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.

Hello all,

Does anyone else find GWs business approach of 'What is old is not sellable' kind of bizarre? I am not talking about buying older models when there are newer updated ones, I understand that. I am talking specifically about the sales that they miss buy just purely refusing to sell to anyone old stock (for example Asdrubael Vect, a special character from DE, while yes, he is in an old, pre-2011 modelled Raider, it would make sense if he was that older model being that he is incredibly old. Instead, GW just ripped him from the codex because he is an old model, making him unplayable in tournies or even just Battleforged armies rather than updating the model (which I understand why they didn't $$$$) but they instead decided to just rip him out rather than maybe change his rules if he was considered OP or UP). So now because a model just was too old, yet still viable to play and make money off, GW decides to get rid of these items altogether.

In my opinion this seems really strange and a huge marketing miss seeing as this spans across almost every single army/game GW has created. Another example is Mordheim, while it may not be played globally, there are around about 5-15 people who come into my local GW store and play it every Wednesday night yet they all have pdf printouts of the rules because GW refuses to sell them anymore, even though if they did, I am sure each one of the people who play it would gladly purchase it.

I am posting this because I was recently frustrated at GW because I wanted to purchase the Haemonculus Covens codex but when I went into the store, it was no longer there, and now you can only buy digital copies which are useless to me seeing as I don't have an ipad or other such devise to read it with, and don't feel like taking my laptop to the store just to read up on the rules, neither do I feel like paying $50 for the digital copy to then print it myself and just not have that same quality and sheen that the codexes have.

It just seems to me that GW doesn't seize it's marketing potential, what are your opinions on this? Do you guys just buy up when it comes out or do you also get annoyed that you can't get a physical copy of the sisters of battle codex anymore?

Thanks,
Salvation

I mean, I'm currently building an imperial guard army.

Right now:

1) The latest codex deleted not one, not two, but THREE special characters who had perfectly fine models.

2) There is a full unit (rough riders) who had multiple sculpts, but who are not sold anymore.

3) the regiment I would like to play used to have every heavy weapon available except Autocannon, and used to have every special weapon available except melta gun. It also used to have 4 different choices of sergeant so you could have laspistol/ccw, Plasma pistol/PS, Laspistol/PF, and Chainsword/Plasma Pistol. It also had a Special Weapon Blister that came with a Grenade Launcher, Flamer, and Plasma.

Now, the squad box for whatever baffling reason comes packaged with a Flamer and Heavy Bolter, the Lascannon, Plasma Cannon, and Snipers have to be bought separate (for the same price as the 3 special weapons used to be), the mortar and 2 alternative sergeant sculpts for whatever reason got the axe, and the command box comes with the grenade launcher, because reasons.

Basically, building my list will be around the same price but made bizarrely more inconvenient by GW's wacky business decisions. Where before, I would buy all the infantry, then the heavy weapons I wanted, then the special weapons packs which would give me extras I could use to convert (and buy more stuff to convert them with) and then pick out my sergeants, probably spending MORE money on GW but getting exactly the army I wanted... Now I have to figure out how to convert the metal sculpts out of these cookie-cutter squads to be the wargear I want.

Oh, and they're all web-exclusive now, which means my FLGS gets less profit off of them when I special order them. because screw you, people who want to sell our products and boost our sales.

Maybe the name of the thread should be 'Rant Time' haha

Yeah, a lot of things don't make sense to me, like for example, a DE Grotesque squad consists of 3 grotesques minimum, yet you can only buy a blister pack of 1 grotesque for $42 AUD........ I don't run them in my dark elder army purely because it's a lot of money to make all the damn models to look the same! I could convert but that would really raise the price from $42 to probably $50 when you think about it, so really I am paying $150 for a minimum squad of 3 grotesques that will all have the same body positions unless I break an arm and a leg to do what the company that just took my $150 should have done.

Maybe if they lowered the price or made it so I could have 1 in a unit, but he had to be accompanied with an independent character.......

Also I find it odd when GW employees tell me not to buy the grotesque model and instead buy a pack of 3 Crypt Horrors from Fantasy which is what I may end up doing because at least they are different positioned models

 Salvation wrote:
Maybe the name of the thread should be 'Rant Time' haha

Yeah, a lot of things don't make sense to me, like for example, a DE Grotesque squad consists of 3 grotesques minimum, yet you can only buy a blister pack of 1 grotesque for $42 AUD........ I don't run them in my dark elder army purely because it's a lot of money to make all the damn models to look the same! I could convert but that would really raise the price from $42 to probably $50 when you think about it, so really I am paying $150 for a minimum squad of 3 grotesques that will all have the same body positions unless I break an arm and a leg to do what the company that just took my $150 should have done.

Maybe if they lowered the price or made it so I could have 1 in a unit, but he had to be accompanied with an independent character.......

Also I find it odd when GW employees tell me not to buy the grotesque model and instead buy a pack of 3 Crypt Horrors from Fantasy which is what I may end up doing because at least they are different positioned models

Use the spare masks from a pain engine kit. They actually look super good.

Welcome to the zany world of Short Term Profit where investing in long term strategies is no longer important for some reason.

The long term strategy is to perpetually offer short term profit solutions

In all honesty, these discussions had been extensively discussed usually the most after a financial report.

Summary: Kirby wants enough cash on hand to pay himself with dividends, all other considerations are secondary (in my opinion due to various observations).

They're in a somewhat unhealthy way.

Even with mitigating factors, net profit is down, return on capital is down, sales revenue is down. Despite spamming releases of things that, lets face it, are game-breakingly strong to encourage people to buy them.

Trouble is, they're in a tough spot- if they lower prices and don't get an influx of people back into the game to cover the hit, they're royally stuffed. Because they'll never be able to put them up again unless it's over a very long timeframe, which won't help them while they hemorrhage in the short term. So that's one hell of a risk.

Alternatively, they could reach out to the community and get their game balanced with credible playtesting. Which would probably bring some people in or back, but then they lose all the sales from people frantically buying up the new shiny to win tournaments, since chances are something already in their collection will do the job competitively. So that needs considering.

So they're between a rock and a hard place- about the only thing they're doing properly is the model range, which is gorgeous.

With all of this said, they've supposedly been "dying" since 5th edition when I started, and probably for much longer. So grains of salt are recommended.

GW doesn't have a business approach. They have an incident-record.

I think (as do many others I have talked to) that GWs biggest problem is the entry level, well because there isn't one really when it comes to 40k, they need to make a really cheap (as in dollars) army that they can shove in the hands of all those passers by and I think they may have missed that opportunity with IG. If IG had a really cheap price tag on all its boxes and models then people could walk in, pay only $20 for 10 models instead of $50 then start having fun right away. They wouldn't lose that much money at all seeing as IG has like 50 models in some squads so people would be more inclined to start playing them because they are cheaper but still an army that can hold it's own knowing that they won't get ripped off as soon as they open that codex.

The thing is that lowering prices won't help. Theres such a large player base that you can find almost anything you need 2-d hand for a fracture of money you'd pay for nib - no matter how little it costs in the first place. There are really only two solutions that i see. Either attract more and more new people so that at least part of them would buy from oficial stores or create new models or rework the old ones so that you'd have to buy new stuff to make it powerful (like they did with gravguns, for example) and inspire purchasing them.

The first solution requires better ballance and interaction with their purchasers. The introduction of books with constantly changing rules and not just a ton of FAQ-s. It's hard and the profits will get much lower at first. But it might be a saving grace in the end.

The second solution requires power creep - the most effective way of forcing you buy new stuff. This route is slowly draining the game out. The way they're going right now.

 koooaei wrote:
The first solution requires better ballance and interaction with their purchasers. The introduction of books with constantly changing rules and not just a ton of FAQ-s. It's hard and the profits will get much lower at first. But it might be a saving grace in the end.

Yeah I reckon that a better approach may be to make a slimlined codex, one with just rules and no fluff or picture, leave the fluff and pictures to maybe a different book altogether that is just lore based. Lowering their production value immensely and also even if they just chucked $40 off the price they would make a huge profit and people would still probably buy the slimlined versions. Because honestly, if you are interested in the lore you probably will or already have bought the corresponding novels associated with your armies, whereas people who just want rules may not want to fork over $80+ for rules only, which is what they may only ever use it for, and therefore stop at just the one army till it gets another update.

FAQs ideally should never have to be a thing, if they gave considerable play testing, cross referencing and played the games in various different styles you would end up with the dark eldar's FAQ, just two very minor changes compared to some others that are a full page and a half of fixes. Probably due to just wanting to cram out the new money grabbing book.

 Salvation wrote:
I think (as do many others I have talked to) that GWs biggest problem is the entry level, well because there isn't one really when it comes to 40k, they need to make a really cheap (as in dollars) army that they can shove in the hands of all those passers by and I think they may have missed that opportunity with IG. If IG had a really cheap price tag on all its boxes and models then people could walk in, pay only $20 for 10 models instead of $50 then start having fun right away. They wouldn't lose that much money at all seeing as IG has like 50 models in some squads so people would be more inclined to start playing them because they are cheaper but still an army that can hold it's own knowing that they won't get ripped off as soon as they open that codex.

Recruitment has to be their biggest problem.

If I were the boss, I'd introduce a new skirmish 40k, for smaller model counts, with cheap rules, and regularly rotate the starter boxes, with more releases like Stormclaw etc. Given that Hobbit is dying out, they desperately need something smaller-scale. I'd like to see that combined with Zone Mortalis or Space Hulk-style soft boards and scenery, then all the old-hands would buy it too.

As 40k has got bigger and more apocalypse-sized, it's really missing out at the bottom end, and not everyone wants a 2-3 hour game. GW haven't supported Kill Team consistently, and they're missing out - it's a great alternative for experienced gamers, and a gateway drug for new recruits.

I feel that Mordheim is the key, if they brought that back, or even just the ability to buy the rules again and maybe a box set containing a few ranged, CC and a hero rather then buying them all separately but only using a fraction from each.

I doubt mordheim would do much for 40k by itself, but a mordheim/necromunda style entry game that uses existing figures instead of requiring completely new/unique sculpts would help.

 Torga_DW wrote:
I doubt mordheim would do much for 40k by itself, but a mordheim/necromunda style entry game that uses existing figures instead of requiring completely new/unique sculpts would help.

A good Necromunda or Mordheim game featuring more of the races, easier rules found in one place, and starter packs for gangs would make the bar of entry a lot lower.
I have a hard time selling my friends on any table top game unless their income is above a certain number, which is not the case for most these days.
When the choice is between a gaming system and 4 games or warhammer 40k....the choice is easy.
Even WMH, with the new army boxes, suffers from this problem.


That being said, we have started a mordheim and necromunda league having people use our extra models or just buying them from other mini companies. The league has more active members than any other table top game (magic still beats it quite handily though). Yet GW sees not a dime from any of this. The combination of a narrative rpg and table top (Which is NOT 40k) is a great one.

I think the problem is the game itself. If GW decided to make stuff cheaper, then they would have to sells a lot more stuff and for that the gaming system would have to be good, or at least new player friendly. Or at worse encourage people to buy more new stuff. If the gaming system would stay the same, they may have to deal with the same number of buyers they have now, but lower income. IMO, and I am as far as possible from being an expert as far as buissness goes, GW knows they are not making a good game and try to focus a strange mix of long time fans and people with enough income to not care what they buy.

Start selling terrain kits for the other factions, and more terrain pieces.

Boom, instant sales.

I think the problem is GW plc forgot they are selling a game to players.
And assumed that all their customers were just collectors who treated the rules as an optional extra.

So rather than a great rule set that adds value to the ALL the minatures, and drives sales for all the ranges...

We get rushed out sales pamphlets , to pimp the latest releases, but devalue the rest of the product ranges.

I find it unsuprizing that other GAMES companies are growing sales at a good rate, while GW plc is loosing sales volumes year on year for over a decade now.

Back when GW was a games company they had a range of games to cover all the game types for 40k universe.
Inquisitor for detailed skirmish RPG, 40k for large scale skirmish , and Epic for the grand battles.

Now one rule set tries to cover everything and fails to do any thing well.

Steelmage99 wrote:
GW doesn't have a business approach. They have an incident-record.

Awesome, exalted!

On topic, I think it's ridiculous that they remove options just because of paranoia over new model sales. For example there was no reason to remove the Kasrkin models; they don't have all the options of the new Storm Troopers and could still be used as Veterans (which is technically what they are anyway), but nope. There's a vague possibility that someone might prefer them to the new Storm Troopers, so they have to go. So we lose a cool unique sculpt, everyone's army gets more generic and GW probably lose the sale anyway, as not everyone wants the new models.

The integrity of the molds + the material (finecrap) involved would have something to do with this, i guess it would depend on stock levels as to whether or not they should be axed immediately vs allowed to eventually sell-out.