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Made in us
Been Around the Block




I havn't been on this forum long, and except to get flamed and trashed for this post, but I have noticed a trend that kinda disturbs me.

As gamers we all want exceptional rules and models to play our games...but it appears anytime a game comes out with decent rules or a setting that people would enjoy, the community instantly tries a way to not spend any money supporting the new rule set.

Example 1 - Flames of War. It appears the community likes this game and wants the rules to be tweaked/added/edited to make it better. Which is fine, but everyone refuses to buy the Flames of War models and instead get cheaper alternatives....while expecting FoW to keep making rules for them.

Example 2 - Star Wars Legion. As soon as it came out it had the support of the community.....but they are already figuring out how not to buy the models.

Example 3 - Shadespire. People seemed pleased with this, but on day one I saw people saying they would just print the cards and play with old models.

It just seems as a community we want quality games, but a lot of us do not want to spend any money for these games.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/06 19:23:26


 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





Honestly; its an expensive hobby compared to other forms of gaming and there are a lot of people where it really borders on the on the upper edge of their leisure budget. A lot of people really enjoy the games and models, but adding a single new unit is all they can afford for a month or two, which doesn't allow for much in the way of experimental spending.
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

You've picked three bad examples there - they're all games that people already have models for, or there are alternatives available. Take Shadespire - I already have Orcs so why should I pay £17.50 when I'm just going to use the cards?

In general it's a case of the vocal minority - most gamers I know accept the cost of the hobby and are happy with it (and I know I spent more on paintballing).
   
Made in us
Powerful Phoenix Lord





You've picked really poor examples.

Flames of War (Battlefront) has...god awful pricing and produces some pretty crap miniatures. Their compeititon produces better or equal kits for far less money. Couple that with the fact that when Battlefront launched FoW it was actually reasonably priced (and it's just skyrocketed since) why would anyone bother buying the miniatures from them? It's a competitive market. If you make 15mm WW2...expect a ton of competition. Quality-wise and price-wise I'd take PSC over Battlefront all day, every day.

Star Wars Legion is, simply put, also expensive and is heavily criticised because of the somewhat cheesy nature in which FFG pursues token-based collectable miniatures games. Some of the Imperial Assault minis (as an example) are eye-wateringly expensive for what you get compared to most miniature companies. It's a fair criticism.

Shadespire? Well that's just being cheap. That game isn't very expensive to start with. However, the people raise a simple point. You could easily create a simple hex board or map yourself...use minis you do own...and use a simple D6 conversion table for your dice. If there is cheap way to play it? People will do so.

The overwhelming thing to remember is that games like 40K and Star Wars based franchises have a huge market in 14-22 year olds. Poor high school kids or cheap college kids, etc. While wargaming is not, compared to other things, an expensive hobby...it can be when you're on a shoe string budget but want (colloquially) "All the things".

While I don't at the moment, in the past I've had a substantial budget with which to game - and I've actually gotten crap from some people because I've invested heavily in many expensive hobby areas in the wargaming spectrum. I know when I have the cash I'll treat myself to a "deluxe" item or twelve. I have zero issue with investing money in a hobby I really enjoy - some people it's a take-it-or-leave-it approach and they can't be assed to spend some coin on it. Others can't afford it straight up but feel they must acquire stuff however possible.
   
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Stone Bonkers Fabricator General




We'll find out soon enough eh.

People seem to be developing a really weird relationship with corporations these days.

Capitalism, a refresher: Company offers Thing at Price, Customer decides whether Thing is worth Price for them. The end. Companies are not entitled to your money, nor your support, your relationship begins and ends at the till where you exchange money for goods and/or services. Buying a rulebook or a boxed game or a unit of Stormtroopers does not obligate you to making future purchases from the company that made them, and if the company fails to attract custom on such a scale and for such a sustained period that the product line or even the company themselves fail, the company are the ones responsible for that failure.

Besides which, even people not buying the SuperDuper Official Branded Keychain & Mug set to match their army in order to "support the game" are still, in fact, supporting the game. One of the biggest factors in the success or otherwise of social games is network effect - ie the more people play it, the more popular it will get - so merely by interacting with the product on forums, on social media, by playing games at the local club, a person is "supporting the game" even if not a single solitary penny of their own money ever ends up in the hands of the company making said product.

In short, clamber down off that high horse, you're teetering.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/01 15:32:24


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Probably work

 Yodhrin wrote:
People seem to be developing a really weird relationship with corporations these days.


It's not that weird. You see that kind of behavior in most abusive relationships.

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Made in ca
Deathwing Terminator with Assault Cannon






Getting out of the GW mindset for a moment, it's very common for gamers to buy rules from one company and miniatures from another in many games - particularly with historical games. There are probably 20 different games I could use 15mm French Napoleonic troops in.

If I bought the rulebook, I supported the company making those rules. There's no continuing obligation to buy the models that company makes. They're unconnected purchases.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




There can be a variety of reasons for being "cheap". I agree with a couple of the other posters here - your examples aren't very good.

1. FOW: Battlefront should be well aware they are entering a miniature market where choice is almost overwhelming. It should come as no surprise people will look for cheaper alternatives where the value of the official product is questionable. That's not so much being cheap as it is sensible.

2. Legion: FFG, for better or worse, have a bit of a reputation for 2 things: Dropping games on a whim and pursuing a business model that all but requires customers to buy everything released for a particular game in order to keep up. I can understand people being wary of a new game from them but still wanting to at least try it out.

3. Shadespire. I think this is more a case of people wanting to try it out a little bit without fully committing. They already have appropriate models so don't want to pay for them again.

I think it's a bit disingenuous to call gamers cheap without acknowledging the other side of the coin: games companies need to show that their products are value for money if they expect people to buy them. It's a 2-way street.
   
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Insect-Infested Nurgle Chaos Lord






This is not just for games, in all products there will be some penny pinching. This is why no-name brand products (not just the actual No-Name brand) exist.

The thing is there's the effort-to-value ratio. Take something like Cards against Humanity; it's basically freely available for anyone with a printer to make. But that's actually MORE of a hassle than just forking over the 20 bucks for the box set. Similarly, a lot of people play MTG with print-out cards, because the actual copies of those cards are comically overpriced (and in some cases flat out unobtainable because there is simply no stock of it in some stores).

Miniature games suffer a lot because the ridiculously high price of miniatures makes it so that it's almost always preferable to hunt for deals rather than just pay extra for the convenience. If, say, marine-sized models are a buck or two a pop, people would not be hunting on the internet for the best deals since why bother going through international borders, possible shady dealers and legal consequences to try and save on a 10-20 dollar box of plastics? (And I'm specifically using marines here as an example since you don't need a whole lot of them to play. Imagine guard players with conscripts, you can bet your guilliman that they will be pinching every penny on those guys).

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Kanluwen wrote:
Hell, I'm not that bothered by the Stormraven. Why? Because, as it stands right now, it's "limited use".When it's shoehorned in to the Codex: Space Marines, then yeah. I'll be irked.


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Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






About the only one I'd dispute the comments from others on is Shadepsire.

It's £17.50 for a warband. That's chickenfeed when it comes to wargames. I mean, you get everything for it right there. No other purchase necessary once you've got that and the base game.

   
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MN (Currently in WY)

I would say many gamers are "cheap" beacuse they do not have a ton of disposable income to spend. Therefore, the only rational way to continue in the hobby you enjoy is to get creative and stretch the income you do have.

Simple really.

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Legendary Master of the Chapter






Yeah FoW....... you would understand if you built there resin.

good god its a miracle if some part doesnt chip off and you didnt have to use a belt sander to remove the giant pour sprue.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
 Scott-S6 wrote:
And yet another thread is hijacked for Unit to ask for the same advice, receive the same answers and make the same excuses.

Oh my god I'm becoming martel.
Send help!

 
   
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Under the couch

 Easy E wrote:
I would say many gamers are "cheap" beacuse they do not have a ton of disposable income to spend. Therefore, the only rational way to continue in the hobby you enjoy is to get creative and stretch the income you do have.

Simple really.

Also in no way confined to miniature gamers. Every hobby community will include a mix of people who don't care what anything costs, and those who try to get the most out of their dollar.

For that matter, you could leave the 'hobby' out of that statement. There's really nothing particularly revolutionary here... some people simply have less disposable income than others, or prefer to use their money more efficiently than others.

 
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut





Nottingham

I don't think that gamers are cheap as a collective. Those on a tight budget look for and share ways of making their budget go further. Those with a larger budget don't go around bragging about it. Therefore you are only seeing one part of a bigger picture, which doesn't reflect the whole thing.

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East Coast, USA

 JamesY wrote:
I don't think that gamers are cheap as a collective. Those on a tight budget look for and share ways of making their budget go further. Those with a larger budget don't go around bragging about it. Therefore you are only seeing one part of a bigger picture, which doesn't reflect the whole thing.


Yeah. For every guy posting long rants about how he's going to use a photocopier and old Imperial Assault minis to play Legion, there are people like me who just think, "Eh... it's only about $200 for two full armies? Sold." I just don't feel the need to tell everyone who will listen, so if you read the forums, all you're seeing are people complaining about the cost and looking to play for free.

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Another thing to consider is time I've already invested time and effort in painting models I want to get as much use out of them as possible so why not use Zombicide models in half a dozen different rulesets?

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Longtime Dakkanaut






Los Angeles

 Asmodai wrote:
Getting out of the GW mindset for a moment, it's very common for gamers to buy rules from one company and miniatures from another in many games - particularly with historical games. There are probably 20 different games I could use 15mm French Napoleonic troops in.

If I bought the rulebook, I supported the company making those rules. There's no continuing obligation to buy the models that company makes. They're unconnected purchases.


I am more responding to the second half of your post (which I put in bold).

I know you are mainly speaking in terms of historical games which is a very competitive market, but the mindset that just buying the rule book is "enough" to support a company is not always accurate. I see that as similar argument made by people who say they support their LGS by buying an occasional pot of paint or candy bar. Sure, they're buying something, but they aren't really ensuring the health and longevity of the business.

Yes, the rule book purchase is a shot in the arm for the company and helps get their rule set exposed to other eyes, but generally speaking, the profit margins on rule books aren't as great as other items (like miniatures). Many companies have a business model of selling rules as a loss leader, or even giving them away for free, as a way to encourage miniature sales. Granted, this is only relevant to companies who offer both rules and miniatures, as many companies offer rule sets without an associated miniature line so those sorts of companies aren't part of this business model. But when a company does offer miniatures they are hoping you will buy them. The success of their company is built into that.

Now, am I saying that people should buy models purely out of a desire to support a company? No, I am not. If a company's minis are not worth what they are charging then the company needs to re-evaluate their pricing and quality or close shop.

What I am saying is if a player likes a company/rule set/setting and likes the models for that game, but opts to use "good enough" stand-in models which cost less, then buying the cheaper option while still buying just the rule book isn't doing the company/rule set/setting any favors. While a rule book and a box of miniatures are "unconnected purchases" in terms of product type, they are very much connected in terms of the company's business model.


More generally and returning to the OP, if I am understanding the OP's post, then this frugal behavior on the customer's part is problematic because if the customer likes the rule system/setting of a game, but doesn't support the company through repeated purchases, the company will fold. Which I generally agree with.

Books take months of development and play testing before they are released. The lead time and resources needed to produce those products is not insubstantial, while something like a model often requires less work on a company's part to release to the public. So, opting to just buy the rules and forgoing anything else means a company will get your money once every few years (duration of a game edition) and nothing more. It is hard to maintain a business when your customers are only buying from you once every Leap Year or so.

Since people didn't like the games OP referenced I'll add another.

I noticed similar penny-pinching behavior in the Modiphius Fallout news thread. The thread in question is the official Dakka news thread for the game with participation from Modiphius reps, and it did not take long before people were posting links to manufactures who make "count as" Fallout miniatures. Basically, shining a big spotlight on Modiphius' competitors in Modiphius' own thread (competitors who didn't shell out for the expensive licensing fee, so they already have a leg up over Modiphius in terms of production costs).

This was done all so people could save money and buy models immediately and on the cheap. Mind you, this was before Modiphius had shown any model pricing, or even provided the complete list of renders for the game's initial release and yet Modiphius already had people pushing competitors' products, and potentially losing sales for Modiphius.

That sort of frugality is ugly, short-sighted and, in my opinion, detrimental to the health of game companies. And before anyone tries to twist my argument around, I am not stating that what occurred in Modiphius' thread is going to tank the Fallout table top game or Modiphius as a company. Rather, the desire for players to immediately source alternative miniature options for use in a game system they supposedly want instead of supporting the company making the actual game is behavior that runs counter to ensuring game companies, and the properties we like, stay around for the long term.


   
Made in ca
Fireknife Shas'el






Flames of War is crapping in their own bed. There's a huge availability of cheap WW2 miniatures out there, at good quality and for a low cost. They can compete or fail. An off-brand 15mm german tank is still a 15mm german tank. Good minis sell themselves.

FFG: Same story. They're flavor-of-the-moment and don't support their product, because it's easy to lose an expensive license like Star Wars.

Shadespire: I don't see it, the price point is so small there's little reason to not buy it if you want it.


   
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Prescient Cryptek of Eternity





East Coast, USA

 John Prins wrote:
Flames of War is crapping in their own bed. There's a huge availability of cheap WW2 miniatures out there, at good quality and for a low cost. They can compete or fail. An off-brand 15mm german tank is still a 15mm german tank. Good minis sell themselves.

FFG: Same story. They're flavor-of-the-moment and don't support their product, because it's easy to lose an expensive license like Star Wars.

Shadespire: I don't see it, the price point is so small there's little reason to not buy it if you want it.



Out of curiosity, how is FFG not supporting their product? X-Wing has been going strong for some time now. Same with Armada. Imperial Assault, while primarily a many versus one board game, has numerous expansions with more coming out. Runewars is brand new, but has had pretty consistent releases. Most of the LCGs see regular monthly or so releases. Almost everything else is a board game where there isn't necessarily much of an expectation of constant, indefinite expansions.

I'm actually avoiding Shadespire because of the cost. I'd want to focus on one faction, but still have all of the possible card options. Right now, that means $240... $60 for the core, $60 for the 2x announced expansion packs and $120 for the 4x unannounced expansion packs that we already know about. If the game is successful, you're looking at more money over time. If the game isn't succesful... well, I would have wasted $240 on an unsuccessful game.

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Under the couch

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Sure, they're buying something, but they aren't really ensuring the health and longevity of the business.


It's not the consumer's responsibility to ensure the health and longevity of a business.

If you're running a business and your product isn't selling, it's up to you to fix that.

 
   
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Monster-Slaying Daemonhunter







That works both ways though. If the consumer would like that business to remain healthy then they should patronise it. For example, the much loved independent hight street bike shop which went bust because all their customers did was look and buy online, that's quite typical these days.

   
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Contagious Dreadnought of Nurgle






I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm "cheap" in the sense that I will never pay full price for GW products if I can find a way to get them for less, or just buy the exact bits that I want to use and nothing more. I'm also willing to spend a good amount of time converting models that are cheap to represent models that would be more expensive out of the box. I just don't see any reason not to; I get more for my gaming dollar that way.

However, with something around the price point of Shadespire, I have no problem supporting the product by buying the retail boxes.

 
   
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 insaniak wrote:
 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Sure, they're buying something, but they aren't really ensuring the health and longevity of the business.


It's not the consumer's responsibility to ensure the health and longevity of a business.

If you're running a business and your product isn't selling, it's up to you to fix that.


Exactly. This is true of everything, not just gaming. Customers have no obligation to throw away money to make up for a business having a poor strategy for making money. It's a business, not a charity.

There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
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Stone Bonkers Fabricator General




We'll find out soon enough eh.

 whatwhat wrote:
That works both ways though. If the consumer would like that business to remain healthy then they should patronise it. For example, the much loved independent hight street bike shop which went bust because all their customers did was look and buy online, that's quite typical these days.


In which case the business didn't offer enough to persuade people to buy from them. This debate keeps happening, but the answer is, as always, simple & obvious - if you can't persuade people to spend money at your business, either you're not good at business, or the market can't presently support the business you want to run as you envisioned it running. Customers are not responsible for an owner's inability to entice their custom.

Bike shops are a great example, there's one just along the road from me that ran into similar trouble a couple of years back - couldn't compete with online prices for expensive bikes, couldn't compete with Halfords at the budget end of the market. Shop's still there, thriving, because the owner didn't just whinge that customers were doing the entirely rational thing and seeking out the best deal, she refocused the store on repairs, parts & accessories sales, shifted the actual bike sales to a webstore of her own with an offsite warehouse and only a few display models in the physical store, and used the space that freed up in the shop to open a small health cafe-bar thing, then further promoted that by offering lessons on various riding & bike maintenance(free basic ones, reasonably priced advanced classes) and by setting up organised rides through the city starting and ending at her shop. Now half the "serious" cyclists(ie, folk who don't just buy a bike and then let it rust in a shed) pass through her shop on a regular basis and the online sales model lets her sell bikes at a price people are willing to pay.

It's mad that it's the borderline-commie that keeps having to point this out(similar discussions pop up on some videogame forums I frequent with similar arguments) - opening a business doesn't entitle someone to anything except the opportunity to get successful enough to begin skimming value off the top of other people's labour, but getting to that stage is their responsibility not their customers'.

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Gamers aren't cheap. There was a poll a while back that asked gamers how much they spent on 40k and only 40k and it was something like 800 euro per year (I can't remember exactly but I remember it being way higher than I was expecting).

I wish I could find the poll now, it was posted on dakka probably near the start of 7th edition.

People like to complain about prices but then still spend a lot of money. That's not just gamers, it's "people" in general. Obviously price isn't the only factor otherwise they'd stop buying altogether, but it a factor so it's something that gets complained about.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/11/02 00:30:27


 
   
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Devon, UK

Firstly, the "consumer responsibility to support vs the corporate responsibility to entice" debate has been done to death, and I'm not really seeing how it fits the thread subject?

Secondly, I reject the premise of the thread, I've seen gamers pay ludicrous amounts for the things they're passionate about, if people are quibbling over price on something, then they're not cheap, they're just not that excited about it.

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Gig Harbor, WA

I've thought about this a lot too.

For me, its because I started this game when I was 13 using paper route money. My family wasn't well off so I didn't get an allowance. My personal spending money came from saving birthday and christmas and doing chores for extended family, and then my paperroute when that came along. Sometimes I was the only one with cash in the family and my mother would have to borrow some from my cash storage (she always paid me back, thanks mom) to pay for my little sister or my lunches. I was always hoarding my little bit of money until I found something I was ready to splurge on.

So anyway, every penny pretty much counted. All my terrain was scratch built. Every model was considered and poured over before purchase. My paint brushes were hand me downs from my Uncle's model painting days, and I started Warhammer with his testor enamel paints, before slowly switching to GW.

Its thirty years later, but I still have to climb out of that mindset when it comes to Warhammer (long since got out of it for anything else). And the fact that my internal lens places everything into 1993 dollars when I look at GW models certainly doesn't help.

But I'm getting better.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/02 00:50:02


 
   
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Western Kentucky

 Kriswall wrote:
 JamesY wrote:
I don't think that gamers are cheap as a collective. Those on a tight budget look for and share ways of making their budget go further. Those with a larger budget don't go around bragging about it. Therefore you are only seeing one part of a bigger picture, which doesn't reflect the whole thing.


Yeah. For every guy posting long rants about how he's going to use a photocopier and old Imperial Assault minis to play Legion, there are people like me who just think, "Eh... it's only about $200 for two full armies? Sold." I just don't feel the need to tell everyone who will listen, so if you read the forums, all you're seeing are people complaining about the cost and looking to play for free.

Surely you can see the flipside to this though right?

If a player already has 30 odd stormtroopers and an AT-ST, why should they be "forced" to buy these models again for another game when they're already roughly in the same scale and could be adapted with very little effort?

Your "eh, it's $200, no biggie" is another's "you mean to tell me I have to spend $200 again?"

There's a reason Battlefront can't pull this kind of shenanigans and its coming back to bite them, it's just a really crappy business practice. For Legion it isn't even about using illegal knockoffs, or even another company's miniatures, these are official figures made by the same company in roughly the same scale that are not going to be useful because you'll need the cards (and in some cases fancy bases) to play in an official capacity.

That's why Legion is a terrible example for the OP, FFG only has itself to blame for it and it's a pretty crappy move. There's a reason there are people annoyed about it. It could be solved very easily too, all they needed to do was release upgrade cards so people could adapt their old collections and the griping would've disappeared overnight. You can't even use the argument that FFG isn't getting the money, they already GOT the money the first time they sold the models. If anything it's easy additional money if they had just released separate cards/rules so people could use their old collections.

Yes, I realize for companies like Battlefront, not buying their models is going to keep them from succeeding as much as if I had went to them for everything, but where's the cutoff in this kind of mindset? Should I buy purely from Battlefront to ensure they get every penny? After all, my FLGS is taking a significant cut of that profit if I buy it there. What about buying used models? Should I not pick up used models because it hurts the company?

Basically what I"m trying to say is that at a certain point you have to realize that it's up to the company itself if they want your money. If they sell good rules for a good price but their models are crappy and expensive, then they shouldn't be surprised when people only want the rules and buy the models elsewhere. Welcome to Capitalism. Even players who are skimping on expenses still help the company due to the weird situation tabletop games are in. You need a critical mass of players to get a game successful and established. It doesn't matter if half those players never paid a dime to the company, if just by existing in the community they attract twice their number in fresh blood who do buy from the company. This is obviously an incredibly simplified explanation for it but it's basically how 40k has stuck around at all and rebounded in 8th. Many old players had mothballed armies or picked up used lots on ebay. They comparatively didn't really spend all that much when 8th dropped. However, their very presence helped establish communities across the world and that gave new players players places to play and inspired them to buy in. Not a lot of hobbies are really like this so its kind of an odd mentality but I've seen this happen first hand with my local group. The "old" community bought relatively little when 8th dropped aside from books, but when people saw us playing in the store it encouraged many new players to buy in and give it a shot. So ultimately even though we didn't spend that much ourselves, we still made GW money by existing and playing the game.

'I've played Guard for years, and the best piece of advice is to always utilize the Guard's best special rule: "we roll more dice than you" ' - stormleader

"Sector Imperialis: 25mm and 40mm Round Bases (40+20) 26€ (Including 32 skulls for basing) " GW design philosophy in a nutshell  
   
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Whiteshield Conscript Trooper



Nulato, AK





On a purely quantitative level, it's not the gamer, it is the game company. Any decent undergrad macro econ course will teach you about substitute goods and how, everything else being equal, they improve the overall health of the industry.

From a forensics point of view, the true problem is that the vast majority of companies are started by passionate people rather than business people who spent a great deal of time dispassionately studying the industry to see if they want to invest in it. The result is that most companies are badly run and even those who are eventually helmed by professionals are still hamstrung to some extent by the legacy of their founding fathers' decisions. This is the same reason why a large majority of mom and pop restaurants will fold within five years of launch, while restaurants started by corporate professionals have roughly inverse failure rates.

ie. If you continuously offer compelling, competitively-priced product, you will succeed, otherwise people will chose a substitute. Unfortunately, few people have the combination of education, experience and capitalization required to pull this off.

That is my POV as a "cheap" gamer who has spent over $50K USD on miniature war gaming.



This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/02 03:55:10


 
   
 
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