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 cincydooley wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:

However, these ranges did make GW money, and could have easily continued to be successful if GW had not shoved them away into the corner and refuse to support them, and not shove them into a corner like the ugly child in a family photo.

The fact remains that you have nothing that can support this claim.

In order to support the game, they have to allocate resources to the game. If they hire three people at $40k a year to maintain it, is the profit they're making enough to sustain that $120k in FTE? Further, is that profit more than the amount of profit that $120K in FTE would produce were it spent on one of their primary lines? If the answer to the latter question was yes, one can surmise they wouldn't cut the lines.

Believe it or not, the folks making the business decisions at GW know more about how to keep their business in the black than you do and they have to support their decisions with data in order to get those decisions approved.

You are quite right that people claiming these lines were making money are unfounded. Also, your three hypothetical 40k wage earners would cost quite a bit more than 120K after you calculate fringe benefits and whatever social security tax equivalent is applicable in the UK.

ANother thing that the basement mba's that post here almost always forget is opportunity cost for keeping a product line going. Resources are always finite and if you can make a lot more money with product x than product y then product y will be cut.

I think it is too bad that GW does not have the resources or interest to support one or two of the specialists games, not just to make them available for the rare collector but so that more people would actually play them. Even rotating them like they used to do would be great but I think it was clear to everyone years ago that the specialist games were "dead men walking".

the store I used to go to told me how much those games were crappy and how I should just buy fantasy instead.
they seemed to insult a lot of things I liked (including some of my models)... yeah that was the final nail in the coffin, when they said my old harlequins were ugly and how the new ones were so much better (the new ones which that I didn't care much for).

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
the store I used to go to told me how much those games were crappy and how I should just buy fantasy instead.
they seemed to insult a lot of things I liked (including some of my models)... yeah that was the final nail in the coffin, when they said my old harlequins were ugly and how the new ones were so much better (the new ones which that I didn't care much for).

GW srote or FLGS?
This happens way too often in my local GW, to the point where I really, really want to just look at the guy and say 'you don't need to jump on the company line, I won't tell if you give me an honest opinion'.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
the store I used to go to told me how much those games were crappy and how I should just buy fantasy instead.
they seemed to insult a lot of things I liked (including some of my models)... yeah that was the final nail in the coffin, when they said my old harlequins were ugly and how the new ones were so much better (the new ones which that I didn't care much for).

GW srote or FLGS?
This happens way too often in my local GW, to the point where I really, really want to just look at the guy and say 'you don't need to jump on the company line, I won't tell if you give me an honest opinion'.

GW store, they refuse to listen to any opinions (if I say like an old rule set or codex or model better) try to sell me things I plain don't need (those magic cards even though no army I has can use them, at the time of leaving I had skaven, orks and khorne chaos... yeah that would have been money well invested).
I really felt like they did not give two craps about me and just tried to get me to buy things and go away, no hobby talk, nothing that's not buying or planning to buy things.
I get a fraction of sales badgering in a non miniatures store or a FLGS

 Peregrine wrote:
shareholders don't like spending money storing molds you aren't even using

I doubt most of the shareholders even know what or how many moulds GW has.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

silent25 wrote:
As for the SG IP, brought up the possibility of these games being licensed out to FFG in the Dust thread. FFG is already producing most of their abandoned board/card games. GW might be reaching the point their relationship with FFG is close enough they don't worry about them releasing the small scale games. The royalties from FFG may be as much as they were making with the SG store.

God I hope so. I'd love to work on a Necromunda: Redux by FFG. That'd be amazing!!!

It is a real pity there are always customers for the specialist games and even new players.

FFG doing BFG would make me quite happy.

But I don't think GW will ever license miniature production out. They're extremely paranoid about it.

 cincydooley wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:


I think they're best bet is to let FFG produce them and if they want them to be 28mm, then to work in conjunciton with them to supply plastic kits. Let FFG handle the support, the paper production, etc.

I don't understand where this "FFG is the Messiah" comes from. First, GW would never license them to FFG, second, FFG itself is not exactly known from their games having good balance, concise rules or timely FAQ's.

And this is because you said so?

No, it is so because they have never done it before and knowing what control freaks they are, they'd never outsource creative and production control of a miniatures game to some other company. They didn't even license Space Hulk, and that is a board game.

 cincydooley wrote:

As to your latter complaints: none of those seem to keep their games from selling well.

No they don't. Just like in case of GW...

Some of the Specialist Games are still market leaders in their respective niche. Blood Bowl is easily in top10 most popular miniatures games worldwide. BFG remains much more popular than any other similar game. Mordheim and Necromunda still maintain considerable following, even though GW probably doesn't sell much of their miniatures anymore, but that is their own fault for not updating their product lines. Plus, their sales are direct orders which is most profitable way of sales for GW. Sure, revenue they provide is probably pittance compared to WHFB/40k: but I don't believe they aren't or couldn't be made profitable.

 ph34r wrote:

 Lord Harrab wrote:
A shame, but hopefuly that means plastic steel legion kits

I fear for the worst. I've always wanted a Steel Legion force eventually, and now they might be gone completely? Not sure if I'm willing to take a ~$350-700 blind plunge to get all the units I might want, or perhaps buy one of everything so that I could cast an entire army if the range is indeed canceled and not replaced. I would have no moral qualms with recasting an army that GW refuses to sell me any more.

I would not have any moral qualms with that either, but hurry up if you are planning to buy one of each model - the "Imperial Guard Steel Legion Officer with Power Sword" seems to be out of stock already.

Well, from what I've seen they have yet to actually discontinue any of their collectors range or the specialist games.

It's all still up there.

It will be a shame if they do decide to stop making them though. Although I can understand why they would-it costs money to make them, and not enough people buy them I imagine.

This is pretty sad, but we'll have to deal with it. Already the Ork Spanna Boyz are gone.

Has anyone really touched on why this is happening?

It's not like this range (or the Specialist ranges) would have cost anything to keep going. They've got the moulds presumably, a few of each item kept in stock, and presumably sales of the range keep ticking over - just a guess here, but you would have to think so considering the price some of the (still purchasable) Specialist and collector ranges go for on ebay.

So that makes me think:
- Change in centre of production? TBH I'm amazed it hasn't happened already, but if they were moving out to the Far East for all production then it would make sense to streamline.
- The other obvious one would be the company is selling, and again streamlining the portfolio is something that might be seen as advantageous to make the company more attractive to a buyer. Although my knowledge of this kind of process is on shaky ground - would GW really sell to another company, considering the almost cultish corporate culture that seems to exist within the company? I think perhaps not.
- Everything plastic? They're not ready yet, there is still a vast amount of the range not available in plastic, including some of the best and surely most popular character models (despite Finecast). To be honest, I don't really think this one is possible, but just added another point to make the use of bullet points more valid

Of course I'm going off the assumption here that the Specialist/Collectors range costs very little to keep running. It might be of course that it costs a little, and during the current expenditure diet of GW, even a relatively minor expenditure might be viewed as expendable.

I suspect it costs more to keep up and running than people think and they can make more profit from using that capital/space on something else which is probably enough to make the change work for them

I'll also guess that some of figures may well be reaching the point where they've run out of 1st generation masters in good condition to make moulds from (so they'd need to replace figures anyway, or start using 2nd generation minis as masters and thus loose fidelity)

add those 2 together and in makes sense (from GWs point of view to drop the whole lot)

I think the reasons are pretty easy to identify

1 - all of the, or a considerable amount of the range is metal. We know GW is dropping metal long term as it move to finecast and multipart plastic. In light of this they would simply have to keep metal and the whole metal production line there *just* for the specialist games. That is the one major cost/legacy that they don't want. I know I know about the problems with finecast but GW has committed and they arn't going to go back.

2 - Space Hulk showed the way forward for a company looking to make money off of "Specialist Games" aka the less than popular ranges GW has made but only seem to have niche appeal. Maybe they are profitable or maybe they aren't or maybe they could be again made to be profitable with a little care and attention but short, mid term strategy just doesn't seem to support that.

Saying all that, in some ways it does seem pointless to get rid of something that is liked and with a little work made profitable again.

Backfire wrote:


No, it is so because they have never done it before and knowing what control freaks they are, they'd never outsource creative and production control of a miniatures game to some other company. They didn't even license Space Hulk, and that is a board game.

I'd argue allowing FFG to do the high detail busts for Relic is step forward. Will they allow them to make 28mm minis ever? Probably not. Does that mean GW can't produce the minis for FFG to include in games? Nope.

Some of the Specialist Games are still market leaders in their respective niche. Blood Bowl is easily in top10 most popular miniatures games worldwide.

Anything factual here to back this up? Or more wild speculation on your part? With Dreadball, is it even the most popular Miniature sports game?

BFG remains much more popular than any other similar game.

. Proof? Because Spartan Games would beg to differ.

Mordheim and Necromunda still maintain considerable following, even though GW probably doesn't sell much of their miniatures anymore, but that is their own fault for not updating their product lines.

Or maybe it's that this mystery "considerable following" isn't bringing new people into the game and the Necromunda and Mordheim boxed sets don't sell?

Plus, their sales are direct orders which is most profitable way of sales for GW. Sure, revenue they provide is probably pittance compared to WHFB/40k: but I don't believe they aren't or couldn't be made profitable.

So they should continue subsidizing unprofitable or low profit games and use resources that could be expended on something more profitable? No.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ceorron wrote:
.

Saying all that, in some ways it does seem pointless to get rid of something that is liked and with a little work made profitable again.

But the problem is that "little work" costs money and manpower. Money and manpower that can be allocated to their more profitable lines. Most businesses are running tight budgets right now, and it probably makes little fiscal sense to pump $$ into a questionably profitable line when it can be used in more proven areas.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

silent25 wrote:
As for the SG IP, brought up the possibility of these games being licensed out to FFG in the Dust thread. FFG is already producing most of their abandoned board/card games. GW might be reaching the point their relationship with FFG is close enough they don't worry about them releasing the small scale games. The royalties from FFG may be as much as they were making with the SG store.

God I hope so. I'd love to work on a Necromunda: Redux by FFG. That'd be amazing!!!

I don't know what level of influence you have at your position at FFG, if any, but I can't encourage you strongly enough to go through whatever avenues are available to you to try and make this happen. Even if nothing were to come of it, knowing that at least a conversation took place through official channels broaching the subject, I would be happy. At least I would know someone tried something to breathe new life into the game.


Edit: Oops, wrong thread for the second half of my post. Removing and reposting in the correct thread!

 cincydooley wrote:

Backfire wrote:


No, it is so because they have never done it before and knowing what control freaks they are, they'd never outsource creative and production control of a miniatures game to some other company. They didn't even license Space Hulk, and that is a board game.

I'd argue allowing FFG to do the high detail busts for Relic is step forward. Will they allow them to make 28mm minis ever? Probably not. Does that mean GW can't produce the minis for FFG to include in games? Nope.

Why would they go through the trouble of producing miniatures for someone else? That doesn't make one bit of sense.

Some of the Specialist Games are still market leaders in their respective niche. Blood Bowl is easily in top10 most popular miniatures games worldwide.

Anything factual here to back this up? Or more wild speculation on your part? With Dreadball, is it even the most popular Miniature sports game?

BFG remains much more popular than any other similar game.

. Proof? Because Spartan Games would beg to differ.

Why would they beg to differ with such an obvious fact?

And do you have any idea how much organized play, leagues and tournaments Blood Bowl has?

http://www.thenaf.net/index.php?module=NAF&type=tournaments

Sure, Dreadball seems to be gaining popularity, but at this point it can't be even remotely close. As I recall, last years Eurobowl had something like 120 participants.

Plus, their sales are direct orders which is most profitable way of sales for GW. Sure, revenue they provide is probably pittance compared to WHFB/40k: but I don't believe they aren't or couldn't be made profitable.

So they should continue subsidizing unprofitable or low profit games and use resources that could be expended on something more profitable? No.

So, by that logic Toyota should stop making Hiluxes because Corolla sells more, and just build more Corollas...?

Well no, because Toyota would lose market share to one of their competitors.

But perhaps that is the point, and by extension a good argument against Monopolies; as we've seen in both the wargaming industry (and in many others) it makes the companies that inhabit them very lazy, and often (arguably like in this instance) the consumer loses out simply because the company involved would otherwise lose a few bob.

What matter if the customer feels short changed or is upset by the way a company has behaved? There is no option for them to go elsewhere.

OrdlandoTheTechnicoloured wrote:I suspect it costs more to keep up and running than people think and they can make more profit from using that capital/space on something else which is probably enough to make the change work for them

I'll also guess that some of figures may well be reaching the point where they've run out of 1st generation masters in good condition to make moulds from (so they'd need to replace figures anyway, or start using 2nd generation minis as masters and thus loose fidelity)

add those 2 together and in makes sense (from GWs point of view to drop the whole lot)

I guess we won't know the answer to this without some insider information!

From my knowledge of how some small-fry/garage manufacturers function, the overheads can be extremely small (i.e. the amount of historical producers who just have a collection of moulds, and then make something as and when they get an order, quite often as a part time job/hobby in the evening!) Not to say that this is how GW was running things though, and it may have been extremely inefficient.

But yes I suppose it a number of the original moulds were getting to the point where they need re-tooling, then maybe someone made the executive decision to scrap the lot (the fans be damned).

Backfire wrote:


Why would they go through the trouble of producing miniatures for someone else? That doesn't make one bit of sense.

You mean besides the fact that they have what seems to be a pretty successful licensing partnership with FFG?

Why would they beg to differ with such an obvious fact?

And do you have any idea how much organized play, leagues and tournaments Blood Bowl has?

http://www.thenaf.net/index.php?module=NAF&type=tournaments

Sure, Dreadball seems to be gaining popularity, but at this point it can't be even remotely close. As I recall, last years Eurobowl had something like 120 participants.

Obvious fact? I think obvious has different meanings to you and I.

And I only browsed your linked website....but I don't think it really speaks as strongly as you think it does. The largest tournament that I saw had 28 participants. There were multiple with around 10. Hardly earth shattering.

Eurobowl having 112 participants is great and all, but the game isn't bringing in any new blood.

So, by that logic Toyota should stop making Hiluxes because Corolla sells more, and just build more Corollas...?

Well, they don't even sell many iterations of the "hilux" in the US, so yes, if a product isn't selling well to a demographic you don't sell it. Are there a lot of Ford F350s in Europe?

Sad times

 cincydooley wrote:

Backfire wrote:


Why would they go through the trouble of producing miniatures for someone else? That doesn't make one bit of sense.

You mean besides the fact that they have what seems to be a pretty successful licensing partnership with FFG?

...none of which are miniature wargames. The fact that they did Space Hulk by themselves speaks volumes.

Why would they beg to differ with such an obvious fact?

And do you have any idea how much organized play, leagues and tournaments Blood Bowl has?

http://www.thenaf.net/index.php?module=NAF&type=tournaments

Sure, Dreadball seems to be gaining popularity, but at this point it can't be even remotely close. As I recall, last years Eurobowl had something like 120 participants.

Obvious fact? I think obvious has different meanings to you and I.

Yes. For most people, obvious facts are obvious.

And I only browsed your linked website....but I don't think it really speaks as strongly as you think it does. The largest tournament that I saw had 28 participants. There were multiple with around 10. Hardly earth shattering.

...as opposed to apparently earth shattering popularity of Dreadball?

Well, they don't even sell many iterations of the "hilux" in the US, so yes, if a product isn't selling well to a demographic you don't sell it. Are there a lot of Ford F350s in Europe?

I'm not sure what you're trying to prove there. Are miniature wargames markets radically different between US and Europe?

I'm going to be very interested to see what happens if/when GW releases Blood Bowl as a "summer surprise" (as they did with Space Hulk). Will it be able to compete with Dreadball? I've disparaged Dreadball as a Blood Bowl knockoff in the past, but it will be interesting to see what the community as a whole thinks about the two different products.

Of course, it's also possible that GW has just given up on Blood Bowl, which would be silly and kinda sad, but GW has done a lot of things that are silly and kinda sad in the past!

@Backfire -

1- what precisely makes it obvious that Blood Bowl is a top-10 most popular game? What substantiates that?

2- as to Dreadballs popularity: we know, as fact, that at least 2600 people bought into dreadball in the last 12 months. We know as fact that dreadball has sold at least $700k in product the last 12 months. We know none of that about blood bowl, and I don't think anyone would attempt to make the claim that blood bowl has made anything near that lately.

3- yes, both WHFB and LoTR sell much more robustly in the UK than in the US. Additionally, there are a large number of American civil war wargames in the US. I'd wager there are not many in Europe.

Honestly, I'm really less surprised that these are going than I was when I heard about the specialist games. I can't imagine that many people buy the collectors models any more. Most of those models are also very, very dated. Guess I will have to pick up Solar Macharius, The Chase, and the Sartosan Vampire, though.

 Kingsley wrote:
I'm going to be very interested to see what happens if/when GW releases Blood Bowl as a "summer surprise" (as they did with Space Hulk). Will it be able to compete with Dreadball? I've disparaged Dreadball as a Blood Bowl knockoff in the past, but it will be interesting to see what the community as a whole thinks about the two different products.

Of course, it's also possible that GW has just given up on Blood Bowl, which would be silly and kinda sad, but GW has done a lot of things that are silly and kinda sad in the past!

I'm not sure how they would do a Blood Bowl summer release and have it really take off. It would probably only have two teams, and I can't see that really inspiring people to leave the Blood Bowl that's already floating around. Of course, if the miniatures are wonderful I can potentially see people picking up the box set just for that. Blood Bowl stuff (and the alternate fantasy football minis) definitely show their age; some modern sculpts could make people buy the box. (I'm sure some people love the old-style miniatures and think it's part of the fun of the game, and more power to 'em. )

Sadly, I think that all of the Specialist Games are going to have that same problem. Replacing any of them with a two-team board game is going to take away a LOT of what makes them (well, made them) good now.

So, does this include SoB or are they considered a current army?

It's not about the overhead, re-posting what i said before:

Its about how the company looks to prospective buyers aaand:

/snipet

If they had kept bunkers they could support the Core 3 + specialist, but from a business perspective, there's no way one man stores can grow the specialist line or even keep it stable. They are not hiring these people to be resource experts, they are hiring frontline people who they consider to have "limited shelf space" on what they can reasonably learn/sell/achieve in a year. That one person who if they kept specialist would need to know 9+ rule-sets and promote/support them. For GW, its a business decision, and its a simple one. ("But this is a good thing!")

/end.snippet

This stuff going by the wayside is a result of the policy changes made over a year ago. It's just taken this long to hit specialist games section. Things are starting to run low and the decision about metal means they aren't going to put it back into production.

What do you think is going to happen to the citadel battle-mats when they run out?

 Kingsley wrote:
I'm going to be very interested to see what happens if/when GW releases Blood Bowl as a "summer surprise" (as they did with Space Hulk). Will it be able to compete with Dreadball? I've disparaged Dreadball as a Blood Bowl knockoff in the past, but it will be interesting to see what the community as a whole thinks about the two different products.

You are aware that Dreadball was started BECAUSE Bloodbowl was in the works for more than a year, right? Hastings revealed the Bloodbowl box content a year before Dreadbowl was even a concept.

Have to wonder if the dismal failure of Dreadfleet may have persuaded a few GW managers that specialist type games are currently a bad idea.

 cincydooley wrote:
@Backfire -

1- what precisely makes it obvious that Blood Bowl is a top-10 most popular game? What substantiates that?

2- as to Dreadballs popularity: we know, as fact, that at least 2600 people bought into dreadball in the last 12 months. We know as fact that dreadball has sold at least $700k in product the last 12 months. We know none of that about blood bowl, and I don't think anyone would attempt to make the claim that blood bowl has made anything near that lately.

3- yes, both WHFB and LoTR sell much more robustly in the UK than in the US. Additionally, there are a large number of American civil war wargames in the US. I'd wager there are not many in Europe.

1 - because it's really hard to think up ten games which are more popular. 40k, WHFB, Warmahordes, Flames of War, sure, but after that I can't think of anything which is certainly more popular. Battletech maybe? Some other historicals?

2 - yes, that's the initial buying craze. I'm pretty sure even The Hobbit has made more than $700k in sales. Is it sustainable? Doubtful. And we also know for a fact that organized play of Dreadball is tiny fraction of Blood Bowl. Besides, I'm pretty sure many of the Dreadball players bought the minis to play Blood Bowl, because GW hasn't updated BB line for years. Of course sales sag when you don't update the line. How much you think Dreadball will sell in 5 years time if Mantic does nothing to promote or update it?

3 - so maybe GW should have different catalogue for US and European markets...?