditional lines in order to expand them.

Their current best hope to net more gamers and turn them into hobbyists is through computer games. They need to make that connection and actively support and promote that link rather than merely seeing DoW etc as mere spin-off limited time cash farms.