Why do GW 'brick and mortar' stores exist?

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**Kilkrazy**

A number of retail businesses are vertically integrated, meaning they own the entire production, distribution and retail chain. To pick examples from the US, Japan and Europe;

American Apparel
Uniqlo
Zara

Other retail businesses operate on a franchise basis.

Still others are pure retail businesses, buying stock from a variety of suppliers.

GW are an example of a vertically integrated business. Given the amount of money apparently devoted to their retail arm, they look more like a chain of shops with a wargame hobby attached than a wargame hobby business which owns its own retail outlets.

**notprop**

Andrew1975 wrote:I think there are probably much better ways to market than owning your own stores. They should have spent that money on a major movie instead of releasing a mediocre fan flick that only current customers would have any interest in. It'll be interesting to see if the new space marine video game does anything for their sales.

There are better ways if the product was more popular. GW accept that their product does not have mass market appeal and cuts it cloth accordingly. It does however mean that it reaches more of those that would be interested before its erstwhile rivals.

The whole movie idea is a tricky one, do they fund it themselves which done correctly would cost the equivalent of a years turnover to make a "proper" one or it hand over to a producer, lose control and potentially end up with a buddy movie about a loose cannon inquisitor and his wacky ork sidekick with SoB love interest.

**Andrew1975**

notprop wrote:
Andrew1975 wrote:I think there are probably much better ways to market than owning your own stores. They should have spent that money on a major movie instead of releasing a mediocre fan flick that only current customers would have any interest in. It'll be interesting to see if the new space marine video game does anything for their sales.

There are better ways if the product was more popular. GW accept that their product does not have mass market appeal and cuts it cloth accordingly. It does however mean that it reaches more of those that would be interested before its erstwhile rivals.

The whole movie idea is a tricky one, do they fund it themselves which done correctly would cost the equivalent of a years turnover to make a "proper" one or it hand over to a producer, lose control and potentially end up with a buddy movie about a loose cannon inquisitor and his wacky ork sidekick with SoB love interest.

True, I'd hate to see a watered down, after school cartoon like GI Joe and Transformers had in the 80's. But there still has to be a better way to bring a product to market. There is still a very large section of the world that doesn't know what a Space Marine is, much less GW! I thought the early work they did with Milton Bradley was great. I can ask almost any male of my generation about Heroquest and they will know what I am talking about. The will not know what warhammer is tough.

The GW stores a pushed artificial market. Which is fine, when that market is paying off, but when it cost more to run than it's worth, gives the company a bad name, drives the cost of it's products beyond the reach of your average person, well I don't know if it is worth it. If the average person has $50 to spend on a gift or such, they can buy a complete video game or 1 unit in 40K, that they then have to put hours of work into. To them the value just isn't there.

**mikhaila**

The GW stores a pushed artificial market. Which is fine, when that market is paying off, but when it cost more to run than it's worth, gives the company a bad name, drives the cost of it's products beyond the reach of your average person, well I don't know if it is worth it.

All assumptions. Everyone jumps from "I don't understand..." to "this is a bad business model".

I've seen so many game companies go away over the last couple of decades, that I have to conclude that whether or not I understand why GW were so successful, I can't ignore that they were, and seem to continue to be.

**Redbeard**

mikhaila wrote:I've seen so many game companies go away over the last couple of decades, that I have to conclude that whether or not I understand why GW were so successful, I can't ignore that they were, and seem to continue to be.

This. I believe that the people running GW have more of a clue about how to run their business than the people posting on dakka. We might not like everything they do, but some choices are made of necessity, and for all the doom&gloom, they're still here. FASA, Ral Partha, Grenadier, and so many others aren't.

**mikhaila**

Redbeard wrote:
mikhaila wrote:I've seen so many game companies go away over the last couple of decades, that I have to conclude that whether or not I understand why GW were so successful, I can't ignore that they were, and seem to continue to be.

This. I believe that the people running GW have more of a clue about how to run their business than the people posting on dakka. We might not like everything they do, but some choices are made of necessity, and for all the doom&gloom, they're still here. FASA, Ral Partha, Grenadier, and so many others aren't.

Warzone from Heartbreaker (personally disturbing as they were 5 miles away and I knew all the guys), Star Wars from WEG, all the Confrontation variants, AT-43, SST, the near future thing from Mongoose with terrorists and marines, Railwars and all of Pinnacle, Rifts on lifesupport, no more DnD skirmish, Vor, Celtos, Leviathan, Grim Reaper........

**Artemo**

A lot of GW's success was built on turning their shops from stocking a range of board wargames, figures and rpgs from a variety of producers to pure GW outlets and then heavily investing in expanding that chain when most such outlets were struggling in the UK and so becoming the only game (shop) in town. Turning White Dwarf from a general rpg magazine to a pure Warhammer/C one was an act of genius -- though I despised them for it at the time.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I agree completely that they know their own business best. They've made maybe one fairly serious misjudgement in all the years they've been in business -- LotR. Maybe two -- not embracing the internet more could be another.

**Kilkrazy**

LoTR made them immense amounts of money. I would say it was one of the best decisions they ever made.

The mistake was thinking that the money was there to stay, not just a temporary side-effect of the films. They spent a lot of it on unsustainable expansion which had to be scaled back when the bubble burst.

However the core reason for GW's success is that teenage boys can't get enough Space Marines.

**Andrew1975**

I've seen so many game companies go away over the last couple of decades, that I have to conclude that whether or not I understand why GW were so successful, I can't ignore that they were, and seem to continue to be.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I think that they have been very successful. I think they have done a lot of good. I just think there is much they can do better. Their main problem right now is that they have a giant ego and there is a lack of serious competition. The US automakers were riding high and put their interests above their customers. We all know what happened next.

Warzone from Heartbreaker

I really liked that game. It's too bad that it fell apart just as it was going through the massive revisions it needed to become truly playable. As it was it wasn't terrible and I really likes some of the mechanics much better, but it really had a lot of bugs as some of it's mechanics were pretty awful. The 1st ed miniatures sucked for the most part, but they were getting better, the plastics that they came out with were vastly superior to the plastics that GW was producing at the time! Even some of the last Bauhaus metals like the Dragoons and Jaegers were better than what GW was producing at the time. Void was also not so bad.

The problem is that once one game claims complete dominance as GW has. It's hard to enter the market and be successful and compete directly. Warmahordes is not a direct competitor to 40k, its a different type of game entirely. Warzone was a direct competitor, pretty much on the same scale, just different mechanics. It will really be hard to unseat 40k from it's place as the king of sci fi mini battles.

I think to compete someone would really have to make a generic type of game where you could use your old 40K minis. Who really wants to invest in a whole new game. That is how GW has us by the sack, but that is exactly how they started. You were actually encouraged to use whatever you had.

**filbert**

Andrew1975 wrote:
I've seen so many game companies go away over the last couple of decades, that I have to conclude that whether or not I understand why GW were so successful, I can't ignore that they were, and seem to continue to be.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I think that they have been very successful. I think they have done a lot of good. I just think there is much they can do better. Their main problem right now is that they have a giant ego and there is a lack of serious competition. The US automakers were riding high and put their interests above their customers. We all know what happened next.

A little from column A and a little from column B for me. Clearly, GW are and have been a successfully run business; you don't survive and prosper for 30+ years without being so. That being said, I think the GW of today are bloated, overblown and complacent, Its a point that MGS likes to hammer home and its one I happen to agree with; the best thing for us as consumers and for GW as a business would be for some serious competition to enter the market and exert pressure.

Just because GW are a corporate entity does not mean they don't make mistakes and does not mean they are infallible. In fact, in a market where they are so dominant the opposite is more likely to be true. I think it behooves us all as consumers to press and harry GW and ensure that they strive for excellence and value. At the moment, I don't think that happens enough.

**Scott-S6**

Andrew1975 wrote:I think to compete someone would really have to make a generic type of game where you could use your old 40K minis.

Stargrunt2.

It's free.

And with unit quality and motivation as the core mechanics, it actually represents the immense difference in dangerous-ness of humans, marines, orks, etc better than 40K does.

Games with heavy use of counters bug me though.

**mikhaila**

filbert wrote:
Andrew1975 wrote:
I've seen so many game companies go away over the last couple of decades, that I have to conclude that whether or not I understand why GW were so successful, I can't ignore that they were, and seem to continue to be.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I think that they have been very successful. I think they have done a lot of good. I just think there is much they can do better. Their main problem right now is that they have a giant ego and there is a lack of serious competition. The US automakers were riding high and put their interests above their customers. We all know what happened next.

A little from column A and a little from column B for me. Clearly, GW are and have been a successfully run business; you don't survive and prosper for 30+ years without being so. That being said, I think the GW of today are bloated, overblown and complacent, Its a point that MGS likes to hammer home and its one I happen to agree with; the best thing for us as consumers and for GW as a business would be for some serious competition to enter the market and exert pressure.

Just because GW are a corporate entity does not mean they don't make mistakes and does not mean they are infallible. In fact, in a market where they are so dominant the opposite is more likely to be true. I think it behooves us all as consumers to press and harry GW and ensure that they strive for excellence and value. At the moment, I don't think that happens enough.

I totally agree. I wish people should encourage GW to strive for excellence, and I don't think it happens enough. The encouragement part.) I see a ton of people yelling and screaming on the internet, and wanting GW to do what they think is right.)

Do I think GW always makes the best moves? Nope. But I also have some serious doubts that a bunch of armchair internet quarterbacks know how to run GW better than they do.

**Andrew1975**

Scott-S6 wrote:
Andrew1975 wrote:I think to compete someone would really have to make a generic type of game where you could use your old 40K minis.

Stargrunt2.

It's free.

And with unit quality and motivation as the core mechanics, it actually represents the immense difference in dangerous-ness of humans, marines, orks, etc better than 40K does.

Games with heavy use of counters bug me though.

You know, I've heard good things and bad things about this. I read through the rules, they seam pretty good. There were some things that I thought were off, but I can't remember what they were. I have no problem with counters. I used to, but i got over it when I started playing space marine, with all the order counters.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

I totally agree. I wish people should encourage GW to strive for excellence, and I don't think it happens enough. The encouragement part.) I see a ton of people yelling and screaming on the internet, and wanting GW to do what they think is right.)

Do I think GW always makes the best moves? Nope. But I also have some serious doubts that a bunch of armchair internet quarterbacks know how to run GW better than they do.

Well I think as far as praise goes, most people praise them with their wallets. That really seams like the only praise they are interested in now anyway. They don't really interact with their customers at all. I'd love to say that it is because they are too busy, but I don't think that is the case.

It's sad because I do remember when GW was very customer friendly, I thought they were one of the greatest companies on the planet and I really wanted to see them prosper, little did O know the corporate monster they would turn into. Their customer service was much worse than it is now actually (you really couldn't return anything, and if you got a misscast you were pretty sol), but they made up with it with personality and interaction.

I mean I know it is sometimes easier to do these things when you are a little company. BUt when you can't have a forum on your own page, because, lets face it, it would be all griping. Then there is a problem.

**mikhaila**

Andrew1975 wrote: I mean I know it is sometimes easier to do these things when you are a little company. BUt when you can't have a forum on your own page, because, lets face it, it would be all griping. Then there is a problem.

There is a problem, but I think it's the nature of the internet. People who are happy with something rarely post. People upset post a ton, and pound topics and other people into oblivion. GW got rid of their forums because they were a no win situation. I'm surprised they are even trying facebook. People want to complain on the GW forums, and GW can either police the forums (pissing people off further by telling them to behave), or not police then, (and forums become a snakepit.)

And they don't need a forum. We can all discuss any aspect of the hobby we want on countless forums. People only want GW to have a forum specifically so they complain on them. I really don't see why they'd want to deal with it.

And yes, it is one hell of a lot easier to do a lot of things when you are a little company. I'm very happy they aren't one though. I don't miss the early days at all of seeing cool models in white dwarf and yet never being able to get most of the sculpts in the states, and the fights with distributors to carry the product.

**Kilkrazy**

Well, hum, I'm not so sure.

Just about every other model and game company in the world has forums and they aren't full of griping and complaints.

I guess that's because they are smaller companies and find it easier to please all of the people all of the time because they have a focus on the system their customers like.

OTOH if GW are unable to please more than a fraction of their userbase any of the time, maybe they are simply too large. As a customer I don't care how big or small a company is, I just care if they are providing the goods and services I want. As a Tyranid and Tau player, I don't have much to thank GW for at the moment, and a sixth colour of Space Marines codex won't help.

I used to go on the Eye of Terror until they shut it down. It wasn't all moaning and griping. There was plenty of positive stuff too and the moderators were good.

**filbert**

Mantic has their own forum - OK so perhaps not fair to make a like for like comparison to GW, but on the whole, the Mantic forum is a pretty positive place.

**Sidstyler**

mikhaila wrote: I wish people should encourage GW to strive for excellence

So we should be encouraging them to raise prices to even more ridiculous heights? Charge us even more and give us even shoddier quality with each passing year? What exactly are we supposed to be "encouraging" then?

Besides, we do tell them "Good job!" and give them that gold star when they've earned it, case in point the Dark Eldar razorwing. Fantastic model at an unusually reasonable price, I like it. I love it even, despite all of GW's bs I'm actually considering picking up three of them now whenever I can come up with the cash for it (probably won't be for a few months though). And how did they supposedly react to that praise? They got upset, and now they want to institute a total information blackout, they want to silence the rumor mongers "permanently" because the razorwing was spoiled too early. What the feth.

Apparently, even if you do tell GW they did good, they don't care. GW does what GW wants, customers be damned. And it's that kind of attitude that's going to drive them into the gakker. Yeah, they're still around when other properties have crumbled and failed, but how much longer do you expect that to last when according to their financial reports, sales keep going down, and the only way they can make a profit is by doing massive cutbacks? The only strategy they have is "raise prices!" and that's not going to keep them around forever.

**Redbeard**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Just about every other model and game company in the world has forums and they aren't full of griping and complaints.

I guess that's because they are smaller companies and find it easier to please all of the people all of the time because they have a focus on the system their customers like.

I don't know about that. I think GW suffers from more than its share of hostility. I read a blog post from Blame It On The Dice that pointed out how GW suffers negative backlash from behaviours that are excused or praised in other companies. Here's some of that post:

Blame It On The Dice wrote:
Most people know that GW is an evil faceless corporation, and the PP is the gods gift to gaming. Here are some examples of how that bias plays out in the communities' reactions:

GW raises prices: OMG GW IS EVIL AND WANTS TO STEAL ALL MY MONEY!
PP raises prices: Have you seen the commodities prices on metal? It's the only logical choice for Privateer to stay in business.
(Fun Fact #1: The last round of Privateer price increases where in the 10-25% range. I can't find the exact numbers because PP has reset their forums since then).

Privateer switches to plastic: Have you seen the commodities prices on metal? It's the only logical choice for Privateer to stay in business.
GW switches to resin: WHAT! THEY WANT ME TO PAY MORE FOR LESS!! GW IS EVIL AND WANTS TO STEAL ALL MY MONEY AND EAT BABIES!
(Fun Fact #2: Plastic versions of older PP metal releases are 4 to 5 dollars more expensive.)

Privateer releases army books: You expect them to put all the units in one book? There are like a thousand of them, this way I can only buy the ones that I need.
GW releases a new codex: My army sucks now, and I have to buy 12 books in order to compete! GW IS EVIL AND WANTS TO STEAL ALL MY MONEY!
(Fun Fact #3: You still need unit cards for Privateer games if you carried you collection over from the last edition. That would be the forth version of the faction cards yet released)

GW releases a unit that costs $90: I can't afford to play this game anymore! GW IS EVIL AND WANTS TO STEAL ALL MY MONEY!
Privateer releases an unit that costs $90: Wow! This model is so beautiful!, and if you can't afford it, you don't have to buy it.

PP can't supply its distributors with product: Look how popular their game is! They can't even get it in stock so I can buy it.
GW can't supply its distributors with product: ...umm, not sure that that has ever happened but I expect the response to be something akin to - GW IS EVIL AND WANTS TO STEAL ALL MY MONEY!

Think about it. Privateer gets cut slack on doing a lot of the things that GW does. There are people who complain about privateer when they do things, just as there are people who defend GW. But in my experience, people are much more likely to accept that GW's reasons are for malice, and that Privateer's are the results of some hard decision where the customers ultimately come first. It's all spin and what we expect from the companies involved.

Here, people continually disregard anything that demonstrates that GW might be making smart decisions, in favour of their own little universe where they're a business expert and could do it better. I posted, in one of these threads, a list of prices for single figures from CMON, many of which were more expensive than a similar character model from GW. Rather than accept this, the responses would concentrate on the one or two cheaper models (disregarding the many more expensive ones), or try to invalidate the model I happened to click on from any given company.

I posted links to the consumer price index site, showing that Beef, Milk, Cheese, and Eggs are all up more than 10% from their price last year. I know this first-hand because I do grocery shopping in my house. Coffee is up a whopping 40%. Gasoline is up something like 20%. These are real-world prices. There are so many different threads on these topics though, that I don't recall where I put those links. But when I brought them up in another thread, rather than see anyone acknowledge that stuff is more expensive, I got someone yelling at me about how the burden of proving these stats was on me, and there went that discussion. (Last I checked, this was called a discussion forum, not a debate forum).

It seems like the anti-GW bias is so strong that no one is even willing to consider why they're making decisions or that other companies are making the same decisions. It's just GW is stupid and/or evil. After a while, the voices of reason just go away.

**Kilkrazy**

Without prejudice to your points...

You have to ask why people hate GW enough to see the negative in everything they do.

Is it just the perversity of hating success?

**Redbeard**

I don't know. In America, I know there is a tradition of hating winners and cheering for the underdog. GW is also a non-US company, so that might have something to do with it?

It could be that people are unhappy about the pricing, and so rather than try to understand and see it from the other side, they assume that because it is bad for them it must be so intentionally. "GW made something I like more expensive (or, in some cases, so expensive that I have to give it up), therefore I hate GW." It's easy to see that cause and effect. It takes a little more insight and a little more research to figure out why GW raised the prices, and if you don't want to put that effort out there, greed is an easy motivation to assign.

**Artemo**

I think the volume of GW haters is probably as high in the UK. I suspect it's possibly because there are just more people who've bought their product and so more complain about price rises etc. But also there's no doubt that small companies are cut more slack than big ones when it comes to retail operations. Maybe because the people who respond to complaints tend to identify with the company they work for a bit more, or because it's easier to get to complain to someone who can deal with your complaint in a satisfactory manner sooner. Though in fairness some large companies have exemplary customer service (GW's is okay, the phone monkeys don't seem very efficient on the whole but they have always managed to sort out my problems on the second attempt, just never the first for some reason. But any time I've had a problem with an order, it's always been upgraded to next day shupping free of charge without me asking).

I'd like to see GW make more of an effort with clarity in their rules and codices but I can't honestly complain too much about their pricing policy (yes I'd like their product to be cheaper, but for what is that not true?)

**Sturmtruppe**

Redbeard wrote:It seems like the anti-GW bias is so strong that no one is even willing to consider why they're making decisions or that other companies are making the same decisions. It's just GW is stupid and/or evil. After a while, the voices of reason just go away.

I've been thinking this for awhile now. Some of their policies don't seem to make sense and I miss when the company seemed more hobby-oriented, but perhaps there is a salient reason that the rest of us don't know about. Being a Liverpool FC fan, I know all about directing my anger at ownership rather than the brand as a whole.

**mikhaila**

Sidstyler wrote:
mikhaila wrote: I wish people should encourage GW to strive for excellence

So we should be encouraging them to raise prices to even more ridiculous heights? Charge us even more and give us even shoddier quality with each passing year? What exactly are we supposed to be "encouraging" then?

Besides, we do tell them "Good job!" and give them that gold star when they've earned it, case in point the Dark Eldar razorwing. Fantastic model at an unusually reasonable price, I like it. I love it even, despite all of GW's bs I'm actually considering picking up three of them now whenever I can come up with the cash for it (probably won't be for a few months though). And how did they supposedly react to that praise? They got upset, and now they want to institute a total information blackout, they want to silence the rumor mongers "permanently" because the razorwing was spoiled too early. What the feth.

Apparently, even if you do tell GW they did good, they don't care. GW does what GW wants, customers be damned. And it's that kind of attitude that's going to drive them into the gakker. Yeah, they're still around when other properties have crumbled and failed, but how much longer do you expect that to last when according to their financial reports, sales keep going down, and the only way they can make a profit is by doing massive cutbacks? The only strategy they have is "raise prices!" and that's not going to keep them around forever.

My post makes a bit more sense when you realize it was the guy before me that had the "encourage GW to excellance" line.) Mine was a bit of sarcasm, based on the idea that no one actually does it, just gripes.) You have to remember that while you have a large percentage of the Sarcasm Market, some of us still have small supplies.

**Achaylus72**

Creeping Dementia wrote:I've been wondering this for the past couple years, ever since i first heard of problems GW had with overhead involved in keeping their physical stores afloat. Where I live, there isn't a GW store in hundreds of miles, I'm not sure where the closest one is, but I know there isn't one in my State, and I don't know of one in an adjacent state either. We do have a couple FLGS in the area, with around 6 within an hours drive. These stores have plenty of tables and terrain, hold regular tournaments, and are able to exist and turn a profit without corporate support. Is there something remarkable about GW stores I'm missing?

With the market able to support FLGSs, what is the point of GW stores?

Well i just did a search of the closest GW Store near you, well Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho don't have any, but the closest GW is GW Union Landing over 500 milles away in California, if you start walking now you may get there by Christmas