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I like this. GW stores become the retail space, independent retailers and garage clubs can become the heart of the weekly game play.

We don't have a "GW" store within 150 miles (driving distance) and yet have a thriving and strong 40k community, many of us with multiple armies and having to choose which club to attend every week instead of trying to find a place to play.

Conrad..
Comet and woolworths went out of buisness as they couldnt adapt and survive in the modern age in competing with internet sellers.

Woolworths died because of Amazon , no bricks n mortar costs , meant prices could be kept down by the sellers , and not needing rates/rent etc.

GW arent in the position like them , but they need to make sure there buisness going forwards maximises profit , its there legal duty to do so for there shareholders/owners.

They will survive , they are the market leaders and the nature of this industry is unlike Comet or Woolworths , its selling one narrow line of consumer items ie rulebooks and toy figures , it doesnt have a natural competitor.




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 SgtSixkilla wrote:

 Synthetik wrote:

Find a online retailer (most of the worlds commerce is going that way) , find a church hall with a gaming group...enjoy 'the hobby' that way.

I did (and discovered more than 40k)...

Lol. This makes it sound like you caught religion.

Praise the Emporer

I'm not too terribly upset by this. Since they decided to take the Forge World IA's out of the G.W. stores I only ever go there to buy Finecast. And that's just so i can open in up in the store, then have to dig through four more boxes.

I don't see my local shop pushing people out. In fact, although small, they've been trying to encourage return customers via painting competition and hosting player run leagues. I don't get the feeling my local GW is trying to exclude anyone, especially since some of the best salesmen are other players.

GW stores have never been great places to play. During store hours it's full of "regulars", who are always dicks, and during the game nights the tables are too small.

Ah, not completely true! Go back 15+ years and they were absolutely awesome - may not have sold anything like the amount of goods, when mums coming into the store were put off by the death metal playing and the long-haired types eyeing them suspiciously from the dark recesses in the corner, but the were an incredibly cool place to be. But, that was some time before company directives started arriving asking staff to tuck their shirts into their pants..

 Pacific wrote:
Ah, not completely true! Go back 15+ years and they were absolutely awesome - may not have sold anything like the amount of goods, when mums coming into the store were put off by the death metal playing and the long-haired types eyeing them suspiciously from the dark recesses in the corner, but the were an incredibly cool place to be. But, that was some time before company directives started arriving asking staff to tuck their shirts into their pants..

Those were the best days when you were encouraged to bring in you armies and play, they even sold off cheap blister packs on the gaming nights sometimes.

Then 4 or so years later the regulars were told they were no longer aloud to play in the shops in our area, so we all stopped playing....

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

Smart parents, finding free babysitters.

We had this issue in the states at the GW store where I play at. Its not much of an issue now, but we all knew what was going on. Parents think of it as free babysitters. Honestly, I wouldnt leave my 7 year old with a store full of adults in their mid 20's for 7 hours, but thats just me...

Also, our store is still as big as it was a few years ago(roughly 4 gaming tables and 1 demo table, painting area was halved). Only open 40ish hours or so a week now that our staff went from three down to one, but its still a pretty good place.

 Dannygee wrote:

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

Smart parents, finding free babysitters.

We had this issue in the states at the GW store where I play at. Its not much of an issue now, but we all knew what was going on. Parents think of it as free babysitters.

This is by no means exclusive to GW stores. I used to work in a large toystore where people would do the same thing... drop the kids, and then go and do their shopping in the big mall across the road.

If the kids were there for longer than an hour or so, we used to just call the police to come and collect them.

I would never do that to my kids,
What Incentive does the 20yr old player have from stopping your kid from sticking his tongue in the Electrical Socket?
But if i owned a store, any kid that would get dropped off would get free Red Bull until the parents Arrived.

Giving unsupervised gamestore kids Red Bull is NOT a good idea

Indeed. Just give them a red bull shot on the way out

 Kroothawk wrote:
Giving unsupervised gamestore kids Red Bull is NOT a good idea

Advertising that you will could be though.

Given how paranoid some parents are about how 'hyper' their kids get if they are given any sugary drinks or sweets, how about advertising a Red Bull/Lucozade cocktail and plenty of Jelly Babies. Parents wouldn't dare leave their unattended kids in your store then. And the few that do, give the little darlings a handful of Flying Saucers on the way out.

Small heads up: the local 1-man-GW stores in the two cities I play in now removed all gaming tables and replaced them with 1 testplay table for each system.

When asked about it, one of them told me that they'd try to get more people in the hobby in order to "create more diversity" among the frequent gamers. I told him that I'd rather go in a store with a bunch of people playing, similar to choosing the restaurant where more people would be having dinner and received the answer that they'd still host tournaments for the "older" players.

feth you GW. Seriously.

It'll be good for the hobby in the end. Resulting in more independent stores starting up, and people playing there or in their own homes, and thus not having to only play GW games / with GW models.

LULZ

That is all.

I love this!

As an American, I don't think this is a big deal. Most people have their enough space to play.

If they tried to do this in Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan) where people tend to have smaller apartments and at least in Japan I know there is a bit of a weirdness about inviting people to one's place, it could well kill the hobby.

But the people who should really worry are not the players, but the shareholders. This move, unless it's accompanied by big changes we haven't heard about yet, is directly at odds with what GW's stores are supposedly intended for. I would be suspicious of the company's immediate financial health if they have to walk back their claims about what their stores are for. I'd also be worried about their long-term financial health, because without making their stores a place that new people feel comfortable to be long-term, how are they going to advertise?

Oh, and as a teacher, I totally support students having a model club or a gaming club, but the moment a company like GW approached my school to create a Warhammer club, I'd recommend their products be banned from the school. There's something very nefarious with trying to tie such a nakedly money-grubbing company into education, and any game that requires students to plonk down hundreds of dollars before they can even play is not a game that deserves an endorsement by teachers.

I think the intent of their stores is to introduce folks to the hobby- so not having space to game at beyond an intro game seems to fit with their current plans (whether they are wise or not, remains to be seen, I think).

I find it weird to see a gaming stores practices compared to a grocery store! kind of...completely different...

To me, I have nowhere to play. I don't have the space for a table, the local store doesn't stock anything GW nor does it have tables to play it
the one back home did...but no one round there played, Magic was the big thing
so I gotta go to Toronto, but if it was one of those tiny stores, then I'm out of a hobby
I don't get involved in groups and I am not in school, I go to the GW's to play, I had a sort of loyalty to them once upon a time...
If I was a newbie right now, and bought a starter set and couldn't play in the store, it would be a total waste of money, and I'd just sell it for Magic cards.
A game like this, you need intensive to buy it, its not like food where you need to buy it
such a high priced, specialty thing like this, especially with a game attached (and you're in it for said game) why should I buy it?!
Not everyone has the good fortune of a club or FLGS, sometimes GW is all you have...

Why doesnt GW go the other Miniature makers policy. Close their stores and focus on selling in Independents.

I'm almost 40, I used to play when Rogue Trader was new, had a big group of friends that played together. I took a 20 year break. I don't talk to my friends from back then, the ones that are still alive. Part of the reason I got back into the game is that there's a GW store close to me, that has a large group of guys who play there regularly. If it wasn't for that store, I would have no one to play with.

Luckily for me, there's also a Bunker store 20 minutes up the road, where I can play if I need to.

 Testify wrote:
GW stores have never been great places to play. During store hours it's full of "regulars", who are always dicks, and during the game nights the tables are too small.

The GW stores in my area are the only place to play, and from what I can see, are actually good places to play. The store I play at with my sons has 6 tables, plenty of terrain and a great community.

As much as I hate to defend GW, I can see why they are doing it. They are a store and business therefore the shops are there to sell their products, end of. As for people saying they have no where to play, would you buy a video game if you had no console to play it on? Same principal really, why buy a game that needs a certain amount of space to play if you don't have access to anywhere big enough?

Mick

The game designers have left the building.... Now the only thing left are Yes Men and Shills.

The reason behind this is so the beancounters can save money in rent, closing fees, and wasted stock by being proactive.

Then when the inevitable "Stock dividend" comes up, they just have to pack a van with a couple of boxes and pay out in closed store profits. No muss no fuss. No reason to develop a community when they are only interested in profits now.




It's been working for them for years, why not streamline the process?


GW as a game company is dead, they just don't know it yet. Now they are "The HHHobby"

Between the bang up job with the pycho price hikes/ gouges, the low quality products, and this- GW is done. Only thing keeping them afloat is thier past, and peoples gullability that they will get thier head out of thier fourth point and start making games again.


If they tell you it's raining enough times, you might even believe it.

GW is offering a shrewd strategy here.

Cutting payroll, expenses, "focusing on their core businesses" are all signs they are looking to maximize profits.

For them, that may be a good thing as it means more money to add more boutique stores around the country.

And its a rather clever strategy to let LFGS and independent retailers house the games that people are supposed to play as it means their retailers can focus on selling and demonstrating rather than playing.

They've been systematically trying to destroy their own hobby for years, like their big push in the late 90s/early 00s to open stores right across from independent retailers, drive them out of business, then close their own store and leave the local community sifting through the ashes.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Why doesnt GW go the other Miniature makers policy. Close their stores and focus on selling in Independents.

Because if they jump straight from 'Having our own stores is the best way of bringing new people into the hobby!' to 'Our stores are unprofitable! We must close them down for the good of the hobby!' the shareholders might get restless...

 WarOne wrote:

And its a rather clever strategy to let LFGS and independent retailers house the games that people are supposed to play as it means their retailers can focus on selling and demonstrating rather than playing.

Uhm, if people play at their FLGS that often offer a discout on GW stuff, why would they buy at GW?

 Sigvatr wrote:

 WarOne wrote:

And its a rather clever strategy to let LFGS and independent retailers house the games that people are supposed to play as it means their retailers can focus on selling and demonstrating rather than playing.

Uhm, if people play at their FLGS that often offer a discout on GW stuff, why would they buy at GW?

To quote the GW manager at the store 5 miles down from my house:

"We often have a better selection and we are closer to people in this side of the city. They can drive 5 minutes and get what they want right now instead of having to drive 30 minutes or waiting to order things online."