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Following up on my DLC thread I just got this image sent to me by a friend.



What do you all think? I know a lot of you were split on the business tactics taken from the games industry (the game publishers splitting the finished game up into basically small dlc that was obviously meant to be in the base game) and now we have pre order bonuses. It's not a huge bonus but maybe could be the start of something? Or potentially encourage people to buy before reviews come out that are not by people who were given a copy by GW? Or maybe it just rewards loyal customers? Discuss below.

It's nothing new. They've been doing things like pre-order art cards and bits for ages now. And this isn't really a pre-order bonus but more of a direct buy bonus. I see them doing it to try and tempt people to buy at full retail price rather than going to the third parties who won't get these bonus items.

It all comes down to whether you're more interested in a discount of some extra pieces.

As long as the "free" stuff is useful, then paying the full price shouldn't be much of a problem. If it is something cool, like a limited edition model or a set of plastic objective markers, it is even better.

In this particular case I'm not interested in those items but if something useful for me comes up in following releases I could see me ordering stuff from GW the first time since years. I think the last time I ordered directly from GW was when they added that special limited Space Marine.
That Space Marine is still unopened in the last corner of my hobby room...

No issue for me. Nice to see them using actual professional level product marketing rather than "BUY OUR STUFF YOU NERDS"

If you're going to the shop to buy these things anyway then a cool little bonus might make you go and pre-order it rather than wait til release day.

They were going to get your money anyway but getting it early to help them with logistics/demand management is probably worth the cost of making some extra bits.

Plus the customer feels a bit special.

Win-win.

Plus as someone who is probably going to get the book and the cards, I might feasibly be tempted to add on the case as well, to get the free stuff.

FOMO applies here for the consumer. "Will I regret not having that CP tracker when I am playing because it is pretty nice... if my opponent has one and I don't it will wind me up because I can't get it in the future..... and I might get that case next month anyway... sooo.... ah sod it I will get it now"

So a nice little upsell for GW too.

It is an item purely for convenience. Seems like a sensible idea. You can buy cheaper elsewhere, they've got to give something.

Just to add how smart it is that they have this pre-order release date for everything and they market that far more than the actual release date.

They know that when we go in the shop it's super hard to leave empty handed so getting us to make 2 trips to the shop instead of 1 is an amazing sales tactic. I bet that alone has added a non-trivial amount to their bottom line.

Get us in the door and letting us see the plastic crack is the hardest part of the whole retail shebang.

 Silentz wrote:
Just to add how smart it is that they have this pre-order release date for everything and they market that far more than the actual release date.

They know that when we go in the shop it's super hard to leave empty handed so getting us to make 2 trips to the shop instead of 1 is an amazing sales tactic. I bet that alone has added a non-trivial amount to their bottom line.

Get us in the door and letting us see the plastic crack is the hardest part of the whole retail shebang.

Haha, you're telling me. I haven't bought a model at gw in ages... the whole preorder thing baffled me as there was no reason to not jist wait and see if it's worth buying. Especially if I can get it a few days later for 20% offl actually doing what every other company does and give a preorder might encourage some people... However, this is not enough to get me to the store.... kinda if someone was just looking in their trash for free things to add onto their items. However, if, in the future, they threw in a box of marines or even the cheap £6 orks box then it would probably encourage a sucker like me.

Depending on where you live.

I don't know many retailers that offer both a discount and free delivery cost like GW does. So I regularly visit my local GW "saves" me money in the end.

 Earth127 wrote:
Depending on where you live.

I don't know many retailers that offer both a discount and free delivery cost like GW does. So I regularly visit my local GW "saves" me money in the end.

Most places online offer free delivery over £75 so I tend to wait until i need tnat much stuff then get it all at once. I can save £50 or £60 doing this method. And means I get my stuff painted. Might be different in EU but I'm in england.

But I was thinking for this discussion what people tbink of preorders in general. Again, in the gaming world the gamers are starting to despise them.

 lolman1c wrote:

 Earth127 wrote:
Depending on where you live.

I don't know many retailers that offer both a discount and free delivery cost like GW does. So I regularly visit my local GW "saves" me money in the end.

Most places online offer free delivery over £75 so I tend to wait until i need tnat much stuff then get it all at once. I can save £50 or £60 doing this method. And means I get my stuff painted. Might be different in EU but I'm in england.

But I was thinking for this discussion what people tbink of preorders in general. Again, in the gaming world the gamers are starting to despise them.

Which "gaming world"? Video games? Yeah, they've always been "despised" there--partly because people don't understand how the content works.
Tabletop gaming? It seems like it's mostly the RPG and Kickstarter crowd that really hate on them--although I will say I loathe Infinity's way of doing things as there's no real incentive to actually preorder--the "preorder" period coincides with the first few shipments that stores will receive of stock so as long as you get the stuff within the first year, you're basically guaranteed to get the bonus. The only exception is preordering through Corvus Belli at GenCon since that's a way to get their GenCon exclusives as well but shipping is outright extortion.

For what GW does? I do not care. I got an art card every week that I preordered Idoneth stuff through my local shop, as my local indies are kinda...not great about ordering things. These things will mean be nothing that really people will feel like they've "missed out on".

Not enough incentive, IMO. Now, give me a 15-20% discount AND throw in some freebies (as I can get the discount off e-bay as is), then you’ll get my attention.

Interesting idea... preorder for %10-20 off would probably increase sales massively.

I did once pre order something from GW
Got it 4 weeks after release with the nicd email conversations that those ordering on launch day and those ordering in a store would get if first and my order will be taken care of on Monday after release.

So whatever they give me, I don't care and will never pre-order anything from them

 Stormonu wrote:
Not enough incentive, IMO. Now, give me a 15-20% discount AND throw in some freebies (as I can get the discount off e-bay as is), then you’ll get my attention.

This, 2 circles of cardboard in a holster and a badge isn't worth the £10 you'll get off of a killteam box (£20 off of the full box set) if you buy from discount shops.

yeah but if they gave people pre-ordering firect from them something of value like an exclusive mini, they run the risk of the incentive turning into a PR fiasco. To use a video game comparison, Mass Effect 3's pre-order bonus was a DLC that included a new character, it was baked into the game already and there was a lot of angst about the day 1 DLC. (which was a dumb move, especially as I can't remember but pre-order DLCs are often not avalaible right away from the non pre-order plebs)

BrianDavion wrote:
yeah but if they gave people pre-ordering firect from them something of value like an exclusive mini, they run the risk of the incentive turning into a PR fiasco. To use a video game comparison, Mass Effect 3's pre-order bonus was a DLC that included a new character, it was baked into the game already and there was a lot of angst about the day 1 DLC. (which was a dumb move, especially as I can't remember but pre-order DLCs are often not avalaible right away from the non pre-order plebs)

Sorry but could explain a little better why an exclusive mini would be a PR fiasco?

 mrhappyface wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
yeah but if they gave people pre-ordering firect from them something of value like an exclusive mini, they run the risk of the incentive turning into a PR fiasco. To use a video game comparison, Mass Effect 3's pre-order bonus was a DLC that included a new character, it was baked into the game already and there was a lot of angst about the day 1 DLC. (which was a dumb move, especially as I can't remember but pre-order DLCs are often not avalaible right away from the non pre-order plebs)

Sorry but could explain a little better why an exclusive mini would be a PR fiasco?

not would be, could be if the fanbase decides to take it poorly. *shrugs* I don't think it would be eaither myself, partiucularly as GW has a long history of giving exclusive minis. but I imagine they wanna be extra careful

BrianDavion wrote:
yeah but if they gave people pre-ordering firect from them something of value like an exclusive mini, they run the risk of the incentive turning into a PR fiasco. To use a video game comparison, Mass Effect 3's pre-order bonus was a DLC that included a new character, it was baked into the game already and there was a lot of angst about the day 1 DLC. (which was a dumb move, especially as I can't remember but pre-order DLCs are often not avalaible right away from the non pre-order plebs)

I will counter with the success of Zombicide and ton of freebies you get on their kickstarter campaigns. That is the way to get customers to buy into your stuff.

 kodos wrote:
I did once pre order something from GW
Got it 4 weeks after release with the nicd email conversations that those ordering on launch day and those ordering in a store would get if first and my order will be taken care of on Monday after release.

So whatever they give me, I don't care and will never pre-order anything from them

Same thing happened to a buddy and the index. He preorderd it and ended having to get a refund just to buy it from the store a week later.

 Stormonu wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
yeah but if they gave people pre-ordering firect from them something of value like an exclusive mini, they run the risk of the incentive turning into a PR fiasco. To use a video game comparison, Mass Effect 3's pre-order bonus was a DLC that included a new character, it was baked into the game already and there was a lot of angst about the day 1 DLC. (which was a dumb move, especially as I can't remember but pre-order DLCs are often not avalaible right away from the non pre-order plebs)

I will counter with the success of Zombicide and ton of freebies you get on their kickstarter campaigns. That is the way to get customers to buy into your stuff.

Kickstarter is an entirely differant animal though as you're effectively asking for investment. for every game that kickstarts and delivers there is a star citizen.

I don't mind preorder bonuses. Especially in a game launch product. Without enough buzz in the beginning the game will die before it gets going so you can't blame them for wanting to encourage people to invest early.