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Critical mass is very important in table top wargames, like in any industry. 40K continues to sell well, even though alot of people do not like it, because it is easy to find a game. LOTR does not have critical mass. It does not seem that GW is drawing lots of new blood into the Hobbit, despite the success of the film. This makes GWs statements about new players being their main customers look like a lot of hot air.

Just how big was the Lord of the Rings game? I seem to remember playing around the Two Towers time, and it was still the third-tier game at my gaming club back then.

No one in my group of gamers is interested in a Hobbit or Lord of the Rings miniatures game. I bought some of the smaller orks several years ago from the original Lord of the Rings set to make excellent goblins for D&D, though.

 spaceelf wrote:
Critical mass is very important in table top wargames, like in any industry. 40K continues to sell well, even though alot of people do not like it, because it is easy to find a game. LOTR does not have critical mass. It does not seem that GW is drawing lots of new blood into the Hobbit, despite the success of the film. This makes GWs statements about new players being their main customers look like a lot of hot air.

It depends where you live. World wide 40k is obviously a behemoth. My 2 local gaming clubs, though, LOTR is more popular than 40k and about equal popularity as Fantasy. 40k is big if you go to the GW stores themselves and see what people are doing, but at the clubs, it's mostly LOTR and Fantasy and then a bunch of other non-GW games.

The game itself is an uninteresting concept compared to the LOTR game. There you could play human armies against orcs and other monstrosities of Sauron. Here it's dwarves against ugly looking dumb monsters.

GW doesn't help this by having it obscenely expensive or refusing to market it properly.

 filbert wrote:

Backfire wrote:


GW does not, obviously, want to teach the playerbase to "I'll buy it when it's in discount bin"...

Meh - it works for other companies and in other sectors. Sales are not in and of themselves a bad thing; you can use them to clear old stock, to generate sales and revenue during a lean spell etc etc - 'sale' is not a dirty word.

Actually, how most other industries do it (DVD, clothes etc) is that first wave of customers are ripped off with perceived 'advantage' of early purchase, then latecomers get reasonable deals.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
No Hobbit players in our meta and on the "hobbit" day, the tables were filled with people playing 40k

The box sucks though. I love LotR and all about it, but seriously, a box where you can either play as mentally slowed ugly creatures or a bunch of dwarves?

Not excited at all.

If Jackson was smart he'd have changed the 13 dwarves to hawt elf chicks instead.

Ah well.

pointy ears are sexy.

That is all.

Backfire wrote:


Actually, how most other industries do it (DVD, clothes etc) is that first wave of customers are ripped off with perceived 'advantage' of early purchase, then latecomers get reasonable deals.

As opposed to being continually ripped off with GW prices then?

 filbert wrote:

Backfire wrote:


Actually, how most other industries do it (DVD, clothes etc) is that first wave of customers are ripped off with perceived 'advantage' of early purchase, then latecomers get reasonable deals.

As opposed to being continually ripped off with GW prices then?

Yes. Everybody gets to pay the same price, it's much fairer towards the customers.

Backfire wrote:

 filbert wrote:

Backfire wrote:


Actually, how most other industries do it (DVD, clothes etc) is that first wave of customers are ripped off with perceived 'advantage' of early purchase, then latecomers get reasonable deals.

As opposed to being continually ripped off with GW prices then?

Yes. Everybody gets to pay the same price, it's much fairer towards the customers.

Uhm...people know that stuff gets cheaper after a while that's been released. How is it "unfair" if you decided to buy it asap?

 Sigvatr wrote:

Uhm...people know that stuff gets cheaper after a while that's been released. How is it "unfair" if you decided to buy it asap?

Seller is taking advantage of your urgency to get the product.

Backfire wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

Uhm...people know that stuff gets cheaper after a while that's been released. How is it "unfair" if you decided to buy it asap?

Seller is taking advantage of your urgency to get the product.

Blaming the seller is a very wrong train of thought. Every proper country is based on capitalism. In a capitalist environment, it's the buyer who decides on the market and thus the buyer is to blame for buying a product. Claiming that the seller is "taking advantage" of someone's urgency of a product is a wrong statement as he does nothing but making an offer. He does not force people to buy the new product. Furthermore, the buyer is even aware of the fact that he can get the same product for a lower price if he waits for a certain period of time.

Blaming the buyer is irrational.

 Harriticus wrote:
The game itself is an uninteresting concept compared to the LOTR game. There you could play human armies against orcs and other monstrosities of Sauron. Here it's dwarves against ugly looking dumb monsters.GW doesn't help this by having it obscenely expensive or refusing to market it properly.

Really?

I'm pretty confident that the new rules allow use of all the forces from the LOTR game. At least my copy does.

Yup, it does.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

Uhm...people know that stuff gets cheaper after a while that's been released. How is it "unfair" if you decided to buy it asap?

Seller is taking advantage of your urgency to get the product.

Blaming the seller is a very wrong train of thought. Every proper country is based on capitalism. In a capitalist environment, it's the buyer who decides on the market and thus the buyer is to blame for buying a product. Claiming that the seller is "taking advantage" of someone's urgency of a product is a wrong statement as he does nothing but making an offer. He does not force people to buy the new product.

Which still does not change the fact that seller is price gouging, just as bad (IMHO, much worse) than GW with their "constantly high prices" model.

Backfire wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

Uhm...people know that stuff gets cheaper after a while that's been released. How is it "unfair" if you decided to buy it asap?

Seller is taking advantage of your urgency to get the product.

Blaming the seller is a very wrong train of thought. Every proper country is based on capitalism. In a capitalist environment, it's the buyer who decides on the market and thus the buyer is to blame for buying a product. Claiming that the seller is "taking advantage" of someone's urgency of a product is a wrong statement as he does nothing but making an offer. He does not force people to buy the new product.

Which still does not change the fact that seller is price gouging, just as bad (IMHO, much worse) than GW with their "constantly high prices" model.

It's what the customers want...I fail to see how you can blame the company?

I personally like it more than I thought I wood, although the prices have driven me away with this, some of the prices are outrageous! But that's just me.

As for the film I saw it the day it came out and absolutely adored it :'D

Backfire wrote:
Which still does not change the fact that seller is price gouging, just as bad (IMHO, much worse) than GW with their "constantly high prices" model.

Supply and demand. At release, there's many customers who demand DVDs/Vide games, so prices are high. 6 months later, the rate of sales is a fraction of what it was at launch, so the price falls to increase the appeal of the product.

If they released it for a lower price to start with, they wouldn't cover development costs for many video games. If they kept it at a high price long after release, they wouldn't get the trickle of sales that comes later.

What's far more annoying is price differences between countries.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Backfire wrote:
Which still does not change the fact that seller is price gouging, just as bad (IMHO, much worse) than GW with their "constantly high prices" model.

Supply and demand. At release, there's many customers who demand DVDs/Vide games, so prices are high. 6 months later, the rate of sales is a fraction of what it was at launch, so the price falls to increase the appeal of the product.

If they released it for a lower price to start with, they wouldn't cover development costs for many video games. If they kept it at a high price long after release, they wouldn't get the trickle of sales that comes later.

What's far more annoying is price differences between countries.

The latter case is where your example loses value though as you can buy video games from everywhere at the price you want. I, e.g. buy my computer games with my US steam account and thus save a whole lot of money. Can't do that with miniatures (or only to a lesser extent)

Of the places that decided to carry it near me, some are already heavily 30%+ discounting the limited boxes to dump them.

This is a first and would suggest at least in some regions, the release was a total fail.

Californiagamer wrote:
Of the places that decided to carry it near me, some are already heavily 30%+ discounting the limited boxes to dump them.

This is a first and would suggest at least in some regions, the release was a total fail.

Where is that? After the film I'm actually tempted by the box set (if I can get it at about 20+% off)

Herzlos wrote:

Californiagamer wrote:
Of the places that decided to carry it near me, some are already heavily 30%+ discounting the limited boxes to dump them.

This is a first and would suggest at least in some regions, the release was a total fail.

Where is that? After the film I'm actually tempted by the box set (if I can get it at about 20+% off)

Im sure these will turn up on ebay soon at 50% off (60 US for the limited box).

The ones I saw are at small indy retailers in California, so I dont expect they will be of much use to you in Scotland..

Thanks

In saying that, I've found it at 15% off (£63) online and I'm not convinced enough to hit 'Buy'

 Sigvatr wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Backfire wrote:
Which still does not change the fact that seller is price gouging, just as bad (IMHO, much worse) than GW with their "constantly high prices" model.

Supply and demand. At release, there's many customers who demand DVDs/Vide games, so prices are high. 6 months later, the rate of sales is a fraction of what it was at launch, so the price falls to increase the appeal of the product.

If they released it for a lower price to start with, they wouldn't cover development costs for many video games. If they kept it at a high price long after release, they wouldn't get the trickle of sales that comes later.

What's far more annoying is price differences between countries.

The latter case is where your example loses value though as you can buy video games from everywhere at the price you want. I, e.g. buy my computer games with my US steam account and thus save a whole lot of money. Can't do that with miniatures (or only to a lesser extent)

Steam uses a geo IP, you need a VPN or something to get US pricing in Steam, it reads your current location, not where your account was created, I have an Australian Steam account but am living in the US for a year so get US prices despite using an Australian CC and Australian address on an account created in Australia (same with Origin). Either way, it's a pain in the arse to get US pricing if you aren't in the US. Whether it be miniatures or video games, you can import them or order them from international websites, but it's a pain in the arse either way and annoying either way.

It's not as hard as you make it out to be - VPN tools are easy to use and get nowadays

...and given the amount of $ you save, it's well worth the price. A new AAA pc game costs 60€ in Germany and 60$ in the US, thus over at steam, I pay roughly 45€...that's 25% less.

I also use Hulu / Netflix

Look, I'm from Canada!

VPNs are easy.

I think my FLGS sold one set.

It doesn't seem to have a ton of interest and the price is...steep.

It mostly is the price and I still think that the units in it play an important role too. Back when I was 13 / 14, I did not care about those stupid Moria goblins or sth. The real stuff was the Fellowship and the Uruk-Hai, those intense battles at Helm's Deep etc. THAT was the stuff I cared about and I highly doubt youngsters think different now.

Mines of Moria starter set was about the iconic moments - the fellowship lost in the mines, swarmed by goblins. The epic fight at Durin's grave. The huge troll appearing!

EfGT is...lackluster. So what, a bunch of dwarves running from a bunch of goblins most of the time. The company never even seemed in danger in the movie. And the goblin king was justa joke. Remember the really menacing, brutal troll in LotR? The Goblin King is a pathetic weakling compared to him. An epic battle? Far from it.

I think that perhaps the problem is that, as some have noted, the film just didn't have any scenes featuring the main cast which suited conversion into a wargame. One, they run away from (Goblins); another they hide in trees from (Azog and wargs, etc); third they also run away from (wargs); fourth they fight with a bit, argue with a bit (Trolls).

The only scene that really looked like a wargame candidate is a flashback.

 Sigvatr wrote:
It mostly is the price and I still think that the units in it play an important role too. Back when I was 13 / 14, I did not care about those stupid Moria goblins or sth. The real stuff was the Fellowship and the Uruk-Hai, those intense battles at Helm's Deep etc. THAT was the stuff I cared about and I highly doubt youngsters think different now.

Mines of Moria starter set was about the iconic moments - the fellowship lost in the mines, swarmed by goblins. The epic fight at Durin's grave. The huge troll appearing!

EfGT is...lackluster. So what, a bunch of dwarves running from a bunch of goblins most of the time. The company never even seemed in danger in the movie. And the goblin king was justa joke. Remember the really menacing, brutal troll in LotR? The Goblin King is a pathetic weakling compared to him. An epic battle? Far from it.

What else was there to do? It was important to have the whole company in plastic in the box to start off. They COULD have put Warg riders in the box instead of Goblins but that would mean fewer models and a less justifiable price.

The two sets my LGS ordered are gone 2 weeks into stocking them. The rulebook also has gone.