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H.B.M.C. wrote:I love literally 5 minutes away from a GW... and you'd have to pay me to play there.

If they've seen you loving from their windows, they probably dont want you in there either.

legoburner wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:I love literally 5 minutes away from a GW... and you'd have to pay me to play there.

If they've seen you loving from their windows, they probably dont want you in there either.

I have to confess to loving right up against GW store's plate glass windows, just to show them what they are missing...

General Hobbs wrote:
FLGS vs playing at home.....I hate to say it, but 50% of gamers out there I would not want to come in my house, and the rest are little kids. The FLGS is neutral ground.

Thats what we refer to a "no duh" momement. There are folks in FLGS you avoid- due to age, maturity, hygene or other that you wouldnt play. What makes you think one invites them to your home?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aldramelech wrote:
In England (the true home of wargaming) we are somewhat more organized. Most places have a wargames club that has its own long term venue with adequate storage for terrain and are more importantly INDEPENDENT from any shop. It is true that we only meet once or twice a week but this is a good thing as I see the problem with the FLGS is that younger members spend all their time there and never at home painting their bloody armies! I hold the FLGS entirely responsible for this phenomenon of playing with unpainted figures, something that was unthinkable 10 years ago and a very bad thing for the hobby. Buy something from the shop, glue it together and slap it on the table? No bloody thanks!

I've been part of two indepent gaming clubs. Left the first after helping start it due to stufff and time. The second is much more like the first was in early days.

Their a bit harder to start in the US, but still doable.

legoburner wrote:If they've seen you loving from their windows, they probably dont want you in there either.

Yeah I don't know what was going through my head when I wrote that...

I meant to say 'am'.

Weird.

Osbad wrote:What he ^^ said.

+1 for playing whatever game I want with lovely painted figures and nice terrain, with mates who's company I enjoy, and with a beer in my hand.

+1 for your +1. Conan, what is good in life?

H.B.M.C. wrote:Yeah I don't know what was going through my head when I wrote that...

Obviously your attempt to mask your love for all things GW is starting to crack...

I fear that I am derailing the thread, so if a mod wants to move this conversations somewhere else please do so. However, since alot of people are responding I will continue to post.

carmachu wrote:
very different. I have no use for FLGS. Have found my opponets through friends. I dont need to call anyone to arrange games, through the magical power of the internet, we make arrangements prior and meet up. I know when my free time is, so wandering in to a store and hopeing someone is around doesnt happen(as was the case many times). I dont have to worry about their crappy days and times stores decide wargaming is allowed. I dont have to deal with TFG.

To some extent you are confirming my initial point. Although you do not call your friends, you still have to arrange a game. I guess my FLGS is busier than yours, as I do not have trouble finding a game. More exotic games are another story however. The stores that I have frequented over the years have tables that are dedicated to wargaming.

carmachu wrote:
RPG's arent that different. Ages ago, early 90's, the stores use to have meet up boards and games that would meet or looking for folks. But again, they eventually took those down. But again, through the internet, I've been playing in my current game for 4 years with no signs of let up. All done and found online, played both online and face to face.

The reason that I said RPGs are different is that you probably have a larger group of people, who would rarely just happen to be at a FLGS for a game.

Wehrkind wrote:
No offense man, but the economics of your post are nearly perfectly incorrect. Pretty much everything after "If you don't like a company's prices, that is a separate issue" is demonstrably false. Just to touch on a few:

1: Not every wargamer has "a decent amount of disposable income". Salvage, for instance, lives on 15K a year as a grad student (give or take). I started wargaming when I was 12, making about 50$ a year. So unless your definition of "decent" is "enough to get 1 blister pack a quarter" saying wargamers necessarily have money to waste is silly.

That is precisely why I gave the examples of GW games that can be played for $50 in todays prices. Yes you can wargame on the cheap even if you buy retail.

Wehrkind wrote:
2: The free market leads to giant stores, but it also leads to smaller stores. Implying that some day there will be only Wal Mart (as you do, otherwise your argument makes less than zero sense) suggests that somehow, all of the small stores that exist anywhere are some sort of aberration. The market has been free (and increasingly less so) much longer than your FLGS has even existed.

This may sound like a non sequitur but FLGS only exist because big stores do not carry the same products. The big stores really do put the little ones out of business. Only niche smaller stores stay in business.

Wehrkind wrote:
3: WalMart's success has largely been due to innovations in employee training and capital (essentially using very low skilled employees to provide a lot of value) as well as a very strong supply chain. The different products aspect is completely irrelevant to overhead costs as well; those are distributed across the total volume of products sold, not the different types.

You are correct, it is all about volume. However they have a much larger volume than any FLGS could ever have. They have a larger volume of toy sales than Toys R US. A FLGS still needs to pay for accountants, advertising, etc. It is just difficult on the small guys.

Wehrkind wrote:
4: The theory that companies can become dominant in an industry or region by entering, underselling everyone, then raising prices after they all go out of business is really bad economics. It is the constant threat of competition cropping up that keeps their prices low, and that exists so long as any other person can enter the market. Theoretically you could have sufficiently high barriers to entry to avoid that, but unless it is governmentally erected why wouldn't keep THEM from entering in the first place. There's a fair body of work done on why this model of monopoly doesn't work, yet for some reason the silly fallacy keeps popping up. Like homeopathy...

The threat of competition is minimised because of the high cost of starting a business that can compete. I believe that GW made such a statement in their current financial report. Further, there are governmentally erected barriers. The big companies have legislation written for them. Currently Amazon is trying to make a deal with Tennesee to give it a free pass on sales tax if they build distribution centers in the state.

Wehrkind wrote:
5: WalMart dictates what they sell at their stores. Companies that want to have WalMart sell their products need to make the the things that WalMart wants to sell. If they don't, they sell them somewhere else. You might not realize it, but far more things are sold in non-WalMart stores than in WalMart, suggesting that WalMart has very little ability to dictate what is made and sold.

Although more things are sold in non-WalMart stores than in Wal Mart, it does not follow that WalMart has little ability to dictate what is made and what is not. In fact, in some sectors, I suspect that more things are sold by WalMart than by all other retailers combined. A decision by WalMart not to carry a toy series can kill it. It is well known that WalMart strong arms manufacturers.

To return to one of my initial points, I still believe that price controls are fair. People may not like them, as they want to pay less, but that does not mean that they are not fair. Again, I think that Battlefront believes that FLGS are essential to introducing new players to the game, and thus supports price controls.

Did Maelstrom post their 'interesting' rebuttal yet?

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Osbad wrote:+1 for playing whatever game I want with lovely painted figures and nice terrain, with mates who's company I enjoy, and with a beer in my hand.

- 1 for playing a (possibly anti-social) complete stranger with (probably) an unpainted and even partially assembled army in (definitely) a game system I've got bored with but is one of only 2 or 3 supported by the store, with models I had to pay 25% more for than I needed to, and had to spend 2+ hours driving and parking to obtain.

I agree.

I am literally 5 minutes away from a GW... and you'd have to pay me to play there.

I think that's the case for pretty much anyone who lives near the majority of GW shops.

But in regards to the whole "home" v. "store" gaming thing...we've gone over this time and time again on Dakka. In general, it seems Americans favor FLGSes(namely because of location and it serving as a sort of 'congregation point' for populations spread out over a large area) while the majority of UK/Oceanic Dakkaites prefer home or using public accomodations(which we don't have readily available to us here in the US).

Anyways...
I'm not really surprised this happened. Battlefront being made up of ex-GWers is not news, and this policy is eerily reminiscent of the online retailer crackdown.

Alpharius wrote:Did Maelstrom post their 'interesting' rebuttal yet?

Not yet, they are waiting for their solicitors to give it the all clear.

Hm. I'm not sure if anyone else knows this, but Miniatures Market has also stopped carrying Battlefront Products. They're now doing a clearance sale, with each week getting a cumulative 10% off.

They're now at 40% off, I believe.

legoburner wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:I love literally 5 minutes away from a GW... and you'd have to pay me to play there.

If they've seen you loving from their windows, they probably dont want you in there either.

i thought he was a dedicated player/collector when i saw his superheavy tank collection in a pic... but taking his significant other to eyesight of the gw store to make sweet love is a whole other level!

yeah,

Wehrkind wrote:... 2: The free market leads to giant stores, but it also leads to smaller stores. Implying that some day there will be only Wal Mart...

Can't wait!
++ WarMart ++ F T W !
A geek super store that ends all FLGs. Woot!

Panic!...

Statement posted on their website, here's the six page PDF response:

http://www.maelstromgames.co.uk/downloads/Public_Statement_Regarding_Battlefront_Miniatures.pdf

An interesting read.

Oh, man.....

I've just read through that bloody exchange and can already see how its going to end

Some highlights from while reading that very well worded response

Maelstrom purchased roughly 16,000 dollars of 15mm terrain. Anyone have pictures of their tables, holy hell?!

Gordon Davidson, head of Battlefront Europe stated:

"You seem to be under the delsusion that somehow we are desperate for your business and cannot live without you. Let me be clear we will suffer a one month blip at worst and the business will be replaced by the rest of our UK accounts.....On both a personal and proffesional level I am very saddened to have to write this letter, until the middle of last year we were really growing well together and had found an accord."

Not only is that unprofessional and rather personal....it has several misspellings. He's the head of their Europe division?


RE: Maelstrom stating they ignored Battlefront's request of 10% off at most....stating that it's price fixing. IIRC that isn't price fixing but resale price maintenance, which is legal (Here in the States...don't know UK law on it). This could be a difference in localities on how resale price maintenance is viewed...which I'm assuming they had to sign a contract with Battlefront?


And while I disagree with how Battlefront handled the situation...I also disagree with Maelstrom regarding internet retailers and their impact on LGS. They state;

The fact is that the internet has completely changed the way our hobby works in many ways but certainly in terms
of sales, and I feel that some manufacturers simply do not understand what the customer wants any more - which,
to us anyway, is good products, cheap prices and fast service, and not necessarily a tiny retail store near them that
could never stock the huge ranges many manufacturers have (and therefore have to “order stock in”, meaning
customers have to wait days or weeks to get them). In our opinion, retail stores only work in this internet age if
customers have a reason to visit other than to buy - in other words, to play wargames socially - and simply
blaming the internet and, indeed, internet retailers for the struggles of local gaming stores is somewhat Luddite
and certainly narrow-minded. Our business model is there for all to see. There are good reasons why it has worked
so well for us.

While I agree that a LGS needs to have draws such as tournaments, etc....in the end some do suffer the free riding effect. If I understood it correctly when I had took the course, that is the very reason why resale price maintenance has been allowed to exist. While I think blaming internet retailers for the doom of LGS is narrow minded...I also think ignoring the effect they have on LGS is equally obtuse. Note this is not specific to Maelstrom as, from their own letter, go out of their way to service the community in the form of tables, tournaments, etc.

spaceelf wrote:

Wehrkind wrote:
No offense man, but the economics of your post are nearly perfectly incorrect. Pretty much everything after "If you don't like a company's prices, that is a separate issue" is demonstrably false. Just to touch on a few:

1: Not every wargamer has "a decent amount of disposable income". Salvage, for instance, lives on 15K a year as a grad student (give or take). I started wargaming when I was 12, making about 50$ a year. So unless your definition of "decent" is "enough to get 1 blister pack a quarter" saying wargamers necessarily have money to waste is silly.

That is precisely why I gave the examples of GW games that can be played for $50 in todays prices. Yes you can wargame on the cheap even if you buy retail.

Wehrkind wrote:
2: The free market leads to giant stores, but it also leads to smaller stores. Implying that some day there will be only Wal Mart (as you do, otherwise your argument makes less than zero sense) suggests that somehow, all of the small stores that exist anywhere are some sort of aberration. The market has been free (and increasingly less so) much longer than your FLGS has even existed.

This may sound like a non sequitur but FLGS only exist because big stores do not carry the same products. The big stores really do put the little ones out of business. Only niche smaller stores stay in business.

Wehrkind wrote:
3: WalMart's success has largely been due to innovations in employee training and capital (essentially using very low skilled employees to provide a lot of value) as well as a very strong supply chain. The different products aspect is completely irrelevant to overhead costs as well; those are distributed across the total volume of products sold, not the different types.

You are correct, it is all about volume. However they have a much larger volume than any FLGS could ever have. They have a larger volume of toy sales than Toys R US. A FLGS still needs to pay for accountants, advertising, etc. It is just difficult on the small guys.

Wehrkind wrote:
4: The theory that companies can become dominant in an industry or region by entering, underselling everyone, then raising prices after they all go out of business is really bad economics. It is the constant threat of competition cropping up that keeps their prices low, and that exists so long as any other person can enter the market. Theoretically you could have sufficiently high barriers to entry to avoid that, but unless it is governmentally erected why wouldn't keep THEM from entering in the first place. There's a fair body of work done on why this model of monopoly doesn't work, yet for some reason the silly fallacy keeps popping up. Like homeopathy...

The threat of competition is minimised because of the high cost of starting a business that can compete. I believe that GW made such a statement in their current financial report. Further, there are governmentally erected barriers. The big companies have legislation written for them. Currently Amazon is trying to make a deal with Tennesee to give it a free pass on sales tax if they build distribution centers in the state.

Wehrkind wrote:
5: WalMart dictates what they sell at their stores. Companies that want to have WalMart sell their products need to make the the things that WalMart wants to sell. If they don't, they sell them somewhere else. You might not realize it, but far more things are sold in non-WalMart stores than in WalMart, suggesting that WalMart has very little ability to dictate what is made and sold.

Although more things are sold in non-WalMart stores than in Wal Mart, it does not follow that WalMart has little ability to dictate what is made and what is not. In fact, in some sectors, I suspect that more things are sold by WalMart than by all other retailers combined. A decision by WalMart not to carry a toy series can kill it. It is well known that WalMart strong arms manufacturers.

To return to one of my initial points, I still believe that price controls are fair. People may not like them, as they want to pay less, but that does not mean that they are not fair. Again, I think that Battlefront believes that FLGS are essential to introducing new players to the game, and thus supports price controls.

1: You miss the point that everyone's war gaming budget is variable, and people want to get the best deal for their cash. The fact that wargame companies seem to think their customers are independently wealthy and thus concern themselves not at all with pricing their customers out of the market is an issue. Demand curves have negative slope in general. Higher prices = fewer players and fewer models sold.

2: That is actually an incorrect point. For example, right next to the Super WalMart in the shopping center near here there is a RadioShack. RS sells next to nothing that WalMart doesn't, and in fact make most of their money off of batteries and cell phone subscriptions, both of which WalMart directly competes with them on. Next door to RS there is a PayLess Shoes, then a few restaurants, then a Tobacco store, a dry cleaners and a hair cutting place. Other than the restaurants and dry cleaners all those stores directly compete with WalMart (there's a little hair cutting place inside). Studies have actually shown that stores that share parking lot space with WalMart do far better on average, presumably because of the increased traffic and the ability of customers to easy choose between price and service, in much the same way that car dealerships likes to be clustered near each other.

3: Yes being a small store is more difficult in some ways than a big one, but there are lots of ways to compete. Ask Mikhalia (butchered the spelling) about how he runs a great set of small stores and manages to compete with larger online stores like Maelstrom and the Warstore. To quote him "[The Warstore] doesn't compete with me because they are cheaper, they can compete because they have good service." There are many things other than price that make people want to shop somewhere. Mike and Showcase have awesome service and are great to be around and talk with, so lots of people don't mind paying extra. Lots of other local stores don't have that, and thus suffer. I didn't shop at the local Hobbytown for years because they had crappy staff, but now they are generally better and so I buy things there periodically instead of online. I.e. You can't just compare one dimension; companies compete in vastly different ways.

4: Barriers to entry help, but they are obviously not as high as GW seems to think. There are LOTS of competitors in the miniature market, especially in Fantasy and Historicals. As to FLGS competition, those are not terribly high either, compared to other retail outlets at least. It isn't easy, but that is hardly the fault of WalMart, GW, or really most companies. They might pay politicians to write regulations they want (and they do), but the politicians are the ones selling the service. More to the point though, FLGS stores are losing out NOT to WalMart but to other smaller stores online that offer the same product for a lower price, and often with similar service. That is good for customers, otherwise they would be shopping at the FLGS.

5: How does WalMart dictate what is sold by other companies? If WalMart can only control what they sell, and many things are sold that they don't, it does in fact follow that they then do not dictate what is sold in the market in general. That's like saying I dictate what I buy for my household use, thus I dictate what gets produced for everyone's household use. I may influence it a little more or less, especially if I spend a lot of money, but it is still a drop in the bucket all told.

People said the same thing about Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward and other companies. It just isn't the case.

Now, I haven't addressed your statement that "Price controls are fair", largely because I don't necessarily disagree with it. BF is allowed to attach any requirements on their contracts they want, just as ever company buying them if free to tell them to bury their contract in their colon with a hand grenade. What is funny is that you complain about WalMart "strong arming" producers, then in the next breath say that BF or GW making demands on their customers is fine. The hypocrisy is troubling.
Further, just because BF attempting to dictate price is not evil, it doesn't mean that customers have to like it. I would much rather the intermediaries between me and production companies work hard to get me the lowest prices possible. It worries me when they all get together and decide on one price, as that means I am likely to be paying a lot more than I have to. Almost as if *gasp* they were a monopoly (as opposed to actually being a cartel.)

And I want to say, I have nothing against an FLGS. Showcase Comics is a great store, and Mike is terribly friendly. However, I feel no moral obligation to support his store beyond the value he supplies to me as I see fit just because it is a local store. (In fact, it isn't very local to me at all.) Mike has it right though, and recognizes what he offers and how it is different from other stores, and that is why he is very successful.

AgeOfEgos wrote:

Gordon Davidson, head of Battlefront Europe stated:

"You seem to be under the delsusion that somehow we are desperate for your business and cannot live without you. Let me be clear we will suffer a one month blip at worst and the business will be replaced by the rest of our UK accounts.....On both a personal and proffesional level I am very saddened to have to write this letter, until the middle of last year we were really growing well together and had found an accord."

Not only is that unprofessional and rather personal....it has several misspellings. He's the head of their Europe division?

I totally agree with you here. As a business professional (one f!), if I saw that kind of verbiage in a contract or business letter then we would probably start seeking alternate business arrangements. If it was a business that had a one of a kind product, not only would we have to do some major soul searching to decide if we wanted to keep it, but we would also have our legal team work on redoing an official contract to protect ourselves and our clients. However that little phrase seems to be a black rose from Battlefront.

Wow, that first email to Maelstrom is one of the most unprofessional emails I've ever seen. If their goal was to completely destroy the relationship instead of coming to an agreement then the letter was a complete success. I would have been fired if I ever sent an email like that to one of my clients, no matter how upset we were at the client.

There honestly might be more to the story then what we are seeing. I've never seen someone just outright go off the deep end like that without an honest reason.

Nerdrage not included, but the exchange seemed like it went to DEFCON 4 just out of the blue, and then to get back a letter like that?

I'm rather dubious on the response about that Internetz being sliced bread and all that double talk about online sales, but thats another issue entirely. That seemed like a collective response from an online seller to our conversation about the charging fee in stores.

I know one thing, though. I'm glad I'm not one of either of those two dudes today.

spaceelf wrote:To some extent you are confirming my initial point. Although you do not call your friends, you still have to arrange a game. I guess my FLGS is busier than yours, as I do not have trouble finding a game. More exotic games are another story however. The stores that I have frequented over the years have tables that are dedicated to wargaming.

You say that like its a bad thing. We have standing games 2nd friday of every month. More if we make arrangements. And not just GW games.

The reason that I said RPGs are different is that you probably have a larger group of people, who would rarely just happen to be at a FLGS for a game.

Some Stores I know have rotating games, or games that play there. My old one years ago had boards for players looking for players. They are at stores more then you think.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

legoburner wrote:
Not yet, they are waiting for their solicitors to give it the all clear.

The fact they have to run it by lawyers already peaks my interest.

Reads as if Mr Davidson forgot he was writing a business email to a client and instead wrote an internet forum flame-post, which will inevitably come back and bite him on his unproffessionall (sic) ass.

AgeOfEgos wrote:
While I agree that a LGS needs to have draws such as tournaments, etc....in the end some do suffer the free riding effect. If I understood it correctly when I had took the course, that is the very reason why resale price maintenance has been allowed to exist. While I think blaming internet retailers for the doom of LGS is narrow minded...I also think ignoring the effect they have on LGS is equally obtuse. Note this is not specific to Maelstrom as, from their own letter, go out of their way to service the community in the form of tables, tournaments, etc.

No Resale Price Maintenance in the UK unless have an exemption, unless the laws have changed substantially since I moved to the states

I thought a manufacturer would produce an item, sell this item to a supplier at an agreed cost, the job of this supplier is was to sell them and if they don't make profit it's their own fault.

Maelstrom choose to reduce the cost of a unit (at the rate of perceived VAT) in the hope of selling more units. Hoping that the reduced profit per unit is countered by the increased volume.

Maelstrom is an awesome venue, they have a large shop area with space to move about in, compared to a GW that has just enough to walk round on your way to the till. Their tables are well stocked terrain wise (bit too much available for liking but then again I play IG)

I don't see the business sense from BF. your supplier sells lots of units, that's a good thing right? They pay what you want for your goods.

vorpalhit wrote:I thought a manufacturer would produce an item, sell this item to a supplier at an agreed cost, the job of this supplier is was to sell them and if they don't make profit it's their own fault.

Maelstrom choose to reduce the cost of a unit (at the rate of perceived VAT) in the hope of selling more units. Hoping that the reduced profit per unit is countered by the increased volume.

Maelstrom is an awesome venue, they have a large shop area with space to move about in, compared to a GW that has just enough to walk round on your way to the till. Their tables are well stocked terrain wise (bit too much available for liking but then again I play IG)

I don't see the business sense from BF. your supplier sells lots of units, that's a good thing right? They pay what you want for your goods.

The theory, at least when we're talking about GW's original attempt at something to similar was (at least in my understanding) this.

Internet retailers with a tiny 'brick and mortar' storefront, no gaming tables, etc were offering discounts that a FLGS with a brick and mortar storefront that didn't sacrifice a prime location, gaming tables, and the full 'gaming experience' in favor of simply selling things online could not necessarily compete with.

GWUS tried to curtail the internet discounters by setting limitations. Things got all hectic and weird from there, and I can't remember all the details just that a lot of online shops had to give up conveniences like shopping carts, photos, etc to try to 'balance things out' in favor of the FLGSes.

As it is I think the only real thing that Battlefront was attempting to set was a 'discount across the board' setup where online retailers could only go as high, discountwise, as a FLGS/B&M store could.

From a personal perspective, it looks like pretty shabby behaviour by Battlefront and I hope they get their comeuppance. As Maelstrom note, the real loser in all this is the consumer, both in the fact that it hurts the wallet, and in the fact that this potentially could prevent new people buying into the game system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I did look into starting FoW at one point, part inspired by Lego's gallery and blog about his company and part inspired by searching for an alternative to GW hegemony but the thing that put me off the most was that the prices seemed to be just as expensive as GW stuff. If discounters like Maelstrom are forced to keep prices artificially high then that can only act as a barrier to entry.

filbert wrote:From a personal perspective, it looks like pretty shabby behaviour by Battlefront and I hope they get their comeuppance. As Maelstrom note, the real loser in all this is the consumer, both in the fact that it hurts the wallet, and in the fact that this potentially could prevent new people buying into the game system.

Of course the totally professional approach by both parties would have been to keep correspondence private and to only release some brief press releases, regardless of the contents of Battlefronts' ugly email.

Maelstrom will continue as they always do, and good for them.

Interesting reading - As i suspected all comes down to the t&c's and discount clauses.

Mr. Burning wrote:

filbert wrote:From a personal perspective, it looks like pretty shabby behaviour by Battlefront and I hope they get their comeuppance. As Maelstrom note, the real loser in all this is the consumer, both in the fact that it hurts the wallet, and in the fact that this potentially could prevent new people buying into the game system.

Of course the totally professional approach by both parties would have been to keep correspondence private and to only release some brief press releases, regardless of the contents of Battlefronts' ugly email.

Maelstrom will continue as they always do, and good for them.

I don't see anything wrong or unprofessional in Maelstrom's response. Just because they are a business doesn't mean they should be bound an gagged and prevented from releasing the details. To be perfectly frank, I find it refreshing that they have exposed the sort of goings on that are normally behind the scenes.