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In a GW world, everything is a premium a should be paid for nowadays. This is why websites exist like Dakka that dispense free advice and alternate rules to use with your models. Just Dave for example has done his own home brew codices.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
From what I gather after timetowaste85 so graciously posted something that should have been in the OP (thankyou ) said book is not able to be purchased by independents and can olny be bought from the GW website and/or stores.

Surely this isn't the first time retailers have been unable to order something from GW? Why the outrage with this?

Plus it seems a little suspect that both the quoted retailers suddenly go "But Warmachine y'all!!! Buy that!!!".

Finally read through most the thread and agree, he is throwing a hissy fit because GW is selling a direct only book? I'm curious if he allows WMH players to use the Extreme or alternative sculpts that PP sells exclusively? Is he going to ban playing Kingdom Death or Sedition Wars (is there a street date?) at his store because they can't be bought through his store?

This sounds like an excuse to generate sales and push WMH at the store? Thought there was something more to this whole direct thing thread, but just an excuse for the usual anti-GW rants.

Note: Nothing directed at you HBMC, you just asked the question I was going to and everyone seemed to ignore.

silent25 wrote:
Finally read through most the thread and agree, he is throwing a hissy fit because GW is selling a direct only book? I'm curious if he allows WMH players to use the Extreme or alternative sculpts that PP sells exclusively? Is he going to ban playing Kingdom Death or Sedition Wars (is there a street date?) at his store because they can't be bought through his store?

Except there are two huge differences here:

1) Those companies (presumably) don't lie and evade when an independent retailer asks them about an upcoming product. If you've read this thread you've seen the statements from at least one independent store owner saying that they tried to contact GW for information about the book and how to get it for their customers and GW blatantly lied about it and said that they didn't know anything about a new release. And this was long after the point when the rumors had been confirmed past any real doubt and we all knew what was coming.

2) Those companies aren't taking away products that used to be available for independent retailers to sell. The expectation in the past was that direct-only products were the niche market stuff that didn't sell often enough to justify keeping it in stock in a retail store, but this is a core rulebook that people are going to expect to buy in a store. But now independent store owners have to tell their customers sorry, we can sell you a Storm Talon but GW won't let us sell you the rules. Why? Because GW makes more short-term profit that way.

In short, other companies aren't trying to screw over their retail stores just to make a bit of short-term profit at the expense of long-term business. And when a company views you as nothing more than a resource to be exploited, well, it's not really very hard to return the favor and ban the offending product.

"Dear Games Workshop. You have made it less than desirable to sell your games and allow our place space to be used for your exclusive sales to the customers we take care of. For that reason all content in your new Aerial Combat Book is banned for all of our events. The book will not be allowed in our stores and is considered contraband.

If your customers spend most of their hobby money in YOUR store, for example $82.50 on a Stormraven, etc., you might NOT want to ban them from using the rules for those models in your store, it's punishing them not GW and they may go elsewhere. It seems to me someone didn't think that through carefully and the unintended consequences could cost your little retail hobby store a number of customers.

However, the plan to entice customers to switch to other game systems by offering incentives for doing so is brilliant and strikes right at GW while leaving your customers free to enjoy whatever game they wish.

silent25 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
From what I gather after timetowaste85 so graciously posted something that should have been in the OP (thankyou ) said book is not able to be purchased by independents and can olny be bought from the GW website and/or stores.

Surely this isn't the first time retailers have been unable to order something from GW? Why the outrage with this?

Plus it seems a little suspect that both the quoted retailers suddenly go "But Warmachine y'all!!! Buy that!!!".

Finally read through most the thread and agree, he is throwing a hissy fit because GW is selling a direct only book? I'm curious if he allows WMH players to use the Extreme or alternative sculpts that PP sells exclusively? Is he going to ban playing Kingdom Death or Sedition Wars (is there a street date?) at his store because they can't be bought through his store?

This sounds like an excuse to generate sales and push WMH at the store? Thought there was something more to this whole direct thing thread, but just an excuse for the usual anti-GW rants.

Note: Nothing directed at you HBMC, you just asked the question I was going to and everyone seemed to ignore.

Don't know about the first store in the blog post, but Black Diamond does have a few blog posts on their sales breakdowns in 2012:

http://blackdiamondgames.blogspot.com/2013/01/how-we-did-in-2012.html
http://blackdiamondgames.blogspot.com/2012/12/top-game-companies-2012.html
http://blackdiamondgames.blogspot.com/2012/11/top-10-games-of-2012-ccg-boom.html

The tl;dr version (don't live near the store, so couldn't say for sure):

1. The store carries mostly PP and GW in terms of miniatures: based on the reply to a commenter from Wyrd they probably don't carry a lot of the smaller wargames like Malifaux, Infinity, etc. (or at least not in quantities above the "Coca Cola line").

2. PP's base is growing at the store, while GW's is stagnant or shrinking.

3. If you're getting fed up of dealing with GW but want to keep your tabletop customers, why not try encouraging them to jump ship to another miniatures game that's popular at the store?

Ignoring that the post offering the trade in has been deleted after it stirred up controversy, the idea seems to be driven more by game store pragmatism rather than any sort of affection for PP.

 Nagashek wrote:
One wonders if, since this is English only, do the NON-English FAQ's just include the changes properly and for free, or simply leave the WD rules intact and in place?

I can't speak for any other country, but since there is no Japanese edition of WD, there is no basis for comparison.

In the Ork FAQ, all the stuff about flyers has been struck out, with a note added to refer to the "Death from the Skies" supplement, with a Japanese PDF to be announced "at a future date."

nobody needs to buy this stupid book.

if a black templar or vanilla wants to use the raven just say that your friend plays blood angels/grey knights so you already memorized the rules for the stormraven.

as long as you have your main codex it would very VERY dickheadish of them to say anything. If they press the issue tell them youre not going to spend 40 bucks for a single page of rules that you already know. if they still want to be donkey-caves about then leave.

kb305 wrote:
If they press the issue tell them youre not going to spend 40 bucks for a single page of rules that you already know.

Which is useful if you know the rules...

 Peregrine wrote:

silent25 wrote:
Finally read through most the thread and agree, he is throwing a hissy fit because GW is selling a direct only book? I'm curious if he allows WMH players to use the Extreme or alternative sculpts that PP sells exclusively? Is he going to ban playing Kingdom Death or Sedition Wars (is there a street date?) at his store because they can't be bought through his store?

Except there are two huge differences here:

1) Those companies (presumably) don't lie and evade when an independent retailer asks them about an upcoming product. If you've read this thread you've seen the statements from at least one independent store owner saying that they tried to contact GW for information about the book and how to get it for their customers and GW blatantly lied about it and said that they didn't know anything about a new release. And this was long after the point when the rumors had been confirmed past any real doubt and we all knew what was coming.

2) Those companies aren't taking away products that used to be available for independent retailers to sell. The expectation in the past was that direct-only products were the niche market stuff that didn't sell often enough to justify keeping it in stock in a retail store, but this is a core rulebook that people are going to expect to buy in a store. But now independent store owners have to tell their customers sorry, we can sell you a Storm Talon but GW won't let us sell you the rules. Why? Because GW makes more short-term profit that way.

In short, other companies aren't trying to screw over their retail stores just to make a bit of short-term profit at the expense of long-term business. And when a company views you as nothing more than a resource to be exploited, well, it's not really very hard to return the favor and ban the offending product.

Except that isn't what the original announcement from the store is about. He only complained about not being able sell the book and banning people playing it. You are adding other people's stories to justify it. If those other reasons were the cause, it should have been mentioned. The original announcement was nothing more than a blatant sales pitch. Given what people some posters said about the store, GW sales were never an issue at the store.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chozo wrote:

The tl;dr version (don't live near the store, so couldn't say for sure):

1. The store carries mostly PP and GW in terms of miniatures: based on the reply to a commenter from Wyrd they probably don't carry a lot of the smaller wargames like Malifaux, Infinity, etc. (or at least not in quantities above the "Coca Cola line").

2. PP's base is growing at the store, while GW's is stagnant or shrinking.

3. If you're getting fed up of dealing with GW but want to keep your tabletop customers, why not try encouraging them to jump ship to another miniatures game that's popular at the store?

Ignoring that the post offering the trade in has been deleted after it stirred up controversy, the idea seems to be driven more by game store pragmatism rather than any sort of affection for PP.

Except that Black Diamond Games did say that the PP sales do not makeup for the lost GW sales. Even if there are more players in a game system, if it doesn't generate sales, it doesn't help the store.

One interesting thing that I just noticed is that the Black Diamond Games post about banning Death From The Skies and encouraging people to trade in 40k rulebooks in exchange for discounted Warmahordes miniatures seems to have been removed from their website.

silent25 wrote:
Except that isn't what the original announcement from the store is about. He only complained about not being able sell the book and banning people playing it. You are adding other people's stories to justify it. If those other reasons were the cause, it should have been mentioned. The original announcement was nothing more than a blatant sales pitch. Given what people some posters said about the store, GW sales were never an issue at the store.

Just as a quick FYI - the letter from was from Pat Fuge, CEO of Gnome Games to GW. This was not posted on the store's facebook or website. This was basically the final straw for Pat from what I can tell. There have been many issues over the years with GW, especially recently with products arriving well after the release dates. As a customer of the store, it is a pain in the butt when I have to wait an extra week to get GW's monthly advertising flyer from any of the local stores because they chose not to ship it out until after the official street date.

Having to tell customers on a regular basis that you can't guarantee their special order items will be coming (not just soon, but ever) is pretty crappy to deal with. This has been an issue for awhile, especially when the finecast fiasco first hit.

TLDR: This is simply the most recent in a long line of gakky treatment of the FLGS by GW.

 nolzur wrote:
[quote=silent25 508055 5298086 null

Having to tell customers on a regular basis that you can't guarantee their special order items will be coming (not just soon, but ever) is pretty crappy to deal with. This has been an issue for awhile, especially when the finecast fiasco first hit.

Makes it sort of hard to buy things. That being the point of a retail business makes GW mind boggling in some ways. They should be giving the stores selling their products plenty of love. Without those places I wouldn't have anywhere to play without even one of these mythical GW stores anywhere as far as the eye can see... and I'm certainly not buying expensive models from their online-store for just basement gaming.

If the rules for a model are not available in the codex/army book for the army in question, then clearly Games Workshop is providing faulty product and it is up to GW customer service to provide a correct replacement.

Perhaps a photocopy of the page with the rules for the model when you buy it will do till GW correct their mistake and print correct books.

;-)

 Kingsley wrote:
To be honest, if any store owner tells me not to play with official Games Workshop products at that store, I'm going to stop playing (and buying) at that store at all. This strategy might work in places where the store is "the only game in town," but I have many choices for stores to attend and if some of them decide not to support the game system I play, I'm out.

I had a GW manager say he would not allow people to use codexes from the Apple book store sold by GW in the store because "they could be pirated" even after I explained a fool proof way to check that would require hacking the Apple store computers to fake. It was obvious the real problem was that people weren't buying in his store. He was ******* entitled and had absolutely now understanding of the value of money. He did not understand it at all when I told him that no one was going to spend $40 for an electronic codex and another $40 for the paper codex. He was a completely entitled idiot about money. He was also a total jerk about it. He was a **** to Dondrekhan about buying sth that he repeated said he didn't have money repeatedly. He later lied about it. I should have mentioned that it's possible to find out about character by asking a known question. We both reported him to the company, and I'm pretty sure he got fired.

 Goliath wrote:
If they made rules for models, and then designed models to go with those rules, then maybe I could accept them being referred to as a "Game company", but they don't. They make models, and then happen to make rules that go with them.

Really?
The Harpy would like a word with you.
The Tervigon as well - 2 years with no model.
Doom of Malantai - no model yet. Also the Parasite of Mortrex. And the Tyranid Prime.
Flyrant - no model for how long? 3rd edition was the first Flyrant?
Dark Eldar were missing quite a few models for a long time as well.

The statement that they make models first and then rules for them is demonstrably false.

Too bad.. exclusive is one thing, misleading is another

I dont think that move will have a lot of impact. Nevertheless i additionally think that doing nothing and just swallowing up the bullcrap GW is throwing at us hobbyists is doing even less.

In my gaming club 40k and Fantasy are still the main systems but the new thing is that people tend to play a LOT of alternatives.

A year ago there were two systems played at our place. 40k and Fantasy. Nowadays we have Flames of War, WarmaHordes, Songs of Blades and Heroes, Dreadball, Infinity and a lot more indy games that are regularly played. No one bought a new GW army since last years price hike.

The money that went into these games went to GW in the past. We are not stupid enough to think this has an impact on gw nor is this the main reason to try other stuff.

If you want to try something new i encourage you to do it. Just not do it because you think you hurt GW this way. Do it because models/rules/fluff hook you up.

 Kanluwen wrote:

What lawsuit could the store counter with though?

I mean this as a genuine question, I'm sure one of the Dakka Lawyer Brigade will show up and answer it at some point.

IANAL.

It's a big stretch but the Sherman Act and other aspects of anti-trust laws may apply. The law's intent and enforcement attempts to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restriction of trade and supply. GW could be construed as being in breach of this act by creating a hostile environment in which they are able to manipulate costs to their benefit and to the detriment of retail competitors. Don't like discounts given by stores? Charge more and refuse them access to your products. One aspect of the law is to limit predatory practices that restrict competition.

More appropriate, possibly, would be the Clayton Antitrust Act and the Robinson-Patman Act which expanded protections to include exclusive dealing agreements, tying arrangements, price discrimination between different purchasers. None of which GW appears to be in breech of at the moment; however, if they refused to sell their products to a store of good standing (financially) at the same rate as other "equally-situated distributors", I could see a cause for action.

Has anyone read or heard an official GW rationale behind restricting supply of the supplement?

I'll ask again since noone seems to have noticed when I first asked...

By now, most everyone has come to terms with the fact that FW rules will not always be accepted. They are additional, optional rules that many tournament organizers often ban from their events.

Considering that the only distinction between FW and GW rules is, technically, that FW is a direct-only exclusive, how come when the same ban is applied to GW's new live of direct-exclusives, some people are now ready to pull out their pitchforks?

@player not found tbh I personally view that FWs newer books should indeed be considered a part of "normal 40K" mainly the ones with the "for 40k" stamps on the pages. However yes I can see a parallel in this instance with how the FW rules are currently treated and these new direct only rules updates. For me the fact it is only in the English language further reinforces my thoughts that these should not be binding as it excludes a large swathe of the gaming community on that basis alone. This combined with lack of availability (it is already sold out) means that there are probably less gamers with access to these new rules than have access to FW.

If this book is unavailable for FLGS to sell, but yet the models are available to be sold...then you have a situation in which FLGS are selling an incomplete product. If I were a FLGS owner...I'd either stop stocking the relevant flyers with missing rules...or purchase said book, and provide one page copies of the particular flyer rules in question to anyone that buys those flyers at the time of purchase. Fair use clause applies here I think. While I think this is a douche move by GW by undercutting FLGS...there are alternatives. For the life of me, I really don't understand why the one page of rules can't simply be a free PDF. If they are ultimately a "model company first"...then the rules should be completely secondary. Everything about this book reeks of a shameless money grab and nothing more.

 Kingsley wrote:
One interesting thing that I just noticed is that the Black Diamond Games post about banning Death From The Skies and encouraging people to trade in 40k rulebooks in exchange for discounted Warmahordes miniatures seems to have been removed from their website.

We're not going to ban the book. I have serious issues with Games Workshop, but Saturday it became apparent that this is an essential book for play, rather than some fluff book as I understood it. That makes it extremely difficult to tell people they can't use it. It also makes Games Workshop's actions especially reprehensible. However, we don't want to punish our customers for that. We can make the usual retail decisions on how we want to deal with GW. That might include reducing stock, leaving their partner store program, curtailing events, or having a policy that staff actively steer our customers away from their games.


Gary L. Ray
Black Diamond Games, Ltd.
1950 Market Street, Suite E
Concord, CA 94520

925-681-0600
www.blackdiamondgames.com
blackdiamondgames.blogspot.com

 CaptKaruthors wrote:
...If I were a FLGS owner...I'd either stop stocking the relevant flyers with missing rules...or purchase said book, and provide one page copies of the particular flyer rules in question to anyone that buys those flyers at the time of purchase.

Except that this would be illegal, and if GW caught wind, they would do all in their power to get you prosecuted for it.

 nolzur wrote:

 CaptKaruthors wrote:
...If I were a FLGS owner...I'd either stop stocking the relevant flyers with missing rules...or purchase said book, and provide one page copies of the particular flyer rules in question to anyone that buys those flyers at the time of purchase.

Except that this would be illegal, and if GW caught wind, they would do all in their power to get you prosecuted for it.

Having more integrity than Games Workshop is your best bet, and it hardly requires any effort at all.

Gary L. Ray
Black Diamond Games, Ltd.
1950 Market Street, Suite E
Concord, CA 94520

925-681-0600
www.blackdiamondgames.com
blackdiamondgames.blogspot.com

More power to the retailer.

If GWs behavior becomes so obnoxious to store-owners that they decide not to push GW product, there are certainly many other systems and products to promote.

Edited: Advocacy of illegal activity is against Dakka rules. -Mannahnin

Then I'll spend the cash I saved on the newest compilation of a certain comic book, which I'll purchase from the same store from which I might have purchased the flyer rules had GW decided not to be jerks.

Win-win for me and my FLGS, loss for GW - that should make the shareholders happy.

2) Those companies aren't taking away products that used to be available for independent retailers to sell. The expectation in the past was that direct-only products were the niche market stuff that didn't sell often enough to justify keeping it in stock in a retail store, but this is a core rulebook that people are going to expect to buy in a store. But now independent store owners have to tell their customers sorry, we can sell you a Storm Talon but GW won't let us sell you the rules. Why? Because GW makes more short-term profit that way.

Ding Ding Din!
I think we have a winner!

Me thinks The Hobbit is not doing as well as hoped, I'll explain.....

After dealing with GW for close to thirty years, dumb moves are common place.... goes with the territory.
Anybody that has been buying their products for over five years has a story of how they invalided, nerfed, (insert adjective here) of one of their units, models,( insert product here).....

I bought Space marine, three months later they revised the system to new epic rules/ basing. I bought the Sisters of Battle Codex when it came out and about three months later (give or take a month or two,, I AM getting old ) Third edition came out
Dumb moves are common, but they make money. They are profitable and are still around and bigger than before.
The price point of The Hobbit minis are nuts. 85 USD for three uni pose trolls? look at the new Dragon Ogres, Phenomenal! Loads of options and awesome sculpts. Price point: 60 USD! I want to buy them just to have!
I don't think the Hobbit is selling. I have been to about five stores in my area and no one has sold anything but one core box. That's bad, especially since GW requires that their higher tier store MUST carny The Hobbit.
Space Marines are their highest selling minis. So if rules for their newest toys were only available through GW, they stand to make the money instead of spreading the wealth. Maybe a quick grab for money to shore up falling profits, cover loses from The Hobbit?
The clincher for me was when I read the hassles Mikhalia had over this. He is a great retailer runs large tourneys (was a Ard Boys finals location) and carry's a HUGE amount of their product. If I were a supplier, He would be the last person I would want to piss off.

anyway my two cents (which are worth about .3333 cents in today's economy)
Rant over

Just have a "store copy" of it lying around that people can "look at" if they need to know something. "look" with a pen. And paper. Herp derp ;D

I emailed GW Customer Service with politely worded letter (it was, I promise) that I would decline to order this product until it was made available to independent retailers at their normal discount. This was the response I got:

Re: Death from the Skies
From:
US Customer Service <custserv@gwplc.com>
To: [snip]

Hey there,



Thanks for writing in to us! Sorry for any confusion that there may be. Independent Retailers do have the ability to sell Death From the Skies just like any other Direct Product. These books are also not stocked in Games Workshop Hobby Centers as they are a Direct Item.



Thanks!


Games Workshop

North America Customer Services

 blackdiamond wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
One interesting thing that I just noticed is that the Black Diamond Games post about banning Death From The Skies and encouraging people to trade in 40k rulebooks in exchange for discounted Warmahordes miniatures seems to have been removed from their website.

We're not going to ban the book. I have serious issues with Games Workshop, but Saturday it became apparent that this is an essential book for play, rather than some fluff book as I understood it. That makes it extremely difficult to tell people they can't use it. It also makes Games Workshop's actions especially reprehensible. However, we don't want to punish our customers for that. We can make the usual retail decisions on how we want to deal with GW. That might include reducing stock, leaving their partner store program, curtailing events, or having a policy that staff actively steer our customers away from their games.


Gary L. Ray
Black Diamond Games, Ltd.
1950 Market Street, Suite E
Concord, CA 94520

925-681-0600
www.blackdiamondgames.com
blackdiamondgames.blogspot.com

Glad your customers aren't going to suffer over this

It seems like your other approaches to reducing GW & boost other games in store is the right one